Deny everything mug

Phil Aston: Hello and welcome to the Now Spinning Magazine podcast with me, Phil Aston. And in this episode, I’m absolutely delighted to have with me Tony Martin, one of the UK’s most underrated rock vocalists. You’ve had a really varied career, but what we’re going to talk about today specifically is Black Sabbath and the new “Anno Domini” box set. So, welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine

Uncle Ken couldn't come and get him for a week. They could go ahead and drive on to drop Mike off, but Uncle Ken suggested they go ahead and take a break at the campground. He had to finish up some work stuff that came up suddenly, and he would rather get Mike at the end of that, so he'd have free time to help his nephew settle in.
Mike didn't care if he got help settling in at Uncle Ken's or not. In fact, he'd like it a lot better if he had alone time. More chance to get online; he missed talking to his buddies.
Still, this campground wasn't bad. There was a lake, sort of—more like a pond really—and he sat out there the evening they arrived for a little bit, watching the sunset.
There wasn't much to do here, but he knew now there was at least one other guy his own age staying. Maybe they could hang out or something. Anything to not hang around Jenna and Frank.
He still felt really weird about everything with them. Jenna was his sister, after all, and she'd always been good to him. She took care of him, babysitting and stuff, when they were both just kids. Even if she was a female, she was nice enough. As for Frank...
Well, for all Jenna's "husband" was a freak, he had not made the moves that Mike expected. He really barely seemed to pay Mike any attention a lot of the time. Even when he had screamed his head off at Mike the other day at the rest stop, he hadn't done anything Mike didn't get. After all, most guys—real guys or trannies—were sort of pussy-whipped. They stuck up for females. The trannies especially did, since they believed in dumb shit. If the particularly emotional females were more in charge of the world, like they wanted, then fake shit like trannies would be accepted.
Didn't everyone wanna be accepted?
Still, the bawling out had shaken Mike. Frank clearly wasn't afraid of him, and that fact reminded Mike that he wasn't the sort of man he should be. He needed to work on himself more.
A real man was tough and didn't back down over a female or a tranny telling him off. A real man did what he wanted, and the bitches were at his feet, begging for even a taste of his cock. A real man would laugh at them, maybe smack them around, then deny them what they wanted unless he needed relief.
A real man would have at least one girlfriend by the time he was 15.
Mike figured he was falling behind pretty bad.
11 Table of Contents

we were together for more than 4 years.
she was the first person who made me feel loved. next to her I felt peace, i felt her care, i felt that I could be the way I am.
I never thought of any other person in my life and did my best to be a good partner, a support where needed, a friend in everyday life. i listened to her and I talked about my needs just only did what i thought was needed to grow together side by side in calm.
she left me because we are not compatible.
I miss that feeling of being loved, but I know I wasn't and that hurts me the most. she loved some emotions I gave her, but not me as a person. she told me about it a long time ago, but inside myself I denied it and thought we would make our relationship and im sorry for this.
she said I was not a burden to her, but after the breakup she started to have a better life - doing what I always wanted to do with her, but we didn't do it because she didn't have the energy for me. probably because I didn't evoke emotions in her that would cause her to want to spend time with me. it wasn't always, but over the last year and a half I started to feel it, but I tried to work through it nonetheless
a lot of times she ignored me, made me feel useless and worthless, but I found explanations for this behavior, because I blindly saw everything in her.
I have a hell of a pain inside of me and I am very sorry for her. for being for years with someone she didn't love. for being forced to spend time with someone she didn't love.
for saying “I love you” to a person she didn't love.

So, we (21m, 20f) were together for 4.5 years. From those 2.5 years were distance relationship, because of the COVID lockdowns and school. When we became 18 (2 years ago) we moved in together. We are pretty much the same age, there is only around 3 months of difference between us. We both finished secondary/high school. I started to work as a network admin, later became a network designer at a big company. She went to university. Our relationship wasn't always perfect, but there's no perfect relationship, so I think we were in the norm and most of the things went really well. We loved each other, we were there for each other, we did lots of things together and really enjoyed our relationship up until around half a year ago, when she said she wants to break up, because she met an another guy. We've talked through it and discussed that she'll stay and I'll improve on my negatives, which I did. She agreed to block him on social media and not not contact him anymore. I thought she did, but apparently I was wrong. A week ago I found out and confronted her about it, and she had weird responses. On Thursday, she randomly came in to our room and said she wants to break up and doesn't want to fix any issues, just because, and that she feels like this for months now. She said, she loves me, but doesn't enjoy being with me anymore, but there was no reason to it. I didn't really have a choice at this point, she packed her things and we said goodbye. Now, it's a point to note, that during our relationship, she was using my tablet and old laptop for university (we both had desktops, but she needed a laptop and a tablet, so these weren't used, so I gave her them to use). Yesterday, when I powered on the tablet (the battery died some time ago), messages started arriving. Not to discuss it for long, before logging out from all of her accounts and deleting her local profiles from the devices, I found out, that not even a day passed, and she was already sexting with that other guy even though she denied when breaking up, that there's anyone else. She said she just wants to be alone... It felt horrible, and I didn't have the stomach to look further up into her messages to find out if she also cheated or not.
I'm not sure, where she learned this from. She absolutely wasn't lime this when I met her, and I think, that she just met stupid people at the University, who gave her these stupid advices, to not notify me if she has any problem with our relationship, and to just "follow her heart" instead of fixing problems with something that she already invested 4.5 years into. I feel terrible, and I feel even worse, when I think about what will happen to her, because my feeling is, that she will just be used to get sex and thrown away by that guy, and I just can't bare the idea of this, because she was the cutest and sweetest girl I've ever known. (It was our first relationship for both of us, but still, never met someone this sweet). I've already started to try to get over it, however now the apartment just feels empty without her and her things, and my life goal was to provide anything to her that she needs. Now I'm without a goal, alone, in a city, where I moved just because of her.
I've never been good at socializing, and I'll never be find anyone like the original her (the one I met and fell in love with). She was just perfect in every way, and even our meeting story was probably the most romantic thing ever. I feel hopeless, and useless, as I'm no longer able to protect her from what's coming.
According to people I spoke with, she'll probably only realize what she has lost once she needs to enter the "real world", which comes after finishing university, as only then will she realize, how much I provided her, and how much time and energy I saved her for working hard enough to be able to provide to both of us, to live comfortably. However this will be just too late, and I really wanted to make her a life she deserved, a life without struggles, without the need to work a 9-5 or worse job, so that she could focus on what she wanted to prove. Unfortunately, seems like even though I gave her everything she wanted, I wasn't amongst the things she wanted. How long will this feeling last? How long will the apartment feel this empty? When will I be able to forgive myself for not being able to protect her from anything bad?

Husband of 20 years is probably cheating on me. So here it goes, sll of my dirty secrets.
I, 45f been married to my husband 46, male for over 20 years to a man I met in my early 20’s. We have been very best friends since the day we met but it has been a rocky relationship. I am from an abusive alcoholic family and I was for a time blissfully an alcoholic along with the family. This of coarse was problematic when looking for a date. More than one boyfriend broke up with me because I drank too much, partied too hard and studied too little. Cue in my dream man, he’s responsible, well educated and a heavy drinker. We partied all night and he got up the next day, no matter how hungover and went to work. My mom said that this is normal, it’s how it’s supposed to be. If a man makes it to work everyday then he’s not an alcoholic. By her definition, only a man who misses work can be accused of drinking too much.
I married this replica of my father and for many blissful years we were married and we partied and drank. We’d drink a bottle or two of wine a few nights a week and on weekends we’d stay up all night, often having parties at our home. It was grand fun, until we had kids. All of the sudden I had to handle night feedings and morning diaper changes while tipsy, drunk or hungover. It didn’t take me long to quit, I had already quit for 9 months while pregnant and I had gotten the idea that life is better sober. But my partner didn’t agree. He was drunk most nights while I was pregnant. When I got annoyed and asked him to quit he hid the bottles. I had a second child with him in spite of the drinking (I wanted a matching set), not my best decision but I don’t regret it. When I was at the hospital he looked exhausted so I sent him home to rest. He went home and drank himself into a stupor. My mom had to drive me home from the hospital and when we got home, he was passed out on the living room floor. He slept for another 10 hours like that and he was drunk the entire first week of my daughter’s life. I had to ask my mom to help care for her since I’d had complications with the birth and had over 30 stitches.
His drinking went on for years with me going from kicking him out of the home to drinking with him. Often I would plead with him to quit and he’d refuse. On 4 occasions we separated, each time selling our home and dividing the property. But he’d get sober and he was always very sorry. At this point we had two kids and I needed the help.
Over time things got better and he went years and years without drinking. I had quit altogether after our first child. In fact things go so much better that he asked to start drinking again. He rationalized that he had been sober for 5 years and that he can handle one of two drinks a week. I agreed under the following terms, he can have up to two drinks with dinner once a week. I know this is a terrible decision, I think it’s fair to say that there is a pattern here of gawd awful decisions on my part. This 2 drink agreement lasted a few months but of course two drinks turned into 3, then it turned into a couple nights a week. I saw it was getting out of hand and I banned drinking again.
In the meantime my partner has gotten substantially better looking. It’s through a combination of favourable genetics, some recent work done and some excellent supplements. He aged well going from a 6.5 in his 20’s to a current day 8.5. More than that he’d recently opened a business and it was booming. For the first time in our married life he started to out earn me. For the first 20 years I was the primary wage earner, but now he’s making the more than me (this is temporary as my wage is about to pick up). The woman are noticing him and It’s not lost on me or him. We went to Mexico last year and women were practically following him around and throwing themselves at him. We go out to eat and woman hit on him. They hit on him at the grocery store and they hit on him at work. To his credit he does not respond to this in front of me or the kids. Nor have I ever heard of him hitting on somebody.
I’m a solid 7 - 7.5. I’ve aged okay, I look decent, I’m maybe a little heavier as size 10. But I’m not a hot young thing giggling at him. I am a wife and a mother, so not always sexy, but still quite a lot prettier than average. But realistically on the open market, I’m probably not attracting an 8.5 that earns his kind of money.
About 8 months ago he started coming home from work drunk. He was hiding it but I could smell the booze on his breath. He claimed it was heartburn but I knew better and I ignored it. I just wanted everything to be okay. There was a woman he was working with, he claimed to hate her, she seemed overly interested in him. There were a few incidents, that made me suspicious but he claimed he hated her. He was never home late from work. She moved away and he seemed fine and I was relieved. But a few months after this the drinking started, along with my denial. I guess I kinda figured that who cares if he cheated, she moved away. Now we can get on with our lives.
Recently he’s coming home from work late, but not too late. It’s an hour late here and there. Sometimes he’d claim that he’d have to stay an extra hour. A few times he went completely missing and claimed to have fallen asleep at the office. The problem is that I don’t really know his hours, it’s possible he’s done earlier. For context, he is self employed and rents a space. But other people rent spaces there too,
He’s been coming home drunker and drunker lately while still denying he’s been drinking. I’m ashamed to admit it but I ignored it to the point where I let him drive the kids a few times like that. I was just so far into denial, but I knew somewhere deep down that he was drunk.
He’s normally off work at 5pm and in the car by 5:10pm. But lately he’s not in the car until 5:45pm, ignoring my calls and sometimes coming into the house as late as 6pm. I mean it’s only 45 minutes right? A few times he’d go missing until 7:30 or 8pm and he’d say that he hate a late client appointment and had told me but I forgot. Strangely he’s never hungry when he gets home, in spite of being at work all day. In fact he’s not hungry 2 - 3 times a week. He told me that his stomach is bothering him.
Last night he went missing so I went to his office to look for him. I found him asleep in his office alone with an empty bottle of hard alcohol on his desk. I checked his office drawer and it was full of empty bottles. The office is a disaster, messy and all that. I’m not sure how he sees clients in a room like that and I’m worried that he’s taking appointments drunk. His business is doing really well and building it up was a joint effort. I’m worried that his drinking will destroy everything we built.
I woke him up and he was visibly drunk. He told me that he wants to stay at the office to sleep it off and that no he doesn’t want to talk about it and he didn’t come home. It’s been 6 hours. The thing is, that he hates sleeping in his work clothes and his office is desperately uncomfortable. I just don’t see him staying there overnight alone.
When the drinking flared up 6 months ago, it was just him drinking alone. But when he was sober he was still my best friend. But over time he’s stopped responding when I speak. He tells me that he drinks because he can’t stand to listen to my problems anymore. If I ask him about his day I get a one word answer. More and more he looks at me with contempt while drinking. But even stranger, he wants sex more often, I don’t know why this is. But he’s weird about it and hounding me. He’s going on and on about how to wants to try a sex position we’ve never done, talking about how much he likes it. He’s also looking over my shoulder and checking my phone, which is new. it’s intrusive as I don’t even know his passcode and feel no temptation to check his phone.
He gets paid in cash and has a drawer full of it at the office so I can’t check his cards.
Now I know what you are going to say. He’s definitely cheating, I mean he probably is. But we live in a no fault place so what does it matter if I get proof or not? Also I have two kids to think of and we aren’t in a financial position to leave. I will need time to pay down our joint debt and I need a new job. I’m thinking that the best course of action is to stay silent and improve my situation so that I can support my kids and myself. I think this works for him too as he doesn’t want to get stuck with all sorts of child support or alimony. Giving me time to get back on my feet and improve my financial position works for both of us.
The thing is that if I even bring up getting divorced or separated he says that I am the light of his life. He says that he loves me and that I’m his best friend. He says that he doesn’t want to leave. Then I feel so badly. If I even broach the topic of separating, he’ll shut it down so quickly. He’s overwhelming and persistent and he out talks me. I think there’s no use in talking it out and I don’t see us living together well under some sort of “arrangement”.
Do you have any advice on what to do next? Do you have any idea why he’s acting this way? If he wants to separate why not just do it? Also what’s with the increased sex drive?
One of the oddities is that I’ve been doing really great lately. I’ve lost some weight, my hair is looking good. My business sucks but I’ve been taking on new gigs and retraining. I’m becoming a person that I’m really proud of and every day seems to be getting better. But the better I do, the more contempt he seems to have for me. I can see the bitterness in his drunkenness. And he gets drunks on nights when I have to work and when I have something important going on. He blames the drinking on me. He says that I only talk about myself (maybe I do, I’m trying to improve). He says that I ask too much of him and that I make him contribute to the house too much but I do 100% of the grocery shopping, cooking, lunches, school stuff, homework and kids activities. He comes home and goes straight to bed while complaining that he’s doing too much. Meanwhile I’m breaking myself trying to make the home perfect enough.
Is there any chance that he’s just old and tired and not cheating? I mean he’s only missing for 45 minutes a day? I should mention that he’s stopped answering my calls during the workday and stopped reading my texts.
The weird thing is that I felt relieved to find him surrounded by booze bottles and I’m glad he’s done tonight. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life begging him to be sober. Tonight I could see the contempt in his eyes towards me. I just don’t know that I can move past it. I think I just want to be free from this now.
Do you have any advice? I’ve never been through anything like this and I could use some support and guidance.
I think that taking 4 - 6 months to resolve the situation might be best. This gives me time to find a new job and to pay down some debt and bolster savings.

I liked someone in university for 4 years, at the end of those 4 years my parents went to her house to formally ask for her hand in marriage. Even though there were glaring differences in our families in terms of education and culture (were from the same country and live in the same country as well but her family is much wealthier than mine while mine is more focused on education), I still convinced them and they accepted because it was my choice and they wanted to honour it. However, there wasn’t an enthusiastic response and after a couple of weeks passed during which my mother regularly checked up on them, they refused, citing that the istikhara wasn’t right.
A few months later the girl reached out again and said that they had done another istikhara and this time it was okay so they’d like to continue. I took some time to think. There was a lot going on, I had recently started my first job, I felt extremely overwhelmed, so I refused.
A year passed, and she reached out again to ask if we can reignite things and start the marriage process again. I told her that since I’d gotten my parents to try a few times and they’d been met with discouraging attitude, I would not be asking them to contact again. If she’s truly willing then she should get her parents to contact. Her mother called and when my mother asked about all their doubts and stuff, she completely denied ever saying any of those things and exhibiting that behaviour. My mother asked her to think about it some more and then get back to her after that. She didn’t call back. 4 months passed, during which I had no contact with the girl, and my family was intently busy in some emergencies as there were close relatives who had surgeries.
Finally, last week my mother called her’s to see what to do about this. We found out she’s going abroad for her masters in 3 days but they still came over to say yes. In the middle of these 3 days, our mothers talked once more to set up the meeting during which some harsh words were exchanged. When they were over, her father asked about those things very harshly as well, however my family handled that and cooled them down.
Today, a week later, she messaged me to say that her heart is not at peace and she can’t do it and it doesn’t feel the same to her as it used to. And that it was a hasty decision and she’s sorry. I asked her to give it some time and think about it, she refused and said her decision is final and cannot be changed.
I feel like my world has shattered, just when I thought everything I wanted was in my grasp, it has been snatched away. My heart feels like it’ll explode, I can’t stop crying, I don’t know what to do anymore. For years, I thought I would spend my life with this woman, and now it’s all gone.
Please if someone has ever gone through something like this, please I need help. I feel broken and destroyed, how did you move on from this?

Hello, I'm not so sure how to tag this, or what I'm really expecting from making a post about our situation, but here goes anyway.
A couple updates since my first post: It's been a couple weeks, AP has been blocked sometime ago and NC has been enforced, but not soon enough, I'm aware. I deeply regret everything I've done. BP has said they're done with the relationship, but they're not finished with me yet. We've talked almost every day about the affair, how they feel about it, what they expect from me and what they're angered by.
I understand they feel that I'm not doing enough at all, and they don't like that I keep proposing IC (for either of us) as it makes it seem like I'm simply trying to run away from the consequences of my actions. They maintain that I don't need it, it won't help, it shouldn't be the point of all of this. I'm still unsure if holding off on therapy/IC for any longer is the "right" thing to do, I might appreciate some input on this.
Some more details I'm pretty hesitant to share, but I really am starting to feel hopeless about a lot of things and unsure of how to proceed from here. In the initial week after DDay, they tried to keep me starving. To be fair, this behavior (irrational, pointless) was started by me, the first few times. I was just that truly desperate to prove to them that I feel terrible about everything. When they encouraged it, however, and a few days would pass where I hadn't eaten anything, I realized that self-harm wasn't going to help us get anywhere stable. So I quit starving and told BP I'll eat when I need to. BP wasn't happy and tells me how selfish I really am to still try to preserve myself this way. They've also tried to make me go NC with everyone else in my life, which made me feel incredibly isolated. I honored this until a few days ago where I told them I won't be doing it anymore along with the starving, because it's become incredibly difficult for me to not speak to anyone else but BP.
Another thing that's happened is constant name-calling. At first I was very willing to sit and take the brunt of their anger, as a lot of forums and subs about infidelity suggest in the early stages of R. It hurt, a lot, especially since a lot of my insecurities as a person has come back into the light after I've cheated. I'm still willing to listen to them talk about it, though.
I know what I've done is wrong, and I don't want to deny them healthy outlets for their pain, and I know I deserve to be called out on everything I've done, but I've started to feel that certain lines had to be drawn about the name-calling and the way they've been speaking to me lately. When I brought it up, BP dismissed it and said I'm loving myself too much again, my ego takes the main stage once more. I didn't mean for it to come off that way, but I know that anything I'll say even in defense of myself will be suspect from now on. And it's all my fault. I'm starting to doubt a lot of what I feel and think and want recently.
BP has also been lashing out at me and their family (they live with them) but refuses to call it lashing out. This is one of the things that worry me the most. I've witnessed them destroy their siblings' belongings, throw objects and break things in their home, and have constant screaming arguments with family members. BP blames me and won't hear anything about their behavior.
I'm starting to believe that R isn't a possibility, and while BP is "done" with the relationship, I feel that I can't simply leave, because they've made explicit threats against me, my friends and coworkers, and they could very well put a lot of people at risk should they follow through on these threats. I try to argue against it, and tell them that I would have still wanted to stay and help them recover even without the threats, but BP feels completely justified. They reason that their actions are proportionate to the pain I've caused them, and says that if I really cared, if I really wanted to make them happy, I should withstand it all. And if I don't make them happy, they'll ruin me and everyone around me. I cannot give too many details as to why the threats are real to me, but I am scared. I'm also torn, and at every turn I'm doubting what I do and don't deserve after all the pain I've caused BP.
I don't want to just come online and whine about the consequences of my actions, I hope this isn't coming off as me simply wanting to hear sweet nothings from strangers just to make myself feel better. I'm just. Tired. Maybe I don't deserve to feel safe after what I've done, but I'm tired of feeling like there's nowhere to turn to and that I'm simply irredeemable. I want BP to be well, I want them to trust themselves and live life again. I want them to be happy and healthy and stable. I want to them to feel understood and that they are worthy of being loved. I want them to know I'm really, truly sorry and that I'm trying to make amends for everything I've done. It all just feels so bottomless right now.
Thank you for reading this far.

I liked someone in university for 4 years, at the end of those 4 years my parents went to her house to formally ask for her hand in marriage. Even though there were glaring differences in our families in terms of education and culture (were from the same country and live in the same country as well but her family is much wealthier than mine while mine is more focused on education), I still convinced them and they accepted because it was my choice and they wanted to honour it. However, there wasn’t an enthusiastic response and after a couple of weeks passed during which my mother regularly checked up on them, they refused, citing that the istikhara wasn’t right.
A few months later the girl reached out again and said that they had done another istikhara and this time it was okay so they’d like to continue. I took some time to think. There was a lot going on, I had recently started my first job, I felt extremely overwhelmed, so I refused.
A year passed, and she reached out again to ask if we can reignite things and start the marriage process again. I told her that since I’d gotten my parents to try a few times and they’d been met with discouraging attitude, I would not be asking them to contact again. If she’s truly willing then she should get her parents to contact. Her mother called and when my mother asked about all their doubts and stuff, she completely denied ever saying any of those things and exhibiting that behaviour. My mother asked her to think about it some more and then get back to her after that. She didn’t call back. 4 months passed, during which I had no contact with the girl, and my family was intently busy in some emergencies as there were close relatives who had surgeries.
Finally, last week my mother called her’s to see what to do about this. We found out she’s going abroad for her masters in 3 days but they still came over to say yes. In the middle of these 3 days, our mothers talked once more to set up the meeting during which some harsh words were exchanged. When they were over, her father asked about those things very harshly as well, however my family handled that and cooled them down.
Today, a week later, she messaged me to say that her heart is not at peace and she can’t do it and it doesn’t feel the same to her as it used to. And that it was a hasty decision and she’s sorry. I asked her to give it some time and think about it, she refused and said her decision is final and cannot be changed.
I feel like my world has shattered, just when I thought everything I wanted was in my grasp, it has been snatched away. My heart feels like it’ll explode, I can’t stop crying, I don’t know what to do anymore. For years, I thought I would spend my life with this woman, and now it’s all gone.
Please if someone has ever gone through something like this, please I need help. I feel broken and destroyed, how did you move on from this?

Edit: The downvotes have begun but hopefully that means people are reading till the end too. Will have to try the BridgertonRants sub as that seems more accepting of discussions and debates. : )
Would super appreciate it if everyone reads this long-ass thesis of a post with an open mind and to the end...its me being vulnerable in an anonymous reddit sub because i think these things matter in the larger framework of a uniquely special show and the big, bright, beautiful, multicultural gorgeous world we all as humans live in. My last post in this sub was downvoted to hell which btw totally ok...and i dont depend on reddit currency for my livelihood so its all good. I just care about my posts being read...specially this one.
Some context:
I'm very new to this community and reddit as well. Currently have time off work and going ham on reddit and venturing very scared into the deep dark of world of rabid fandoms and small niche communities. Getting a little burnt along the way but also learning from some super talented fans with their own eye-opening ideas and funny posts. Fans of all kinds, Im peeping into profiles, so white, black, brown multicolored rainbow of the world right here.
I'm also an aspiring writer and well...some of my best ideas have come from reddit lurking on cool and active subs with bridgerton sub being new for me. Jet lagged, anxious and just a tad bit antsy, I'm trying to go down and deep and maybe open some deeper discussions here.
I am Indian and lived primarily in India my whole life and now for the last 10 years between London and Canada (why am I sharing all this like and am I also going to tell you my weight, my height etc too...No but hopefully you'll understand this revelation as you read ahead without me spelling it out)
So I've been trying to figure out why fan wars as they pertain to this show prick so personally, so particularly.
I think fandoms anywhere in every country are full of insane people, obsessive chronically online people who find comfort through living through their faves..your beyonce stans, your rihanna stans, your Taylor Swift stans, your harry styles stans, your k pop stans, etc etc..
This show also has some rabid fans..But there is a conversation I want to open up only because I think it's important...Is fighting extra hard for your poc fave because you know their representation in pop culture is limited, their getting jobs is limited, subconscious biases exist even though we have been making great strides and even eradicated overt biases in employment, in accessibility, in government service etc etc ..and their culture not as dominant, their worlds not as seen or coveted.
Our ideas of beauty are framed by the extensiveness and longevity of colonial rule across the world.
there are shit people across all ethnicities religions and genders and nationalities. Barbarians, conquerors, invaders, pillaging villages raping women destroying livelihoods suppressing the peasant class, mutilating and diluting cultures- exist in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, East asia, middle East etc so not just Britain. Basically being brown, black or East Asian and Middle Eastern doesnt grant you moral superiority over white people and you can be racist and casteist and colorist and bigoted and biased and just all around shitty and criminal as a black, brown, east asian middle eastern etc etc person just as much as white people.
So now that thats settled, lets look at specific issues that POC only face because that eventually streams into the show and its politics and its discussion as well.
But for whatever reason ...the British were able to colonize on a scale that the other countries and ethnicities were not able to.. African and the Indian subcontinent's conquests and invasions were limited in area and time period...their scale of conquest limited to a small radius around their own countries...and not foreign lands travelled via sea etc.
As a result and only as a result and not because and I cannot emphasize enough that black, brown or east asian invaders, rulers etc were morally superior, kinder, less assholes...the culture that became dominant was white british culture..or european culture...if Indians had conquered the world, they would have imposed their culture on the lands and countries they invaded, if different African countries invaded the world to the extent of the british colonists, same thing...the dominant culture that would have been forcibly imposed by the people of african ethnicity would be their culture... Black skin would have been considered beautiful, white fair skin would not have been the standard....thats history....thats something we know to be true even through modern wars...the victor dictates...But that simply didnt happen.
it's not because t Africans or Asians or basically non white people are morally superior, more virtuous, incapable of terrorist acts or colonizing or I don't know were like we don't invade and conquest, we so good. But because that's history. They just didn't manage it. thats simply our current historical reality.
Being that the country or countries that did manage to conquer the world or close to 9/10ths of it were Europeans or more specifically British white nationals..which means as would happen even if another nationality had managed to invade the world, the culture that is dominant across the world is a west/white slanted world..
Colorism as a concept didnt exist until colonization: Why would it? If everyone existed under the same harsh sun, had the same skin color with minor variances...why would they think fair is more beautiful. Its because they wouldnt...the first blond haired blue eyed people would have been introduced to India via early traders of east india company in India and dutch colonists before them...Its like if everyone around you is brown, you assume thats just how everyone else looks like...thats the only reality you know...you simply havent seen anyone look any different..you havent seen blue eyes or anything else....same for africans and within that framework as humans are wont to do you create ideas of beauty.
So yes. POCs across the globe had just as arbitrary ideas of beauty as white people (chiense mutilated young women feet cuz small feet more beautiful, in africa genital mutiliation) because humans are humans and humans mess everything up...and animals are so much better...but color as a construct is a colonial one and one which managed to find deeep deep roots because of the extent of the rule, the sheer longevity, For context, India has been independent for the last 75 years..from over 200 years of colonial british rule...Not even the length of the life of a single human. Not even as long as Britains former queen was alive. It will take some more time for that in fighting and ideas of colorism deeply penetrated from the inheritance of our rulers to get dismanted...and totally thrown own...because you can freee from literall bondage more easily, the mind takes longer to adjust and form independent thought. But it will happen.
White people are not more or less racist than POC. Thats not a thing. There are shit people and you can find shit people anywhere...I have shit people right in my own home country, bigots, destroying the diversity of India by bullshit tactics...
But as it stands...because this cultural superiority of British and white people took over, the framing of beauty, of whats fashionable, of whats cool, of whats civilized is all seen through the lens of white culture...eating with hands which many cultures across the world do uncivilized unhygienic, paris fashions and made in italy...mark of excellence...made in India and China...cheap, low quality, scammers and shit people, (thats not to say shit people and scammers dont exist in India and China and there arent industries of scammers across these poorer nations but there is also denying the equisite craftasmanship across fashion and beauty in both countries-China and India.
Brown skin bad, even darker skin even bad etc etc...We wear clothes that our colonial masters did across the world, you wont find people in china wearing Chinese clothes, same for India, african countries etc...everything from clothing, to beauty, to furniture, to houses everything indigenous was changed to a foreign ideal from our rulers. The same would have happened whoever whichever ethnicity had invaded the world...like i said above..
Now and thanks for reading whoever read till here and I hope a lot of people did-on to to the show...
There is this frequent refrain and accusation of oppression olympics that I read about when it comes to this show, in general online discourse and also this insanely disgusting article fat shaming Nicola Coughlan in The Spectator.
And i really really want to open up this conversation...cuz race gets discussed a lot on this sub and other bridgerton subs and therefore a perfect place to have that conversation...Do Non-POC really believe in the concept of oppression olympics and that all kinds of biases are equally treacherous to navigate?
So I was overweight in my teens...I had a close friend who was wheelchair bound. my life was hard and I was bullied but surely surely I do not think that my plight was the same as my friend in a wheelchair...In class 10th, a close friend's father passed away, the same year my grandmother passed away, surely, surely, I dont think we are experiencing the same pain the same setback to our life...Class 10th in India is akin to A levels in Britain and SAT in the USA..
You know why I didnt think any of this and why if I had i was wrong, because there is a hierarchy to opression, .to loss, to struggles. There simply is. Opression Olympics is rooted in reality.
Pain is pain, loss and bad foundations suck ass...but privilege is a thing and some pains some loads just lighter compared to others. I could lose weight and get over the oppression I was facing because of my weight in school. My wheelchair bound friend didnt have that option..I wouldnt get my grandmother back...but my fathers loss would have a more immediate affect on my life and my friend who lost her father and her loss was just simply deeper. She needed more support, more help, more people crowding around her saying you've got this Niharika..well make sure your life doesnt change permanently cuz youlve lost your dad.
So when show fandom compare Jonathon Baileys struggle to Rege Jean George or say Victor Ali, they are simply pointing out that yes while Jonathon Bailey is gay...there is a difference between being white and gay and being black and gay or simply harder being black. And therefore there is a hierarchy. Why POC are less loath to crticize the average acting of their POC faves because they know the opportunities for them are limited. Lets do an exercise name 5 shows led by a POC in the USA or Britain or Canada-any POC..brown, black i dont care. And im not talking about black or brown actors in a show or film, im talking leads...
Also biases are self perpetuating....When black or brown led films fail, the opportunities immediately dry up because it shows that its just fairness and the numbers dont lie..Except this is not maths.....Maths would be first making equal amount of shows starring black or brown people, and then comparing...Now if the end result is white led shows do better-that would be correct math...but ratios and comparisons and statistics need to first start with an even scale...thats not even me taking about diversity...thats just math formulas...
If lets say there are 500 actors who are white in hollywood and 200 who are Black in hollywood, and lets say all 200 black actors are shit...would you say the statement...god white actors are so much better than black actors...no cuz the maths is not adding up...you compared 500 actors who were white of which 300 were excellent 200 bad and you made that into the conclusion that white actors are better because you were comparing only with 200 black actors to begin with...the actual math formula yieled equal number of bad and good actors..
Why people defend Kanthony harder...or wanted Simone Ashley to be promoted as much as Polin is because (lets go with my Math analogy again) all things being the same) unless Nicola and Luke are really bad actors compared to Simone Ashley, theyll still have it easier in acting...they simply will. they wont have to change their confusingly, long foreign sounding name, they wont have to work at assimilation in other ways, lets say they were muslim they wouldnt have been trying hard to sell themselves as Im just as liberal as you, im not a threat. And I love Luke Newton and Nicola Coughland-both seem like throughly, likable, personable, kind hearted beans..
Now my own experience. I have stated in an earlier post on this sub that I'm a Shonda Rhimes fan...because I have personally benefitted from the diversity she has included so naturally, so elegantly in all her shows. My own ideas of beauty, have been tested and transformed. In fact I know exactly the moment it happened...watching Christina Yang as a 14 year old...and thinking god meredith is so beautiful and I want to see more of HER and Izzie but then seeing christina again and again and again over each episode over hundreds of hours of binging, school, college, masters, big move outside India, my own constant this show..my brain was soft mushy and impressionable and christina yang, korean Sandra Oh became suddenly but actually slowly and then all at once became beautiful to me...I dont know when it happened but like the book Colin telling Penelope I dont know when or how and why others dont see it but you ARE beautiful in the book carriage scene. I found her hot, I found her cool. I cared to learn more about her Korean mother and her Jewish father and it didnt matter that the show never covered that culture..Christina was atheist and could handle her shit..even around racists.. But I still wanted to learn more about HER..a woman I simply didnt think was beautiful comparable to meredith and Izzie..me an impressionable 14 year old..just made that turn because of a show.,..a fluffy...not that deep soapy as hell show.
But it was only possible cuz I saw 24 episodes day in day out,...over many many years....for that to happen. I had many more years of falling asleep to dawsons creek joey and dawson, joey and pacey, gilmore girls rory and jess rory and dean rory and logan..i imagined and dreamt of windswept Mr. Darcy...and of course I luckily had my own countrys pop culture cuz I grew up and lived in a country where I was repped plenty eveywhere... So i found bollwood heroes hot and I found White americans or british people hot...my brain simply didnt have a framework for East Asians hot. And I needed to seem them constantly and frequentlyn and in Hot front and center, desirable covetable-their culture, their families all respected, admired again and again and again over many years for that switch to happen.
So why do we fight for our POV faves.. fight hard (some fight really ugly too which....they are not my people ( as in I dont know them) so sorry for that)....because we know how much more repping they need...we know how much MORE MORE MORE important it is to see POC culture done right...because it simply is not accessible,...cannot be to people outside..
K POP is making waves super..., people love themselves some MANGA and kimchi...so good and progress...but a lot of countries pop culture is in the native tongue...people outside of it cannot access it...in the same way one would English language content-books, podcasts, news, films, shows etc etc. And hollywood does our culture wrong, played up for laughs, stinky curry, stinky indians, scamming Indians, uncivilized heathens, oh so funny that Sofia Vergara and her funny accent (The Ellen Show), niche shows that dont become popular behemoths because it stars all ethnic casts-Fresh Off the Boat.
You simply will not understand how brilliant and gorgeous my country's embroideries, temple art, clothing and fashion, actors and sculptors, museums and writing and authors are...not because YOU are racist..but because you dont speak-my language and my culture isnt dominant or wide spread enough-insert again-my above explanation of colonialism and dominant and suppressed cultures. History made one culture the most widespread...again not because white people, bad and racist...brown and black people good and not racist and benevolent..but they simply were the victors...for centuries...plural.
We want to fight harder for Rege and defend him leaving the show (im not even black but when you live outside of your home country, all POC seem like a united underrepresented group and you find kinship everywhere) because any potential cancellation or quote unquote unlikeability and hes difficult accusations would hurt him far far more than Nicola Coughlan, Luke Thompson, Newton, Phoebe etc. for the same crimes. And there just arent enough of us to begin with to lose even one. For what is quite honestly a mid Netflix show with seeds of promise but a lack of ambition.

I have so far been up all night as I can’t fall asleep for nothing. I have been stressing so much lately and there is nothing that can ease the stress.. on top of the thoughts of what can happen to the baby long term medical wise from all this stress. It’s honestly so much eating away at me and I just don’t know what to do with these thoughts. I am going to just write away everything that’s been eating away at me.. that is why this is going to be very long as it’s been a lot so far… I got off birth control in December as life was going amazing and it was giving me awful migraines as I was rearing my third year being on nexplanon. I knew that there could be a possibility of getting pregnant and honestly with how life was going the thought of potentially getting our boy as we have two girls right now was really exciting me. I have been working from home and recently got a huge raise and things were looking great. A month after getting off the birth control I started feeling weird, that intuition feeling came. Shortly after, my job that I had been with for almost 3 years randomly lays off a lot of employees including me with no notice or anything. I thought it would be a long term job but they eventually grew financial issues. Of course I didn’t want to abort this baby just because my job laid me off. I am a very independent person so of course I would do anything to make sure me and mine are straight. I start back doordashing full time from 9 am to 9 pm and I stay an hour from the nearest city so the stress of wear and tear on my car has always scared me but you gotta do what you gotta do as a parent. Of course they say I’m eligible for unemployment and I’ve tried endless times to file for it and they always denied me due to work searches as I wasn’t applying to the right places when I was applying EVERYWHERE. No matter what I put. Every week would get denied cause of this and the phone number is impossible to reach someone. So I’ve given up on unemployment. We lived off of our tax return plus DoorDashing which I really wanted to save this money. The work search has been so stressful. I got a seasonal job and did amazing at it working up to 18 hours overtime one day but they over hired people so there was way to many people to consider hiring everyone full time so once it ended less then a month of working there that was it. Until I got a call from my dream job which my mom and my bf mom both work there and it pays way higher then what I’ve made on top of providing a hybrid schedule too. I felt it was a stretch applying but my resume looked really good so I went for it. I got an interview with them and the interviewer loved me and said he felt really confident in me and would like to offer me the position. Of course I’m overly excited cause this is my dream job. After filling out the onboarding and going to scheduled onboarding appointments they state there was only one issue stopping my onboarding which was a previous account with them that had restrictions on it that I was not aware of. I trusted the wrong “friends” back in high school 7 YEARS AGO with my personal information not knowing any better and they did fraud with my information and of course it fell back on me. I even paid back every owed penny from the fraud to clear my name to move on from that mistake. They never told me they also proceeded to put restrictions cause of it. So my onboarding was put on hold until I handled the restrictions. Fast forward a month later of struggling making ends meet. We have no more income tax money.. but at least I finally receive a response saying the restrictions would be removed. So finally we receive great news. I let the people know and they proceed to let me know that someone will reach out to me in 5-7 days and it has now surpassed that time frame with no response and I am just so scared that they won’t follow through.. It is now June and I have been struggling to get a full time job since February and I am holding onto the little ounce of hope that this job will follow through like they said… Holding onto that ounce of hope as doordash grew very stressful I decided to pull all of my retirement out from my previous job to put into savings in case we need it for an emergency especially if the car were to go out on us. on top of our apartment lease renewal coming up. We did NOT want to renew the lease because this apartment has treated us HORRIBLY since we moved in. We came from a clean bug free apartment due to the rent randomly increasing twice since we moved in it and moved 30 minutes to be closer to my OLD job and his family. We moved into this apartment because I had a work friend refer it to me saying it was her first apartment and she fell in love with it. Not knowing we were going to get the worst apartment building probably out of the whole complex. Since we moved in we could not look at the apartment until after the lease was signed and given the keys. We moved ONE box into the place and came back days later to move the rest of our stuff. We moved that box and SO MANY roaches scattered from it and we knew instantly we got played and that now all of our things were going to be roach infested now. Fast forward almost a whole year later we have tried endless methods to get rid of them such as boric acid, orthene, endless traps, endless raid bottles, ONTOP of the apartment buildings monthly pest control coming in doing whatever they do and WE STILL HAVE THEM. No matter what we do they are not leaving as I believe even tho we try different methods it won’t matter if everyone else in the building aren’t trying to get rid of them. They are probably being constantly rotated between the other apartments around us so it’s useless. I DO NOT WANT TO BRING MY NEW BORN BABY INTO THIS APARTMENT. On top of all the plugs in the walls has blown in the living room. I let the landlord know about this and they sent there only technician to check it out and they didn’t know what they were doing. They switched the power surge switches on and off and it fixed the plugs but they proceeded to go back out the next day. We haven’t even been there a year and the refrigerator has been tearing up like crazy. The whole bottom of it has ripped off cause apparently the adhesive is so strong when closing and opening that it slowly tore its own frame off. We had to use gorilla glue to glue it back on and it’s so far worked. On top of the rims around the door got so many rips in it. The door holders on the fridge can’t hold anything heavy or else the whole shelf falls off same as the door handles on the freezer so we have to carefully move things around it and put only certain things in those spots or else it’s all going to the floor. The first red flag of the apartment is there are no washer and dryer hook ups and that is honestly the least of our problems with this place.. the bolts on the dish washer are so tiny and unscrewed with time and randomly the whole dish washer completely fell down from being poorly connected to the counter. Whenever you open it to put dishes in you have to hold the racks or else the whole dish washer will fall forward and they will roll out with all the dishes in it. I’m so over this place and we have BEEN ready to move out. So once the 30 days came up I contacted the landlord about the 30 day notice that we were going to move out before the lease renewed. She proceeded to tell me with no emotion that they required a 60 DAY notice in advance prior to our lease end date and that our lease already renewed for another YEAR. She didn’t even try to help us out and did not provide any kind of notice or reminding about the 60 day notice. She just kept repeating that we signed the lease and it is written in the lease. She said if we move out we will be responsible to pay the months rent for each upcoming month until a new tenant moves in and takes over the lease which is very unlikely as they have full control on whether they want to move someone new in or continue to bill us the monthly rent.. So now we are trying to figure out how we are going to work out this New obstacle/road block and I am already halfway through my pregnancy. All of this stress has been eating me alive for the whole beginning of my pregnancy and it ALL came out of the blue. This is not how I pictured being pregnant with my third baby and I feel completely miserable right now. I am struggling doordashing all day just waiting for any kind of good news. We are thinking about ditching this apartment and going to stay with my mom until we find a full time job to afford a new apartment as we just want to start the process of this landlord potentially searching for a new tenant to take this burden off of us. We do not wish to pay two apartment rents as my credit is amazing and I know if they put any of this apartments owed rent when we move out on my collections it will ruin my credit.. we have been growing it for when we are ready to get our first home. So I know not paying it is not an option for me. I’ve just been wishing this ongoing nightmare will finally come to an end and I can finally receive any kind of good news. I was sooo excited about this pregnancy but now I have zero excitement for it as I have been through endless stressing and roadblocks the whole pregnancy so far. I am afraid that this stress and pain will affect the baby long term.. I do not wish to bring this baby into this apartment as I fully wish to be in a new upgraded apartment bug free when the baby comes in October my birthday month.. It’s just super hard holding onto any kind of motivation right now and the pain is slowly eating me up inside.. I just really needed to get all of this off of my chest and hopefully maybe I can finally get some sleep right now. If you read all of this.. thank you for listening and all I can really say is check on your people cause you never know what they could be going through as life can hit so random at times..

I don't know what I really should do since hindi ko nalaman sa friend ko. Nalaman ko na lang dun sa girl kasi na kwento nya sa akin.
My friend(M) and bi sya and has already a bf. Me(M) and my friend are classmates and during some time, nag ask sya sa akin who I like in the class. I told him na wala because I was not rooting first for a new relationship after a year and a half my past relationship ended. Then my friend told me about this one classmate of ours(F) na sinabi nya is mabait, and like really special and an nbsb and sabi nya sa akin is itry ko daw manligaw sa kanya. Ako naman, medyo looking into it, actually super likeable si classmate.
Then after some time, I never knew something was going on and nagkaroon pala ng away between my friend and my classmate's friend. So ako naman nag taka. Then one time, my classmate ask me out of the blue if may nakwento daw ba ako kay friend. Ako naman, clueless of everything asked her what was going on. Then dun ko na na realize yung time na nag uusap usap si classmate and her friends some time ago na si friend pala ang topic nila. Di kasi ako masyadong nangingialam on matters like that. So ako curious of what happened kaya inexplain nya. Si friend pala is acting really special kay classmate. Giving her starbucks coffee, giving something without askin in return. And yung friends ni classmate naka pansin na iba ang treatment ni friend sa kanya compared sa ibang classmates ko. One reason why I don't know what's happening is lumipat ng block si friend. Kaya nagulat talaga ako nung na kwento ni classmate how my friend is somewhat being affectionate with her. Ako, never talaga nagkaroon ng suspicion because my friend is bi, kaya di ako nag taka sa mga ginagawa nya kay classmate. My classmate tried clearing things up, but my friend told her na wag daw maniniwala sa mga sinasabi ng iba and denied na aminin na may gusto sya kay friend. Ngayon daw is parang nag distance na si friend kay classmate ng kaunti but my classmate really wants to clear things up.
On my pov naman, I did not know why my friend wants to push her to me if may gusto pala sya sa kanya. Another thing that bothers my classmate is may jowa na si friend. So I really don't know what to do. Why is my friend trying to push me to her na may gusto pala sya sa kanya? The worst thing is, super likeable si classmate and I kind of take a liking to her. How will I handle this situation? I need some help plss. Thankss

Hey everyone, I don't expect anyone to reply to this as it'll probably be shrouded by the other posts. Just needed somewhere to write it all down.
My life has never been good. I've had moments of happiness, even for extended periods of time, but never for longer than a few months at most. I grew up in a horrible environments in and out of CPS where my Mum finally got custody of me at age 3, after I remained in a foster home for around 6 months. My Mom tried so hard for me, even until she won her court case against my birth Father. Until I was around 12, I was raised in a fairly normal environment by myself. Most of my childhood I never endured abuse or anything like that. It wasn't until I was 12, shit got real. At that age, people deemed my problems invalid because I was so young and "it couldn't be that bad" or "other people have it worse". I could never tell my Mum because I didn't want to dissapoint her and make it seem like all her efforts were for naught. As such, I sat alone with my problems, occasionally talking to people online, but nothing helped. When I turned 13, I discovered herbal cigarettes for the first time. I would roll a herb (usually something that produced a relaxing effect or a minor hallucinagen) and smoke it on my porch when my parents weren't home. After I first tried it, I told myself, "It was a good stress reliever, but I'm not gonna do this again. It's bad for me." This cycle repeated daily for around a month. Eventually, my parents found out. Despite my worries, they weren't mad. But the dissapointment in my Mum's eyes were unreal.
This was the moment where I first lost my parents trust.
Eventually, I stopped, as my parents hid everything away from me. Because of this I never wanted to be at my house, so I was with a new group of "friends: I had made. There was this one guy, who I'll name John. John shared a lot of my common interests, and would talk to me during class and we'd hang out at the centre of our city pretty often, just us two messing around and having fun, like a bunch of 8th grade boys. This lasted for a few months. I had one of the best birthdays ever with him. Around a month afterwards, this man somehow tricked me into sending nudes to him. I'm a straight man. I thought this was another one of his jokes and we'd be chill afterwards.
I was wrong.
The next day, I went to school surrounded by weirded stares and comments on the situation. I knew then, that I seriously fucked up bad. I somehow got myself out of the situation by saying it wasn't me, but my friendship with John was diminished. Despite this, he was the only friend I actually hung out with consistently after that. I dealt with his remarks in the times in the future, which grew more and more consistent as the times went on. I knew I had to let him go after he told my principle that I had a weapon on me for self defense (which basically everyone in my city does), which nearly led to me being suspended. Eventually, I abandoned him all together, and ran with whatever little amount of pride I had left. I fell into a huge state of depression after this. Even my online friends didn't want me anymore. Someone had accused me of being a pedophile and falsified screenshots. I had no one.
One day, after school, a friend who I wasn't particularly close with wanted to hang out with me after school. He mentioned his parents had a cabinet full of alcohol.
Seeing no danger with this, I accepted without hesitation. This was my first experience with alcohol. I got wasted with him, and for the first time in months, my worries washed away. Eventually, this became a weekly occurance. I would tell my parents I was going to the park, but instead I would get drunk with my friend. This soon became the only way I could live without stress. Around this time, I became closer with an acuqainted friend and his friend group, who we'll call Terry and his friends. Terry was a chill guy. We didn't share all the same interests, but he liked me for who I was. He didn't care about my past. I became closer with his friends, too. Eventually this became my new friend group. Around the time I formed this new friend group, I stopped going drinking with my other friend. Not because I didn't want to, but because he stopped pestering me to hang out with him like he did the months before. Instead, the roles were reversed at that point. Me and this friend group started hanging out more, and more, and more.
During this time, I met my first love. It was online, but it felt like the best thing in the world. We were young, and stupid. She was beautiful. I remember first talking to her on the phone on the plane ride to my Uncle's wedding. I decided to myself that I really liked this girl. I wanted her more than anything. I remember she was the only thing I dedicated myself for. Something I felt was worth being there for. I finally felt like I had some worth for the first time in forever. I should mention this was slightly before the drinking thing. We talked, we called, we loved for two whole weeks. Towards the end, I made the stupid mistake of telling her that "if I didn't meet her I probably would've killed myself". This wasn't entirely true. I was depressed before talking to her, but I don't think I was suicidal. However, this seemed to be a problem for her. Apparently, she felt trapped. Thus, she left me. I remember having to hide my heartbreak from my parents. I shortly got over it, however, and met a new girl from my school. I realize now I didn't love her, I loved the idea of being in a relationship. I remember joking to my ex about how bad my girtlfriend at the time was. After a while, she found out I was following other girls on instagram. I denied it at first, but discovered it was an opportunity to pin a breakup on her not trusting me enough, so I used that reason and dumped her. She later told the whole school I was unloyal (which I wasn't, I didn't even talk to the girls I followed). She proceeded to post shitty photos of me on her tiktok account. I remember being fuming. If sonething so small was the worst of my problems now, I would be blissful happy right now. A few weeks afterwards, I got back with my first ex. This time, it was one sided. After just over a month, I began to look at girls in my class with desire. I completely broke it off with my ex, telling her I didn't love her anymore. Years later, I still regret this decision. She accepted this, and we remained friends. Every time I felt lonely, I would talk to her again, and we would begin talking like we were together again. This repeated for around 6 months. We kept talking until around a few months ago, where I discovered she blocked me out of nowhere. I believe it was out of respect for her new boyfriend, which I respect.
After we had broken it off for the final time, I began spending time outside of school with my new friend group. Slowly, we began to hang out more and more. I even found a new girlfriend, which I had found off of quick add on snapchat, lol. Around Christmas, things went downhill. My friends asked a personal question, which was whether my girlfriend had sent me explicit pictures (i thought it would make me sound cooler if I said yes), but then they caught me in the lie, and they immediately lost trust for me. I saw the same look in their eyes as I saw in my Mother. Distrust. I tried to salvage the friendship, but I new it wouldn't be the same ever again. It still isn't. I saw the cycle repeat itself. Like last time, I left my girlfriend because I lost interest. I began to become depressed again. I started vaping and drinking to escape the pain. I didn't care as much about my looks anymore. I remember having one of the worst heartbreaks of my life afterwards. I told myself I wouldn't date ever again. I still hung out with my friends, but we all knew inside that we didnt care for each other as much as we acted. For around a month, I lived life in a cycle. A depressed cycle. One day, I caught a glimpse of a girl in my class who was exactly my type in a woman, physically and mentally. I knew she was far too good for me. I barely talked to her, and didn't have her on any social media. I eventually got the courage one afternoon to add her on snapchat, after one of my friends gave me her snap. This was after a mutual friend informed me that she found me attractive, which I didn't buy. The night I added her, we talked, and I rememebr playing games with her and her friends. It was one of the best nights I've ever had. I fucked up my sleep sdchedule just to speak to her longer. I got to know her more, and more. She was the most beautiful and perfect girl in the world. My eternal bliss lasted for a week. I had ordered flowers to ask her out with and I had the whole thing planned out with her friends. I remember going to my first work shift, and coming home, and getting a message from her:
"Hey, I think I'm lesbian. It's not your fault, I promise. I'm so sorry."
I was heartbroken, I kept tryna suffocated myself over and over again. I asked her why, what her thought process was. She eventually tired of my questions and she said that I was being a dick about it. I ended up sending her a message later that day telling her that I was sorry for being a dick about it (I still don't know what I did wrong). I didn't go to school the next day. I remember avoiding her hard for the whole rest of the school term. I was insanely depressed afterwards, the worst I've ever felt. she was the best thing that ever happened to me. I tried weed for the first time afterwards, it was mesmerising. It nearly compared to the feeling of being with her. But it was only a temporary escape. As the weeks went on, I became more and more depressed. Then, my parents found out I smoked weed, and my own mother told the police (I still dont know if thats morally right and im overthinking it) and my whole family found out and now hates me. I'm scheduled to see them tomorrow. I'm being illegally overowkred by my job, and I can;t do anything about it. I didn;t show up today, I'm probably already fired. I tried a cigarette today, it was one last thing I wanted to know before I pass. I went to one last convension today, and asked God for a sign to keep living. I ended up meeting a girl, asking for her number, and she gave me her insta and messaged me "You really thought I'd date you? Not tryna be mean".
In three hours, it'll turn midnight. I'll go to a store, find nitrous oxide, and overdose on that. Asphyxiation isn't that painful. I have nothing at all.

Trigger warning: self-degrading; comparing oneself, taking relationship with F/O at an extreme face value, controlling
I want to make it clear that I’m not (exactly) asking for help on this, I’m already receiving help for many things and I plan to for this, too. I just want to vent about my crippling feelings and outlook for F/O with a community that revolves around folks who have feelings for fictional characters and the impacts it has. Maybe someone else here can relate and feel seen or heard. Putting this on a throwaway.
“You’re not F/O’s type,” “You wouldn’t be the first choice,” “You know F/O wouldn’t love or get with you,” “F/O’s not real,” “Fanon > Canon F/O!“ “I love shipping F/O x canon!” Yeah. I know.
I’ve loved him for over a year. He’s the most influential and powerful F/O I’ve ever had in my young (16-18) life so far. He’s given me strength, something to care and love as profoundly as I do when I’ve lost hope in the real world from everything I’ve been through. Yet after all this time, all the changes I went through, I still am deeply, deeply bothered with almost anything correlating to him.
Does he have traits I never expected of him? I have mixed feelings on him. Specific headcanons? Annoyed. What about relationships with other characters? Especially implied feelings? My mood is ruined. He’s not real, he’d never love you the way you want him to, and you’d not be his first choice? (You’re inferior to him and any love interests or ships; they’re all better than you.) It can take me days to go back to feeling better. I’m sorry, but the lengths of impact it has on me goes beyond things I wish to dive deeper into; “bad” is an understatement.
It’s like I have an urge to go back to my old habits and control my partner, the relationship, other people. But I do what I can to resist; because that’s not right. Regardless, what’s left behind is this extremely painful, especially physically, hollowing feeling of sorrow in my chest.
Denying the reality that he’s fictional wouldn’t feel right. Him being fictional is what makes the relationship feel special unlike anything else. But being told, “he’s with you, now! You’re the one he chose. In another universe, you two are together!” Doesn’t help ease any pain. In my eyes and beliefs: no. He hasn’t chosen me, he’s not with me; he’s fictional. He literally can’t consent or not consent, tell me his real feelings about my situation, me.
Our relationship is 100% without a doubt, one-sided. It’s like dating a celebrity but they have no idea about you; like I’m some parasocial stalker. I am willing to believe that yes, there is a chance he’d chose me (due to some of his choices being player-oriented), but I wouldn’t be his first. Especially since he meets others way before me—a living, breathing human—that catch his eye in source. That is a fact. In my heart, I wish to treat him as if he were physical, but my mind knows it cannot deny the truth.
Any time I feel horrible about this, I just consume more of him to feel better. Greed, gluttonous, obsessed. Anything of the sort. I haven’t lost sight on why I love him as profoundly as I do, but jealousy and inferiority does, in a way.
Maybe I’m being too harsh on myself and have severe low self-esteem. Maybe I’ve gone too deep into escapism all my life. I’m probably projecting with a clouded mindset rather than remembering how he is as a person. But I want our relationship to be transparent for what it is in this universe, this reality. I’m sorry for rambling or for anything that was “too much said,” but I can’t keep any of this bottled for another year or however long.

Hi, I wanted to know what my rights are and what options I have available to me for the below situation. I've only been in this job for 6 months and am currently off work with stress (my GP has signed me off for a month).
I started a new job in January this year. Before I started I was made aware that one of my direct reports. let's call them Bob, had unsuccessfully applied for my role and would I be happy to coach them to help them should any other senior roles became available. Which I was and did! Bob didn't want to be coached by me.
My second day in my new job and Bob is notably not happy. There's atmosphere but I don't feel it's directed towards me as they are also cold towards others. In contrast, they happily chat away to two of their colleagues, who I later discovered are a clique.
We have our first team meeting, during which I wanted to discuss how the team work so I can get a feeling of the team culture. One of the questions I ask is how do they inform each other their location; working from home, in the office, sick, holiday, training, etc, is there a team calendar? I'm told they don't, so I show them a location tracker that was used in my previous job. Bob speaks up and says they think I am a micromanager and it's no business of mine where the team are. My response is that I'm sorry Bob feels that way but as a manager I do need know where my team are. Bob continues on this 'micromanaging' trajectory and says the person they will inform is Sue because Sue won't come into the office if Bob is not there. I ask the rest for their opinions, they all put their heads down and say nothing; Bob says they're speaking for the team. I assertively interrupt Bob and move on to a different subject, which is also heavily criticised by Bob.
I was shaken by Bob's behaviour during the team meeting but I thought it through and decided that perhaps it was the way I approached the subject. I set-up in-person 1:2:1s with my team, and mention to Bob that I would discuss what happen during the team meeting to gain an understanding of how they felt it went and to discuss their ideas. Bob refuses to meet with me, to which I remind them that it is important that we have 1:2:1s and that we discuss what happened in the team meeting as from a new manager's perspective I want to learn if I could have handled the subject better; if it made Bob feel comfortable we could have the meeting away from the workplace, in a nearby cafe. Bob replies that I am harassing them, could I please leave them alone. I eventually convince Bob to talk to me, but it's on-line only (I'm in a private meeting room, Bob's at home). Bob denies they called me a micromanager, however, when pressed they suddenly remember that I am a micromanager and call me some unsavoury names. Before I have a chance to retort, Bob says they want to move on from all this and could we start again. I agree to. I don't want this hassle during my first week.
Shortly after my meeting with Bob, my manager asks if everything is okay. When I say everything is, they say that's not what they've heard, could we have a private chat. I tell them about the micromanaging accusations and the name calling. They're appalled and state that they have also had similar problems with Bob, as has others, so it's off to HR we go. HR's advice is not to take formal action but to keep a diary of events, which I start doing.
Bob's behaviour doesn't improve, they don't follow my instructions and everything I say is because I'm out to get them. There was one incident whereby Bob wanted to take time off just before a big project deadline was due. I ask how they were getting on with the project and were they on track to meet the deadline. I get no response. I state that I can't approve any leave until I'm satisfied that the deadline will be met because the deadline cannot be moved. Bob says that our dept director approved their leave. I say, that's fine and I will speak to the director. No response from Bob. I instead speak to my line manager who agrees, no leave until they can prove that they are on track with the deadline ahead of schedule. I report this back to Bob, no response.
The next day I'm called into HR, Bob has raised a formal complaint against me. HR have told Bob that they have no grounds to raise a formal grievance as I am within my right to decline leave for the reason I gave but recognise there are issues with our working relationship therefore they would like explore mediation. Bob initially refuses the mediation. In the meantime, I discover that Bob has been having regular meetings with my line manager to gain clarification on my instructions and to complain about me. They started to going HR when my manager refused to take their complaints further. Not once did Bob ask me to clarify anything nor did they raise any issues with me.
We eventually have the mediation, during which Bob reads out a statement which was an attack on my personality and there was very little about our working relationship. During the statement Bob states that no-one in the organisation likes me as they see me as problematic and I have created an unsafe environment for all to work in (there are 1000+ staff - so I know this isn't true). I'm a liar and I'm not to be trusted. Bob is scared of me because they've seen what I am capable of and are scared I will turn violent. Bob has had to take over management of the team because of my actions. Again, not true.
I leave the mediation visibly upset, my colleagues show concern and my manager clears their calendar for the afternoon. I'm sent home and HR contacts me as my manager has said I may want to raise a grievance. HR advise I can't raise anything based on the mediation nor can I discuss what happened in the mediation with anyone, including my line manager (which I already have but they kindly chose to ignore this), but I can regarding the alleged malicious complaints and upward bullying. So, I do.
Bob raises a counter grievance, which I expect they would. In their grievance, Bob included what I allegedly said in the mediation, what others (their clique) has said about me, and also raises my health issues. Bob says I only disclosed my health issues because I wanted to gaslight and control the team. My health issues are/were; I'm going through the peri-menopause and was experiencing adverse side-effects with the HRT I was prescribed; I experienced heavy bleeding to the point I couldn't leave my home. Just as I was starting this job, my GP changed my prescription which would eventually stop the heavy bleeding but it brought on vertigo attacks. As a result I needed to work from home most days and thought it was best to explain to my team why. Prior to doing so, I referred to company policy, spoke to my line manager, and referred to ACAS's advice on disclosing menopause to staff. I'm now fine, the side-effects are no more.
It's this counter-grievance which is worrying me, why is Bob able to use:

• what was said in the mediation to form a grievance, while I'm not?
• someone's health condition, which is unavoidable, to form a grievance. Is this ageist or ableist?

Following the union's advice I have pushed back on point one with HR. HR have said they would add my concerns to the grievance. Please note that the union are unable to formally help me because my membership started after the first complaint which lead to the grievances.
I'm also worried about my sick leave, a month is a long time and I am still my probation. But I can't work, I'm paranoid that people do hate me plus if I do go to work that Bob will find more things to complain about - honestly, I get a new complaint every week, even when I was holiday I offended Bob. I can't deal with the constant complaints, they've taken over my working life. I've spoken the Occupational Health nurse and they've reassured me that the best place for me is home to recover, at this time they wouldn't agree for me to return to work before the sick note expires.
While I'm awaiting the outcome of both grievances, what should I be considering? I know that in the UK I have limit rights as I've only been in the job for 5 months, but is there something I can consider? Or should I just wait for the outcome and deal with it then?
Thank you

I write to keep you near me, but you left a long time ago. Ive been crying for months waiting for you and I need to let you go now. Six months ago I knew you were already going away, but you denied it. I knew because you have done it so many times before, Ive watched you fade away, youve watched me fall apart. This time has left a horror in me. This time is the first time I started looking at our past. With my logic I fear I fell in love with a sociopath. Looking at it all hurts me so much, because Ive been so attached to the story of you being the love of my life and my best friend. That you would never hurt me like this, Ive ignored how you did hurt me in all those ways. With my heart I still wish Im seeing it all wrong, because I still love you so much. I say goodbye to the hope. The images of the future I thought we both wanted. The family that will never happen. Watching you becoming a father. Watching you stay. I loved you more than Ive ever loved anyone, not knowing who it is I really loved all this time is what hurts the most. Its an ending without a real end. There are no resolution.
I dont know what Im supposed to learn from this. I dont know which parts were real. I dont know if your love were real. It felt real. So did your indifference and selfishness. I cant believe Im not gonna spend my life with you and hold your beautiful hands when you're an old man. I cant believe Im not going to look at your beautiful face again. I cant believe you thought so little of me, you leave me to figure all of this out on my own when the truth would have taken only a minute of your time. I will have to carry this for the rest of mine. I love you, I love you unconditionally and I forgive you for all that you did. Maybe you lied so much to me because you were afraid of losing me if you didnt. Maybe you are scared I wouldnt have loved you if I knew. But I always knew and I still loved you. I wish you would have realized all of this at some point. I already forgave you for everything you didnt tell me, for the things I had to find out on my own and for the things I just knew in my heart you kept from me. I forgive for all you have done to my face and behind my back but I cant forgive you for lying to the end, letting the darkness win when our love was the light. I cant forgive you for leaving me like this. Not yet anyways.
Im sorry for being so angry with you, and not handling all of this with grace. Everytime you lied to me, you threathened the thing that was the most important thing to me, which was us. It felt so unnecessary. What we had together was a million times more important. If you ever read this, know I tried to fight for us with all I had in me in every way I could think of. I lost myself because I gave everything I had in me to you. Know I dont see you as bad. Know I feel bad for the person I became.
I realize when this happens, something happens in you where you cant remember me or remember our love. I realize you might read this in the arms of someone else. So I hold onto it for the both of us on my own, because it was real. And it deserved so much more than all of this. I will remember us as long as I can.
I watched this film past lives. I try to find my resolution in that. I fell in love with you because you are who you are and you are a person who leaves like this. We tried so many times and you always left like this. This is who you are, and I love you for that too even though it really hurts me. Maybe in another life we will meet as birds. Maybe in another life we are together laughing about not being together in this life.

I am a dumpee and as of right now, my ex is already with someone else after 1 month of our break up; she’s a fearful avoidant and has some mental health issues like ptsd, major depressive disorder, and bipolar. I broke up with her 2 months ago because i already hurt her a lot and i thought that it was the right decision that time; before that break up happened, we’ve got to many issues already but we did tried to fixed those that time not until i made some sort of mistake that hurt her a lot; i would def admit that it was my fault yet at the first place she also has something to do with it. Days before i initiated the break up, we got that conflict and she was so mad at me that time; i’ve tried to apologize many times but she ignored it; days have passed after i apologize, she finally reached out to me saying that she have forgave me and ready to fixed everything despite of everything i did for the sake of our rs however, i refused and totally broke up with her. After initiating the break up, she eventually agreed and left me hopeful saying that “we never know the future holds, we might still end up together.” After that convo, we undergo to no contact for almost about 2 weeks, I’m surprised that she texted me again; when i saw that message, i got totally shattered into pieces and it deeply sank my heart. She said there that she had moved on already, she no longer have feelings for me and can’t see her future with me anymore. Imagine how it deeply hurt me, the last time we talked we’re okay then now what?? I can’t describe my emotions that time, it felt like i was on a roller coaster :(( after that we undergo to no contact again for another 3 weeks, this time we had a chance to meet up and talked after a month. She talked to me that day like nothing happened and say that she’s already with someone else :(( i can tell that it was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, i thought i already moved on but then i feel devastated again. Now we’re under no contact again, after that day, i never contact her as a respect to myself and healing process. It’s been 3 weeks now and i can say that I’m slowly feeling better but i can’t deny that sometimes, i’m longing to my ex and i still feel the pain of our break up. I don’t know if these things are right, however after watching a lot of psychologist and professionals, i truly got hopes and been trying to cope with it; they said that it’s really the avoidant’s behaviour…they’re good at suppressing their feelings and emotions that’s why they are seemingly very happy right now with their rebound; however those things wouldn’t last according to professionals since those are just a distractions to them. Does anyone have the same situation like me?? I still feel helpless sometimes :<<

I’ve never written a question on this app before but this is eating at me. BUCKLE UP THIS IS LONG!
So my husband’s family have been abusive to him, he is the black sheep of his family he is the youngest and has a different father than his older siblings (8,6 years older).
Ever since I started dating him I was antagonized in some way. When I first met his family for Christmas his middle brother invited his ex-girlfriend to hang out, unbeknownst to my then bf which was awkward but she was fine with me. My boyfriend then was really sick and I took the train 2 hours to pick him up from his home (where his family was with their cars) and take him to a hospital in London. He was there for 6 days not one person visited him but me. They made fun of him and minimized his illness.
Then we moved to my home country the US and eloped. They came to visit a few years later his mom and eldest brother were okay. Middle brother again constantly throwing barbs and digs at me completely unprovoked. I get there may be a culture difference they are White English conservatives, I’m African American. Shortly after we married he dated a black girl, who left bc she was also treated poorly. Some examples of digs; I congratulated him on graduating and asked him when he finished he replied “same time you were supposed to” (I dropped out). Then I asked what the he loved most and what was challenging about being a PT and he replied “no offense, working with fat people.” Took them to multiple meals and covered everything which wasn’t cheap, he complained about the food being “reheated” and bitched when he was ID’d.
Things get progressively worse, middle brother has a precious baby. I want to spoil her and become close with the mother of the child (who is not with him due to his creepy behavior). We form a fast friendship and chat all the time about the baby. My brother in-law tortures this girl denies he is the dad but also goes out of his way to bully her (she’s not breast feeding right, she shouldn’t have pacifiers) all from the comfort of his home. He is also constantly complaining about having to pay $50 a week in child support nonstop saying he is going “bankrupt”. My hubby is part of a group chat and my mother-in-law talks ish about my friend and my hubby is telling me. I ask to see and his brother is actively trying to give his soon to be 1 year old daughter eggs and gluten that his ex told him she was allergic to and they are plotting to do this during her birthday and explicitly NOT tell my friend the mom of his baby. The reasoning was “I’m the father, I deserve to be respected, I can make choices to” but he is extremely sneaky. I show my friend/baby’s mom the messages and all hell breaks loose because of course he lies and gets caught. I would have told him off directly but he blocked me because he was mad at how close I was getting to his ex. I am called a “despicable woman” dragged in their chat, made to seem that I’m spying on my husband and accused of being jealous and sabotaging my niece’s birthday party. My husband says nothing in my defense just goes along like he didn’t send me the photos of their chat…
They don’t know I’m pregnant at this time and I chose not to tell any of my in-laws due to how awful they are. I also don’t believe in telling anyone that would wish ill on me and my baby (bad juju), but my bestie the baby mom knows. I give birth his mom has an absolute tantrum says incredibly awful things to my husband, reaches out to my mom to wish her congratulations on her grandchild and says “i guess I will learn to love him.”
Then my friend the mom gets diagnosed with cancer and wants to keep this secret and makes me promise, she kept my secret pregnancy it is the least I could do. She dies a few months later and my brother in law attacks her for not telling him and claims she is a horrible mother. He takes custody of his daughter.
Fast forward the eldest brother meets this hog woman. She is rotund and English, very ignorant and rude. The first interaction I had she thought she knew so much, decides to bash my dead friend’s parenting, call my dead father in law “weird”, tells me my niece eats everything now due to having a “good parent” and called my apt in NYC “embarrassing” bc it had scaffolding on google maps when she looked me up (like a creep). She then antagonizes me in a variety of slick ways including posting the eldest brother with my niece with the caption “uncle B’s favorite!” On my son’s birthday. Most recently I tell his family that we want to actually have a proper wedding and celebrate after 10 years of marriage, i give them 2 years notice. The hog says “ohhh me and the eldest are planning on getting married then.” I ask why she says “nice weather”. She then proceeds to have a fall wedding (orange, red, greens, pumpkins, barley, wheelbarrows etc.” in May. I try to be the bigger person and send a kind welcome and she leaves me on read.
I hate these people, I need to let this go. My husband says that we should just go on continuing our happy life and not “start problems”. But it feels like so much awfulness to have to swallow. I also feel like if/when I do speak up I’m the hysterical angry black woman and this hog is the “innocent”. The whole thing is so so frustrating but I need to let it go even though I want them to hurt emotionally as much as they have hurt us.
Any recommendations, would you want revenge? There is so much more but I have written a novel already. I feel alone like no one has my back or tries to understand my perspective. They are so sneaky and underhanded. I want to protect my family from these sick people. At the same time I want justice, justice for my husband, for my dead bestie, for me son and for me.

Ok so I'm quickly becoming a cautionary tale but please tell me I'm being dramatic and it's not going to be as expensive as I fear.
Ok so building new house, thought everything was bedrock (1/3 of the site was exposed bedrock) decided on pillar foundation. Diet is heavy so hired a guy to scrape off the rock. Rock kept getting deeper and dude kept going, by the time I got there after work (yes I'm stupid I should have taken the day off). I had a family member meet the guy onsite to go over the plan. I forgot to tell my family member to have the guy stop if there isn't any bedrock after 4-5 feet. (Yes again cautionary tale)
Anyway super fun result of my stupidity is that the site that was supposed to be an 1 story <100sq ft house on a couple feet of pillar foundation (no basement) is now a mess. 1/3 is bedrock as expected then then the next 1/3 is a slope down with rises for boulders and the last 1/3 has a many 10+ish foot hole to the bedrock.
Yes I am stupid and totally f'ed up with my crappy instructions. I fully accept this mess is entirely my own making. So how big of a f-up is this? Think I can like fill with riprap/gravel or something and build on top of the gravel? Or maybe put the pillars down to the bedrock and fill in around with gravel?
If filled with gravel and piles/pillar on top with maybe extra wide footings?
Also drainage? Is 10ish ft of gravel over bedrock sufficient to not have issues? It's basically a like a first time potter lumpy mug, but its bedrock so drains slowly.
I'm really hoping to fix this without blowing the budget.

Hello guys I need a relationship advice as this is my first relationship (long distance). I'm 23(F) currently studying and met a girl on discord a year and a half ago. Let's call her A. So this girl I met her in vc and we started talking and she had lost her grandpa at the time and I was comforting her and stuff. So after few days she started dming me everyday 24/7 and even during her exams would dm me. I being an introvert but only extrovert with close friends kinda felt awkward but I don't deny loving the comfort of talking with someone. And I thought hard and thought again if she had a crush on me. So I asked her if she did and she said yes and she was afraid if I wouldn't talk with her if she told me. I told her it was fine.
So on Valentine's day she proposed to me and I said ok let's date. But, I had this uneasiness like this is my first relationship what should I do and how to go through it plus my parents are homophobic and I didn't know what to do. I was feeling it was just too sudden. And after few weeks of texting everyday she suddenly ghosts me and rarely started texting me. I did ask her if sth was wrong and why she was not texting me. She said she was busy and had exams and stuff. I mean I understand but before we dated she even had time to text during her exams. But I brushed it off and few weeks later I go check her insta and she was having fun with her other friends going on pride parade and didn't have time to text me.
After few weeks again I see her reposting a story on insta with a hand of a girl. (The girl saying thank you for the comforting kiss on the lips with a pic of crown shaped ring on her hands) And I just stop there and I just ask for break up. And then after a week we got back together she said the girl didn't know we were dating and she was drunk and kissed her and A tried to avoid as much as possible but it brushed a lil bit on the lips. I was like ok. She said it was nothing no feelings the drunk girl could've kissed anyone who was beside her that way. And I asked her why did you repost the story and called her baby. And she said cuz my drunk friend insisted on. And I just brushed it off and we had our anniversary but nothing much just texts and stuff but we still didn't communicate well. So after few months I told her let's break up. Bye. And she went crazy. I blocked her every where and she started texting my friends if I was alright and why I broke up without a reason. She even disturbed my friends and I had to apologize to them and I had already told them about everything but she insists on getting back together again. (My friends don't want me to)
What should I do? Should I ignore and move on or? I do love her TT. We were even planning to move out and live together before shen we were planning to study abroad.

Advice/support needed regarding bfs porn addiction that has gone too far.
Five months ago I found out about his porn addiction after looking through his phone. I don't normally snoop but I had a bad feeling and I was right. I'm pretty open minded and I don't mind the porn but it turned out that he also chats with strangers and sends private photos of both himself and me. I found that he had taken photos of me naked while I'm asleep which he then shared with strangers on Reddit.
I confronted him and we talked about it and set up some rules which he promised to follow. I chose to trust him and let it go. However I had a bad feeling again a few days ago and checked his phone. Turns out he's still chatting with strangers and at this point it feels worse since I set clear boundaries regarding this. I confronted him again and he swore that he hasn't sent any photos of me to anyone this time but I don't know how to trust that. In the chats I read he also admitted to having posted nudes of me in Reddit communities, something he denied to have done when I confronted him the first time.
I also noticed this time that he has gotten better at hiding everything, he has set up second accounts for everything and vaults and hidden apps with passcodes etc. So I can't really know for sure what he's been up to and I can't trust that he'll be honest with me when I confront him again since I've caught him lying about it multiple times already.
I will confront him again today and talk about it but how can I make him be honest with me? How can I help him? I just feel so lonely in this since it's not really something I can talk to friends or family about. I mainly just want some support from others who have been in the same situation or who are on the other end. Practical advice on how to actually find everything he's hiding would also be appreciated. I don't condone invading someone's privacy but this is about my privacy and safety which I have to put first.
Tldr; bf is sexting with strangers and posting my nudes online behind my back despite me catching him red-handed. How do I make it stop?

Am i the asshole for wanting to tell my friend I don’t longer want to be their roommate in college
Earlier this year when housing applications were released my friend ( who is in the same major as me and multiple classes with me) asked me If i wanted to be their roommate.
For context my current roommates did not mention wanting to dorm again next year and I brought this up prior to the application process to said friend.
When the applications came out they bombarded me in person about being their roommate. Since this happened while other of our friends were present, I was put in an uncomfortable place where I didn’t want to straight up say no and I didn’t want to lie about having other living arrangements. I expressed that I was unsure about living with a friend due to all the horror stories i have heard and read and they immediately told me that doesn’t apply to us we will be okay . In the following days they kept asking me about it and telling me about their really bad living situations prior to the one they have currently. They told me about being placed with some girls that were to keep the story short were really fucked up. I felt really bad and basically trapped and at some point agreed to be their roommate but I was hesitant the whole time.
Flash forward to a month or so they are trying to figure out a third roommate and ask me if i would be down to room with one of their friends. I said sure. We all signed up to be roommates through the portal and everything was “okay”. In this moment i felt like I couldn’t get out because there was already any other person added.
In the next 2-3 weeks, they asked me to go out to a party to which I was already going to with another friend. I said you can come with my friend and I if you want. All three of us ended up going out drinking and smoking and it was a good time at first. By the third hour we are at a different party and all of us are dancing together suddenly they get in the middle my friend and I and started to get closer and closer to me. Alike to how I have told this story before I am unsure about what actually happened in this next part because I was pretty messed up which was known to both my friends the whole time. As they get close to my body their face started to lean into mine and i feel as if they were trying to kiss me. In this moment i panic and i start dance with my head down and shift my body. Eventually we all went home.
The next day I ask my other friend that was present “hey am so sorry if this is awkward for you but i need to figure out if im just making this up or not” and i explained what i think i saw and felt and my friend says yes i noticed it too but i didt know what was going on. this made me question the situation even more to the point where i am visibly avoiding them whenever i can but i eventually texted them saying “ hey i don’t remember a lot about that night i was messed up so im not sure if i remember right but did you try to kiss me when we went out im just trying to piece what happened together” They denied everything and said no i didn’t try to kiss you .
I decided to drop it because I wanted to trust them. A week later I go i went to my housing application for something and saw that our third roommate was no longer in our roommate group. I text my friend and ask hey what happened to blah blah is she not rooming with us? To which they say “ No she isn’t because i told her about the kiss thing and and said she would feel uncomfortable to live with us”( I was very confused why she would be uncomfortable living with us) and my friend goes on to explain that she had walked into her roommates having sex on her bed one time. Having this information, I can only assume she would feel uncomfortable because of the “ possibility of feelings or something physical happening between me and my friend”
This makes me feel uncomfortable because I am now unsure if the kiss thing was real or what was said to the third roommate in order to make her say that she is uncomfortable. I have not brought it up since but I have also been facing other problems with them too in a more academic setting.
They are very used to being late to classes, this being said they never really know what’s going on and asks me a billion questions then doesn’t listen when i explain and then askes the same things again. On top of this they tend to react like “omg u didn’t invite me or tell me to go eat” if i go out with any one else. I had a recent final exam project with them and they made me waste my whole day waiting at one of the school buildings in order to record and were really inconsiderate of my time and a lot of other tiny things that bother me
What should I do what can i do to leave this situation? Can i leave ? Can I leave without making it weird ? The year is about to end soon and room assignments are completed for more people except for the people living on special community floors ( we got accepted into me of them) i have never needed more advice to how to manage this situation.

Pride month starts from today and i saw a post earlier where someone tried to negate the LGBTQ+ community telling me to learn “basic biology”. I mean, aaile ko generation le tw yo weak argument xodera kei firm khoje pani at least it would be fun to hear. Maybe people who think basic biology is everything there is to learn about human body then they might have bigger problems. People just wanting to deny the things they don’t understand? How will society evolve then? Anyway, happy pride month! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️