Home made frozen vanilla custard

I 19M been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend F18 for 1 year and 10 months as of this past Memorial Day. About a month ago she wanted to have a party with her friends instead of going to Prom. I didn’t mind this until I found out her guy friends would be sleeping over. I asked her to let them stay as late as they want, just not sleeping there. We had a few arguments over this, but ultimately I decided I have no reason not to trust her, and if anything happened I would find out one way or another. After this party I basically love bombed her to hell and back without even realizing thinking I was just trying to make up for being a jerk. Anyway, fast forward about 2 weeks and I’m supposed to be going over her house that weekend, when I get a text on Tuesday saying she doesn’t want me to come and she has to have a talk with me. I knew what this meant, and when I got home we called and cried to each other, with my basically begging her to give me a chance, and that I’ve changed, which is true, I decided to not be so controlling and relax on any rules I had. She told me she needed 2 weeks no contact to think it over. That night she called me crying saying she wants to see me that weekend, and she’s sorry but she wants to be together. The next day the plans changed with the help of her parents to be the weekend after, but she wanted to take 2 days to think of everything we wanted for say to each other before we got back together, we only lasted a day without texting, she texted me first, and made up. Things were fantastic, I went there that weekend, had a great time, but Monday after came and she said she didn’t know what was going on but she felt as if we can’t be together. Tuesday night comes, she called me on discord and says she got grounded and she just needs me on the phone to know I’m there. For the next week we were in a discord call that she would come back to and talk a little bit before leaving so she didn’t get caught. Fast forward 2-3 weeks and she gets her phone back, and things are fine until this past Wednesday, when she called and said we should break up, she doesn’t know why but she has this feeling that she has to, but she doesn’t want to and she still loves me and wants to be together. She ended up asking me if I wanted my sweatshirts back, but I told her I want her to keep them on the condition that she never throws them out, or gives them away, and I asked her if she got a new boyfriend and he wanted her to get rid of them what she would do, and she said that it’s not their decision. She also said this about her promise ring I gave her. She called me back that night sobbing saying she’s in so much mental pain, and that if she leaves me she’s in pain, if she stays she’s in pain, and if she can’t make a decision she’s in pain. And she asks me if I can still come this weekend as we had planned. I told her ofc but when she asked her parents she said they are going to North Carolina today so I won’t be able to. Then we come to yesterday, when I called her on my lunch break at school, and we just talked, I went inside, took a test, came back out called her and told her if she wants I will come see her that night, just for a few hours, not stay the night, she said she would love that but she just doesn’t want to get in trouble with her parents. Later that day, I was talking to my brother about this situation as he has more experience with it, and he starts telling me I need to start having more trust in her, and since it’s long distance I should even trust her blindly, basically that I need to stop being her dad, not have a leash on her wherever she goes and want her to text me every hour or so. She calls me in the middle of this convo totally unprompted, and she says she just wants to check up on me, so I tell her everything I was told and that I realize now if that’s what she needs I can do it, and I do mean it. We stay on the phone and talk almost as if we are still together. She called me this morning and I asked if she feels that the trust thing may be what was telling her she can’t be with me, and she said she doesn’t know. And I started to tear up and say I just want to be together, and she said I know. I have no idea what to do, what do you think the issue is that’s causing her to not want to be with me?

im partially homeless, no working history/experience that i can rely on.
i don’t want to be repetitive but i feel like there is no life for me anymore.
i could’ve had a chance staying at home, being a hermit and taking whatever i got but i found it almost insufferable that no one there cared for me when they should.
it affected me in all sorts of ways that i now see as partially my fault.
if i had come to the conclusion earlier that i was ugly, I wouldn’t have caused such a commotion when communicating their lack of effort made me feel unloved.
now i know i am just unloved.
i wish i could just be ignored/avoided like i was before, i wish i had a chance at a normal life.
but nope, lookism is so ignored and overlooked because it causes particular discomfort. No one’s explained that discomfort yet.
I looked at studies and found it’s systemic, it gave attractive people an excuse— systematically misled. The term ugly is somewhat taboo. That attractive woman are most likely to be hired, the opposite being true. Blah blah blah
i used to want to reach out and shake people for being so,,, ignorant.
Now im just tired, and hope and pray im not a system. That the people in my head aren’t perpetuating the same toxic societal ideals. But they are, everyone in my life is.
I’m just so sick and tired of being here, I need money.

Memory transcription subject: Sare, Yotul Rebuilder Date [standardized human time]: January 31st, 2136
I pulled the hoodie tighter around myself. It had only gotten colder over the past few days; I’d taken multiple chances to thank Gavin for his gift. Every time I passed the human, I saw a grin spread across his face, and I felt something flutter in my stomach. I managed to keep myself composed enough as he joined me in the vegan line once again.
“You actually like this stuff?” I asked. I gestured to the rest of the extraterrestrials in the line. “I don’t think any of us do.”
He shrugged. “It’s different, at least. Two months of ham and cheese sandwiches does something to a man.”
I stared at him for a moment. He looked at me with a soft gaze and a slight smile, and I found myself admiring his eyes and the way his beanie-formed hair draped over them. His expression morphed to confusion, however, and he waved his hand at me.
“Earth to Sare? Are you… looking for something?”
I realized I’d just been standing there staring for a solid twenty seconds and I flushed deep green, pulling my scarf over my face. “I- uh, I’m alright, yeah! I’m just-” I wove my paws around futilely as if I could speak with them. I gestured for Gavin to move ahead of me in the line, and he let out a small laugh as he walked past to pick up his meal. I followed shortly behind him, my face burning.
Today’s meal was some emulation of venlil cuisine. It was… alright, for something made by non-venlil chefs, but I’d had better in Earth’s vegan food. Gavin, however, seemed pretty excited by it.
“As long as I’ve worked here, I haven’t had much alien food.” He took a bite from his meal and continued speaking as he chewed. “Not bad. I think I prefer yotul food, though,” he said, musing as he looked off into the distance.
I piped up excitedly at that. “I could make you something!”
“You can?” he asked, genuine intrigue in his voice. “What could you do?”
Shit.
There really wasn’t a lot of even human food available to cook with, let alone imports from Leirn that I was familiar with, but I felt like I needed to repay Gavin with something, at least.
“Uh-, well, there’s a type of salad back home I might be able to make with stuff here. Um… I don’t think it’d be very good, but-”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. Anything handmade is great if you put your heart into it,” he said, his tone reassuring and a smile on his face. I absentmindedly fiddled with the drawstrings of my hoodie as he took a few more bites from his lunch; a few moments passed before he looked at me and flushed a bit, then quickly finished his meal. I stared off into the distance, nothing in particular on my mind as I ate, but I saw Gavin hurry off to the administrator’s office. I downed my food and followed him with a brisk walk.
“What’s the rush?”
He looked me over for a moment before letting out a breath I couldn’t tell he was holding. “There’s still a lot of work to do today, y’know? It’s going to be cold tonight, and besides, it’s New Year’s Eve. I gotta get my work done quick so I have tonight free.”
We both paused for a moment. “What do humans do for the new year?” I asked.
“Normally, the tradition is to set off a bunch of fireworks- oh, those are like little explosive things-”
“There’s some great firework shows on Leirn,” I explained. “We’ve got ‘em too.” I could show you some hung on the tip of my tongue, something I deeply wanted to say but held myself back on.
“Oh, sweet! Anyway, yeah, that’s the usual thing, plus some typical family gathering and partying, but, uh… I don’t think anybody here could handle fireworks right now,” he continued, his expression trailing into something morose I couldn’t quite read. “But really, first and foremost, it’s about spending time with people you care about.”
“Guess we got that in common, then,” I added. “Where I’m from, it’s summer during the new year, so during the day, we spend time at beaches, usually, sometimes going on trips to somewhere cooler the day before. I’m not religious myself, but followers of Ralchi have a sort of traditional bonfire past sundown for the new year that most people recreate.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Yeah…” I mused. “Haven’t done anything like it in a while, and it’d be nice to spend a night around people I care about again…”
Gavin just looked at me.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” he said, quickly perking up. “C’mon. We’ve got stuff to do today.”
I nodded, and he led us off down the road to the suburbia we’d been cleaning up the past few weeks. Some other workers from the camp had tagged along; from chats between them, the peacekeepers in charge had directed anyone wanting a lighter day for the new year down this road.
I jogged a bit forward to catch up to Gavin ahead, only slowing my pace as I stepped to his side. He glanced at me for only a moment before offering a hand to hold, which I took. I felt my tail beat against the asphalt below us a few times before I got my heart under control.
“What’re we doing today?” I asked after a comfortable silence.
“Cleanup, mostly. UN wants this place cleared of debris for rebuilding.”
“That sounds… impossible, honestly. There’s just so much wreckage,” I said, a sense of exhaustion already creeping into my voice before we even got to work. I sighed. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
He shrugged. “Even if it’s impossible, why not? Maybe we won’t clean out everything, but we’re still cleaning out something, and that’s better than nothing.”
“I just… I don’t know. How’s it better than nothing if we can barely make a dent in all the garbage?”
“Well, look at it this way. A hundred thousand people used to live here-” he waved his hand in a wide arc over the townscape around us- “-and maybe we’ll never see more than ten grand again. But so what? Even if we only get five thousand people back in these houses, that’s still infinitely better than zero. You know?”
“...Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know.”
Gavin smiled. It was a warm grin, an expression I never wanted to see end, and a smile spread across my own face. “You feeling better?”
“Definitely.”
He put his arm around my shoulder in a quick hug that I reciprocated. “Let’s get going, then.”
Some of the group hung back to direct the debris-moving vehicles down into the deeper wreckage, but most of us, Gavin and myself included, focused on the smaller things; as inconsequential as it was, the light labor and simple repetition of shoveling up garbage felt rather therapeutic.
It didn’t take too long before a sort of pessimism started again. By the time a few hours had passed, my arms ached, my legs felt sore, and while seeing what we’d cleaned was encouraging, it felt dwarfed in the face of the mountains of concrete dust and shattered debris that still coated the town. I sighed, taking a seat on some of the more solid debris, feeling my tail sweep up loose dust. Gavin glanced back at me before setting down his own tools and taking a seat as well.
“This sucks,” he said after a few seconds of odd, semi-comfortable-semi-awkward silence.
“Yeah.”
The human nodded as if we’d just made some as yet unknown revelation, then let out a short laugh. I did, too, my laugh lasting perhaps a bit too long before I felt something crumple and a few tears slipped out of my eyes.
“Still gotta do it, though, y’know?”
I glanced back at him. Afternoon light glinted off the tears forming in his own eyes as he looked at me with a small smile of his own; despite the wetness accumulating on his cheeks, he took the chance to wipe my eyes with warm, gentle hands. I pressed at the tears on his own face and he flinched back, muttering watch the fur under his breath. I snickered a bit at his reaction.
“Still gotta do it,” I said. He nodded in response.
“But you don’t gotta do everything.”
“Yeah. Something’s enough,” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked over the areas we’d cleaned from a tiny portion of the city sprawl. The sound of machinery and the occasional working song echoed off the concrete and asphalt as we watched our comrades work in silence.
Even under the cold of the late day, the something had kept me warm, and before long, we’d reconvened at the headquarters for dinner. Unlike the morning, however, Gavin went for the human food line, and I opted to follow him.
“...Can you even eat this stuff?” he asked, pointing at the (at this point, comedically predictable) ham-and-cheese sandwiches that the cooks were handing out. One of them mirrored his sentiment, cocking their head and looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
“I… think? We weren’t cured, so it won’t kill me. Probably.”
He shrugged. Two sandwiches came, and he rifled through the bag at his side for an anti-allergy injector. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, tucking it into his pocket for quick access.
“This whole idea is pretty stupid,” I commented.
“Be… only a little bit stupid.”
We laughed as we sat down. I set my sandwich down and watched Gavin pick up his and take a bite, staring at him in fascination before realizing that this probably wasn’t something to be particularly fascinated by. Still, it was a pretty novel experience, nonetheless; I didn’t eat meat, and for the majority of my time on Earth, any meal time was separated between those who did and those who didn’t.
I took a tentative bite of the sandwich, which, thinking about it in a vacuum, is a rather strange way to think about one’s dinner, but I was certainly nervous in the moment.
“It’s… interesting,” I said, both meat and dairy decidedly unfamiliar tastes to me. The most familiar part was the saltiness, but this felt less like the mild flavor of roasted root vegetables and more like shoving seawater into my mouth. The texture was perhaps the most familiar part, albeit still strange; it reminded me most of Rinsan fiberfruit, but its taste made it surprisingly hard to swallow.
“‘Interesting’ as in… ‘good’?” Gavin asked. “‘Interesting’ as in ‘you’re not experiencing anaphylactic shock right now’?”
“I wouldn’t say good, but I don’t think I’d say bad or trying to kill me either,” I commented after forcing down another bite.
“You don’t have to finish that, you know.”
“I’m committed," I retorted. It wasn’t inedible, at least, and the newness of the experience alone made it worth it.
After washing the flavor down with a copious amount of water, Gavin and I decided to get some rest a bit early; the winter sun had already crept low to the horizon and the work of the day set in. We could squeeze in a few hours of rest before seeing whatever festivities had been set up for the new year. My quarters weren’t too far from the canteen; if nothing else, the UN at least had the resources for all of us to get individual rooms, albeit small ones. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Some indistinct time passed before a small snore woke me up. This wasn’t uncommon, given the thin walls of the pre-fab shacks we slept in, but I craned my head up to a lump on the floor, rather than a particularly loud sleeper elsewhere waking me. It took me a second to resolve it in the dark, but their large stature and ruffled hair meant they were a human, and the guess came naturally: Gavin.
He’d brought his own blankets and made himself a nest on my floor. My half-asleep head thought it wouldn’t be too bad; I bundled up the pillows and blankets from my own bed and tossed them on the floor in a disorganized heap, even worse than Gavin’s pile, and dropped onto it. He shuffled, grunted a bit, and turned over on his side, putting a reassuring arm over my shoulders. We both fell back asleep in that comfort almost instantly.
What finally woke us was the sound outside. A general din of activity grew loud enough to make it into my room, and Gavin rose before me, shaking my shoulder to wake me up in turn.
“Think it’s almost time,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stretched, standing on his feet and reaching the ceiling before offering his hand to pick me up. I took it and he led me by that hand forward, out to the people gathered.
The gathering wasn’t too big, but it was a hearty one, nonetheless. It was a mixture of humans, venlil, yotul, and the occasional other species assisting in the city, gathered in circles around campfires dotting the street and camp we lived in. I pointed one of the fires out; it was ringed by predominantly yotul, and I recognized the new year flame structure familiar to Leirn. One of the yotul there noticed us and waved us over to take seats with them.
Gavin sat near the fire, and I laid over him, my head resting in his lap as the small campfire burned in front of us. A quick glance around showed that we weren’t the only ones inching this close to the fire; my mind flashed back to memories of Leirn, of watching ceremonial bonfires burn and singing songs of home and history, even after the Federation arrived, and I felt myself start to tear up.
I don’t know if Gavin saw, or felt, or even knew at all, but I felt a strong hand rub the side of my head, scratch a bit behind my ears. I flinched a bit on instinct.
Gavin stammered a bit. “Uh- you- um, that alright?”
“...Yeah.”
He resumed, and I felt my eyes gradually flutter closed to the sound of the fire crackling and a breeze blowing, his other arm wrapping around me. The night should’ve been freezing, but I felt the warmth of something stronger than cold wind and a dark night.
There was a brief bit of pressure on the top of my head. I picked myself up and planted a kiss in return on his cheek, laying back in his lap, his arm tightening closer around me. Three short words were all that remained.
“I love you.”

It's obvious that after 4 seasons of this format, nobody is really looking for their lobster. Even Katie and Vince flamed out once the cameras weren't on them, and they were the most earnest of the whole bunch. I don't think anyone has managed to score the whole 100k to themselves since Tamaris decided not to share with either of her male picks. (That hasn't happened again in season 3 of FBoys or season 1 of FGirls so they must have changed the rules yet again.)
India seemed to be playing a great game, yet she went home with nothing and Kiara got 50k. Camille looked like a lock with Casey until she started picking fights with him. Being an obvious FGirl probably made JD even more attractive to Benedict.
If you were in the group of 24 contestants how would you play it?

England.
Myself and two other girls live in a student house that has a very dated interior for the bathroom (old grey-coloured sink, slightly newer toilet, painted over wallpaper, non-bathroom paint flaking off the walls). The shower is very old. The cradle holding the handheld shower was so rusted it had to be replaced when we moved in. The shower base has yellowed with age, water leaks out the front of the door and it has permanent mold around hinges that is impossible to remove (we have tried). It is clearly very old. We notified the landlord that some cracks (a large one and some very hard to see smaller ones) had appeared in the base of the shower, as the plastic is so brittle. (My housemates had to notify me of it as I have quite bad eyesight and couldn't see them in the base of the shower without glasses/contacts which I obviously don't wear when showering).
When he looked over it he said we would have to pay (and had the cheek to say it wouldn't be much between us), and it was a difficult job as they no longer made the shower bases (because it is so ancient!). This is because the cracks have allowed water to collect under the shower, but we do not know the extent of the damage. But we have always informed him of any issues the house has had for him to fix quickly to avoid damage. He did a shoddy repair with some resin and is waiting for us to temporarily move home so he can change the shower (we only have one bathroom). So clearly, despite the water damage already present, this isn't much of an emergency for him - surely this is unacceptable? He didn't cover the little cracks so water must be getting under there as we shower and causing more damage? How is that our fault?
I was under the impression if he wanted to install the shower, leaving us with no useable bathroom, he would have to put us in a hotel/other house temporarily, and therefore is delaying the repair until we are visiting home in a couple of weeks time (therefore making the water damage worse, its been almost a month since we first alerted him to the problem) to avoid having to pay.
Is this fair? Is it wear and tear or damage? We had no intentions of damaging the property and want our deposit back. What can we do? Honestly I think he is trying to take advantage of us as young, female first time renters but if we are liable we will of course pay.
Thank you for your help in advance we don't know how to proceed.

It’s been two weeks since I posted about my wedding situation. I apologize for not answering very many of your comments on the first post. The post was intended to just talk about the situation, but it quickly turned into a mini AITA discussion, which was absolutely the farthest thing that I wanted to happen. Due to the stress and severity of everything, I had to unplug. The comments and private messages were getting to me and the messages from friends and family who caught word of the situation became overwhelming.
That being said, I got around to reading the comments after a week or so, but didn’t have the effort to say anything until now. A lot of you said I was controlling, manipulative, selfish, and racist. I can understand being called the first three, but racist genuinely hurt. I didn’t realize my actions came across as racist, but I see now how that could be assumed of me. I don’t know what to say to prove that I’m not racist, but I know that even if I did it probably wouldn’t change any minds. I’ve begun to research more on the wedding ceremonies, and just Cambodian culture as a whole, something I realize I should have done years ago.
I promise you that the decisions I made and the unfortunately “vetoed” decisions from my boyfriend all came from a place that thought it was going to be best for both of us. But like a lot of you said, it was still wrong of me to completely dismiss him and his ideas. I admit I was being stubborn about a lot of things that would have been easy to compromise on. I guess I was looking at everything through rose tinted glasses and thought that everything would just fall into place in my favor because I wanted it to. I should have heard him out more and taken his words seriously.
Additionally, a few of you called me and my fiancé out for being rage baiters and even being the same person just using different accounts. I can see how that would seem like the case, since I made this account a day after his throwaway was deleted, but I promise it was just a coincidence. I created a throwaway since my main account has content that can be traced to my other socials, and I didn’t want anyone harassing me in my DM’s or other comment sections. I think someone also brought up the fact that this account is linked to another one that has posts about being divorced? I’m not sure what that’s about.
I read the AITA post that he created and, if I can be honest, I thought it was terribly done. He made his initial post about my best friend and how he wasn’t “comfortable” with him being in the wedding, indicating that even on a minuscule level, he was uncomfortable with my friend. In the 6 years they’ve known each other he has never once voiced or shown any discomfort for him. I don’t know if he was using him as a scapegoat or what. His comments started to change the tune of the post and it started to become a “I’m not comfortable with the guy best friend” vs. “Actually, I’m being taken advantage of” type of thing. It was all so weirdly done, and his comments seemed rude and argumentative. People were judging him based on the initial question as the forum intended, but then he started to tell the rest of the story to try and gain favor or something.
But, I digress. Moving onto the actual update, my boyfriend and I had a talk a few days ago. He was home when I came back from work and it looked like he was packing some of his stuff. I asked if this meant that we were officially over, and he said he didn’t know. I asked if we could talk about it, and he said sure. I apologized to him for how I was acting and that I shouldn’t have been so controlling with the planning. I also apologized for rejecting his culture and said that I didn’t do it with malice. He asked why I really rejected the ceremonies and I told him how I wasn’t comfortable with his parents, since there was still tension between us.
He explained that they were trying to be okay with me, but what I did just made it harder. I told him I read his post and asked if he really didn’t feel comfortable around my best friend. He was kind of iffy on that, saying yes and no before saying he didn’t mind him as a person, but he was still someone he didn’t know. He offered to apologize to him since he figured I told him about what he said when I left to my parent’s house, which I did, and I said I would appreciate that. We got quiet and I asked again if he wanted to officially break up. He said he wanted to cancel the wedding, but that he didn’t want to break up permanently yet. I felt the same way, so we talked some more, and eventually agreed to go back to dating.
This may not be the outcome a lot of you wanted, since it seemed like you were all rooting for him to kick me to the curb, but I still love him and he still loves me. We’re cancelling all of the wedding plans and looking into couples counseling. And, as a promise to each other that we’re going to change, he’s going to make an effort in befriending my best friend, and I’m going to be seeing his family more and participating in/observing more cultural events. This is the last post I will make from this account. I just want to move forward and rebuild with him.
TL;DR: We broke off the engagement, but we’re still together.

TLDR:
Moving for 3 years to a new city. Buy a nicer more expensive house or rent a cheaper less comfortable house?
Recently semi-fire’d
Our numbers:
Brokerage vanguard acc: 2mil
Retirement vanguard account: 300k
529 vanguard: 200k
Checking: 120k
Rental home value: 1.6m-1.8m (~800k+ equity)
Rental home mortgage: 850k left
Rental home income: 30k/year
My (39) income: 26k/yr
Partners (41) income: 15-30k/yr varies
Partners early inheritance: 24k/yr
I am moving with my partner and 2 kids (5 + 2) to Madison WI for 3 years from a VHCOL city in California so I can do an MFA. I thought housing would be easy to find coming from CA, but that was naive.
We expect renting to make the most sense for the 3 years. Less commitment, short timeline, high interest rates, less responsibility, lower risk. We owned our home in Ca and made it nice, and now it’s hard to step down in quality. That being said, we can’t find a decent 3bd/2ba rental our family would be comfortable in. They are either pretty rough and setup for undergrads, or out in the suburbs. We’d like to spend more on a rental and get a nicer place, but I just haven’t seen any.
So we’re considering purchasing a home instead. The homes to purchase are much nicer, and we’d pay more for them. But I’m feeling that purchasing for only 3 years is financially irresponsible so it’s not sitting well.
Rentals that we’re looking at are 2500 - 3500/mo.
Homes we’re looking at ate 550k - 650k
The NYT times rent vs buy cal has a 600k house break even with rent after 3 years at ~4700/month
We need to move in Aug so we either have 2 months to find a rental or 1 month to get an offer accepted to close by Early Aug.
My family is game to help accommodate me in pursuing an MFA so I want to prioritize their comfort as much as possible. I think we can afford the house, but buying for only 3 years seems like a risky and time consuming thing to do. Rent vs Buy?

Just wanted to share my success story with you all as I used to read this sub daily and even filled my phone with screenshots of posted ideas that sounded promising but nothing ever worked for me.
To start with, my BB was never room filling but I would get reactions from a lot of people I was within a couple of meters to and the one that hurt me the most was my own children commenting on it and asking me to brush my teeth literally 5 minutes after I had thoroughly brushed. It was heartbreaking!
Some days were worse than others and I would try and avoid talking to anyone or move my head to the side slightly so they don't get a face full of the odour. Other days it was barely noticeable but it never went away.
I had tried hydrogen peroxide, corsodyl medicated mouthwash, kefir / high fibre low sugar diet, tongue scraping, leaving tongue alone, regular flossing, scraping plaque with a dentist kit I bought and increasing hydration but nothing ever worked long term...
Until...
I went on holiday to Turkey and it was quite a nice hotel so didn't need to take any toiletries or even my old toothbrush as it was all provided and replenished daily.
After the first night, I woke up noticing that my breath wasn't absolutely stinking which it usually was first thing in the morning and after using the Marvis classic strong mint toothpaste and having a shower with their body gel and shampoo, I felt very fresh ready for breakfast.
The food every day was a very high standard. Turkey grows most of its fruit and vegetables rather than importing and you could tell it wasn't the genetically modified crap you get back home. I made sure to get at least 15 portions of fruit and veg every single day and I had zero added sugar.
Usually back home I had 1 sugar in my coffee, always had a sugary sweet dessert after main meal and snacked quite a lot on cakes, chocolate biscuits etc. I know my diet was not amazing but in Turkey I had no excuse and really enjoyed eating as healthily as possible.
This shift is what I mainly attribute my cure to. I had read about the micro biome in the mouth and heard that bacteria thrives on sugar but if it is starved of sugar and instead is given lots of good fibre, it can cause a breakdown of the existing bacteria.
Since returning home in February, I have not gone back to the sugar. My diet is completely changed and I make sure that I get lots of golf sources of organic fruit and vegetables. A treat for me now is a few medjool dates which taste like toffee to my taste buds now!
I no longer have sugar in coffee and very rarely have sweets or chocolate. I am not completely sugar free but it is a substantial change!
The other thing that may have attributed to my cure is changing my toothpaste form colgate to sensodyne which is Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) free and switching from SLS body washes and shampoos to SLS free ones - I use the Faith in Nature brand.
I cannot say for sure which or what combination of actions has cured me but 3 months after the holiday I am able to talk face to face with my children, my wife has told me the bad breath is finally gone and I feel so much more confident at work now.
It is quite frankly.. Life changing!
I hope this helps someone make the necessary changes to their diet and beauty regime and be able to share a similar success story of their own!

My Brother in-law (bil) passed away May 26 so let just say that this last week sucked.
Everything started at about 7:00am last Saturday. This was the first weekend after school was out and the dogs bladder didn’t get the message so she woke up my son. My phone rings about that time and it is my MIL, odd enough but I answer. She starts by telling me my BIL had a medical emergency and it doesn’t look good. I wake my wife and tell her to get dressed while asking the normal questions what happened are they taking him to the hospital which hospital ect. She answers Local hospital in the Er don’t know what happened and the Dr says it doesn’t look good. I gave the general ok bye and hang up.
Now this is a side note but my wife and I both work in the hospital she an RN and I am a Biomed. So we both know how a hospital handles pt stable, unstable, or deceased.
Back to the story the in-laws all live roughly 1hr away. I still have 2 kids that are fast asleep 10f and 15f and they are notoriously slow getting up. I look at the 17 year old and tell him to finish getting dressed he needs to take his mom to the hospital in the in-laws home town. My thinking was if she hurries at worst and her brothers dies she will get to see him after he was made presentable by the hospital staff and my boy could be ushered to a waiting room until everything was done.
Do I trust my kids to stay home alone. Yes. Do I trust my kids to stay home alone in an emotionally charged situation explitive no there would be blood. The 15f mood/hormones create such a rollercoaster that I get whiplash just being in the room with her on a normal day.
So I let the girls sleep for a bit and keep in contact with my wife while they drive down. They let me know that she talked to her mom and that instead of the hospital they need to go to BIL house. He is a bachelor so no wife or kids so no good reason to be going to his house. They get there and find out that the BIL was never at the hospital he died in his house at 46. I am still at home with the girls and after finding out ask if my wife wants me to bring the girls down. I was told no so I spend the day comforting them here while my wife and son are with her family.
Arrangements are made obituary comes out and my wife and kids are listed but I am not. Mil and Fil’s in-laws are listed but my wife is not shown to be married. I have been married to her for 18 years. My Mil is pretty petty and would do something like this for spite
So am I the asshole for having my feelings hurt and looking to make this an issue with my wife since it is her parents when she get back home from work next week. I already feel like one for getting my son in the mess to start with.

Just saw their most recent vlog today saying that Liam is "away from home" getting treatment from professionals for some form of adoption related trauma. I think the Ethiopia trip was very badly timed. Adopted teens often deal with trauma around Liam's age and going to Ethiopia may have made have amplified those feelings for Liam. Very sad. The trip was sponsored and also a opportunity for an interesting video (it got a lot of views). They really should have considered the impacts on their kids before accepting it.

I currently work case management for a social welfare program and have done so for almost 6 years between my current agency and a previous one.
I am burning out at record pace. We have larger case loads than ever and I never feel like I can give each client the attention they deserve. I am yelled at daily by clients who are understandably stressed. My boss micromanages to an unhealthy degree. Being in social services right now is not it. All the help I want to give I'm hand tied from giving due to budgets and red tape.
I applied to work at a retail Bakery and I am waiting to hear back. I pray I get it. I used to work retail prior to college and through it as well. I was much happier just doing my 8 hours and going home. No emergency calls. Just do the work as assigned and tap out.
I'm excited if I'm offered the job but also scared. I feel like on some level I have failed as an adult and am going backwards. But I know if I go much longer I am going to have a nervous breakdown and end up in the hospital again.
No one suffers medically and loses their job if their cake isn't 100% perfect. No one will lose their kids if the donuts are frosted instead of glazed. No one's housing is in jeopardy if the muffins are blueberry and not chocolate chip.
I have tried so hard to tough it out for the last year and a half. I really wanted to hit my PSLF count. But I'm okay with sitting on the save plan and chipping away at my loans slowly until 25 years or I pay them off in full if it means I'm not coming home every day ready to sob and having no want to keep going.
Pay isn't really an issue for me. I have never made 20 dollars an hour in my entire life, not even as a supervisor at my last agency. So going from 18 an hour to 16 isn't going to kill me.
I also feel bad because I don't want to leave my clients.
I guess I'm looking for advice from others who have "stepped down" in their career paths.

It has been 4 months, 1 week and 4 days since you left. We were together for 22 years, over half of our lives, and now you're gone.
I didn't know how to exist without you. I didn't know how to wake up and not spend a few seconds listen to you slightly snore beside me. I felt a wave of sadness wash over me during those early morning moments when I'm still half-asleep and I reach over to cuddle - and all that's there is a cold pillow instead of your familiar warmth. I started each day, painfully aware that you're not right next to me, typing and clicking away on your computer. It felt so alien not having the contentment of knowing you were just but a few feet away while we worked, the silence only broken by either of us bitching over this client or that. Gone were our after lunch siestas, where we would just lounge in the couch, watch TV, share stories and jokes we heard each other tell a million times. It was replaced by me sitting alone in the dining table, in front of a half-eaten meal, conpicously wet from the tears I didn't realize was gushing out for the nth time that day.
Somehow, I made it thru each day and though each hour felt like an eternity, night would soon come. Our son would be home by then. Both of us knew we weren't ok, but we would both pretend to be for each other's sake. We shared dinner, talked about school and attempt to cheer each other up. Inadvertently, once of us would mention you and we would quickly change the subject before the tears could come. We were being strong for each other, but I knew I had to be stronger. I lost a wife I have been with for over 2 decades, but he lost someone he knew all his life - without much of an explanation, other than she needs to think of herself from now on and be happy. I knew I could not wallow in sadness. I am a father to a kid who, on top of all this, has to deal with all the usual teenage and school stuff.
Weeks went by, I settled in a routine. It was and still is, extemely hard - juggling work, household chores and raising a kid all alone. I'm struggling so much and I know that I don't do a good enough job. But I am trying my best. And looking back, I am doing a lot better now. I don't cry myself to sleep anymore. I don't wake up in a cold sweat feeling the walls closing in. I don't find myself randomly not being able to breath and having panic attacks. I still think about you everyday though. I miss you so much. I miss you so fucking much.
Today is a Saturday. Cleaning day. I was in the bathroom and there it was, your toothbrush. In the same place it has always been. Right next to mine and our son's. It remained unused for over 4 months, a constant reminder that you chose not to be here anymore. I couldn't bring myself to dispose of it. After all, what would you use when you eventually come back to us, to me. I picked it up and held the tears back. Deep breaths. I threw it in the trash. It's stupid but it felt cathartic.
I checked on our son and he just finished his own chores. We had our afternoon snack and shared stories and jokes we heard each other tell a hundred times. He went up to his room to play on his computer. I listened to him for a few minutes, typing and clicking away on his computer, trash talking here and there. I laughed silently before continuing on my work on the computer. I had to get these done quickly, I still had to clean the bedroom.
I replaced the sheets on the bed and swept the bedroom floor. Under the bed were your bedroom slippers. I picked it up, and held it up against the bedroom light. It was extremely dusty, a constant reminder that you haven't been using them. I took a rag and cleaned it, and debated whether I should just throw it in the trash or give it away. I stifled a laugh on the mental image of our local garbage guy wearing a fluffy pair of cat slippers. And then I placed it carefully on your side of the bed. After all, what would you use when you eventually come back to us, to me. I looked around the bedroom and touched your pillow. It was cold. And then the tears came.

The day it all happened I was in a bar. It was 11.30am, and it was a Tuesday. I'd left my girlfriend and went for a quick drink, or so I'd told her. I'd been feeling down a lot recently. She was always busy with her friends or work, and never had time for me. I'm not trying to excuse my actions, but I needed something to make myself feel good. I had planned on going home early, but that was before I saw her. She was sitting alone at the end of the bar, sipping her white wine. We started talking and she made me laugh. I can't remember how long we were talking, but it seemed like ages. At the time, I'd forgotten about the rest of the world, I was so caught up in our conversation.
Then it happened.
All of a sudden, the bartender dropped a glass, shattering it across the floor. "Watch it!" he shouted at a customer, who'd accidentally bumped into him. Then, he threw the towel he'd been holding onto the counter, and went over to the customer and punched him in the face. It all happened so quickly, I didn't have time to react. The customer stood up, his nose bleeding. He walked towards the bartender and hit him back, knocking him into the wall. A full on fight ensued, as two other men from the crowd joined in. They were throwing punches, and pushing each other to the ground.
The woman I'd been talking to looked scared, and started backing away from the bar.
"What the hell?" she said, her voice wavering.
I stood up, and held her hand. "Come on, let's get out of here."
I led her out of the bar and back to the street. She had a look of terror on her face. I had to calm her down, she looked like she was going to have a panic attack.
"It's ok, I'm here." I told her. "Are you okay?"
She took a deep breath and nodded.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe it's stress or something. There's a lot of that going around right now."
Just then, the sound of sirens rang through the air. People were walking quickly by, looking at their phones, trying to find out what was happening. We followed the crowd and ended up in front of a large electronics store. It was closed.
"Do you have your phone?" she asked me.
I checked my pockets, but it wasn't there. I'd left it at the bar.
"Damn, no. I forgot it."
"Shit." she said, and pulled out her own.
The screen was flashing and beeping, and the words "Emergency Broadcast" were displayed.
"Oh no." she said, her face turning white.
I peered over her shoulder at the screen. It read:
Attention citizens. There has been a breach in the security at the local military base. If you see anyone acting strangely or displaying symptoms of the following, report it to the authorities immediately.
Symptoms:

• Bleeding or bruising from the mouth and nose
  
• Loss of consciousness
  
• Increased heart rate
  
• Increased body temperature
  
• Hallucinations
  
• Involuntary movement
  

"What does that mean?" I asked her.
"I have no idea." she replied, her voice shaking.
Suddenly, a scream came from the end of the street. I turned and saw a man running down the sidewalk. He was covered in blood, and screaming at the top of his lungs. A group of people was following him, chasing after him.
"Stay back!" he yelled. "It's not safe! They're coming!"
He ran around a corner and the crowd disappeared.
"He said they're coming. Who's coming?" asked the woman.
"I have no idea. We need to get to the police or someone to help us. Let's get somewhere secure."
We started walking towards the police station when a large group of people appeared around the corner, running towards us. They were screaming and shouting. They were completely out of their minds. The street was filled with men and women, young and old. Some were in bloody clothes, while others were completely naked.
"Run!" the woman screamed.
I grabbed her arm and we both ran for cover. We rounded the corner and started sprinting down the street, dodging past people and cars. Everything was a blur as we ran for our lives. After what felt like an eternity, we reached the police station. The front door was open and a small group of people were running inside. We followed them inside and found ourselves in a crowded lobby. The officer at the desk was yelling into the phone.
"Yes! There's rioting! Send backup now!"
Another officer came out from behind the desk and shouted over the chaos.
"Everyone needs to calm down! The military is sending a convoy to help us secure the city! Just hold tight!"
But people weren't listening. They continued to yell and scream, fighting against each other to get out of the station. I noticed a few people had bruises and cuts from the crowd.
I felt someone grab my arm. It was the woman I'd been with. She looked at me and shook her head.
"I'm scared." she said, her voice trembling.
Then she fell to the ground, crying. I reached down and held her in my arms.
"It's gonna be alright. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."
People were still pushing and shoving their way towards the exit, oblivious to us. I held onto her tightly, not wanting to lose her in the chaos. The sirens outside got louder, until they stopped altogether. I looked through the windows and saw a convoy of military vehicles pull up outside. Soldiers rushed into the station, their guns drawn.
They began shouting orders to the crowd.
"Calm the fuck down! Everyone calm down and leave through the rear entrance! This is not a request, this is an order! Anyone caught rioting or acting violently will be shot on sight! Go through the back, through the alleys, to the designated safe area! No more resistance, this is not a threat, this is a fact, now move, move, move!"
The crowd slowly filed out of the station, and we joined them.
My ears were ringing from the sirens and gunshots, but I did my best to keep moving. There were so many people, and we were forced to keep close together as the crowd funneled down a narrow alleyway. The city was in chaos. Smoke rose from buildings and car alarms blared. Gunshots and screams were everywhere.
We followed the throng of people down the alley until they reached a roadblock.
"This is as far as we can go." a soldier said. "Follow the crowd down this way and find a shelter. Don't wander around on your own, stay in groups if you can. Stay safe."
I looked at the woman and nodded. "C'mon, let's keep moving."
The crowd parted and we pushed through to the front. We soon found ourselves on a road full of burnt out cars and debris. The roadblock was full of soldiers, who directed us towards a football stadium.
The smell of smoke hung in the air as we walked through the streets. I wondered what could've started it all, and why it had ended so quickly.
When we reached the stadium it was full of people, all looking for their loved ones. I scanned the faces, hoping to see my girlfriend. I looked back towards the entrance and saw an old man and woman being helped down from a trolley bus. The lady had a bandage around her head, and her husband had blood on his face. The lady was clutching a broken arm. They hobbled their way slowly to a makeshift aid station. A soldier guided them towards the rest of the wounded.
"Grandma! Grandpa!" a small girl cried out and ran to them. She threw her arms around the woman and hugged her tightly.
A feeling of relief rushed over me, I was so happy they were alive. But at the same time, I couldn't help but think about my own girlfriend. Where was she?
People were sitting on the ground, crying. Others, stood, shell-shocked, looking around. A few people were trying to make small talk, despite everything. They were looking for ways to take their minds off the situation, to cope.
A bus was parked in the middle of the park and there were lines of people waiting in front of it.
"Are you hungry? Do you have any food?" a woman asked me, pushing her child in front of me.
"No, sorry, I don't," I replied, surprised at the desperation in her voice. "I don't have anything."
I looked at the queue, wondering if that was where the line was to get some free food. A woman in a white apron behind a stand marked "First Aid" tried to calm the crowd, raising her voice above the din.
"Everyone, please! Settle down, the military will have more help coming shortly! But for now we're out of supplies and the situation will only worsen if you don't control yourselves!"
Just then, another truck pulled up on the edge of the field. It had a green cross painted on the side of it and the word "Medicine" on the doors. My heart swelled with hope as several officers jumped out, carrying duffel bags of equipment, and headed straight to the medical tent.
"It's the supplies, everyone! It's the supplies they promised us!" someone in the back yelled.
The crowd began pushing and shoving each other again, and the woman and her kid that had spoken to me before was lost in the wave of people running forward, trying to get to the medicine. I tried to find them, to help, but I couldn't see them. There were so many people crowding around the truck, scrambling for the parcels of food and water and blankets that had spilled out.
I looked around at the field and at all the frightened and desperate people. Some were hurt and injured. Others were shell-shocked. Children were crying and their parents didn't know how to comfort them.
I knew there had been an outbreak of some sort, that the military had been evacuating the city. What I didn't understand is why the city had come to such a state of disarray in just one day.
A gunshot rang out and people screamed. It was followed by another, then several more. I ducked and covered my head. People around me started running, but I could see them lying on the ground. More gunshots and screams filled the air. Then, there was an eerie silence.
I stood up and slowly turned around, taking in the carnage. Bodies littered the ground, some missing limbs. I stepped carefully over the lifeless bodies of the fallen and made my way towards the exit of the stadium.
As I neared the gate I saw a group of soldiers guarding it. One was checking a man for weapons while another was wrapping a tourniquet around his leg. The other three were standing by a stack of rifles, preparing to re-load. I looked closer at the man with the bandaged leg and recognized him as the soldier that was on the news not long ago, telling us that the rioters had been dealt with and it was now safe to return to our homes. He had also assured us that the city would get back to normal soon.
"Clear!" the other soldier yelled, checking his weapon before handing it back to its owner. The soldier limped out the gate and was gone.
I tried to run, but my feet felt heavy and sluggish. The soldiers were getting closer, their guns drawn. They were shouting at me, their voices faint in my ears.
I turned to try and flee when a shot rang out and pain exploded in the back of my head.

• End -

So last night about an hour before going to my LGS to play I put together a simple Sligh/Red Deck Wins/Burn style deck out of what I had laying around (couple starters, commons people had given me, and 10 packs of cards) + bought 7 singles when I got to the store.
My thinking was I had only played SWU once before and that was with the Vader starter, so a simple aggro deck would be easy to pick up and not rely on intimate knowledge of the game or meta. Not to mention it was cheap as it read thrown together from my collection of mostly bulk.
This is the list I wound up playing, I went 2-1 in a 3 round 8 man (small crowd as the Showdown was the next day). I beat Thrawn U, lost to Krennic G, then beat Palpatine G. Every match was 2-1 for the winner so no blowouts. I made some misplays and forgot to use my base a good bit as I'd never played with a base that had an epic action before, that likely led to some losses but who knows if it was enough to actually make a difference.
Some cards were thrown in just as filler to hit 50 cards, such as I Am Your Father and Mission Briefing. But overall the deck was fun and honestly felt pretty solid. My opponents were pretty experienced players and it took them by surprise. The deck goes wide quickly and it feels bad for them to go 1 to 1 with removal. I definitely want to try and improve the deck.
After getting home I pulled some of the "filler" cards for another 1 drop, Tie Fighter, and Precision Strike. I also swapped out Wampa for Snowtrooper Lieutenant. Being able to get a "free" attack while playing a body seems good in an aggressive deck like this, and it is a Trooper so it procs Precision Fire. Here is the list as it stands now.
I do want to swap Keep Fighting for Aggression, and I need to finish the sideboard.

Hello!
We are an independent organization with one purpose: to make you feel good in your own home and restore the peace and quiet! We deal in all kinds of intruders, from cockroaches to rats to racoons: all sizes and shapes and colors! Safety and comfort is one call away!
We offer a high variety of services, accommodated to your needs and enquiries, and have a flexible schedule. Call us anytime!
That's the job I work at. For privacy reasons, I won't say the name of the company.
The pay is decent, the hours are flexible, and I get uniforms on the house and meals. Yes, I do have to deal with all kinds of infested homes: from termites to roaches to bees, and even 'intruders' like racoons, foxes, once even a snake. It can be dangerous, but I take my precautions.
I can also take phone duty if I'm feeling particularly lazy. Like last week. Don't imagine we're working non-stop: we rarely get any calls. Not a lot of incidents happen around here, in this village.
Last week, however, I had three calls, which was interesting enough by itself, because I rarely get this much activity. Three calls also meant that I had to go do ground duty, because we didn't have enough personal for three interventions in one day.
The first call happened at around 6PM.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
Hi, yeah, my name is Emily and I think there's something in my ceiling.
"Hi, Emily! Could you describe the issue with a bit more details? What kind of noises are you hearing, any signs of anything living up there... anything like that can help a lot."
Okay, um... so I've been hearing these faint scratches, like rats? The scratches started yesterday, around midnight, and at first I thought it was the rain, you know... the way you can hear each individual drop fall on the roof of your house... Then I imagined it must've been the birds, but I ended up realizing it was coming from the attic, because I, uh, I heard the scratches... like... coming from right above me. And I thought something had gotten into the house - I live next to Helene-
"Right, so the gas station. Which one, exactly? The one you pass by going to Kaden or the other one down the road to the bridge?"
No, the one down the road. To the bridge, right next to the creek. My house is the blue one right when the town starts. I don't have any neighbors. It's Pollen Street no. 3. So, you know, I'm afraid something got into the house from the forest. It wouldn't be the first time. I just hope this time, it isn't a snake. But snakes don't scratch like that.
"Are you hearing the scratches now?"
They're really faint, but persistent. Could be rats.
*"*Okay, Emily! We'll be on our way soon."
Thank you.
I sent the team over there, but they couldn't find anything out of place. No insects, no animals. No rats.
The next call came around 10PM.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
Hello. I keep hearing these scratches and thuds coming from the ceiling, and I think it moves to the walls. I'm not sure, though, but there's definitely something in there.
"Could you describe the issue with a bit more details? Anything like that can help a lot."
The noises started like three hours ago. At first, I thought it was the pipes, but they're too... rhythmic. Like footsteps or more like something dragging its limbs through the walls. I don't understand and I can't identify the animal. It sounds big. This is an old house, and it's relatively easy to dig through it. I've never heard anything like it.
"Where is it, right now?"
I can't hear anything right now. I don't know where it went.
"Could you tell us your address?"
Pollen Street no. 7.
My stomach tensed. Could it be a coincidence? Maybe some raccoon was making its way through homes...
"All right, thank you. We'll be on our way!"
I sent the team to the location, and was left alone with Andrew, a coworker. The night had fallen and I hated night interventions, so I hoped the phone wouldn't ring again until they came back. Honestly, I was pretty relaxed. There wasn't such a high chance that I'd get any other calls for the day-
Riiiiiiing.
I lifted my head from the lasagna. Me and Andrew stared at each other.
Riiiiiiing.
It had been... what, like 30 minutes since the last call? The fuck?
Andrew raised his shoulders. I stood up and lifted the receptor.
"This is... um, XXX Exterminators. How can I help you?" I mumbled.
There was a pause on the other line, then heavy breathing.
"Sir? ... Madam? Are you okay? What happened?"
It fucking dragged something into the house.
"What do you mean? Who dragged what? Sir, be more precise."
Andrew's eyes widened. "What?" he whispered.
I shook my head and motioned to him to be quiet.
"Sir, what's going on?"
Something broke into my, my house. But there's two of them. Two... DISTINCT... bodies. Not a raccoon. Not a bird. No, and at first I thought there were two alive things, but as I listened more I realized one of them was... dragging the other. Across my attic. On my fucking ceiling. I don't even know how it got there... I ain't heard anything like climbing on the house... Like it just landed on the roof then dug down to the attic. I don't know.
"... Right."
No, I'm not done. I got scared shitless, because I thought it was a person at first. It sounded big enough to be a person. I was like, shit, it's a murderer, but that was until I heard it... eating.
*"*Eating? What do you mean?"
Andrew frowned. The fuck? he mouthed.
Yeah. I can hear this heavy thing eating right above me, and I hear the floorboard of the attic creaking. I'm afraid it's gonna come down. The thing is dragging something... heavy. Fucking hell... please just come. I wanted to call 911, but I know it's not human.
"All right. I will send someone right away. Address and name, please?"
"Who are you gonna send?" Andrew asked. "There's just us-"
Finnick Gallen. Pollen Street no. 11
Fuck me.
"Okay. Sir, we'll be on our way."
After I hung up, a moment of silence followed, where me and Andrew just stood there, perplexed.
"You know it's us that have to go there, right?" Andrew asked.
"I'd really rather not."
"Then call Walt. Ask him if they're finished there. Are the houses close to each other?"
"All three calls came from the same street. Pollen Street. Near the forest."
"Fuuck. Yeah, call them."
I dialed Walt's number. It took a while for him to pick up.
"Hi! Walt? You done there? Cause I got another call..."
"Liam, there was no one in that house."
My hand was shaking on the receptor. "What do you mean?"
"There was no creature, no person, nothing. However, the scene is rather... interesting. I'm afraid we'll be busy here for a while."
"Why?"
"The windows are broken. Furniture destroyed. The attic is covered in scratches and broken wood. And there's the blood... it's fresh. I don't know what happened here, but we need to find your caller. And the intruder. We're searching the property."
"Right." I responded, my mouth dry.
The third call had mentioned something dragging something else...
We need to find your caller.
I think I knew where he was.
I had never been so afraid. As me and Andrew put on our uniforms, I couldn't help but wonder if I should get the police involved. This was no snake, no fox, no bear. The most frustrating thing was that I didn't know what it was.
We took a deep breath and drove into the night.
Reached our destination pretty fast. I know what you'll say: if the houses' numbers were so close, why couldn't Walt just take a look at number 11 too? Well, the numbers were really far apart. This area wasn't so populated.
I reached this cabin with its lights on. We hesitated, then got out of the car and knocked on the door.
I got an instant response - Finnick opened, pale and shaking. "I am so, so glad you came."
I was used to clients being afraid. Finnick, however, was deeply shaken. His eyes were glossy and his movements irregular - he sensed the same thing I had, that something sinister was going on, but we couldn't quite label it out. I tried to remain calm.
"Sir, you can wait in the car if you want."
He didn't need to be told twice. Me and Andrew made our way upstairs, to the master bedroom.
The house looked pretty normal. Nothing out of place, and nothing broken like on number 7. The bedroom had old, creaking furniture and floors - it was undeniable that something was in the ceiling. I could hear the sound of something being torn apart, and scratching. So much scratching. The ceiling was old too, consisting in some slabs. Andrew and I took out our equipment, gathering our courage to go inside the attic.
Had the slabs always had this... red tint? I raised my hand and felt them - they were humid and smelled like metal.
"Andrew, get your gun."
Pulling the attic stairs down, I tried to be as quiet as possible. I didn't want to make our presence known.
As silent as we tried to be, the stairs creaked obnoxiously and I closed my eyes. Fuck.
The sounds upstairs stopped.
"Okay, you go first." I told Andrew.
"Fuck you", he responded, then disappeared into the darkness.
I heard his footsteps, then a loud, echoing scream that turned into an inhuman wail. My first instinct was to crouch and stay on the ground, with my hands on my ears. Then, I heard two gunshots and Andrew cursing.
More gunshots followed. Then, glass breaking and something batting its wings and wailing. The voice was not human, but had some inflexions of a woman - it made my skin crawl.
The attic window was broken, and the thing had flown away. I don't know why, but I pulled away the curtain to the bedroom and looked outside, for any signs of what it could have been.
When Andrew came back down, he was crying. I had never seen him cry.
"I saw it... I saw it... I saw hell, Liam. I looked right at it. I saw it happen."
The sweet smell from the attic made me gag. I put on my mask and went upstairs, leaving Andrew frozen, staring into a corner.
The light didn't work, so I had to use my flashlight. The floor was humid and darkened in blood, and the smell lingered, putrid and overwhelming. I couldn't understand at first what I was seeing, and at first it had no impact on me. I didn't realize I was staring at what would turn out to be the second caller.
I have never dealt with gore, so my head didn't know how to take it. I guess I knew in some sort of way that that inflated shape was supposed to be the head, and what was above it were the limbs... the stomach lay somewhere farther, and the torso was dug into. I was in shock, and the images just didn't seem real. Above the body, it had carved something on the wooden wall. Some symbol.
My face felt numb. Remaining in the same position, I made a call.
"Hey, Walt?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you guys done there?"
"Are you ok? You sound... weird."
"Yeah, um..." I blinked a few times, then cleared my voice. "Are you done there?"
"We didn't find anything. Did you guys do the other intervention?"
"Oh, yeah. We did."
"And?"
"We found the caller. Not all of him, though. And the thing is gone now. Probably resting."
"What?"
"Yeah. You might want to come."
Since then, I have been giving interviews non-stop. Asked to describe the three calls and our interventions. The creature. I told them everything.
Well, almost everything.
That night, I had looked through the window as an instinct.
I don't know why. You know how the most horrible things have a way of drawing you in.
Pulled the curtain, placed my face close to the window. I hadn't heard it fly away yet. I should have waited for it to leave.
In the darkness, I saw two eyes shimmering a few inches from mine, two eyes that looked so human, I almost thought it was my reflection I was seeing. Except, well, they were upside down, and the other parts of the face had been kind of carved into the flesh, with blood drained skin sort of stretched over them. Behind the head, large wings, made the same way. It turned its head so it wasn't upside down anymore, but the body remained exactly the same. I felt it had wanted to see me better.
Then, it pressed its forehead onto the glass. Fear paralyzed me, but I remained still. I hadn't known it had a mouth until then, when it smiled. It had no teeth, just more skin - not even gums, not even a tongue.
Then, it flew away. The rest of its body was stretched out, the limbs curved and molded from the grey flesh. I watched it disappear into the night, leaving nothing but a bloody stain on the window, where it's forehead had been.
I didn't get a lot of sleep after that. I was hesitant to return to the job, but I had no better option.
It has been exactly a week since then. As I am typing this, it is almost midnight, and I got a call earlier.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
There is something in my ceiling, scratching-
*"*Address?"
You didn't even let me finish! Pollen Street, no. 13-
*"*Ma'am, get out. Just leave. Trust me."
What?
"Yeah, fuck no we ain't helping you with that. It's beyond us. That shit needs a priest."
Are you kidding?
*"*Nope."
As I hang up, I know we can't run from that forever.
And there's this other thing I know.
My address is Hamney Lane no. 34. Right across from Pollen Street.

I constantly go to this chooks-to-go stall after I hit the gym and I've noticed that there's this kuya who is always assigned for the afternoon shift. At first, our conversations are just the typical customer-vendor type of small talk where I tell him my order, go to the counter, and pay for it, then show him the receipt to get the chicken and I'm gone. This has been the routine for several months, but kanina there was a bit of latency issue with serving the order since he's like trying to saing pa the rice. So, in an attempt to resort the dead-air, he initiated a conversation. He told me how he's always noticed that I buy the same stuff every time I visit the kiosk and surveyed if I have noticed anything different from the typical flavour. I do had some epiphanies with like the sauce (for some reason this chooks-to-go serves a sauce as opposed to their tagline: "Masarap kahit walang sauce") wherein sometimes it's sweet and sometimes it's like garlic-ish flavored. He pointed out that sometimes he experiments with the spices he lagay to the sauce and see to it if the customers prefer one over the other. I'm not really sure how many spices or flavor options they offer but it is what it is. I did share my sentiment about my experiences and then he started yapping about spice combinations and how it influences the flavor of the chicken or liempo. It was actually quite fascinating since in a typical manner, I usually expect these kinds of franchises to have a well established recipe on how they create and serve their food but I guess there is a skill factor that could influence the outcome of the finished product. It's the same observation I could infer with starbucks in which different branches may offer the same menu, but the overall quality of the coffee being served is dependent to the way the barista prepares it. I'm not really an expert in culinary arts so to be honest I did assume the process of serving chicken to be like a product of a well-automated step-by-step cookbook.
However, upon knowing more of kuya's everyday and past experiences within the industry, I gained some sort of insight behind the "science" of preparing a chooks-to-go chicken. He made kwento about how he used to work in a local lechon store within his neighborhood and how it made him curious about the idea of roasting (or smoke cooking? I'm not sure what's the right terminology here) as well as the techniques to maximize "umami" (not the actual term he said, kakanood ko to ng japanese food reviews eh ahaha). Furthermore, he expounded on other factors like temperature, timing, proper ways of cutting and so on. I'm not really sure if he had formal education on these topics but the display of mastery as if he owns the craft is something I found surreal ig. I mean, he didn't really show mathematical formulas involving thermodyanmics or food chemistry but the story telling is enough to leave me in awe. I waved my goodbye to kuya and told him: "bukas ulit!", in which he replied: "copy sir! try mo yung sauce". Upon going home sa condo, I opened the take-out order and first tasted the sauce. It's a different experience this time as the flavour is more on the stronger sweet side. My KFC gravy buraot / Mang Inasal chicken oil spamming monkey brain exclaimed that I should've asked for extras but it was well enought to satisfy my curiosty. I find the experience wholesome and it made me wonder how the things that what we typically render as mundane jobs can have a sprinkle of creativity within them and people's passion on what they do really produces a story to tell.

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ResponsibleBox4681 posting in Parenting
Concluded as per OOP
Content Warning - child sexual abuse
Mood spoiler - terrible parenting
Thanks to u/shesalive_dammit for finding this BORU
1 update - Medium
Original - 6th May 2024
Update - 31st May 2024
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My daughter is treating my son like he’s dead to her
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I’m at the end of my rope and desperate for some input. This is a throwaway for the obvious sensitive reasons below.
My husband and I have DD (17) and DS (14). They have never been overly close siblings, but weren’t sworn enemies either. Just two different kids with two different personalities, but as long as everyone was respectful that was okay with me.
When DD was 10 she was the victim of abuse by a family member that saw them convicted and go to jail. She was in intensive therapy for years and we are so proud of the strong, confident and intelligent young woman she is today. She has always, however, been very private about it. Besides our family, her lifelong best friend/her parents knew, and that was it. My son, however, knew about the abuse too.
He flippantly told some friends about it 2 months ago, and before you know it, the whole school knew. DD was devastated, to say the least. She’s been back in counselling since and has been coping as well as possible. This counselling has come at a financially really tough time for us and is obviously worth every penny, but the fact that we can’t afford more counselling factors into the other part of this.
DD blew up at DS when this first happened and he saw the fallout of her coping with this firsthand. But since that night where she found out he told people and word was going around, she hasn’t spoken a word to him. She doesn’t look at him when he enters a room, or react when he speaks directly to her, or about her, or anything else of the sort. For example at dinner, she’ll speak to us and he’ll chime in and she continues the conversation as though he hadn’t said anything.
DS has tried daily to talk to her and apologized, begged, pleaded and cried and it’s always the same - she’ll usually crack a book/look at her phone, put some AirPods in and ignore him completely. She won’t discuss it with me besides to say that he’s dead to her and she has no intention of ever seeing or speaking to him again when she moves out in 10 months, and she hasn’t wavered even a bit in that sentiment since.
I’m at a complete loss. DS is on total lockdown - he’s lost his phone, video games, any sort of privilege or ability to do things with friends - he essentially goes to school, comes home, does his homework and goes to bed and he knows we are devastated and beyond disappointed.
I believe he’s sincerely sorry and contrite - he’s broken down crying and apologizing to us more times than I can count - but I’m unsure of how to proceed. We can’t afford family counselling, and DD’s personal counsellor won’t talk to me about what she says to her about any of this, besides to say not to push her on anything. I know she has every right to be furious.
But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like it’s also not mentally healthy for my son to be treated as though he literally doesn’t exist in his home for the next year. I know it’s a natural consequence, but it’s gut wrenching to see and be living with. Not to mention, as a mom I don’t want my kids to be permanently estranged. It breaks my heart.
Has anyone else experienced anything even in the ballpark of this that could offer any advice?
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Comments
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amjay8
Best you can do right now is try to access counseling for him, too. It would be wrong & counterproductive to push her to forgive him for a betrayal so deep if she doesn’t feel she can. He’s just a kid, and he can be redeemed, but the consequences of his actions are outside of your control.
istara
I agree. The daughter is deeply traumatised and the only thing that may ever ameliorate that is time. A lot of time.
So her brother has to learn patience and acceptance. Sometimes the mistakes we make don't get an easy fix or forgiveness. Which is a very harsh lesson to learn at 14 and it doesn't sound like he was malicious, just very stupid and very clueless.
So while her reaction probably feels disproportionate to him, and perhaps to the parents, it is what it is and there's no way to make her "unreact". She's suffered what she's suffered and she feels what she feels.

OOP: I have tried to broach the topic of forgiveness and him being sorry with her. She’s not interested in hearing it, seems irritated and annoyed I’m bringing it up and has never once even slightly wavered in saying something like he’s dead to her and she plans to never see or speak to him again when she moves out. I’m worried if I push her on it, she’ll cut us out too as I get the sense she sees it as me taking his side. She’s minimizing being home, which is minimizing their interaction but also makes me really sad that she doesn’t want to be here in the last few months before she moves out. Her therapist is understandably concerned more with her emotional well-being than our family dynamic, and won’t really discuss much of anything with me.
She is going to college and moving out in the summer. We don’t have super nearby family for my son to stay with, nor do we have the funds to offer to help pay for his upkeep even if we did. I’m at a loss.

Catface17
"Her therapist is understandably concerned more with her emotional well-being than our family dynamic"
WHY AREN'T YOU???
JacobTroy94
It’s clear to me, the son is the golden child of the family. If it was my kids this was happening too, best believe the son would be punished accordingly and I would support the sister ignoring his ass
bjorkabjork
it's 10 months. i would not force her to interact with him, if she wants to go no contact with him, she can.
i would get him out of the house and sign him up for some other activity tho. taking stuff away isn't as good as adding on responsibility imo. community service hours look good on college applications for his future and will get them apart more in the day to day. don't focus on his relationship with his sibling, focus on how to help him grow up into an adult who won't make a hurtful mistake like that again.
bonesonstones
I love this idea. As an initial punishment, grounding may have served its purpose, but it seems like it's time to switch gears and accept that this is what the next 10 months will look like. Your son needs to adapt to that, and getting him out of the house will be helpful.
I'd like to add - OP, just because you're uncomfortable with the situation doesn't mean you get to force your freshly re-traumatized daughter to accept an apology she does not want. Why are you making it her responsibility to ease your or your son's negative feelings? That's absolutely shameful.
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Update - 8 months later
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I want to thank people for the advice, some of it harsh but necessary. Unfortunately, things have not gotten better. My son's grounding came to an end, and he got supervised access to his phone, video games and friends back. My daughter was livid with us about it, and no amount of explanation that continual punishment for a year wasn't an option made that understandable to her. I get that from her point of view, but it began to strain her relationship with me and her dad too. She still ignored my son, and he still cried and was depressed over it. I booked three sessions of expensive family counselling and made her come, but she just kept her earbuds on, with music playing, the entire time.
She turned 18 in January. My son dipped into his savings to get her a necklace. I gave it to her and told her it was from him after she opened it, and she threw it away. Within a few days, she had moved out and into her best friend's parent's house without telling us she was going to. I invited her home for Easter, and she didn't come because her brother (who had nowhere else to go) would be here.
I'm still at a loss. Her graduation is next week and we weren't formally invited by her - we basically got an "I guess you can come" when I asked. My son obviously isn't invited, and he's still struggling mentally with all of this; therapy and medication hasn't helped much, but our options of what we can afford are very limited.
Has anyone been here? I never dreamed of having children estranged from each other and a daughter who pulled away from us over her brother's idiotic mistake.
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Comments
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Mannings4head
I think you need to understand that your daughter is under no obligation to ever forgive her brother. She was sexually abused as a child, which is something most people never fully recover from, and then was violated in another way by her own brother. A very personal part of her story was shared without her consent and that's never going to be okay. If a friend of hers did this, most people would say to cut that friend out of your life. It's unfortunate that it's her brother and has an impact on the entire family but your son made a "mistake" and has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
For the record, I generally am against the whole "cut them out of your life forever" line of thinking that is popular on Reddit but in this case it isn't your call. You don't get to tell her she has to forgive him. You don't get to decide when she should be over it. She is traumatized and has to do whatever she can to heal, including not being around someone who added to her trauma and made her life harder. I get wanting your kids to be close. I am currently on a road trip with my 2 kids to drop the eldest off for a summer internship and love the bond my kids have with each other, but they would never do something your son did. They know personal things about each other that no one else knows and are going to keep it that way. That's what siblings do. Your son messed that up, NOT your daughter so don't put the blame on her.
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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

My PA has been in recovery for almost 10 months now and is doing well. Unfortunately, I am not. We have a toddler together, and I am the primary parent. I am extremely bitter about my level of burnout. Even when my husband steps in to care for our kid, which he does frequently, it doesn't change things for me.
I've realized a big reason for this is that he acted out (cam girls, VR, and all the usual sites) while we were trying to get pregnant (the day I first ovulated, I came home to a "tired" husband and found lots of wet kleenex in the trash and later an account made on a porn site that day), while I was pregnant (and had HG), and he especially acted out in the first 5 months postpartum when I was at my most vulnerable, sleep deprived, and suffering from postpartum anxiety and depression. Our last D-Day was shortly after our baby turned 5 months.
Anyway, I'm now struggling a lot with rage toward my husband despite him being clean. I want to forgive myself and start on the road to forgiving him, but I am so filled with hate. I feel like he owes me a debt that he can never repay.
That's pretty much it. Looking for any advice or support anyone has to offer. If anyone is in a similar boat, I feel for you.

I was just in the recent post about small annoyances and I was about to comment on something SK12 does and realized that she no longer does it. She used to baby talk almost half or more of her conversations, but as I was thinking about it, I realized she no longer does.
I’m one that if I focus too much on the negative things that annoy me, they fester like a wound. Of course we need to vent and I’m not at all criticizing that other thread, but I wanted to also put up a discussion that allows us to also. Mention the good moments. Let’s discuss the things that, despite the faults and annoyances of BM and SKs, they did something positive and good. I’ll start…

• DH has been going through cancer treatments and we’ve had to be gone for weeks at a time a couple times. BM has willingly taken the SDs 10 & 12 without any issue. She’s a complete narcissist so I know she’s probably posting on social media with a lot of “look at me, I’m a great mom” but I don’t care what her motivations are, just that she hasn’t made our lives difficult through this.
  
• SDs alway tell us how good the food is here and that we’re much better cooks that BM. They’ve even told BM this. 😁 Since I’ve been doing all the cooking in recent months, I see this as quite the compliment!
  
• SD12 has been randomly helping to pick up things. I feel like we’ve been really hammering the idea of seeing what’s in front of them, dishes, dirty clothes, etc., It seems to be finally happening.
  
• We started a large kitchen remodel before DHs cancer diagnosis that is largely finished. We had planned on a rather big island and during the renovations, that island almost got cut down in size and I had to “fight” to keep it. I envisioned it as a gathering place for our blended family (3girls between us) and I didn’t want to sacrifice that dream. After 6 months, it has become EXACTLY. SKs come home from school and sit there and talk about their day, rather than running to their video games. My daughter (18) bakes and cooks with me and makes muffins for her step sisters all the time. It’s really brought our family together during a difficult time.
  

-SD10 shares proud moments with me looking for affirmation and signs that I’m proud of her.
Those are just a few. Sometimes I need to remind myself of the good things so I don’t focus on the ones that annoy me. It’s far from perfect and there are definitely times I wish SDs were here less or that we had more time for just us. This stepparent thing isn’t for the faint of heart!

This story takes place almost a year ago. I (18, non binary) have known my step-sister (17 F) for around five years. My mom and her dad are in a long distance relationship and we often spend weekends or holidays at eachother's houses, so that our parents can be together. We have very different personalities, but we always got along. For the sake of this post we will call her Stacy.
Our parents have this sort of tradition to go on holidays for one or two weeks during the summer with a bunch of friends and their kids. Each year, more people come, and this year we were almost 30 people. It's not a very fancy holiday, we go camping in little french villages (we are all french) but it's nice to hang out with the same people every year. The parents go on activities, the kids play together, and us teens hang out.
We are a little group of 5 teenagers; A (20M); E (15M); P(17M); Stacy and me. I've never been really close to E and P, i hang out more with A but im friendly with everyone.
This year, E and P became friend with 2 boys from the place we are camping at. They all looked very immature to me but again, I did not speak to them very much. I heard them make quite misogynistic comments, so I made a joke about "that's why I hate men". They all started trying to debate with me but as soon as i tried making the conversation "serious" (explaining the roots of misandry, the fact that it is more of a reaction to misogyny than true hatred) I realised they did not want to learn at all and just wanted to annoy me. Also, they were clearly less educated than i thought on the subject (they didn't know what patriarchy was, and seemed truly baffled when i told them rape was a real issue for women and not isolated incidents). I soon ran away from the debate, and left thinking they were idiots and wondering why my friends/acquaintances would hang out with them.
The next day, we were hanging out outside after dinner as usual. We passed by a big wooden structure (made for kids to play) and realised the two dumb boys were at the top of it. When they saw us (and, particularly, me) they started screaming "nique les femmes" ("fuck women") to annoy me. I didn't react at all. So they kept on screaming various insults and laughing, until they said "nique les pds" ("fuck f@ggots", although i feel like the french word is even more hurtful but i don't have an english equivalent). I am a lesbian, and even before coming out i have always been proudly defending LGBTQ+ rights. E and P are not outright homophobic but they are a bit uncomfortable around the subject, which is why A asked me to keep the secret about him being pansexual around them so that it would not be awkward. Stacy always acted like an "ally" to me ; she's a bit of a stereotypical straight girl who loves her gay best friend, but i thought : "at least she has the right spirit !".
Anyway, when I hear the homophobic slur i react very seriously : it is not childish provocation now, but serious slurs that i do not tolerate. As i felt like they were a little bit scared of me, i asked them to come down, implying if they did not, there would be consequences. Scaring them worked, but they did not come down, and tried justifying their words by even more homophobic sentences. It has been over a year so i don't remember exactly what they said, but it was along the lines of "im not homophobic, i just hate f@gs" ; "lgbt are unnatural, it's not my fault it's just true" ; "be glad you're alive because you should'nt" ; "i have no issues with gays and their life choices"... etc It felt very violent to me but i did not let it show. At some point, what they said was so illogical it was funny (one of them said "im not homophobic, i just say homophobic things !" And his friend answered "wait, homophobic is hating lgbt people right ? So we are homophobic !"). I looked at A in disbelief and he thought the situation was comic too, but did not intervene as he wanted to stay closeted there (which i fully understand).
So i turned to Stacy, E and P, thinking they would also see how comical this whole situation is. P and E said coldly they "did not want to enter the debate" and Stacy ignored me completely. It came as a shock to me : how could they see it as a debate ?? It was just two guys screaming slurs at me and telling me I should die ??? I felt on the verge of breaking down and i walked away, still hearing them screaming after me and laughing.
I had a big panic attack after, slowly realising what just happened, and i called a friend to calm down. Nobody from the group checked up on me. After around an hour,I walked back to our mobil-home in the shared room of stacy and I. The next morning, we did not speak. I was still very angry and disappointed. At lunch, i talked about the literal hatecrime that happened (not mentioning my step-sisters lack of reaction) but she intervened and said angrily "C'est pas à moi de mener tes combats" ("i dont have to fight your battles"). I was again, shocked, and did not say anything so that the situation didn't escalate.
In the afternoon, I asked to talk to her and told her what i thought about what happened, and how hurt i was. Her explanation was that she was annoyed i "debated with her friends and ruined the soiree" and that the evening sucked because of me. I told her that it made no sense because she always says she "accepts everyone" but when something happens right in front of her, she is quiet. She said that her definition of accepting everybody was accepting "people like me" and "people like them". Finally she admitted her reaction (or lack thereof) was wrong. I told her i did not forgive her, and the conversation ended there. We did not talk for the rest of the holidays, i have unfollowed all (except A, of course) of them and i feel a lot better. Also, i already have my own flat and study away from my parents, so i wont have to see Stacy anymore. So, AITA for ruining the soiree and making a big deal out of it ?

Our relationship has been moving very quickly and I am feeling overwhelmed.
We have been together for 11 years, and finally got married two months ago. About two weeks before the wedding, my partner announced to me that he was trans, and promptly started testosterone a few days later. In some ways, this was not surprising at all, but all the same I was kind of shocked. I have no problem with him transitioning, I love him for the person he is, not the gender he is (I am queer anyways and am attracted to masculinity and femininity). But it is still a big change up in our lives.
About three weeks ago, he broached the subject to me about opening our relationship two two friends of ours (both ~30M, in a polyamorous relationship with each other). He did not want to have sex with them, only explore kink. I was totally blindsided.
My partner is asexual. In all honesty, it has caused some problems, but overall we have been able to maintain a relatively happy sex life. It took us 4 years before we had penetrative sex, and he did not enjoy it, so we have found other ways to be sexual with each other. It has unfortunately, to my own admission, left me with some major insecurities. When I look at my partner I am completely taken by him; He is my best friend, I find him wildly attractive, and when I look at him I feel this powerful mixture of sexuality and romance. He does not feel the same. He has always told me that sex is unimportant and uninteresting to him, and that while he enjoys making me feel good, and does feel good himself when we have sex, that if we stopped tomorrow and never had sex for the rest of our lives, he wouldn't think twice about it.
For 10 years I have struggled with this. How is it that he can so easily spark this sexual romantic passion in me, an indescribable feeling that I feel only for him, and yet I can't spark even a fraction of that same passion in him? It has left me feeling very inadequate, despite his reassurances.
This changed somewhat when he started testosterone. I think a major part of his uninterest in sex is that, even though we do not have penetrative sex, it made him feel like a woman. When he transitioned into being a man, I think he became more comfortable in his body and more sure of his identity in his mind. We started having more and better sex, and for the first time in 10 years, I felt like he was passionate about it.
When he told me he wanted to explore kink with these two friends, it hurt a lot. And I was confused. I was confused why his first instinct was to try new things with them instead of me. Why after 10 years of me trying and failing to spark sexual passion in him, suddenly these two friends could do it at the drop of a hat.
I was very uncomfortable (which I did express), but I agreed, which was a mistake. I have no problem with polyamory. A lot of my friends are polyamorous, two of my siblings are polyamorous. I get it: no one partner can give you everything and that's ok! I understand this, but when it came time for it in my relationship, it just became too much. I thought even though I was uncomfortable, I just needed to get used to it. If I said "No" right out of the gate, I would be upsetting my partner and my two friends, whereas if I said "Yes" I would only be upsetting myself, and that it would just be temporary. I was wrong. Honestly, in three weeks, they did not do too much, but my discomfort didn't go away, and it only got worse. I started feeling sick, having nightmares, and in the last week started having manic/depressive episodes (this has not happened to me before, all very new and hard).
It is irritating my insecurities and in addition feels like a breach of intimacy. If in my partner's eyes we are best friends and I am someone who they trust enough to be sexual with, what does it mean when they find another close friend who they also trust enough to be sexual with? What does that make our relationship? What am I to them? Am I special? Why do I need to feel special in the first place? I don't know the answer to these questions, all I know is that the act of being sexual is special to me and I want it to be something only we share with each other.
Last night I told him that I thought I could handle him having a sexual relationship with someone else, but now know that I cannot. I asked him to please stop having a sexual relationship with our friends. He agreed, which made me feel relieved, but said he was very angry and disappointed in me. He said that I was being controlling by setting a boundary which restricted his use of his own body and bodily autonomy. I agree. But I also feel like when you are in a relationship, there is a small degree of control when it comes to boundaries, and that maybe that's ok. He said that at this point, he is uninterested in a sexual relationship with anyone, them or me, and that he would not be backing down from this.
I told him my therapist recommended we go to couples therapy, and that I wanted to try to work out our problems as a team, but he said he was uninterested. He slept on the couch last night, took his wedding ring off, and left it at home today. He is going on a day trip with those friends, and I trust them (I am talking to them today too to set the boundary) but I feel dejected and hurt. He feels hurt too. I just don't know what to do.
TLDR: My relationship to my partner is moving fast! He transitioned right before our wedding, is asexual, but wanted to open the relationship to explore kink with two friends. I trepidatiously agreed, but ended up feeling hurt. When I said I wanted him to stop, he agreed, but said I was controlling. Now we're both hurt and I don't know how to keep up with a relationship moving this fast.