Tell me mopod cheats for moshi monsters

Right off the bat, seeing a counter go down from 2024 to 1990 made me think there's some kind of flashback at play. Given the reverence the devs have for the past and the fact literal first second of the game is spent in 2024 (on a technicality), maybe we play across multiple characters and eras at some point? It could just be a nice visual gimmick telling the player the game takes place in 1990 but given the stellar reviews, Im expecting everything to have some kind of hidden purpose insttead of just being a gimmick.
And to follow up on that, Mara is very insistent she is Mara Forest and I better really remember that she is Mara Forest, Special Agent. Me thinks the lady dost insist too much! Given what I said before, I'm sure you know what Im already guessing about her identity.
First screen- a small, run down employee parking lot with an abandoned car covered in debris, some chain link around me and some trash bags sitting around. This screen gave me some time to figure out things, like I had no clue I could move the camera at first, thought it was like RE with tank controls and static images. A few screens later I'd look around while running down a straightaway and realize "Omg thats right, I can see this area in full 3D, it's not static. Oh cool look at the back of this thing! Oooo memos on the walls!" The notion I could look around for tons of info and puzzle? Loved it.
But Im getting ahead of myself. FIrst screen. Unlimited ammo in the trunk? You bet I started trying to shoot out car windows and objects. Nothing broke, I was sad. Welp, reload, lets go to the next screen. (There are some things to find here, so search around)
Ticket booth comment- lol.
I was asked if I want to pick stuff up and I quickly got the notion I should NOT pick up many items yet bc the ammo may be scarce, the car is loaded.
My assumption is I can keep reloading at the car early on to save ammo until the car gets compromised, then Ill be wanting all the ammo around the early areas of the park.
The moving mushrooms, staff memos and fog are all appropriately creepy as are the occasional spots of blood and an empty backpack. I skip the first area I can go into because I havent finished running all the way down this alley and I- oop, there's a guy. I had a small and a large med kit, you get the small one buddeh and you be grateful for it.
Later on I find out large med kits have antidotes and this guy also complains in my car about not feeling well. Uh oh. I think I was supposed to give him a large kit to stop him from monsterizing. I try shooting him through my window multiple times...Ok I tried shooting him in the dick when he was on the ground, too. Sue me, Im a 90s kid. BTW slight error, I hadnt aactually encountered any monsters yet but she tells the reporter she ran into a monster and it hurt her. I notice blood on her back, too. Now I DID step on a bear trap earlier so maybe having any damage triggers her to say that line? Or maybe she says it no matter what bc the devs assume I'd go forward and find trouble before heading all the way back to the car to check on this dude? Or did something happen to her before the game starts? Guess Ill find out.
I make note of the MULTITUDE of key holes, potential puzzles, codes on the floor, etc and finally encounter my first enemies in the hall. I get the distinct vibe they're reluctant to hurt me. After I go down the hall, save at the fireplace and exit, I let one attack me. It's just a push and then he sounds kind of broken up about it as I lie there dead. The fact I could still spin the camera while dead had me excited there'd be something unique that'd happen but after a minute I restarted. At this point, my veteran survival horror game instincts were like "yea, just run around these dudes, dont waste ammo"
I found a few more nice areas like the excavation site and saw something about Roots being disturbed by the excavation company. Very shady. between that, gold in a trunk and a book about the gold rush, Im expecting greed gone horribly wrong, releasing something like in Ghosts of Mars. But why are there so many humans contaminated? I get the feeling the park was closed and no one was there. It doesn't sound like there was a horrible publicized accident. Maybe they're the excavators? Doubt it. And then I find a mega skeleton man. By luck I got him stuck on a metal pipe near the crow, so I could pick easy close range headshots. Stilllll took forever, tons of wasted ammo. And he was super easy to avoid AND he dropped nothing. At that point I decided to restart, avoid grabbing most items and ammo and go from there.
Throughout, there is a great atmosphere of claustrophobic tension. Nothing revolutionary, just a great, well done vibe, excatly what it needs to be. Im dying to uncover the mystery of whats going on, why fake Mara...I mean Mara is here, why she's dying to meet Mr. Crow, what this monster outbreak is, etc.
Life gets in the way so Idk if Ill continue these write ups but I figured fans of the game might enjoy reading a breakdown and recap from the perspective of fresh eyes.
Peace!

I (f19) and my ex boyfriend (m19) dated for about 2 years. Throughout our whole relationship there was always some issues, like all relationships have, but as time went on there would be times when everything was amazing, and then there would be periods on time when it seemed like everything I did upset him and I was always doing something wrong. He always had a lot of trust issues with me, even though I never gave him any reason to not trust me, he just was never able to fully trust that I wasn’t cheating on him, wasn’t looking for another guy, wasn’t thinking about how much hotter other men were, things like that. Anytime I went to work he asked about every conversation I had with another male and what every little thing we talked about was. He basically could be the only male in my life or he thought something fishy was going on. He would always get mad at me for the smallest things especially near the end. What lead me to break up with him was that I felt like I never made him happy, every day, multiple times a day there was always something that I did that would make him upset. I just felt like I was always making the wrong decisions. He also didn’t let me fully be who I was because he wasn’t accepting of the things I like and wanted to do. It was hard being myself when he didn’t like who I was so much. I was also made guilty for everything that happened. I started hanging out with a group a friends and he made me feel guilty that I liked spending time with them, and that I liked having friends. If there were times I wasn’t in THE MOOD to do something he would get sad and turn away and make me feel guilty that I didn’t want to. Whenever I would try to voice my concerns about our relationship he would turn it on me and make me feel like the bad guy, or would get defensive and get mad at me that I felt a certain way. I was sick of feeling like a terrible person all the time for reasons I should not have, so I broke it off and he started realizing that things he was doing weren’t that good. For a bit it seemed like he could change and get better.
A little bit before I broke up with him, I met this guy from the group of friends I would hangout with, he kind of popped up out of no where and was treating me better than my own boyfriend, he liked me for who I was, he showed me what being accepted felt like, what not getting upset for silly things felt like, it was just a whole new world and it was a little relieving to have around. After we broke up I made some decisions that weren’t my best decisions. My ex boyfriend and I were saying that we could work on us again after we have been alone for a bit and he works on himself. I ended up cuddling with this guy and kissed him once. My ex would ask me if I had done anything with said friend and I was so scared that I lied and I said no. I ended up lying a lot and I regret every single one. I’m not perfect and I’m going to make mistakes and I am certainly not proud of how I handled that situation. Recently my ex went through my phone without me knowing and saw that some things were going on with my friend and he got very upset with me. Which I totally understand I lied and said nothing was happening. He hates me so much he keeps telling me how terrible of a person I am and “fuck you” and just keeps rubbing it in that I hurt him. I know I did he doesn’t need to keep putting salt in the wound. I e apologized which I know isn’t going to make it better, but I’m learning from all of this and I really am going to be alone and work on myself for a while. I’ve never felt worse about myself, I’ve gotten low points in my life but I have never been this low. It doesn’t make it easier when I keep getting told how awful I am and all the shitty things I did.
My ex is telling me that in order for him to not block me I have to cut this friend out of my life for good. It was weird feeling so accepted and loved by someone, it was weird not fighting and getting “in trouble” over small things. It was weird feeling like I actually made someone happy to be around me. I was just getting all confused when a guy came in and was being better than my own boyfriend was. I feel so stuck because with this friend it feels so much more freeing and he’s said he will always cheer me on no matter what, and that he likes me for me and he doesn’t expect me to change for anyone. He’s always going to stay by my side and always makes me feel good about myself. But then there’s my first love, I love him so much and I would love to see things work out between us but the cycle of things I was put in with him were not healthy for me. It was a very manipulative relationship and I would have to cut my friend out which might result in me losing all of my friends.

Me and my husband have been together for 6 years. We got married last October. Originally I called off the engagement because he proposed but didn’t make any effort to actually plan the wedding for almost 2 years. Previously he cheated in our relationship multiple times and gave me a std with our first pregnancy and I lost our daughter at 28 weeks! I was so lost I stayed with him but I always seemed to come last. He planned two fashion shows with cost upward of 1500$ but said he didn’t have money to plan for the wedding! After I called off the engagement I slept with another guy but before this I told him that I was talking to other people. Soon after I figured out I was pregnant and we got back together and proceeded with the wedding. Today I found out he lied and slept with one of his coworkers a little after I found out I was pregnant. He lied and he lied about money he spends lies about what he’s doing. We’ve tried counseling before the break up. He constantly chooses things over me. And I feel like this was just the last straw not to mention the day before he missed my brothers graduation and stayed home all weekend by himself because he had a fashion show and basketball. I’ve been telling him about this graduation for months and he says I didn’t tell him. I’ve been with him literally my whole adult life and he’s been my only partner besides the guy I slept with when we broke up. He claims it’s in the past and I doesn’t matter because I slept with someone else.

TW for sexual, physical, medical, emotional, and religious abuse, childhood sa, suicidal ideation, and self harm
This past week has been incredibly difficult so I decided it would be good for me to write a letter to my mom to keep for myself during my healing process to get everything out and it's been very cathartic (all fake names used). Part of my healing journey has been sharing my (extremely personal) experience with others who understand, hence why I'm sharing this here, and maybe it'll give someone some strength knowing that I made it out. I hope everyone is kind to themselves this week and was able to treat this holiday as a holiday for themselves for surviving their abusive moms!
Dear mom, Happy belated Mother’s Day. My Mother’s Day was spent being upset and anxious so I decided to write this letter. This letter is so incredibly difficult to write and even more difficult to read back to myself. Moving away from my university and back home during COVID was genuinely one of the most difficult things I have done in my life simply because of all of the repressed memories that flooded back into my brain every single day I was in that house. I used to resent the pandemic for forcing me to live in an environment that made me want to harm myself every single day and die every other day, but I am now thankful for the clarity that it brought me as I don’t think I’d have the foresight that I have now.
There is a lot that I want to say. I am angry, bitter, resentful, and traumatized from things that you have done to me as a child and also as an adult. Growing up, you’re never able to fully recognize what is healthy because whatever you experience will be your barometer for normalcy. I thought for a very long time that thing were normal but thank God I now know just how truly fucked up so many of my childhood experiences were. Not a single day goes by where I don’t think about the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that I went through. I am haunted every single day by things that you did (and some things that you didn’t do) and hope that one day I will be able to heal from what I experienced.
I grew up being close to my cousin Chloe (a year younger than me) who was obviously very bitchy, mean, and abusive. This fact isn’t something you weren’t aware of as I know a fully grown adult would be able to see how she treated and talked to me when around you and come to the obvious conclusion that I should not have been allowed to be around her. She bullied me, called me names, physically assaulted me by pushing me, pulling my hair, and sitting on me with my hands held behind my back until I couldn’t breathe, forced me to bathe in scolding hot bath water that would burn my skin, making me undress and make fun of parts of my body, and forced me to watch things that she knew would scare me. This is the same time that I started having insomnia and struggled in school due to anxiety. It’s also the same time I remember my sound sensitivity starting. Do you remember my childhood friend’s mom Amelia and how protective she was over my friend, Diana? Diana met Chloe at my 9th birthday party and Diana went over to her house for a playdate and Chloe did something to her. She physically reached over and groped Diana on the privates. I knew Amelia IMMEDIATELY prevented her daughter from ever being around Chloe again. I also knew that it's possible she mentioned this to my aunt, but I'm not positive. I know that Amelia is the type of mom to prevent Diana from reading Harry Potter because she thought it was a bad influence on her due to being “demonic”, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she made you aware of what Chloe did to Diana as she knew that I spent a lot of time around her. I doubt that what Chloe did to Diana was ever kept a secret from you. Chloe also forced me to do sexual things I didn’t want to do from roughly the ages of 8-11. One time, we were in her kitchen and she pulled out a knife and said that she was going to stab me. By then, I knew she just wanted to scare me so when I had no reaction, she put the knife away. I was terrified of what would happen if I said no to her so I went along with whatever she wanted. She would go into the bathroom and tell me to follow, would lock the door, and make me take off my clothes and let her do things to me and forced me to do the same things to her. I used to think that you had NO IDEA about this until I remember you saying the words- “you were an amazing kid and never had any problems until you got a little older. I always wondered if something happened.” Who the fuck says that to their kid? Yeah, something did happen and it wouldn’t have happened if you protected me!!!! You fucking idiot!!!! I remember being in our new house and taking a shower with you when I was about 8 (which was VERY inappropriate and should NEVER have happened at all) and saying something that clearly made you uncomfortable. I remember the exact face you made and know that any normal, healthy adult would have done something about it and made sure nothing was happening. They would have made sure I was SAFE, and talked to me about safety, but nothing was said or done. You have failed me many times, but this one is the most painful. Not only will you need to live with the fact that you knew about my abuse and did nothing, but I will have to live with the fact that my mom knew "something happened” and didn’t care about me enough to protect me. I look at my beautiful niece Hallie, and imagine not protecting her like that and want to vomit. I cannot fathom how a mother would have the thought “I wonder if something happened to my daughter to case a massive behavioral change” and NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! You didn’t talk to me, never asked me if Chloe was doing anything, or anything at all. If I even had a minor suspicion that something was happening to Hallie, I would IMMEDIATELY do something about it because THAT IS MY JOB as an adult in her life. You failed me and deserve to know that this traumatized me and gave me PTSD. I am NOT autistic, no matter how much you WANT me to be so you can go around and gain sympathy for “having an autistic daughter” rather than owning up to the fact that you caused what “went wrong” with me.
Not only did you not help prevent me from being molested by my cousin, you also added to my sexual trauma by forcing me to use the giant egg monistat insert to treat a yeast infection when I was 11. I was ELEVEN and you had a bright idea to force a HUGE foreign object into my prepubescent body even though you were fully aware I could have easily gotten a prescription for a pill to swallow from a doctor. I was scared. I had so much pain and itching and needed a mother to hug me, tell me it’s going to be okay, or at the very least, EXPLAIN what I had and how we were going to fix it. You didn’t do any of that. You told me to lay down and proceeded to try and administer medication that is NOT meant for children 12 and under due to the physical damage it could cause. I was clearly in pain and scared, but you kept trying anyways. At any point, you could have stopped and taken me to the fucking doctor, but nope. You then got frustrated that “you couldn’t get it in” and told your 11 year old daughter to shove it inside herself. Then you left the room. I hadn’t even had a period yet, let alone know where my vagina was but you sure felt the need to yet again abandon your parental responsibilities and place them onto your kid! Miraculously, I put it in and wobbled out to lay on the couch because I was in physical pain from BOTH the infection and YOU, but because a child’s body isn’t able to properly fully insert the medication used (which once again I’ll remind you is meant for girls 13 and up), it came out and got on the couch because you didn’t give me a pad. And rather than prioritize your own daughter’s health, safety, wellbeing, and comfort, you were more upset about the stain on the couch and yelled at me. I will never forget in all of the years that I am alive how ashamed and disgusted I felt standing behind you watching you furiously scrub at the stain that I caused (actually, that YOU caused since this never should have happened in the first place!) and feeling a huge flood of guilt every time I saw that couch stain. One of the best days of my life was when we got a new couch and I never had to see that stain again.
All of this caused me to develop anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and ideation, self harming behaviors, having out of body experiences where I dissociate, and panic attacks amongst other things. YOU caused ALL of this and you fought tooth and nail to convince me that it was MY fault for being broken. “There’s something going on with you,” and you made it your mission to never take any responsibility for any of the trauma that you caused. Not only did you ignore all signs of abuse and sexually assault me yourself, you bullied and helped a family friend Sharon bully me when I was “being mean” to (her daughter) Faith. I was treated like I was a mentally ill monster who couldn’t be trusted and always got in trouble whenever Faith shed a single tear because I was “mean to her”. Faith cried at LEAST 15x a day, and I was blamed every time she decided to say I was the reason. You allowed a monster (Sharon) to ABUSE me and had the incredibly wise idea to start passing along what shit talking you two would say about me TO ME, a 13 year old girl. I was THIRTEEN. I was A CHILD. And yet, you came crying and complaining to me about how tired you were of hearing Sharon say I was being mean to her daughter when you could have TOLD THE OTHER ADULT IN THE SITUATION TO STOP. It never was my responsibility as a child to try and make another adult stop abusing me by “behaving better.” There was nothing wrong with how I was behaving. You never once tried to help me, you always blamed anybody and everybody else for your failures. I would come and ask you for help when I was struggling and if you didn’t care, you would pawn it off to somebody else- “go talk to your older sister” “talk to your therapist about that” “I don’t know what to say except to tell you to pray about it” and when I came back saying praying didn’t magically fix my depression, you told me to pray harder. I guess you really thought it was a skill issue rather than a diagnosable health condition! No wonder I wanted to die! Hahaha! I’ll never forget the look of disgust on your face when I was sobbing hysterically and struggling to get out the words when I told you just how badly I was affected by Sharon and said how you played a role in helping her harm and abuse me. “WELL. I’m SORRY if you think I didn’t protect you enough. I know what that feels like because my parent’s took my sister’s side a few weeks ago when we were having an argument” (as FULLY GROWN 50+ YEAR OLDS arguing and bitching LIKE CHILDREN!) No, mom, it’s not the same. I was a child and not only did you not stop an abuser from harming me, you joined in. You allowed her access to me and you passed along what horrible things she said was wrong with me. “SHARON said she thinks YOU’RE BIPOLAR. Do you think you are?” “Sharon told me that you’re having AN EPISODE and are being mean to Faith! Show me your phone!” “Well, I just don’t understand why you keep bringing this up when it happened so long ago. I just hope you can forgive her and move on.” You’re fucking disgusting. Should I go into detail about how many times I asked you to not interact with Sharon more than you needed to and you proceeded to try and force her into my life more? You KNEW how uncomfortable I was with you attending Faith’s wedding and yet, you cared more about how you looked and not only attended, but hosted both her wedding and wedding showers. I have always wondered why you never cared how I feel until I realized that you prioritize yourself and how you look to other people above anything and everyone. There is a clear pattern of behavior-

• When I was 17 and you were painting my fingernails and berating me for wanting to visit my friend up in Boston to see a concert together because “you just didn’t understand why I’d want to do that” and I started crying. You rolled your eyes and said “you better leave now if you don’t want my next client to see you crying because her appointment is in a few minutes.” You cared more about having your random client seeing me cry and potentially thinking you’re a bad mom than comforting me.
• When I was 13 and we were saying our nightly prayer the night that I had my “therapy appointment” (aka, you and my “therapist” chastising me for writing in my diary that I was having suicidal thoughts), when you were praying you said “Dear God, please help (my name)… and… pLEASE HELP ME!!!!” Clearly, YOU were affected more than I was even though I was the one wanting to die because of you. Wow. Your life is so hard!
• Telling everyone around you that I “have problems” and am “really struggling” so you can gain an ounce of sympathy. The way that your friends come up and talk to me is baffling. They treat me like I just got home from the psychiatric hospital.
• Laughing about me with my friends in high school when I was out of the room- “hahaha my daughter is sooooo weird hahaha”
• When I was 18 and you called my “therapist” (who did NOT get my consent before doing this and violated her ethical guidelines) after I moved out and stopped talking to you, you got her to help you write a list of “rules” to force me to stay in contact with you. They consisted of requiring me to “talk to you, dad, or my sister at least 1x/day” so you “knew that I was safe” aka, you wanted to control me even though I was an adult and not living in your house. I was perfectly safe, and yet you made me sound like I was doing drug deals in the morning, prostituting myself after lunch, and had plans to commit felonies later that night. I went to school, ate, and went back to my apartment. You had no right manipulating me into talking to you by using my therapist, dad, and sister against me. Pathetic.
• Telling me to go do my runs on a strange man’s property instead of the road because it’s “safer.” Dad said that this man who I’VE NEVER MET told him that “there are bad people out there who will kidnap her and do horrible things to her, SO INSTEAD she should run on MY property!” Not sketchy or rapey at all, right? And completely dismissing me when I said that made me uncomfortable by saying “my dad knows him”? Lady, do you know any rape statistics? Clearly not, because you’d then know that only 7% of assaults are strangers while 93% are family members or acquaintances. NINETY THREE PERCENT. The amount of times that I’ve mentioned someone made me uncomfortable or had a massive affect on me as a child and you’ve replied with “Oh, well did they touch you?” People don’t have to touch me to traumatize me. You’re pathetic for thinking that.

I’m not mad at Chloe. I don’t feel any anger or ill will towards her at all. She was a child just like I was a child. She was failed more than I was failed. No child acts that way and assaults other children without learning that from somewhere. I blame her parents for what happened to her. I blame YOU for what happened to me. I vividly remember things that my aunt would say the same time this was happening about little girls and their bodies and I want to smash my head against the wall. Children are to be protected above anything and everything else, by you didn’t. Do I hate Faith and think that she’s a bad person because of what happened when we were 13? No. I fully blame you and Sharon. The amount of adults that have failed me in my life keep me up at night. I think about how different my life would be had dad been more involved and seen what was going on and taken me away from you. I am angry with him for that. I dream one day I will be able to sit down with him and tell him everything I have written about and he will hug me, support me, cry with me, and apologize for not being there more to protect me. But who knows, he might defend his child abusing, mentally ill wife and say I’m making up everything. Who knows.
Do you want to know what my sister said when I told her all of this? She apologized to me for not being 15 years older than I am so she could have raised me instead. I want you to sit here and think about how fucked up that is. My own sister wishes she could have taken me away from you so you couldn’t have abused me. I imagine the pressure she must have felt having to grow up while also raising her mother and sister and I sob for her. I’ve sobbed for me for the mental anguish and torture I experienced at your hands. I’ve even sobbed for you because I can’t imagine being even a fraction of how fucked up you are to resort to abusing and neglecting your child- a child you begged to have. A child you had trouble having and prayed for. Embarrassing.
I’m never going to have a relationship with you again. If God is willing, I will never have to interact with you ever again. Saying that phrase “if God is willing” is ironic because you forcing me to pray my problems away rather than helping me led me to not believe in him. How can I believe in something that also neglected me? I’d sit in my dark bedroom night after night praying and sobbing for him to help me. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I felt broken and alone. I now know that I was a child praying for God to take away my PTSD, and that is not possible. My heart breaks for that child.
You’re a pathetic excuse for a mother and human being. I’m truly shocked that I survived you and your abuse. I’m surprised that I didn’t ever try to kill myself to try and get away from you because you’re a vulture that prays on innocent people. The only important people in your life are people you think will give you something or will make you look good. That’s why you refused to ever cut ties with Sharon, you knew she was sexually abused as a child and you couldn’t POSSIBLY NOT be her friend because you need her to be your “friend,” or rather, your token sexually abused as a child friend. I genuinely hope that you get better and become a normal healthy person but I won’t ever be around to see it. I hope you feel even a fraction of the pain and abandonment that I have felt my entire life. Happy Mother’s Day, but today isn’t Mother’s Day for me, it’s Daughter’s Day. Moving far away from you one month ago has truly saved my life. Instead of trying to survive, I am enjoying my life. I would have died in that house. I get to finally celebrate being away from you and celebrate myself for staying strong and fighting when I could have easily given up. You once told me “you feel like I HATE you!” to guilt me into fawning over you and telling you how much I loved you, but now you get the opposite. I DO hate you and hate how you have permanently changed me and I wish to never see you again. Instead of praying for the “God forsaken, atheist, lost, evil, liar, miserable, spiteful, hateful, disgusting, mentally ill, “autistic” daughter, pray for yourself. Pray for God’s forgiveness for emotionally, medically, physically, sexually, and religiously abusing and neglecting me. You deserve to remain in your "clueless" state of "having NO IDEA what you did wrong to make her stop talking to me!" for the rest of your life.Happy Daughter’s Day.

Last year my wife suggested opening the marriage for the duration of February, the month that I went to a surgery in my home country, I first rejected as it's not my thing and after she said that was what she wanted I ended up accepting (maybe for fear of loosing her), and I put some rules on place.
1 can't be someone around us 2 can be at our house 3 can't repeat 4 we would never talk about what happened.
First week off the month I did had a chance of having Sex with someone else and I just didn't want to, didn't feel like doing that, and that same week she had friends that came over so she didn't do anything...
On second week about 2 days before my surgery she told me that her friend from work had friends over his house and she offered our house for him to stay. (I didn't like that, but didn't say anything to not sound jealous)
On my surgery day 10 of February this guy comes to my house, after my surgery we messaged each other and she mentioned he was in my house with her and said me to not worry about and I said her I wasn't worried saying "I trust you blindly" not to mention I was full of morphine and pain killers going through a lot of pain, so, that wasn't something I was worried about.
11 of February, I go to my parents house and after a day where everything went wrong I broke down and started to message her telling that I don't want to keep the agreement, that is not something I want, that I'm happy with her and I don't want to be with anyone else and she got kinda of angry about all that conversation telling me that she does not see her having Sex with only one person for the rest of her life and now that I don't let her anything she can't do what she wants and when I come back home we talk about that, and I explained her that I accept that because I was afraid of losing her, to be complacent and things like that.
During this conversation I'm asking her for stop the agreement they kissed each other.
After the kiss she got a bit shocked and went to our room alone.
Next day I woke up and because I was afraid, I apologize her about last night conversation and told her we could keep the marriage opened as she wanted, but I added a new rule, that was I wanted to know everything she did, she gets in to angry like texting saying she's confused about me blocking the agreement, unblocking it again, but adding more rules... I told her that was my right and she had the obligation of telling me, she said that makes no sense because we both know that I wouldn't handle that well, so she wouldn't do anything and I said that was my right , if I could not handle we break up or whatever, she ends this afternoon conversation saying she does not want to talk about that.
On that same night she went to a disco with friends and coworkers, she came back and bring this same friend home and they start to have Sex in the sofa and end in the guest room.
Somewhere around the end of February we had a phone call where she brings up this subject again and we had an argument about she saying that telling me about the adventures was an absurd and after few justification from my side I get angry and tell her to do whatever she wants and don't tell me anything because I didn't care anymore and when I get back home we talk about the future of our relationship.
Few days later on 23 February she went to a company dinner and they all end up in the disco, she came back home alone because the friends stayed on the street close to my home, she sent me a text message saying she got home and give me good night, after that she rang this guy and ask him to come to our house, they stayed in the sofa talking and touching each other until fall asleep, few hours later they wake up and went to the room for have sex again, after that she text me as usual.
After that I came back to our home and our relationship was desgracefull for about 1 month, she didn't want to have sex with me at all, when we can handle this situation anymore I open the conversation about divorce and after I stated to cry a lot and she suggests us to give another chance.
After that our relationship went up very fast and stayed in a level that we never experienced before.
Few months later she brings me to meet friends and introduce me to this friend who she had sex with, it's a very friendly and handsome guy and him and I spoke quite a lot only 2 of us.
After that my wife and I went out 2 more times where this guy was present.
Middle August she went to his house once for bbq with all friends from work in a day that I was working, at this time this guy is starting a relationship with another woman from work.
End of September after I had my gallbladder removed and was recovering she invited me to go with her to his house for a BBQ, this guy gave me a hand shake so long looking deeply in to my eyes that I felt very uncomfortable with, so much that I never forgot.
After that bbq things started to get complicated in their friendship as they have a lot of values differences and she is the manager and had to report him, they ended up meeting in a pub for "break up" their friendship.
End of November we decide go for a baby.
End of December this guy leave the company and we get to know she's pregnant.
3 weeks ago I involuntarily made few connections in my head and confronted her about what happened between them in February and she confess to me everything.
Now I'm struggling a lot to deal with all this.
she asked for open the marriage, against my heart I accepted and not satisfied with that she broke all the rules except the "no disclosure one" (the only one that was convenient to her).
In the same day I basically begged to stop all this story was the day she did something while telling me she wasn't going to do anything.
Next day she reaffirmed that she wasn't going to do anything and she had sex few hours later.
She introduced me to him, she brought me to his house.
She was going to keep this hidden from me forever.
I feel like the way she behaved was quite cruel.
She is in a tremendous pain seeing my suffering.
She told me she experienced that in a different way as didn't remember the rules, so she accepts the blame but doesn't see that she cheated on me
I love her a lot
After all this we improved our communication skills a lot..
We are 3 months away from having our first baby.
My life for the past 3 weeks is cry, have nightmares every night, feeling insecure about so many different things, have anxiety attacks quite often, I can't sleep without medication, sometimes I feel better and we do can do things.
I'm struggling a lot to get over all this story staying with her and afraid of if I leaving her and I regret as I feel she's the love of my life, as she's only 3 months from giving birth if we break up or give a time she will need to move to her country to have some family support, what will makes me lose the child birth.

I’d like to start off saying that I’m not looking for critique on what I should do going further unless you’ve read the full story, not just the TLDR. This situation is far more complicated and has been years in the making. If you want a rundown, I’ve put a TLDR at the bottom. I truly just need a space for me to type out my story and possibly maybe hear similar stories if anyone can relate. This is an extremely long post, and there’s a chance I ramble, so just as a warning
I’ll give some background before I say my case: I (22F) have been suspicious of my dad (50M) for the better part of my life. I have diagnosed anxiety and for the most part, I’ve thought my ideas and skepticisms on the matter as just intrusive thoughts. My dad and I have l always had a weird relationship. It doesn’t change how much I love him though. Even as I sit here today, I can’t in good conscience say I hate my dad. I love my dad. Even in his bad moments and questionable behaviors, hes my dad and usually my biggest of supporters. I think because of his bipolar nature it makes this situation so hard.
My mom and dad have been married for 25 years. Like I said before, they have four kids, both come from strict Catholic families, and share the same group of friends. On the outside, everyone can tell my dad loves my mom. He worships the ground she walks on, splurges on expensive gifts for her and is pretty openly affectionate. My mom, however, has never been vocal on her affections, inside and out of the house. Honestly, I can see how this affects my dad. Over the years, they’ve gotten shorter with each other, dad lashes out a bit more (something I’d say to remember as you keep reading), and will disappear into the night after a harsh argument.
I’d say this is where I start to get weird feelings on him. We all have a joint Life360. All of us, including our parents, can see where we are at all times. I’m fine with this, given at the time of this starting I was 20 and in college and I understand why a parent would want their kids locations. When checking the app, I started to notice my dad’s location being off at weird intervals of the night. If you have Life360, you’d know that it will tell you someone’s location has been turned off. Naturally, I’d ask my dad and he’d laugh it off saying his app was screwed up and he wasn’t sure why it was doing that and then 20 minutes later his location would be back on. Whatever, fine. The locations would only turn off around 11 P.M. on random evenings, usually when he was in town. He’d still throw the excuse that it was because he was just flying and airplane mode screws up Life360 (which isn’t true btw).
Anyways, I guess the meat of this story starts December of 2022. Dad’s anger is at weird levels. He’s arguing with my mom more and turning off his location. Me, being stupid, accused him of acting weird a few days before Christmas. Naturally he gets defensive and starts to say things like I’d never cheat on your mom, how could you accuse me of things like that, my phone is just wired. I’d argue back that I never accused him of cheating, just that he’s weird. That didn’t help my case. This is where his true character started to show. Threats of I’d cut you off from college (they pay for my schooling, car and phone), yelling at me for not showing respect for him, how he’s done so much for the family. After this argument I’d see him deleting no name contacts off of his phone after a conversation. I brought this up to my mom, and she tells me it’s probably work so I drop it. If my mom’s not worried why should I be.
After Christmas, we fly north to visit family since we’re the only ones down south. During our trip, he’d take my grandparents car (with their permission, these are my moms parents) to run errands for the Christmas parties that will be happening over the next couple of days. Once again, every time he’d go out his location would turn off. The tipping point for me was when he said he was going to fill up my grandparents car with gas. They live 5 minutes from a gas station. We had a reservation in an hour with his dad that we cannot be late to. My dad knew this. He was gone for an hour. Location off. He’s not contacting anyone, including my mom, on where he is. When he gets back, 5 minutes after when we were supposed to leave, he tells us all that there was an accident at the gas station and they needed him for a witness support. I shoot him down asking why his location was off and why he didn’t tell anyone this in front of my siblings, mom, and grandparents. They all laugh like it’s a joke but once I look at him he’s fuming. He tells me to get in the car so we can get to dinner.
Once we all pile in for dinner he screams at me, once again repeating the things he said before Christmas and how dare I accuse him of anything in front of his in-laws. When we finally parked the car and started to walk into the restaurant, he screams at me in the parking lot. My cousins and grandfather are standing outside watching him berate me in public. I’m 20 years old and he’s treating me like I’m 5. He told me he was going to stop paying for school and my rent this upcoming school year to teach me a lesson. I have never seen my father like this before, and true to his word, I paid for the first two months of my Spring 2023 school year. After some convincing from my mom, my dad texts me in March to not worry about the rent. I think after this is where I truly realize what’s at stake and what more I could lose if I try something like this again, and I never once verbally said he was cheating to anyone. Besides I had no proof.
In between this period, my mom and I have a huge heart to heart. I confess to her that her relationship with my dad is not something I view healthy, and I’m fearful that my marriage one day will look like theirs. I tell her I think she’s treated unfairly behind closed doors and she needs to step up for herself. She agrees but once I bring up divorce, she laughs and says she’d never in a million years consider that. She’d never get a divorce, and she kept reinforcing that. My parents are super Catholic, so I’m not surprised by this statement, but I feel like this paragraph is important to note.
Jump forward it May 2023. I’m off for the summer, in a limbo between end of the school year and starting my internship, so I’m back home. One evening my parents and I are watching a show in the living room. How we are all positioned makes it that my dad is in front of us. During a commercial break while my mom is getting water, my dad takes out his phone and starts texting, however it’s not on iMessage. It’s on Grindr. The only reason I know it was Grindr is because I have a few gay friends at school and I’ve seen some of their messages before. Honest to god, I’m shocked and paralyzed in my seat. What I’ve been suspicious about for the past half of the year is true. Just not in the sense I thought he was. Excusing myself to my room I go to recollect myself and reach out to two of my closer friends about the situation.
Over the next few months when I visit home, I start to document any instance I see him on the app or turning off his location. I have multiple videos of him texting people on Grindr. I’ve started to hint to my mom that something isn’t right and made out loud comments how weird dads been. Since last May, I’ve told my younger sister (F19) about my dad and showed her some evidence. She refuses to acknowledge the behavior and does not want to do anything about it. We’ll joke about it sometimes behind closed doors but when I bring it up to her today about telling my mom or talking to my dad, she gets fearful and thinks it’s stupid to do.
Which leads us to today. I am a fresh graduate from college. I’ve moved back home and am looking for work. And I know I’m being extremely selfish to everyone in my family for withholding this information. After countless talks with my therapist, she thinks it’s wise to not tell my dad or mom what’s happening, at least currently. Since I have been actually cut off from my dad and my mom has expressed that she doesn’t want a divorce and can’t really be bothered to look into the situation more, my therapist and a few of my friends agree to wait until I’m financially independent and moved out of the house. I think about telling my parents everyday what I know. But then I think of me, and my three younger siblings (the youngest is 13) who are still living at home, and the fact my mom is financially dependent on my dad. And I think the worst part and it makes me feel awful for even typing this, but it feels a bit easier to cope with this because my dad is exclusively talking to men. He’s not cheating on my mom with other women. My sister and I over the holidays looked to see if he had any of the other dating apps and we found nothing.
Honestly, a lot of you all might have read all of this and may still think I should tell my parents asap. Or question why I’m still waiting. I think I’m scared. I think I don’t want things to change. I don’t want to be blamed at or remembered as the daughter who ruined the **** family. I know it’s my dads fault and it’s not on me, but I’m scared I’ll truly lose my dad if I bring this to light. I’m scared my moms life will be flipped upside down forever. I’m scared my younger siblings will resent me for ruining our family and their cushy life will be lost.
I just needed somewhere to write this all down. I needed to get this off of my chest while I sit in my childhood bedroom. I’ve never felt more trapped and guilty in my life. It’s easier to forget that this is happening while I was at school, but now that I’m home, it’s harder to ignore. If anyone has any similar stories I’d love to hear them. There’s a lot more I’m leaving out so if there are questions I’ll try and answer them.
TLDR: was suspicious of my dad for cheating back in 2022 based on some behaviors and was cut off for two months when I asked what was up. Now I know he’s gay and is cheating on my mom and has been for maybe years. Mom doesn’t seem to worry/care about his behavior and Dad is still creeping around. Now that I’m back home the guilt of not saying a word to either of them is building up but I’m scared I’ll lose my family.

About 2 weeks ago my best friend and housemate got back with her ex boyfriend after 5 months of being broken up. I found out through bumping into the two of them crying outside my bedroom and him not leaving until the following morning. I asked my friend if everything was okay and her last words were basically "don't worry, I'm okay. I love you and I'll tell you everything tomorrow." The following day I heard nothing, just saw them walking down the street arm in arm. After a couple of days of radio silence (not including me hearing the two of them around the house since we live together) she reached out asking to speak to me to explain her situation. I told her I'll be home from work at 6pm and that she'll have an hour to speak to me because I had plans later in the evening. I got home at 6:08 and messaged her immediately to let her know I'm home. I didn't get a response until 7:30 when she messaged me apologizing saying she fell asleep after she laid down on her bed because she was nervous to speak to me and that she would never do it intentionally. I had heard that excuse before when she missed my birthday earlier this year to go to a gig. I was firm and told her I'm busy, feeling stupid after shifting my evening plans around to give her an opportunity to speak to me, just to sit in my room for over an hour waiting for her to respond.
Her return to her ex is a huge shock to me and I never saw it coming. It seemed to me that she understood how toxic the relationship was, it ending with her cheating on him. I initially met her when they were dating the first time around, and quickly learnt that he wasn't a good person or a good partner (misogynistic and controlling). I did my absolute best to support her, and she never failed to tell me that she trusts me and loves me like a sister. I think because I'm a few years older than her and we got close really quickly, I felt protective of her. In hindsight I probably should've set more boundaries.
There have been multiple times over the past 6 months where her life choices and behaviours have worried me, predominantly pertaining to drug use, eating disorders, and selfish behaviours. I recall at least two instances where I've tried to set boundaries and explain to her that I may have to take a step back from the friendship because her behaviours are triggering to me, and whilst she is an adult and will make her own decisions, I need to protect my sanity and not be so involved and available in her life if she doesn't think her behaviours are an issue. All of these instances were followed by her promising she loves me and appreciates me so much and that she's going to change. After the birthday incident she left a bag of gifts outside my bedroom door with a handwritten letter telling me how much she loves me. I cried and forgave her.
Because of all of this, I'm hurting so much more. I don't understand how she can tell me she loves me one day and then the next act like I don't exist and never mattered to her. She's taken me off her "close friends" list on Instagram, and any communication we've had since has been limited to brief texts about bills and household chores. She won't even look at me when I pass her in the kitchen. She's become even more disrespectful about keeping the house clean, promising she'll tidy up in the groupchat but then not doing it and ignoring my messages. I feel like she's being deliberately spiteful; yesterday I woke up to dog poop smeared outside my bedroom where she must've wiped her shoe on the carpet and left it overnight for whatever reason.
I've been in touch with one of her other friends whom she's close with, and he said she's been avoiding any conversation about her boyfriend with him also. I understand that she might be embarrassed to open up to me about it because she knows how poorly I think of the guy, but I don't understand her acting like she's angry with me or like I've done something wrong. Doesn't she understand how much this is hurting me? We've already signed our contracts to live here for another year and the tension in the house is killing me.

About 2 weeks ago my best friend and housemate got back with her ex boyfriend after 5 months of being broken up. I found out through bumping into the two of them crying outside my bedroom and him not leaving until the following morning. I asked my friend if everything was okay and her last words were basically "don't worry, I'm okay. I love you and I'll tell you everything tomorrow." The following day I heard nothing, just saw them walking down the street arm in arm. After a couple of days of radio silence (not including me hearing the two of them around the house since we live together) she reached out asking to speak to me to explain her situation. I told her I'll be home from work at 6pm and that she'll have an hour to speak to me because I had plans later in the evening. I got home at 6:08 and messaged her immediately to let her know I'm home. I didn't get a response until 7:30 when she messaged me apologizing saying she fell asleep after she laid down on her bed because she was nervous to speak to me and that she would never do it intentionally. I had heard that excuse before when she missed my birthday earlier this year to go to a gig. I was firm and told her I'm busy, feeling stupid after shifting my evening plans around to give her an opportunity to speak to me, just to sit in my room for over an hour waiting for her to respond.
Her return to her ex is a huge shock to me and I never saw it coming. It seemed to me that she understood how toxic the relationship was, it ending with her cheating on him. I initially met her when they were dating the first time around, and quickly learnt that he wasn't a good person or a good partner (misogynistic and controlling). I did my absolute best to support her, and she never failed to tell me that she trusts me and loves me like a sister. I think because I'm a few years older than her and we got close really quickly, I felt protective of her. In hindsight I probably should've set more boundaries.
There have been multiple times over the past 6 months where her life choices and behaviours have worried me, predominantly pertaining to drug use, eating disorders, and selfish behaviours. I recall at least two instances where I've tried to set boundaries and explain to her that I may have to take a step back from the friendship because her behaviours are triggering to me, and whilst she is an adult and will make her own decisions, I need to protect my sanity and not be so involved and available in her life if she doesn't think her behaviours are an issue. All of these instances were followed by her promising she loves me and appreciates me so much and that she's going to change. After the birthday incident she left a bag of gifts outside my bedroom door with a handwritten letter telling me how much she loves me. I cried and forgave her.
Because of all of this, I'm hurting so much more. I don't understand how she can tell me she loves me one day and then the next act like I don't exist and never mattered to her. She's taken me off her "close friends" list on Instagram, and any communication we've had since has been limited to brief texts about bills and household chores. She won't even look at me when I pass her in the kitchen. She's become even more disrespectful about keeping the house clean, promising she'll tidy up in the groupchat but then not doing it and ignoring my messages. I feel like she's being deliberately spiteful; yesterday I woke up to dog poop smeared outside my bedroom where she must've wiped her shoe on the carpet and left it overnight for whatever reason.
I've been in touch with one of her other friends whom she's close with, and he said she's been avoiding any conversation about her boyfriend with him also. I understand that she might be embarrassed to open up to me about it because she knows how poorly I think of the guy, but I don't understand her acting like she's angry with me or like I've done something wrong. Doesn't she understand how much this is hurting me? We've already signed our contracts to live here for another year and the tension in the house is killing me.

Some context , I(20f) and my brother (17) have a close sibling rivalry/ relationship. We always go go each other to vent. My brother (I'll call him Frik)has been seeing this girl (let's call her Lara) for 5 months and was absolutely in love land. Me and our family actually liked Lara because his previous relationship were shit. Anyways. Last week Frik came into my room absolutely devastated and gave me his phone to read his messages between him and Lara. broke up with him saying she is struggling to focus on her sports and school work. Frik never cries infront of people, he always comes to me for advice. He cried for a while wondering what he did wrong.
I follow Lara on Instagram, and saw her story. I noticed she tagged someone and me being curious went to look. I saw she was dating this new dude.
I want to tell him but i also don't want to. Since his last girlfriend cheated on him. Should I keep it to myself?

I’m abt 3 months out of my most recent relationship but Im still absolutely miserable. She cheated then when I gave a second chance she left me for a different dude in a week. My first girlfriend also left me for a different dude in a week and same with my second one. My 3rd gf just flat out cheated on me as well. Point being I thjnk I’ve finally given up on love. All I wanted was to treat a girl good and have a nice family but I’ve lost all hope. I honestly don’t think it’s real I’ve been done absolutely horrible in all 4 of them and It truly makes me question why I’m so replaceable bc they all moved on in under a week. I’ve taken time in between each one to heal properly and give the next one the best version of me just for it to still not be enough and I just start over. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore I truly hate myself and I stare at my ceiling most nights wondering if I’ll ever be enough for anyone. I have a decent amount of girls that come up to me at bars so I feel somewhat attractive sometimes but it just means my personality must be that bad bc they find someone they look happier with in a week.
This one put me farther than I’ve ever been before and I honestly don’t know if I’ll get up from it. I’ve had enough. I just want to know what it’s like to be truly loved and that’s all I’ve ever wanted in this world but I never knew it would be so hard. I had some days it felt better but I spent all day crying today and for what. It feels like anymore it’s either fuck them over or they’ll do it to you and I hate it. I genuinely feel no value nothing. Nothings fun anymore I just walk around with tears in my eyes all day til I see something that reminds me of her and it all comes out. I wanna hear it’ll get better even though I can’t believe that anymore no matter how hard I try bc it never has. I wish the best for all of you healing but I think I’m finally throwing up the white flag on this one at only 22 years old. I feel like a failure bc a family was my one goal in life and I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to try and date again so it’s over. This subreddit helped me heal for a bit but it truly all came crashing down again and I just don’t think I have it in me to build it up again. Idek who I am anymore and I haven’t smiled in weeks. The worst of it all is I still feel love in my heart but I genuinely never want to love again it’s truly the worst. I often wonder why I couldn’t just be one of these heartless people who can move on instantly like why am I the one cursed with caring it’s only ever got me hurt. Suicide isn’t an option for me so someone please tell me it gets a little better at least.

Hi guys! I just really need help knowing if I’m crazy or not.
I (19 F) have a girlfriend (19 F) and we’ve been on and off again for a couple years. I’ll call her Jenny. We met online, and live 3.5 hours apart driving distance, so even though it’s do-able, we both struggle with not being able to see each other often with work, school, and other things. Right before I moved across the country for college Jenny “cheated” on me. I use quotes because we disagree here. About 8 months ago, I got screenshots and recordings from Jenny’s ex showing that they’d been talking for about 2 months towards the end of our relationship. We had broken up for different reasons a couple weeks earlier. No flirtatious messages were sent between them while we were actually in a relationship, but while we were dating, Jenny still went behind my back and talked to her ex after I’d already told her that I didn’t want them communicating. Even after we had broken up, she was still making it known that our breakup wasn’t final. Nothing physical happened, and they didn’t flirt while Jenny was with me, but I find it disrespectful and weird for her to go out of her way to hide that from me. Especially with her telling me that she loved me. During the time that we were on opposite sides of the country for college, she partied and hooked up with people, one of which being her current friend. Since then, we’ve worked on our ourselves separately in order to make our relationship work and forgiven each other for various things.
Now to the main point. I just got home from college today and Jenny and I have had this plan to move in together for about 2 months. We think living together would really help our relationship but I’m kind of getting hesitant because of this one reason. The first person that Jenny hooked up with was a girl that is now her friend. I’ll call her Emma. Both Jenny and Emma got drunk at a party with their friends and ended up hooking up over 6 months ago. At first they weren’t really friends with each other, but now they’re super close. Even though I know that Jenny only sees Emma as a friend, I still get super jealous and uncomfortable at the thought of them hanging out. Maybe as a subconscious fear? It’s not just the fact that they hang out together, but the fact that they seem so close. Even the mention of Emma’s name makes me feel hurt and embarrassed, but in every group photo Jenny and Emma are always right next to each other. Not even just close, but touching. It makes me unbelievably mad, but I usually don’t say anything because I want Jenny to feel like she can talk to me about anything. I have mentioned being uncomfortable about it before and anytime that Emma’s name is brought up I instantly shut down because I just don’t know what to say. It’s always the excuse that they’re just friends, and I do really believe that, but the part that rubs me the wrong way is that they’re always touching more than I think is appropriate. (I’ve seen pictures of them laying on top of each other, pressing their cheeks together in selfies, or just linking arms in group photos) One of their mutual friends has also commented on how it seems like there’s something romantic between them. Jenny has offered to explain this comment to me but i refused to hear it. My argument is that if she cared enough about me, she wouldn’t be that close to her all the time, let alone sending the pictures to me or posting them online. Jenny’s argument is that they’re just close friends. I’ve never met Emma, and honestly, I don’t want to. I’ve mentioned that Jenny should cut Emma off and she’s agreed, but I know she doesn’t really want to. I’m trying to act like that’s good enough for me but when i see them act like that together it’s just not. I don’t think I can imagine being in a relationship with Jenny if Emma is still in the picture, but I know her whole friend group will hate me for it. Is this something I should forget about or is it actually serious?

Today, I told my husband about my cheating. We met online initially, and he asked me to be his girlfriend on our second date. At the time, I was still with my ex when I started talking to him online. I broke up with my ex on Saturday, went on a date with my now husband on Sunday, and he asked me to be his girlfriend on Monday.
However, I wasn’t ready to start a new relationship and I shouldn’t have said yes on our second date. I cheated on my now husband with my ex only one day after I said yes to being his girlfriend. My ex helped me with my car on Tuesday, and I slept with him afterward. This happened 1.5 years ago, and I feel so awful. I thought I was already checked out of my previous relationship, but I realize now how wrong I was. I have never done anything like this since and never plan to ever betray his trust again.
Today, I couldn’t keep living in a lie and I had to tell him. He’s so hurt and I’m so hurt to put him through that. I hope he forgives me and takes me back. He asked for some space, so I am just giving that to him now.
Question: How can I rebuild trust and show my husband that I am committed to our relationship after confessing to cheating early on? Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Okay, I know that the title sounds bad.
Throwaway account, my friends follow my personal account. Also, english is not my first language, I'm from Latin America. To be honest, my english is pretty rusty right now, so there might be some mistakes. Also, the post is pretty long, so I apologize in advance for that.
So for some background, I (32F) married my now ex husband Pablo (35M) five years ago, we dated two years before that. We have a four years old daughter together. To make it short, we started to have problems like a year and a half ago, having a toddler, both of us working two hard jobs just made everything real difficult, and it all got worst when he ended up cheating on me. If we didn't have a daughter, I would have ghosted him and the next time he would have heard from me would have been through my lawyers and with divorce papers. I have a low tolerance for this kind of things and know when to walk out, but we have a daughter together, and as much as I don't think that it can be good to stay in a marriage for a child, she was still real little and didn't want to miss any more time with her. Raising a toddler alone is really hard, and I didn't want that, so I agreed to couples counseling. He didn't put any excuses, he just begged for forgiveness over and over. I thought I was over the affair, I really thought that. I didn't think about it. But I started to talk over the phone with Guido (32M) like three months after I discovered my husband's affair. Guido and I dated for five years. From seventeen to twenty two. We started dating in our last year of highschool, and then we mantained a long distance relationship for two years, although we saw each other often, until he moved to the city I was living in. We eventually broke up because we wanted different things. He was sure about not wanting to have children, and even though I clearly didn't in that moment, I was sure I would want to become a mom in the future. So we left it at that. Plus, after my graduation I moved to the capital because I got a good job there, and he stayed there. But he had moved to the capital after his relationship ended because of his ex's cheating, and I was the only one he knew here. We started to talk regularly over the phone. Usually when I was on small breaks at work or while I was taking care of my daughter by myself. Then we started to do something we used to do often, and it was to play games online together on our free time. We used to do that a lot when we had a long distance relationship. Then we started to meet up from time to time, even went to the movies together. I tried to convince myself that we were just catching up, but it clearly wasn't like that, I wanted to be with him. I tried to put a stop to it. But Guido kissed me when I met him to tell him this, and even though I stopped him almost right away, as dramatic as it sounds, it was more than enough for me to realize that I couldn't stay married anymore if I had feelings for someone else. He apologized for kissing me, but asked me to leave my husband, since he knew I wasn't happy with him, and he was right. I was comfortable maybe, but not happy. Not at all. I realized I didn't actually forgave my ex husband, but I had fallen out of love, and that's why I didn't care about the affair. I should have known, like I said, I'm not the kind who would forgive cheating, but I didn't think you could fall out of love with someone you've been for so long that fast, and I guess I mistaked familiarity with love.
This is already going too long. I started the divorce proceedings, I sat Pablo down and explained that I was divorcing him. He cried and cried, begged for another chance, but I just told him no, that I had fallen out of love with him and there was no going back from that. He gave up after insisting and begging, and literally didn't put any complications on the divorce, he didn't berated me or anything like that during the divorce. We sold our house, split the money and got 50/50 custody. I bought a nice apartment with two bedrooms close to my daughter's kindergarden, and a couple of weeks after the divorce had been finalized, I asked Guido to meet up. We hadn't seen each other since I had informed him about me getting a divorce, just because I didn't want to start anything being married, and also, he was bussy trying to get a promotion. We decided to give it a shot, but I asked him for us to take things slow, and he agreed to it. And we have been dating for a couple of months now, and it has been great. My friends and my family, who I'm really close to, knows about us. My family in particular is real happy, they never really liked Pablo that much, and they always loved Guido, especially my dad. But he doesn't knows my daughter yet, that's why Pablo just recently found out about me and Guido being back together. Pablo didn't take the news too good, and when he came to pick our daughter, he was really mad at me. He started to tell me I led him on into thinking I could forgive him for months just to dump him for my ex. That he had tried his best to make up for what he did to me, to win my trust back and when he finally thought he had done it, I crushed his heart. Saying he has been miserable since I left him, and he really does look bad and depressed. He has gained weight, he looks tired all the time and I haven't seen him smile in months. But I told him that if I falled out of love with him is because he betrayed me in the worst way possible, and that's on him entirely. I tried to forgive him, but I couldn't and I falled out of love, and I can't change that. I told him I'm sorry if he's hurt now, but after all, it's the consequences of his own actions, and I won't apologize for falling in love with someone else, because again, it probably wouldn't have happend if he hadn't cheated on me. Now he needs to move on and that's it, and I even suggested therapy for him.
My friends and family are on my side and they are telling me I did nothing wrong, but I think they would be on my side even if I had set the house on fire with him inside, so I don't think their opinions are that neutral. I have my doubts, AITA?

Previous chapter
“I hate it.”
Mareus slapped his mouth and bit down on his lips in a futile attempt to capture his half-asleep words. His body tensed while listening for any signs of the stranger, bracing himself for some monster of a person to come rushing from the dark to finish him off.
Though, it didn’t matter in the end if they were paying attention to him or not. They clearly already knew where he was and, for some reason, chose to leave him alone after pulling him from the rubble and treating his injuries.
He clutched at his stomach, his hunger pangs goading him to push aside the anxiety and crawl his way towards the bowl still waiting patiently for him. There were no signs of it being changed or infested by any of the creatures hiding away, in fact, a gentle warmth still radiated from it. A pleasant aroma floated through the still air as if it had a will of its own, enticing him like some carnivorous flower lying in wait.
Mareus ignored his pain and fatigue as he absentmindedly made his way closer to the beckoning meal. What was he so worried about? If the stranger hadn’t done anything yet, then they probably weren’t going to from the start. It wasn’t like he was in any state to resist them anyway.
That’s right. He justified. It’s just sitting there, waiting for me.
The bowl was only a breath away now. Mareus stretched against his bandages enough for the wrappings around his fingers to brush the rim before the markings let out a faint light and constricted his body. He was almost there and wouldn’t give up, one more time he resisted their binding and was able to hook his finger on the inside of the rim.
Putting all the strength he had into the one finger he fought against the rough, uneven ground to reel in his catch. A faint glow lit up the black stone and his heart stopped before his restraints forced his arm back. Spilling his only food in a mocking halo as the bowl rolled on its side.
That was it, his only food mixed in with the wet dirt of the cave floor. He almost dove at it before realizing the intense hunger and drive he had was now fading away. His hunger was still there to some degree, but now it was more like an emptiness scratching at the back of his stomach. The overwhelming desire to eat was almost entirely gone.
A faint breeze brought his attention back to the bowl and he watched as markings like the ones on his bandages let out one last dim breath of light. When they went dark his hunger returned to the back of his mind.
After crawling back into his hole, the cave was filled with the sounds of hundreds of insects rushing over and feasting on the spilled meal. The echoes of chitin tapping on stone and trudging through the mush assaulting his ears. Covering his ears only replaced their frenzy with the sound of his blood flowing through his ears.
Mareus alternated between listening to the rhythmic thumps lulling him to sleep and the chittering that convinced him, more than once, that the insects had crawled in his ears. The minutes drawing into hours, maybe even days, as reason began slipping away.
A gentle clack of wood being placed on stone silenced the world.
He carefully rolled over and saw another bowl, the insects were gone, the mess was cleaned. It was like everything that happened was a dream, only this time he didn’t have this unnatural drive compelling him to reach the bowl.
Whatever the markings were meant to do, this one didn’t seem to have them. He watched as the cave life made their way back to his food. They didn’t attack it right away this time, instead they circled their prey waiting for the right time. Mareus closed his eyes and focused on listening for their movements when he heard a damp thud that must have been one of them falling in the food.
That sound must have been the signal the rest were waiting for because they converged on the meal and devoured with a gluttony he didn’t know they were capable of. Despite the gut churning sounds, he focused on every bit as he counted his heart beat.
Two thousand four hundred and twenty…seven.
The cave had finally settled down again as the insects returned to their hiding places. Mareus kept counting though, he had to stay focused so he could figure out how to tell when the stranger was coming. He had no idea how often they came by but he needed to learn anything he could if he wanted to make it back home.
Twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.
Muffled steps approached the bowl and wordlessly replaced it with another, the gentle clank dancing around the cave walls. Words wanted to leave his mouth, to ask the stranger questions, to make demands. But, what would he say, what could he say?
Mareus’ chest tightened as he tried to find the words, his mind struggling with the growing distraction of the empty feeling in his stomach. They were gone as silently as they arrived.
He started counting again. Using the hunger pangs to fight his body’s cries for sleep he waited out another four or five changes of the bowl. He couldn’t remember exactly anymore as his guard lightened and the exhaustion wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Against his best effort sleep finally took him.
The elders were watching over the younger generations going about their routines. The whole village was in the middle of doing their morning exercises with the sunrise, the bigger clans and families had their yards filled with people flowing from stance to stance, while the smaller families gathered in front of the Elder’s Hall or practiced in their gardens.
Before he knew it, Mareus was running errands and was racing pass villagers tending to fields of medicinal herbs and vegetables while guards kept their eyes on the edge of the forest for any signs of wild beasts.
Then one day a doctor from some big sect visited them and told him that he had the cure to his diverted meridians. The village elders held a big celebration in front of their hall and they had a special ceremony where Granny Hua accepted him as a disciple. When he looked out to the crowd, the sun shone on hundreds of smiling faces.
Tears ran down his face as he smiled and waved at everyone. The salty taste made the world shimmer like a painting being washed away.
Please don’t go. He thought.
The infection of reality found its way into his heart and the dream continued to shimmer before warping and twisting the scene from before.
Mountains of rubble replaced the beautiful homes that stood for generations. One after another the people fell while letting out muted screams. Smoke began to fill the air like some ghostly fog and ash painted the now faceless bodies strewn everywhere. Bodiless cries fought with one another to be helped.
Mareus fell to his knees at the center of the destruction while pleading. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t take them from me again.”
The one eyed man towered over him, tall enough for his hair to brush the clouds. The evil in his clenched grin poured out like a thick miasma that choked him as he watched Sister Mai rushing over.
He tried to scream at her to stay away but his voice was now completely cut off. Mareus now stood over himself watching the helpless child he truly was, he followed his own pleading gaze and turned to watch a young woman he recognized but couldn’t place at the moment.
She picked up a piece of a wooden beam and charged at him, her tears turning to blood as she let out a voiceless scream.
Mareus quickly searched the sky for his enemy, Where are they? Why is it so quiet?
When he looked back down his arm was through the back of the woman and he finally recognized the angry face staring daggers at him as the light left her eyes.
He watched as the giant man turned back to him and let Mai’s lifeless body fall to the ground. The crimson drenching the monster’s hand leaking and painting his own with the blood of the woman he called his big sister.
The one eyed man shot into the air and the force of the impact shook him awake.
It was easier to fight his exhaustion this time as he waited for the stranger to replace the bowl. When they replaced it this time, they lingered as if they wanted to say something. This time the anger and pain he felt didn’t let him hesitate.
“Wh-“ His dry unused voice turned into a breath. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Why…”
The effort of forcing that whisper was already difficult, he wanted to say so much more. He couldn’t tell if they were still waiting in the dark, or if they were even willing to listen. His voice was clawing to get out, he was tired of waiting.
His skin buzzed as he waited and moistened his throat. The question was out there now, at least the most important part. ‘Why?’ There was so much more racing through his mind that he could add while the presence remained silent.
Why me? What made you save me? Why didn’t you leave me with them? Why do I have to be alone?
An unseen pressure grew in the dark as his question went unanswered. It was like the chill he would get coming back late at night and he felt like something was watching him from the forest, waiting to pounce. It kept growing sharper until a sudden cool warmth touched the nape of his neck and gingerly ran down the length of his back.
A cold, yet familiar feeling voice finally broke the silence. “It would be a waste. Letting such a potential vanish from this world.”
The stranger brushed the matted hair from his neck. Their simple and straightforward gesture giving off the feeling of a beast playing with its catch knowing it could kill it at anytime.
“I feel for your loss, truly. My heart aches for the ill fate that placed those ‘experts’ in your home. I couldn’t allow your path to end because of a game between mere children.” Their voice danced between compassionate and venomous.
The gentle pressure of them rubbing his back relaxed him and Mareus became even more aware of how tired and sore his body was. Although, as they continued it felt like everything faded away. Not so much as if he was being relieved of everything, it was more like everything was being taken away and swallowed by a void that wouldn’t make him take it back.
Mareus sat up slowly and with a hoarse voice he asked. “What makes me so special?” He inhaled, “Why didn’t you stop them?!” His scream tore into his lungs and filled his throat with the taste of iron.
Water filled his eyes as he faced the disembodied presence.
The stranger gently embraced him, their cool robes enveloping him. “Poor child.”
“You could have saved all of th-em.” His trembling voice couldn’t hide the pain any longer. Still, Mareus stared through blurry eyes and did his best to look them in the face.
A thin hand brushed away his tears. “My sweet boy, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there sooner. Their battle had already moved south, and what they left behind…” They trailed off.
While wrapped in their arms he listened to the grief in their voice. Unsure of what to think anymore. Why did they wait so long? Why did they leave me here in the dark? Were they hurt too? Mareus found himself wondering if he was being selfish.
“Before I could chase after them, I sensed the faint trace of your life clinging on to any shred of hope. After digging you out and applying some emergency medicine I lost track of their energies. Instead of searching for them I made the decision to at least make sure you survived.”
Mareus realized that there was something ethereal in the way they talked. Their tone wasn’t distant, but at the same time it felt like they were a world away from him. The image of a mother apologizing for something she wasn’t responsible for popped in his mind.
His body began to feel lighter than it had been since he woke up in the cave. “Thank you.” He relented.
He gingerly wiped away his tears as if testing if his body would suddenly start listening to him. When he opened them again, the dark world that surrounded him expanded and he could now see all the way to the other wall of the cave.
Am I really not in the afterlife? He thought.
The formless shadow of his savior was replaced with a celestial fairy that stepped out from one of Elder Guo’s stories and descended into this pit to comfort him. She wore a snow white hanfu with a wide sash that hugged tightly against her. The sleeves and hem were far longer than normal like if the seamstress forgot to remove the excess material.
Her otherworldly appearance stood out against the darkness with her iridescent skin illuminating the cave. Her shadow like hair, even darker than the surroundings blackness. She looked like a master craftsman had picked the most exquisite material to craft a lifelike doll that would shatter if you looked at it the wrong way. Only to the fill that doll with the essence of deepest parts of the night sky.
Mareus completely forgot his fatigue as he collapsed into a bow and laid his head to the floor. In an attempt to imitate the older members of his village when speaking to the elders, he said. “I apologize for being so disrespectful. I humbly want to thank the generous immortal for saving this life.”
His body trembled from the effort of supporting his weight, but he continued to wait as sweat formed on the back of his neck and ran down his face. Unsure of what this heaven-like being would do to him if he had disrespected her further.
Next chapter

Okay, I know that the title sounds bad.
Throwaway account, my friends follow my personal account. Also, english is not my first language, I'm from Latin America. To be honest, my english is pretty rusty right now, so there might be some mistakes. Also, the post is pretty long, so I apologize in advance for that.
So for some background, I (32F) married my now ex husband Pablo (35M) five years ago, we dated two years before that. We have a four years old daughter together. To make it short, we started to have problems like a year and a half ago, having a toddler, both of us working two hard jobs just made everything real difficult, and it all got worst when he ended up cheating on me. If we didn't have a daughter, I would have ghosted him and the next time he would have heard from me would have been through my lawyers and with divorce papers. I have a low tolerance for this kind of things and know when to walk out, but we have a daughter together, and as much as I don't think that it can be good to stay in a marriage for a child, she was still real little and didn't want to miss any more time with her. Raising a toddler alone is really hard, and I didn't want that, so I agreed to couples counseling. He didn't put any excuses, he just begged for forgiveness over and over. I thought I was over the affair, I really thought that. I didn't think about it. But I started to talk over the phone with Guido (32M) like three months after I discovered my husband's affair. Guido and I dated for five years. From seventeen to twenty two. We started dating in our last year of highschool, and then we mantained a long distance relationship for two years, although we saw each other often, until he moved to the city I was living in. We eventually broke up because we wanted different things. He was sure about not wanting to have children, and even though I clearly didn't in that moment, I was sure I would want to become a mom in the future. So we left it at that. Plus, after my graduation I moved to the capital because I got a good job there, and he stayed there. But he had moved to the capital after his relationship ended because of his ex's cheating, and I was the only one he knew here. We started to talk regularly over the phone. Usually when I was on small breaks at work or while I was taking care of my daughter by myself. Then we started to do something we used to do often, and it was to play games online together on our free time. We used to do that a lot when we had a long distance relationship. Then we started to meet up from time to time, even went to the movies together. I tried to convince myself that we were just catching up, but it clearly wasn't like that, I wanted to be with him. I tried to put a stop to it. But Guido kissed me when I met him to tell him this, and even though I stopped him almost right away, as dramatic as it sounds, it was more than enough for me to realize that I couldn't stay married anymore if I had feelings for someone else. He apologized for kissing me, but asked me to leave my husband, since he knew I wasn't happy with him, and he was right. I was comfortable maybe, but not happy. Not at all. I realized I didn't actually forgave my ex husband, but I had fallen out of love, and that's why I didn't care about the affair. I should have known, like I said, I'm not the kind who would forgive cheating, but I didn't think you could fall out of love with someone you've been for so long that fast, and I guess I mistaked familiarity with love.
This is already going too long. I started the divorce proceedings, I sat Pablo down and explained that I was divorcing him. He cried and cried, begged for another chance, but I just told him no, that I had fallen out of love with him and there was no going back from that. He gave up after insisting and begging, and literally didn't put any complications on the divorce, he didn't berated me or anything like that during the divorce. We sold our house, split the money and got 50/50 custody. I bought a nice apartment with two bedrooms close to my daughter's kindergarden, and a couple of weeks after the divorce had been finalized, I asked Guido to meet up. We hadn't seen each other since I had informed him about me getting a divorce, just because I didn't want to start anything being married, and also, he was bussy trying to get a promotion. We decided to give it a shot, but I asked him for us to take things slow, and he agreed to it. And we have been dating for a couple of months now, and it has been great. My friends and my family, who I'm really close to, knows about us. My family in particular is real happy, they never really liked Pablo that much, and they always loved Guido, especially my dad. But he doesn't knows my daughter yet, that's why Pablo just recently found out about me and Guido being back together. Pablo didn't take the news too good, and when he came to pick our daughter, he was really mad at me. He started to tell me I led him on into thinking I could forgive him for months just to dump him for my ex. That he had tried his best to make up for what he did to me, to win my trust back and when he finally thought he had done it, I crushed his heart. Saying he has been miserable since I left him, and he really does look bad and depressed. He has gained weight, he looks tired all the time and I haven't seen him smile in months. But I told him that if I falled out of love with him is because he betrayed me in the worst way possible, and that's on him entirely. I tried to forgive him, but I couldn't and I falled out of love, and I can't change that. I told him I'm sorry if he's hurt now, but after all, it's the consequences of his own actions, and I won't apologize for falling in love with someone else, because again, it probably wouldn't have happend if he hadn't cheated on me. Now he needs to move on and that's it, and I even suggested therapy for him.
My friends and family are on my side and they are telling me I did nothing wrong, but I think they would be on my side even if I had set the house on fire with him inside, so I don't think their opinions are that neutral. I have my doubts, AITA?

im a 23 yr old woman, am generally unattractive (truerateme sub confirmed that), and i have never been in a real relationship. any time i want to talk to family about this they just tell me that i have my entire life ahead of me to figure it out, which is obvious and just makes me feel like i shouldnt have the right to feel the way i feel. unfortunately i have a past of being abused as a child and later sexually assaulted by a man who used me to cheat on his wife, and i have heard that men dont want a relationship with a woman who has trauma. so im pretty much screwed. any time i have gotten attention from men its just from them wanting a fwb situation (i have been called a butterface more than once lol) and it just makes me feel like thats all ill ever be good for. i despise sex but just wanted to make people feel happy so i suffered through any uncomfortable feelings to please them. i think my brain processed this as me taking any male attention as good attention, even though it made me feel horrible about myself. that is not their fault, but my own. i just wish i wasnt so alone in life. im the laughing stock of my family and i dont have any friends. i only have my cats at home to keep me company(isnt that ironic, because men hate women with cats lol). i am venting about this today because i came across a man i was interested in and tried to shoot my shot, but he only wanted me as a one night stand. i genuinely think im better off dead than going through this anymore. i understand how lonely men feel as well and i empathize, but for me, i just really dont feel good having sex with someone who doesnt love me. i have been celibate for 3 years since my assault, which is good. i feel like the only way a guy would like me is if i was born as someone else. im too depressed and riddled with trauma to ever be loved. i genuinely am spiraling and cant do it anymore

Okay, I know that the title sounds bad.
Throwaway account, my friends follow my personal account. Also, english is not my first language, I'm from Latin America. To be honest, my english is pretty rusty right now, so there might be some mistakes. Also, the post is pretty long, so I apologize in advance for that.
So for some background, I (32F) married my now ex husband Pablo (35M) five years ago, we dated two years before that. We have a four years old daughter together. To make it short, we started to have problems like a year and a half ago, having a toddler, both of us working two hard jobs just made everything real difficult, and it all got worst when he ended up cheating on me. If we didn't have a daughter, I would have ghosted him and the next time he would have heard from me would have been through my lawyers and with divorce papers. I have a low tolerance for this kind of things and know when to walk out, but we have a daughter together, and as much as I don't think that it can be good to stay in a marriage for a child, she was still real little and didn't want to miss any more time with her. Raising a toddler alone is really hard, and I didn't want that, so I agreed to couples counseling. He didn't put any excuses, he just begged for forgiveness over and over. I thought I was over the affair, I really thought that. I didn't think about it. But I started to talk over the phone with Guido (32M) like three months after I discovered my husband's affair. Guido and I dated for five years. From seventeen to twenty two. We started dating in our last year of highschool, and then we mantained a long distance relationship for two years, although we saw each other often, until he moved to the city I was living in. We eventually broke up because we wanted different things. He was sure about not wanting to have children, and even though I clearly didn't in that moment, I was sure I would want to become a mom in the future. So we left it at that. Plus, after my graduation I moved to the capital because I got a good job there, and he stayed there. But he had moved to the capital after his relationship ended because of his ex's cheating, and I was the only one he knew here. We started to talk regularly over the phone. Usually when I was on small breaks at work or while I was taking care of my daughter by myself. Then we started to do something we used to do often, and it was to play games online together on our free time. We used to do that a lot when we had a long distance relationship. Then we started to meet up from time to time, even went to the movies together. I tried to convince myself that we were just catching up, but it clearly wasn't like that, I wanted to be with him. I tried to put a stop to it. But Guido kissed me when I met him to tell him this, and even though I stopped him almost right away, as dramatic as it sounds, it was more than enough for me to realize that I couldn't stay married anymore if I had feelings for someone else. He apologized for kissing me, but asked me to leave my husband, since he knew I wasn't happy with him, and he was right. I was comfortable maybe, but not happy. Not at all. I realized I didn't actually forgave my ex husband, but I had fallen out of love, and that's why I didn't care about the affair. I should have known, like I said, I'm not the kind who would forgive cheating, but I didn't think you could fall out of love with someone you've been for so long that fast, and I guess I mistaked familiarity with love.
This is already going too long. I started the divorce proceedings, I sat Pablo down and explained that I was divorcing him. He cried and cried, begged for another chance, but I just told him no, that I had fallen out of love with him and there was no going back from that. He gave up after insisting and begging, and literally didn't put any complications on the divorce, he didn't berated me or anything like that during the divorce. We sold our house, split the money and got 50/50 custody. I bought a nice apartment with two bedrooms close to my daughter's kindergarden, and a couple of weeks after the divorce had been finalized, I asked Guido to meet up. We hadn't seen each other since I had informed him about me getting a divorce, just because I didn't want to start anything being married, and also, he was bussy trying to get a promotion. We decided to give it a shot, but I asked him for us to take things slow, and he agreed to it. And we have been dating for a couple of months now, and it has been great. My friends and my family, who I'm really close to, knows about us. My family in particular is real happy, they never really liked Pablo that much, and they always loved Guido, especially my dad. But he doesn't knows my daughter yet, that's why Pablo just recently found out about me and Guido being back together. Pablo didn't take the news too good, and when he came to pick our daughter, he was really mad at me. He started to tell me I led him on into thinking I could forgive him for months just to dump him for my ex. That he had tried his best to make up for what he did to me, to win my trust back and when he finally thought he had done it, I crushed his heart. Saying he has been miserable since I left him, and he really does look bad and depressed. He has gained weight, he looks tired all the time and I haven't seen him smile in months. But I told him that if I falled out of love with him is because he betrayed me in the worst way possible, and that's on him entirely. I tried to forgive him, but I couldn't and I falled out of love, and I can't change that. I told him I'm sorry if he's hurt now, but after all, it's the consequences of his own actions, and I won't apologize for falling in love with someone else, because again, it probably wouldn't have happend if he hadn't cheated on me. Now he needs to move on and that's it, and I even suggested therapy for him.
My friends and family are on my side and they are telling me I did nothing wrong, but I think they would be on my side even if I had set the house on fire with him inside, so I don't think their opinions are that neutral. I have my doubts, AITA?

This is a long read.
This happened 8 years ago and I still feel a lot of guilt for this. I used to be friends with this person since middle school. When we got into high school she started becoming really rude, never saying thank you or you’re welcome, when we invited them out all of our parents used to not like how they had 0 manners. That’s not why I started hating this person though. When I left my ex in middle school over the summer that friend and my ex got together. At the time I thought nothing of it but the older I got the more I realized that wasn’t ok. Note: I’m not mad about that at all. That ex texted me years later apologizing for how shitty he treated me those couple of years. I never said anything to them and acted like it didn’t hurt so I’ll take responsibility there but I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell somebody that. But we were really young so whatever. This friend used to grope me in like a “complimentary” way. Like would grab my boobs, hips, and thighs and say how they wants these types of body parts. I never said anything about it but it did bother me. Again, I’ll take responsibility not speaking up. This friend used to do it to other women friends as well. This friends boyfriend used to touch us inappropriately and also a few other guys in our friend group would touch me in the waist and hips and make inappropriate comments to me. The friend also punched and kicked me and other people several times. I recall I couldn’t save them a piece of pizza at a school event and they punched me and left a bruise on my arm. Again, never brought up how it bothered me. I remember they also slapped their ex over something. Don’t remember what but still. They punched and kicked my other friends as well. I also recall them kicking me cause we would talk about our grades, this friend would fail every class and for me passing my classes ment I wasn’t going to sleep hungry at home. Also all my other friends would exchange grades as well. I guess they took it as a personal slight. Like we were making fun of them but I genuinely just wanted them to pass. They kicked or punched me whenever they didn’t like what I said or did. Never brought up how it bothered. We were probably around 16-18 at the time. This friend started hating another girl because their ex (my ex from middle school) broke up with her and started dating other girl. I didn’t care and started not liking the girl out of support for my friend until my friend snuck pictures of the new girlfriend without her knowledge and would compare her body, makeup, and face with theirs, basically body checking them and would make shitty little petty comments about her. I left a comment on the Instagram post saying how it didn’t look good. My friend then dm’ed me saying how I was basically being a bad friend for not blindly supporting them. I stayed friends with this person for awhile. The final straw was when this friend took of picture of my not yet out of the closet gay friends who were just starting to date and posted on their Instagram. My gay friends were to scared to confront them so I did. When I did they acted like a toddler and finally deleted it. I know it was a honest mistake and probably had good intentions but I was so fed up at that point. I started talking to my other friends about it and they had similar grievances, especially my other girl friend. This person wasn’t someone I felt like I could confront and have a normal conversation and tbh I was honestly kinda scared of them so I had a plan to wait until graduation to leave. I basically ghosted this person irl. I feel bad about all of that but what I feel bad for the most and I know this wasn’t good or nice of me. Is that I did end up talking shit about them to my other friends. We all had issues with them and it got bad. Like messaging each other to talk about what stupid thing they did today and basically to dump our feelings about whatever that person did to us or said. I also feel bad because their boyfriend at the time came out to me one day after school and told me that he was being cheated on. Note: their relationship was really bad. When he asked my opinion I said they should just leave each other. I feel bad because that was really none of my business and I should have just kept my mouth shut. I also was stupid in high school. This one is so fucking stupid but I actually lied about my nationality because I thought it would make me cooler. It ended up making me look like such a fucking idiot and I regret it so much. It is just a blatant lie and I apologize to anyone I lied to. I don’t blame anyone for thinking I’m a slimey person for doing that and that’s no one else fault but my own. Problem I’m having is that I’m a lot older now and I still feel bad. I’ve been going to therapy but I feel awful. To the point to where it’s kinda haunting me. I dream about it frequently and just feel like I don’t deserve anything good. I sometimes want to apologize to them but then I think of the treatment I got and don’t want to anyone. I know it’s the bigger person thing for me to do but idk. I want to move on. But I understand why they hate me as well.
Note: after our graduation we had a school after party. I wasn’t her friend so I continued on with the party. She then posted a picture to Instagram of someone dressed up as me and that friend putting a fake knife to her neck. I’m pretty sure this person still vague death threats me as well.

Hurricane Georg.
Our first contact with the new world was a colossal hurricane. Veins of lightning shattered through the black, swirling clouds. I had just tried to calm the nerves of the ship when I saw Suri sitting in the hall beneath the control room.
She was in a lounge corner with her suitcase opened and her supplies scattered across the small table. The little light from the window illuminated her drawing for me to see over her shoulder.
The black and white sketch began at the bow of the ship. The figure of a man in facing the open ocean. Ahead of him, the familiar despair of Hurricane Georg. The man had his back towards the artist, but his stature sailed through the fierce storm without worry. His gaze only in the beautiful sight of home on the other side.
Her pencil began to etch the details of his crewmans jacket, "You have a gift, Suri. Truly, you do."
She was ahead of me, she did not jump or gasp as I had expected, "Thank you, Capi. I saw you in the reflection. Im hard to get the jump on."
"Then this shouldnt surprise you," I smiled and approached her table. "My capi stars are on the right side, "I stepped back and tapped my shoulder."
Disappointment inked her face, darkening her mood, "Dam."
I laughed and pulled up a chair. She had captured the view from the window perfectly and I made a point to tell her. As we talked the storm outside began to fade. The world around us was healed and the worries of yesterday had never existed.
Her eyes were near black, in color, and her skin was incredibly warm. Physical characteristic were useless to determine where a person was from, but 500 years ago, she would have fit at home with the people of the Middle East. Had I been a different man, her beauty and brain would make a perfect partner.
The longer I stared, the darker the world around us became. Until she broke my gaze and looked shocked at something through the window.
"Did you see that?"
"No, what was it?"
"I-Im not sure..." her face drained of color as the harsh rocking of the storm was interrupted by something else. Suri and I were flung off our chairs onto the floor, her supplies pelting us as they flew through the air. I tried to stand, but my legs were too soft to make it easy.
I struggled to a kneel using the bolted-down desk. Suri gasped and I looked down. The longer I looked, the itchier it became. Once more the world grew darker and I only had enough energy for a simple joke.
"Mr. Morgs was right about those things."
"Gud morning, Capi!" Ennay cheered from the wall-mounted screen.
I struggled to sit myself up. I was in the infirmary, only Ennay was there to greet me. My jacket was gone. All I had on was a white t-shirt and grey shorts.
"Officer Angelhart had your attire taken to be cleaned," Ennay chimed in, "Today is Wednesday, sir, 4:13am. Its the morning after you lost consciousness."
I thanked him and asked him to catch me up on the happenings in the passed half day.
"The reality is unclear, Capi, but Helmsman Archer believes we were attacked by a... a sea monster, sir."
"Archer? Hes no storyteller. Why?" I swung my legs over the bed, "get him down here or tell him im on my way."
Ennay surprised me with his fast response, "No. Sir, We had a breach. Ms. Aziz told the Doctor you had severed and artery during a spell of turbulence. The New Horizon had actually made contact with something what breached the hull. Damage Control responded in 4 minutes and were quick to contain flooding. However, we sustained a second breach."
Before he could continue, I dropped back onto the bed, "Whats the status?"
"On the New Horizon? Operational. A few sections had to be permanently sealed until we are out of this storm."
"And Damage Control?"
Ennay did not respond as quickly as he had been. It felt like an eternity before he told me, "6 casualties," the room fell completely silent. I couldnt even hear my heart beating, "5 fatalities. Sergant Franccigo Blanco is recovering in Infirmary 4C. He is unconscious, but has sustained gruesome wounds. Officer Angelhart declared a S.O.E. to assume your position. Otherwise,..."
"Yes, yes, the prosthetics. I hate that system."
"Well, sir, you are able to disable it."
"What?"
"Its not a very common scenario, but since we are not in International Sea, the law requiring your presence does not necessarily need to be enforced."
I sat back and thought for a second, "Ill discuss it with Dr. Mally. Where are they all?"
"Dr. Mally is in Infirmary 4C with Sergant Blanco. Officer Angelhart is your office filling out an incident report for both your accident and the breaches."
"Thank you, Ennay. Tell Max I am on my way and then let Dr. Mally know I will meet her shortly."
"Of course, sir."
My office was silent except for the fan gently spinning from the ceiling. Across from me was a young man, mid-twenties, with dusty blond hair. His uniform was perfect, he has even removed his hat on the perfect beat upon entering the room.
The appearance and demeanor any ship captain would be beyond proud to accept on his ship. It had just been dumb luck that he had lost both of his eyes to shrapnel sealing off the lower corridors during the state of emergency yesterday.
I poured Mr. Blanco a drink, 2444 Geoff Russel - The Hearty Mans Drink. I needed to finish the incident report, but Id never ask a man to relive what he had without a bit of buzz to his bite.
"So, Sargent Blanco, I-"
"You can call me, Fran, Capi."
"And you can call me Santago, for tonight anyway," I continued my questions. I tried my best to stay shallow and not dive deep into the pain Fran had endures just hours ago.
We talked about the 5 fatalities.
"Did you... see... them die?"
The gauze replacing his eyes stared at me, blankly. His face was uncanny, unhuman. Like the man inside may actually have been a 6th dead body.
"No," he quickly took a drink, "I did hear them, though. They yelled and screamed for me to open the door. I- I couldnt see. I thought the sea water had poisoned me somehow. I kept rubbing and rubbing my eyes hoping to get whatever radioactive stuff out of my head..." He took a breath. He was remarkably calm. Agitated, of course. But calm.
He continued, "I looked through the window on the bulkhead and the last thing I saw was Aleks staring back at me. His eyes were... he was calling out for me, I am sure of it. But something got him and he was sucked out."
"I am so sorry, Fran," I tried to write as quietly as possible to not remind him of the formality, "Do you know what got him?"
He finished his glass. As he set it down, he missed the table. The cup did not shatter, but it had jolted Fran from his memory. He lost his composure.
He started yelling at me about a horrific beast he had seen. How Aleks, Private Aleksander Igorsen, had been encased in blood and black sludge. He swung his hands wildly at the table in a rage, but had only managed to knock over a lamp.
Pity does not begin to describe what I felt watching him. Like a bleeding animal continuing to run from the wolves despite not knowing he was already surrounded. In him, I saw death. I saw anger. I saw fear. I saw what he was feeling imaging the creature that killed his men.
I grappled with him, trying to make my location known and always talking to him. I was not some monster from the unknown blackness set on hunting him and he needed to know that. He continued to struggle until I had completely engulfed his whirlwind into a hug. The screams turned to cries and then to whimpers.
After some time, I dismissed him back to his room and instructed Ennay that he was on suicide watch. Sergant Franccigo Blanco had earned a promotion or a permanent dismissal, whichever he wanted, but I needed him to take time to himself before I reminded him where we are.
The storm was intense, but at least it was consistent. By Katzs reckoning, we are approaching the halfway point of this hurricane. We had entered it 51 hours ago and Katz had said we are another 50 away from clear skies.
Unfortunately for all of us, Katzs theory was not seen through.
It began with our solar panelling being severed from their operating power banks. That was not a major issue, hydropower was our primary source. The issue arose when the New Horizon began to spin.
I had radioed the Helmsman demanding why we are weighing anchor, but the anchor was still resting above water. He said no one dropped the anchor. Something else entirely had us. We rushed to every window, every pane of glass to search for whatever it was that was stopping us.
Ennay spoke out, "Capi, Major Gorlammi has spotted our snag at 129 degrees. Nearest viewpoint is Residential Room L3D, assigned to L-"
I ignored the rest, I needed to see what was in that window. Luckily for me, Lucy Partridge was not home. I burst through the door and, for the first time, I saw a behemoth of a serpent-like creature sticking out of the water. I could not see a head, nor tail. I also had no idea if what I saw was the body or an appendage connected to some inconceivably large beast.
After enough time, I manage to figure out one of the ships heavy guns had pierced the creature and was holding us together. Our best bet was to either rotate the gun and hope its dislodged or to remove the gun entirely.
I relayed this information to Ennay to alerted the Gunner Teams and Damage Control. Yet, none of them would be given the chance. In the distance, silhouetted by sparks of lightning the size of the ship, I saw the head of the creature. It must have been miles away, but the size was unparalleled. Its head leaped from the water and swiveled back towards us. It was like a colossal eel. Flashes of light showed through its skin like veins until it sent a surge into the gun and into the ship.
The lights went out across the boat. The only light was the occasional flash from outside. It was completely dark, but I knew it was still coming for us.
I ran out of the quarters as emergency lights slowly burned. The hallway must have been 100 feet long before Id reach the staircase, but when I was halfway through, my feet left the ground.
I felt weightless for a moment. The lights burned out and all around me was darkness. My heart was incredibly slow or maybe time had slowed. I felt the doorframe to Mrs. Partridges room snap against my elbow. There was no pain. I didnt even feel pain when glass cut across my back as I was hurled through the shattered window.
I crashed into the water, it must have been hundreds of feet below me. I was in shock. I looked around and all I saw was darkness. Then, suddenly, all I saw was light. The eel sent a pulse through its body and for the first time I saw the monster entirely. It surrounded the ship above water, coiled all about the waves, and entangled the entire ocean as deep as I could see.
This is not a colossal eel surviving a hurricane.
This colossal eel is the very being causing the hurricane.
A cosmic terror named Hurricane Georg.

its so humiliating i cant do or have anything anymore i have to sleep in my moms floor im not allowed in my own room. im being supervised more than my 8 yr old brother. it wasnt even that bad i wish i had just gone to school instead of telling my parents i needed stitches everything sucks. not to mention my moms insane dehumanizing need for me to cover my scars, im not allowed to wear short sleeves and it always feels like shes shaming me for my scars like im some kind of monster. i keep trying to tell her that i want to at least be able to wear short sleeves when its hot or something but she really wont budge and shes so RUDE about it. she literally measures shorts at my hip in the middle of walmart its so dehumanizing. id probably be able to recover better if she wasnt such a bitch to me about it

I have a 3 and 9 year old. My nine year old is adhd to the max. The three year old is amazing. I lost my job during the pandemic and have been a full time stay home parent since then. My wife is a doctor and makes good money. The pandemic split most of core friend group up and we decided to move out of state and get a kind of fresh start. We moved to a higher altitude and I developed epilepsy from the altitude and was hospitalized for multiple weeks. My seizures are every three months and I couldn’t drive for three months afterwards. I was totally isolated, wife works all the time, managing a facility and my only companions have been my children. My wife basically only talks about her job, the problems of it and her happy little relationships with coworkers. If I look away during these conversations I’m chastised for not paying attention to her. This is most of our conversations. We have moved back home and are now adjusting being back. My wife took not only one job here but added another one because that’s where she wants to work permanently. She now is working 50-60 hours a week and this is her choice. I get out of bed a couple of times a night to help the three year old get back to bed. I get up around 5:30 to 6 when the youngest gets up. I wake my nine year old up and get him ready for his meds. Meds at seven then to school forty five minutes later. He fights me, screams etc. from sunrise to sundown. It turns me into a total monster. I try to not get frustrated but it’s so exhausting. Meanwhile, my wife is in bed. That’s where she spends nearly every extra minute she has. it does not matter what day it is, when or when not she has to work, she’s in that bed, doom scrolling or watching some trash crime show. It is also becoming quite apparent that she will wait until the oldest is gone and then come out of our room. She for the most part refuses to help around the house because that’s my job. She throws a fit when asked to help with the boys, changing a diaper, go to the grocery give a bath etc. It’s my job. Shes a ghost in our home. I’m constantly belittled because I just sit around the house all day and do nothing. Its very frustrating. I listen to her talk about her things all the time, but am just lazy or complaining if I try and vent. I am always angry, and have been forever. My mother and father were not great parents. My dad died before my children were born. I have gone no contact with my mother. She has expectations that I will fix her life that she’s neglected. She lives 30 minutes away and I have no plans on seeing her until she’s headed under earth. I have my friends here still which is nice. Most have kids, but I can’t take my oldest anywhere around them anymore. He’s destructive, does not listen, yells and screams, talks back. He thinks about nothing before he does it. So here I am, totally isolated again. I am absolutely exhausted by 8pm, but am not allowed to go to bed until the nine year old is asleep. When that’s done, I have to try to sleep with the lights on and a tv show being being played. I ask for it to be quiet, but am just told to go to sleep. She tells me that I should hang out with my friends after he is asleep, but I don’t want to go out when I have to get up at five or earlier. I’ve been drinking too much, beers, and smoking too much reefer, but it feels better to just be on cruise control. I’m not sure what to do. I ask my wife to find some time on her days off to spend some time together but it never really happens. The kid is ruining my life. I don’t know what to do. I get no time alone. If I ask her to watch him for a few hours it’s a fight. I’m so fucking tired. The times I do hang out at my friends house, I just go sit in a room alone for the quiet. Hopefully we can find childcare soon and things will be a little better. I do all of the domestic household stuff as well as, do all the work on our vehicles, mow etc. I am expected to be a plumber, an electrician whatever, and am held responsible for my inadequate ability to do something that I’ve only learned three minutes ago on YouTube. Im constantly called lazy. She has begun to do what feels like me being held financially hostage. She tells me my phone is her phone, my car is her car etc. She tells me the only things I own are a few sentimental things I have. That she owns everything else. I know this isn’t true but its rugged to be told that. I bought a couple of work books to work through my anger issues and she made fun of me for it. I feel like I work hard and give good effort but don’t feel like I’ve done anything right. Thanks for reading my blog post.

Welcome back once more, for our final discussion of Armadale. I apologize again for the discussion being late. Last week, my excuse was that I had to spend time with my sister's family, including a labradoodle. This week, I am dog-sitting my mother's beagle, who has separation anxiety and gas. I am horribly sleep-deprived because this dog insists on sleeping next to my bed every night, snoring loudly and farting. Speaking of people breathing in poison in their sleep, let's get to the recap:
Allan has just set off for the Adriatic, with his cash converted to gold, obviously the result of Manuel's suggestions. Lydia and Ozias have been transferred to Turin by Ozias's employer, and Lydia pretends to have gotten a letter from her mother, asking her to come home, so she has an excuse to go back to London. Once there, she checks the newspaper for any articles or obituaries indicating that Allan has died. She also finds Mother Oldershaw's new address, but decides not to visit her.
After a few days, she finally gets the news she's been hoping for. Allan's yacht sunk off the southern coast of Italy, and everyone on board perished. Her next step is to write to Bashwood:
My dearest Bashwood,
I desire you... I mean, I desire to *meet with you... to apologize for my previous behavior towards you. I have foolishly made the mistake of marrying an immature child. If only I had married a real man (realness not necessarily extending to his teeth and hair)!*
Please, do not show this letter to anyone. Let us meet clandestinely.
Sincerely,
Lydia Armadale (note the last name)
Lydia then considers the marriage certificate, and realizes a glaring flaw in her plan: Ozias's handwriting looks nothing like Allan's. In a panic, she decides that her only option is to get advice from Mother Oldershaw. Unfortunately, Mother Oldershaw appears to have found God, and no longer wants anything to do with Lydia's plans. (Of course, she refuses to give Lydia the signed paper that she was going to use to extort money from Lydia if her plans succeeded.)
While leaving Oldershaw's, Lydia runs into Dr. Downward... excuse me, Dr. Le Doux, totally legitimate sanitarium owner. She realizes that he may be able to advise her, and asks to meet him later at the sanitarium. The sanitarium is basically what you'd expect a 19th-century sanitarium to be: creepy old house with shelves containing jars of preserved "creatures," a "galvanic apparatus" for providing electric shocks, etc. No patients yet, though.
Lydia tells the doctor her story, leaving out the worst details (he doesn't know that she's the reason the yacht sunk, or that her husband goes by the fake name "Ozias Midwinter"). Downward agrees to assist her by claiming to be a witness to the marriage... for a fee of six hundred pounds. Lydia agrees, and he assists her in sending a letter to Thorpe Ambrose, claiming to be Allan's widow.
The next day, Lydia gets a visit from Bashwood, who delivers the news that Neelie is beside herself with grief, and Mr. Darch is handling the matter of the inheritance, which was going to go to Allan's cousin, before Lydia announced her claim.
Bashwood returns a few days later with a shocking letter from Yugoslavia: Allan is alive! This is where I'd normally try to write a funny version of the letter, but nothing I could possibly write would be funnier than the actual letter's opening line: "I have been the victim of a rascally attempt at robbery and murder." Yes, "rascally." Oh, Allan, never change. One of the would-be murderers took pity on Allan and didn't securely board up his cabin, so he was able to escape instead of sinking with the yacht.
Lydia turns to Downward for help.
Downward: What if we trap Allan in the sanitarium?
Lydia: And murder him?
Downward: WTF, no. We get him to agree to not press legal charges against us.
Lydia: And then we murder him?
Downward: I have so many regrets about teaming up with you
Lydia: How do we catch him?
Downward: You could get Bashwood to lurk around the train station and intercept him before anyone else sees him. Have him tell Allan that Miss Milroy was sent here because she was driven insane by her grief for him.
Lydia: Can we murder Allan and Miss Milroy?
Downward: I am running an unlicensed sanitarium under a false name, and even I think you're unhinged.
Lydia: Gwilty as charged
Downward: But wait, what if he doesn't agree immediately, and we have to keep him here for months? What if I have actual patients at the time, and they report us?
Lydia: What if...
Downward: ...please don't say "murder"
Lydia: ...what if he had an accident?
Downward: Oh. Well, if it was an "accident," that would be okay. I don't know how an accident could happen, though, if you aren't an inmate here.
Lydia: I'll think about it
Meanwhile, Bashwood keeps vigil at the train station, until one day he sees... Ozias, who is searching for Lydia because she's stopped writing to him. While they talk to each other, Bashwood can't contain his shock at hearing that Lydia is Ozias's wife, and accidentally calls her "Mrs. Armadale," which understandably makes Ozias suspicious, so he follows Bashwood to see where he goes, which of course leads him straight to Lydia. Lydia pretends she was never married to Ozias, and Ozias faints from the shock.
Lydia heads straight to the sanitarium, tells Downward she's going to be an inmate, and asks for a sleeping draught. Downward prepares the draught, but first places yellow liquid in a purple flask. He then informs Lydia of what he thinks they should say at the inquest after Allan dies: The two of them knew he hadn't drowned, but when he arrived in England, they decided to trap him in the sanitarium because, shortly after his marriage to Lydia, Allan had starting having a delusion that he was engaged to Neelie. Once in the sanitarium, Downward diagnosed Allan with an incurable and fatal brain ailment, and that's what killed him.
Downward has scheduled a "Visitors' Day" so that people will witness Lydia as an inmate in the asylum. The visitors are mostly women, because life as a woman in Victorian England was so boring, they had nothing better to do than go to sanitariums to gawk at the mentally ill people and see where they will eventually live when the hysteria finally drives them mad. (I am only barely paraphrasing. The actual quote is "In the miserable monotony of the lives led by a large section of the middle classes of England, anything is welcome to the women which offers them any sort of harmless refuge from the established tyranny of the principle that all human happiness begins and ends at home.")
Downward shows them around the sanitarium and explains how it will be run, including only allowing novels that make people feel comfortable. (I assumed this was an intentional satire of Wilkie's critics, and the notes in the Oxford World's Classics edition confirmed this.)
But then Downward gave a sales pitch that damn near sold me on his sanitarium. "I throw up impregnable moral intrenchments between Worry and You. ... Will ten minutes’ irritation from a barking dog or a screeching child undo every atom of good done to a nervous sufferer by a month’s medical treatment? There isn’t a competent doctor in England who will venture to deny it!" Considering I almost couldn't post last week's discussion because of a few hours' exposure to two loud children and a labradoodle, I'm about ready to self-diagnose with hysteria and deranged lunacy.
He also explains that while the bedrooms lack fireplaces, they're heated with hot water. This impressed me because I've read about Victorian insane asylums not having fireplaces in the bedrooms (since the inmates might burn themselves), but I always assumed this meant that the inmates were cold in the winter. But wait... the bedroom also has secret controls that let him open, close, and lock the window and door from the outside, and a vent that lets him pump gas into the room. Whaaat? I rescind my diagnosis of hysteria and deranged lunacy. I want nothing to do with this.
After the tour is finished, Downward demonstrates to Lydia how to prepare the poison, and then breaks the bottle so that his assistant (who doesn't know about the purple flask) will think there's no more of that chemical in the house.
Meanwhile, Ozias is stalking Bashwood at the train station. He thinks Lydia is cheating on him, and Bashwood is waiting for Lydia's lover. But then he sees Bashwood with Allan. After confronting the two of them, he learns Bashwood's story about having to take Allan to Neelie in the sanitarium. Realizing that Lydia is probably still behind Bashwood's actions, Ozias insists on going with the two of them. On arriving at the sanitarium, Allan is informed that Neelie cannot see him until the morning, but he and Ozias are welcome to spend the night: Allan in Room Four, and Ozias in Room Three.
Lydia sets Bashwood up to spy on Allan's door from a room with a grate in its door. She tells him to make sure Allan stays in his room all night. Later, watching from the grate, Bashwood observes Ozias leave his room and examine the fumigating apparatus connected to Allan's room. Then Ozias stuffs his handkerchief in the grate, blocking Bashwood's view, before going into Allan's room and convincing Allan to switch rooms with him.
Later that night, Lydia returns and asks Bashwood if anything happened. Too afraid to tell her about the handkerchief, he tells her nothing happened, and she dismisses him to bed. After almost convincing herself to not go through with it, she then starts the process of pouring the poison at five minute intervals. While waiting for one of the intervals to pass, she notices Ozias's handkerchief and realizes that Bashwood lied to her. She checks in Room Three, and finds Allan asleep where Ozias should be.
In a panic, Lydia rushes into Room Four and drags the unconscious Ozias out. She then continues to pour the poison, writes a last letter to Ozias, and locks herself in the room.
We end with an epilogue that rapidly ties up all the random loose ends. Lydia has been buried in a nearly unmarked grave. The doctor is apparently still running his sanitarium. Allan and Neelie will be married in the spring. Mrs. Milroy doesn't have much longer to live, but she's undergone a personality change for some reason and she and the Major are happy for once. Ozias is recovering and living with Allan. Mother Oldershaw is a religious speaker, apparently. Bashwood has gone insane. Manuel drowned.
But wait, one last thing: Wilkie has something to say to us. He wants us to know that he intended the dream to be left up to interpretation. Thanks for handing me a discussion question like that, Wilkie. He also shares a weird-ass story about how, after he'd finished the rough draft and while the story was in the middle of serialization, several people were poisoned in their sleep on a boat called The Armadale. Okay, Wilkie. Thank you for that incredibly weird anecdote.