Are lee and tiffany lakosky getting a divorce

Kanye ‘Ye’ West is—or was—one of the most important artists of the 21st century. His creativity has no limits and he has proven himself successful in every creative endeavor—mainly, music and fashion. He has one of the best discographies in music history, and despite all of the worrisome public controversies and freak-outs, his legacy will probably never be forgotten.

1. Late Registration 10/10 Such a perfect album. LR is his second release, where he worked with Jon Brion to bring together the hip-hop sound with symphonies and movie-score like instrumentals; sonically, way better and more impressive than College Dropout. The themes are personal and heartwarming—Hey Mama, Roses, Diamonds From Sierra Leone—and every single song on here is worth a listen. Highlights: We Major, Drive Slow, Touch The Sky, Heard Em’ Say, Late, Hey Mama, DFSL, & Roses.
   
2. The College Dropout 9/10 His debut album made a great impression. Soulful, funny, and inspiring, TCD touches on various relatable themes: faith (Jesus Walks), hating your lame ass dead-end job (Spaceship), family love (Family Business), materialism (All Falls Down), and ambition (Through The Wire). The only downsides are the skits and some of the songs sounding dated. Highlights: Family Business, Last Call, All Falls Down, Spaceship, Slow Jamz, Two Words, Never Let Me Down, and Jesus Walks.
   
3. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 9/10 Late Registration had elements of movie-scores in its songs, but MBDTF feels like an actual big-screen experience. The album is entertaining from start to finish, with its guest appearances, maximal production, and storyline (the “price” of fame and public embarrassment). A great apology album that will never stop being talked about; best first listen ever. I do agree with it being a little overrated; All of the Lights kinda sounds all over the place and the album isn’t as entertaining after Runaway - but Lost in the World is his best closer. Highlights: Dark Fantasy, Gorgeous, Power, Devil in a New Dress, So Appalled, LITW, Monster, and Runaway.
   
4. Graduation 9/10 Most people think this album is overrated, and to be fair it sounds a bit dated. When I re-listen to it though, it still is uplifting and infectious; it’s like that “perfect espresso shot in the morning”. The album contains some of the best music in his catalogue - and in the hip-hop genre in general. (Flashing Lights is a perfect song.) Highlights: Flashing Lights, Good Morning, Champion, I Wonder, Everything I Am, Can’t Tell Me Nothing, Big Brother, & Homecoming.
   
5. The Life of Pablo 8.9/10 Everything about this project—especially the cover—is so Kanye. After his industrial-experimental-yeezus-phase (idk what to call it), Kanye’s music is more “modern” and “trap-based” on this album—he utilizes production from Metro Boomin; for the most part, his rapping and lyrics aren’t taken that seriously. You can also tell that this is where Fashion started to take his attention. Regardless of all the flaws and awkward moments, it keeps your attention and weirds you out—Just like Ye does himself. And just like Ye, its a paradox: we opened with Ultralight Beam (a song that begins with prayers and ends with gospel singing) and went right into FSMH, pt.1 (the song with the bleached-asshole verse). It’s funny, introspective, annoying, childish, and impressive - just like him. Highlights: FSMH, pt.1, ULBM, Freestyle 4, Famous, NMPILA, Saint Pablo, 30 Hours, Waves, FML, I Love Kanye, & Saint Pablo.
   
6. Yeezus 8.9/10 Around this time, breaking into the Fashion industry was a major challenge for Kanye, and naturally, he became more angry in his interviews. For the most part, Yeezus sounds like anger and frustration—the first seconds of On Sight alienates most non-Kanye fans. Thematically, Ye takes on a character—Yeezus—who embodies his most negative traits: arrogance, insensitivity, and hostility. It shows up in some of the lyrics too (“eating Asain pussy..”). After New Slaves, the album gets more tender-sounding and sad—you have classics like Hold My Liquor, BOTL, and Guilt Trip. It reveals that this obnoxious Yeezus character has a sap backstory. By the end, we reach a resolution with Bound 2, the most accessible song on here (greatest music video ever). Just like 808s, it stands out from the rest of his discog, and is a bit annoying, but once you get it, you get it. Highlights: New Slaves, HML, Bound 2, BOTL, Black Skinhead, Guilt Trip, & Im In It.
   
7. 808s & Heartbreak 8/10 Great. Great. Great. After a tumultuous period, Kanye, being the musical pioneer that he is, decided to ditch the hip-hop samples and beats, for 808s and auto-tuned singing, and it was polarizing to the hip-hop audience. I feel like he’s more of a songwriter - in the traditional sense - on here. This album also has an amazing 6-track run (Say You Will —> Paranoid; RoboCop ain’t it). The instrumentals are melancholy, and this is the first time we see collaborations from Kid Cudi—whose sound is definitely present on this album. Imp, Some of the songs—RoboCop, Bad News, & See You in My Nightmares—sound soooooo 2008, they were a little hard to listen to. Yet, there is still is a reason why this album has the impact that it does; along with Cudi, it lead future rap artists to become more versatile with their discographies—look at XXXTENTACION, JuiceWrld, & Lil Uzi Vert.
   
8. Ye 8/10 Ye is his shortest output, and even compared to 808s, one of his most emotional as well. Besides All Mine, there isn’t much wrong with this album; it gets straight to the point. Some problems here though: You can tell this is when he started recorded his vocals on his iPhone, his mumble verses are more present, which gives an unfinished feeling to it. Besides that, its mainly filled with great, strong songs. Sonically, it’s soulful, tender, and oddly peaceful. Theres a heavy sense of vulnerability, regret, and introspection. I think this album needs a lot more attention than it gets. Highlights: ITAKY, No Mistakes, Violent Crimes, Ghost Town (duhh), & Wouldn’t Leave.
   
9. Donda 6/10 This would be a very-fitting last release (if done correctly): at the time he divorced from Kim Kardashian and became a billionaire in the same year, which naturally attracted more attention to his legacy—this is when I started listening to his music. His life story is inspiring and releasing an album named after his late-Mother (Donda West) would’ve been the perfect closing-album. Irecent memory, I can’t remember being more hyped about a music release. This rollout was legendary—from the Reddit subs, to the instagram posts, to the listening parties. Perfect way to advertise an album. The result is messy, though. Sonically, this is like The Life of Pablo, pt. 2: constant ups-and-downs in quality, yet still delivering amazing songs. Theres also a lot of unneeded material on here too—27 fucking tracks (32 if you include all the part 2’s)—and the mixing really sticks out like a sore-thumb and ruins the experience. Guest appearances were really show-stopping—especially Don Toliver and Kid Cudi on “Moon”. It’s also his most spiritual project (he edited out the curse words); we haven’t seen this much religious faith since The College Dropout imo. Beautiful, yet messy. Highlights: Moon, Praise God, Keep My Spirit Alive, Hurricane, Come to Life, 24, Off the Grid, Pure Souls, and God Breathed.
   

Long story so please bear with me
I was with my first love for 3 and a bit years, we met in late 2010 before we broke up 10 years ago in early 2014. We were young and in our early 20s back then, things just fizzled out.
I've always thought about her but eventually we went our separate ways, she got in to a relationship with another guy after me for a few years but eventually he ended up cheating on her, this was around 2017.
After her breakup in 2017 I confessed my feelings for her but we didn't go anywhere with it as she was still healing so I told her I need to cut her off at the point because I told her I was struggling to be just friends with her, to which she said that she was heartbroken that's it come to us parting ways. But we wished each other well and went our separate ways. I was really at my lowest at that point but have come a really long way since in terms of having a successful career and have improved a lot financially and mentally.
At the start of 2019, she did add me on social media but she didn't say anything to me so a few days later I ended up deleting her because I realised I still wasn't over her, I regretted deleting her afterwards.
At the end of 2019 I heard that she was engaged, she ended up getting married but then I heard she got divorced around over 2 years ago. A few monthds ago I found out that the reason for her divorce was because her husband cheated on her and was abusive towards her. They got divorced around early 2022. Her ex husband is already engaged and due to get married again this summer.
As for me I did get in to another relationship with someone else but I was also cheated on so I have been single for a few years now, I have been evolving in my career and proud of how far I've come and have recently started a new chapter in my career. I considered getting in touch with her last year but I noticed that she had cut off a lot of people from her social media so I wasnt too sure how she'd react to me adding her, I thought she'd reject me seen as she's cutting off a lot of people.
So around 3 months ago I took the plunge seen as I had nothing to lose and sent her a request on instagram, and she had accepted and also followed me back. She's been viewing my stories and a month ago I posted a life quote on my story which she liked, I haven't spoke to her yet. I posted a few pictures of myself which she hasn't liked but A few weeks ago I posted a quote on my story that said 'be the reason for someone's pain to turn into a smile', she liked that quote and also another one that I posted last week. It was my birthday a few days ago and she liked a birthday story that I posted on instagram.
I'm assuming she is single but not entirely sure. I added her 3 months ago but now she has deleted me, I was confused because she only liked one of my stories few days prior. At the time of her deletion, i was on holiday performing umrah. I would have liked to see if there was future for us but don't think she's interested now, i have messaged her after she deleted me saying 'Hi, hope your well. I probably should have said something a long time ago but I didn't, my fault. I've been praying for you, today I realise I've been deleted anyways I hope your keeping happy and healthy'. She replied saying 'Hey I'm good thanks hope you are too, that is kind of you, I didn't expect this kind of message'.
I didn't really know what to say back to her, I still don't understand why she deleted me even though days before she was showing an interest in my stories before and now she's deleted me. I just replied saying 'that's good. Sorry for catching you off guard with it, I wanted to reach out to you earlier. I'm glad your doing well though' and then she has replied back saying 'can I ask why?' I replied back saying 'It's been on my mind for a while to get back in touch with you, I didn't add you for no reason. But we don't need to if it's not something your comfortable with'. She then sent a long message as follows: 'You don’t make me feel uncomfortable. I have thought about you over the years and wished you well. I am really happy that you have also been called to do umrah and i hope it changes your life the same way it did mine. I removed you because you have my ex and his family on your instagram and I removed everyone who has any contact with them. You will have heard that I was married there for a short period of time but it was hell and now I’m out of it I don’t want them knowing anything about my life, so I removed everyone who has any link with them. I didn’t realise till that day that you did. It was nothing to do with you personally.' .
Im not actually friends with her ex husband as he is just someone that lives nearby to me and we have never spoken so I replied with this: 'I'm sorry that you had to go through that, I hope your okay and I pray god brings you ease. I wouldn't exactly say I have anything to do with them personally though, only thing I know about them is that they're from my area too. It makes sense now and it's understandable why you did that.'
She replied back again saying 'I'm great, God is the best of planners and it was the best thing for me. Even so, I removed everyone who had us both so sorry about that' and to which I replied 'That's fair enough, I'm glad to hear your doing well though and that your at peace now. That's what matters most'. She then asked 'how have you been, what's new with you?' I replied saying 'I'm not too bad thanks, life's changed a lot since we last spoke so there's quite a lot that's new lol'. after that we were speaking generally about the holiday that I'm currently on and what to do as she has been here before too and she also asked how long I'm there for and she asked who ive gone with and how long im on holiday for, it was in general a short and civilised conversation and the conversation happened whilst i was still deleted.
Towards the end of the conversation she said 'well i hope you have a lovely time 😊' and i replied with thank you and asked her when she was on holiday here, she replied saying that she went last November and the year before so then i replied saying 'oh nice, its good to go often. Need to make it a yearly thing' She ended the conversation 12 nights ago by liking that last message i sent, I don't know if she plans to message me again, What are the chances that she'll message me even if we don't follow each other on instagram anymore.
I am slightly anxious that she won't message me after this due to her deleting me because her ex is on my Instagram. Was thinking of just giving her space for a few more days, then deleting her ex and requesting her back in around in a few days bear in mind she deleted me 2 weeks ago and we havent spoken in 12 days. In the meantime i have been removing a lot of meaningless connections from my instagram and i will be removing her ex and his family too, i have also noticed that her number of following has also decreased as she has also been cutting down on the number of connections she has. I blame myself for this situation because I had the opportunity to delete her ex and his family a few months ago as I don't even speak to them, had I done that then she wouldn't have deleted me. Its been 2 weeks, should i take action or give her space?

I moved to a new state with my husband about two months before he deployed. It has been very difficult making friends as I work from home. Even before deactivating my social media, it was very difficult making friends using social media group pages. He has been gone several months and while it hasn’t been easy, because I’m constantly alone, I thought it was going okay.
He emailed me last week, after going radio silent, telling me how much he is struggling and how unhappy he is. Shared that a lot of it is my fault. He doesn’t feel comfortable opening up to me and never will. To preface this, this happened after 5 days of no talking after a “fight”. I put it in quotes because I was genuinely trying to avoid a fight. We were talking on messenger. He was giving me one or two word answers to everything and I started getting frustrated. So I told him I was gonna let him go and to have a good night and I love him. He asked me what he did wrong and I told him nothing. He said I love you too and immediately logged off. I messaged him back explaining that it felt like I was trying to pull teeth talking to him and I know he is exhausted and stressed so instead of hurting my own feelings I would rather get offline. He never opened the message. I also sent him a screen shot about something funny his brother shared with me so he could get context about what I was asking and knew it wasn’t a big deal. But again, he never opened the message.
Five days later is when I received the aforementioned email; he was purposely ignoring me. He had promised me multiple times before that he wouldn’t do that sort of thing again (this was now the fourth time) and this one was by far the longest. I sometimes struggle knowing how to respond because when he shares that I’m upset about something, he gets the context completely wrong. For example, he thinks I get mad at him for talking to his family. That’s not true at all. I get upset that we get to talk for what seems to be a few hours online, and he’s not really participating in sharing anything. I have to ask questions, I get one or two word answers back and that’s it. I try not to push but sometimes I need the communication to feel connected. He doesn’t tell me he misses me, he doesn’t call me babe or honey (he used to) I know he is struggling, and I’m by no means saying I have it worse, but on the boat, he has explicitly told me that he doesn’t like anyone, he doesn’t trust anyone and he absolutely hates this command. I don’t really have any friends but my isolation is not quite self induced.
I responded to his email explaining my side of things, and apologizing for not creating a space for him to feel comfortable to talk to me. That’s literally all I’ve tried to do but he just seems to feel pressure when talking to me. I genuinely believe his stress, anxiety and lack of sleep are highly contributing to his emotional and mental distress. Add that he is in a combat zone and I’m sure its worse. He won’t tell me that though, usually just says he’s not at all worried or makes a really dumb joke about it.
I all but begged him to please let me know if all he needs is space, that I want to support him but the silence is torture to me. I have an anxious attachment style (he is avoidant) so I tend to think worst case scenario. So I requested that he please put my mind at ease that he’s not considering ending our marriage.
Three days later he sends me a very long email talking about how he is not looking forward to coming home, and isnt because we couldn’t get thru a deployment without fighting; that he wants to go to his childhood home to see his family. That we don’t want the same things. That I’m happy where we moved to and he is not. He only chose these orders and the last orders to be close to his family. He hates that I don’t get along with his family and that I don’t really want to move there when he retires.
Let me explain that he lives in a very tiny town where there isn’t even a grocery store. I literally would not have a career within an hour of his town. We had agreed that we could live an hour away, like one of his brothers does and it would still be close enough to his family. Also, his family has been quite rude to me. I have been mending fences with them for the sake of my husband. I don’t care where we live in the grand scheme of things, but I still need to have a job and his father and that side of the family very much abuse alcohol. They are also very ignorant and racist. My husband already struggles with over drinking. That’s not something I want to raise a family around as they can be verbally abusive when drunk, and you never know what’s going to trigger them. They have no goals nor aspirations in life, and that’s okay, but I do/ we did… I thought. My husbands goal is to retire from the service and go home. I was willing to go close (1-2 hours which he had agreed) to his home because I have a while before I can retire.
He proceeded to talk about how he was miserable with his ex wife and doesn’t want to spend six year with me, like he did with her, thinking marriage was supposed to be an unhappy union. That he stayed with her that long because he didn’t want it to fail; also because she convinced him things would get better. They never did, in fact I believe there was some infidelity on her side. He continued on about nonsense, like how he wants the mirrors in our house to stay but I wanted to change them and he has completely given up on having a say on how to update the house we bought. For the record, I left the mirrros the way he wanted. I picked paint colors I knew he would like.
Next, he mentioned how we had gotten in a fight right before moving and in haste, I told him to leave me there. he considered that we do end it then but we agreed to keep going because even though we struggle with communication, we do love each other and want to continue our marriage as overall we are pretty happy.
He ended the email explaining that he has not been happy for a while, has been struggling and while we work good together, he doesn’t believe we are right for each other. That I need to look within and figure out if I am happy in the relationship. That he doesn’t care about my answer but he is not at all happy.That he will never be able to communicate the way I want and he has made more changes for me, like attend couples counseling and anger management, than he ever would have for anyone else.
There are still a few months left to this deployment. I literally have no idea where that leaves me. I’m hurt as shit. I’m angry. I’m confused and frustrated. Not once on this deployment have I even mentioned splitting. Month two was the first time he mentioned divorce. We got past that hurdle and month three he mentioned that we should consider getting pregnant when he gets back. Then some stupid issue comes up and the cycle of being angry and fine continues. In fact, I all but beg him to not leave me when he has these outbursts. I feel stupid.
He is not one to ask for help. He clearly needs help but I have no idea what to do. It’s clear he doesn’t want anything to do with me.

I am relatively new Sion player, champ is one of the coolest characters in the game, i like his kit even tho its insanely counterable, but what i HATE is his WEAK ass passive in the MIDGAME/LATE GAME.
People just stand there and dont care about it, you can sometimes kill an ADC if the player is retarded, but any fighter and mages that stack HP do not care, assasins just blink away so they also dont give a shiet, and you are slowed or stunned to reach the adc. So whats the usage of it late game?
Dont tell me you soak up abilites when they all spam them like a machinegun. I literally played 3 games in a row where they just dont give a shiet and emote while i punch them and we were even in power they just cocky cause my team fed them all but i was fed too from laning
(i had Sunfire,Despair and Bloodmail in my latest match, samira and lethality Lee sin were not giving a fuck, standing there i realised they were just like me trying to make history, but whos to judge the right from wrong when our guard is down i think we will both agree that Sion passive sucks ass midgame/lategame, doesnt do any damage to towers not even champions),
you start dealing some damage with it when you get Titanic hydra. His passive needs to SCALE BETTER.

You never know the pull of a small town until you trade your entire life to live in one.
Dazzling city lights made way for grassy fields blanketed in soft sunsets, local papers filled with names I knew by heart. When the honeyed hair of the local florist came out in patches due to the stresses of life, sixty people brought steaming bowls of food to ease the ache. A singular church brought the townsfolk together, and perhaps that was the most foreign part of it all to me.
I was a kid, so I watched the entire thing unfold through the innocent lens of child, keenly watching the camaraderie of this town really peak outside the doors of that church. It didn’t look like much, a steepled dream imagined by the townsfolk of before, but it meant everything to the people. I even understood that back then, even though I didn’t quite buy the concept of a god yet.
The Sundays were a monotonous part of our week, only pedalled by my parents who desperately wanted to fit in with the town’s culture. They wore their masks well, nodding in the right places as we sat in the same pew every time, my father often discreetly checking the football scores in the sleeve of his jumper. Nothing ever happened in that tiny town, and then everything happened all at once.
It started with the miracles. Our pastor, Pastor Jon, liked to have the troubled souls of that week sitting in the front row so he could clutch their shaking hands one by one, channelling the energy of God through him in the hope that someday, hope could be brought to those lacking in it. It was a brief affair, usually just the joining of skin and a short prayer, but that Sunday was different. Rain hammered against the roof, leaving Pastor Jon’s prayers lost in the low, threatening rumble of thunder.
It meant when the sun shone through the clouds and caressed the face of a pained Wilson Brewster, it already felt a welcome intrusion.
“May your broken leg heal quickly,” Pastor Jon smiled warmly, steeling a hand on the calf of the waiting boy.
He, like me, was just a child. He didn’t feel the urgency of the situation, he was probably only grateful his throbbing leg wasn’t pulsating with pain anymore. He breathed a quiet ‘cool’ and that would have been that, had his parents not asked exactly what was cool about his leg being touched later that night. The news spread like wildfire - as per the medical centre, his parents said, Wilson Brewster no longer had a broken fibula.
There was some debate, of course. My parents mumbled in the kitchen about how clearly he’d never had a broken leg, and how odd to make him hobble around in a cast if that was the case. The sentiment was echoed tenfold, until something a little more tangible happened that changed the course of that town, and our lives, forever.
Pastor Jon didn’t mean for the glass to shatter in his hand during service, nor did he mean for a chunk of it to embed itself in his palm, gushing reams of blood racing down his arm in a bid for the floor.
“Gross!” one of the kids shouted with glee, the rest of us paling as crimson spilled from his wound. He was a deer in the headlights, utterly unprepared as we all looked on in awe. This was not how church usually went - this was quite the deviation. Several people stood to help, but they needn’t have bothered, because the divine was ready to intervene.
“Oh dear,” Pastor Jon muttered in a panic, using his bloodied hand to block the intense ray of sunlight threatening to stream through the glass into his eyes. It bathed the blood in a golden glow, and quicker than it had gone in, the chunk of glass began to slide from the wound till it smashed to the floor, exploding into a million pieces. That was not the crescendo, though, rather it was the sight of his skin tightening and knitting together - months of work in a moment - blood congealing and leaving behind nothing but memories of a wound.
“Pastor?” Mary-who-makes-the-blueberry-pies breathed, reaching out to touch him with bulging eyes. Pastor Jon could only open and close his mouth uselessly, his voice barely coming out in a whisper when he did finally speak.
“It’s a miracle,” he wheezed, and by all accounts, I suppose it seemed it was.
I was young, but I remember the bustle - the town was as I’d never seen it. The people of the church had vowed to keep it our little secret because, as Pastor Jon said, we had been given a gift and it was not appropriate to turn it into a spectacle. This gift was sporadic, though. People queued through the double doors of that church, sobbing and praying for their own slice of God, but few were to be given it. Little Laurie Lee and her dislocated jaw cleared up within the hour. Farmer Noel had a sudden epiphany about what the lottery numbers were to be.
Our town was blessed.
For two days, we marvelled. The rest of the world can have a piece later, we reasoned, but this was for us, just for now.
The church was fuller than it had ever been, people spilling out into the back and waiting with baited breath, snippets of conversations could be heard, and as they had been for the last two days, they all echoed one another.
“-a believer. I mean, Aunt Lillian said it was the light. The light closed up his wound, there and then!”
“-jaw. I saw her get hit with the cricket bat! Terrible thing, little lamb was inconsolable. And then next thing I know, she comes here and those shards are just welded back together again! Well, I told Janie-”
“-need to make the church bigger. Look at everyone! If only-”
So when Pastor Jon stood before us practically trembling with glee, it was hardly the weirdest thing that had happened all week. His voice was thick with emotion, eyes darting manically around our congregation.
“I have a message,” he breathed, and the crowd gasped at the connotation of it. I remember my father swearing, a low rumble of expletives I didn’t usually hear falling from his lips. I didn’t fully understand what this meant, but the atmosphere in that room morphed in a heartbeat.
“Tell us,” Christie Baker cried, hands clasped as tears welled in her eyes, “Oh, please tell us!”
Pastor Jon visibly shook, holding a trembling hand outstretched as if to reach us all. “He came to me last night,” a single tear raced past his cheek and made a home on his lip, “He spoke to me.”
“Praise God!” a man cried from next to me, and I shuffled closer to my father at the sudden burst of noise.
“It is… Him,” Pastor Jon uttered in a blissful exhale, sending the room bursting into chaos. Tears, cheers and prayers filled the space, but my father just clutched me tighter and my stomach churned uncomfortably. It took at least ten minutes for the room to quieten, but when it did, he had their rapt attention. “I am told that I will be His vessel. I will pass on what must be passed. We are not to spread the word, yet - only our pocket of civilization is ready. Only ours.”
You could replicate what happened a thousand times, and somebody would mess it up, sending a message of the divine to their great aunt in Auckland. But not us. That secret stayed within the confines of our town for the sixteen days hell shined upwards at us. Everybody had a thousand questions, but Pastor Jon only hushed us. “You must trust me,” he said, tone more regal than I’d ever heard it. And trust him the people did.
So on the second day when he returned to church and his eyes were dark-rimmed, nobody questioned it. He was chosen. Who knows what that does to a person’s sleep cycle? The following day when he went for his morning walk and the smile didn’t quite reach his hollow eyes, that was fine. He was a vessel, not a performer. And then that morning at church when he addressed us and kept rubbing the angry red welts on his wrists, who were we to ask questions of God’s messenger?
Nothing went terribly wrong until the baptisms. We all wanted to be part of this - even my anxious parents who signed me up to be bathed in holy water - and so we queued towards the front of the church, eager to hand ourselves over. I was second in line, right behind Mrs Awkins who had been the school nurse for the last 26 years, apparently. She was gleeful as Pastor Jon set up, speaking rhymes I barely listened to as I bounced on the balls of my feet, eager to go next. My stomach flipped at the words, knowing that my turn was only seconds away. People wouldn’t usually queue, but this was different. It was all different, now.
“I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I didn’t expect the awful fizzing noise the liquid made as it hit Nurse Awkins’ head, nor did I expect the guttural wail that fell from her lips as she clawed at her own scalp. Smoke billowed up from her disappearing tresses and as I was yanked backwards, I caught a glimpse of her exposed skull. Most people will go their entire lives without the smell of burning flesh lingering in their nostrils, but not me.
“I- No! That wasn’t- oh!” Pastor Jon had cried, tired eyes bulging out of his head as people leapt to their feet to assist.
It was carnage, but not carnage I witnessed for long. My mother’s grip on my arm was vice-like, her eyes swimming with terror I know still plagues her to this day. I recall my father on the walk home, murmuring to my mother in low tones I wasn’t meant to hear.
“This isn’t right, Rach’. Jesus, did you see her? That was almost our son!”
My mum’s voice was shrill, the sound of her heels clacking against the pavement not quite masking her voice. “The police will be called - we don’t even know if she’ll survive! I think I’m going to throw up.”
But she was wrong on both counts. She didn’t throw up and the police weren’t called, because we rallied together. This was bigger than us and bigger than Mrs Awkins. Sure, nobody else tried to get baptised, but this was a blip. People surmised that the almighty didn’t want her as part of his flock, that she hadn’t been a believer when it mattered. Nobody was to utter a word about it, and because church was every morning now, my parents were almost too scared not to go. As a child, I didn’t understand it, but all these years later, I think I’d have bent to the fear of the almighty as well.
But it wasn’t the almighty who knocked on the door.
It became all the clearer that morning when Pastor Jon turned up with eyes so sunken and empty that we startled at his presence.
“Pastor.. Pastor, are you feeling alright?” one of our neighbours fussed, “Will you be okay for service?”
Pastor Jon didn’t answer. It was almost as though he didn’t hear her as he dragged his feet up to the front, turning so slowly towards us that it almost felt eerie. A large, jagged and bloodied cut spanned the entire back of his neck, disappearing behind him as he eyed us all, one by one.
“He’s here,” he murmured, words that on paper, should have sent the entire church reeling with joy. But you could hear a pin drop. You could hear any soul whisper in the large room, and yet his utterance only caused goosebumps to spread across my skin as a sort of icy stillness washed over me.
“He’s… here?” a woman in the front row asked, and Pastor Jon took too long to answer. An unnatural, slow smile spread across his face as he tilted his head towards the source of the noise. He didn’t respond, instead slowly lifting his hand to his lips, letting his finger linger there for a moment. When nobody spoke, he let his mouth fall open and began to chew loudly on the finger, drawing gasps from the crowd.
“Don’t look,” my mother shimmied closer to me and lifted a trembling hand to my eyes, but I could see through the cracks in her fingers. Pastor Jon continued to sloppily chew his finger, eventually snapping his head up and inhaling sharply as he spat blood out of his mouth.
“Your bodies are so fragile,” he sneered, lifting his dripping finger to the skies, causing several people to leap from their seats and make a bolt for it. My mother was one of them, and with horror, I watched as the Pastor’s eyes scanned the room and locked onto mine, tilting his head. “Stay,” he hissed with bared, bloody teeth, and we did. Not through choice, but rather, a sickening whoosh of air that skimmed past our faces and forced us all back down.
“What’s going on?” someone shrieked, but we weren’t to know, not really.
Pastor Jon only smiled blissfully, reaching his arms outwards as if to accept us. “I’ve come to bless you all,” he whispered mockingly, fingers outstretched as the sun hit the stained glass to the left of him. But it was all wrong. Sunshine streamed in and as it hit the red of a decorated sunrise, an image which had been there years before us, the colour changed. It was only moments until the church had the appearance of being bathed in blood, shimmering red bouncing off every surface to create the illusion we were all swimming in hell.
Nobody spoke.
Those who didn’t quite make it to the doors stood frozen; we who remained in our seats cowered in the heaviest kind of fear. Red drowned us and we clutched one another, eyeing Pastor Jon as though he were a wild animal. Finally, someone dared speak.
“Where is God?” he murmured, eyes swimming. Pastor Jon’s neck snapped towards him as he licked the blood from his finger, shuddering. When he spoke, his words were cold, distant. As though they were from somewhere else entirely.
“He hasn’t been around for a while.”
There was no time for his words to punch at my stomach, because in no time at all Pastor Jon was crumpled on the floor, wailing as he regarded his chewed, bloody finger. The bone was exposed and yet nobody helped him as he looked at us pleadingly, too many eyes on him as his whimpers turned to whispers. When he spoke, we listened.
“You need to keep coming to church,” he breathed, a single, bloody tear trickling down his cheek, “It will be worse if we don’t.”
So we did.
The Sunday Fair was cancelled, and pies that had been baked to share in sunny gardens went stale and grew mould. People packed duffel bags and made for their cars, arguing fiercely with those who decided to stay. My mother and father disagreed, but their argument was far more muted.
“Please, we have to go,” my father pleaded, shaking his head as I watched from the shadows, “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck that was-”
“I can’t explain it,” her voice was shaken, quiet, “But I know it will be worse if we go. I know it. Please just trust me. Trust Jon.”
So as my father always did, he believed in my mother. Each day in church was torturous, everyone sitting rigid with fear as Pastor Jon read slowly and shakily from the bible, bruises littering his gaunt body. When the holy book in his hands would launch into flames, he’d calmly drop it into the bucket of water he’d prepared and retrieve a new one. One time, every window in the church smashed and we all winced, ducking to avoid the onslaught of glass.
Darkness watched us.
We all felt it, and I know it visited members of the flock in the shadows. I was plagued by it one particularly torturous night as I lay in bed, blanketed in darkness with the covers pulled up to my chin. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling I was being stared upon, squeezing my eyes shut as laboured, wet breaths left my body. But they weren’t my breaths.
I’d realised it straight away, that my hurried gasps for air didn’t match the gargling, strangled heaving that echoed around my head. From under the covers, I didn’t know much, but I knew one thing - the uncomfortable, heavy presence laying on my legs was my only source of comfort. Through all this, I reasoned, that if my beloved dog was with me, hell itself couldn’t come and claim me.
But I was wrong, because outside, my dog howled into the night.
Terror like that wasn’t something I’d felt before, and as my stomach bottomed out, I stopped breathing altogether. It must have sensed my fear, because those gargling breaths heaved closer and closer to my face as it dragged itself up my body, inch by inch. The smell of rot and ash burned into my nostrils, a horrific weight settling above my nose as my lungs started working again, so quickly that I would surely die then and there. If it had a face, it was twisted and pressed into mine, the thin bedcover my only source of protection.
But I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move, so I let it pant gravelly air into my face, let it lay on top of me for hour after hour, till the birdsong indicated morning had come. All night I sobbed stifled cries, chest shaking as I squeezed my eyes shut and felt it pressing into me. Felt it hating me, felt it wanting to rip its claws into my stomach and pull out my intestines. But it didn’t. And when I awoke late the next morning - I must have passed out through fear alone - it was gone.
The rest is all a bit of a trauma-soaked blur, to be honest. I know my parents couldn’t understand why I wasn’t speaking the next day, why I barely reacted when evil finally descended that morning at church. The rest of the townsfolk screamed for their lives, ran as fast as they could, but I just stared with a hollow, broken gaze. As the rivers of blood waterfalled down between the pews, I watched Pastor Jon’s eyes grow dark as midnight, empty and soulless as he bellowed inside those four walls and called upon something worse than any of us could likely ever imagine.
I recall the fire starting, remember Pastor Jon’s slack jaw as he regarded us all so horribly, moving jaggedly towards my family with a growing demonic, gleeful grin.
“I remember you from last night,” he’d uttered darkly, but his voice came out in a thousand jarring layers and I could see hell in his eyes.
“Leave us alone!” my father tried to shield us, lifting a crucifix and wielding it towards Pastor Jon as though it would protect us. He simply laughed, an awful noise of horrific dissonance that I still sometimes hear alone in my bed at night. In complete horror, my parents could only watch as this thing wrenched the crucifix from my father’s hand, grinning as his jaw split and shattered each second he opened it impossibly wider. The sound of his bones cracking reverberated as his skin split and his mouth gaped, wide enough to drop the crucifix right into his waiting, blood-soaked mouth and swallow it, right in front of us.
When he met our gaze, his broken jaw hung limply from his face, sad morsels of skin stitching a once-good man together. Whatever blur those hours were, that, I remember.
It was an anti-climax, really, because while I expected him to descend upon us all and rip us into thousands of pieces, he simply boomed his words, jaw still hanging as his evil spoke directly into our souls.
“When I return in 20 years, it is not just your small town that will bleed.”
Pastor Jon has been missing for 20 years. I’m not sure when he started his countdown, but I awoke this morning with a dread so sickening that I’ve barely stopped emptying my stomach. If it’s over and the earth turns to rubble, I hope somebody finds this and can at least piece together why it all came to a sad, premature end. We townsfolk kept our vow of quiet for this long, but there comes a point when silence is deadly.
I think today, Pastor Jon will be found.

AIW for cutting off my lifelong friend over this?
To give context, we are all in our mid 20’s, my best friend has been my best friend for over 15 years, and my husband is relatively new to the area and still getting to know the city and speaking english. We can call my friend Adam.
My husband and Adam went out drinking together last night, and my husband did not get home until 11am the next day. At around 6am I wake up realizing my husband isn’t home yet so I call him, he answers very drunk, and then hangs up when I ask him why he isn’t home yet. So I call Adam, who is already on his way home, and I ask him why he left my husband or didn’t tell him to come home with him? He responds, “I told him to come and he said no, so I left him at the bar with my other friends. He’s a grown man, that’s not my man, not my business”. I get upset because I know very well my husband is probably drunk as hell, as my best friend, and my husbands friend, why not try to convince him to come with you or at the very least call me and I would’ve gotten him myself.
I get frustrated but I ask him to send me the numbers of the people who he left my husband with, he refuses saying he doesn’t give out someone’s number without their consent. He said he’d reach out to them himself. Fast forward to 8am, Adam says that one of his female friends who we can call Beth, was last with him and said she was going to send him home. Only for maybe 20 minutes later, Beth apparently says to Adam that she’s home and not with my husband. So I ask Adam again, to please give me her number so I can ask her how he was before she left him, was he really drunk? Could he walk? Was he with anyone else? Everyone else who was there were people who my husband had never met before, just mutuals of mutuals.
Adam refuses, saying that Beth is not with my husband and that there’s no point in me reaching out to her or anyone else myself.
Now it’s 11am, my husband comes home, he tells me Adam left him randomly, and that he stayed back with some of Adam’s friends, including Beth. He also says he does not remember a lot of the night but that he woke up and he was at Beth’s house. The same Beth who Adam refused to give me the number of and was so adamant that they weren’t together. My husband and I argue, he’s still drunk and hostile and he leaves again.
I speak to a mutual friend of Adam and I, we can call her Kat. She tells me she spoke to Adam about the situation and sent me the screenshot of him saying he thinks Beth lied to him to cover for my husband because apparently he “does this”. As in, tells others to lie to me for him?
A lot of things don’t make sense.
If my best friend knew that my husband “does this”, why have I never heard about this? Why hide that from me?
If Beth really did lie to Adam, why would she lie for a man she barely knows? Let alone lie to her close friend?
I whole heartedly believe that Adam lied to me either way. He either lied to me about all the times my husband has asked him to cover for him, or he’s lying about Beth lying to him.
Someone is lying, and I am sick to my stomach and feel betrayed by everyone involved.
Adam is trying to make me feel like i’m overreacting and my husband is too wasted and hungover to give me any straight answers. I of course plan to interrogate the shit out of him once he’s of sound mind, but for now, nothing makes sense. I don’t know if this will break my marriage, but if it does i’ll take it with pride. And of course, Adam still refuses to give me Beth’s number to ask for her side of the story.
AIW for feeling like I want to cut off my best friend? And possibly divorce my husband???
TLDR; My childhood best friend went on a drinking bender with my husband, left him alone and possibly lied or has been lying to me about my husband being at one of my friend’s (female) mutuals house. And much more that you can find up there.

AITA for cutting off my lifelong friend over this?
To give context, we are all in our mid 20’s, my best friend has been my best friend for over 15 years, and my husband is relatively new to the area and still getting to know the city and speaking english. We can call my friend Adam.
My husband and Adam went out drinking together last night, and my husband did not get home until 11am the next day. At around 6am I wake up realizing my husband isn’t home yet so I call him, he answers very drunk, and then hangs up when I ask him why he isn’t home yet. So I call Adam, who is already on his way home, and I ask him why he left my husband or didn’t tell him to come home with him? He responds, “I told him to come and he said no, so I left him at the bar with my other friends. He’s a grown man, that’s not my man, not my business”. I get upset because I know very well my husband is probably drunk as hell, as my best friend, and my husbands friend, why not try to convince him to come with you or at the very least call me and I would’ve gotten him myself.
I get frustrated but I ask him to send me the numbers of the people who he left my husband with, he refuses saying he doesn’t give out someone’s number without their consent. He said he’d reach out to them himself. Fast forward to 8am, Adam says that one of his female friends who we can call Beth, was last with him and said she was going to send him home. Only for maybe 20 minutes later, Beth apparently says to Adam that she’s home and not with my husband. So I ask Adam again, to please give me her number so I can ask her how he was before she left him, was he really drunk? Could he walk? Was he with anyone else? Everyone else who was there were people who my husband had never met before, just mutuals of mutuals.
Adam refuses, saying that Beth is not with my husband and that there’s no point in me reaching out to her or anyone else myself.
Now it’s 11am, my husband comes home, he tells me Adam left him randomly, and that he stayed back with some of Adam’s friends, including Beth. He also says he does not remember a lot of the night but that he woke up and he was at Beth’s house. The same Beth who Adam refused to give me the number of and was so adamant that they weren’t together. My husband and I argue, he’s still drunk and hostile and he leaves again.
I speak to a mutual friend of Adam and I, we can call her Kat. She tells me she spoke to Adam about the situation and sent me the screenshot of him saying he thinks Beth lied to him to cover for my husband because apparently he “does this”. As in, tells others to lie to me for him?
A lot of things don’t make sense.
If my best friend knew that my husband “does this”, why have I never heard about this? Why hide that from me?
If Beth really did lie to Adam, why would she lie for a man she barely knows? Let alone lie to her close friend?
I whole heartedly believe that Adam lied to me either way. He either lied to me about all the times my husband has asked him to cover for him, or he’s lying about Beth lying to him.
Someone is lying, and I am sick to my stomach and feel betrayed by everyone involved.
Adam is trying to make me feel like i’m overreacting and my husband is too wasted and hungover to give me any straight answers. I of course plan to interrogate the shit out of him once he’s of sound mind, but for now, nothing makes sense. I don’t know if this will break my marriage, but if it does i’ll take it with pride. And of course, Adam still refuses to give me Beth’s number to ask for her side of the story.
AITA for feeling like I want to cut off my best friend? And possibly divorce my husband???
TLDR; My childhood best friend went on a drinking bender with my husband, left him alone and possibly lied or has been lying to me about my husband being at one of my friend’s (female) mutuals house. And much more that you can find up there.

I (M35) am married to (F34). I also have a friend (M36) who we'll call Mark, and he is soon-to-be-unmarried to his wife (F34).
The reason why Mark and his wife are divorcing is because (according to Mark) she has let herself go. He has said she has gained a lot of weight (I have noticed that, but like I didn't really care), she stopped going to the gym, starting smoking, cut off her hair due to not caring to take care of it anymore, etc. When I told my wife of this, she just made a face and said that it was "trashy" of him to leave his wife in what may be hard times in her life. I understand that, but like, my friend said that he had tried therapy for her, marriage counselling, and antidepressants (she was actually diagnosed depressed) but she didn't really seem to want to help herself.
Honestly, I can get behind that. But my wife's mood always shifts whenever I bring him up now, and doesn't like the fact that I'm helping him through the divorce (it's taking a toll on both of them equally imo).
Been a back and forth type thing for a while, and im coming to this sub to seek judgement on whether i am wrong or not here. AITA?

I (35F) have been married to my husband (38F) for 17 years. We have two young children together. I haven’t really discussed this with anyone because in all honesty - I’m embarassed. My husband and I aren’t getting along in pretty much all areas of our life together. First and foremost, he works a lot and there is barely any shut off time. We work together but our work is 24 hours and he wants to discuss work at any and every opportunity. Our work is emotionally draining and I feel like I don’t want to continue living in such a stressful head space all the time. We obviously differ there. He has really bad habits, he is addicted to his phone and spends most of the day on it (he says it’s for work but a lot of it can be avoided.) mindless scrolling, social media etc. He stays up until really late every night. I’m in bed for 10.30/11, he doesn’t come to bed until 1am. He then finds it difficult to get up in the mornings and is the last one to get up. I’m always the one waking the children up for school and then making them breakfast. He is overweight. It’s never really been a problem for me, he has been for a long time. But he’s unhappy in himself for that reason and can never really find anything to wear and goes on about it but never actually does anything about it for long enough. It’s just another example of his unhealthy lifestyle. The biggest issue I have with him is to do with our sex life. He has for years tried to encourage me to sleep with someone else. I have always refused this but then he will do things like steal my phone and message men. Or set up recording equipment in our bedroom or even software on his computer to record me on Skype. These are all things that have happened over the very many years we’ve been together but a few years will pass in between and then he will do something crazy like that again and it will throw us totally off track again. I’ve told him he needs to go to therapy and he says he will but never does. Reading over this it sounds like he might be depressed, but he truly isn’t. He believes I make something out of nothing in all this and I should just get on with it. For a long time I have stayed with him because I’m scared of what divorce will do to our children. I know it’s really hard to respond to something like this as one Reddit post can’t possibly tell you much about a relationship and obviously you don’t know us or our situation but I’m too embarrassed to discuss any of it with people we know and would appreciate opinions from someone.

I recently left a civil marriage, we're getting divorced and have a baby together. We split custody 40/60 with me holding the greater half.
Since we split up and she filed for divorce I have been looking for some sense of community and family. I have taken my daughter to Mass each Sunday since and am beginning to realise that we can integrate with a community here.
My fears are the same as before, the judgment of other parishioners regarding my situation.
I don't want to lie when they ask me why I am here but I am also scared that they will judge me for being married in a non religious ceremony and now at the stage of divorce.
I want my daughter to hold true Christian values but I'm not sure if the church is the best place for that.
Any ideas? Or similar situations?

30m, this happened back in 2011 so it has been a while. I will be as brief about my ex step-father named Eric. That’s his real name and I would love it if he saw this🤭. The man was abusive towards my brother and I. My brother is 2 years older. Had this gem in my life from 9-17yrs. I was always so afraid to make any mistakes around him. Once I accidentally broke some vertical blinds while playing with our dogs. I knew he would be upset but decided to tell him later. I placed the SINGLE broken blind on the top ;hidden but obvious enough to see. My mom got home, we walked the dogs, got back 45 mins later. Eric is now home. I walk past the living room and Eric has this scowl on his face. Shit. He knows. I was going to tell him but here we are. Well, I walk into my room… I had this beautiful, 34 gallon saltwater reef aquarium, filled with fish, coral, and invertebrates that I acquired from working at an aquaculture store. It was 5 years old and I was very proud of it. I walk into my room and notice the water is too clear, like crystal clear and the corals are retracted. I rush over and see the fish I had raised from babies struggling to breathe. The water smelled of bleach/chlorine. It all died. We got into an argument, he convinced my mother that it was a random chemical reaction. Anyways, I waited about 8 months before going in for the kill. They started having marital problems so I took the opportunity. I broke into his gaming room/man cave and went snooping. In a WELL hidden place, I find a syringe, needle, steroids, likely a narcotic, handgun, and a dildo. I did know about the gun. 😎😎💅 It was too risky to be direct, even to my mother. She was blind to a lot. All I did was put the dildo in a different location to mess with his mind. Even if he suspected it was me, there is no scenario in which he can both confront me and maintain his dignity. Check♟👑 My mom found the dildo, as I found out years later. I told her about finding a “ syringe” in his room. I lied and said it was simply laying atop his man cave bed. Men can be so forgetful… 😏That led to her finding the rest. I also made sure she knew his throw away email, which I knew because he let me play on his Xbox from time to time. Well, it turned out to be his throw away email account for dating websites. Check and mate ♟ They divorced shortly after. TLDR: Recovering people pleaser put the nail in the coffin to his shieeettt stepfather.
Edit: Guys, why does the formatting keep getting ruined? I am putting spaces…. I am not an animal! Sorry!!

I am an African female (21F) and I recently just became a girlfriend to my now white American male (23W). We have been seeing each other for 3 months. I never really thought about introducing my bf to my family, but I do want to however there are some potential issues...
My family is a mix of conservative religious and non-religious. All of my siblings have had boyfriends and girlfriends before and they always clashed with my uncle. My uncle raised me and 3 of my older siblings. My older siblings were very rebellious and courageous in their acts. Defying my uncle in lots of ways. They dated, brought their partners home, and did everything in between. My uncle and I were and are still very close. His approval means a lot to me. I grew up being so obedient and good, so he would never talk about me the way he would speak about my older siblings.
I've had very open conversations with him, stemming from "what-if situations". He is a conservative Christian, but he has never forced his religious views on my siblings and me. I am also a Christian with conservative views, but I'm okay with my boyfriend, who is not necessarily religious. However, he does believe in God and is okay with going to church (it's all very new to him).
My uncle believes in courtship. No dating and all the bf and gf thing. He wants a man who I have never been romantic with and just friends with to come to me and ask for my hand in marriage. I was even ok with that idea until I met my now bf. I planned to introduce him somehow only when we were both ready to get engaged, but my bf told me that my family might not like him cause of the fact that I had been hiding him till then. I agreed. However, I am afraid that if I introduce him now, my uncle will try to convince me to break up with him. He would even influence my parents to talk to me and get me to break up with him.
First side note: my uncle is ok with me marrying someone who is not religious as long as they have a good life and family values.
Second side note: my family in general don't mind me marrying a white person, but they are still very skeptical about them and have prejudice like how they have no serious values and love to to divorce
Last side note: My parents were not in my life very much. I only have been with my mother for 4 years of my life and my dad and I don't have a strong emotional connection. My mother will probably listen to my uncle to know what's best and my dad regardless of my uncle or mom's decision will want me to get married as long as I am happy and the man has money.
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When do you guys think would be the best time to tell my uncle and my family about my bf and how do you think I should approach it?

I’m doing a charity walk to raise money for vulnerable women in Yemen. My goal is £50 please donate anything if you can. Thank you.
The Prophet ﷺ , said: “The believer’s shade on the Day of Resurrection will be his charity.” (Al-Tirmidhi).
Donation link: https://www.launchgood.com/v4/campaign/manyimas_epping_forest_walk_for_yemen?src=internal_comm_page
Information from the campaign:
The Yemen civil war started in 2015, leaving aside the politics and the blame it is the women and children who always suffer in conflict making up 80% of those affected. Yemen is now the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Yemen as a nation wasn’t very rich and prosperous to start with and the war has only plunged it into an even darker place of ruthlessness.
The worst place in the world right now is Yemen. The UN has declared Yemen to be the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. With the country suffering from mass starvation, more than 80 percent of the population lacks food, drinking water and access to health care services.
How Yemen’s war weighs on women-led households To add to the issue, women, unmarried women, divorced and adolescent girls are among the most vulnerable. In a society like Yemen, men shield and protect the women from danger, abduction and sexual attacks. This crisis has created an easy environment for women to be exploited and violated of their dignity. Women are now forced to take the lead as the male guardian has either been killed or is fighting. The responsibility is now upon the women for collecting supplies for their families which make them an easy target. Women have to walk up to three hours to collect their rations of basic food for survival and then have to make the same journey back, carrying both food and their children in their arms in the unbearable heat of over 45 degrees over barren land. Access to basic food is not always available and as a result women are the most malnourished and children are dying from starvation.
The UN says that tens of thousands of people in Yemen are currently living in famine-like conditions, while some six million people are on the verge of famine.
Updates from the ground 1. The war continues and is getting worse 2. Famine and unemployment are at its peak, no source of income or food 3. Deadly diseases are widespread, many have lost their lives / loved ones 4. Food and medication are lacking across the country 5. The rate of disability is increasing, women and children have lost limbs due to the war and land mines 6. More children are born with disabilities due to malnutrition and chemicals
The rise in prostitution Yemen has been grappling with a severe economic crisis, many women are suffering as they cannot provide basic meals for their children, women are lucky to eat one meal a one, and many have resorted to begging in the streets of Yemen. To add, there is a humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in need of basic aid, the lack of has heightened the desperation. Combining the economic and humanitarian situation, some, particularly women turn to prostitution as a means of survival. The lack of livelihood opportunities and income often forces them into sex work.
Selling of children With the suffering of war, extreme poverty and famine, some families are forced to sell their children in return for a salary to be recruited for combat purposes because they are unable to provide living necessities, young girls are sold to take part in armed operations or to marry fighters. Some children are as young as 8 years old who are exploited for smuggling purposes. More common are child marriages which is seen as a way out of poverty, child marriage is a financial transaction and is decided based on short-term economic reasons, underage girls are married off for a few hundred dollars.
What we are doing: To combat the sex for aid, exploitation of these vulnerable women and the pressure women face for survival, Forgotten Women focuses on delivering ‘Safe Aid’ which in basic terms means aid for women by women, we only allow women on the front line to deliver aid in a safe manner.

It's been an interesting few weeks of MH3 spoilers! And OTJ has quickly had some $2 cards become $10 cards--there is so much value in OTJ it reminds me of a WOE 2.0. Freestrider Lookout and Hostile Investigator are only the two latest OTJ cards to be "discovered." Anyway, without further ado, here are some cards I've been buying over the last two months.
In just the last few days there have been some banger Eldrazi spells spoiled in MH3. Two of them in particular offer big rewards for casting 7+ cmc creature spells: Kozilek's Unsealing and Echoes of Eternity. But it's probably hard to cast more than one 7 cmc creature spell a turn, right? Nah, not if your big creature spells all have emerge. There is a whole cycle of 7+ cmc Eldrazi in Eldrich Moon that can easily be cast for 1 colored mana each, provided you sacrifice a 7 cmc creature when you cast them. With Kozliek's Unsealing in play, every big Eldrazi you cast for it's emerge cost is like an Ancestral Recall. And with an Echoes of Eternity in play you'll get a free copy of every Eldrazi you cast. Because of this synergy, I speculated on some foil Eldrazi with emerge--16 copies each.
Wretched Gryff @ $1, Abundant Maw @ $0.75, It of the Horrid Swarm @ $0.50, Mockery of Nature @ $0.50, Vexing Scuttler @ $0.75, Lashweed Lurker $0.50.
Additionally, I bought some foil copies of Elder Deep-Fiend @ $3 and Distended Mindbender @ $1. There was also already a buyout on Thought Monitor ($2) for the affinity version of this deck.
I've also been building a crimes-matter deck for Commander using the new Marchesa. An important card I've discovered for the deck is Thran Turbine, an uncommon with a single printing in Urza's Saga. Thran Turbine gives you two colorless mana during your upkeep, which is normally hard to spend because it can't be spent on spells. With Marchesa, however, this colorless mana can be used to pay for her ability when you commit crimes during your upkeep. I've discovered that one of the most difficult things about making Marchesa work is having enough mana available to pay for her ability, and Thran Turbine functions almost like a second Sol Ring in the deck. I bought 12 copies @ $2 each.
Stella Lee, Wild Card. 4x foil and 4x full-art @ $3 each. This card can be both a broken Commander or a strong card in the 99 of any spellslinger deck. It just does stupid stuff like draws your entire library with a Cerulean Wisps.
Return the Favor ($1.50 foils) x50. I might have went a little too deep on this spec, but I really love the versatility of the card. The downside is needing to hold open 3 or 4 mana to make this really work, but when it works out it's amazing.
Femeref Enchantress ($12) x6. A Reserved List card that can draw you heaps of cards when enchantments die. $12 is probably too cheap for this effect on a Reserved List card.
Patron Wizard - SL ($3 foils) x4. Some of these Secret Lair reprints are really cheap! Patron Wizard is a very powerful card in tribal wizards decks, with even some lockdown potential when combined with a card like Puresight Merrow. I would have expected these SL foils to be closer to $10 each, so for $12 I'm grabbing a playset!
Mirror of Life Trapping ($0.50 ext art foil) x16. This is a super cheap spec on the most premium version of a bulk rare. If Satoru becomes a popular Commander I think these could be worth a few bucks someday. Mirror can allow you to evoke creatures and then keep them around, scam-style. It also doubles up your creatures' ETB triggers and Satoru draws a card every time one of your creatures jumps out from behind the Mirror.
Primeval Spawn ($0.50 ext art) x16. Powerful creature that is almost impossible to cast or cheat into play. However it can get cheated into play with cards like Body Double or Volrath's Shapeshifter. Being 5-color, it's limited to only being in rainbow EDH decks so I don't expect Primeval Spawn to go to the moon or anything. But I think $0.50 is too cheap for a creature this powerful so I gave CK my $8.
Vine Dryad ($15 foil) x4. Hey, this is a 4-drop creature that can be cast for 0-mana! Probably good in some situations, right? This card reminds me a lot of the reasons I started buying Skyshroud Cutter foils: turn 1 Neoform into something like Elesh Norn or free-cast MH3's Flair of Cultivation.
Lashknife Barrier ($2 foil) x6. Love this old school foil! Cantrip and damage prevention effect with a single set-printing and foil

Background:

1. State of CA
2. Pro se
3. Default with agreement
4. Very amicable
5. 36+ year marriage
6. Husband petitioner
7. No minor children
8. No spousal support
9. No separate property
10. Community property

I noticed the following possible errors on the FL-100 petition I received from husband earlier this month:

1. Length of time between marriage and date of separation is off by 2 months (37 years vs 35 yrs/10 months)
2. Minor children checkbox left blank
3. Spousal support left blank
4. Community property marked as none. We DO have community property.
5. Attorney fees and costs left blank

Questions:
Are these mistakes anything that might cause a court to reject our FL165 Default with agreement?
If yes, is there any advantage to filing an amended petition now over waiting to see if we get a rejection?
Will filing an amended petition restart the 6 month waiting period? (I understand we’ll have to wait 30 days to file for default, but I’m finding conflicting answers online to this question about the 6 month time clock. )
Will a rejection from the court possibly demand amended forms that could restart the 6 month waiting period pushing the final divorce out even further?
Appreciate your help. (After this first attempt at filing by himself, my husband is relying on me to fix his mess and complete all the other forms.)

It's been an interesting few weeks of MH3 spoilers! And OTJ has quickly had some $2 cards become $10 cards--there is so much value in OTJ it reminds me of a WOE 2.0. Freestrider Lookout and Hostile Investigator are only the two latest OTJ cards to be "discovered." Anyway, without further ado, here are some cards I've been buying over the last two months.
In just the last few days there have been some banger Eldrazi spells spoiled in MH3. Two of them in particular offer big rewards for casting 7+ cmc creature spells: Kozilek's Unsealing and Echoes of Eternity. But it's probably hard to cast more than one 7 cmc creature spell a turn, right? Nah, not if your big creature spells all have emerge. There is a whole cycle of 7+ cmc Eldrazi in Eldrich Moon that can easily be cast for 1 colored mana each, provided you sacrifice a 7 cmc creature when you cast them. With Kozliek's Unsealing in play, every big Eldrazi you cast for it's emerge cost is like an Ancestral Recall. And with an Echoes of Eternity in play you'll get a free copy of every Eldrazi you cast. Because of this synergy, I speculated on some foil Eldrazi with emerge--16 copies each.
Wretched Gryff @ $1, Abundant Maw @ $0.75, It of the Horrid Swarm @ $0.50, Mockery of Nature @ $0.50, Vexing Scuttler @ $0.75, Lashweed Lurker $0.50.
Additionally, I bought some foil copies of Elder Deep-Fiend @ $3 and Distended Mindbender @ $1. There was also already a buyout on Thought Monitor ($2) for the affinity version of this deck.
I've also been building a crimes-matter deck for Commander using the new Marchesa. An important card I've discovered for the deck is Thran Turbine, an uncommon with a single printing in Urza's Saga. Thran Turbine gives you two colorless mana during your upkeep, which is normally hard to spend because it can't be spent on spells. With Marchesa, however, this colorless mana can be used to pay for her ability when you commit crimes during your upkeep. I've discovered that one of the most difficult things about making Marchesa work is having enough mana available to pay for her ability, and Thran Turbine functions almost like a second Sol Ring in the deck. I bought 12 copies @ $2 each.
Stella Lee, Wild Card. 4x foil and 4x full-art @ $3 each. This card can be both a broken Commander or a strong card in the 99 of any spellslinger deck. It just does stupid stuff like draws your entire library with a Cerulean Wisps.
Return the Favor ($1.50 foils) x50. I might have went a little too deep on this spec, but I really love the versatility of the card. The downside is needing to hold open 3 or 4 mana to make this really work, but when it works out it's amazing.
Femeref Enchantress ($12) x6. A Reserved List card that can draw you heaps of cards when enchantments die. $12 is probably too cheap for this effect on a Reserved List card.
Patron Wizard - SL ($3 foils) x4. Some of these Secret Lair reprints are really cheap! Patron Wizard is a very powerful card in tribal wizards decks, with even some lockdown potential when combined with a card like Puresight Merrow. I would have expected these SL foils to be closer to $10 each, so for $12 I'm grabbing a playset!
Mirror of Life Trapping ($0.50 ext art foil) x16. This is a super cheap spec on the most premium version of a bulk rare. If Satoru becomes a popular Commander I think these could be worth a few bucks someday. Mirror can allow you to evoke creatures and then keep them around, scam-style. It also doubles up your creatures' ETB triggers and Satoru draws a card every time one of your creatures jumps out from behind the Mirror.
Primeval Spawn ($0.50 ext art) x16. Powerful creature that is almost impossible to cast or cheat into play. However it can get cheated into play with cards like Body Double or Volrath's Shapeshifter. Being 5-color, it's limited to only being in rainbow EDH decks so I don't expect Primeval Spawn to go to the moon or anything. But I think $0.50 is too cheap for a creature this powerful so I gave CK my $8.
Vine Dryad ($15 foil) x4. Hey, this is a 4-drop creature that can be cast for 0-mana! Probably good in some situations, right? This card reminds me a lot of the reasons I started buying Skyshroud Cutter foils: turn 1 Neoform into something like Elesh Norn or free-cast MH3's Flair of Cultivation.
Lashknife Barrier ($2 foil) x6. Love this old school foil! Cantrip and damage prevention effect with a single set-printing and foil.
Imagecrafter ($1.50 foil) x6. Also love this old foil. A 1-mana 1/1 that can change creature types (incidentally, a "crime") has gotta be good someday.

I have been with my boyfriend for 4 years. Overall, our relationship has been wonderful. He’s my best friend and I can’t imagine not having him to carry me to harass me to brush my teeth when I’m half asleep in bed. However, he’s always had some commitment issues, stemming in my opinion from his parent’s divorce. I am the first person he has ever said I love you to and his second relationship overall.
His commitment issues have popped up here and there throughout the relationship. Never did I feel like he wasn’t committed to me, it was more like he was just always scared of taking the “next step” (moving in together for example). It was always something he had never really thought about and he would tell me that he just had to process it. It was genuinely like the idea of a relationship progressing had not occurred to him and once it was brought to him he would take what felt to me like an incredibly long time to figure out if he was ready for it. I first brought up living together after a year and a half together (he owned a house and I was renting) and he couldn’t really figure out if he was ready in time so I ended up signing another year lease before we moved in. Not a big deal, just an example of his processing speed.
We live together now in the house he owns and have been living together for over a year. We broke up briefly in the beginning of 2023 after a disagreement in finances but have since worked through it and things have been great. We got back together in March of 2023.
The issue is I brought up marriage and the future and I feel like the commitment issues are rearing their head again. I really value marriage (personal preference, you do you, I just want that) and he knows that. When we got back together I told him that things would move faster now because we had made this serious choice to get back together and commit to working through everything. He agreed. I asked about engagement in January of 2024 and made it pretty clear that I wanted that to happen in the next 6-7 months (so we would’ve been back together for over a year by that point.
Well, after recent conversations, he told me he’s not ready and he just needs to be sure. Which is fair but when I asked if he knew for sure that it is me and he saw me as his forever he said “I think I can get there”. Punch to the gut. Thought he was already there.
So I told him that makes me really sad and I don’t know how I can be happy knowing that after this long and the promises we made getting back together that he isn’t sure about me. I told him I might be sad until he knew for sure and that at a certain point I might get tired of waiting and decide to leave. He said that’s unreasonable and unfair. I’m torn.
So I guess the question is, is it okay to feel sad about this? How long do I wait for him to be ready before I decide he’s taking too long? If I do wait for him to be ready, how do I handle the uncertainty of my partner not being sure about me when I’m so sure about him?
When we talk about it, he talks about all the other ways he is preparing for our future, we’re renovating a house together, we’ve talked about kids and he feels like that should be enough for right now but unfortunately for me, it’s not. I want the marriage, it’s one of my values and I’m hurt that he can’t even give me a timeline or confirm that it’s ever going to happen. He says uncertainty is just the nature of relationships. It just makes me so sad and he can’t see why. Idk…how do I handle this?
TL;DR: boyfriend has commitment issues, can’t give a timeline for proposal. How long do I wait?

Dday was 11 months ago. We've been physically separated since then, 2 months legally separated. Things are stable for the most part. My husband has triggers here and there but we've been talking often, spending time together with our daughter (which she LOVES), he let's me spend the night 1-3x a week, intimate again, both in IC and doing well. It feels like things are going in the right direction. Baby #2 is due July 4th. I thought we'd have a chance of getting back together when she's born, but I recently brought it up and he said he wouldn't be ready by then and that divorce is still on the table. It crushed me knowing he wants me to move back in for the first month after delivery, and then move back out again. The lease at my apartment ends in August. So realizing that I'd have to sign another lease left a pit in my stomach. It also means I can only afford to take half of my maternity leave.
Yes it was impulsive on both our parts to get pregnant again so soon after Dday. But a part of me feels a little bit of resentment toward him. We were on the right track for R. He said he wanted to take me back, forgave me, and wanted to expand our family. He made me feel safe in this decision with him. And a week after getting pregnant he changed his mind. It has SUCKED going through this pregnancy alone. The physical, mental, and emotional toll is enough on its own. Not being able to count on him as support, especially while also raising a toddler and working full time has been so incredibly difficult.
I don't regret getting pregnant. I don't wish I wasn't pregnant. I'm so excited for this baby. But a big part of me feels like whether or not he was actually ready for reconciliation (which he apparently wasn't), he should have followed through. Despite my affair, he felt ready at that time to make the decision to get back together and have another baby. And that's what I wanted too so of course I agreed. Knowing he set this ball in motion, I feel it was unfair to me to change his mind just like that. He should have said "hey, I'm still hurt, I wasn't actually ready, but the circumstances are different now and we need to try and make this work." Am I justified here?
I can also see the other side. I made vows to him, he entered this relationship and marraige not counting on me cheating and changing the circumstances. And me being pregnant doesn't cancel out his hurt or my poor decision making. I understand that. So I'm struggling with the balance of it all. He could argue that me making him feel comfortable and confident enough to marry me, then wreck it all with my affair, is the same as him making me feel the same way with getting pregnant, then ripping the rug out from underneath me too. Is this my karma? Is this part of what I deserve?
It would be nice to hear from both sides. I guess this is just me ranting and seeing what people have to say. Thanks for reading, and for your opinions/perspectives.

Hi!
MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!
I read this book this year but I don't think it was published this year.
In book 1, FMC has been divorced from her ex-husband for a while after he discovered that he was gay. They are really good friends though. At some point, his brother who is a doctor comes into the picture. He's the MMC. At the end of book 1, he breaks up with her because he wants to take a job opportunity aboard, in Africa, I think. They had a fight about it and he chose to leave anyway.
In book 2 she was so heartbroken and his brother was really mad at the MMC. Eventually, weeks or months pass, the FMC changed and became indifferent. She moved on with a new rich guy who was treating her well. MMC in Africa got wind of this, becomes regretful, but hes sleeping with a coworker over there. His brother is really short with him when he asks for updates about her life, and the brother makes it clear that he prefers the new guy over him.
MMC eventually comes back to town to get her back. FMC doesn't care. The new guy picks up on the fact that he wants her back, and tries to pay him off with a checque worth millions. When tht doesn't work, the new guy goes as far as to have his goons beat him up while he watches.
FMC eventually finds out about all of this, gets rid of the new guy and gets back with the FMC.
I hope this jogs someone's memory because this ones bugging me. Really need to find it.
Thanks in advance for your help.

I (16f) have a lot of health issues. I always get sick every week or two, and just now I started to feel extremely weak on both my legs and shaky, like they are about to fall off. The same for my arms. I feel nauseous and tired, my brain is foggy to the point I can’t think straight. My vision is slightly blurry but nothing too bad. I always feel hot. I just got off the phone with my grandma (I live with her, not my parents due to them being too abusive, they’re divorced.) and told her that I wasn’t feeling good. She was very sympathetic at first and asked me what was going on. I told her my symptoms and how it started yesterday morning (Maybe even Friday but I don’t remember) and her attitude completely changed to a “I’m fed up” tone and started ranting on how I always feel like this everytime I go to my dads house to sleepover to see my mom (I see my mom once on the weekends and I have to stay at my dads in order to see her, I obviously don’t like doing it, haven’t done it in a month till now) I told her that I was confused cause all I told her was how I felt. She then scoffed and said “whatever” and she hung up on me. She even blames it on my depression (she blames everything on my depression, not the case here) and I was told my ENTIRE life from my parents and even my grandmother on how sick and tired they were about my health issues and would tell me to suck it up most of the time. Because of this I developed many other issues. They still don’t take my health seriously and they don’t until the worst happens. I may call my aunt (she’s the only person who understands me) and tell her but I’m laying down in bed right now, and I just feel like I’m dying with the way I’m feeling right now. I don’t know what to do anymore. What should I do?

(I’m a lawyer, not in practice, not in Maryland)
TL;DR—if a divorce decree and a will conflict as to the disposition of personal property, does the divorce decree control?
My husband’s beloved uncle passed away on April 3 of this year. He lived in Maryland and has a house there. The whole rest of the family lives out of state.
Probate has not been opened yet.
Uncle has no living children and named my SIL as his executor. The original will is recorded, executed in 2018. Uncle’s EP attorney talked my SIL through the probate filing process and seemed reluctant to rep her; I am in the process of finding her some names (if you practice in Prince George’s County, I’ll pass on your info). SIL is dedicated to doing things above board, as you’d hope.
Uncle was divorced from Ex in 1991. The portion of the divorce decree that has been emailed to me states that personal property was divided to the parties’ satisfaction and that all the remaining property inside the marital residence belongs to Uncle, but that in the event he predeceases Ex, all of his personal property is hers (that is a wild thing to let a client agree to imo, but admittedly not my wheelhouse).
Uncle’s will states that the real property/home at his address goes to Ex, but that personal property and residual estate go to my husband and SIL evenly.
The home was conveyed in 1972 to Uncle and Ex, husband and wife as TBE.
We all live far away and have been unable to get up there because my MIL (Uncle’s sister) is very ill, and my SIL has kids in elementary school. We were planning on doing a preliminary sorting of Uncle’s personal property the weekend of June 1, which is Uncle’s celebration of life, with the aim of getting things cleaned out so Ex can take possession of the house as soon as she’s legally able. But if the divorce decree controls, I guess the whole kit and kaboodle need to be left untouched.
Additional complicating factor is that Ex has a certain sovereign citizen air to her. My SIL had to do some internet sleuthing to find Ex, who went no contact with most of Uncle’s family some years ago.
Ex must have gotten wind of Uncle’s death, because she called my SIL this week ranting about how that’s her house, it’s been in her family for generations (it hasn’t) and nobody will keep her from it. SIL saying “we just need your address for the probate so we can deed the house to you” was met with “I don’t need a piece of paper to get what’s mine.”
Ex lives in rural Virginia, we think. We know Ex tried to have the locks changed on the house while Uncle was still alive and physically present. The locksmith got done with the front door, and Uncle wore hearing aids and didn’t realize he was there until he started working on the back door. 😳
So, with the understanding that Ex is going to fight with SIL (no matter what) even though their goals are aligned, what document will likely control, so we can set expectations?