Original Post removed from AmITheAsshole for violating the relationship rule.
I (25F) am getting married to my fiancée, Matt (27M), in August. We've decided we want a non-traditional wedding that disregards stereotypical gender roles so my younger brother (16M) can be my man of honor. Matt was onboard with this idea and wanted his best friend, Jenna (27F), to be his best maid. He and Jenna have been friends since middle school. When his mom passed away back in high school, Jenna and her family were a huge support system for him. Now they're like family to him.
I never really got along with Jenna. Since she's so close with Matt, I've tried to connect with her, but I always got the feeling she has a crush on him. Matt shares this sentiment.
I tried to hangout with her, but she always ended up making passive-aggressive digs at my appearance and the way I behave. I've tried talking to her about how that upsets me, but she told me she thought "that's how girl friends play around with eachother." I've talked to Matt about it, and he went and confronted her for me. Afterwards, we agreed it would be best if I didn't hangout with her anymore. That was years ago, but now she's back and making requests for the wedding that make me uncomfortable. For example, she tried to convince me to change the colors to better suit her skintone.
I would like to pat my own back here and say I've been super chill about all of this, and Matt's been a peach intervening for me. But her most recent idea was to walk Matt down the aisle, since I already didn't want to be walked down the aisle, it would be a perfect gender role reversal. Matt thought this was a pretty fun idea. The way his face lit up probably would have convinced me to go along with it if she didn't word it in such a creepy way. She said, since Matt's mother is no longer here, she should be the one to "give him away." To clarify, I chose not to be walked down the aisle because I find the whole "giving away" thing to be a little gross and outdated. I suggested that Matt and I walk down the aisle together. And she told me that Matt's mother actually knew her, and would approve of her filing in that place instead of me.
I grabbed Matt's arm and led him away for a private conversation. I was explaining how that crossed the lines of what I was comfortable with considering her crush on him and she barged in the room hurling accusations at me. She called me jealous, controlling, petty, and manipulative.
I admit I snapped and told her she's not walking him and that's final and if she kept pushing me she would be uninvited. She ended up running out of the room in tears. Matt told me I could have handled that better and I can't go making those kind of decisions without his input, even if they are just empty threats. I feel like he's right and I do feel bad about what I said, but I honestly think she deserved the wake-up slap. AITA?

Hi all!
I am getting married end of October of this year. My husband to be and I have a son, who's 14 months right now. Needless to say, when the wedding day comes, we'll need to figure out a baby sitter of nanny for the day.
Our wedding planner suggested that we should not ask family to watch our son, as we'll want our family to be as present as possible. This is true, and the main concern I have is that our son still naps (and I presume he will at 18 months too) during the day. Usually it's a nap between 11:00 and 14:00 but that's when the ceremony will take place (12:00 - 13:00). Whomever is watching our son will need to stay with him while he's napping, as we're at a venue that anybody could walk into and it doesn't feel safe if he's alone in a room (naturally).
Obviously, I'd love for my son to be there during the ceremony, but I deem it likely that he's not going to be awake for that and I've accepted that. I'd be heartbroken if my mom or sister or MIL has to miss the ceremony, because she has to stay with my son while he sleeps, so I do think we will need a nanny.
Now, if I look for a "wedding nanny", prices become insane REALLY fast. Probably because 1. It has the word "wedding" in it but 2. also because wedding nannies tend to concern themselves with all of the kids present at the wedding. I am looking for someone who can watch our baby boy alone, I'd like him to have full attention.
On the other hand, we don't really have a nanny or baby sitter (we've been very lucky with family helping out). I'm looking around to see if I can find a baby sitter that our son can get to know over the next months, but I'm just wondering if that's maybe a bit much to ask of someone, to spend all day at our wedding and especially the fact that I don't know them super well is tricky for me as well. Plus, if I hire a girl in the neighbourhood, I just worry that maybe during the day she'll find herself in situations that she doesn't know how to handle. Of course I'll be happy to help out here and there but if it ends up me taking care of our son all day, that would take away my focus on the wedding as well.
I don't know, I guess I'm just conflicted on how to handle this. I feel that trying to find a baby sitter and getting to know them over the past months is probably best but I was just wondering how other people did this. I guess I feel like my son deserves to be with us/family on the day of, but the napping/potential tantrums etc. make it hard to guarantee that whomever takes care of him, will be able to fully enjoy the day.
So, for those lovely ladies out there who had a baby/toddler with them while getting married (or who are going to have a baby/toddler with them when they get married), what was/is your gameplan?
Thank you!

Title's a little stupid. Didn't know how else to phrase it. Lol. I'll do my best to keep this short and sweet, stick to the details, but this will be long. Don't know what's actually important to the question/title but feel free to ask if things aren't clear.
So last year my mom contacts and tells me that she, my autistic brother, and elderly grandma are moving out of my late grandpa's home due to it "stressing her out" and she didn't want to board it up and abandon it. And offered it to me. Take care of the house, land, and pay a fraction of the bills I'm paying for my apartment. Heck yeah why not! Also our relationship has been rocky so this was a chance for us to fix it.
This is where some would ask, what was wrong? Through my rose tinted glasses at the time, not much. I was a mama's boy really. But I started to go through a change and we got into an argument over the phone prior to her asking me to move down here. If I remember correctly, I was the type to ask my mom for advice about everything. So we'd talk at least once a week. But it had gotten to point where she couldn't give me advice anymore, not bad advice. Just advice that didn't help. and also I started not to like our conversations anymore. Again forgot why, simply felt like they weren't doing me good. so I started to withdraw from here. And the argument was like I need to figure how to do things without you cause your not helping me anymore I need to figure it out on my own type. But a tad more emotional.
So about 2-3wks later she offers the house. Again rose tinted glasses didn't think about it at the time. So I go for it. And the plan was to move at the end of the summer. But me being anxious and impulsive, I asked her if it was OK I move at the beginning. She encourages me. Now the house is in the western suburb of Illinois. Meaning you need a car to do anything. Which I didn't have. It was during this conversation where I swear my mother states that she'll allow me to have her car here at grandpa's house so I can use it. I'll be on the insurance, help out with the maintenance, and drop it off when she needs it. It'll help me save up for one, and on top of that she offered to buy me my own car, but I didn't take her seriously and even stated it.
So I move at the end of May. 2 weeks before I move she calls me to tell me that her and my grandmas new living situations are in limbo. Grandmas insurance hasn't kicked in yet, and basically my mom has to pay more money in order to get the house she wants. So we'll be living together for awhile. I assume no more than 2 months. Boy was I wrong.
Another thing I should mention is me and my mom are two peas in a pod. Damn near think and act alike. Just different genders, with different beliefs, born in two different times and different ways of going about things. So I knew if we lived with each other for too long, it's not gonna end well. And I was right. I just wish I articulated It better then.
So I moved and unloaded. Got as settled as someone sleeping on a couch, living with 3 extra people for an indefinite future, could get.
So to keep this short, from may 29th to mid December, I lived with my mom and brother. Grandpa's place went through after a month. Mom had to pay more money on top of what she had to pay. Took her time to debate that, she could afford it she was just debating if she wanted to, and she decided yes. But a week later she finds out she needs to pay more on top of the more. Again, she could afford it, but she debated again for a long while till she decided no. Then out of all the finished places in built communities, she chooses a newly building one. So to clarify timeliness, She decided again the house mid July. She acquired the newly building house in September. So it didn't get finished till December.
So for 6-6 1/2 months I lived with my mom. First month was OK. Good actually. But then the arguments started. Began small, till it got to the point where I yelled at my mom for 1st time in my entire life. All the arguments were the same. She would mis some. Mis-understood, mis-interpret, mis-communicate. Hell even got mad at me for overly communicating. But she would do one or all these and me being overly emotional I be the more angry one. Then I would not talk to her for a day or two, then come to her. Explain my feelings and why I acted like that. Hoping she would recognize that she is either unintentionally triggering me and crossing a boundary which would start literally all over again. The one that culminated into me yelling at her.. as I was leaving to pick up legal medicals, she calls me and instead just asking me to buy cleaning materials to cleaning up the toilet, cause I tore it up. Lol she kinda danced around it like "hey could get cleaning stuff" for what? "To clean the toilet" no I don't wanna spend my money on cleaning stuff "well you left it pretty dirty and it needs to be cleaned" OK, just say that then..... she says something else, but I'm trying to explain to her that I have stuff all she needed to do was ask me clean it, but she cuts me off like a child. "Okaayy okaayy fiiine" so I literally pulled the car bar into the driveway, literally ran back into the house and screamed to the top of my lungs. I admit this was dumb, but again emotional. And what does this woman do? Smiles half way through my rant, as I finished, begins laughing and then starts Tearing into me. Not about me Tearing into my mother. Not about the subject. Can't even remember what. Can simply tell you her rant was dumber. So I'm in my feelings cause I'm hurt. Not only did I just yell at my mom. I felt ridiculed and unheard. Then sometime later she makes fun of the situation. I'm visibly hurting. So I write a quick letter on my emotions and read it to her. Again. Ridicules me.
Now 2 things happened after this. 1st, I got into an accident in her car. I was not at fault, so I filed the claim through guys insurance. Mind you during this entire process she did not once couch me or tell me how to go about this. Should I have asked? Possibly, but I think it should've been evident especially how I'm going about it at the moment, but I thought I was doing everything right. So a month and a half later the insurance company cancels the claim. And me being in a depressive state of mind and didn't have the energy to go through that suing process, I. Me. I'm the person who decided to bite the bullet to pay her back to fix her car. Never once did she suggest, hint, nor mention i needed to do that. But after tha 1st payment we have a conversation due to her misunderstanding and now I'm finding out she got a bad memory. Remember when I said in the beginning ish, that she let me keep her car at grandpa's house when she leaves... completely forgets that part. Doesn't forget the buying me a car part though. Mind you now this is 3rd time she's said she would buy me a car. But back to point, she also tells me that she intends on suing the guy to get the money to fix her car. Whatever money I've given her up to that point she has no intention on paying me back. Didn't outright say it, but she might as well have. Sometime later she buys me my car. And I do want to be clear I am appreciative of her for doing that for me, she absolutely didn't need to regardless of the situation of my city life. But I need to be clear on something. Not once. Did she ever say I need to pay her back. Never mentioned. Never suggested. Nor hinted. (Is there some type of unspoken rule on this stuff that I'm Unaware about?)
So It dawned on me that the original arrangement made no sense and I did not like it, so I felt out of moral obligation I need to pay her back for the car. So I switched the payments without telling her. Didn't think it mattered truthfully.
But then I started to lose hours at my job... do to me losing em willingly. Had a hard time not finding the work I wanted in this new state and when I did it was like my resume meant nothing. So I told my mom, via text, that my hours were cut and I'm going to struggle a bit and need to cut her payments down by half. She wanted to have a person talk but I was like naw. So a little time passed, a gave her a payment. And she contacts me asking for the rest.. a discussion happens. She believes that this is a landlord tenant situation and that I need to pay her in full and struggle. I'm like naw, this was never a landlord situation to begin with and the only why I assume she thinks that is due to the rental agreement I ASKED HER TO SIGN in order for me to get food stamps and so paying her back can be somewhat legit. And the only reason why she's getting money is because I decided that and if I wanted I could cancel it all together. She didn't like that. Like I said, 2 peas. Just simply believe we love our control. Lol so that's the last we speak(texted. After she moved out all this has been through texting) Back in April, she tells me Grandma wants to move back in the house. And her and my brother and moving back in to help her. Now grandma moving in I do understand that. Other 2. Nope. Especially mom. She straight up said this house stressed her out. And she is right. I've only been here for a year and I'm stressed. Basement has cracks in the walls, doors, and beyond water damage to the windows(wood/stuff holding the windows) so the basement full on floods. Really bad pipes. Like corroded on top of corroded pipes. Structure is failing. Slowly but surely. And to top it off, mom redid the bathroom, and the contractors half assed it. Not going to go into that. Just wow. And she lives literally not even 10min from here. So I ask questions. Literally only 1 was answered, why is you and my brother moving back. Any other question was silence. Like after I asked the initial questions I asked what I am supposed to do? She says"well I have several suggestions, but your going to do you anyway" now correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the initial ask, meant I wanted to hear those suggestions? Or should I have actually asked again? Cause I took that as a oh she want me out without saying it.
So I'm obviously pissed. Uprooted and moved for literally nothing. Didn't do crap out here cause I spent 6+months being depressed due to living with this woman, spent months getting out to just about to, to tell me oh we moving back.
And the icing on the cake. She asked me if I could move out sooner. So she can fix stuff. I said with what money? I need the money I've given you back and I'll start that back up when I get situated. No reply. So I asked if she is using or saving it. Once again, "if this was a landlord situation you wouldn't be asking yo landlord what they do with the money. And it doesn't matter so I don't wanna argue" Last message I sent to her was basically reiterating that this ain't that. Haven't really spoken to her since. Don't want to really.
If you managed to read all this I'm sorry for it being long and thank you for "hearing" me out regardless of your opinion. I'm not doing a tldr cause I would've just did that to begin with instead of all this. I know some parts were vague, unclear, possibly incohesive in some areas. Lol feel free to ask and I'll clear things up.

TLDR; my sister is engaged to a guy she met 3 months ago and the wedding date is set for October (or maybe September). She wants to turn our family vacation into her honeymoon and that makes me uncomfortable. No one seems to have a problem with this except me.
A little bit of background: My sister, "Amy" '23F' found a tumor in her uterus last May and by October she was in remission. We are incredibly greatful she is ok and everything was taken care of so quickly. To celebrate being cancer free, we're planning a family trip to Universal in October.
So Amy meets "Jake" '19M' 3 months ago. They're both very devout Christians and waiting till marriage. For that reason, I told her not to rush into getting engaged or married. In my opinion, it's better to have sex before marriage and ask for forgiveness than it is to go through divorce and/or be stuck in a bad marriage. She didn't listen. They just got engaged about 2 weeks ago and told me yesterday the wedding date is set for October. I even told her before all this that even if she does decide to get engaged, draw it out. At least get through the honeymoon phase. It takes a long time to really get to know someone and 3 months is not long enough!!
At this point though I decide to just deal with it and be happy for her. She's an adult and has to make her own decisions/mistakes. Besides, my parents are completely fine with it. They like him and think he's a good kid. Everytime I tried to express concern to my mom, she immediately shut it down. I was kinda becoming ok with everything until my mom told me she wants to move the wedding to September and go on our trip the day after the wedding, or keep the October date and go to Universal after the wedding then.
This really isn't sitting right with me and I'm not 100% sure why this is the thing that's making me feel angry at my sister? She's rushing this with someone she barely knows and is turning her honeymoon into our vacation. I don't want to be a part of their honeymoon! This was supposed to be a celebration of being in remission, not her and this guy she barely knows. My mom tried to say I did the same thing but I didn't.
For context, I'm '25F' and married to my '30M husband. We knew each othedated for 4 years before moving in together. We got engaged a year later. While wedding planning, I got so overwhelmed by everything and thought it was stupid to spend a ton of money on a wedding when we could spend it on our honeymoon instead. We got engaged in January and married that August. I got a dress off the rack the I loved and only needed a hem. We basically eloped with just immediate family there and got married on the Lake. We rented a cabin, my family in the one next to ours, and on our wedding night we stayed in a fancy hotel. We went on our honeymoon alone that December. We've now been married almost 2 years.
Idk what this is triggering in me, but it makes me not want to be a part in this at all. I love my sister and want to support her, but everything inside of me is screaming this is a horrible decision. My parents and sister have both used my grandparents as an example stating that they only knew each other 30 days before getting married. I told them they can't use them as an example because they had a horrible marriage! My grandpa was abusive and my grandma never left. She was always too scared to. I don't want my sister to end up like that. No one had a response when I said that though. They just kind of shrugged and said it will be fine.
So WIBTA if I told them im not going on their vacation/honeymoon? I dont think I could go as far as not being there for her wedding.

Title, Vauthry did nothing wrong, his reign over the First would have singlehanded ended war, racism, crime, and the homeless situation in the first. A tragic figure who only sought to bring peace and stability to his home but cut down by cruel dissidents who sought to force the world to bend to their will and unleash darkness across the first regardless of who it may hurt. Vauthry was a hero among heroes.
Is what you might be thinking this latest essay will be preaching. No, I just wanted to see who would react to the title, without reading the essay, in the comments section.
Now this might be somewhat of a hot take, but I personally blame all of Vauthry's actions on his parents and Emet-Selch due to his own lack of understanding of his actions being evil because of how his parents raised him to be an unthinking decadent tyrant and that all his actions are justified. I see Vauthry as more of a tragic villain who had to be put down rather than a pure hateful villain who was a spoiled tyrant.
Emet-Selch himself while claiming to be someone who just plants the seeds and lets the Mortals harvest them, still has major fault in how Vauthry was raised and the infusion of Light Aether into Vauthry while he was in the womb was clearly not good on his mental health but I'll get into that argument later.
First, to start, let's have a brief recap of Vauthry's life from what we can glean from the game, and what Encyclopedia 3 revealed to us, as to further my argument.
During a time when Eulmore still fought against the Sin Eaters, the corrupt mayor was struggling to hold on to his power and was faced with a revolt, fortunately for him, his fortunes changed when a man in a dark evil looking robe offered to insert his white magic goo I MEAN INFUSE LIGHT AETHER into the mayor's pregnant wife so the child would have the ability to tame sin eaters.
Naturally, being a smart and benevolent man, the mayor agrees to this inconspicuous black robed smug sounding stranger's plan to use his child as a way to regain power in Eulmore, and the wife just goes along with it too.
Parents of the year folks. They don't see anything wrong with this arrangement at all, and of course, they proceed to pamper and spoil said child and indulging his every whim, which is quite cruel and abusive treatment as that would destroy Vauthry's mental capacity to understand the difference between right and wrong as well as the value of restraint and mercy.
People underestimate the importance of a child's development stages, it's vital to drill values and set a good example or the child grows up to be spoiled, lazy, entitled, and develop psychotic urges to kill and rule over people.
We later learn from Eorzea Encyclopedia the third, that Vauthry eventually had his parents executed before his ascent to mayorship. Couldn't happen to nicer parents.
Now you might be saying "Isn't Vauthry an adult at this point? He should understand right from wrong by himself at this stage in life." And I agree, if Vauthry was a normal adult. As stated earlier in this essay, I also hold Emet-Selch accountable for Vauthry's actions, primarily because of him injecting Jenova Cells into Sephiroth while he was in the womb- I MEAN infusing light aether into Vauthry while he was in the womb.
As shown in the lore, Light Aether is associated stasis and in worse cases, stagnation. Now the game doesn't outright say it, but it's heavily implied the Light Aether infused into Vauthry rendered his mental state resistant to change as per the very nature of Light aether, and it's quite likely Emet-Selch knew of the mental effects the infusion on the child would have and combined with the terrible abusive parenting from the political power couple of Eulmore, Vauthry would be raised into a decadent conqueror who would be genetically modified NOT to be able to change his mind. Emet-Selch is nothing if not a meticulous planner and after the 13th as well as the mental degradation of his comrades, he would certainly leave nothing to chance in the plot to rejoin the First with the source.
So with all of this in mind, there is argument to be made that while Vauthry's actions are clearly evil and harmful towards the first, he himself cannot be called evil in the traditional sense because of his inability to differentiate right from wrong thanks to his abusive upbringing and exposure to light aether only allows him to perceive his evil actions as good for the world no matter how awful those actions objectively are. Of course, there have been people in his life who DID try to teach him better ways to rule Eulmore, but Wrenden fled, and even had he stayed, Vauthry would be incapable of change regardless. In these circumstances, can we say Vauthry truly has the understanding and moral agency to choose between good and evil?
People tend to not like being fed Sin Eater paste when they know better.
In Vauthry's very first scene in the game, he even demonstrates visible confusion when trying to understand why Alphinaud would be outraged at his abuse of Kai-Shirr for being a criminal scammer.
And in another crucial scene with the Exarch, Vauthry even lays out his world view quite clearly: he views himself as the world's only hope during the apocalypse, that the Sin Eaters exist to shepherd the people to Eulmore under his rule, and that the people need his authoritarian reign to thrive in these conditions NOW instead of wasting time and lives on a future that may or may not benefit the people currently living. He is indeed the hero of his own story and it's clear that he very much believes what he's saying instead of just using it as a front to rule the world.
If I may go on a slight tangent to better contextualize my argument, I'd like to compare Vauthry to iconic villain Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z. Or Pure Buu for those purists. For those of you unaware, Kid Buu is a destructive Majin blob monster with enough power to destroy entire planets with ease, and he finds all this destruction FUN. But he's also judged as pure of heart because of his inability to understand his actions are harmful because he's a barely sapient eldritch abomination that's older than time, and it's because of this pure of heart trait, he's able to actually push the Spirit Bomb away for a bit before being destroyed. Actively malicious beings cannot do the same. So by the story's standards, Kid Buu's actions are evil, but he himself is not evil in the traditional sense.
Bringing this back to Shadowbringers, one cannot help but draw a parallel with Emet-Selch's infamous line about moral relativism and all that, that he himself does not view the sundered as living, therefore he cannot be called a murderer for killing what he sees as barely alive creatures.
Of course, people misunderstood this scene and think it's a totally fair assessment when Emet-Selch is clearly full of shit but he has the mental capacity and moral agency to argue this faux philosophical argument to assuage his guilty conscience, while Vauthry does not. Perhaps the moral relativism argument as loose as it is, could apply to him more than Emet-Selch.
Unfortunately for Vauthry, he revealed his sexy angel form too late but the writers were smart enough to keep him in his sexy blond angel form when he's about to die to milk sympathy from the audience. Can't get pathos when he looks like Don Corneo.
In conclusion, I do see Vauthry as an underrated and somewhat tragic villain who is often neglected in favor of simping for Emet-Selch or bitching about how Ran'jit ruined their power fantasy with his kung fu Grandpa schtick. Vauthry was truly someone who in his own mind was full of innocence.

So this, this takes a lot of contextual details into account, so strap in.
I (27F) have a brother, (33M). The age gap between us is relevant. Growing up, I just wanted to be friends with my brother, he was one of my favorite people in the world even if he did bully me sometimes.
I'm going to provide some examples of his treatment.
When I was about three, he came into my room after I had been put to bed, wearing a mask and holding a butter knife above me. Still afraid of masks to this day.
He would always drink every pitcher of something I made and never make any after finishing it. Sometimes I wouldn't even get a glass. My mom was busy fostering other kids and didn't have time for 'petty squabbles'. Once, I spit in the top of the pitcher and left the lid off so he could see it. He yanked away the bowl of cereal I was eating and spit in it, shoving it back so hard some spilled on me. I had just hit preteen age and was really sick of just taking his crap, so I splashed it back at him. He threw me to the ground and started hitting me. My mom heard the fighting and told us we were both at fault, so he never got punished.
One time, my parents busted him with drugs. There was a screaming match and he was only home from college for the holidays. Once he left, I felt safe to come out of my room again and was at the dining room table drawing or doing winter break worksheets or something. I think I was around 14. My brother came back in and got something from the kitchen before going back down to his room in the basement, but he said some snarky comment to me before going down. I hadn't even said anything or made a noise to warrant it. What I said in turn was 'At least I don't do drugs.' The next second, I was pulled up by my neck and my brother slammed me into the wall. Things are kind of foggy, but my next memory is waking up on the floor and crying for our parents. I'm not really sure what the punishment for that was. I think he just left and went back to college early to avoid it.
After the fight this post is actually about, I learned from my mom that he actively denied that this ever happened. I was really traumatized about it. The drug he claimed to be on became an almost catastrophic trigger. I would feel hands on my throat and the darkness closing in again at the mere mention of it, it could send me into a panic attack. I've gotten better about my reaction to it, but I still refuse to have it anywhere around me or in my life. It's a socially accepted drug, so it's cost me more than a few relationships. When I heard he denied it, I looked at my mom and said, how many times have I lied versus him? And why would I make up something like that? She's seen the reactions. I broke up with a guy I really liked because he refused to keep it away from me. If I saw a scene in a TV show when it was more recent, I would curl up into a ball and couldn't talk, my throat felt so tight, I just cried. I'd like to know how or why I would have faked reactions like that. She never really believed him since he was known to lie, but it was still appalling he tried to lie about something so severe.
And that's not all! Once, my mom kicked him out when she snapped at him for his dog hurting our dogs and he called her a bitch, living rent free with our parents at 27 after failing through college due to partying. My mom had enough and told him to get out. He texted me and asked if he could stay with me for the night, despite me being away at college 2 hours from our town. I didn't think my mom did anything wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to leave him alone like that. I still loved him, even after all that up there.
So I said yes. I lived in an apartment near campus with a roommate, and we each had our own bedroom and ensuite bathroom, plus the kitchenette and a living room we shared. I had a 'friend' at the time- I asked him if he could possibly bring some booze over for my brother, giving a quick run down of the situation, and he agreed that yeah, the man probably needed a drink (I wasn't old enough to purchase alcohol, so I asked him). All three of us hung out on the porch to make sure we didn't disturb my roommate until around 3 AM, where my brother's drunk comments are making me really uncomfortable so my 'friend' suggests we head to bed, since we have class in the morning, too. Friend regularly sleeps with me in my bed, so its not an issue. And I cleared the couch in the shared living room with my roommate before I told my brother it was okay. So I go in first, change into pajamas, and then let my brother in to do all the bathroom stuff he needed before bed. I'm laying down and half asleep when I'm yanked out of bed by my arm and forcibly pushed through my own door, my brother demanding my bed. 'Friend' gently stood up for me and reminded him that I was already being generous by letting him stay at all, he could at least respect me. My brother did not like that. He started slurring angry stuff at both of us and collecting his dog's toys, saying that he'll just drive all the way home if I'm going to be like this. This is after he consumed like, half a bottle of fireball. So that was NOT happening. I'm standing in the way of the front door and blocking it once my brother finally finds his keys and he starts pulling me away and hurting me. 'Friend' tackled him and pinned him to the ground in an old highschool wrestling hold. I snatch the keys and run into the kitchenette, remove the sink filter, and hold the keys close in case I have to throw them down the drain in desperation. My brother is screaming and hurling insults left and right and I'm deeply traumatized already because of his violence towards me and from the vitriol just makes me cry really hard. My roommate knows I'm quiet and the noise wakes her up and she asks what the hell is going on. I try to explain but I'm basically in hysterics and 'friend' explains for me, while calmly still pinning my brother. Roomie was in nursing school and turned on the Nurse Voice immediately to address my brother. She tells him she just lost a friend to a drunk driver, and it is not responsible to drive in this state. She'll perform sobriety tests periodically and when he passes, he can go. And if he continues and tries to leave, she will call the cops on him for drunk driving, and my 'friend' and I could probably tell the cops about the violence, too. Around 5 AM he was finally sober enough to pass and his last words to me were 'I hope you fucking like mom and dad, because we aren't family anymore'. It shattered me.
He didn't talk to me for 2 years.
I got presents when I came home on my birthday and christmas from him during that time, and my parents said he was busy working and left the presents early with them, he was still annoyed but we were family. I believed it. I later realized that my parents were lying and covering up for him because they knew it would have broken my heart.
At some point after that, he started turning himself around. He never really apologized for any of the things he did to me. But I let him back into my life anyway, because I loved him, and I had always wanted my brother to be my friend. Our family is really small. I was just happy to jump at the chance to hang out with him again. He ended up with a girlfriend and he bought a house where they both stayed, so I finally had a place to actually visit him since he had been more or less couch surfing until then. I was so excited. My brother was older and more mature, and he had his own house now! We could finally be close!
Obviously... That wasn't how things turned out.
Why exactly none of us like his girlfriend is a different, long story. But suffice it to say, we all pretty much hated her and hated that he was with her. She basically forbade us from being over at his house very much. I tried to overlook the crappy things she had done to us, because she and I shared a lot of traits and interests. I would have a cool sister! Now? It disgusts me that we share anything in common. Point is, I would still keep trying to be friendly with both of them. There came a day when I sat my brother down and had a real conversation with him. When he was truly sad, he seemed to come to me. He told me he wasn't happy with her. He just was terrified of being alone. He was really afraid of her being a mother, due to her mental and medical state, and the fact that she was so lazy around the house (working from home, too). And that was the last time I was over at his house, because we heard the girlfriend's comforter rustling and he panicked and shoo'ed me out of the house before she realized I was there. That was about 3 years ago.
I kept being really excited when he was over for holidays. But he was over for less and less, because they went with her family more, or she wanted to go home. He wouldn't show up on birthdays the day of, or even the weekend. It'd be like two weeks later, and it was almost always gift cards for my parents. Like jesus christ, the least you could do is hand your parent the card on their birthday. Anyway, I would always ask him to hang out later on and he'd say yeah, then back out at the last minute. It stung every time. I started asking less and less. It got to the point where he would even back out of playing animal crossing with me online, from the comfort of his own home. That's when I gave up. He used to text me once in a while with memes, at least. But that stopped long ago. I realized that I was the only one putting effort into our relationship, and it crushed me.
I'm not going to lie, I became really bitter about his girlfriend. When he announced they were engaged, none of our family was happy. But I managed to save the relationship between all of us by apologizing over text and pointing out that all our faces dropped with pain and confusion because he was referring to his fiancee by a nickname, that was also the name of our dog that had passed only a month ago. Which, that's partially true, that's definitely why my face looked shattered. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't going to bring it up.
As my brother got older and started making healthier decisions, I kept up hope that one day he'd come to his senses. Either ditch the fiance or put more effort into family relationships. But I started losing hope really quickly. I dreaded the day when they would tell us a wedding date or that a baby was on the way.
Mother's day came, and my brother backed out of brunch with my mom, stating he was tired from having breakfast with fiance's mom (yeah. yeah, that was a pretty common theme and just one more reason we didn't like them together). So he'd take her out the next weekend. Last year he backed out after being twenty minutes late because he took his fiancee to urgent care for one of her usual and frequent migraines. He kept telling us he wouldn't be long. Get her a refill on the injections she would use and come to us. An hour and a half later, he said to go home and that he was sorry, we'd reschedule.
He never rescheduled.
So, up comes the make up brunch for my mom this year. I had already given her my present, so she had at least some mother's day celebration. I woke up with a pretty bad headache and immediately downed allergy pills and advil so I could make it through brunch at least, for my mom's sake and to see if my brother had changed any. At this point in the relationship with my brother, I'm pretty bitter. I went back and checked my texts while we were waiting for him in the restaurant. The last text between my brother and I was January of this year. And it was me asking if hypothetically could I stay with him if my mom threw me out (I've asked it before many times, and he would say yes-- It's not really likely that my mom would throw me out, but I have kind of bad anxiety and it makes me feel better to have back up plans). He said 'uh maybe very short term it would be hell with my dogs and schedule lol' and I just stared at the text. He asked if I had considered getting my own place-- Well, yes, I have, but I really can't bring myself to do it because it would mean separating my family's two dogs (technically one is mine, ones is my parents', but they're so attached to each other) and I couldn't just leave my dog behind either. I told him not to worry, because mom had calmed down.
But back to breakfast. I'm usually a little more lively around my brother and usually try to talk to him a lot, about anything, or something I'm excited about. Between my bitterness and the headache, I didn't say more than 40 words through the whole meal, I think. The two times my brother spoke to me at all were to mansplain to me about my favorite Fallout character (its Hancock, he uses drugs, but you can get him off them if you do his friendship arc). He asked me if I'd seen the show yet. I told him no, because I asked a friend to watch through it and see if Hancock's drug use was too frequent or severe before I started it. And then he asked me who Hancock was. And I was like??? The guy with the lasagna face? Turns out Hancock is actually the main character of the show. He pretty much talked down to me 'you know they're not real drugs, right, they just exist in the universe. he takes his inhaler everyday'. Internally I'm like 'No you fucking moron, they're real drugs, with different names. If you paid attention to crafting or lore, you would realize that. You need fertilizer to make the drug you're talking about (jet)-- you know, like people who will shit in a bag and huff it. Buffout is basically steroids. And Hancock decreases his drug use if you become close with him, but sure, tell me about my favorite character you know shit about, not even his fucking name.' But I say none of this. I just return to being quiet and slowly eating my food. The other time he talked to me was when I asked the waitress if my mom could have a redo on her eggs because they weren't the cook she asked for (which, also, this is big for me! I have severe anxiety and ordering food is so hard, much less speaking up about an inconsistency) and my mom was so grateful. She didn't want to make a fuss, but I would, for her. When the lady took the eggs back he's all shitty like 'you know that if they fuck it up the first time, then they probably can't make it right, don't you' and I just looked at him and didn't bother responding. Like, okay. You assume its just one person back there making eggs? If one was screwed, either they would just refire it with extra care or one of the other line cooks would do it. I watch a ton of Kitchen Nightmares and Hells Kitchen, so I think I'm a little more familiar with the back of house or how the line works than my brother. And that people don't actually usually mess with your food for simple or reasonable requests. But he doesn't know that (actually, I roped my mom into Hell's Kitchen, and we then further roped my dad in, so Hell's Kitchen is now a Family Event), because of course he doesn't, he never asks about me or my interests. By the end of brunch, I'm just kind of pissed off, and my head is aching. We're walking out and my brother hands my mom a card. She opens it up and it says something something something grandma and opens on a sonogram. And I'm just so done with everything. I mutter to myself 'are you fucking kidding me'. My mom is putting up a good effort in being nice to soon to be wife and while personally, this disgusts me and crushed my spirit, I was not focused on the baby talk. I did manage to pick up his fiance saying 'oh yeah well i'm not on speaking terms with my family at the moment, so i have to talk to SOMEONE'S family haha' (like wow, okay, tell us you don't consider us family until we're a back up plan a little louder). We were out in the sun, it was hot, and my head was pounding. After a few minutes I asked 'can we go now' and my brother got shitty with me, because the world revolves around him (god forbid he had sympathy for a migraine given his own fiancee, but he didn't even notice to care that I said less than 50 words) and snapped at me that 'You don't have to be here, no one invited you'. And I was just done. I walked away closer to the car and I didn't catch it but my mom glared daggers at him and said that she had invited me. Then my brother said the thing that was the last straw.
'That's some fucking family for you.'
I was engulfed in rage. He put us on the back burner, barely spoke to us, minimized visits for his girlfriend's comfort, and yet somehow, he decided I was shitty family? I did his homework for him when I was a child and he was in high school. I always was there for him when he got depressed or existential crisis now and then. I advocated for my parents to make up with him after the fight where my mom kicked him out. When he tried to finish his degree since he only had one semester left when he really fucked it up, he asked ME for help, because he would need the help in the last core class he needed- Calculus. I was STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL. And I agreed! (He never ended up going, but that's not the point). I was the one who reminded my parents of what desserts he liked for family gatherings. I was the one who would dogsit for him when he would just leave without telling anyone, because he knew if I heard the dog cry in its crate I would feel bad and release it, and that I wouldn't put it away in a crate if I was home because I felt bad. I was the one that tried to convince my parents to give his fiance a second chance. I made 300 fake facebook accounts years ago before verification was a thing to vote for his band to headline a medium large concert for a decently known band.
He used to steal my things to pawn them for drug money. He would threaten to say goodbye to my chao when I reminded him it was my turn to play. He would call me a dependent loser for not having 'x' life skill already when he didn't have it at my age either, and long after that! He used physical force against me several times. He would purposely taunt me with things I was afraid of. He repeatedly cut me off and didn't talk to me for a while over some petty thing he got angry about, but 2 years was the longest ever by at least a year. He would use me as a kid to ask our parents about something he wanted, and me being a kid, would go along with it because I loved him and wanted to make him happy. He decided to spend one summer with his girlfriend in California or whatever during highschool and I was crushed and asked him if we would be able to hang out any before the next school year started because he would go away for college and he laughed in my face. He always used me as the soundboard to vent about my parents (again, I am much younger than him)! He would constantly make fun of me that I had no friends and that I would be alone all my life, and that continued through adulthood, too. He would talk down to me about my chosen second family/people I met online long distance. He would make fun of things I liked all the time knowing that I found his opinion important.
I had done nothing but love him my entire life, and he barely acknowledged me in his.
So I fucking lost it. I started screaming back at him (in public, in a parking lot, loud-- all things that are important because I have severe anxiety and hate making a spectacle, this was how far things had gotten) about how he was an ungrateful piece of shit and he had personally told me he wasn't happy with her and that she would be a terrible mother and all I wanted was for him to be happy but I'm shitty family? He resorted to his standard argument when he has no argument- Puff out his chest and say 'lay a hand on me, lay a hand on me'. My parents were so shocked by the fact that I had an outburst like that, they couldn't react for a moment. Neither of them told me off, at any point. My dad started to redirect me towards the car to end the argument and my brother has one last clapback 'remember when you asked to move in with me? yeah, this is wh--' I cut him off by screaming about when he asked ME to stay with me in my apartment and threw me out of my own room, and his only comeback was 'it wasn't YOUR apartment, it was THEIR apartment' pointing to my parents, because like for him, they paid for my accommodations in college. I had enough. I told him to never fucking contact me again, because he is NOT my fucking family, he chose his family and he is dead to me. And I got in the car. Didn't listen to another word.
My parents stayed out there with my brother and his fiance for a while. I hadn't known anything that had gone on until later when talking to my mom.
Again, neither one of them scolded me a single bit when they got in the car. They just gave me this really apologetic look because they knew how sad and hurt I had to be to finally cut him out of my life for good. I was really wound up and stressed out and I sort of asked my mom to choose between us-- Poor wording on my part, but I needed to be supported. My brother always got away with treating me like shit without any consequences-- And me not being in his life wasn't a consequence either, because his life would not change without me in it. She kinda got cross with me by saying she would never abandon either of us and I took it as 'you're enabling this by keeping contact, and saying that it's okay for him to treat me like this' and I went to my room. I shut my door and started sobbing my eyes out. My mom had heard me through two door and down the hall and she came to hug me. And I asked her straight up like 'what's going to happen at the wedding? are you going to go if he doesn't invite me?' Because like I said, he never had consequences for treating me like garbage my entire life. I wanted there to be SOME form of consequence. She did reassure me that if he pulled that move, neither one of my parents would go. We had a long talk about how it really hurt my feelings the way she said she wouldn't abandon either of us because, you know, at the time, it really felt like she wasn't supporting me with that choice. But I had also worded my question really poorly, being so upset and all. I told her how I felt about him not ever having any repercussions so I needed my parents to at least back me up on that. They don't plan on contacting him much, but won't outright abandon him if he needs something. But if it comes down to it, like if the wedding invite doesn't come, they would support me over my brother. And she had made it clear to him that family is like a totem pole, and on that totem pole, I definitely was higher than him.
A few days later, I was telling her how it still really hurt. I don't regret what I did and I will never take it back, but it pained me to know how little I really meant to him. I think I was hoping that the shock of me finally giving up on him would ring some alarm bells in his head. We were talking about it and she ended up conversationally giving me more details about what had happened after I got in the car and the aftermath. Apparently after my outburst, the fiance started walking away crying that 'first she didn't have her family, and now she doesn't have his family either'.
Remember how she said she wasn't on speaking terms with her family? Her older brother and his wife have a child that their mom babysits sometimes. They're considering another child, via IVF. The fiance is mad that her baby won't be her mom's priority if they have another child and that her brother was hogging their mom to babysit.
Yeah. Gee, wonder why they won't talk to you anymore either.
And she told my mom about the moving in comment, that it was just because she didn't want their large dogs to shred my small dog, or anything worse, because she would feel horrible (I don't believe this for a second, it was another convenient excuse). My mom looked at her and asked if she was serious, because I never would have brought my dog over there. Again, because of how happy she is with her sister. The fiance actually looked shocked at this information, indicating that my brother was up to his old lying was again.
Speaking of my brother, apparently he told my parents that he would never come over here again as long as I live here. And honestly? That's fine with me. I don't want him in this house. I am agoraphobic and my home is like a sanctuary. My mom and I were talking about how ridiculous this all is and how entitled they are, and I mention that it occurred to me that they were suddenly invested in being a family now that she's pregnant and definitely getting married (and after she won't speak to her family) and I wouldn't be surprised if they only told us and played the 'family' card because they had expected me to be my normal gentle and loving self. That it seemed convenient, and I couldn't help but think they had only allowed us in on the news expecting a baby shower gift or wedding gift. Or for me to arrange the baby shower-- Fiance doesn't have a sister, isn't talking to her mom, and doesn't have that many female friends (shocker). My mom sighed and said it wouldn't surprise her either if they had expected me to be their baby sitter for the same reason, just like I took care of his dog because I couldn't refuse it with my soft heart. And honestly, I had thought that too, but I dismissed the thought because it seemed too much like they would consider me for that. But my mom had the same idea, so it couldn't be that far off.
She told me she had reached out to my brother one last time, after the initial fight, after she had comforted me from the violent sobbing and saw just how much it hurt. The gist was just 'you should really apologize to your sister, all she ever really wanted from you was for you to acknowledge her as part of your life. our family is small, and it hurts to see you two like this. All it takes is an invite to hang out now and again, that's all she wants. I hope you can figure this out. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, I love you'.
My brother's response was 'I am not handling this situation right now'.
And it really hit me. He wasn't willing to do the bare minimum of an apology and spending any time with me at all. I laughed bitterly and told my mom he probably thinks that by the time his birthday rolls around I'll feel bad and come back to him-- He'll have a nasty surprise coming.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the asshole here. But between my anxiety, my hurt, and just the long history of me forgiving my brother because I love him, I keep wondering if maybe I shouldn't have. I go back and forth between thinking that I was wrong and that I was just showing off my shiny new backbone.
So, AITA for cutting contact with my brother and his pregnant fiance?

Harmonizing the Cosmos: A Step-by-Step Guide to Resolving Male Astrologer Husband-Wife Disputes

Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution The ancient art of astrology has long been revered for its ability to unlock the mysteries of the universe and reveal the intricate dance of celestial bodies that govern our lives. But what happens when the harmony of the cosmos is disrupted by the discordant notes of a troubled marriage? For couples where the husband is an astrologer, the complexities of their relationship can be particularly challenging.
As the two individuals navigate the twists and turns of their partnership, their differing perspectives and approaches can lead to conflicts that seem intractable. Yet, despite the challenges, many couples have found that astrology can be a powerful tool for healing and reconciliation. In this post, we will explore the step-by-step process of using astrology to resolve disputes between male astrologer husbands and their wives, providing a roadmap for couples to harmonize their relationships and find a deeper sense of connection and understanding.

Introduction to the importance of harmonizing relationships in astrology

In the vast expanse of the universe, the intricate dance of celestial bodies has long been a source of fascination and guidance for humanity. Among the many mysteries that astrology has sought to unravel, few are as crucial to the well-being of individuals and society as the harmony of relationships. Yet, it is often the most intimate and seemingly fragile bonds – those between husbands and wives, specifically those with a masculine astrological influence – that are prone to discord and dissonance.
As the universe itself is governed by principles of harmony and balance, so too must the relationships within it. The ancient art of astrology has long recognized the importance of synchronizing the celestial rhythms of the partners involved in a romantic union, as the energies and influences they bring to the table can either amplify or undermine the very fabric of the relationship. When the male astrological influence, in particular, is out of balance, the consequences can be far-reaching and devastating, leading to a disconnection from the deeper harmony of the universe and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution
In this guide, we will embark on a journey to harmonize the cosmos, specifically focusing on the intricate dynamics of male astrologer husband-wife relationships. Through a step-by-step approach, we will explore the astrological principles and techniques essential to resolving disputes and restoring balance to these relationships, thus allowing the partners to once again resonate in harmony with the universe and each other. By doing so, we will unlock the secrets to a more harmonious and fulfilling coexistence, one that is in tune with the very fabric of the cosmos.

Understanding the male astrologer’s perspective

As we delve into the intricacies of resolving disputes between male astrologer husbands and their wives, it is essential to first grasp the unique perspective of the male astrologer. Like the ancient Greeks who believed the cosmos held the secrets to human destiny, the male astrologer is beset by a deep-seated connection to the celestial bodies. His lens is often tinted by the mystical energy of the planets, which he uses to guide his life’s journey.
The male astrologer’s perspective is often characterized by a strong sense of authority and conviction, stemming from his unwavering faith in the celestial bodies. His words are often laced with the weight of cosmic significance, as he attempts to decipher the mysteries of the universe and apply them to the intricate dance of human relationships. His convictions are rooted in the ancient wisdom of the stars, which he believes hold the key to unlocking the secrets of human nature. Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution
However, this same conviction can sometimes lead to a sense of inflexibility, as the male astrologer may become wedded to his interpretation of the celestial bodies, making it challenging for his wife to find common ground. It is essential to recognize and respect this perspective, while also encouraging the male astrologer to remain open to the perspectives of others. By doing so, we can create a harmonious balance between the astrological and human realms, allowing the male astrologer to navigate the complexities of relationships with greater ease and understanding.

Common disputes that arise between male astrologer husband and wife

As the cosmic dance of relationships unfolds, the harmony between a male astrologer husband and wife can be tested by the complexities of their natal charts. The celestial bodies that govern their personalities, emotions, and behaviors can sometimes lead to discord and disharmony in their partnership. In this section, we will delve into the most common disputes that arise between male astrologer husbands and wives, and offer practical guidance on how to navigate these challenges.
For instance, the differences in their approach to communication can be a major source of tension. The male astrologer husband, often governed by the fiery and assertive energies of Mars and the Sun, may tend to be more direct and straightforward in his expression, while the wife, influenced by the nurturing and emotional energies of the Moon and Venus, may prefer a more empathetic and sensitive approach. This disparity can lead to feelings of frustration, hurt, and resentment, causing the relationship to become strained. Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution
Another common dispute arises from their differing views on responsibility and authority. The husband, often with a strong sense of independence and self-reliance, may struggle with the wife’s need for support and guidance, while the wife may feel that the husband is not pulling his weight or is not taking their partnership seriously enough. This conflict can lead to feelings of resentment and power struggles, causing the relationship to become imbalanced.
In addition, the differences in their approach to emotional expression and intimacy can also create tension. The husband, often with a more reserved and introspective nature, may find it challenging to open up and express his emotions, while the wife may feel that he is not being vulnerable or sensitive enough. This disparity can lead to feelings of disconnection and isolation, causing the relationship to become stagnant. Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution
By acknowledging and understanding these common disputes, the male astrologer husband and wife can take the first step towards harmonizing their cosmos and resolving their disputes. By learning to communicate effectively, navigate differences in approach and perspective, and cultivate emotional intimacy, they can create a more balanced and fulfilling partnership that aligns with the celestial harmonies that govern their lives.

Identifying the root causes of the disputes

As we delve into the complexities of the male astrologer husband-wife dispute, it is essential to identify the root causes of the conflicts that have been plaguing the relationship. This is akin to unlocking the secrets of the universe, where the harmony of the cosmos is disrupted by the turmoil within the relationship. By understanding the underlying reasons for the disputes, we can begin to unravel the tangled threads of frustration and resentment that have been woven into the fabric of the relationship.
Just as the positions of the planets and stars in the celestial map can reveal the underlying dynamics of the universe, so too can the astrological signs and placements of the husband and wife reveal the underlying causes of their disputes. By examining the birth charts of the couple, we can identify the planetary energies that may be at play, and how they may be influencing their behaviors and interactions.
For example, a husband with a strong Mars placement in his chart may be prone to aggressive outbursts, while a wife with a Moon prominently placed in her chart may be sensitive to emotional criticism. By understanding these underlying energies, we can begin to develop strategies to mitigate their effects and create a more harmonious relationship. Male Astrologer Husband Wife Dispute Solution
In this step, we will delve into the nitty-gritty of the couple’s astrological charts, examining the relationships between the planets, signs, and houses to identify the root causes of their disputes. This will enable us to develop a personalized plan to address the specific issues plaguing the relationship, and to create a more peaceful and harmonious coexistence.

The role of planetary aspects in relationships

As the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, so aptly put it, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” In the realm of astrology, this adage holds particularly true when examining the intricate dance of planetary aspects that influence the intricate web of relationships. As the celestial bodies move in harmony, their subtle yet powerful energies weave a tapestry of fate that can either bolster or destabilize the bond between two individuals.
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We didn't think we'd be here but here we are. We will be playing RR in our next match and they have two quality spinners in Chahal and Ashwin. Markande and Viyaskanth are nowhere near that level, but they're all we have. But we also have the villain from the DC game earlier this year, Sundar, too. So, we have two options for the 11. Here's Team 1:
Abhi, Head, Tripathi, GP, NKR, Klaasen, Shahbaz, Sundar, Cummins, Bhuvi, Nattu.
Impact Markande
Alternatively, we have the following 11, if they persist with Viyaskanth, then a slight tweak is needed in the batting order. Samad and Shahbaz are out. Mayank and Sundar are in. Here's Team 2:
Head, Mayank, Abhi, Tripathi, NKR, Klaasen, Cummins, Sundar Bhuvi, Nattu, Viyaskanth
Impact Markande
Team 2 provides some much-needed sensibility and stability considering our bang-bang approach. But since this is playoffs mode, we need timing, class, and a bang-bang-bang approach at the end with NKR at 5 followed by Klaasen at 6. Mayank at the top gives us that class and temperament. And he's experienced, that's the key here. The top 6 can then be split into 2 categories of stabilizers in Mayank, Tripathi and NKR. Devastators in Head, Abhi and Klaasen, the three of whom have accounted for a 100 plus sixes this season. But Tripathi can, of course, switch gears too. He's not a calm player after he's set. In the last game, he was just unlucky.
I prefer Team 1 because then we would still have 3 spinners in Sundar, Markande and Shahbaz and a long tail batting. The ultimate deciding factor for the 11 would be the toss. Now perhaps GP is our trump card. The experience of GP at the international stage is another thing to consider. But the issue is NZ players in important international games have been unlucky, 2019 World Cup, for example. SRH in the title winning 2016 season benched both Kiwis (Trent Boult and Kane). The season that Kane carried SRH batting singlehandedly on his back took us to finals and even with the best bowling squad of SRH in 2018, yet we still couldn't win. Not to mention we already have Klaasen, where SA are similar in that regard getting unlucky or just simply not playing to their potential in important games. Bare in mind since 2018 the team that won qualifier has won the title. Add to that Chepauk, SRH graveyard. Then there's the trend of the top team beating us in league stages and playoffs (CSK in 2018).
With all the frightening stats out the way let's look at some hopeful stats. Could the law of averages catch up to Head? Last two games Head has been out for ducks next match he'll find his groove, again, maybe? Followed up by an Aussie 100 in the final, throwback to Watson in 2018 while we chase down the impossible? Only this time around it's our Aussie scoring the 100. Even though it's not quite beating CSK, it's CSK in spirit considering it's chepauk! We must beat a really strong KKR team who have been the most dominant side this year. Just like a certain team on the 19th of November. KKR may well have more support at the ground. Remember the captain that silenced it before? If we win against RR we have a chance to break the league stage plus playoffs battering curse from 2018!
Bhuvi was wicketless last game well what about Prime Bhuvi returning, again? Remeber the 2016 final? We saw a glimpse of 2016 Bhuvi in the RR match earlier this season, could it be... could beast Bhuvi come clutch for us again should we defend?
Everything is against us, and perhaps we had the worst game of the season last game. We are down and the mood isn't great at camp. But that's where we take the RCB spirit. Look at what they did, they may have lost today but they stuck to their play bold tagline and played out of their skins to qualify. What a turn around. With RCB losing today maybe the beating all odds momentum can switch to a different team, and what if that team is us considering the spanking we had from KKR in the last match. Well the next two matches we must embody RCB's spirit. Believe and hope just like they did at the halfway stage! Even today after Siraj took 2 wickets the RCB fans believed. I used to think it was delusion, but it's passion.
My gut feeling is this time around things are gunna be different. We MUST play Phillips. Just do the opposite of whatever luck and stats based things throws against us, we just full send it. If GP plays and we lift the trophy we break every trend that I mentioned above. Including Kiwis in the playing 11 of a successful SRH final. We really will be triumphant against all odds. We never thought we'd hit 277 and break the record of RCB. We didn't just do it once, we did it again breaking our own record in the SAME season, posting a behemoth 287 total (they took it personally and ended up qualifying after a 0.2% chance) We beat the odds twice this season alone. We defied the odds by getting to the final in 2018 defending the lowest of scores, we defied odds to beat RCB in 2016 when no one believed us, heck even I didn't since RCB were cruising the chase! We gotta give it our ALL!
Whatever happens we must continue our support as we have had a blockbuster season to be thankful for. Thanks to Cummins once again! The stage is set, this, is our time to shine. This. Is. SRH.

Theorymon Thursday is a fun community day where users get to post hypothetical changes to any meta they want. The following are posting rules:

• 1. All Theorymon posts must a) target at least one metagame or format and b) describe how it affects that meta or format in 600 or more characters. It's okay to be wrong, just try your best!
  Example prompts to answer to hit the character minimum:
  

  Who would use this ability?
  Why would this move be used on X Pokemon?
  What Pokemon counters this?
  How would this Theorymon impact the top 5 used Pokemon in OU?
  

• 2. Image posts must be High-Effort or Original Content and contain informative text. If not, they should be a Text post.
  

  General Style Guidelines
  Good Examples
  Bad Examples
  

• 3. Posts and top-level replies must be constructive
  

  No jokingly broken Theorymon and overzealous buffs, save it for Sunday Comments should not only dunk on the OP -- explain your thoughts!
  

• 4. No Retired Theorymon Topics
  

  • Giving neutral or positive abilities to Pokemon with hindering abilities (i.e. Regigigas, Slaking, Archeops, etc.)
  • Stealth Rocks but of a different type than Rock (Stealth Icicles, Stealth Lava, etc.)
  • Altering the type table (i.e. Changing Ice or Rock type's resistances, etc.) This includes trying to buff or nerf a specific Pokemon by changing the type table.
  • Eviolite variants (i.e. Eviolite but for Atk/SpAtk, etc.)
  • Assault Vest variants (i.e. Assault Vest for Defense)
  • "Which pokemon is most impacted by single movepool change?"
  • An ability that sets Trick Room
  • Giving Paradox Pokemon unique abilities

Check out these rules in our posting guidelines section as well, We'd like to ask you to hold any feedback until June. If it can't wait, feel free to send us a modmail.

Sometimes you just gotta fight fire with fire.
So. In game we have a number of ways to train Firemaking. You can burn a line of small fires. You can try to make 1 big bonfire. Add logs to an existing giant bonfire. You can use a pitch can to make fires. You can toss logs into beacons and light those up. You could let the magic of something incinerate a log as you cut it. Or burn dino poo.
If you're feeling a little more pious, can cremate the remains of shades, vyres, and deceased barbarians or even a phoenix.
If you're feeling a little less "burny", you could always just make incense sticks or plug in light bulbs orbs for the cave goblins. Cut the hair of Zygomites or cook dino eggs or throw the shards of dino eggs on the ground.
Firefighting
Now the purpose of this activity would be simple: put out or prevent fires.
Gielinor is still a very sparsely populated world. Misthalin, Asgarnia, and Kandarin have a lot of forests. Tirrawan is heavily forested. Even The Arc is home to groves of Bamboo.
It'd be a shame if a careless campfire or lightning strike burned it all down. We'd have to wait a whole 5 or 10 minutes for the forest to respawn. We can't let a disaster like this hinder woodcutters and hunters!
More seriously. IRL, you put out fires by typically cutting off when of the fuel sources (ie: oxygen or the material that is burning), try to contain it (fire breaks), or just try to drown it out in something (water, dirt, even carbon dioxide). In forests/national parks, teams will sometimes go out and do what is called a control burn, where they will burn off the limited amount of debris (leaves, branches, etc) to create a small fire, in order to prevent the material from building up and creating a bigger fire later.
Firefighting In Game
Full mechanics/implementation would need to be determined by the devs. Essentially, players would have certain areas around the map where they could either find random fires OR have a dedicated area in each forest location that would allow them to prevent a fire ... somehow.
Players for example, could have in a lot of locations, the ability to spot a small random fire that is burning. You can put it out and get a small amount of XP.
In a dedicated area, you could have requirements Like Level 30 to protect Misthalin, Level 50 in Asgarnia, Level 70 in Kandarin, Level 80 in Tirrawan, and Level 90 in The Arc. NPCs will send you to an instanced area where you can prevent fire (controlled burns) or try to contain/put out an existing large fire.

We are on the lookout for active players eager to breathe new life into our clan. If you're passionate about the game, enjoy leading by example, and love having fun while crushing it in wars, we'd love to have you join us!
Current status: Rebuilding🚧
Requirement: TH10+ 2100 (Home) 1000 (Build-base)
We offer: Frequent Wars, CWL opportunities, and even leadership roles for the dedicated.
Let's grow together and make our clan unstoppable.
Interested in Joining? Follow the Links🔗 below👇
Clan Link🔰: https://link.clashofclans.com/en?action=OpenClanProfile&tag=2Q8V9G9R8
Discord Link👾: https://discord.gg/SsPqwM5VeX

Spoilers ahead for the most recent episode and finale of Junior Year!
I don't like that Brennen seemingly "Yes, And-ed" Kalina being a villain.
That taking Cassandra to the mall where she could be targeted was inherently malicious and not just an accident.
This goes against her behavior in the season somewhat for example:
Holding an action in the mall to take a Shatter Star bullet so Cassandra wouldn't have too.
Moments before being consumed by rage, giving Riz the clue of "Raugh" to maneuver around the Spy's Tounge Curse.
And most importantly, "Killing herself" after a gentle repose from Kassandra to not hurt the bad kids. (In the Baron's Game episode.)
Maybe it's just because in Baron's Game that wedding flashback broke me and seeing kitten Kalina dedicated to loving Cassandra broke me a little?
But anyway, what do y'all think?
That ending with Buddy though was funny as hell and I was in absolute tears, 10/10.

Long post alert. Believe it or not, there is a lot I left out of this post. If something seems confusing to you, please ask. There is more context, unfortunately.
I have many people telling me to leave, but I feel many of them do not understand the family trauma my fiancé is working through. Any trauma-informed responses here would be greatly appreciated. I don’t want to abandon him as he works through something very difficult. I just need to figure out how to take care of myself, too. Anyone who has escaped an enmeshed family, I would love your opinion. Anyone who sees boundaries I can set without abandoning him, I would love to hear it.
The relationship:

• We began dating May 2021. We got engaged October 2023.
• Very loving relationship, we have built what could be a beautiful marriage. Many shared values, good communication (to an extent, see below), shared interests, shared life goals. There is a lot of good here and we are invested in each other. We continue to try to choose each other. It’s why I haven’t walked away.
• From the start of our relationship to the time we got engaged, he set many expectations for wedding timelines. They all fell through. He was dealing with some hard stuff he couldn’t communicate at the time, and I can understand why it took him a while to propose, even though he kept promising me timelines and not following through on them. He asked for forgiveness, and I gave it happily. However, a pattern of saying he’ll do something and not taking action started here.
• i have made major financial decisions based on these timelines. I have not purchased a home which I have wanted since we started dating, recently purchased a nicer vehicle than I wanted on his insistence, because in his words, we will be married in just a few months. It may sound naive. It probably was. We were engaged. I trusted my fiancé’s word.
• We are waiting to move in together until we are married. There are many reasons for this, but it may have saved me a lot of hurt if this doesn’t work out.

The family background:

• The oldest sister of the family (31F) is in charge of most plans. She and her husband are very financially stable, provide dinner for everyone most nights, house the grandma with Alzheimer’s and the younger (25F) sister’s baby daddy, make most of the plans for family time, and financially take the burden for things they probably shouldn’t have to… this has created a pretty unhealthy balance where everyone is in some way dependent on her.
• Unless I specify the younger when I say sister, I mean the oldest.
• His parents have a delicately balanced marriage, and most of the family avoids conflict in that area because they are afraid of the family splitting up. They have found “peace” with their differences, which means not talking about anything they disagree on. I suspect their inability to talk through conflict is what has gotten us to this point in the first place.
• I have begun to think the entire family is pretty severely enmeshed. They are all dependent on one another and don’t address problems, but show up and pretend everything is fine.
• My fiancé has lived on his own for 6+ years now. Early in our relationship, it became clear to me that he had taken a step away from this family dynamic, though he maintained a close relationship with everyone. Attending family dinner twice a week was not uncommon.
• I come from an emotionally and physically abusive childhood, and was functionally independent at the age of 16. I have a lot of trauma from being abandoned, thrown from place to place at the whim of people who don’t care about me, living out of a car or suitcase… as an adult, home and housing security is very important to me. I have built myself a life I’m very proud of with my dream job, an extensive support system I love, lots of found family. Though it took a decade, I learned how to set healthy boundaries with and have safe relationships with my family. We are by no means close, but we are friendly and support each other where we can.
• His family seemed happy to have me around at the beginning. There were a few weird things they did at the beginning of this relationship that I didn’t think much of, but looking back, I can see it was a symptom I wasn’t able to recognize.
• There are multiple instances of the family not caring about our schedule: not bothering to include us in group trips to the grandparents, planning family trips when they know we will be busy, inviting us to dinner 30 minutes before it starts when everyone else knew all day. They all live in two houses that are 10 minutes apart, and spend every day together. This all has not bothered us too much, as we show up when we can, though I think not being considered has hurt my fiancé. The important point here is that the family has a pattern of not recognizing our needs.

What happened:

• We got engaged October 2023.
• The sister offers to help with wedding planning, as she is an event planner. I have extensive experience planning events as well, and kindly declined her running it but said I would love to have her support in some ways, and I’ll reach out when I need help.
• Engagement party planning: I ask her if she’s seen any cool activities for engagement parties, as I would like to have some. She tells me they’re not needed and that everyone will just be talking anyway. I try to ignore that comment and handle this with support of my MOH. (Btw, we did some prompts for people to fill out like “give the couple advice” and “what’s your favorite thing about the couple”with some nice cardstock and pens. Turned all of it into a collage and it’s so cute! Also my fiancé, who is an incredible artist, created a coloring page of our dog holding the ring, and I created a scavenger hunt for the kiddos. It was so cute!!! Very happy I had activities. Sister sat in the corner with her immediate and talked to basically nobody else. Her loss.)
• At a family dinner, she asks how engagement party planning is going. FH tells her we are just needing to decide on the catering order but everything else is good. She tells him to pull it up on his phone, steps in between us with her back to me, and tells him what he needs to get, without asking either of us our opinions. 2 weeks later I asked him if we could sit down and decide on the catering order, and he claims it’s done. With discussion, he realizes he just meant that his sister told him, but he hadn’t considered our budget, talked to me, or even remembered what she said. Like I said, she’s been running the family for years. This is a pattern I have seen time and time again.
• I begin to look at the calendar for a wedding date. We have always wanted to get married in the fall, and are wanting Sep/Oct. I send a few courtesy texts to close friends and family to ask if there’s any blackout dates that I can try to avoid. 0/10 would not recommend, there were literally no good dates. All my friends/family said just pick the date that works best for you, it’s a wedding and you won’t please everyone. His sister tells us that she is planning a month-long vacation in September and October, and she needs to know as soon as possible if she should change her plans. She and her husband travel very frequently. In 2023, they spent about three months total on vacation. It is almost a part-time job to them.
• September 28 is a very special day for us, it holds a lot of significance. It happens to also be the date with the least conflicts for our schedule and the blackout dates I stupidly asked many people for. The only conflict is the potential vacation. I will reiterate that out of 8 weeks, she immediately told us she wanted 4 of those for vacation. She also offered to change it, so I didn’t have a big concern at first.
• At a family dinner a bit later, my fiancé approaches her to let her know she will likely need to change her vacation. She asks if we have found a venue yet, we explain no but we will have one in about a month (this was peak holiday season and things were very chaotic). She tells us she needs the date by one week because she wants to book flights. The only thing she has officially booked is mostly refundable, canceling would only cost $500, and she says she’s willing to cancel that if we tell her now. I reiterate that we can’t give her the exact date, but we will be looking very hard for that date, and she should not book flights. The entire family gets incredibly frantic very quickly. The sister starts telling us dates that would work better for them, claiming we should go look at venues the next week (again, holidays, work was crazy, it was not an option), the father asks me to go to a venue alone and FaceTime my fiancé (who was leaving the next day for a trip), the mother tell us to just get married at another time of the year. I become pretty firm and say September 28 is important to us and fall is important to us. We will be finding a venue within a month, and if that date is available we will be taking it. Sister looks like she’s about to snap. Fiancé steps in here and says “well you’re more sentimental about dates anyway.” (Prior to this conversation he had told me he would prefer that date. I truly think he’s used to giving in to her and didn’t want her to explode. You will see why later.) She asks me to just tell her it’s that date. I say I can’t promise that because we’re not looking at venues yet, but it’s very very likely and she should wait to book.
• After we leave the house, I break down crying to fiancé and explain how hurtful it was to be dismissed by the family, but it also hurt that he shut me down in front of the family. I told him it felt like he took their side and just caved in. He hears me, tells me he understands why that would be hurtful and apologizes. States he will follow up with his sister and make sure she understands within the month. This did not happen. Again, I think the man is terrified of going against the family grain.
• We do a lot of venue research, and find one we have sentimental value with (we have danced here at events before), it will make our wedding band sound incredible, it is dirt cheap, all DIY (which I heavily prefer), and all the proceeds go toward rebuilding the community with rehab programs and affordable housing. This is the only place we tour. We immediately fall in love and want to book. They have only three dates available in September and October: Sep 14, Sep 28, Oct 19. His mother’s birthday is October 19, which we are avoiding for SO many reasons. She is 100% the kind of person who would resent us for this every year: we would want to celebrate our anniversary and she would be hurt we wouldn’t celebrate her birthday, and we don’t want to deal with that every year. September 14 is very bad for several reasons, the least of which that I would be bruised and scraped from a big race the weekend before. I don’t want to look like a domestic abuse victim in my wedding photos. We would also be missing many people important to us, it is the weekend of a big event in one of our communities. We would also be missing this event.
• I ask my partner if we can go ahead and book the 28th, and he can tell his sister. He said he wants to think about it for a while. I give him about two weeks, asking him occasionally if he’s decided what he wants to do. He does not make a choice. I remind him she made it clear that she said she was willing to change her vacation, she just needs to know soon. He does not say anything to either me or her, even though this is within the month he said he wanted to talk to her.
• While watching a game at sister’s house, his mother asks me if we found a date. I explain that there’s not a lot available, and it’s been hard to work around. She looks over my shoulder at my calendar I’m working on and says “October 19 is open”. I say yes, but that’s your birthday. She states “I’d rather you get married on my birthday than for (sister and her husband) to move their vacation.” I sit pretty silently and leave the house a bit later. I should have confronted this here, but did not feel comfortable doing so with how fiancé had responded to family pressure the first time. Kicking myself for it now.
• Quite a bit later, he finally says we can decide on the 28th, he just has to be okay with his sister not coming. We go to tell them in person, and ask them to come, and she reacts quite poorly. Insinuates we should have cancelled holiday plans to plan our wedding, says she doesn’t want to lose her PTO, or her money. States pretty harshly that if her friend she’s going with gets sick, maybe she can cancel and then she could make it. Fiancé shuts down completely. Understandable.
• We have a few one on one conversations with people trying to get to the bottom of the situation and explain that it’s hurtful she didn’t listen to us when we asked her to make good on her offer to change her vacation. Each person defends her and tells us we should have just planned it quicker. The father said he offered to pay for their vacation to be cancelled, but can’t afford it. They are now claiming it would take $20K to move their vacation. (I cannot believe this number. Also, they have travel insurance on the entire trip.)
• We invite sister and her husband over to talk. I tell her it hurts that she didn’t listen, that I was trying to let her know where we were so she could plan. She and her husband both say we are blunt people and you need to be more blunt with us or we won’t hear you. I say that doesn’t seem fair, I told you what was happening clearly, but you seemed to only want an official date, which I couldn’t give you then. She snaps at me and says “that is exactly what I wanted and it’s what you needed to tell me that day.” Shuts down and refuses to keep talking to me. Her husband and I leave the room to give the siblings time to talk. They talk for 3 hours. When they leave she barely says goodbye to me.
• Both sisters reach out to fiancé and ask to meet. He says he’d like me to come too. They say they would prefer a sibling meetup but if I want to come they’ll figure it out. I receive this comment as slightly hostile, and do not feel comfortable pushing my way into it. He goes.
• After this meeting, I ask him if he can set up a meeting with the sister to talk again. He calls to ask. She says she would meet up but she thinks she needs a “lawyer (younger sister’s name) present to translate”. I get pretty panicked about this and say I’m not comfortable with that. She was quite aggressive over the phone.

The blowup:

• Fiancé asks the entire family to meet so we can talk about things. This day is a nightmare. I was in and out of tears this entire time, but for the most part was able to keep talking, right until the end.
  • Family tells us all that this is completely my fault for not making sure to give the sister a date.
  • We both try to explain that it’s not even the date that’s a problem, it’s about our feelings not being heard. The mother and father state that if they knew what was happening when we asked them to change, they would have spoken up in a different way and made sure we were heard better by their eldest daughter. (This is a bit hard to stomach. Both of them told us that day to just move the date to a different time of year. They both dismissed me that day.)
  • I get vulnerable with the family and explain that since my family isn’t close, I would very much value a closer relationship with them all. I make sure to make eye contact with the sister. She rolls her eyes and pointedly looks away.
  • I begin to explain how hurtful the earlier conversations have been, I get cut off multiple times. My fiancé steps in (this was hard for him and I’m so so proud of him for doing this) and tells the people who cut me off to please listen because that’s not respectful and I deserve to be heard. The younger sister takes this very hard and leaves the room because she is enraged. She returns later.
  • The father says “emotions are just chemicals, so we can’t rely on those. We have to look at the facts.” Then proceeds to just say everyone needs to move on. This was immediately after I explained that how we were treated hurt us.
  • The conflict has still not been resolved or even explained, so I try to explain that “I feel like this would happen again” and the father quite literally blows up at me saying “that’s not fair, if I understood what we were talking about that day, I would have stepped in”. I explain again that I’m still feeling like it would happen, not just because of him and wanting to still resolve things. The family all blows up at me and tells me what I’m saying isn’t fair. Father is shaking and screaming at me. (But emotions are just chemicals, right? Lmao.) Again, I’m trying to address the conflict, and was shut down quite harshly.
  • I try a different approach. I explain to them that they are not the only people we are concerned about with scheduling, and that there were, quite literally, no perfect dates. We decided on the 28th because it made the most sense, it’s our wedding, and it means a lot to us. I tell them “I am not expecting you to move your vacation” and literally all 5 family members scream at me “yes you are”. I shut down and begin crying again. (What I would have said there is that if they do not respect our opinions or preferences for our wedding, I can’t control that. I can’t make my life dependent on them, and so if they’re not willing to come to us a bit for our wedding day it is out of my hands.)
  • As I shut down, the father starts talking about needing to treat each other better in the future. I perk up, hoping we can address the conflict. He instead says we can’t change the past, so just move forward with your wedding, and sister keep your vacation. Fiancé starts crying.
  • I try, one last time, to say this is making me uncomfortable, we haven’t really addressed what happened and I’m afraid it will happen again. The sister has not spoken at all, except to scream at me “yes you are”. I decide to address her directly. I calmly explain a few specific things she did that hurt us, and then I tell her I would really value knowing her perspective and I want to know how she’s feeling.
  • ****here it is.**** She stands up out of her chair, starts laughing, screams at me “I promise you don’t!” puts her head on the table, banging her fist and screaming. Her husband and my fiance are asking her to take a breath, but she is uncontrollable. She stands up, lets out a sustained scream at the top of her lungs, goes upstairs pounding her feet and screaming the entire time. She locks herself in a bathroom, screaming and pounding (I’m not sure what, probably her feet? Could have been punching the wall. Idfk.)
  • Fiance says to family “If we’re talking about how to treat each other in the future, this needs to be addressed. This is not appropriate.” (Again, claps for this man. Yay.) The rest of the family says that this is just how sister is and she just needs time to cool down. (This feels a bit like “the emperor has no clothes” kind of situation. She is the self proclaimed matriarch, and nobody wants to stand up to her because they are dependent on her for various things.) Younger sister leaves and says she is going to check on older sister.
  • Without either sister in the room, we actually get somewhere for a bit. I explain that I’m trying to share my emotions and perspective but until we’re heard, I don’t think we can move forward. I explain again that I want a relationship here but it’s looking difficult. From the sister’s husband, mother, and father, this is received quite well and we all seem to be getting closer to a resolution. Everyone seems to be connecting a bit more while we wait for the sisters to return.
  • Sisters come back down. Oldest has a notebook in her hands. She stands at the table and says she’s sorry that she has to read things from a paper, but that’s just where she is. I say that’s totally okay and fiance does too. She says “number one, I’m sorry we’re not on the same page emotionally. And number two…… these are just not worth saying”. She flips her notebook shut dramatically. Fiancé says “it’s worth it to me, and I know it’s worth it to my future wife.” Sister says “If I said them, it would ruin our relationship forever.” She sits down and smiles at us.
  • I am frozen. I cannot talk. I am quietly sobbing in my chair, and continue to cry until we leave.
  • Father says “okay, so do we just wanna move on, or pick this up later?” Many people chime in that they just want to move on. It feels like a switch flips. Everyone starts small talk and telling each other to have a good week. The sister says “I want to beat someone at something. Does anyone want to play a game?” I am crying and trying to move towards the door. The mother and father approach me and give me hugs. The sisters and husband do not acknowledge me at all. Everyone else says their goodbyes and fiance and I move towards the door.
  • As I reach the door, sister calls out to me “goodbye, (me).” She sounds annoyed, but I’m grateful she said something. I turn around to try to go say goodbye. It takes me a second to move through the people in the hallway, but I pop in the room. She is faced away from the hall. Her mother tells her to turn around, and I wave goodbye and say “bye, (sister)”. She rolls her eyes, scoffs at me, and turns to her mother while throwing her hands in the air. I begin crying in earnest, get pretty angry, and run out the door to the car.
  • I message her on the way back home, and saying I was trying to give her space and wasn’t trying to leave without saying goodbye, I just didn’t know what she needed and didn’t want to trigger her. I said thank you for saying goodbye, and I really hope you have a good week. To this day, has never responded to this. I wish I had never sent it.

The aftermath:

• Fiance asks me to change the date to September 14, but tells me his sister won’t get an invite until she apologizes. I tell him all the things that would suck about that date, that it would really hurt. He says he wants to come their direction a bit but hold a boundary with the date. I tearfully agree after several days of discussion, but tell him I need him to just be ready to plan with me, and I need a lot of reassurance why we’re doing this. He says if we do this he will focus on our wedding and we can just build a happy date, and that he’ll be here for building our marriage.
• The next week he goes to tell his family the date is changed. They apparently apologize to him. They ask him to ask me what they can do to make things better, but not one of them reaches out to me, or offers an apology.
• I try to sit down to plan wedding things with him, and he tells me he just doesn’t have the energy for it. This continues for a full two weeks after we change the date. As I mentioned above, he had a conversation with them… this took up a whole evening, and a day before and after for him to decompress. After two weeks, I tell him this is too painful. We need to not get married this day. It’s using a date to send a message, and it is not only inconvenient and would cost me a lot, but it’s also not what the day is supposed to be about. It is our day, not the family’s day, especially with how we’ve been treated. We cancel the 14th.
• About a month later he finally tells them they need to talk to me, not through him. They each reach out, but each attempt is pretty rough and clearly not wanting to make things right, just argue their point more. I don’t respond to these.
• He begins to go to family events without me. He asks each time if it would hurt my feelings if he went. Every time, I say yes. I want to be there too, but I want to feel safe to go, and that we need to resolve this before I’m comfortable going. He goes anyway. This happened 4 times.
• I beg him, time and time again, to please set a date. We begin to talk of eloping on September 28th and doing a party later. I tell him I’m great with this plan, and when he’s ready to, start the conversation to out details like location for eloping and a date for a reception. I ask him to take the lead on this because I don’t know what he wants anymore and he’s been holding it up since December. He agrees and says he wants to take charge of that. He never does.
• Four. Long. Months. No action. Several friends and our counselor encourage him to just select a date and move forward with building a future together, that the family stuff can get ironed out later. He does nothing.
• I beg him to choose me, set boundaries with the family, explain we can’t show up until things are resolved. He says he wants to, that he agrees boundaries are needed. He doesn’t set one.
• April 6, he says he wants to talk more about his feelings before setting a date. I say okay, but if we can’t have a date by a month, we need to call it quits. I can’t hang on much longer. He agrees, confidently tells me that by May 6, it won’t even be a problem, he’s so sure of it.
• We spend a lot of time talking about family and needing boundaries in April. No concrete discussion of a date, but when I ask about a date, he keeps saying he’s “planning on Sep 28”.
• May 6 comes and goes. No date. I am dejected, despondent. I leave the ring on, trying to give him some more time, and honestly because I can’t handle taking it off yet.
• Mother’s Day comes. He doesn’t attend family gatherings. We did not discuss this. It was his decision. I am not even with him this day. Younger sister texts me and asks “Is (fiance) allowed to come to Mother’s Day.” I immediately panic and start sobbing. I screenshot to fiance and ask him to handle. I tell him this is why I’ve been asking for boundaries. Asking if Alex has permission from me like I’m a parent is inappropriate and I’m not comfortable with being treated this way.
• He tells younger sister this was inappropriate and finally sends a message in the family chat, explaining this has all not been handled well and apologizing for not taking charge of the situation before. He tells them that priorities will be changing, and while he loves them all, I am his first priority. He explains this will take some time before we’re able to talk again. (Again, snaps. It took a long long time but it was well said and a huge step.)
• His younger sister sends an apology that is literally “I’m sorry my message hurt you. Everyone’s feelings are valid but you don’t have to like them I suppose.” She also begs me to help her understand what’s happening from my end and please let us enjoy each other’s company. I do not respond that night.

The broken engagement:

• On May 14, I take the ring off as gently as I can, explaining that if he isn’t ready to set a date with me, it doesn’t seem he’s ready for marriage, but I’m not abandoning him and I still want a future with him. He tries to stop me from doing this and says he was trying, that he would mention aiming for September 28 to elope. I ask him if he thinks he needed to be more specific. He say yes. I remind him he agreed to lead the conversation of planning our day together, and that hasn’t happened. He says he understands and he’s sorry. The ring comes off that night.
• I spend some time alone last weekend, processing in nature. Took our dog camping and trail running. Left him with some questions to process. Came back to him explaining that everything in his life is falling apart right now, he’s terrified he’s behind at work, and he needs a bit of time to right those things before getting married. Explains he knows all these things are bad because he’s not set a date or taken action. Tells me he wants me to have no question that he’s prioritizing me, but needs a second to organize his life. I say this is a good idea, and that I could also use more time to process.
• I finish a kind and calm response to his younger sister, explaining in vague terms our hurt, saying I can’t show up for a relationship without kindness and respect, asking for clarification on her apology from Mother’s Day, and explaining that while I can’t share details, we can’t move forward right now.
  • The response is….. a lot. She explained away her sister’s tantrum as a meltdown and says that I need to recognize that’s how she processes feelings, it’s just neurodivergence. Tells me it’s my fault for not showing up and obviously I just need more time to be okay with it, which is why I’ve been removed from all group chats. Says she’s talked to everyone in the family and has heard the same thing about me, and that if anyone needs to change their minds, she will handle talking with them about that. (?!?!?) Tells me it’s up to me to fix this and when I’m ready they’re all waiting for me to come back so we can be a family again. Thanks me for opening up to her, says she’s honored. Tells me kindness is a given but respect has to be earned and they haven’t disrespected me at all. Says they’re all ready to move on.
  • Fiance has not yet seen this message, but it has caused me a lot of pain. He knows it was sent and has heard some of my frustration with it. Told me he wants to set boundaries with his family, this is all his fault for not taking action, and he’s very sorry. I tell him I appreciate it but I can’t forgive him anymore until he takes action.
• That text made me realize I can’t just continue talking to him like everything is fine. I told him today that I love him very deeply but until he can take steps to protect me, he has become a part of this unsafe pattern for me to stay in. He apologized, profusely, for not being able to take care of me how I deserve right now, told me he just needs a bit of time to get his house in order, and we set a date next week to meet up.

I see all of this as (ex?)-fiance struggling to break from this enmeshment cycle. It seems to me he struggles to confront things in his family and say how he feels, likely due to how the family reacts. I know how hard it is to learn to set boundaries, especially with toxic family. He is trying, taking steps, moving towards me, but it is so slow. I don’t want to abandon him, but I also need to figure out where my limit is. I cannot do this forever. I am in an apartment that I have to leave in October, as I told my landlord I would leave then when we originally set a date. I have a car that I can afford, but would downgrade if we were not merging our lives to save some money. I’m trying, so hard, to be supportive and help him open up about his feelings, but I don’t know how to protect myself. This is incredibly traumatic for me: a family who is emotionally abusive and gaslighting me into thinking this is all fine, people screaming at me and pounding things, not knowing where I’m living, my future being dependent on people who don’t care about my needs or apologize for hurting us.
We have gotten advice of one counselor, and recently he got the perspective of a friend. He isn’t talking to any other people about this and I believe it’s hard for him to see the situation clearly with 5 family members telling him to do one thing, and just me, a friend and our counselor telling him to prioritize our marriage.
Anybody who has been through similar things… help? How do I support him while also protecting myself? Any tips for helping enmeshed partners break the cycle?
TLDR: fiancé is trying to break out of an enmeshed family, and struggling with setting boundaries for the first time. Has not set a wedding date in 6 months because of all the stress. How do I protect myself here?