I REFUSE to be nice to my husband’s parents… it made him upset! | Reddit Stories - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Sam. This is John the og story
Time podcast host.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh yeah, and we got some great stories coming up.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
But before that we get a teeny two minute break
from the sponsors that keep the show propped up like
a little house. Oh yeah, I refuse to be nice
to my husband's parents and it made him upset. Well. Yeah,
my husband of one and a half years, let's call
him Jonathan, is Indian and I'm Southeast Asian. We met
at work, fell in love, got married, and I moved

(00:28):
to the big city here in the US to be
with him where he's based. By the way, this comes
from just no Indian mother in law and if you
want to submit your own stories, go to our slash
Okay Storytime subprenate. So we are doing well financially as
we both have good jobs in the city. We are
double income, no kids or dinks, so we're able to
buy a house in the suburbs one hour away from

(00:49):
the city to which we commute every day from work.
I drive both of us to work, as I'm the
only one with driving experience. I have made it clear
to him from the very beginning that I hate living
with other people, don't like having issues with roommates or
extended family, and for the first year of our marriage,
I stayed at home while he worked as I was
waiting for my work permit, and during this time I
played fifties housewife and did everything for him, cleaning, laundry, cooking,

(01:13):
other errands. Now that we both have jobs and are
more financially secure, he invites his mom and dad, both
are Indian and in their sixties, from India, and told
me that they would like to visit for six to
nine months. So nine months. That's also a big disparity,
you know, like saying six to nine months, yeah, true,
because sixth is already a lot, but like the just

(01:35):
being like, yeah, there might be three extra months, Yeah,
it might be like a week to like, you know,
a few years something like that. Wow, six to nine days, Yeah,
you're there. I said, that's insane, and I don't want
to live with other people in my house for that long,
not his parents or my parents, no exceptions. I told
him three weeks to one month is my max, and
even then I foresaw some issues that might crop up.

(01:57):
He proceeds to negotiate with his mom, who then agreed
that three months is fine. Again, this is not even
close to fine for me, and I let him know,
but he guilt trips me into agreeing, and he said
his mom and dad are very old and this will
probably be the last time they'll visit. Well, then they
can stay in I don't know, like stay somewhere else. Yeah,
get them like a place to live, right, because this

(02:19):
isn't just a visit. No, I'll be living with them
if they're living there for six get them an apartment. Honestly. Yeah,
he proceeds to buy the ticket even when I voiced
out how this is not going to end well, he
thinks I actually agreed to this. Read it. I don't
ever remember being okay with this, and if I have
somehow made it seem that I agreed, I really regret
being guilt tripped into that decision, and I wish now

(02:41):
that I had more spine. After buying the tickets, we
bickered a lot about the decision, and one time he
expressed that it was his duty as a son to
at least give this as a gift for his parents
then visiting the US. This will be the second time.
First time they stayed for one month when I had
not moved in with him yet. I told him that
since he is married, is when I'm married, duty is

(03:01):
with me as a husband, and that everyone else should
not be his top priority. I get that maybe this
is a cultural thing, so I reminded him that I
have made it clear in the past that I do
not want to live with other people for extended periods
of time. He denies that I made that clear before,
and said that he would like to do this thing
for his parents. Then you do it. Go find a
new place and you can live there with them. Yeah.

(03:23):
During this conversation, I, of course, kind of threw a
fit and said he didn't care about my feelings, and
he responded that I was a cold hearted person for
not agreeing to let his parents live with us, and
how his parents will pass away sooner and now again
this might be the last visit. I told him, well,
next year they will probably be here again, and you'll
say the same thing, and what You'll let them stay
for longer because they'll be older and have more chances

(03:45):
of He says he can't guarantee their passing, and again
that I was a bad person for not feeling sorry
for them. Reddit of course I don't feel bad. I
haven't even met them, so I apologized and said, Okay,
maybe I'm out of line and we'll see, maybe I'll
like them. He says I needed a compromise and that
I wasn't compromising at all. Dude, you're not compromising. Yeah, oh,

(04:07):
P said a three weeks and you said, okay, three months. Yeah,
the compromise should already be that she's allowing your parents
to stay there for three weeks. But she said I
don't want to live with anyone else. Yeah, that's already
compromised on her part, like her max is a month.
But I'm guessing that's not very comfortable over her still.
I told him, wow, three months is a huge compromise.

(04:30):
He also mentioned how his mom is self absorbed and
has cut out almost everyone in her life and doesn't
have any good relationships with anyone, including him. So I was,
of course thinking she'll also be in doing some circus
while she's here. Well read it. The day finally came
and they arrived. Since I'm the only one licensed to drive,
I took a day off from work, even though I

(04:50):
get paid by the day, and we both picked up
his parents from the airport. All's fine and dandy. They
seem like nice people, although a little bit traditional. His
dad never says much and just watches in the living room.
His mom spends time with his dad. This is all
they do every day. All his mom caters to the
dad as he's not very mobile arthritis issues, and we
make sure that they have everything they need in the

(05:11):
guest room, which is on the second floor. Month one,
they like to spend all their time in the living room,
even when we bought them their own TV. My resentment
is growing as I would like to spend some time
in the shared areas as well, but they're always hogging it.
That is really annoying. Yeah, I think not like when
you have roommates, it feels really chill to stop people

(05:33):
always in the living room, right, but when you have
like people over, ye, like who you know are your
roommates friends or like a like a you know because
I've had this happen. We're like a roommate not here,
but like where it was constantly bringing someone over and
they would just kind of always be in the living room. Yeah,
like even when they're not there, and you're just like, okay,

(05:54):
I don't feel like comfortable in my limits.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
When you move in with people you know it's understanding
that like, yeah, these are shared areas, so everyone like
has equal access to it. But when you are just yeah,
having people over, like, you're not agreeing to that. And
if she's used to living alone with her and her husband,
she's gonna want that space for herself sometimes. And also
she doesn't really have her.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Own space, you know, like she has her room, but
that is also a shared space shared, right, So that's yeah,
that's tricky. They are always in the living room, in
the dining room, in the kitchen. We take them to
parks often. Of course I am always the driver. I
feel like I'm doing a lot for these people, but
it's not enough. I learned from my husband that sometimes
mother in law criticizes me, she'll find something to say.

(06:39):
She also always speaks in Hindi even though she knows
how to speak in English, and sometimes refuses to talk
to me, but will talk about me even when I'm
in the same room. Since we're in the same house,
she often hears me and my husband bicker about stupid
things and with later comment how I don't compromise and
then we fight too much and couple should fight. My
husband told her that isn't the case and that we're fine.
Month two oh my husband and I took a four

(07:01):
day trip to the neighboring country to have a very
minor medical procedure. It's cheaper there and to have a
mini vacation. Husband proceeds to be on video chat with
his mom every five minutes or so. I voiced out
that this is getting annoying, as I feel like I'm
having a vacation with his mom and not him. He
tones it down. During the procedure, the mom kept asking
me for updates every thirty seconds. I'm not exaggerating. She

(07:24):
just really cares. She just cares so much. She just
cares so much that she needs like minute by minute
breakdown of everything that's happening. Yeah, and I told her
to chill as this is a routine procedure. We finally
get back home and learn from our friend who we
asked to stay with the parents and homes it while
we were gone, that the mom had crap talked us,
mainly how my husband is frustrated with her, or how

(07:46):
I'm overpowering and domineering probably because I'm not a submissive
Indian wife, and how she was not consulted when we
bought our house. Every other day, my husband blames his
mom for being crazy, and then the next day will
blame me for not being compromising, and he tells me
to just suck it up because she's like that and
we can't change her. We cannot invite her for three
months though. Yeah, that was something that we could have done.

(08:07):
Absolutely in your control. Some days, she'll criticize me to
my husband every moment she gets, and just generally paint
a bad picture of me to him. Month three last month.
We're getting there, maretch we can do this. Who. I'm
also a little bit worried that they're going to extend it. Oh,
I didn't even think of that. Yeah, they're gonna get
to month three and she's gonna be like, oh, well,

(08:29):
you know we need to stay here longer. They're just
not going to leave. Yeah, they're gonna stay that whole
nine months and just gill trip to get their way. Yeah, dude,
month three. There are other little things that I complained
to my husband about, such as how mother in law
is hovering in the kitchen whenever I cook, asking me
to re wash vegetables, but she never washes dishes and

(08:49):
utenses properly. It's driving me insane. I teach her how
to use the dishwasher, she doesn't want to use it. Ever,
she says she would like to sweep the floor. I
give her the broom and vacuum, but she never does it.
Floor is always crappy. I end up having to clean
all this until on the third month. I have given
up on cooking and cleaning. I am growing very resentful
as beer paying for everything and she's not old enough

(09:10):
to not contribute to the household. One day, we took
them for a long drive to see the fall foliage
and she was crap talking in the car about me
and my husband in Hindi. I told her that she
needs to speak English. She repeatedly said why. I told
her because she's in my car and I'm talking to her.
She was saying in Hindi how we have no shame
and are being overly clever. I read it. At this

(09:31):
point I wanted to throw her out of my car.
Since then, I have not spoken to her. My husband
also was very upset, but started talking to her again
after a few days. My husband has tried to convince
me to be nice to them, as they're only here
for a few more days. I refuse. He said that
this will be the last time he'll invite them because
he does acknowledge that his mom is a henful. Yeah,

(09:53):
but like that's what you say now, But then you
know it's gonna come because you already have this conversation
with Opee where she said that I don't want to
ever live with anyone else. Yeah, and you presumably agreed
only to say, Oh, I don't remember you ever saying that, right,
So like let's to stop you from yeah, say and
next time, Oh, I don't remember ever saying that this

(10:13):
was the last time. Yeah, don't trust it. Don't trust it. Finally,
they're leaving next week, and I told my husband on
the train today I would not be taking them to
the airport. I refuse to put any effort in time
and skip work just to drive these horrible people to
the airport will take three hours of my time. I
told him to uber as we can afford it. He

(10:35):
became very upset with me and stormed off when we
got off the train. I felt really bad that he
got mad, so I told my boss I'll take the
day off to drive the in laws. No, why can't
he get a freaking license? Yeah, what's that about? What's
going on? Like, why do you have to do all
of this for his parents?

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And then also get you know, bad mouthed and told
that you're not compromising or helping out. Yeah, when you're
doing more than he is. He's doing all of it,
all of it. Get an uber, Get an uber, buddy.
I feel like I'm being taken advantage of and my
husband is not defending me. But you can take advantage
of full episodes with stories just like this. Just go

(11:15):
to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or iHeartRadio and search a booky
story time. But there is a little bit left to
the story. Do you have any final thoughts? Is this
just so incredibly confusing or frustrating for op for sure?
Because what like she's doing all of this stuff and yeah,
like you said, it's like they're they're craft talking her

(11:37):
in front of her. So it's like, guys, acknowledge me
and appreciate what I'm doing for you. It's a lot
to do it. Yeah, come on, no, it's the very
least they could do. And they're not even doing that. Like,
you're not paying monetarily for this, they're not paying in kindness,
they're not helping out around the house. Yeah, what's going on?

(11:59):
Where's the thought, you know, where's the appreciation? Yeah? Also,
what's the point of like visiting if you are just
crap talking the people that you're read red like, like,
why are you even here? It shows me that you
don't really like the people very much. So what's the
point of being there? Reddit? These people are in my
house and are disrespecting me and my marriage. My husband
has no spine and does not want to draw the line.

(12:21):
He wants me to be nice to his parents, who
are not even nice to me. I have suggested couples
counseling to him, but he has often said that I'm
the only one with an issue. He believes that since
I've agreed to having them for three months, I should
suck it up for the three months no matter what,
not complain Reddit, Am I really so wrong for not
putting up with this? And that is the end of
that story?

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Wow, my ex's wife demands I pay them back for
what happened twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Uhh, no, thank you not doing that.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
So for some background, my ex husband and I ended
things over twenty years ago when our son was two.
He stepped out at the time I was a stay
at home mom and going to nurse school full time.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
He was paying for my schooling. By the way, this
comes from Disturbia hope.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
And if you want to submit your own stories, go
to the r slash Okay storytime Separate. So after he left,
I asked him if he would keep paying for my
school so I could finish with no debt. He agreed,
saying it was the least that he could do, a
few months after that, he got a a fair partner
pregnant as so wow, he left because of an affair
and now she's preggers.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah dang.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Once she got pregnant, she demanded that he stopped paying
for my schooling. It was one fifth of their income,
and she said that that money needed.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
To go towards their new baby.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
He refused and kept paying for the remaining year and
a half I had left. Over the years, I continued
my education and now I'm a nurse practitioner. Yeah. I
do well for myself and I never remarried. Onto the problem,
my son called me and told me that he and
his wife are expecting.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Wow. I was ecstatic.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
I asked if I could come over sometime during the
weekend to give them some things, his favorite stuffy as
a child, a check, and some other small sent mental things.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
He said yes, so I went over earlier today.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
I came by and gave him everything, including a check
for a few thousand dollars for baby stuff, copays the nursery,
or anything else they may want. My son and his
wife thanked me and told me that the money would
be very helpful. My ex husband and his wife came
over a little while later. They surprised them with dinner
and didn't know that I would be there, and they
saw the check on the counter.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
My ex's wife asked about it, and I said, oh, well,
I wanted to help out where I could.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Everything's so expensive nowadays. I was really just trying to
be polite, But I don't think this is any of
her business. This woman had the audacity to say, well,
maybe since you have all this money now, you can
finally pay us back all that money that you took
when you went to college. I was dumbfounded. My ex
has literally never brought up me paying him back. He's
always said that it was the least he could do

(14:46):
for both me and our son. My ex has done
very well for himself in his career. I didn't see
how or why they'd need the money, so I asked them,
do you guys need the money or something? My ex
said no, and she said, of course not. It's about principle.
I told her I will absolutely not be paying them
back for college tuition from over twenty years ago, especially
when she ended up in our marital home while I

(15:08):
was living in a small apartment barely making ends meet
for years after I initially finished school. I've never been
bitter or mean. I've always been civil since our kids
are siblings. But my blood was boiling. I left shortly
after that. According to my son, this has been a
point of contention in their marriage. She's brought it up
a few times over the years in front of him,
and she's insisting to him that he needs to convince

(15:30):
me to finally.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Pay back what they're owed. The biggest issue is now
that the whole dang family is involved. I got calls
from three separate family members saying that I need to
get over myself and just pay back.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
So am I the a hole here? And there are
some comments? But what's our answer?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
No?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
No, not.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
You will only be the a hole if your ex
was like, hey, I'm you know, do you mind paying
back that money? And you were like, no, it's not
on her to ask about this. Oh, especially because you're
you literally went to you guys need the money and
your X men Nope. Yeah, I think you need to
have a conversation with your ex and say, hey, do
you want me to pay that money back? Because you know,
you'd never once brought it up, and it seems like

(16:11):
your ex is or only your wife is interested, and
then you know, go from there, depending on what he says.
I get it.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
If it was a thing where it was like it
should be paid back and twenty years have gone by,
like sure, it should still be paid back. But if
this is something where it was never brought up or
never really a problem to be paid back in the
past twenty years, that means it can be forgotten in
the twenty years.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
I mean it seems like oh, he was like, hey,
do you mind, you know, helping me out with school.
It seems like initially the question was hey, do you
mind giving me like a loan? Yeah, and then the
ex was like no, like don't worry about it. Yeah,
So they already have.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
They already, but there are some comments coming. Number one says,
tell her it was the.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Adultery tax, or that her husband was ensuring that his
son would have a good life with either parent, not
the a whole OPI responds, this is exactly what my said.
He wanted to make sure that we could both afford
things for our son. It was in a way a
good investment for him because we went half on basically
every activity that our kid was in his first car
and his college tuition. We definitely couldn't.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Have done that if I only had a high school
education exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
I mean, yeah, yeah, no investment paid off, right, Like,
it's not necessarily a child sport, but it is in
a way it helped out because you don't like, you know,
he didn't have to pay for all those things solely
in the future exactly.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
But there is an update. So first I want to
clarify some things. Yes, it was our marital home. We
bought it after getting married. I didn't fight so hard
for it in the divorce for a few reasons, mostly
that she was borderline pestering me about how they needed
the house for their growing family. I also didn't want
to deal with a longer and more drawn out divorce,
and it would have been if I fought for the house. Yes,

(17:48):
he bought me out of the house. However, it really
wasn't much as it was late two thousand and seven.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Most of it went towards credit card debt. Anyway. Another thing,
when he.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Was paying for my schooling, we were still legally married.
Divorce it didn't finalize until after I graduated. There was
no child sport until after I graduated. There was never
any alimony. I did live in the house while I
was in school, and they lived in an apartment. He
paid all of those bills, including hers after she got pregnant,
so his finances were tight at the time. The family
that called weren't my relatives. They were my exes and

(18:19):
his wife's relatives. I thought they were family, but they've
since been blocked.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
So on to the update.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I got off work yesterday to find a few missed
calls from my son. When I called him back, he
tells me that his stepmom has now asked for the
money from the check, since it was almost the same
amount that they spent.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
On my college money. From what check from the check
that OP gave to her son.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, that's when the sun goes.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Sorry, yeah, it seems like a u problem right now.
I are just taking money from the sun, literally, Like
why does she need that money?

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, just enough money. They're comfortable.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Spite, man, just like spite and greed. Also, you're the
affair partner. There is a bit of hierarchy in this situation, like.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
You knowingly had an affair with a married man and
now you're.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Harboring this resentment. I'm your old guilt like guessing this
is some sort of resentment towards ope and just like
being super bitter. But you were not in a place
to die. You were the fair partner. You were the
other woman. So I don't know, man. She said that
it was obvious that I'd never pay my debts and
that I would just give him my son more money. Anyway,

(19:30):
I'm stunned, I'm pissed. I don't know what has possessed
her to think to ask my son for money intended
for his family.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
I tell my son to ignore her and I'll handle it.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
So next I call my ex, it goes straight to voicemail.
I try again a few minutes later, and it's the
same thing. So I reluctantly call my ex's wife, and
she answers immediately. I tell her the three of us,
my ex, hurt, and me, need to meet first thing
in the morning to discuss the debt. I'm thinking this
needs to happen in person with all three of us
so that there's no confusion.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
She agrees. This morning, we met at a coffee shop
near my exes work.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
As soon as they sit down, I say, so ex's wife,
want to tell me why you think it's appropriate to
ask my son for money. My ex looks at her
and says, you asked our son for money.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Huh oh oh about that. You're not gonna be happy
about that. Mm.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
She starts on about how she was only asking for
the money that they are quote owed, and she didn't
ask for more than what's on the check. Then she says,
for years, we've struggled to paying for your school. For years,
we couldn't afford a new car, a new house, or
a nanny. My kids had to share a room. Oh
boo hoo, hoo hoo, dude, a.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Lot of kids had to share room. Yet, like, I
have a problem with the husband then and not he
like talk? Why why is this op's issue? Exactly? You
couldn't afford a nanny. Yeah, like a lot of people
can't afford a nanny. That's that's not an expensive thing.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
On she goes on about her struggles, and I started
to tune her out because I keep thinking that there's
no she's this diluted.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
It may have been inappropriate, but I laugh.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
I literally took out thousands in credit card debt to
keep me and my son afloat while my at the
time husband was shacking up with her and paying her bills.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
My ex looks at her and says, what the heck, Sarah?

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I added, it's laughable that you think you're owed anything
from while you were a mistress. We were married, when
he paid for my schooling, It's quite literally none of
your business how he chose to spend money. You had
zero entitlement to his money until you said I do,
and from what I recall, that wasn't until years after
the divorce was even finalized. Do not contact me or

(21:37):
my son about this money again. You will never see
a dime from me. Wow.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
That was a great, great response, honestly, also very important information.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Debt.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, because we didn't know they weren't married. Yeah, until
like way after all of this money, way after her Yeah,
and the fact that their family was struggling while he
was paying for the fairburner exactly, exactly literally the saving
sect situation that she's complaining about, and OPI isn't asking
for that money back.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
She rolls her eyes and gets up to leave. My
ex tells her that he's going to stay for a minute.
After she's gone, he asks why I didn't just call
him and tell him about what was going on.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
He said he would have handled it and that it
didn't have to go this far. I say, I did
call him twice, actually, and this is how we figured
out that she's blocked my number from his own name.
Whoa crazy. So those of you who said that she's
just very insecure, you were absolutely correct.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
By the way, you would be absolutely correct if you
just listened to full episodes with more stories just like
this one on iHeartRadio, Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Just search, Okay, storytime, it's the correct thing to do,
correct thing to do, and there is a little bit
more story.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
But I feel like we've gotten so much information in
these past views sentence really like really.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Everything is coming out right now?

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, Yeah, A lot of very important information. So glad
that the husband is not on.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
The fair partner's side, clearly in the dark about a
lot of what she's been doing.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, yeah, so you know it's not two against one
in this situation, or at least not two against op exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Wow. Wow, there is a little bit more into the story.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
I tell him that she involved his sister cousin and
his sister in law, that I got several cars and
texts from them telling me that I should just pay
back my debt. Finally, I tell them that she involved
the family and then asked our son for money intended
for his baby. She has crossed too many lines. He
apologizes and says that he'll make sure that she doesn't

(23:42):
bother me about it again.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
We both leave. After that. My son told me that
he blocked her number and doesn't want her at his
house until she apologizes. And that's pretty much it for now.
I resent my husband's family because they treat him like
a piggy bang. There's no coins that are gonna find him.
I thirty two female, have been with my husband thirty

(24:05):
five male, for a little more than fifteen years. All righty,
we met in high school. I stayed with him while
he completed four years in the navy. He stayed with
me when I was diagnosed with MS and later Crohn's disease. Wow.
By the way, this comes from Jean Lily and if
you want to smit your own stories, go to our
slash okay storytime separate it. So his family was not

(24:25):
invited to our wedding because his anchor person, his uncle
he loved and who raised him like a father, passed away.
The family left behind, in his words, don't know how
to act right without him, and he's gone no contact
for years. It wasn't my business at the time, but
it boiled down to an accumulation of small things like
emptying the bank account he and his uncle built together
to build a life with me when he got out

(24:46):
of the navy, to bossing him around because his aunt,
whose uncle was married to, is morbidly obese and disabled,
always needing help. But the worst, in his opinion, was
the manipulation where they would say, your uncle would want
you to do this if he ever disagreed with something
they wanted from him. Before he was discharged, he decided
he hated all their guts and came to live with

(25:07):
me and my family and never spoke to them again
until we got pregnant. We thought it couldn't happen. We
thought I was too sick, But two years ago we
had a miracle baby after more than ten years of trying.
He had always wanted to be a dad, and he's
still a wonderful parent to my son. We split the
responsibilities fifty to fifty, like those new age dads trending
on social media right now. He gives me breaks every

(25:28):
day since I'm still sick, and my mom helps to
when he's at work. But no matter how tired he is,
when he comes home, he wants his son and lets
me be off the clock for the night. Anyway, for
some reason, after our son was born, some kind of
switch flipped and now it was like all the resentment
he felt just washed away, and he wants his side
of the family involved in our kid's life. I have

(25:48):
no problem with that, mending fences giving my son a community,
especially since he biracial where hispanic and his dad is black.
I know he needs exposure to his heritage, but I'm
worried about some of the role models represented on his side.
From all I've seen. Remember, I haven't been in contact
much either. I can only go off what I've seen,
and what I've seen are things like his aunt acting

(26:09):
helpless and playing victim while stealing money from others, like
pawning all of my husband's things when he was in
the navy. His brother has been in and out of
jail ever since Juvie. His mom is great to converse
with and talk to, and she understands my boundaries really well.
Is proud of my husband, but she didn't raise her kids.
They all got taken when they were young, hence my
husband's uncle raising him. And now she's trying to raise

(26:30):
money to post his brother's bail, which we both agree
is a bad idea and a waste if he never
learns not to go back. Then there's his sister, who
was labeled as a gold digger a long time ago.
As long as I remember, she's always asking him to
buy her something more than she's saying she loves or
misses him when she sees him. It's always baffled me.
His other brother seems a little bit of a hustler,

(26:52):
but is the mildest of all the family. I know.
He just owns a collection of expensive shoes, but somehow
still needs money or finds money in odd places. But
he has my respect for having a longtime girlfriend and
to my knowledge, helping take care of her child and
sometimes their dramatic aunt. Since my husband's been gone, I
want to say I can still live with all that.

(27:12):
No family is perfect, and I don't even really know
them to judge. It just sucks. I've never really gotten
a chance to know them for years because of my
husband's attitude towards them, you know, until all that magically
went away when my son was born. The problem is
we're broke, so broke. My husband has had at least
ten jobs over the last twelve years, always minimum wage.

(27:34):
The world is tough. Since I had to stop working
myself with my illnesses. I don't want a burden my
husband and whine the way he said his aunt used
to be. I don't want to manipulate him like she did,
especially since some women do by dangling their kids over
their heads threatening to take them away. He's a good dad.
So I do a lot myself oswife's stuff, mostly day
to day, and i'd run a small art business on

(27:55):
the side, just a couple hundred a month extra. Maybe
I also manage our government account where we get the
benefits that pay for my and my son's healthcare and
all our food, but we still live with my parents.
We wear Walmart clothes, and I don't even have a
cell phone, which always baffles people. It's just more important
for my husband to have one, especially since the car
broke and he's been having to bike everywhere. We are

(28:16):
that short on cash, but we set it up that
when he gets paid, we take out my parents' rent.
It's not a lot, but we feel we have to
pay for something where two people, a baby and our
little dog living out in the garage. They keep updated
with a nice ac and a fridge and all the
things we need to be independent. It's usually about half
his paycheck. Then he gives me a small amount to
help with certain expenses like diapers or clothes we need.

(28:39):
The boys always growing and needs all kinds of stuff.
The money I make from my side business is my
spending money. What's left in his account every month is
his spending money. I use my money on things like
door dash, going out with my mom once in a
while to bookstores or them mall or whatever. I like
getting my son new toys. He loves cars and has
a million of them, maybe nicer clothes I think are
super cute. Uses his money on maintaining his phone, door

(29:01):
dash or keeping his PlayStation Plus account. He also has
gotten me treats now and then. I'm not a hair,
makeup or nails girl. I like food and snacks or
flowers sometimes. Lately that's sort of stopped, but that's okay.
I also stopped getting him as much since it's all
redirected to my son. My real problem wrapped up when
I found out he's been giving his family money behind

(29:24):
my back. Ooh yeah, the behind your back is not great, no,
especially when you guys have like financial trouble going on
right now, right right, that's really really frustrating. And he
kind of like stopped giving you things that he usually
guess too, which would be okay if he was honest
about it, you know, and said like, hey, would it

(29:44):
be okay if I didn't, you know, get you some
of this stuff, right because I want to help out
my family.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
M h.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
And then that's a conversation that you guys have together
and see what you can afford, right right, nothing out
of our expenses. He's been using his spending money. I
was furious, not with my husband, but with his sister. Mostly.
I found the text where she was asking money for
a hotel, for food, for an uber, just stuff here
and there, and for a few months he would send
her forty dollars every month without telling me. Again, my

(30:11):
first honest reaction was resentment towards his sister. He has me,
his sick wife, he has a son. They know our
living situation, and she has the audacity to go back
to her old ways and beg for crumbs. My husband
argues she's in a bad place and needs it, but
I told him I saw her iPhone last time. She
was around, nice nails, weave, she has a job, a car,
and she can use her legs. I have none of

(30:33):
those things, and I make it work. Yeah. I mean,
he's saying, oh, she's in a bad place. Yeah, so
are you guys right right? It can't be the only
reason that you're doing this. If he wants to use
his spending money on that, it's his choice. But I
wanted him to know what he's doing and think about
it carefully. I am reflecting his attitude he had towards
his family when he left them years ago. How it

(30:53):
hurt that He couldn't tell me, but I did understand why,
because he was trying to spare the feelings I was
feeling right now. But I'm just very wary of them
taking advantage of him again, and when they have all
the means to do for themselves, especially when I'm using
my spending money on things like cool toys for my
son and Christmas gifts for him. Did he really want
to provide extra for his sister over his child. He
apologized and understood my point of view, so he stopped

(31:16):
sending his sister money. A few months later, his mom
reached out and asked for two hundred dollars for some
kind of expense for car. I think, why are they
reaching out to you guys? What like what? You guys
don't have the money to be spending stuff like this
right too far? Yeah far? This time he asked me
if he should and it would come from his spending money.

(31:38):
I told him it's okay, and the choice is his
if he wants to help his mom this one time,
I would help him with his phone bill that month
and his PlayStation plus for my money, but he would
have to go without his extra lunches. He likes pop
Eyes and Taco Bell. He was cool with it, and
we sent the money. Mom promised to pay him back,
but I told him not to ever expect to see
a dime again. When you're giving money away to people who,

(31:59):
like you know, don't have the funds, you just kind
of have to go into it knowing that you might
never get that money back. Yeah, but you have to
make sure that this is money that you could afford
to lose, right, right, I mean, it's definitely reasonable for
you to want that back. Yeah, absolutely try to get
it back, of course, right, but like for your own sake, yeah,

(32:19):
you definitely. Yeah, you don't want to agree to it
unless you are able to actually lose them. Yeah, yeah, don't.
Don't give away money that you can't afford the risk.
Of course, so far, I have been correct. His mom
used to make trips to come see your grandson, but
after she owed my husband money, that stopped because she
said she has car troubles. Now I'm pregnant again with
our second son. It's another miracle, but we worry about

(32:41):
me making it out alive, as it's another high risk pregnancy,
so we are cautiously hopeful. I'm due in just one
more month. And so far everything is great with the baby,
so I'm happier and happier as time goes by. We're
still tight on cash, but luckily I know we will
be okay since we can reuse all the stuff for
my first son for my second. Working on trying to
save to get a car and move out because I

(33:03):
think we've relied on my mom and dad too much already.
So my mom is scared of my conditions and postpartum.
She's convinced me to stay a little longer while we
save and get help with the new baby. But now
as sister and mom keep messaging me, and I hate
the feeling of annoyance I get when I get a
notification from them asking about baby showers and the babies,
do date, et cetera, not even getting into how they

(33:24):
care about the baby more than me or my life
being at risk. By the way, and by the way,
you can listen to full episodes of stories just like this.
Just go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or iHeartRadio and search
a booky story time, No risk at all, no risk,
But do you any final thoughts before we finish the story?
Just a tough tough situation.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, like I want to call it hypocrisy, but I
don't really think you can call it that. But it's
just like you're expecting all this stuff for me as
if I'm in a different situation than you.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
You know, I'm late. You guys don't have your own place,
You're living with your parents. You're trying to save money,
but you know you don't. You don't have the funds
to help them out when you're yeah, yeah, he's in
the same place, exactly exactly. That was frustrating, very frustrating,
But there is a little bit left to the story.
I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I usually

(34:16):
just wait to tell my husband and he reaches out
to them to answer questions. I'm just jaded from them,
and I'm not even sure they're the kind of people
I want in my son's lives. But I'm doing my
best to get on my husband's thought train and not
let these icky feelings consume me. So how do I
deal with this? What's the right way to deal with
my own shameful feelings? Am I the ale for having
this resentment in the first place. It's just money. I'm

(34:38):
not supposed to feel like it's my husband, his money,
and my kids all belong to me, not them. Yeah,
and that's the end of that story. Sam.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Here, we're gonna get back to the stories.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
But here's three of it's bads from our sponsors. I
discovered my father's premium dating app subscription. I asked him
to come clean.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
That's called premium service baby.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
My parents have been together for the thirty four years.
They met in university and had my brother and I
several years into their marriage. By the way, this comes
from Sissidar And if you want to spit your own stories,
go to our slash Okay storytime suburate. It so about
my parents. My mother is a hard working and loving mom,
but she can be very dominant and controlling at times.
She has a short temper, but she's often misunderstood and

(35:20):
has a lot of love for her family. She always
puts others before herself. My father is incredibly kind and sweet.
He's very intelligent, and, like my mother, is a software engineer. However,
while his intelligence extends to many other areas as well,
he's not always socially adept and can be a bit
aloof and unaware of what's going on around him. He's
an interesting person to talk to and is full of kindness,

(35:41):
but my mother doesn't always see the beauty in him.
My parents have never had a perfect relationship, but for
the past few years things have been fine. That there
was no love between them, but there was no major
arguments either the situation. I noticed that my dad changed recently.
He started going to the gym five times a week,
dressing nicer and seemed more alive. It was a positive change.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
The crazy stupid love. Yeah, Steve Carrell just gets hot.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh No. On Christmas evening, my brother and I were
playing chess on a tablet and we tried out the
trial version of Chess. While I was in the settings,
I noticed that my dad had a running Tinder Gold subscription.
My heart stopped for a second and I tried to
act normal around my brother. I later talked to my
dad about it. He said he just downloaded the app
to look around, that it was just a way for

(36:27):
him to flirt and feel better about himself. He said
there was not a lot of love in his marriage
and using Tinder gave him a good feeling. I don't care.
Work out your problems in your marriage. Don't cheat on
your partner. He also said he never crossed any lines
and remained loyal to my mother, which I later confirmed
by reading their messages. You still still did it, like
go to therapy and then your partner.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
He also paid for the subscription.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
That's even more embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Have you paid for something that you're not really using
for attention? That's weird.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I reminded him of what he could potentially lose and
told him that I saw my mom improving their relationship.
I suggested he focused on their relationship as I know
my mom isn't the most loving wife, but I see
positive progress. And also just in general, I think when
you stop putting effort into yourself, your relationship can sometimes

(37:17):
you know, go downhill as well, because you should be putting,
you know, work into yourself and improving yourself always because
it's that like, making yourself happy is important part of
being in a relationship.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
To one hundred percent agree, sometimes you have to put
yourself before anything else that makes your relationship even better.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Like you said today, I was looking for a game
on the family computer and couldn't find it. Instead, I
found files with pictures and chats with a woman. She
lives three to four hours away, and they met on Tinder.
Their conversation seemed to have started around a month ago
and they chat every day. That's cheating, cheating. My dad
also kept voice messages from her which I listened to.

(37:55):
Apparently she knows that he's still married. And when he
talked about his marriage, he said he had tried many
time to make it work, but realized there was no
love left between them, then divorce. If there's no love left,
then divorce, separate. I don't know, man, Come on. He
said they were more like friends than a couple. He
said he tried counseling, but my mom was opposed to it.

(38:15):
He said he had so much love and interest inside,
but my mom often shuts him down when he wants
to talk to her about things that interest him. This
is true, as my dad is very interested in deeply
philosophical or mathematical topics as well as physics, astrophysics, and
recently AI. I feel like the woman he's talking to
is really listening to him, and he feels hurt. He
needed to be heard. He's like a flower in the dark,

(38:36):
unable to flourish. On the other hand, my mom just
needs warmth, love and recognition of her sacrifices. She is
a flower just like my dad, and I believe she
needs love to grow into a confident, proud, and loving
version of herself. I have one brother who is the
person I love the most. He's fifteen years old and
is so kind and empathetic and has a pure heart.
He's very sensitive when it comes to tension and needs peace. Honestly,

(38:59):
I would do anything for him and just want him
to be happy. I'm worried about the potential impact on
her home life and my brother if my dad were
to have a mistress. I saw that my dad booked
an Airbnb for next week and said he was going
to visit family in the countryside. But I know what
he and the woman he is talking to are really planning.
So he lied to you.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
He's lying to you, he liked to himself, lying to
his wife. He's lying to everyone.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
I mean, like you went to him and said, hey,
found that you had a Tinder account, and he said no, no, no,
I just talked to them. Nothing ever happens, but actively
planning to meet up with her.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
No one pays for something and doesn't want to use it,
You use it at least want to be like Okay,
I don't like it to lead it.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
I don't know what to do. Should I talk to
my dad about this? Should I interfere and if so,
what should I say? Or should I just leave things
as they are and hope for the best. My ultimate
goal is for my parents to be happy and for
my brother to grow up in a good environment without
the mental turmoil of a divorce. If possible, is there
a possibility where my parents could achieve a happy marriage
by me influencing the direction where things are going? Thank

(39:57):
you for your time and I wish you well. There
is an update. But what are your thoughts because I've
got some.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Definitely bring this up. Yeah, you gotta talk to your dad.
Don't don't talk to your dad?

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, first to go to your dad and you say, hey,
you need to talk to mom.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Why first?

Speaker 1 (40:13):
And also, don't don't you dare go on this thing?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah? I was gonna say, first, eliminate, Yeah, going on
that trip a trip, stop it, delete it, stop talking
to this woman. That's the first thing you should do. Yeah,
then let's focus on fixing your relationship with your wife
or mom in this case. If she's being hesitant on
going to counseling, which she said in the past. You
gotta push her.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Well, yeah, I think I think you say you need
to go to mom, yeah and say hey, I was
going on Tinder because I was feeling really lonely. Nothing happened,
hopefully nothing happened, but nothing. I was talking to this
one woman. M hm, I like, I needed to be
truthful with you. I want to make it work. I
understand if you can't, but like, I want to go

(40:53):
to counseling. I want, like, you have to be totally upfront.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
And it seemed like even you were emotionally cheating. It
feels like OPI could be the glue here, which I
hate when people like the child has to be the
emotional glue. But Opie could be the emotional glue here.
Like Dad just wants to beat mom. Dad just wants
to be heard, and he just wants you to pick
up interest that he likes. That's all he wants. And Mom,
you want to be heard and be appreciated for your sacrifices.

(41:17):
That seems like that's that's all. That's like.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
I don't know if op he can do that though
I know you know, but like I feel like you're
putting a lawn on Opee.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
And then you tell your parents like, hey, I know
what you want, I know what you want.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Talk to each other.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Talk to each other. That's all you need to do.
And it looks like that's the one thing you guys
do not want to do.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
But I do think that you have to go to
your dad and be like, you are going to tell
mom the truth or I am m But there is
an update. My dad was on his way back from
the gym when I called him and asked him to
park in a specific spot on his way home. I
told him that I wanted to send him something, so
I sent him a link to this post. I drove
to beat him there in my mom's car. When he
got into the car, he just looked at me, not

(41:51):
expressing any negative emotions, but rather seeming to wonder what
I wanted to say. I started the conversation by telling
him that I wasn't mad at him. I explained that
we're all going through life for the first time and
it can be confusing time for all of us. We
talked about the other woman and his feelings. Be honest,
I'm happy for him in a way. He's found someone
who sees and hears him. While my mom always puts
him down. He deserves happiness, and what I want most

(42:13):
for him is for him to be happy. That goes
for everyone in my family. I told him that he
needs to talk to my mother before seeing this other woman.
He needs to make sure she knows, and to ensure
that he does, I told him that I would talk
to my mother on the fourth, the day he's leaving
to see the mistress. I offered to be the emotional
support my mom needs. This ensures that he is forced
to talk to my mother before I do. At first,
he said he wanted to meet his mistress first and

(42:34):
then talk to my mother. Nope, No, he wanted to
see if their connection was true before having the talk
with my mom.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
No, no, not why.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
I understand his reasoning, but I told him that he's
crossing a boundary and that my mother, who always emphasizes
the importance of honesty, has to know. Eventually, he agreed
that he was the right thing to talk to my
mom first. There are three possibilities. One, she wants to
do everything she can to keep him too, she's fine
with him having a mistress. Or three they divorce.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
What made you think about two?

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
That's crazy. Number two Yeah, what the heck We.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Talked again yesterday. I suggested that he talked to his siblings,
both of whom are divorced and remarried, for advice. His
sister was in a similar situation. You will talk to
my mom tonight or tomorrow. By the way, you can
always listen to us talk if you go to Apple Podcast,
Spotify or iHeartRadio in search of Okay, story time easy.
But there is a little bit more to the story.

(43:28):
Any final thoughts.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
No, I think we just drive right into the update
because we said what we what we wanted to say.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
And it's like he has to tell his wife.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
And good on Opie, like, no, you cannot do meet
up with this chick. You have to talk to mom.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, the thing is like the father, it needs tell
his wife and after that up to Opie's mom.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
That's it's up to that's her choice to make. And
that all Opie does is sit on the sidelines and
just be like, hey, all right, you did what you did.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
I think this is all you need to do. The
ball is in his court now. Some suggest it a
harsher approach, like immediately telling my mother. However, infidelity out
of unhappiness is a very nuanced situation. I believe that
there is no one at fault here and the right
path is through empathy. Thank you for all your kind
words and wisdom. I want to end this update with
the thought no situation is inherently bad or good. It

(44:17):
might be the best blessing in disguise. After all, my
dad seems much happier now than he was before. Common
One says, I think you need to talk to your
father a sap. If the marriage is over, he should
walk away without causing additional pain to the family. Make
him see that he needs to end his marriage before
moving on, and ask him if he would be proud
if any of his children did this to their future spouse.
Lead by example, Opie says. Funding of two households and

(44:40):
liquidating and splitting all their assets, paying lawyers three years
before brother is supposed to go to college would be
the hugest possible pain to the family. Not to mention
brother having to spend the rest of his teenage years
dealing with the creation of two houses and his parents' emotions,
that would be the worst.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
If the parents are like, we should stick together for
the kids because we hate each other. You know, it's
just your doing the same thing, but now you're just
living a lot.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Ideally Dad should maybe stay chased until they can properly
legally divorced. But this marriage is over. Mom wants nothing
to do with Dad and doesn't love him. Opia is
less than half her parents' life experience and zero knowledge
of what goes on behind closed doors. There's nothing to
be gained by her forcing an explosion of the situation.
We don't know that it's over, you know.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, you can't jump to that like he's cheating. Yeah,
it could be totally worked on. Did he cheat? Yes,
hundred percent. This hands feels like such.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
A cop out to be like, oh, well it's over,
so who cares if you cheat?

Speaker 2 (45:31):
It's not just one solution. Yeah, it's like there's oh
he cheated, it's over. No, it's he cheated. But he
needs to come clean. Yeah, and he needs to say
why he's cheating and tell the reasoning and see if
they can work on that exactly and then go from there.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
But that is the end of that story.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
My father left us for his new wife. Now that
she's gone, he wants back.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
In you major bed and I get a lie in it, buddy.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
My parents divorced while I was still a toddler, and
most of my childhood was spent between both parents and
my older sister Trish and brother Ron until I was
a teen. My parents were great co parents and we
were all close with our dad. Then he met his
future wife, Susan, No Susan, not susie Que. They had
only been dating for a few months when they decided

(46:14):
to get married married immediately things changed.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Oh ah.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
By the way, this comes from user o bemez and
if you want to submit your own stories, go to
the r slash Okay storytime severed it so when my
siblings visited, she demanded that we call her mom um now,
and she had this deep dislike for Trish. She called
her fat, smashed her phone for writing hurtful things about
her to her friends, and after checking over her homework
if she saw anything wrong, she would just rip up

(46:42):
the paper.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
What who is this lady?

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Is she a dog?

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Like? This is like? Sorry, my stepmom, My stepmom chewed
up my homework.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Literally. When our mom confront her dad about her, he
just made up a stupid excuse about Susan being a
strong woman and that Trish could learn from her. After
that Trish just off visit and Dad told her to
grow up. Ron meanwhile, went through a rough patch after
he graduated college and he broke up with his boyfriend.
Since he couldn't afford a new place of his own,
he moved with Dad for a bit, but left after

(47:11):
a few weeks. His entire time there was just Susan
telling him that his degree was a joke, that he
was pathetic for still living off his parents, and would
even mock him for flaming if he got excited over something,
telling him he was too flamboyant. So Susie Susie here,
he is just not positive at all.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Mean a little little because they sing.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, I feel like Susie doesn't like much.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
After he left, he told Dad that he expected an
apology and that he did not deserve to be treated
like garbage by Susan while his father just watched. He
just said that Susan was part of the family now
and that he stood by his wife. Ron kindly told
him to never speak to him again, and what full
blown no contact?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, I forget like stand by Susan. Then those are
the consequences.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
You know, Dad, blood is thicker than Susan. In this
case with me, I never took any of Susan's bs,
and if she would say something to me or make
a comment, I'd have just ignore her and leave the room.
This pisces her off since I always assumed she lived
off the drama she caused when Trish would cry or
Ron would get mad. Instead, she cried to Dad and

(48:19):
told him that I hurt her deeply, and I.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Hope he's hurting my feelings because her feelings aren't being
hurt when I'd try to bully her.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
I've tried to bully her.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
She she doesn't even care.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I'm trying to make her grow sad. She hates me
for doing that. Then I heard her deeply and that
I made her feel unloved in her own home. Dad
took her side, and the last time I was at
his house involved him screaming at me and calling me
an ingrate.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
All right, oh boy.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
We got into a shoving match and I stormed off
and went to a local fast food place until my
mom could come get me. After that, the contact we
had was pretty much him calling and asking about how
things were. He'd even come to my high school graduation
or Trisha's wedding because him and Susan were saving money.
We all came to accept that Dad chose his new
wife over us, and while it hurt like heck, we
moved on. Finally, just before Thanksgiving, Susan passed away suddenly.

(49:10):
Oh and it hit Dad hard. I'm not saying an
if you guys did any of that, you guys in
part thankfully you guys all cut contact because in her
in her message, she would be like they caused it.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
They caused it. She'd be like, your children did this
to me.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Since she had little family and they had no friends
outside each other, he's pretty much alone now. Trish invited
him to dinner with her family a couple of times,
but he's a stranger to her kids and her husband
hates him because of how he let Susan treat her.
Ron was the only blunt one and told Dad that
he just can't come back after everything. Right now, I'm
just confused and I don't know what to do. The

(49:45):
only contact I have with him is through Trish, and
she thinks that Dad is still deeply mourning, that he
wants his kids back in his life. Since I don't
use social media or use the airn at much, dirty
hippie stuff. My friend is posting this for me so
I can get some outside perspectives. I remember how my
dad before when he got married, and I missed that
side of him. But at the same time, I know
he threw us to the curb just for Susan. We

(50:06):
have some comments comment number one. I hope you guys
understand that he only wants to come back because she
passed away, and if she was still alive, he would
still be ignoring you all. Ope. I know this. When
they were together, they were bitter people that pushed everyone away.
Susan even had three adult kids that hated her, and
only one of them came to her funeral. Right now,
my brother and I think that we are just his

(50:28):
backup Comming number two. Did he apologize at all? If
he didn't even apologize, I'd be afraid that the same
thing is going to happen as soon as he meets
a new woman. Ope, he didn't apologize in a sense,
but he says that he misses us and that he
missed out on too much. He'd even know that my
sister had a second kid until recently, and she said
that it hit him pretty hard. And we have an
update let's go right and do it. Wow. All I

(50:50):
can say is thanks for all the advice last time.
I guess what I wanted was the father I thought
I had onceince I posted this, a lot has happened
with my family. Two days after I made this thread.
My sister's oldest kid decided that he wanted to surf
down a hill on his sled when his mom was
busy with his brother, something only a ten year old
would think is smart. He ended up breaking his wrist
and his leg badly enough that he needed multiple operations.

(51:11):
Oh no, he's doing better now, but Trish is exhausted
taking care of him, and on top of it, she's
pregnant with her third kid. This has left our dad
at the bottom of her concerns, and he has not
taken it well. When I spoke with her, she said
that he was driving her crazy and kept trying to
guilt chripper, saying you can't find the time for a
wi olled old man, and basically being a huge pain
in the butt. My brother said that he pretty much

(51:32):
accepted that our dad would act like that when he
was in the center of attention. I guess that being
the youngest I was shielded from his behavior even before
he met Susan. Ron said that our dad would call
him a fruitcake multiple times as a kid, and that
when he did come out to the family, Dad just
told him to shut up.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
He's like, we've shows, don't tell, don't don't no, don't
say it's like it feels like honestly, it wasn't really
because of just Susan that people went no contact with you. Yeah,
you guys were a duo.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
I should also mention that even though he struggled a
bit after college, Ron ended up getting a pretty decent
job with a high salary. After Susan and our dad
found out, they tried to bill him for the few
weeks he lived with them and even threatened to call
the cops. He ended up giving them a couple thousand
to get them off his back and went full blown
no contact. There were also more incidents I mentioned in
the last thread. He offered to watch his brother's kid

(52:24):
after his own wife passed away, but backed out at
the last second. That brother now refuses to have any
contact with him as well, and I also found out
that the only reason he agreed to co parent with
our mom was because she told him that if he
didn't spend time with us, she would go after him
for more child support pikes.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
So he's just everything we learned about this guy is
not good.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
It's just hell after L after l. He's not giving
me any reason to be like, yeah, you know what.
You know, when we were doing this, we should do this.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Two hands two two hands.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Two hands. You're like, eh, maybe not. I was beyond disgusted.
After talking with my girlfriend and she read some of
the replies in the thread, she suggested that maybe he
and I should go out for lunch and just see
how it goes, since we will only be in town
for another month before we go off grid until the fall.
I agreed. I knew I would regret it if I
didn't go, and it was eating me up inside. He

(53:11):
was the most awkward moment of my life. I met
him at a diner he chose, and I was pretty
shocked to see how much he changed. He gained a
lot of weight since the last time I saw him,
one hundred plus pounds dang, and he looks decades older
than his real age. Plus he kept making comments about
the way my girlfriend's dreadlocks look to him. He said
they looked dirty and made a rude joke about me

(53:33):
looking like Charles Manson when I showed him our pre
engagement pictures. L after M, L after L.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Somebody l's my guy, somebody else.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Finally, after he was done complaining, I asked how he
was doing. He just said, how do you think? He
just listened off, how his wife passed away, His kids
won't give him the time of day. He is up
to his eyes in debt. He even complained about the
poor service in the diner.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
This is a man who has caused all of his
misery in life and is just so incapable of seeing that, yeah,
that he puts it on everyone else around him. It's
so frustrating having a relationship with these type of people.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
This is the type of stit.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
I cannot see past their OWNE knows.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
You know, you put out negativity, It's going to come
back to you and there it is. But you know
what there is every single day, Sophia, what stories just
like this?

Speaker 1 (54:23):
So true?

Speaker 2 (54:23):
You can listen to full episodes with stories just like this.
Go to Spotify, Apple Podcast, or your favorite podcast app
and search. Okay, story time, there's a little bit more
to this story, but Sophia, is there anything else we
would do here? Dad is not That is not having
a single wa You.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Gave him a chance, you had a conversation with him.
It seems like he still kind of sucks as a person.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
And blew every chance you've got.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah, so it's like you you did give him a
second chance, you have a conversation. It's not like you're
cutting him off with with no chances.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Yeah. I feel bad for him, but he made his
own Yeah, this is your fault. Yeah, if you were
a bit more positive or a bit more.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Open, just a better person, who knows, just wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Let's go ahead and finish the story. After lunch, he
offered me a ride back to my place and offered
to put my bicycle in the back of his truck too,
the only kind thing he said. I turned him down
and told him to take care of himself. I just
don't think I can have any sort of relationship with him.
After all. I talked with my girlfriend all night and
she said that maybe I turned Susan into a scapegoat
my dad's rotten behavior, and I didn't want to accept

(55:27):
the type of man he really was.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Oh, just an excellent point, because Susan might have been awful,
but like I think a lot of it was like, yeah,
Susan was doing all this stuff and he never said
anything like he was doing probably the same stuff.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
He's probably doing the same stuff. Is just Susan supporting.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Yeah. The thing is like he wasn't enabling anything, he
was participating. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Right now, I'm focusing on the positive things in my life.
My nephew is recovering well with the third one do
in the summertime. Oh that's right, because sister Trish is
pregnant with the third congrats. My brother is getting married
this June, and my girlfriend and I are planning to
get engaged shortly afterwards. My dad's rejection still hurts like heck,
but I plan on working past it. And that is
the end of that story.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Hey y'all, it's John Ogi host here. We're gonna get
back to the stories.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
But here's a quick three minute break from ASP for
more sponsors.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
My father left us for his new family. Now he
wants a family unity ceremony. What My dad's engaged to
his partner of about two years. They moved in together
last month and their wedding is in December I seventeen,
mail am dad's only biological child. His almost wife has
three kids of her own. Her kids are younger, probably

(56:35):
under ten, maybe even all under eight. I'm not that sure.
By the way, this comes from few Impressions sixty four
to sixty five, and if you want to smit your
own stories, go to our slash okay storytime separate it.
So they decided they wanted to do a family unity
ceremony and have it be about becoming one family instead
of the two of them becoming a married couple. His
future step kids are excited about the idea and want

(56:56):
to take part. I don't and won't take part. I
already explained that I'm not interested and can't be talked
into it. He asked me why and pushed for me
to reconsider. He told his wife, and she's freaking out
because her kids have this idea that they'll get a
big brother out of this marriage my dad, and she
told the kids will be real siblings once the two
of them are married. All of this despite the fact

(57:16):
I really don't know her or her kids. I've only
spent any real time with the kids twice, and it
was more me trying not to be a wiener than me,
wanting to spend time or get to know them. I
think that, and I think it's obvious because I don't
know their actual ages, some background to explain the relationship dynamics,
because I'm sure there are questions. My dad raised me alone.
My mom took off when I was less than a

(57:37):
year old. I don't remember her. I don't remember her
being around her family wasn't around or in my life either.
I didn't have a lot of family besides my dad
growing up, except for one of his siblings. For most
of my life, Dad was a good dad, but when
I was maybe eleven, he started preparing me for the
fact he wanted his own life and to travel the
world when I turn eighteen and I'd be on my own. Dang.

(57:58):
He talked about how I shouldn't expect to see him
very often, and to expect we might not see each
other for years. Sometimes that's insane. That's a crazy thing
for a dad to say.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
It happens. At least he's honest.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
He's like, yep, I'm I'm never going to see you again, and.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Get ready, good luck with your life, son.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
He said he didn't want to be tied down until
he passed away, that he would call or answer calls
when he wasn't busy with life. He said some stuff
that maybe believe he resented the fact he raised me
alone and had to change his life for me.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
I think it was pretty obvious. Yeah, that's a parent.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I like the fact that he's like it made me
believe like he's outright saying that. I feel like he's
just saying exactly those words.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
UH find up for that. When you become a parent,
you need to take care of your kids.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
That's on you, buddy. He never actually let up on that.
He talked about it so much that we started to fight.
I told him I got it and he was done
being a dad at eighteen. He told me I was
being dramatic. He argued that he told me I could
go five or maybe even more years without seeing him
and he didn't want to be tied down, that he
might have been ignore call so we could live life.
I told him that sounded like you wanted to stop

(59:05):
being a dad. He told me I was focusing on
the wrong parts. When we argued about it other times,
he said that he wanted the life he missed out on,
and he wasn't waiting around for me to be ready,
that I'd land on my feet eventually, and I wouldn't
be his kid anymore, I'd be his peer.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
What the heck does that mean?

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Man? Is weird.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
We're gonna have a We're gonna have a drink when
you get.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
You know, twenty one way, I don't know when we're
not We're not a bunch.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
We can travel the world as buddies.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yeah, Like, I'm not your father anymore, I'm just your friend.
I'm trying to be your friend, but like the one
that you only see every five years.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
And we barely talk.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
So your dad, which he then said I'd picked up wrong.
But basically, for years I've been prepared to leave at
eighteen and not have my dad in it. Then he
met his almost wife and all that talk about traveling
the world was gone. He started to become a dad
to her kids. He was spending time with them and
building a life with them. Eventually he tried to include me,
but that was only really in the last four or
five months. But I've ignored it. My babysat twice for them,

(01:00:00):
once when his almost wife was rushed to the hospital,
and the second time when his almost wife had a
follow up surgery for health issues she has. My dad
is trying to argue that our family is growing and
I should be trying harder to be included in it.
I told him that won't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
You know what you tell him, I'll see you to
five years? Yeah, exactly. I gotta go travel the world.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Yeah. I don't want you to tie me down. And
if he wants whatever half budded relationship he planned to
have with me before, then he needs to accept that that.
I'll come to his wedding if he wants me there
as long as he accepts I won't be part of
that ceremony. If he can't accept it, then I won't go,
and he'll need to accept that. His almost wife heard
us talk it out, and she said, I'm not taking
the eleven good years into it, and I'm punishing her

(01:00:40):
children for my dad not being perfect, and that isn't
fair to them. She told me, a good person would
be glad Dad decided to stick around and love the
new people, especially the kids, and want better for them.
Am I the a hole? And for full disclosure, I
have about a month to go until I'm eighteen, and
my plan is to move out that day. You're not
the a hole.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
No, you can't force a family on someone that doesn't
with the family.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
You have a very complicated relationship with your father. Great
that he is stepping up as a parent for the.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
New kids, but he didn't step up for you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
You're allowed to have your own feelings about that, and
no one can kind of tell you differently.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Yeah, no one's going to force you. Oh my god,
You're the final puzzle piece to this family. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
There is an update though. On the day I made
my post, I had plans to sleep at a friend's house.
Once I got there, my dad sent a text saying
his partner was rushed to the hospital again and he
needed me to babysit again. I told him no once
and that was it. A few hours later, my dad
asked where the heck I was and why I had
said no when this was an emergency. He sent multiple texts,
but when he realized I really wouldn't babysit and had

(01:01:39):
stayed wherever the heck I was, he went off on
me and told me if I won't babysit and be
there for the family, then I better stay gone. He
texted me the next morning yesterday technically, and said I
was not living under his roof after that stunt and
to stay the f gone. I knew we meant it,
so when everyone was out, I went to the house
and grabbed everything I had prepared to leave with when
following my plan exactly. That included all the important documents

(01:02:01):
I had, clothes, and anything I bought or that was
given to me by people who aren't my dad. It
was basically all ready to go anyway, and I got
in and out without a fight. My friend's parents are
letting me stay until I can follow through with my
original plan, which was to get somewhere with a friend
locally until we all graduate, and then some friends and
I will be moving state. We've been working on this

(01:02:22):
for a long time now. Honestly, I've been working my
butt off to save money to be able to leave,
regardless of whether I had help from my friends, but
having them definitely helps. My dad sent more texts since
I grabbed all my stuff. He tried to guilt and
shame me and talked about how much the kids needed
me and I wasn't there. Well, then you'd be there
for your own kids.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Come on, it would have been different. He's using his
kids and his wife as a yeah, as a scapegoat
that he actually wants you there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Yeah, but he also let out way more of his
resentment towards me, and is confirmed what I already knew
about him. He doesn't regret the way he treated me
since I was eleven. I mean, that's so obvious. But
the fact that, like the second that you did something
that he didn't like, he just kicked you out again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
And guess what, he's probably gonna do the same thing. Yeah,
help not to those new kids.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
But yeah, it's ridiculous. He meant every word he said,
and that he expected me to pay him back for
raising me. And that's when you say no, Nope, but
I won't. I'm not staying to be treated like crap.
He still wants me out of his house, and he
reminded me that I was not welcome back, that he'd
better not come home to find me there ever again.
By the way, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

(01:03:28):
or iHeartRadio. If you search up Oky story Time, you'll
find full episodes with stories just like this. Yeah, but
there is a little bit left to the story. Too.
Many final thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Bye, there's no reason to You already had this plan.
You don't owe him a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Yeah, nope, you already had this plan to move out.
He's just confirmed that you know, he hasn't changed at all,
and you don't. Yeah, you don't know him anything. So
that's my update. It's been a crazy day slash couple
of days, and I got so many comments on my post,
way more than I expected. I know a few people
tried to convince me that he really did love me
and didn't resent me and was trying to make it

(01:04:06):
up to me. But after all this, I'm more convinced
he resents me and the trying to include me lately
was an act to make me someone who could do
stuff for him. I don't believe I ever had the
dad I originally thought I had, because I don't think
an actual, good and loving dad would shut it all
off one day for no good reason. Things have changed
a little, but I'll keep working towards my plan. I'll
also make sure I make it up to my friend's parents,

(01:04:27):
because I know this was unexpected for them, and I'm
grateful they let me stay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
They were more parental people to you than your actual
dad was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yeah, big time big time, So.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Shout out to your friend and their parents.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
But that is the end of that story.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}I REFUSE to be nice to my husband’s parents… it made him upset! | Reddit Stories