I think I found my BIOLOGICAL father through a DNA checker website… I’m scared to reach out! | Reddit Stories - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is John.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
This is your og Okay Storytime podcast hosts, and we.

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Have some rocking stories for you coming up.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
But before you rock out with your socks out, I
got a quick tuminute ad break from a sponsors, keeping
the show rocking and rolling.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
John, Do you got a Mother's Day present?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
You know I'm still looking for someone.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Well, I got something that is better than any present
that you could ever think of.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
That and it's the truth.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, you're right, because it's day four of mother may
I have a DNA test week and here on Okay Storytime,
we're doing DNA test stories every single day leading up
to Mother's Day.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
And I'll make you say things like, mom, I think
I got to get a DNA test to prove that,
Like my dad's my real dad?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Now what you want to hear?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Now, unless you want the truth, that's true.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
But if you're new here and want to hear our
series titled My husband as a Secret Son from a
past partner, just click the link in the show notes,
slash description, or search Mother May I, Okay Storytime wherever
you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
I think I found my biological father through a DNA
checker website. I'm scared to reach out do it. I
twenty four female apologized for that accent I just did.
And if this is kind of scattered, this is a
lot to take in and I don't have many people
I can talk to about it.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I will start with some backstory.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
My mom was a pretty terrible person typical r slash
raised by self absorbed person material.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
She was also a compulsive liar.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
By the way, this comes from user throwaway thirty one
thirty four sixty four, and if you want to submit
your own stories, go over to the r slash Okay
storytime subreddit. She is always skirted around telling me about
my father, and eventually, when I was like ten, she
confessed to me that he was a baby juice downer.
She also came out to me as attracted to the
same gender, but I'd been told that she tried to

(01:39):
not be attracted to the same gender by occasionally having
relationships with men, and she is no longer with us.
As five years ago, the only other family member I
was close with was my great grandma. The rest of
my family are almost as terrible as my mother, and
when I lost my grandma last year, I moved to
another state, changed my phone number and preemptively blogged whoever
I could find on Facebook so that they'd be out

(02:01):
of my life for good. But anyway, what it comes
down to is that I never really knew anything about
my heritage and didn't have anyone left to ask. I
saw a comment here several months ago about a genetic
test from a website called blankety blank, so I bought
one out of curiosity. I woke up tonight to an
email telling me that my results we're in. I'm not
even close to anything my mother ever told me, but

(02:23):
liars lie right.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
So here's where it gets weird.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
I logged back on earlier tonight to see if there
was a referral code I could give to a friend,
and a section titled DNA Relatives caught my eye, where
it says view members who share DNA with you. It
says things like to you know, six hundred and twenty
seven distant cousins, two hundred and twelve second and third cousins,
but one close family. So I gave that section a

(02:48):
little clackety clackety his name, male, fifty percent shared DNA father.
I sat there in stunned silence for a few minutes,
just staring, I switched tabs back to the homepage and
noticed a notification at the time that read.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
We've found a genetic redative add your father name.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
Obviously, I looked up his Facebook and he is the
only person with his name, a wife, but no kids.
His location adds to the possibility of it all being real.
We also have the same weird hair. It's done.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
As soon as you have the same hair, it's done. Done,
It's done. Deal, that's your father.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
Growing up, I was constantly asked if it bothered me
that I didn't know my dad.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Once in a.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
While i'd see a girl with her dad and feel
a little sad that I didn't have that, but it
was never something I pined for. I can honestly say
that I really never gave a crap that my dad
wasn't in my life.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
But now I don't know. Something changed.

Speaker 5 (03:36):
I have no family anymore, and I spent my entire
life thinking that I was half Irish, half Italian, and
tonight I found out that I'm not. It was never
something I felt attached to, but it is a strange
feeling to find out you're not what you thought you were.
I really want to message him, but I have no
effing idea what to say to him. I can be
very wordy, as evidenced by this post, and I want

(03:59):
to avoid freeing him out. I'm completely independent, I live
on my own in all that jazz, but I'm worried
he'll think I want money, something he likely has based
on his career.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
It would be.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
Pretty cool if he wanted to get to know me,
but I understand what a huge shock it would be
to know I exist, and I would understand if he
didn't want anything to do with me. However, I've spent
my life with a serious undiagnosed medical issue, which is
a story for another day, so I would be extremely
grateful if I could get some medical information from him.
At the very least, daddy's a doctor. Something that makes

(04:30):
this more complicated is that while my mom told me
that my dad was a baby juice donor, it's entirely
possible that he's not. I did see the baby juice
donor application someone filled out, but it's possible.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
That she never actually got the baby juice.

Speaker 5 (04:45):
She was a reckless substance user as well as someone
who partied a ton, so it's also entirely possible that
my dad was a random hookup or something. So basically,
I can't just ask him if he donated the baby
juice in nineteen ninety, because it's possible he did.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, I think, but that's not true. I think you
could say. You could still be like, hey, were you
a s donor in nineteen ninety or did you up
with this woman?

Speaker 5 (05:07):
Yeah? I think, And you prefaced that by being, Hey,
this website told me you're my dad.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, and there we go. We don't even have to like, hey,
let's figure out how that how that were tracks?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Right?

Speaker 5 (05:17):
This post ended up much longer than I meant for
it to be, But what I'm looking for is some
advice and what the heck to say to this guy?
I don't want to risk affing it up. Here's the update.
First of all, I'd really like to thank everyone who
took the time to share their stories with me and
give me advice, especially those of you who found yourself
in a similar situation. This was totally not a situation
I ever expected to find myself in, and I'm so
grateful for all of the advice everyone gave me.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Anyways, on to the update.

Speaker 5 (05:41):
So, after my thread died down the other day, I
reread all of the advice I was given and started
writing a draft on what I wanted to say to him.
I had considered editing my thread to get opinions on
what I eventually typed out, but after nervously rereading it
a hundred times, I finally decided that I needed to
go with my gut and just send it before I
chickened out. Didn't even run it by my two closest
friends because I didn't want to feel unsure about what

(06:03):
I was.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Going to say.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Basically, I told him who I was, explained how I
came to find him, and what the DNA test results said.
I went on to tell him my mother's name, and,
following the suggestions I received in my original post, mentioned
that she had passed a few years ago before giving
me an accurate story about who my father was. I
also said that I'd be interested in talking and getting

(06:25):
to know him, but that this must be a big
shock to him, and I would understand if a relationship
with me is not something he wanted, and went on
to request that he at least share his family's medical
history with me. I sent it late Friday night and
anxiously checked my phone all day on Saturday. It's a
weird feeling, having spent the entire twenty four years of
my life literally giving no fs whatsoever about my father,

(06:47):
all of a sudden, now I care. It's like before
all of this, he was just this nameless, faceless person that,
for all intents and purposes, did not exist. Then suddenly
he had a face and a name, and I could
see where I got so many of my features, features
that don't look anything like my mom's side and always
made me feel like I didn't fit in. I suddenly
found myself caring if this fifty percent of me wanted

(07:07):
to know me or not, and it was actually kind scary.
I woke up this morning to several notifications on my phone,
he answered. I also had a friend request from him
in an email from the DNA testing company, letting me
know that he wanted to share information with me. He
started off by telling me a bit about himself and
his life, and then went on to say that he
isn't surprised or shocked to hear from me. It turns

(07:29):
out he actually was a donor of the baby Juice. However,
he went on to tell me that I'm half Jewish.
My DNA results came back saying I'm half Ashkenazi, and
the way he described it made it pretty clear that
his side of the family is very in touch with
their heritage. The thing is, the baby juice donor paperwork
that I have is from a guy who claimed to
be Italian and was in medical school when he donated,

(07:51):
and my father already started his career in something completely different.
I've basically come to the conclusion that my mom somehow
had the wrong paperwork, which is weird because she is
insisted my entire life that I was half Italian. Also,
I have a half brother and a half sister. He
got in touch with both of them several years ago
through the Donor Sibling registry, which adds more mystery to
the baby juice donor situation because the registry seems unable

(08:13):
to find my records when I signed up several years ago.
My half sister is a kindergarten teacher and my half
brother plays in a rock band. He told me their
names so that I could add them on Facebook as well,
and he mentioned that they've all become very close.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Similar situation to my buddy.

Speaker 5 (08:28):
I apparently also have another half sister who my father
mentioned called the cryobank trying to get in touch with him,
but she got.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Cold feet and backed out.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
My father went on to say that he realizes how
scary it must be to reach out to a biological
parent that you've never met because of the fear of rejection,
and then said that I wouldn't get that from him,
and that he's delighted to hear from me. He also
told me that his eighty nine year old mother would
be thrilled to know I existed, and that she's become
close with my two half siblings as well. That part
made me particularly happy because I really miss my great grandma.

(08:59):
I haven't actually answered him yet because I'm still taking
it all in. I thought maybe typing out this update
would help me do that. I was seriously bracing myself
with this guy to not want anything to do with me.
I sort of had this hard butt only child orphan.
I don't need family attitude, especially after losing my great
grandma because she was the only family I was close to.

(09:20):
And it turns out that I have all these people
I'm related to that are so excited to get to
know me. By the way, I am so excited for
you to get to know that we have full episodes
with stories like this available.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
To all of you lovely little babies.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
Just go to your podcast platform of choice like iHeartRadio, Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, and search Oka Storytime. I am so excited
to get to know my father, grandmother, and half siblings.
It's really a pretty amazing feeling. And I still can't
believe it because I've felt so alone for a long
time and that all changed in less than forty eight hours.

(09:56):
I'm not really looking for any advice this time.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I hope that's okay.

Speaker 5 (09:58):
But I had a lot of people who really wanted
me to update, and I know that I always feel
warm and fuzzy when I read someone else's happy update,
So I wanted to share this with everyone who gave
me advice.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
So thanks again. And that what a wholesome story. That story,
what awesome story.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Fine.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Sometimes we just want hales. I'm sorries. Sometimes just get me.
Sometimes we just need a very good, very good, very
good expert opinion, very good. I'm very good.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
I'm very good. My sister in law claimed my baby
as hers. My family thinks I'm overreacting.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
That's not yours, what that's not your baby.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
I thirty three female, have been married to my husband,
twenty eight male for over five years. Our little family
includes my daughter, eight female from a past relationship, and
our son, three male. By the way, this comes from
user deleted and if you want to submit your own story,
go to the r slash Okay storytime Sabreddit. My husband's
immediate family can have moments of toxic behaviors of entitlement.

(10:57):
I admit to my husband that his mother, older says
and older brother can be quite draining to be around,
and he agrees with me.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Now I'm going to share with.

Speaker 5 (11:06):
The lovely people have Reddit about my sister in law
crossing my boundaries that I placed, and then playing the
innocent victim when my husband and I blow up better
for her insensitive behaviors. There are many of these stories.
I'm sharing the one that still bothers me. When my
husband and I first found out we were going to
have a baby. This was a planned pregnancy. We shared
with our daughter and she hugged my belly and smiled.

(11:28):
We wanted to share our happy news with our families.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's so awesome, baby, smile, You're so cute.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
My family was happy for us and congratulated us with
hugs and back pats. When we shared our happy news
with my husband's family, their reactions were different than expected.
Brother in law nodded his head and acknowledged our news
as positive information.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Brother in law has autism.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
Mother in law started asking us a bunch of different
questions and saying she didn't even know we were trying
to get pregnant.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Sister in law's fiance was happy for us.

Speaker 5 (11:56):
Sister in law pouted and huffed when her upset reaction
was acknowledged. We blew up at my husband and I
for getting pregnant before her.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
What did you have DIBs? I'm sorry you was what?

Speaker 4 (12:06):
That's not on you?

Speaker 5 (12:08):
She ranted about how dare we go out of our
way to throw our pregnancy in her face? And we
knew her and her fiance had been trying to get pregnant,
then accused us of doing this on purpose to hurt her.
So everything's about you, Yeah, okay, main character syndrome, not
about you. My husband told sister in law that us
getting pregnant had nothing to do with her, and I
backed him up.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Sister in law left mother in law's place, accusing us
for being heartless and insensitive to our feelings. She cried
about how horrible we were for becoming pregnant to spite
her on her Facebook and to toxic family members who
ate it all up, and called us the jerks for
flaunting our pregnancy in her face because we should have
known she was suffering from infertility troubles.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
What like, how that's not fair?

Speaker 1 (12:48):
How are we?

Speaker 5 (12:49):
I'm sorry, we're not psychic. What it's like the logic
gap to just jump immediately to oh, you're.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Doing this to make me upset on purpose?

Speaker 4 (12:58):
I'm sorry? Should we do not celebrate that we're pregnant?
Is that the reasoning here?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Selfish? Sorry? Selfish? It is what it is.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
Sister in law was also just as bad as when
we got married, but that's another story. We actually had
no idea she was going through fertility troubles or had
a hard time trying for a baby before their marriage.
We wanted to have a baby together, so we chose
to have one. Not long after sister in law's dramatics
on social media and through the toxic family tree, we
received a call from mother in law telling us to

(13:26):
apologize to sister in law.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
The brother in law stayed out of it, smart guy.

Speaker 5 (13:29):
My husband and I refused, we were not going to
apologize to sister in law because we did nothing wrong.
Mother in law just wanted peace between her kids because
the holidays were coming up in a couple of months.
The holidays were mentally draining. Sister in law was still
bitter and it showed with her body language. Side note,
I have PTSD and other mental illnesses and disorders. When
I'm triggered, it's very difficult for me to recall everything.

(13:50):
I don't remember exactly what all happened. I do know
sister in law and my husband were very loud and
in aggressive verbal conversations. Again, Sister in law cried about
how terrible we are and to their toxic family members
and on social media. We cut off contact multiple times
from sister in law during my pregnancy to stay mentally
and emotionally say think good as you should.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
As you should.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
I would be like, hey, where's our congratulations? You know
we've been trying to do we even try to do this,
but like, hey, where're your family, where's the love? Where's
your husband?

Speaker 1 (14:21):
All of this?

Speaker 4 (14:21):
What does he say?

Speaker 5 (14:22):
My third trimester of pregnancy was difficult on my body.
But my doctor told me I was fine to keep working.
I could barely walk or move without being an agony.
I needed assistance to walk to the bathroom. Sister in
law seems to have changed her tune and was saying
now she was excited to become an auntie to our son.
I have no idea why, how, who, what or where
this came from, but I was glad there would not

(14:44):
be a fight at our baby shower. Not long after
our baby shower, I went into labor. Son was two
weeks early. Our son was born on Mother's Day. Oh,
it was also our wedding anniversary. Down what a big
day for him.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Try.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
My parents and daughter were there for me during the
labor after birth, my husband's mom and brother walked in first,
then his sister and her fiance. Sister in law was
asking where the baby was and demanded to hold the
baby first.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Creep, that's weird.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
That's not your baby.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Don't do that.

Speaker 5 (15:14):
My husband told her she had to wait because if
anyone got to hold the baby first, it would be him.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Or me probably you, yeah, either him or you, but
you primarily the mother.

Speaker 5 (15:25):
That the standard, like the mother should be holding the
baby first. Baby first, skin to skin or whatever, like yeah,
in come on, it was in print. It's what are
we talking about, mother's in print. I was so exhausted
after labor twelve hours long. By the way, I noticed
when sister in law had her turn to hold our son,
she took many different types of photos with her phone,
then took many photos of her fiance and our baby.

(15:47):
I thought nothing of this because I was too exhausted
to care. Yo, this is honestly leaning into like the
like the sister in law needs mental like assistance, like
mental this is like a disorder type.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
It's getting cuckool or yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
I know there's a handful of different like disorders surrounding,
like an intense desire to be pregnant or to have
a child that she might be going through right now.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
I've seen those in like movies, and it's just it's
very disturbing.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
I found out sister in law posted her pictures that
she took that day of our baby on Facebook, but
instead of saying it was her and her nephew, she
wrote it was her and her little man.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
I was furious her little man. I didn't see her pushing.

Speaker 5 (16:25):
Him out of her Sorry, I'm sorry, man, that's truly funny.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's a funny quick I.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
Think little Man's okay, nah insinuate.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, she knows what she's doing, bro, she she knows that.
She couldn't have.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
Said I'm a pessimist.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
I mean, it's good to have contrasting views, but I'm sorry,
I gotta shut you down immediately with that one. I'm
gonna hit the Adam Sandler from uncut gems.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
I disagree, Okay, I'm trying to give her the benefit
of any little ounce of doubt. But that's just me.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
But I do think I will say this like, I
don't think that the response to this is like pitchforks
and torches and like burned down the house.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Or whatever it needs to be, Like okay, are you okay?
Like we're gonna we need do you need? We need?

Speaker 4 (17:06):
What do you mean by little man?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
I think we need.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
Some We need to have a talk here about where
we're all at mentally, like emotionally, how are we doing?

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Check up?

Speaker 5 (17:15):
This was very messed up and disrespectful. I optimistically checked
the comments to see if maybe she called him her nephew. Nope,
she was soaking up the congratulatory comments.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
He lost me all right, there you go. I had
some a little.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
Bit of doubt, so I sent sister in law a
very angry message, calling her out on her blatant disregard
for my husband and my feelings, then demanding she take
down the photos of my baby and correct her lies.
He's not her baby, he's my baby. She acted like
she did nothing wrong and I was overreacting over nothing.
I told her to cut the crap and stop claiming
my son as her own. I got a phone call

(17:50):
from my husband asking what was going on, because he
was getting messages from his sister saying, call your wife,
she's attacking me. I explained to him how his sister
is pretending to be mommy to our baby boy on Facebook.
My husband took my side and told his sister, you're
on your own. Sister in law corrected her Facebook posts,
clarifying that the baby was her nephew and not her baby.
She cried to their toxic family members who all agree

(18:13):
with her and call me a bully.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
What so they're just enabling the cuckooonness again.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
It's like you just that's rough, man. It is rough,
needless to say, sister in law and I do not
get along. We don't speak to each other much unless
we have to in person. I'm always polite to her
until her entitlement shows.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's ugly head.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
I will not allow sister in law near our son
unless supervised by my husband or myself, which is probably
good because it might be a raising Arizona type situation.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
I do not trust her. I feel like if she
had the chance, she could take him. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:42):
I mean, and again, if if you're really feeling that
this needs to be a mental health.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Conversations, this is getting out of line, and the people
who are enabling it and supporting it are just to
keep doing it until it's put out there.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
We have an edit.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
Thank you for the comment, so I appreciate your time.
This happened three years ago and it's still bothers me
to this day. When she's around as rare as that is,
our son does not want to be touched or near
sister in law. He must sense something. Yeah, the babies,
the babies and toddler's they do have the sense, don't they.
Whey for she blames us for not letting her baby

(19:15):
sit him like we let mother in law. Mother in
law acknowledges my daughter as an equal family member. But
that's a different story. To clarify why I was so
upset about sister in law calling our son her little man,
it was because my husband and I gave our son
the pet name little Man when we found out we
were having a boy.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Right. I was about to say, so, it's like, what.

Speaker 5 (19:33):
You so you get to give him the first nickname,
and it's like, now that clicks a little.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Bit, sae that one.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
I was like, okay, now, no, it makes a lot
more sense.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, sister in law did know this.

Speaker 5 (19:43):
A few comments on her post said I didn't know
you were pregnant, congratulations, and she did not correct them,
but liked them to reassure you. Sister in law and
I mutually agree not to talk to each other on
phone or text or be Facebook friends. After a few
different blow ups between us when we were Facebook friends,
I left my old Facebook and create did a different
one to be able to keep conversations and connections to

(20:03):
loved ones and friends that live far away. Yes, I
do have PTSD and a few other mental disorders or illnesses.
Have come a long way from where I used to be.
I have been healing while coping daily. I go to therapy,
and I sought out support groups online. I'm in a
good place now compared to where I was years ago,
months ago, and even days ago. Healing and coping is
a process. I went full no contact with sister in law,

(20:24):
but my husband is not so lucky because sister in
law and sister in law's husband work at the same
company as him. Plus sister in law and sister in
law's husband had to move in with mother in law
and brother in law during the pandemic. I could keep going,
but I will leave this post as is. I hope
I helped clarify things, and if you have any questions,
let me know in the comments, or you can wait
till my next post. And by the way, you don't

(20:47):
even have to wait for our next post.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Because they just posted Wow. You can listen to full episodes.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
And another one just posted with stories like this and
another one.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
All you gotta do is go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you get podcas yes and search Okay storytime. There
you will find us, and there you can listen to
us with your beautiful ears, and there is a little
bit of story left. I think we've kind of hit
all the main points to I.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Think you know, no contract for you and your sister
in law. Fine, but you need to get give her
a reality check via her brother aka your husband or
someone else mother in law, because this is not healthy
and everyone who's enabling it like this is not this
is it's not cute anymore.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah. Again, I'm not a psychiatrist.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
I'm not the professional clinical guy at all, but it's
like the way, especially with like the people commenting in
the Facebook post like oh, I didn't even know you
were a pregnant And she doesn't correct it. She likes it,
I guarantee she like there's a delusion there that's like
needs to be addressed.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
And a lot of this negative behavior is probably coming
from a place of like a you know, some kind
of mental disorder surrounding her inability to get pregnant.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
Yeah, and we like.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
And that you gotta come at that from a place
of support, can.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
And that's why brother has to do it. Any family
member you have to talk to.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
But it's not on you, OP to be clear, it's
not on you op to get her that it's but
it's a conversation that should be had between you and
your partner and then between your partner and her and
his sister and their family like need.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
To provide the support for her before it gets worse.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
It sounds like she needs or he goes to another
family member that she'll just do the same time.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
And you can't just keep kicking the can down the road.
Let's finish the store.

Speaker 5 (22:28):
Edit number two to add clarification. Brother in law is
a good person. He attempts to stay away from sister
in law's drama and keep to himself. My daughter has
autism and brother in law is so sweet with her.
He tells her that it's okay to be different and
tells her she's not alone, and he understands what she
might be going through at school. God, that's wholesome. Besides,
my husband, brother in law is a good person stuck
in a toxic family. When sister in law and sister

(22:49):
in law's husband moved in with him and mother in law,
brother in law has been suffering terribly and it shows
with the messages he sends his brother my husband Edit three.
When mother in law babies had our kids, she came
to our home to watch them better for our daughter
and son. And that is the end of that story. Amazing,
and you know again, maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
I think, you know, this was op kind of just

(23:10):
getting it off their chest a little bit. But I
really hope that that sister in law, regardless of how
you know, nasty shoes coming off, she needed help and
I hope that she got it. My in laws constantly
overstepped my boundaries. It's ruining my marriage.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
You know.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
Just end the marriage, make it a lot easier for
everyone here.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
Sorry, your in laws or have determined your marriage is
no longer valid. My husband, thirty three male, is the
oldest of four children and lived at home when we
met and became engaged. The three younger siblings, twenty eight male,
twenty five male, and twenty one female, all still live
at home. We moved in together right before our wedding.
My husband is my mother in law's favorite, her little baby.
She will come up and run her hands through his

(23:50):
hair and cool at him whenever she sees him. It
makes my husband just as uncomfortable as it does everyone
else in the room when she does it.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, because he's a fully grown man. By the way,
this comes from a del R.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
But if you want to submit your story, go on
down to the R slash okay, storytime subreddit and do
it there.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Do it.

Speaker 5 (24:06):
Before I go into details, I should explain the family
dynamic a little more. My husband's family comes from a
relatively well off just outside of a major city. My
father in law is very brash, opinionated, and doesn't shy
away from confrontation and can be very rude because he's
so blunt. Despite this, you can give him back whatever
he gives to you. He welcomes your feedback about whatever

(24:26):
he says. Most of the time, I don't have any
problem firing back at it. My mother in law is
the complete opposite. She's very passive, aggressive, and plays dumb.
She'll say things that are completely out of line, but
in a sing song voice while batting her eyes. When
you call her out, she either acts like she doesn't
know what you mean, is just trying to help, or
completely ignores you.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
When she has a.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Point that she wants to get across, she will repeat
her thoughts over and over again until you have no
choice but to tell her to shut up or just
walk away from her.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
My husband is a cross between the two.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
When he is very adamant about something, he will tell me,
but if he he doesn't care or doesn't know. He'll
let me run the show. He deals with his parents
in very different ways. His dad he almost never engages.
He says it's because it's not worth it unless he
really cares, and he basically just ignores his mother when
she's on one of her rants. Most of the family
ignores her until she blows up or starts cursing everyone

(25:18):
out for taking advantage of her. It is really difficult
to watch, as his mom was the one that deserves
most of the credit for raising all of them, although
his dad takes most of the credit. During the wedding planning,
my mother in law was kept at a distance from
my husband, but also because of the distance. They lived
two and a half hours away from where I did
and where the wedding was taking place. Despite the fact

(25:40):
that we didn't include her in the planning, she found
ways to assert herself. She would say things like you're
gonna want the church or limo or a videographer, and
would go on to explain we would want it because
she had it and it was the best thing they
ever did. Unfortunately, most of what she said we would want,
we ended up with because we simply didn't want to
fight or cause an issue you.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Hey, mom, I am not a clone of you. Did
anyone say that to her?

Speaker 4 (26:05):
I'm a clone of you?

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Really?

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Are you sure about that?

Speaker 4 (26:07):
In another universe?

Speaker 5 (26:08):
I wish this has caused a real problem. Since the
birth of our son, she has made me cry on
multiple occasions because she feels the need to insist that
what she believes to be right is the only way
that we can raise our son. She told me I
was selfish in doing my son a disservice if I
didn't breastfeed him. She told my husband that I was
selfish and going to harm our son because we moved
him out of our room and into his crib, where

(26:30):
he slept ten hours straight at two months. She refuses
to acknowledge that I have had a role in raising
her grandson and will say things like you are such
a great dad. He wouldn't be doing this great without you.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
This is cruel. Now.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
We have had multiple conversations with them mother in law
and father in law about things like boundaries. They snuck
into the hospital twice, once into the delivery room an
hour after our son was born, even though we asked
them to respect our wishes and wait until we called them.
They brushed this off as being first time parents and
they're just excited. Sorry, I'm a first time bankropper and

(27:03):
I'm just really excited. I didn't mean to do a oopsie.
Just put the money in the bag, and I'll still
go oops.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Think it's like, what are we talking? That's not an excuse?
Do you money in the bag?

Speaker 5 (27:15):
Please respect people's boundaries, whatever context it is given to you.
In what they explained that, they were just trying to
figure out what they get to say in Not much
has changed since we've talked to them. I continue to
get comments like you're trying to be perfect, or you're
going to want to use this. She tried to force
my husband's christening suit on us, even though we already

(27:35):
had one that someone had purchased for us. She asked
if I wanted to use the bacinet that she had
used when my husband was a child, and when I
responded with thank you, but our house isn't big enough
for all these different things, so we chose a pack
and play that has a bacinet in it, it made
her cry because because you're so awful and you don't
want to listen to her, because She's the worst there.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
Come on, My entitlement here is so disgusting, Like, what
do you want? What is your desire here?

Speaker 1 (28:01):
To be the mom?

Speaker 5 (28:01):
I guess I didn't realize that these meant so much
to her, as neither my husband or I were ever
told until we said no and she started complaining to
everyone else in the family. We then got a phone
call from my father in law, chastising us and telling
us that we were dashing her dreams about her grandchild.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
She will only.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Take the baby away from me or her daughter when
the men in her family are holding them. She'll just
stand around them and comment on things like how much
he looks like her son, and that she doesn't see
any resemblance to me, and that he is exactly like
her son was at this age. She will blatantly ignore
my directives on our parenting choices, and has put him
on his stomach to sleep, even though we repeatedly asked

(28:39):
her not to, which is crazy because it's very clear
you don't do that.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
Who taught them how to act like this? I don't
know where did this come from? This, This just can't
be how they.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Were They read the monster in law manual.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
How to How to lose a daughter in law in
five days, How to lose a family in law Fi Fi.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
She has put blankets in with him because he's cold,
even though he has a halo blanket that he wears
over his pajamas.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I have repeatedly asked her not to. She will try
and take.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Him from my arms when I go to breastfeed him,
and has said that I'm hogging him when I do this.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
She has also took it upon.

Speaker 5 (29:15):
Herself to defrost breast milk so that she can feed
the baby, even when I have said I would feed him.
She tries to assert herself anyway possible, and my husband
is almost blind to it. Hey, time to wake him up,
Time to push the truth into his face.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
You gotta be like, hey, who's the mother here, Husband's
our child.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
Husband cannot be taking a passive role here. Husband needs
to be actively backing you up. Wake up, Wake up,
wake up. We have been arguing so much and it's
gotten so bad with his mom that I have anxiety
attacks every time we are seeing them. I feel like
I'm put into a boxing ring and cannot defend myself.
I've tried, I've tried talking to her. She completely ignores
what I'm saying and changes the subject. Last time my

(29:55):
father in law said something inappropriate, he told me that
he didn't care what I thought or wanted. He was
just gonna until I left my son there for the
weekend and change it himself. I felt like I'd been slapped.
I have been crying out for help from my husband.
He's put me in some really difficult situations at times,
and I think we're on the same page, and he
allows his parents to override what we've discussed. He has
heard some things that his parents have said that were

(30:16):
very offensive, but has not said anything to them. I
feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, and it's driving
me away from my husband. I have major anxiety every
time we're seeing them, and every time my husband brings
up possibly scheduling something, I can't help but get defensive
and uncooperative. I have been researching things from all different perspectives,
from a mother's, a father's, a grandmother's, and grandfathers to

(30:37):
try to see if I'm overreacting or how to handle
this better. I've sent links to my husband to read
so we could get on the same page. He has
finally started reading them and I think I finally got
through to him about the gravity of the situation, and
we've agreed to go to counseling before seeing his parents again.
I didn't expect to change them. I would just like
to feel respected as my son's mother and not feel

(30:58):
like I'm putting on my armor for the battle that
I'm fighting alone.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Just looking for some tips or suggestions on how to
move forward.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
Definitely got to get the husband of all them, glad
that his eyes are opening here. A lot of bridges
have been burned, and I do not want them to
be hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives.
I want to find harmony in peace with our relationship.
They are my son's grandparents and I want them to
have a good relationship with him, as well as one
with me.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Edit.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
My husband lived at home when we met due to
his company relocating to Florida. He lived in a major
city where rent is extremely expensive, and decided to move
home for a few months rather than go into dead
and struggle with paying the rent. He was and is
not a bum. He worked very hard to help support
his family. While I do agree that my husband has
a lot to do with this, he has tried to

(31:42):
stand up to his parents before, just unsuccessfully.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
We both have.

Speaker 5 (31:46):
We have sat down with them once already, right after
the hospital and laid out ground rules which they clearly
haven't followed.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Time to do it again.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
And then if they still disregard them, you give them
maybe one more chance, and you say, and then, hey,
guess what happens if you don't respect these boundaries?

Speaker 1 (32:00):
No more grandchild for you.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Three strikes ye out.

Speaker 5 (32:04):
And then they'll go blah blah blah blah, And you go, oh, oh,
is that what do I hear? Is that the sound
of you not respecting our boundaries? I guess you're gonna
have to leave.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
That's the sound of you not seeing your grandchild ever again.

Speaker 5 (32:16):
You have to keep that firm bound You have to
be firm with the boundary. And once they see that
they can't just disrespect their way back into your lives
and they have no choice but to honor your boundaries,
then you can start to move forward and grow and heal.
But until they realize that you can't just be pushed over,
they'll never stop doing this.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Well said.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
I have also sat with my mother in law and
tried to explain to no Avail my husband has sat
with his mother also. We saw small changes, but nothing
that lasted. And in response to my father in law
telling me he would wait until we left the baby
with him, that's when things hit the fan between my
husband and I. We got into it big time. And
although he waited until we got home and I had
clearly laid out just how upset I was, he called

(32:57):
his father and reamed him out. That was the first
time that I had ever received an apology from either
one of his parents. His dad texted me, Hey, at
least it was something, and he said he was sorry.
Despite this, he still made excuses as to why he
behaved the way he did. He tried to justify his actions,
to which I told him it really didn't matter why,
but that we were the parents and he get to
make the decisions. We have not seen them since this day,

(33:20):
and that was over a month ago. I also agree
that the way he has been raised has programmed him
to not engage either of them because it just wasn't
worth it.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Before.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
He never had skin in the game until now, and
that has definitely taken some getting used to for him.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Despite this, it's not entirely his fault.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
There is definitely a communication issue at work that had
made it difficult to get through to him. We are
both very stubborn and hot tempered. So does he need
to take responsibility to this and to deal with his parents?

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yes? Duh, hello hello dues.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah, no, this is your husband and the father of
your child. Time to be a big man. Tiy to
be a big boy.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Hope, he says though, But both of us do need
to work on our communication. We also do not see
them more than once. If that, I have been pushing
back and avoiding them as much as I can. These
issues and things have been happening on the very infrequent
times that we actually do spend with them.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
That's why I feel so beat up.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
It's never just one comment while we're there, but multiple
that just seem to never end.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
And we have an.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Update folks, Oh, get into it.

Speaker 5 (34:19):
Yeah, I think we've already spoken our These people need
to You need to set boundaries and have it been
known that they will be respected for else.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yeah, communicate it and you already have. But set the boundaries.
Have your husband actually on the same page as you are,
and actually you stick up for you and your family?

Speaker 1 (34:36):
It's update time first. Thank you? All so much for
the support and the help.

Speaker 5 (34:40):
Never did I think a group of Internet strangers would
help give me the strength I needed to help try
and save my marriage as well as stand up for
myself and my son. For whatever reason, despite typically being pushy, stubborn,
and hot headed, I had a hard time accepting that
I was correct and feeling disrespected, and I sincerely appreciate
the fact that you all were able to make me
see that I had every right to feel that. The
support that I received has really opened my eyes to

(35:03):
the fact that I have every right as my son's
mother to tell his parents to stick it where the
sun don't shine, that I don't need to be polite
if they are not, and that ultimately I don't need
to please my in laws and succumb to their every whim.
I feel more confident now in my understanding that my
mama bear instincts are there for a reason and shouldn't
be ignored, and they won't be anymore. I will still

(35:23):
try and talk to them politely, but have no problem
getting nasty or walking out if need be. My husband
and I have talked at length about this situation, and
I feel like we have already started communicating better simply
because I am able to get across my frustrations and
feelings more accurately.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
We are still going.

Speaker 5 (35:39):
To go to therapy and have agreed to wait until
after we have a couple sessions under our belt before
we even schedule anything with his parents.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Again, very nice.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
The first time we see them, we have decided to
meet with them alone in a neutral place to lay
everything out on the table. I already feel much more
optimistic and much less hopeless that we can get through
this situation together. Fortunately, I do not think his parents
will ever change, but as long as we can set
out some boundaries and consequences, I know my husband has
my back. I'm willing to give them the benefit of

(36:09):
the doubt that they're driving love for their grandson will
trump any issues they have with me, and that they
will eventually learn to behave. My husband and I have
agreed to get up and leave if they continue to
act the way that they have been. But you know what,
at some point we're going to get up and leave
and this is going to be over. But you know what,
you can keep listening to full episodes with.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Stories like this.

Speaker 5 (36:30):
All you gotta do is go to Spotify or Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from search okay, storytime,
and there you will find the entire catalog.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Anyway, So I think we've already made it clear exactly
what needs to happen.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
I guess what it looks like. It's going in the
direction that we kind of said and kind of called out.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
Great, good, husband's on the same basis, and you guys
are to work together on, you know, your couple's therapy. Great.
Now comes the big part of trying to get it
through to his parents. Now we're going to see how
that goes. Hopefully in this update. If not hopefully, he
goes at least one of two ways.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
But I'm glad that they've made peace with the idea
like they might not ever get better. We're hoping that
there is one avenue for them to change, you know,
but they might not, so it's good to be prepared
for that.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Okay, let's finish this story.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
My husband has also started to realize that a lot
of this is his doing and how he reacted to
the situations exactly. He was so passive. He let all
this snowball out of control. You should have stopped put
a stop to this immediately.

Speaker 4 (37:29):
Better late than never, I guess.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
Stressful.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
He said to me last night that he finally understands
the awkward power struggle he unintentionally put me in by
giving in to his mother's whining and manipulations, and how
his father should not be able to say the things
he does without consequence exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I obviously know that a lot.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
More work has to be done, but just knowing that
my husband is starting to open his eyes to the
gravity of this situation and that our family is on
the line if we can't figure this out together makes
a lot of difference. I will keep you posted as
we move forward, and again, thank you, thank you all
so much. I made some edits to my original post
in an effort to clarify some misconceptions.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
That seem to be going around as well. And that
is the end of that story.

Speaker 5 (38:08):
And I think the important thing there is that together
they are able to conquer the mountain that is the
in laws.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Hey, it's John here.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
We're gonna get back to this episode, but a quick
three minute break with as form our sponsors.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
My mother in law started beef between my neighbors and me,
a mine.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I didn't need any more beef. What do you, dude,
where's the beef?

Speaker 4 (38:33):
It's here between my neighbor and me. Now, So for context,
we live in a building that's attached to a few buildings,
but we are on the end, so we don't have
a front and side parking for our family. Our neighbors
only have the front parking. So when we moved down here,
we started parking on the side of the building so
our neighbors had more parking out front. By the way,
this comes from user darky Moo zero one, and you

(38:54):
can submit your stories to the r slash Okay storytime Supert.
I was not driving when we first moved, so any
decision making related to parking I was no part of it.
Last summer I had to get my license for a job,
so I started parking with the rest of the family
on that side of the building. The problem with this, well,
the bats around there are really bad during the late
summer slash fall because our bog population suddenly plummeted, causing

(39:17):
the bats to become more aggressive. Where do you live
where there are bats?

Speaker 5 (39:21):
The aggressive bats are hungry? Whoa where is this? Is
no sparatzu?

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Your your neighbor, my job can be out until after dark,
so whenever I would come home, I would have the
sprint around the side of the building the front door
because the back door was up two flights of stairs
that were outside, and the bats would swoop and die
at my face while I was running.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
What nightmare is this, dude?

Speaker 4 (39:42):
One time a bat got a hold of my jacket
and scared the Bejesus out of me, to the point
I would sit in my car panic, calling anyone who
would answer to help me get inside without being attacked,
and would cry my eyes out to the person apologizing.
When I wasn't attacked, I was embarrassed, but I'm terrified
of the hospital anging bit or scratched from a bat.
Is it a met idiot trip for rabies? Which is
six shots in your stomach and roughly ten thousand dollars

(40:04):
depending where you live.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Dude, I did not even think about that.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
I forgot that bats can have bad goolies.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
They're the chicken of the cave.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
They got bad zoobies inside them. Ya zoobies. No, but
that's what I meant to say, bad zoobies.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
Bad zoobies. Well, mother in law got wind of what
was happening, when she heard me crying and apologizing to
her daughter, who's twelve years old one night, and that
she was unfortunately the only one to answer her phone.
Mother in law asked me to please come back outside,
as she wasn't being attacked like I was claiming. So
I reluctantly did because as scared as I am of hospitals,
I wasn't going to be called a liar. And she

(40:39):
watched as two bats immediately started swooping and diving from
my face as I ran back inside seconds later, with
her following.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
So the bats have a vendetta against op exclusively.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
She called my fiance into the living room to let
both him and I know that it was extremely strange
of the bats to do that because she is such
an animal expert. Sort I roll, and that I need
to not be out after dark. I told her I
can't always be home before dark, and my fiance added
that my job keeps me out after the sun sets.
She then scoffed and said that getting attacked by a

(41:11):
bat is way more serious than working, and I need
to think about my baby over my replaceable job. I
liked my job and this response seemed ridiculous, but before
I could say.

Speaker 5 (41:20):
So.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
My fiance told her that no matter the job I had,
I couldn't avoid being out after dark forever. She then
thought for a moment and told me to start parking
out front so I could make it to the door
faster and avoid the bats. Plus, I had a baby
and this made it easier carrying the car seat to
the car when I was taking them anywhere. I'm a
small person, so carrying them was awkward and you could
tell this actually was a good idea, And after some

(41:42):
thought for me and my fiance, we decided this was
a great idea. I even tried it the next night,
and although I still had to run, the bats couldn't
get close to me before I was at the door
and then made it inside. This was a life saver
for me, and I continue to thank her for a
few weeks after for the idea. This is where the
problem started. I hardly see our name, and when I
do it's often in passing outside.

Speaker 5 (42:02):
Wait wait, I'm sorry, this is where the problem started.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Sounds like you've been having problems. Can you call like
pest control? Could you take down the trees or something?

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Or you've got bat problems?

Speaker 4 (42:14):
When I did eventually see them, they would glare at me,
give me dirty looks, and refuse to say hi back
or talk to me unless someone else was with me.
I had never had more than a three sentence of
conversation with any of my neighbors, so this struck me
as odd, concidering. They barely knew me, and until now
they were always friendly and waving. They continue to do
this for a month, leading for me parking in the
first parking spot closest to my door. But I didn't

(42:35):
even consider that as the reason, as it is childish
to get so mad over a single parking spot as
I almost never see them using it.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Anyway.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
I told my fiance about how the neighbors were acting
and how weird it was if it was over the
parking spot, and he told me just to ignore them,
so I did.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
No, no, hey, just take at knock knock, knock.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Here's why I'm using this parking spot. Is that cool?
Are you using it? That's what you do. I don't
talk to your neighbors. What are we doing?

Speaker 4 (43:01):
Sorry, I don't see you using that parking spot. I'm
you know, I have a newborn or I have a child.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Dude, this is what you see. This is what you say.
You say you want to see something.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
Crazy, and then you go get attacked by those bats
and you go, please, can I use.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Your Party's fine?

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Like if no one's parking there and I'm freaking out
and I We're gonna attack my bats. This was until
last week. My little sister in law is pretty much
my best friend. She never really has a chance to
get out of the house and have fun, so I
often take her with me to the park or the
store or to town so she gets to get away
from her family and have some harmless fun until the bats,
until the.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Bat, until the bats start doing harm.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
She is becoming a teen and dealing with those changes
are hard, so I told her she could come to
me with anything or even rant if she just wanted to,
And we started calling this the swing talk, because before
I got a car, we would walk to the park
and sit on the swings for those types of conversations
slash rant sessions. Well, since I now have a license,
we can actually go to places and I can take
her with me to the next town over to deliver

(43:56):
something to my sister. On the way back, she asked
if I had any updates or juicy work drama to share,
and I hadn't, but then asked her in return, which
made her get quiet. I asked her what was going on,
and she originally told me she didn't want to say.
I told her that was fine, but she then said,
it's about you, though. My heart sank.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
What about me?

Speaker 4 (44:14):
I looked at her for a second before looking back
to the road and said something bad. She responded with,
not really, but Mom and Haley fake name for her
older sister in law she's thirty two, have been talking
about how it was a itchy move of you to
take the neighbors parking when they all had an agreement
set that the neighbors got the front parking and we
got the side parking.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Oh no, okay, the bad attacks though, what are we
talking about?

Speaker 4 (44:37):
We also talk about it's an empty parking spot, yes, duh?

Speaker 1 (44:40):
And will we just go talk to your neighbors? Wait?

Speaker 4 (44:42):
I scoffed and laughed myself a little. Was it not
mother in law who had told me from the start
to park out front? She then continued she also told
dad about how you didn't even ask before parking out front,
you just did it, and that made him mad because
he wants in good graces with the neighbors, so when
they decided to sell the building, he could try and
buy it off of them. I was floored. I honestly

(45:03):
didn't know how to continue that conversation with her, so
I laughed and changed the subject to the cows that
were passing. But I was furious.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
That's a great segue.

Speaker 5 (45:12):
You just say, check out those cows, going look at
those cows.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
And then let's check out the bats. Later, when we
got home, she asked me not to say anything about
it because she had heard over eavesdropping, and I promised
her I wouldn't. But after a day of it eating
at me, whenever I went to my car, I told
my fiance about it. He was just as mad because
he was there when mother in law told me to
start parking there. He then asked how I wanted to proceed,
and he would help me talk to his mom if

(45:41):
that's what I wanted to do. I said no, I think, Oh,
if he's a little non confrontational here, doesn't want to
do what the neighbors does it want to do with
mother in law, you gotta you gotta, you gotta be
a little confrontational. I didn't want to talk to his
mom about it. She had already proven to me that
she was sneaky and shady and didn't care about me,
So why would I show her how much of her
evil tricks affected me. I told him I didn't want

(46:02):
to talk to her and probably won't anytime soon. He
then told me I can't avoid her forever because I
live under her room. But you know what, that's exactly
what I'm going to do. And you know what I
want you exactly to do is I want you to
tune in to full episodes with stories just like this.
Just go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast
app and search. Okay, storytime, Dakota. What would we do here?

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I think? Well, first of all, just talk conversation. Talk
to the neighbors.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
The neighbors are the ones explain your situation and everyone
else none of their opinions matter. It's like your your
dad's being like, oh, I wanted to get into good
graces with them so I could buy the building. It's like, hey,
all right, be a real estate mogul. That's totally cool.
I am gonna park here so I don't get attacked
by bats.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Why is everyone acting like that. It's unreasonable, and it's
a free reign parking spot. No one's been parking there.
It's an open spot, it has been empty. There's only
one thing that you can hold with you, op, it's
the truth, and you're you're not telling that to anyone.
You gotta you gotta held that to everyone so they
can understand you. Now, you just gotta have people talk
behind your back or be shady. The neighbors give you

(47:06):
dirty looks. That can all go away if you just
just open up a little bit the truth and just
tell them, or just have your husband there with you
and you do it together.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
You can you can be like, watch you don't believe me,
Watch me get attacked by bats right now?

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah? Crazy?

Speaker 5 (47:21):
Also, maybe figure out why that's happening too, because clearly
you're like mother in law went out there, or was
it the mother in law, the sister in law, mother
in law, the mother in law went out there and
saw her and was like, oh, it's fine, there's nothing,
there's nothing wrong. Look, I'm not getting attacked. She walks
out there gets tacked. So something is triggering the.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Bats to assault you.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
But let's finish up this story just because I'm forced
to be here for the moment, doesn't mean I have
to talk or associate with that kind of teenager backstabbing.
The neighbors still won't talk to me, and they still
glare at me, and I've started getting mean looks from
people I don't even know but have seen around my
neighbor's place from time to time. So would I be
the A hole if I ignore my mother in law
over this. I do not plan on talking with her
about this. I just want to know if my reaction

(47:59):
is just a fight or not. Okay, you would be
the a hole if you just don't if you just
keep this all to yourself, the fact that you're not
doing anything about it. You're just like, Okay, they're gonna
talk crappy on my back and I know the truth,
and there's bats attacking me, but I'm gonna move to
the parking spot and make things just peacha clean.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
No, you're being an a whole to yourself, and you're
being an a whole to your neighbors because they're just
staring at you and they're like, Oh, that's that's the
neighbor that sucks.

Speaker 5 (48:25):
Yeah, they're just like, oh, that's the neighbor that things
they're entitled to our parking spot, and it's like, maybe
if they knew you were being assaulted by bats, they
would be more understanding.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, hey, it's Sam.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
We're going to get back to these stories. But here's
three minutes of bads from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
My boyfriend and I are polyamorous, but he's not following
our rules.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Uh, it's like the one rule. Basically, there's no come on.
That's so easy.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
My boyfriend's roommate had been in love with him for years.
They hooked up but decided not to proceed with the
relationship because their relationship style is different. She wanted monogamy,
he wanted to pauly amerus, but they wanted to continue
living with one another. A great recipe for a totally
good relationship that will not get complicated in the slightest.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, they were not good for each other, but they
lived together. That's when I came in.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Oh God, names initialed, but it was me twenty six
Karen thirty three, Remy the roommate thirty three. Guest stars
are Benny, the best Friend and other Partner thirty three.
Oh guess that's the other person.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
There by The way.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
This comes from Illustrious Map seventy two, twenty seven and
if you have twenty seven stories or more that you
want us to read, go to Arsis's Okay Storytime send it.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
In twenty seven's the minimum. Ken and I met at
our apartment complex. I worked up the nerve to talk
to him and we ended up talking for hours. It
had gotten late, so security kicked us out of the
common area. We had a lot in common and had
similar life goals, and one day I came home.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
I came home for lunch and found him moving things
from theirartment alone. He and his roommate were changing apartments
and didn't realize.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
That they needed to leave the day that the lease ended. Yeah,
that's a that's a hard situation.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
His roommate couldn't help with the move because she had
to work, so he was moving everything alone. I know
that burden, so I took the rest of the day
off and helped them. Wow, freaking angel, move right there.
I think we'd known one another for two weeks at
that point. I finally met his roommates when they settled
into their new place. A quick twenty minute conversation. She

(50:33):
was cold, but a cold that I was familiar with,
as she reminded me of someone in my past who
were socially awkward, which made it hard for them to
make friends. So that didn't turn me off from her.
We exchanged numbers and we talked about getting together some
time to hang out. A few days later, I get
several I get a series of calls in the middle
of the night. I woke up to one of them

(50:54):
and it was her she needed a ride to the airport.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Wow. That is if you just.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Meet someone you're gonna call them at midnight and say, hey,
I'm gonna go.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
To the airport.

Speaker 5 (51:05):
That is a crazy thing to ask us. Essentially a
stranger reading the roommate needed a ride from the airport.
I had work in the morning and had to be
up at.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Four am, but she sounded desperate to not pay the
sixty dollars for an uber So I groggily I got
up and went got her.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
What did what? That is what is called a personal problem?

Speaker 4 (51:30):
The good old that's an issue.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
The ride to take her home was strange. She complained
about her toxic family and how she was ready to
cut them off.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Then she asked me, do you I ken is? Wait?

Speaker 5 (51:41):
Did I miss that or is that the ride back
from the airport after the trip, after her trip, Yes, oh,
I had it mixed up.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
It came out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I told her I was still getting known, but liked
him enough, and I'd see how things went as we
went forward.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
She then disclosed that they had tried to have.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
A relationship a few months, but it didn't work out.
She wanted a house and kids and a monogamous relationship.
He wanted to be polyamorous, so they decided not to
pursue a relationship, but they stayed roommates. I've seen this
dynamic go south for a few friends. I wonder why
of mine that were in a similar boat. But thought

(52:19):
life can't be funny enough to just repeat itself. Something
that happened in the past can't happen.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Again, Right, it's already happened. I mean, what's how that was?

Speaker 4 (52:27):
World War One? World War two?

Speaker 5 (52:29):
Yeah, but those were different, as we've all know. The
saying is history doesn't repeat itself.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Fast forward.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
He introduces me to the other partner, who is a gem.
So this is not rid of the roommate. We are
now talking to.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Ken's other partner. Yes, Barbie. Barbie is Barbie.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Once I found her staring daggers at his door that
another partner was working behind. Roommate was quaking with anger,
red in the face, tears streaming.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
This is what I've got so far? Heariod, God got
Ken Rita incompatible roommates. Rita's asking Op for the airport
ride at twelve am. She gives it to her. Do
you like? Ken?

Speaker 5 (53:10):
Like? No?

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Wtf? Y are you mono walking at me? Barbie? Ken's
other partner post Rita and there will be more.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
There's gonna be more, dude, you got She kept muttering,
I hate her, I hate that she's here.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I hate her. I hate that she's here. I hate her.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
You get it? She said this over and over. I
did my best to console her. She was in pain.
I can't help, but trying to help whence I see
someone suffering. Nothing was anyone's fault. It was just an
unfortunate situation. I have thoughts, but we're gonna keep reading.
Time passes, and ultimately I end up asking him if
he wanted to try dating me, and he agreed.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
That's how it works, right, guys, You try to date
someone and see what works out.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Don't be stupid.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
We get along really well and seem to have a
mutual connection. We were doing good for a while, really good.
I'm not Polly, but was okay with doing Mono. Polly,
I'm not Polly, but was okay doing Monopoly. I did
a lot of research into polyamory and educated myself on
what to expect. I joined Instagram and Facebook groups and

(54:18):
really took in the information I received. We talked about
what that would look like. I really like his other
partner and felt.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
How supportive she was. Barbie.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
I asked him how many partners he could realistically imagine
himself having, because I would like a certain amount of
time with my partner so as not to feel neglected.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
He told me eight, eight partners.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
Those are rookie numbers.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Get them up.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
That makes that so little, Yeah, Barbie. His other partner
lived in California with her husband.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
Whoa, whoa, that's gonna get added to the Whiteboy.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yeah yeah, Barbie's husband.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
As for his roommate, I asked if he had feelings
for her, to which he replied, no, not anymore. I
told him if he ever felt feeling surface again, I
would like to know. I had no problems with him
wanting to pursue a relationship with her, but couldn't be
in the relationship with him if she was, because I'd
seen firsthand how crazy she was about him. I didn't

(55:17):
tell him that part, just that I don't think things
would work between us if he.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Was also with her.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
He agreed, and withholding communication another foundation of a strong relationship.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
I'm gonna say this is an extremely weird set of
like principles to have in like the mono poly like.
She's like, I feel like if you were with your roommate,
it wouldn't work.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Ye, she likes you so much. It's like, but let
me not tell you that, let me just keep it.
But you're it's not gonna work anyway.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
I'm passed, and things began to go south between us.
I knew he loved debates, but he hated losing more
than anything.

Speaker 5 (55:55):
So he hates debates. Actually, he likes winning, is what
you meant to say. Oh, somehow all those insecurities rose
to the surface around me. He was so proud of
how smart and how talented he was, and got visibly
angry when I displayed that I was smart and talented
as well.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
What a keeper? I figured what.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Was going on with him, but knew I couldn't be
the one to bring it up and he'd need to
speak with a counselor of some kind.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
He wanted to be number one, so I met.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
His mother once, and similar to mine, she made him
feel like he wasn't accomplishing enough.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
This drove his desire.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
To be the best, but when he was faced with
people better than him at things, he couldn't stand it.
He'd put down other musicians, even so far as to
say Lizzo the Lizzo only got her stardom because of
her connections and not for her talent, and that her
music was superficial and had no substance. For instance, once
when he went out to karaoke, another shared interest between us,

(56:51):
a touring musician happened to be there too. I don't
recognize the guy, but it seems like he was successfully
living as a full time musician, so he's probably good.
He comes up to us after I'd done dream On
and he's raving about how well I did, how even
professional opera singers struggle to hit that high a that
I had, and asking if I was trained classically, and he.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Refused to believe me.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Oh, I see my partner Ken, getting angry that the
guy wasn't commending his singing from when he went up
before me.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
How freaking dare you? I tried to turn.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
The attention to him, telling this guy, I'm not a
professional musician, but my partner is, and you've got to
hear his music.

Speaker 5 (57:30):
Oh right, okay, so we've got Ope the Lizzo superfan.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
What this is? You know, I've ran out of space.
We're still going.

Speaker 5 (57:38):
We're breaking it down as as things progress. So clearly
op Op is Lizzo superfan and also super talented. I
guess Ken is Narcissus reincarnated with without the talent. I
guess Barbie's still just vibing and Rita is literally boiling.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
The guy looks confused, making a face as if to say, okay,
but I'm talking about you, which made my partner more
discernibly angry. Other people are coming up to me too
and applauding how will I, saying it wasn't until someone
asked Ken directly, wasn't she amazing?

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Then he complimented how I'd done? Yeah, yeah, yeah, she
was great on gus. She's certainly sharing good, I would say.
I still find it hard to identify jealousy.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
It's not like in the movies where it's super overt,
so back then I really didn't know how to spot it.
He'd even told me about how he doesn't feel jealous
and that that's why he's so great at being polyamorous.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
I think it's the opposite.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
I didn't believe him. Everyone gets jealous, I know I do.
It's how you handle jealousy that makes you talk it,
that makes it toxic or not. I just couldn't imagine
that someone would be jealous of me, especially.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Not my partner. As it turns out, he had been
growing increasingly more jealous of me.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
No got the other op zero instincts period, and Ken
just a liar.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
As it turns out he had been growing. I'll explain.
I've dealt with a lot of crap in my life.
I don't believe in bucket lists, so when I want something,
I just go and do it. So I've done things
that are on many people's bucket lists, all before twenty five.
I usually don't talk a lot about it. One friend,
after we'd known one another for a year, found out

(59:28):
the school I attended for undergrad and said she feels
every time she talks to me, she finds out something
incredible I've done.

Speaker 5 (59:34):
You could have fooled me the way you're talking about
it right now, right Like, I don't ever talk about this,
but when I do, everyone like goes, You're the most
incredible person I've ever talked to.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I don't talk about it all in one sitting. What
kind of conversation would even warrant that, other than an
interview if you insist. But also because it intimidates people,
I don't want to intimidate people with my greatness, so
instead I just let it, you know, come out over
the course of months or years. Honestly, I think as
time went on and he found out more about me,

(01:00:08):
he became insecure about why I was with him, and
his insecurity manifested into anger, especially around the things.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
He thought that he was the expert in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
He wanted to travel the world and speak multiple languages
and be viewed by everyone as an approachable genius. He'd
even legally changed his name to a Japanese one because
he felt an American despite being born and raised in
Nevada and having never been out of the country.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Hey, buddy, Hey, you ever heard of Ken Takakura? Oh No?
Ken is a Japanese name, so our backgrounds are similar.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
We both have disapproving mothers who were raised Seven Day
Seventh Day Adventists. I actually had to go to Seventh
Day Adventist Church and the Kingdom Hall because.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
My parents were different religions.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
We'd had similar upring in many ways, mine was worse,
so we should have turned out similarly. But it turns
out I became the person he'd always wanted to be. Oh,
I'm gonna keep going, I just ah. It seemed that
the more we got to know each other, the farther
he pulled away. He began fabricating or exaggerating his relationship

(01:01:19):
with certain people who were far into their career to
impress me with his connections people who I people who
I not only actually knew, but I was close to.
I couldn't bring myself to see to say that he
was lying, let alone call him out on it, or
to see he was lying, let alone call him out
regarding it. So he'd get so embarrassed when he put
us in situations when he'd have to come clean. Life

(01:01:42):
is really funny. For example, him lying and saying that
he was collaborating with a well known local band and
their lead singer. The lead singer in question happened to
be my ex and one of my closest friends of
this day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Ooh, I bet he loved that I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Don't know all of this excess business ventures, so I
figured maybe it was the truth. But when we were
in the same company as this ex, X didn't recognize
Ken at all, but swept me up into a huge
hug and talked.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
To only me all night. WHOA.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
At the end of the night, Ken asked me please
tell X that Ken wants to work with him. I did,
and he asked. I did as I did as he asked,
and the X said, Who's Ken?

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
No the Ken.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Despite spending the entire evening in his vicinity. It was
like everything Ken did or wanted to do, I'd already
done and he hated. So the argument started over small
things like once he stormed out when I told him
how much I love the writing in Encanto, with how
they'd subtenly written the grandmother as the antagonist, and how
I wouldn't call it epic because I wished they had

(01:02:46):
gone to more locations in the story.

Speaker 5 (01:02:48):
Y'all are arguing over this semantics of what A classifies
a fictional story as an epic.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Who are you people? I know?

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
I turned into a teacher mode at times. I used
to be a teacher some wonderful opportunities in this life
to learn a lot of random things and watch the
news to calm me down. I don't understand either, so
so I have so much random, useless knowledge in my head.
I've since received my ADHD diagnosis, which cleared a lot
up for me. But I've experienced things like sitting in

(01:03:19):
on script reads with New York playwrights, and I've soaked
up a lot of the information from teacher to New
York playwright Kingpin, along with so many other privileges, and
I don't feel it's fair that not everyone gets to
experience such wonderful things. I want to share all the
knowledge I've gained with these with those interested. So I
saw this as an opportunity to share what I learned.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
That led to my conclusion. He got more upset.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
He got more upset, and he told me that it
was my opinion that really confused me, because it was
clear as day to me based on the story. It's
like if you watch someone put salt in their pasta
and said this pasta hassault in it, and then another
person turns around and tells you that is your opinion.
He got angry that I had backed up my point
and stormed out over in Kanto.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Op it's not over in conto, but I digress. I apologized.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
In fact, I apologize to him more than I cared
to admit. But I wanted the relationship to work. I
realized this once the relationship was over. Never, not even once,
had he apologized to me for anything. He'd criticized my
spending habits, the restaurants I ate at were too expensive,
and my cute watering can cost too much. Okay, this

(01:04:29):
was all my money, mind you. We didn't live together
or have any shared expenses. In fact, he willingly did
not work. He's he's, uh, you've heard of in cells,
but have you heard of in pores involuntary voluntarily poor,
I should say, yeah, volpores.

Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
We've got Opie, who is super duper muper vooper special,
just so you know, also stands ten toes down on
media syntacts literally the most smartest of all time, and
Kanto oh not an epic, and Ken is actually just
Ken from the Barbie movie.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
And poor, but I liked him. Okay, I don't care
that he works. I didn't care that he's the biggest
walking red flag I've ever seen. He'd make fun of
the way I pronounced things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Funny.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
The times he made fun of my pronunciation was when
I'd use Jamaican British pronunciation and he would pretend to
speak in a British accent or use British words and
swear it was this natural way of speaking. Really, a
black guy from Nevada who's never been to England refers
to gas as petrol.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Give me a break, dude, this guy is such an ache.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
I'm Jamaican American and both of my parents lived in
the UK for significant portions of their lives, and I've
never called gas petrol in my life. Loll again. I
was living the life he wanted, and I think he
hated me for it. Q Thanksgiving, he was going to
his family's house for Thanksgiving. My sister was in town
and we'd be going to my best friends. He came
over to meet my sister. I had to beg him

(01:05:53):
a bit, as she is one of the most important
people in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
It was important to me that they get to meet
one another. Literally who are these people?

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
He did meet my sister, stayed for about an hour
and then left. Funnily enough, my best friend and his
grandma ran into Ken and Ken's roommate Rita at the
grocery store. Bestie's grandma has since said that she felt
that Rita was very strange upon meeting her hmmm, and
said that Rita scared her a bit. Now, Rita and
I had tried to have a friendship, but it was

(01:06:25):
very odd. For example, here we go about a month
and do z knowing one another. She asked me to
do some extreme online therapy with her. It's not real,
Like again, who are these people? She then said that
she couldn't have a friendship with me for a list
of manufactured reasons, reasons that if anyone was guilty of,
it was her. She constantly asked me questions about me

(01:06:48):
and Ken's relationship progression, like if we'd been intimate and
what exactly did he say when.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
We agreed to date?

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Word for word? Where's the script from your New York playwrights?
I knew her feelings towards him. I knew her feeling
towards him, and tried to be respectful of her feelings
from answering. She would make comments about my looks, like
how short my hair was or how big I was
I'm pretty tall, things that were obviously not kind, But
I'm an expert on not letting things roll off my back,

(01:07:14):
so I never said anything to her or Ken about
the comment. Mate told me that she was going to
a friend's family's house for Thanksgiving Rita. Turns out that
friend was Ken. She'd purposely hadn't told me that she
was going to Ken's family's dinner, and he neglected to
say anything about that she was coming. I had the

(01:07:36):
one conversation about the roommate before we agreed to date,
and really didn't talk further about the dynamic after that,
so it was strange that he hadn't brought it up.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Once he ran into my best friend and his grandma.

Speaker 5 (01:07:47):
It was as if if he knew he'd been caught
doing something that he wasn't supposed to do and try
how he tried to spin it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
He urged my best friend to take a picture to
send me to try and appear like he wasn't keeping
anything from me. He knew my best friend would tell
me he'd seen them together, so he might as well
get ahead of it. I get paranoid about my loved
ones being safe. I won't sleep well if I if
I don't know that someone hasn't made it home safely.
My father, my father passed suddenly a few years before.

(01:08:14):
I knew Ken, and Ken knew that. I asked for
only two messages. I am not a clingy person, so
I wanted to spend the holiday focusing on his loved ones.
I asked him to text me when they'd made it
to his families and when they made it home. It's
a four hour drive. The freezing roads have wasted people
on the holidays. I get worried, so the text reassure me.

(01:08:34):
He sent the first one, but never the second.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Oh no, and that's the deal breaker. This is where
it all un revels.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
I texted just one time, asking if he'd made it home,
and called one time.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
I don't know how I knew. I just knew. I
didn't want to believe myself, but I knew it was true.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
The next morning, he texted that he had just fallen
asleep when they'd gotten home, and that's why he hadn't answered.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
I knew he was lying, and I pretended not to
so about a week past.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
We were on my sofa watching TV and he asked
me about how I felt about roommate. I reiterated the
same thing I told him at the start of the relationship.
Go for it if you like her, but I can't
be with him if he was with her. A week late,
I go by their apartment. He's gaming and Rita is
huddled under the covers in his bed, also sick as

(01:09:24):
a dog, wearing a mask. Mind you, this is peak
VID season. I'm confused. If she's this sick, why is
she coughing her lungs out in your bed? Where should
I sit? They're acting so casually. I felt so crazy
and was thinking, this is so crazy. He ends up
leaving to go to work, leaving me to take.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Care of Reman.

Speaker 5 (01:09:45):
Isn't that better than Rita being taken care of by Ken?
Who you're like, I don't know, are you in love
with or do you not care?

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
I love these people. They're so smart, They're so great.
Polyamorous monogamy is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
We chat for a while and she's says that she
can't continue to lie to me anymore and admits that
Ken and her almost had spicy sleep the night of Thanksgiving.
I know her motives aren't well meaning, and so I
refuse to break down in front of her. I rub
her back and tell her I accept her apology.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Are you just like actually maybe kind of a sociopath?

Speaker 5 (01:10:19):
I figured something like that likely happened, and I forgive
them both.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
At some point she texted Ken. I told her he
raced back home and drops on his knees begging for
me to forgive him. Truly, I wish I could have
just spoken to him alone, but Rita wouldn't leave the room.
If she just left, she might have gotten what she wanted,
and I may have had the courage to end things
right then and there. But as the people pleaser, I

(01:10:44):
see two people having a breakdown in front of me
and know my actions can make them feel better. So
I can sool both of them, telling.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
I know they didn't intend to hurt me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
In general, I find that I can speak my mind
better in one on one situations, But once.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
I feel ganged up on, I fold.

Speaker 5 (01:10:59):
I could feel it sitting right there in my throat, Ken,
Can I talk to you alone? It was right there,
like it was choking Ah I couldn't get the words out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
I'm going to resay that it was right there like
it was, and I couldn't get the words out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
So I let them both cry on my shoulder, and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
She tested positive for the BID two days later with
her sick tears. Honestly, I think that was the day
I broke After that, whenever he asked me to jump,
i'd ask how high I saw him writing for an argument,
I just cave into his opinion immediately, whatever he wanted.
He broke up with me on Valentine's Day. Okay, we

(01:11:37):
have different life views, he said. I cried and apologized
for being too outspoken. This enraged him, and he told
me later if I was calling him weak, and how
he loves speaking to strong minded women. If you want
stories that are the antithesis of how just a mind
migraine inducing these people are, or at least way less

(01:11:59):
my mind great inducing, you can go to Spotify and
listen to full episodes. Type in okay story time, Apple
Pods and your favorite podcast app.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Too, type in okay story see.

Speaker 5 (01:12:08):
Almost all of the stories are actually not like this one. Yeah,
I think everyone sucks, and you know how we can
avoid this by actually like being like, Oh, I'm gonna
get in touch with myself.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
How do I feel about this?

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
Okay, now that I know how I feel about this,
I'm gonna say it to the people who the information
pertains to. M mm hmm, and we think we call
that something.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
I started therapy not long after and cut contact with
him completely. He tried and failed attempts to get a
hold of me. Only communication we had was was him
asking to return my things that he'd been refusing to
give back.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Talking to him at all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Maybe so angry I unleashed he and his He and Rita,
the roommate, had walked all over me, and he had
treated me worse than a dog. I never forgive him,
not even for myself. He and bar are still friends,
just online for now. That's gonna work out great. She
has a kid with her husband now and now it
doesn't get our state now, doesn't get to go to
our state as often anymore. Literally, still lover to pieces

(01:13:12):
for whatever reason. And Yeah, through therapy, I'm learning how
to love myself again. Still dating, but pretty done with relationships.
I'm so scared of ending up in a situation like
that again. I'd rather be alone honestly, until someone can
come along and show me that they can care for
me properly. There's one candidate at the moment that might
put me back in the relationship game. Oh God, I

(01:13:33):
haven't felt safe like how I have with him in years,
not since before all this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
So we'll see, dang. I hope I never God, I
hope I never see any of that. That was disgusting,
That was disgusting.

Speaker 4 (01:13:47):
H

All Episodes

I think I found my BIOLOGICAL father through a DNA checker website… I’m scared to reach out! | Reddit Stories

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Are You A Charlotte?

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.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 think I found my BIOLOGICAL father through a DNA checker website… I’m scared to reach out! | Reddit Stories