My boyfriend REFUSED to marry me… because he promised his late wife! - r/BORUpdates | 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, 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 this show propped up like
a little house.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh yeah, my boyfriend refused to marry me, but he
promised his late wife.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I think you got your order of operations mixed up.
O boo boo boop. You make promises to the one
that can still talk to you.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
For context, I have been with my boyfriend for almost
two years now. Throughout our relationship, he has been the
most attentive, loving and thoughtful partner.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
We share house stores.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
He would buy me little gifts every now and then.
You'll call me every day while I'm on my way
home from work. He always talks about me with his mates,
et cetera, et cetera. Like I can't even find a
single irritable thing about this guy. By the way, this
comes from a peony diary, and if you want to
submit your own stories, go to the r slash Okay
Storytime stub reddits. Well, except that he won't marry me
because he promises late wife that she will be his

(00:54):
only wife. That is the thing we are up against
She passed away so six years ago from an illness,
and he was pretty effed up for about three and
a half years. After lots of therapy working on himself,
he gradually opened up and we met through a board
game group. He never really spoke about her until we
became serious. According to him, she was the one that
made him believe in true love and the idea of

(01:15):
his soulmates. He also claims that she has moved on,
but to honor her memory and promise to her, he
will never have.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
A second wife. After we have discussed this, he.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Has never mentioned it again. It's our second anniversary soon,
and I'm just thinking about what I want in my life.
I really like to get married. I want someone to
propose to me.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
I want to groom with tears in his eyes as
he sees.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Me walk down the aisle. I love this man with
all my heart, and he has given me everything I
could ever want in a husband, except he won't be
my husband. Honestly, I don't know what to do. I
know it's common thing for partners and it's all just
paper and all, but I guess I'm a bit of
a traditionalist. I feel like maybe deep downside of him.
I'm still second to her. How do I navigate this?
And we have some comment first comment comes from annamr

(01:56):
sixty nine. So his late wife made a promise at
thirty four that he would never marry. I would never
do that to my husband. I would want to make
happy again.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Good point. Does he have children?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Does he want any more? Do you want them? If
marriage is a deal breaker, you know what you have
to do. But I wouldn't worry about being second to
someone who.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Would leave such a legacy. God rest her soul.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And I am trying not to speak ill of those
in eternal sleep, but just saying opie response, No, she
didn't ask him for that promise. Very important to clarify.
He made it willingly when she was still alive and healthy.
He doesn't have children and doesn't want one. I'm on
the fence in that regard on whether she wants kids
or not. And we have the big update. A lot

(02:37):
of people share their view with me in my previous post,
so I thought of sharing an update.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
As I expected, he is adamant in his stance.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
He was also a bit upset that I made him
bring up the topic of his late wife as he
doesn't like talking about her. I think he just doesn't
like remembering that she's passed away. But he also understood
that I could have doubts about his commitment and where
I stand in his life. Yes, I'm not quoting him exactly,
but he says something like this and my words of meaning,
and because this, you know, when I make a promise,
I mean it. I said that I will stay with

(03:03):
you forever, So I will stay with you forever. If
you want a ring, I will give you a ring.
If you want to wear a pretty dress, we can
get you a pretty dress. But please don't make me
go against my word. Because if I do, nothing I
say will mean anything anymore. I could promise to love
you and maybe stop loving you one day, and you
cannot hold it against me. Just really quick, Why did

(03:24):
he say if you want a ring, I'll give you
a ring? Because he's like, I won't marry you.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
This guy's not backing up anything. This guy's so wishy.
Was is this guy the dumbest guy ever? He's like,
I promised my wife who passed away that I'll never
have another wife. So then in my dumb brain, I'm like,
I'm just gonna make you my wife in everything but
the actual like legal document. Hey guess what, buddy, that's
going against what you said.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Dummy.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
It's not a loophole, Like, you can't loophole the promise
you made either don't be with anyone else or be
with somebody else. This guy can't pick a lane, man,
he really can't. Though.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
And also again the argument of like if a go
against my word, it will mean nothing. It's like, bro,
just look at the situation.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Come on anyways, It's like, come to reality. Man, She's
not here anymore. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Mary was my first love after a string of broken relationships.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I love the way I love because.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
I learned it from her. I am who I am
because of what I experienced before. Please understand that sort
of impact on my life. I have never compared you
to her. I've never actively brought her up in our conversations.
I don't even keep mementos of her in our home.
I know he keeps them in the bank out.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Of respect for you.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
So why do you question my commitment towards you? I
honestly don't know how to respond. At the end of that,
my mind went completely blank, and I felt like I
bawled my eyes out, and he just comforted me. We
live in a country where de facto partners have these
same legal rights as married couples, so I wasn't worried
about those issues. I guess I just really needed to
hear him affirm his feelings towards me. Those who commented
that I merely wanted a wedding could be right as well.

(04:52):
Maybe what I wanted was the grandiosity of the wedding.
So that's something that I have to think about. And
also I won't lie. I was extremely jealous of his
late wife. Resentment for her is definitely something that I
should also think about. Someone said couple's therapy, but I
think the one that actually needs therapy is me. Hold on, sister,
because you man might also need some therapy as well.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
That is the wildest take I've ever seen. That guy
needs therapy. He needs grief counseling. Yes, yes, he needs
to learn how to move on.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes, right, that is exactly what he is. Virginia Historio says,
this guy needs therapy. It's okay to love his late wife,
but still it's not the new spouse's issue to deal with.
He needs to find healthier ways to cope with her
loss and moving forward.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
With his life.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
That is absolutely true, because again, now you're doing the
disservice to the new partner. And why did you even
get at a relationship with new partner in the first place.
If this is where you're at, he's not being responsible.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
But yeah, that's about it.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
I'm probably staying because I know he loves me, and
I do love him. Lots of introspection for myself from
here on. Thank you everyone for your kind comments and suggestions,
and I hope you have a lovely today, and those
comments and suggestions are not over because we're diving into
these next Timely egg Tart says, I swear all the
widow relationship posts and right it sound like a nightmare.

(06:06):
Ninety two PJ says, I feel like if marriage is
what you want, you should end the relationship sooner than later.
You said you're staying, but I feel like you can't
easily get rid of a desire to get married. It
could nag you for a long time and resentment will grow.
I Administrative sixty' five says, you chose a broken pot
and it doesn't want to hold any water. Can you
accept it for what it is if you really need water,

(06:28):
then you need to let that pot go very gently.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
And obvious throwaway.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Avy says, nope, nope, I did this once too, And
there's nothing more soul crushing than watching someone you love
neglect your needs for someone who isn't around to care.
Put it like that, Yeah, that's yeah, that sounds tough.
Promises like that aren't made for late exes. They're made
for themselves. The late ex is not doing it for you.

(06:53):
He's doing it to you, and he's still currently making
you suffer because someone unfortunately passed away. Even if you
try to make this work, you're going to get tired
of being neglected when you're the one who's there. You're
going to eventually feel like that, even though you've been
around him longer than the relationship, if you stick around
for that long, that you're still not going to be
enough for him to move on in the next chapter

(07:15):
of life. And even that, if somehow you're convinced to
be okay with this and you get to watch later
in life when it's his turn to go and you
hoped to be at his bedside to hold his hand
through it, you get to be locked out of that room.
And forced in the waiting room with no idea what
is going on because no one will answer any of
your questions and all you can do is wait. This
is harsh, This is really hard.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
WHOA.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
He's not just condemning you to being viewed as essentially
less valuable, but he's also condemning you to a fate
of loneliness and loss greater than what he's experienced, all
because he fails to understand that marrying someone and moving
forward in life with someone is not a replacement or
a previous person, but an entirely different experience that is
new and not the same. That is not okay, it's

(08:00):
not fair to you. And from my own experience, I
feel very strongly I think we can see that that
you are emotionally being taken advantage of, and you're in
a position to be gasolt and blamed however.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
You feel about this, get tired of it, and.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Then you're too pushy. But if he gives you what
you want, then it's your fault and he decides to
lie and cheat, get mad at him for wasting your time,
and he gets to claim he's always been the nice
guy and told you how it is, and that ambiguously threatening.
If you make me a dishonorable person, no good on
my word if you do this to me, fing Man up, dude,

(08:33):
and stop making someone accountable for your own choices.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
The way he like processed that just makes me think
you don't even know what lying is. You don't know
what breaking your word is, because you're like, well, as always,
they don't do literally the exact thing that I said.
It's okay, you like, well, it's I promise I won't
cheat on you with any women. It's and then it's
just like you're like, I cheated on you with men.
I told you that I wouldn't cheat on you with women.

(08:56):
It's like you still did something bad. You still something bad.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Back to my previous statement, I didn't do exactly that.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I do this a few thumb back to our relationship agreement,
you'll see that the men were totally on the table.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
But yes, in adult life, sometimes people make promises they
realize they can't keep. And yes, that is life. I
promise and never break up with my high school boyfriend. Surprise,
I'm forty and I'm not with my high school boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Oh, liar, how dare you liar?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Deceiver? But that doesn't mean my whole life is alive.
I'm so sorry going through this so be. I really
feel for you, and this threat in particular triggers me
because I went through four years of this in a
relationship that lasted longer and had more life events than
what the dude with this late ex did. For all
the times I held him when he cried, all the
sacrifices I gave, all the love I poured into the relationship,

(09:50):
and all the times I put his needs first, from
taking care of a cenow dementia mother who wouldn't stop
threatening me, to risking myself pulling his dog out of
a freaking fire having us back. It's never enough to
finally accept building a legitimate future and all the privileges
that come with it. And you don't get the house shopping,
you don't get to be the one in the no
during emergencies. You don't get the oh, it's nice to

(10:13):
finally meet his wife when he starts a new job.
You get the if you are such a great girlfriend,
why doesn't he marry you? And the Nope, we're not
going to discuss procedures and costs with you because you're.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Just a girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
And if you stick around until end of life, either
it's you can't take time off work to mourn is
passing because mariemut leave is for family only. And you
also need to find a new place to live because
that's his house and his family decided to run the
eviction process on you.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
So now you're homeless, my god, and still have to
go to work, and you might be lucky to go
to the funeral, but you're not gonna be able to
keep anything to remember him by because his family wants it.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Holy moly, and I think we just got the whole
story right there.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Hey, this was the craziest story within his story exception.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I mean the comment's not over, by the way, there's
still more to comment. That was just the end of that,
like insane, like crescendo. That was crescendo is the perfect
word for that.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
They just made OPII realize, Hey, I've been through this.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
If anyone has been through it is commenter right here.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
I don't mean to sound like I'm projecular, it's a
little but please please don't do this to yourself.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
You're going to end up with a complex if you
stick around where she has weener blocked your entire life
despite you being the one there to do the heavy lifting.
Sometimes jealousy is not supposed to be ignored, so please
move on. Don't do four years like I did. It's
been a while now, but I now have to do
therapy to be able to function in the relationship that

(11:57):
is actually is living the dream for me, and that
commenter just just takes us on home because that is
the end of that story. I want to push for
our relationship, but it feels like he gave up already.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Sometimes fight already over.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And this story comes from our very own community, ladies
and gentlemen, so get ready for one from our very
own I thirty nine female and my partner fortymail have
been together for four years. When we met, it was
an instant connection and from day one we became a couple.
By the way, this comes from Affectionate Will in nineteen
ninety five. And if you want to submit your own stories,
go to the r slash Okay storytime subreddits now. To

(12:38):
provide some context, I got divorced six years ago. It
was an extremely marriage that lasted thirteen years, and I
have three sons. It took two years to heal and
find myself before I even considered entering into dating. I
didn't actually set up my Tinder profile. A friend did
while we were sitting through a long surgery. It became
really funny to go through profiles. Some were absolutely hilarious
to pictures. Om gee, ah oy, way. This is how

(13:00):
I met Coral, not his real.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Name, Coral Coral. Carl is a software developer.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
He's brilliant, insanely skilled in talent dev We had been
together for a few months when my circumstances changed dramatically.
Karl offered to let me move in with him. I
was apprehensive and excited at the same time. The thing is,
he stayed in a different city, not far, only forty
five minutes, but it's one hundred and eighty degree difference.
I went about repainting. His house was literally empty. He

(13:27):
slept eight existed in his office bed and there in everything,
so the house had not been maintained at all. Now,
when I moved in, I started fixing things, repairing or painting,
et cetera, which he really liked and made it feel
like a home. The commute to my kids joint custody
when it was my time with them was the most heavy.
They didn't like it for obvious reasons. No friends around,
different house, totally different vibe of the city.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
I won't lie.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
It was an incredibly difficult adjustment.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
I uprooted, had.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
No friends around, and my family lived in a different
part of the country. I had no bearings. The people
in the city were not nearly as open minded and
friendly as those in my city, and in this.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Way, I felt very isolated.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Of the people I did meet, only a small handful
were authentic and intellectual and weren't offended by different opinions
of viewpoints. It was hard, really hard. And to top
it off, I wasn't working. Carl never showed me around
the city, and the people I saw the most were
his parents.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I mean, if Carl is literally sleeping in his office,
I have a sneaking suspicion. He's not a paint the
town red kind of guy. I was battling to adjust,
and Carl suddenly had to start traveling for work, like
for two months at a time, so I was completely alone. Backstory,
his boss was an a hole, true nie in every way,
not the oh he's a way a real one. The

(14:34):
red flags were on display when I brought it up.
Carl got angry. If I mentioned anything negative around this dude,
it was met with serious anger. Carl literally couldn't see
that his boss didn't give an f about him, but
I could. This caused so much tension. Even the suggestion
of getting a CV out there to feel around was
a taboo subject to bring up, So off he went
diligently as instructed. He'd be gone for months, back for

(14:56):
a couple of months, and then gone again. His life
revolves around his boss. But I loved and still love Carl.
I do have to admit it was super hard for me.
We fought a lot while he was away, and I
realized when I did cause a fight, it was because
I was desperate for connection and also what I think
was a little jealous that he was having all these
experiences and making memories out of exciting new places that
I could not share with him. He was going to

(15:16):
a hotel and sitting in a whole.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Nother chair without her, dude, a whole.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Brand new chair.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Dude. He was thinking of all the chairs he sat
in without me. He watched TV on a couch, that is,
without her. Come on. He watched a rerun of the
History of paint on the History Channel.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Dude, you might as well just get married to someone
else in an.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Equally beige hotel room, Colleen. He's like, I just want
to know where the beige paint I love so much
comes from. It's the truest fashion.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
I did explain this to him once I had figured
it out, though either way, I was committed. I was
in this one hundred percent. I loved him, I wanted
to stand by him. But things got crazier and crazier
with his work, and he started assimilating the toxic attitude
of his boss and treating me as though I wasn't
a person. But I still tried. I'm an independent thinker.
I have my own views, I have my own opinions,

(16:11):
and there are times where I am definitely at fault,
and I will take full responsibility for them. I eventually
found a job again, and it was in my city.
The commune was two hours there, two hours back because
of traffic and super expensive. Carl and I agreed we
would move back to my city since he works remotely
from anywhere. So when we spoke about it, I put
down a timeframe, saying that as soon as my contract
became permanent. The move had to happen basically in seven months.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
He agreed.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
I kept reminding him, but I don't know if he
was just wasn't paying attention, or if he didn't realize
it was going to happen. Things came to a head
in August of last year. I came home on a
Friday and I told him I was going to be
leaving Sunday back to my city.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
He broke down. Yeah, he broke down. I mean, is
this like just the chronic case of like, ah, you
don't know what you have until it's gone. It sounds
like he doesn't know what life is.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
He literally loves paint.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
His life is just one beije room to the next
with his terrible Narth boss that he loves. He has
Stockholm syndrome for his boss.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Just marry the paint.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, just Giro, I've married the color beige.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
He admitted that he neglected me and had treated me
pretty toxically, begging me not to go. We both cried
a lot that weekend because we were both in pain,
but it was something I had to do, something he
had known about that I had constantly reminded him about.
He took me leaving as a sign that I was
leaving him.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
That was not the case.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
I told him it was not the case, but he
still believed it was. He left again for Thailand in October.
I was still committed to him, and I made this clear.
In December, he was involved in a terrible accident that
landed him in ICU for three days, My God, and
another nine days after. In the general ward. We were
communicating healthily, expressing our feelings, growing and repairing us. I

(17:52):
felt like the guy I had met was finally back,
the man I knew was back.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
It was magical, but it was short lived.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
It was also at this time that his boss revealed
his true psycho colors that I had already known he
was for years. Carl suddenly was thrust into chaos. He
didn't know what to do, but at the same time,
he stopped communicating with me. I had no idea what
was happening, constantly asking if he was safe in what
was going on now. If there's one thing I know
far too well, it's chaos and having your rold flipped

(18:21):
on its head. I could absolutely, one hundred percent identified
with the confusion, the overwhelm, and the fear for your
life and safety. What kind of code is this man coding?
Is this like dread pirate Roberts over here? Is he
working for the most like trained you know, freaking coding
like criminal organization software.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Coding for the triads, the secret online mafia. He's like
Ozark but liked the penguins from Madagascar. Bro, this is
coding for all of those people. This is this is great.
But also you moved in with him after you knew
him for month sets too fast. This is territory.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
I know intimately. Over the course of January, I was
constantly trying to keep comunicate with him, constantly asking what's happening,
how he was, what his plan was, any kind of
clarity that I love him and I support him. I
was telling him to come home, regroup, and we can
go from there. His chance has changed day from day
if I even heard from him at all. It got
to the point mid January I had no idea if
we were even together anymore. The whole of January was
I knew nothing, was told different things constantly. I was worried, anxious,

(19:19):
and so fearful for him. I hated what he was
going through because I knew exactly what it feels like.
At the same time, I was grateful he had finally
seen his boss for who he really is. Even though
I knew this would eventually be.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
The case, I hated that Karl was in pain.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
He told me he was coming home, but that all
has changed. Instead, what started happening was him telling me
that he actually didn't want to come home. He said
his heart was no longer there, and then we'd been
apart for too long.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
I asked him if he was breaking up with me,
and he said no.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Which is not what you just said, buddy. What you
just said was we've grown apart. We're no longer really together.
Are we breaking up? No? Who said that?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
No?

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Who's ridiculous? You did? You just did? Leave this man?
Leave this man, Please do leave this man.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
But this didn't align with what he was saying in
his messages.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
I sign him videos every.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Morning and evening, telling him I loved him, I supported him,
I will wait for him, but nothing apart from.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
A thank you.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
For the last twelve days, I have literally, and I
mean literally, been begging him to tell me if he
sees me in his future or not. His response was
that it's more complicated than that.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
What does that even mean.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
When you ask someone if they see you in their
life and future, it's a simple yes or no. Yesterday,
I couldn't deal with it anymore. I have cried so
much for weeks, I have lived with not knowing what's
going on at all. I sent a text saying it
was a simple question to answer, and his silence and
things he has said in his messages are actually the answer.
And I'm listening now. After I sent that, I blocked him.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Nice, give him what he asked for. Yes, see me
in your future?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Now you don't.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, that's why it was complicated. You found your own answer,
which was I guess we're broken up now. If you
didn't think we were broken up before, you'll think we
are after I block you.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
By the way, there's a way where you can never
break up with us.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
And what way would that be?

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Because we give you something that's so full of love,
so full of everything you could possibly imagine, including full of.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Stories just like this, full episodes.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
It's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts if you search Okay Storytime,
it's gonna pop right up and you have literally forty
nine straight days of content to listen to. So if
you don't go there, right now and just listen to
our full discography, our greatest hits. I just don't know.
I just don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Obie says, my heart is shattered.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
I was fighting so hard, constantly telling him I love him,
I support him, I'll wait for him, I will fight
for him. Then I'll stand by him through the darkest times.
But it's like I didn't matter to him at all.
Now I'm sitting here wondering how in one month our
relationship went from magic to nothing. I'm wondering if he
even cares that it's ended, if he loved me like
he claimed he did, or if I even mattered to
him at all. I kind of wish that he would
post his side of things, his feelings. I could at

(22:01):
least get some understanding of what has happened. I'm sorry
this is super long, even super summarized. It's staying long.
But am I ale for not fighting harder? Should I
have just given him more time?

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh? Pe, come on, Oh Pe, you listen to us.
You're part of this family. To come on sometimes a
little forehead, kids, whah, things just need to be over,
and it's okay for this to be over. You didn't
need to fight harder for it. You know, the deck
was stacked against you all from the very beginning because
of them moving in together situation kind of being thrust

(22:31):
upon you. It wasn't really like a thing where you
guys got to a point where it's like, oh, like,
let's move in together. It was like, oh, like, I'm
in between spots. I'm in a rough spot, and then
it's like, oh well, let's just move in with me
into my beige palace with nothing in it except where
I work. My partner neglected my needs for so long,
so I'm slowly pulling away. Pull away faster, please. Firstly,

(22:59):
I want to say that I'm in love with Okay
Storytime and I watch it all the time. Yeah. Wow,
this is one of you out there. Wow. I am
one of those people that has to deep search afterwards
and see if any stories have more updates. It's been
a really fun distraction for me. It's almost like reality
TV l ol. I have never written anything Onwridit or

(23:21):
anywhere before, but I've been thinking about it these past
weeks as I've noticed that some people really do find
help in confiding in strangers and seeking their take on things.
So here we have it. Fake and ames. Of course,
I thirty three female, and my partner Mike, thirty two male,
have been together now for eight years. I've known him
much longer, as he was a friend of my brother's,

(23:41):
but that's a story for another time. And by the way,
this comes from user desperate Coat twenty six seventy on
the awe slash Okay storytime subreddit. Yeah, and if you
want to submit your own stories, submit them there. We
were both in long term relationships before Mike's ex had
cheated on him, so I've obviously had a lot of
trust issues regarding relationships, and I could understand that I

(24:04):
hadn't been cheated on, but I was coming out of
a relationship where, for the most part I was gaslighted
and mentally mistreated throughout. Me and Mike connected through social
media when he commented on a post of mine, and
we soon started talking every day. You know that feeling
when you just want to stay up all night talking
to someone, or you get excited and happy when you
wake up and want to see if they messaged you. Yeah,

(24:25):
it's that feeling. We did this back and forth for
three to four months before actually ever setting a time
and place to meet and go on a date. I
admit after our first visit, we pretty much saw each
other every day. Mike would send me songs that reminded
him of me or depicted how he was feeling, lots
of honeymoon period stuff. Mike was always work oriented, but
he always made time for me. I was always a priority,

(24:48):
and we moved really fast into the relationship. And some
more context here, we have a son, James, who's five.
I'm not saying that things have been perfect all of
the seven years. They have not, but the attentiveness and
communication seemed to take a nose dive in the last
two years. He is one hundred percent not cheating on me.

(25:08):
We're not secretive people. He can look at my phone
and I can look at his, and with what his
ex did to him, I don't think he could ever
put someone else through that pain. To be honest, Over
the past four years, he got more involved in work
and had less time for me, which was hard. With
having James. It's not like I changed who I was
and what I was interested in. I just had another priority.
I'm not really a needy person. At first, I was

(25:30):
at a loss at what to do, but I quickly
filled the time we had shared with hobbies and other
things and friends. That's a problem though, because I'm not
really the kind of person that likes to deviate from
my plans. If you want to spontaneously surprise me, I
have ADHD. Last year, I found out in early January
that my mother, who I was really close to, like
best friends, had cancer, and my whole world really shook.

(25:54):
I became a mother, a partner, and a career all
in one. I would take my mother to all of
her appointments, and I was with her from her diagnosis
until her last breaths. My mother passed away in July
of last year. She deteriorated fast. In these six months,
I was mostly being a mom and being a daughter.
I gave all my time and energy to my mom.

(26:14):
In the beginning, Mike would offer support and say if
I needed him to ask, and after a few times
of picking James up from school, he soon got bored
of that offer and said he couldn't take the time
off work. It was literally his own business, which I
guess part of that is like true, but also like help.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Her, yeah, Like it's like, hey, we're gonna lose our
house if I'm not available from you know, from seven
fifteen to eight fifteen am every morning or something like that.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah, do you like your wife? Do you like your
job more? Well? Well, I am rather independent, I always
have been, and I don't like asking for help anyway,
so I suffered on me and Mike just became like housemates.
Really that said, I love you. At this point I
did everything with James, the bills, the housework, and when
my my mom passed away, Mike was there for me,

(27:01):
which I was glad for. I needed some time to
process and he took over a lot of the things
I normally did and helped me without asking. But a
few weeks after my mother passed, Mike was involved in
an accident at the end of July twenty twenty four
where he was seriously hurt, so I didn't get much
time to mourn as he needed me to take care
of him, which is fine. I work better this way anyway.
Distractions lol. He had a spinal injury. Thankfully he was

(27:25):
not paralyzed, but he came close and relied on me
to wash him and put his socks on for him,
et cetera, which I gladly did. Our relationship got better
being home and not able to work. He could see
everything I did each day. He seemed to appreciate me
more and appreciate the things I did, But he soon
spiraled into a deep depression. Even when he got better,
he lacked the drive to do anything. He stopped bathing
as often as he should. He played video games. I'm

(27:47):
a gamer, so I don't mind a game or two.
But like, let's say a game has been out for
thirty days, he would have played it for twenty six
of those days. Oh, which is that's a lot. That's
a lot. He would get up, turn his Xbox on
and literally play it all all day long in our bedroom.
So when I had to go to bed early so
I could take James to school the next day, I
had to buy an eyemask and earplugs. Skipping forward to now,

(28:09):
which that's a lot. Yeah. I would hope that some
kind of therapy can be done for the mental aspect
of what happened to him. Sounds like he definitely needs something.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Definitely.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
I love this man, but not much has changed. He
spends no time with me or James, even if he's
still in the same house and not working due to
his accident. A lot of the time. He just grunts
at me when I talk to him, or he doesn't reply,
then claims he already replied. When I ask him again,
he won't communicate with me. And if I prod and
push it him in voice how I feel, he gets defensive.

(28:40):
Then we'll post a random picture quote about depression on
social media and how nobody gets it. That's a little frustrating.
My mother, my best friend, passed away while I held
her hand. Trust me, I get it. I just have
to get up every morning and face the world because
I don't have anyone else to take over and do
the things I do in order for me to fester
in this depression. And I'm glad for that. Granted I

(29:02):
don't give him spicy sleep very often, but for me,
it's more than it's been a while.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
My love language is acts of service. I think Katie
Perry hit the nail on the head in that interview
where she was like, if Orlando does a bit of
tidying up, that's the grapefruit. This is me, pap, don't
worry about it.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, I will say, it's totally understandable that if your
partner is not exhibiting any behaviors that you find attractive
or desirable, that you are not going to find him
attractive or desirable in a physically intimate way.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Totally totally normal.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, what was the event for husband that kind of
picked start?

Speaker 1 (29:45):
I think it was probably a car accident, a serious accident.
Nearly paralyzed, yes, but not paralyzed now but could have
been right, And then I think just spiraled super hard.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
At which again is like hey, like that totally makes sense,
But now op's over here and like, oh, he is
also going through a lot and taking care of your
collective child, and where is the anything here? We're not
accepting the help and just kind of like wallowing in
the sadness and not like just come together and talk
and nah.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
When I don't feel love appreciated and I'm literally doing
everything on my own and being grunted at, why would
I want to have any spice to sleep? I feel
like I'm just pulling away from him. I want to
support his depression and be someone who helps him with that,
because it's tough and it's not all bad all the time,
but I feel recently I'm sitting down and I'm having
these conversations. I'm being blunt and if anything changes, it's

(30:39):
only for a day or two and then it's back
to how it was. Yep. I'm also concerned he has
thoughts about ending his life, but he won't talk to
me about them. He just won't open up at all.
And as an overshare kind of woman, this is super
hard and confusing for me. I'll tell you things you
don't even have the desire to know about, like it's
no big deal. And by the way, I'm going to
tell you that we have a great rate desire for

(31:00):
you to listen to full episodes with stories like this.
All I got to do is go to Spotify podcast iHeartRadio.
If you listen to podcasts, search Okay, story time and
boom forty nine days worth of stories to listen to me.
That's right to your heart's content. It's a sticky situation. Yes,
it's a huge problem.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, he wants to to my thing. Before you know,
he might be so far down that it is hard
to come to her, like have a conversation, dialogue, change,
et cetera. And I'm not saying that he's not allowed
to have that, more so just saying that it's like
unfair for all of this weight to be on OP.
And you know OP wants to do the right thing.

(31:37):
She wants to help him through this and help him.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Out of this. I think reach out to anyone else
who's in his support system, whether it's like family or friends,
just be like, I don't know if y'all know how
hard he's going through right now. Yes, but it's like
I can't seem to get him to snap out of it.
I can't get him to feel any better. You can
tell somebody they should go to therapy, but it's like
you can't really like force them to go. Yep. So

(32:01):
it's hard. It's a tough tough spot to be in
for sure. See what else OP has to say. So sorry,
this is dragging now. I said to myself, I won't
post one of those big, long, boring ones, but how
do you get everything out in such a short space
that's been big, long, important? Not at all. Basically, I
just wanted to know anyone's thoughts. Counseling, antidepressants, et cetera
are pointless. He's a typical stereotype of a man's man

(32:23):
that deems it. So am I the A hole? What
do I do? Thank you?

Speaker 2 (32:27):
But you know I be curious what they think op
he should do. It's like, hey, mother in law, Hey
father in law, Hey brother law.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Hey sister in law.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Whoever, those like kind of key people are like, what
do you think we should do? Particularly like those family
members I mentioned, because they've known husband husband's entire life,
so they might have a better inclination on like how
exactly to handle this. And again also maybe we'll be
someone that he listens to and is able to receive

(32:56):
care from, receive support from.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Sam.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Here we're gonna get back to the stories, but here's
three of its bads from our sponsors.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
My friends broke boyfriend gave me an expensive birthday gift.
I gave it right back.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
This is too expensive for me.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Hi everyone. Last week I celebrated my birthday with my
friend group. We're all fairly close and whilst we never
discussed presents or gifts explicitly, we all kind of naturally
fell into an unspoken pattern around what kind of birthday
gifts we give to each other. We do gift, but
they're usually in the ten to forty euro range. By
the way, this comes from a beneficial Hall fifty three

(33:39):
twenty God bless me and if you want to submit
your own stories, go to the RK story Time subreddit.
So think things like, oh, maybe a book, or a
voucher for theater tickets, maybe a nice little bottle of wine.
That kind of stuff. We're all young professionals or grad students,
and that just fits our general income level. A good
friend of mine brought her boyfriend to the party and

(34:00):
he gave me a gift of his own, separate from
my friends. Without going into too much detail, it was
a small object that had a very thoughtful connection to
a trip I took in winter. I was genuinely very
thankful for the gift and thought it was lovely. However,
when I unpacked said item at home, something about it
just caught my eye. Certain parts of the item that
I would have expected to be made of glass didn't

(34:22):
look like glass. I ended up googling the maker's mark
on the bottom and found the exact same item online
for the price of seven hundred and fifty euros. Now,
it'd be one thing if this guy was a trust
fund kid, for whom that kind of money was just peanuts,
I'd still feel uncomfortable, but at least there'd be some
logic to this. But my friend's relationship with this guy
already has massive problems, which are largely centered around him

(34:45):
being underemployed and making her pick up the tab for
their shared lifestyle to an undue degree. We honestly all
expect their relationship to fizzle out soon because they obviously
aren't compatible in some key aspects. So now I've got
this seven hundred and fifty euro item on my shelf
and I have no clue how to handle this. Feels

(35:05):
extremely inappropriate to have this thing. I'd feel uncomfortable accepting
this sort of gift from almost anyone I know. But
the fact that it's a a friend's romantic partner and
I'm attracted to the same gender, and her boyfriend knows
but still and b said friend has issues with her
partner's handling of his finances just makes it even worse.
It's also a highly specific item that I don't think

(35:26):
he'd be likely to just have, so I'm pretty certain
he must have bought this for the occasion and be
aware of its value. So what do I do?

Speaker 4 (35:33):
What do I do?

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Lord? My friend seems to be totally unaware of the
value of the item. Do I tell her? Do I
contact the boyfriend and ask him what the f he
was thinking? How do you handle this? And there are
some comments here. Honestly I would just reach out to
the boyfriend. Yeah really yeah, I wouldn't. Would I mean,
like I wouldn't close to the boyfriend. You're close to
the girl, right, But it's like, I think, just on principle,
it's like this isn't a thing where it's like he

(35:55):
doesn't handle his finance as well. What if ope, I
mean if what if the girlfriend didn't get in for
this holiday? Oh do you think he spent like her
money on it instead of his ex? But it's like
that's why, So you go to him first, you have
that conversation. If it comes to light that he is
spending her money, then you go to her.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
It could be messy, so.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
We have some comments. Comment one, I'd bring it up
with your friend. There is a chance that he got
a really really good deal or even a decent knockoff
at a lower price. But honestly, if he's bad with money,
even something half that price would be pretty inappropriate. Talk
to your friend and offer to return the gift if
it turns out to have cost as much as you
suspect it did let them know you are incredibly grateful
for his thoughtfulness, but it didn't feel right accepting such

(36:35):
a lavish gift, and that their company and friendship is
all that you ask for. Just be honest about how
you feel and let your friend decide how she wants
to proceed. Comment too, that's about eight hundred and fifty
US dollars. If your gift is the real deal. That
gift is very inappropriate from someone you barely know. What
did your friend think about his over the top generosity,
Opie says, my friend seemed to be totally unaware of

(36:56):
the value of said object. Heck, I was unaware until
I realized something about this thing was off and started googling.
I'm ninety nine percent sure the boyfriend must be aware
of the value of the item. I see only a
very limited chance he accidentally bought a valuable antique from
someone who didn't realize what they were selling. I've since
resolved to contact her about this mess and am drafting
a message to send tonight to me. At least, it's strange,

(37:18):
I guess it makes sense.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
But like the road we said earlier, there's one hundred
ways to get this destination.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I guess, so taking the dirt road, I guess. So
it's like I would just talk. I would get it
from the horse's mouth first, you know what I mean.
I would ask the boy.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
I feel like you can lead a horse to an
interrogation room, but the horse won't talk.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, But like you know, that's why you don't make
it interrogation. You just go, hey, I noticed something weird
about this. Where did you get it?

Speaker 4 (37:42):
Sometimes you take the horse to a coffee shop to
just hang out and catch up, but the horse won't
I don't.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Know, Yeah, just try to I would try to suss
it out.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
I see.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Anyway, there is an update. Let's go ahead and dive
in to summarize my original post. My twenty six female
friends twenty six female perpetually broke boy friend twenty eight
mail gave me a birthday gift and it was expensive.
Theories are to what happened included him not being aware
of the value, buying it from someone who didn't know
what they were selling, or him trying to somehow hurt

(38:10):
his girlfriend or my friend, and or trying to hit
on me in a bizarre and inappropriate way. I ended
up texting my friend and telling her that I had
researched the gift and discovered it was worth a very
inappropriate amount of money. She was very surprised by the
entire situation, especially considering her boyfriend, who is now an
ex but more on that later, is perpetually broke and
makes her foot the bill for their shared lifestyle. She

(38:32):
came over to my place together we called him on speakerphone,
where she demanded some answers. Long story short, he stole
it from his own mother. We were right, We were
freaking ryde Oh scumbag is central? Wowmon, mom stole it
from your own mom. I don't know where you need
to go to fix that kind of behavior. He's still

(38:53):
being a bit shady about some details, but we managed
to piece together the sequence of events to a satisfactory degree.
So my friend was supposed to be coming to my
birthday party straight from work. When she left her office,
she realized she had forgotten the gift she planned for me,
which was a book at home. Since she was already
running late and her place is pretty far from both
her work and my flat, she chose to text her boyfriend,

(39:14):
who was having dinner at his parents home at the time.
She knew he was there and knew his parents lived
close to me, so she asked him to just buy
a copy of the same book at a bookshop on
his way to my place so they'd have a gift.
For reasons known only to him, he did not choose
this simple, reasonable solution to the we forgot our gift issue.
Instead of leaving five minutes early to pick up another

(39:35):
copy of the book, he chose to grab a random
item off his mother's living room shelf without asking her, which,
by the way, guys, people can lie to you. We
are aware of that, right, So this reads like a big
fat lie. I don't know, I like it. It's I
feel like this was premeditated. He had no idea what

(39:58):
it was. He just thought it looked pretty, took it
and stuffed it in a paper bag. He also did
not text back my friend or react to her calls,
so she reasonably assumed he hadn't read her messages and
ended up going back to get the book, which was
why they arrived separately with separate gifts. Meanwhile, the boyfriend
had unknowingly gifted me not just any antique, no, no,
this item had been passed down to his mother from

(40:21):
three times great grandmother. It had been in his family's
possession for literal centuries and was the only tangible connection
his mother still had to her home country, which incidentally
is also my mother's home country, which he wasn't aware of,
meaning that what I thought was a thoughtful connection to
my trip was a total coincidence. Oh, he had no
idea of the item's cultural significance. What how are you

(40:43):
gonna steal? Now? What you steal from your mom? Not
only just that's already bad. You steal something that's been
in your own family for over one hundred years and
you just shove it in a paper bag and give
it away. What instead of going.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
To the bookstore getting a book?

Speaker 1 (40:58):
You know what? You and he's friends boyfriend and just
hates books. Yeah, you could have just sig he shoplifted
a book. He's you, dude, he's me, he's you. He
hates books. It's not that I hate books, you hate
the letters in the books. My friend immediately made him
call his mom to fess up to the entire situation.
His mother had been running herself ragged trying to figure
out where this item disappeared to for days. Obviously, she

(41:19):
never suspected fever and was blaming herself terribly for having
lost something this important. The boyfriend actually had the gall
to try to convince her not to make her call
his mom and what has comebag? He wanted to sweep
the entire thing under the rug. Of course, we didn't
let that happen. His mother came by my place this
morning and I returned the item along with some apologies
for not starting investigations immediately and some nice chocolate. We

(41:42):
had a lovely conversation about our shared cultural heritage. I
assured her that the item had been treated with dignity
for the entire time it was in my possession, and
we parted ways with a hug. She also told me
that my initial estimate of the item's value was incorrect.
It's actually worth even more money. It would probably sell
for a four figure sum at off twenty four thousand, Yeah, easily.
And by the way, you know what's in the four

(42:05):
figure some What's the amount of hours that you can
listen to Okay story Time on your podcast platform of choice,
whether that is Spotify or Apple Podcasts or YouTube even
or wherever you get your podcasts from es search Okay
Storytime and you will find it. And that's that's forty
eight consecutive days. So let me make sure I did

(42:26):
the math right in my head. I did some fast math.
I'm pretty sure this is in the four figure territory.
So we're gonna do twenty four hours times forty eight days,
and that is one and fifty two hours, so that
is four figures worth of Okay, story time, we know
they broke up, which is what you do. Who's scumbag
who steals cultural heritage nickknacks from his own mother.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
From their mom and then goes, no, don't tell her,
let's just let's please help me gaslight my mom.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I don't know what she wants to do with her son,
but I hope she whoops his butt. My friend for
obvious reasons broke up with him. Lessons learned. Google suspicious
gifts and lock away your sentimental slash valuable items when
your people you are not entirely sure about. Come over
the gall of this man. Okay, I remember reading your
first post, what was the gift? Why not put us
out of our misery and say what it is? Yes, op,

(43:17):
all right, all right, it's super specific, but it's a
special kind of religious devotional triptych made in the case
of my particular one of silver and real effing rubies.
They're called travel tripticks and common in my family's home Regent,
though of course they aren't usually made of silver and gemstones.
I initially grew suspicious because of the maker's mark saying

(43:39):
that it's silver, and specifically saying that it's eight hundred silver,
which is a kind of silver used only up until
the eighteen hundreds. Modern silver work uses nine to five
silver aka sterling silver. The religious aspect wasn't very meaningful
to me. But my family's home city is famous for
its silversmithing, and my mother's family were silversmiths, And this
item specifically is a beautiful maybe your family made it,

(44:00):
of course it is. It's a thousand dollars antique and
laid with rubies. Super specific. But this m Effer basically
accidentally gave me a gift that would have been if
it had come from someone else. Pretty dang amazing. Wow,
what a cool thing. I want to I want to
look up travel trip Dick. Right now, he's.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
Gonna look up travel trip Dick. I'm not behind the
computer desk to look that up. I did not have yes,
but you know what I'm gonna pass you. This is
that past that was the first story of that first
story of the second Let's.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Go travel triptick silver Rubies. Yeah it is. It's when
it's like, oh, it's one of these. It's like the
the foldable and then it folds up. I guess because
there's three of them.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Well it folds up. Yeah, just snag that off the shelf.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
It's like your it's like your own little little little
prayer room. You know, you tell you wherever you want.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Right exactly. It's like a little tiny Yeah, it's a
little it's a little prayer portrait. That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
Wow. I had a thirty year friendship over a missed text.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Doesn't sound like an overreaction to me.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Until a year ago, I had a long standing friendship
over thirty years with a woman we will call Valerie.
Our friendship was stood the test of time, numerous moves,
her tumultuous childhood, marriage, divorce, and kids. By the way,
this comes from friend Dish Curry And if you want
to smit your own stories, go to our size.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Okay stories, I'm subret it. Do it.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Her family is next level self absorbed person I see,
and frankly, if we had it growing up together, I
don't think I would have believed the level of nastiness
that people enacted on their youngest daughter and sibling. Because
I knew so much about her and her traumas. I
forgave her for a lot and made excuses for her
more outlandish behavior. But we got along. There were many

(45:47):
board game nights. I planned a surprise birthday, bits cakes,
went to barnfires, paydamniatures, baby sat her daughter one on hikes,
made handbag gifts and more.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I wonder what kind of menatures. I wonder if they
were like D and D or warm mm do you
buy the plastic crack?

Speaker 4 (46:03):
We spoke nearly every weekday. She knew everything about my
life and I knew everything about hers. We were able
to talk about our childhoods in a way the only
siblings can understand. As I went by, though some things
didn't add up. Valerie is an uber extrovert, a kind
of person who thrives on constant attention. She's loud and
obnoxious everywhere she goes, and it gets worse when she drinks.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
That's why I, actually that's why I don't drink that.

Speaker 4 (46:28):
Much, which is often every job she has ever had.
All the coworkers eventually loathe her. One job when as
far as to not invite her on a work trip
that the whole company intended because no one wanted her there,
but she did her job well enough that they couldn't
find another way to fire her. I also began to
notice that Valerie only took my phone calls during the

(46:49):
day when she was bored. She never responded to a
text or a phone call at night or on the
weekend because she was busy hanging out with other people.
I live over an hour away. I made justifications for
those two only myself, that she was being present friend
and that her hanging out in person with people was
more important than taking my phone call. But then I
also noticed I wasn't being invited on any trips when

(47:10):
she got engaged. She invited ten people on the trip,
including one of my siblings.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Okay, that's pretty bad, that's pretty whack.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
The trip ended up being terrible, her fault entirely, but
the fact that I wasn't even invited really bothered me.
She went on numerous beach trips and never invited me
to a single one, the same for other special days.
In fact, the only thing I was ever invited to
was her birthday. But I also let this go because
every trip she came back with ridiculous stories and another

(47:38):
broken friendship. So I told myself it was a good
thing I didn't go, or she knew I wouldn't enjoy it,
so she was protecting me somehow. Enter the beginning of
her friendship breakup, Valerie suffered a passing of a very
young child in January twenty twenty four. She was devastated
and my heart hurt for her. After a week of
medical complications, she was scheduled to go into the doctor

(48:01):
for a DNC. Let us know what that means in
the comments. Since her urine analysis was still showing she
was prego. I drove over an hour to her house
the day before to spend it with her. We sat
and talked while both working remotely as she processed her emotions.
I tried to be a listening ear and a soft
shoulder to cry. On the next day, she called me

(48:22):
and told me that she was still prego. They thought
that she passed away a twin. I was shocked and overjoyed.
I cried happily tears with her. Then I went on
a five day vacation where I purposely disconnected and told
everyone I was pending my phone down for a few days.
When I got back, I sent her an innocuous complaint
but my teenager not getting out of bed again. This

(48:42):
was how we normally communicated, just general back and forth,
picking up where we left off. But something had changed
in those five days. I should state now that all
interaction with her from now until we stopped speaking was
via Facebook Messenger. She immediately responded and said I was
being rude. How dare I talk about my stuff with
asking her how she was? And she was angry that

(49:03):
I missed the text from her immediately. I did see
that she had sent me a meme of some short
but I had not opened it or read it. I
hopped over, read the text, responded with a laugh emoji.
I was apologized and said I was trying to disconnect
and wasn't trying to be dismissive. This is when I
got an ear for from her, stating that she didn't
feel like I was a good friend, because a good

(49:23):
friend would be asking her more questions about how she
was doing, how pregnancy was going what color she was
going to paint the nursery.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Dude, It's like, where was any of that energy for me?
The friend you are chronically excluding from everything?

Speaker 4 (49:36):
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Are you serious?

Speaker 4 (49:38):
She's the queen that she's just using all of her ponds.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Yeah. I wanted to say earlier that it's like, the
reason you're getting invited to the birthdays is probably because
you give her a gift.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
I was a bit confused by this, considering she had
already had one kid, and I didn't do that with
the last one because she had told me all that
stuff on her own. We would chat and she would
tell me how she was going to decorate in purple name,
she was considering trips she was planning. I apologize again
and explained that I didn't simply ask a million questions
of people because it felt intrusive. I kind of figured

(50:07):
she would tell me things like she always had, But
at this point she refused to accept my apology and
started telling me how I was supposed to respond to things,
questions I should be asking how to respond to a text.
This is the type of person that every day something
bad happens and they always complain about something.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Explaining how to respond to a text is wild.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
Yes, I know how English works, and you.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Know who the common denominator here is. Because oh, every
time she goes out of town, she comes back with
one less friend than she left with. Uh oh, one
person comes back after going on a trip with her
every time and goes, you know what, I'm done with
the person?

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Yep, and it looks like it's your turn.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
It might be your turn. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
I look back to her texts and noted how often
this woman had ignored my text. Again. I apologized and
said I didn't mean to be dismissive and just forgot
about it. Next day, I receive a grainy video she
was having a gender revealed party. I was not invited.
At this point I was pissed. I responded with the
meme and the spirit of that mistext all heck broke loose.
She was furious at my response. How dare I respond

(51:07):
to something so important so impersonally. Then she started telling
me exactly what I was supposed to say and how
I was supposed to say it. I was angry that
this woman who had just picked a fight with me
expected me to be happy and excited about an event
I wasn't even invited to. Yeah, at this point, what
do you have to lose in this friendship?

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Nothing? You only have something to gain, which is no
longer having a monkey on your back. Yeah, that's all
this friendship is.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
I did talk to her for two weeks. When she
reached out again to ask if we were cool, I
told her that most definitely we were not. And telling
me that I am a bad friend when I clearly
have been a very good friend for years, it is crappy,
thank you. That's when she told me that she doesn't
think I'm a bad friend. She just feels like I'm
a bad friend. She doesn't think it, she just feels it.

(51:53):
Oh shut up, Frankly, I didn't understand the difference either way.
She was accusing me of being a bad friend over
what a missed text message, screw you. And she told
me that I wasn't validating her feelings and started sending
me articles and videos on what validating someone's feelings looks like. Y'all,
I've been a foster parent for nine years. I could
probably teach a class on what validating feelings really looks like,

(52:15):
particularly for kids. So condescending. The problem wasn't that I
wasn't validating her feelings. It was that I disagreed with her,
And finally I asked if we could please just talk,
either on the phone or in person.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Did you just get me like that? Dude? I was
texting my mom?

Speaker 4 (52:31):
Finally I asked if we could just please talk, either
on the phone or in person. Surely if she just
heard my voice and realized how sorry I was and
how ridiculous she was being, we could reconcile. She refused.
She said she needed a record of her conversation. That's
when something snapped. Friendship ended it for me in that moment.
Was she planning to use this conversation in court? She
want to throw my words back at me? I was done.

(52:52):
That's the last time we spoke. I ended up writing
her a letter as a one ditch effort at the
urging of several friends who was all one of things
to be rectified because we were so close for so long.
I assume she received it because she sent me a
message but deleted it before I saw it. In August,
after speaking to my therapist, I decided to unfriend her
on all socials. I infriended her fully because I realized

(53:12):
two things One, the drama she brings it to people's
lives is not okay, and I have been putting up
with it simply because she was my oldest friend and
I would never allow anyone I met today to treat
me like the way she does.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Two.

Speaker 4 (53:24):
I didn't miss her. I've missed having someone to talk
to daily, but I didn't miss her. I would never
choose to be friends with her again. I heard through
the grapevine that she was very upset about this. She
called in October, but I let it go to voicemail
and she didn't leave a message, probably just checking to
see if I had blocked her. I haven't. I wouldn't
have mind talking to her again. But the friendship is over,
and after this story, our friendship will not be over.

(53:46):
It cannot be over.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Well, it would never, at least for forty eight consecutive days.
It will mess over.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Do these three steps. One go to your favorite podcast platform.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Two search up what Okay? Storytime?

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Three press play and listen to how many freaking days content?

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Forty eight?

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Yes, forty eights, And we have a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
I like leave your leader trash friends in the in
the past.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
And kind of considering I like this way of considering
what have I gained? What have I lost?

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Right?

Speaker 4 (54:15):
Yeah, yeah, you've freight up so much more mind space.
I have only had one other true friendship breakup that
was with a relatively new friend. Losing a friend of
thirty years has been hard, even with all of her drama.
She was my friend. We had so many inside jokes.
Feels crazy to lose a friend over a mistext and
not asking more questions about nursery colors. But my life
has been so much calmer without her in it. This

(54:36):
is the first time I've shared this in any public way,
but it feels good to ride out Valerie. I love you,
I don't miss you. I hope you can figure out
a way to be a better person so your kids
don't have to suffer the way you did. Dang boom,
big facts, big fat of Runo's Valerie.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
The better I love You, I don't miss you is
a crazy bar. Yeah, that's that's wild. Well yeah, and
that's actually a great example of like how to maturely
emotionally compute something like that. It's like, just because you're
no longer friends as somebody doesn't mean you have to
like hate them and be their absolute enemy. Hey y'all,

(55:13):
it's John og Host here.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
We're gonna get back to the stories, but here's a
quick three minute break from as form our sponsors.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
My friend is always jealous of my romantic relationships. It
ruined our friendship.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
We don't have to do everything together.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Jealousy, do be doing that. This is my first time
posting one of these, so I don't really know where
to start, so please bear with me for background information.
This individual and I were friends from the ages of
thirteen and fifteen. She had just turned fifteen, I was
about to turn fourteen and ended our relationship right before
I turned seventeen. We had met at a youth group
in my area when I was twelve, and I always

(55:49):
thought she was cool. By the way, this comes from
user neat improvement to six nine and if you want
to submit your own stories, go to the r slash
Okay storytime subreddit and submit them there. So she was
funny and invited me into her already established friend group
of about five people including herself. She and I were homeschooled,
but I went to a group co op and graduated
high school early and did early college. This girl and

(56:12):
I clicked from the beginning, but we didn't become friends
right away because I started dating someone in that group
that she hated. We'll call him Duke. Duke and I
were together for a little over a year, and for
us being so young, it was the most toxic relationship
I've ever been in. He would tell me that certain
people were toxic so that he could have me all
to himself. Wow, you're all mine, little kidden. Looking back

(56:36):
on it now, I realize why she hated him. Nevertheless,
he left me shattered in a million pieces with no
one to comfort me besides my parents as I shared
his friend group. Going to youth group was obviously hard
as Duke was there and the drama spread like wildfire.
I was left alone the majority of the night, and
no one wanted to sit by me because I'd become
the depicted crazy ex girlfriend. Nearing the end of that night,

(56:59):
my ex's best friend, Ashley came up to me to
comfort me. I looked at her with tears in my eyes,
so she took me to sit in her car, where
I started bawling to her about my ex boyfriend's situation.
From then on, we were bestief. We would to constantly
be at each other's houses and spend the night a lot,
and her mom even tutored me in one of my
classes as I struggled. The struggle was real. The first

(57:21):
two years of our friendship were great, but then she
started getting weird. She came out to me, which I
was like, that's fine, hey, you do you boo. But
I felt like the best friend things weren't best friend
things anymore. Sharing food, holding hands sometimes in public, sleepovers, cuddles,
et cetera. Were starting not to feel like they did before.

(57:42):
It felt as if Ashley was putting more meaning behind it.
I had made it clear to her that I was
and still am straight, and even though she said she knew,
it felt like she was hoping I would change my
mind or something. I ignored it for a while and
slowly started setting silent boundaries. No more sleepovers, cuddling, or handholding.
As I started to become uncomfortable with her behavior. But
her and my relationship we're still tight. We continued to

(58:03):
hang out at each other's house and hang out elsewhere
until late at night. One of those nights, while we
were hanging out, she had asked if I would ever
abandon her and leave her for someone else. I then replied,
no way, you're my bestie, but as we get older,
I will have more responsibilities. It might not be able
to hang out with you as much as we do now.
She stayed silent and didn't ask me again for a while.

(58:24):
I mean, like, that's real though, Like on a real level.
It's like you can be sixteen, you can be seventeen
and be like, are you gonna be my bestie forever?
And he can be like, yeah, we're gonna besties for life.
But it's like with the girlfriend, it's hard. Like Ashley
was looking for more than that. She was like, or
do you see me any way? Shape?

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Or for more than this? Yeah, because Ashley has a
real sean.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Ob point being is like, even if you do want
to be best friends with someone forever, it's like life
gets in the way a lot a lot of times.
And then also as people can change, I had a
friend who changed and we don't talk anymore. Fast forward
a few months, there was a dance my ex co
op was hosting that was coming up. I had asked
Ashley if she wanted to be my date, so to speak,
as I didn't have that many friends and didn't want
to show up alone. She's not the party type, but

(59:03):
I thought I would ask because she was my best
friend and I thought it was rude not to invite her.
Ashley actually declined, but I had already bought my ticket,
so I was going anyway. About a week after I
bought the ticket, the dance was now a few weeks out,
and I reconnected with a friend, Jamal from the co
op I graduated from several months prior. We reconnected on
social media and started dming back and forth a lot.

(59:24):
To be clear, I had a crush on him when
when we were at school together, but I never did
anything because I was with Duke then and decided to
be loyal. Actually noticed I was on my phone texting
a lot when we were hanging out, and jokingly snatched
my phone, asking who I was talking to, and started
reading the messages. Yeah, so that's that's not a joke.
If she just actually snatches your phone and reads your texts,

(59:46):
it's like not a prank. That's not a joke. She
did that, thank you. I love that. So yeah, she
just started reading my messages, which is again not a joke.
I asked her to return my phone and explained that
it was just an old friend who reached out. She
asked more about Jamal as so I gave her the
information she wanted. She told me to be careful, that
she didn't want another duke situation to happen to me.

(01:00:09):
I thought it was sweet that she was looking out
for me, but unfortunately that was not the case. Coincidentally,
Jamal and I were going to the same dance in
a few weeks, so naturally I talked to Ashley Moore
and more about him because I was excited and found
out I really liked him. However, even though I liked Jamal,
Ashley didn't at all. Even though I liked Jamal, Ashley

(01:00:31):
did not like him at all. When I would bring
him up, she would sigh or give me a dirty look,
would constantly make comments about we don't need men and
all men are trash. Yeah you go girl, Now, I
would say, many men are trash, but not all yep,
and definitely not Jamal. That was good, dude, got them all.
I've got it in the bag today. Dude, Ashley refused

(01:00:53):
to be happy for me in possibly finding a good
guy like Jamal. She would say, they always on you.
That's why I'm attracted to the theam Jannar. Fast forward
to the night of the dance. It was a winter
formal and I spent a few months making a dress
for this dance. Ooh ooh talented. It was so pretty,
but nothing crazy. I was getting ready on FaceTime with

(01:01:14):
Ashley and when I put the dress on and asked
what she thought, she said, I mean, it's all right.
Remember she knew that I had worked hard to make
said dress. I decided to do my makeup after putting
the dress on. It was white, but put a robe
on to ensure I didn't get makeup on it. While
doing my makeup, Ashley commented, you should just wear the
robe to the dance. You don't need to look good
for people that didn't matter and things like that. I

(01:01:35):
laughed it off, aha, and told her I had to
go because I was meeting with a group to eat
before we headed to the dance venue. I finally meet
up at the restaurant with Jamal again after not seeing
him for a long time. We clicked again, talked to
each other for the time there, and generally spent the
night at the dance together. We slow danced and talked
and just had a great night. There was a time

(01:01:57):
in one of our conversations, nearing the end of the night,
when I didn't know I would see him again, so
I just rushed in with the question, do you like me?
We talked for a while, realizing we had the same
feelings for each other, and became a couple that night.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Coming home excited, I told my parents and facetimed Ashley
to give her all the details. I see you in
the chat, she made it clear she was not that
excited for me. She was really dry and said that
she had to go to slave because I've work in
the morning. We shared schedules. She did not have work
until midafternoon. A couple of weeks later, on a call,
I was updating her on some fun things in Jamal
and I's new relationship when she cut me off and

(01:02:31):
said something that caught me off guard. I don't want
you to talk to me about Jamal anymore. I'm sorry,
he's literally all you talk about, Like, I'm sure there's
something more interesting to talk about than a dumb guy.
I'm sorry. I didn't know it made you so uncomfortable.
I guess I'll cut it back a bit, like he's
so ugly too, he's such a.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Rat doobey looking like her?

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
At huh?

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
Some dudes doo be looking like her atte. I could
show you one right now?

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
What what animal do I look like?

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
All right, here's one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
You realize that's you? Right. I don't really appreciate that
you're calling him ugly when you've never seen him in person. Well,
he is ugly, I can tell from that picture and
how your treatment is like you're with dic Holiver.

Speaker 4 (01:03:18):
Oh, stop comparing him to do what?

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
And she goes, you really need to know exactly who
these people are before you make them your bite tie
And I go, Okay, hang on, you've never met this man,
so how can you say it's like Duke all over again?
And I get we have very different ideas of what
we find attractive, but the fact that you're calling Jamal
ugly is not okay. And even if he was ugly,
you keep that to yourself because he treats me right

(01:03:43):
and I'm happy with him. Also, the fact that I
can't talk to my best friend about my boyfriend that
i'm happy with is conorinez. I think we should put
our friendship on pause until you're less bitter about Jamal
and I and can be a good friend regardless of
how you feel. Well, when all you talk about is
them all, it gets really annoying. You always turn your
relationships into your whole person, not you did it with Duke,

(01:04:06):
and I'm not better. I'm just annoyed and hurt by
you fall wannting him and shoving him in my face
when I told you, Hiel, I've done nothing but voice
myke concerns and you just ignore them. Well, I'm sorry
you don't feel heard when this is the first time
you've ever said anything about being uncomfortable with our relationship,
and even if you did before, I've always considered what

(01:04:26):
you say because your opinion has always been the most important.
But when you pull things like this, I find it
difficult to side with you. I think we should take
a break from each other for a bit. You know
how I feel about friendships where their friends are we're not,
and you sad you'd never abund a Matt. Abandonment is
one person not knowing the other has left. But you, Ashley,
know that I'm leaving yo. And by the way, you

(01:04:47):
don't ever have to leave us, because there are full
episodes with stories like this one. All you have to
do is go to your podcast platform of choice, whether
it's Spotify, whether it's Apple Podcasts, whether it's YouTube, whether
it's iHeart Radio, wherever you get your podcast, Just search
Okay story Time and you will find forty eight days,
which is over eleven hundred hours worth of content of

(01:05:09):
stories that you can listen to. We have not talked
since that encounter. It's been about a year since all
this went down, But I need an opinion. Am I
the a hole for ending a three year friendship over
a guy? I would say no, no, because honestly, like.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
There're probably a lot more red flags.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
It doesn't sound like a best friend forever type scenario. Yeah,
and like you're about to graduate. Your whole life is
about to completely change forever, and a lot of the
friendships that we have in that era of our lives
do not always transfer over. So it's okay, Yeah, Yeah,
it's okay.

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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;}My boyfriend REFUSED to marry me… because he promised his late wife! - r/BORUpdates | Reddit Stories