My husband’s mother disrespected me… so I made him choose between us! | Reddit Stories - ok storytime

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

Speaker 2 (00:03):
And we've last owed in some amazing stories for y'all
the Okay Storytime podcasts.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
But before that we got a wrangle, a quick little
two minute outbreak from those bucking sponsors.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
We bucking love so much they're paying us the bucks
to help this show stay alive. My husband's mother insulted me,
so I made him choose between us.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Choose your mother or me.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
It looks like we're gonna have two different posts perspectives here,
because the first part says wife's post February twenty third,
twenty twenty five. I thirty one female and my fiance,
thirty six male, are set to get married in July
of this year. We met through a mutual friend earlier
last year. Into our relationship progressed quickly. He's literally the
perfect guy, but the problem is his mother. Katie, Katya Katie.

(00:51):
By the way, this comes from user a Life Championship
five four zero and if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the r slash Okay Storytime stub
bred it. Katie. It has been critical of me since
day one. She often tells my husband that he could
do better and that I'm just an educated slummer. I
could usually disregard her, but when she proposed, she went

(01:13):
to a whole new level. The main incident occurred when
we went to visit her a few days ago to
announce our engagement. My future husband excitedly showed her the ring,
but she just grimaced. She looked at him and I repeat, said,
are you really going to marry that R word? Gold digger?

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Jesus, Mom's evil. This mom's evil. Mom's evil.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Maybe tackle your mom. My husband laughed nervously and we
left quickly after a little context. I have high functioning autism.
It doesn't affect me too much on a daily basis,
but I have trouble interpreting emotion. After we got home,
I sobbed and asked my husband to tell his mom
this needs to stop. He didn't say much, just that
he loves me and he will get better, but he

(01:54):
can't say anything to his mom.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Why can't he say anything to his mom? Is he
a little baby?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Sounds like it. When I pushed for answers, he said
he can't do anything about it and left. His sister
sent me a text later telling me I can't make
him choose between me and his mother. I'm so confused
because I literally didn't even ask him to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Is this man congress because his hands are tied.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Because he's useless? M Is there something I'm missing? Am I?
The A whole has no consensus? OP was not the
A hole? Yeah? Ohp, he's not the A hole there
as someone else who was diagnosed. You very clearly are
missing a non verbal cue from your fiance, and it
probably means that he doesn't care about his mom acting
like that to you comment or too, not the A whole.
You aren't making him choose his mommy is comment with
three Roden, don't entertain the idea of marrying this butt hat.

(02:38):
He doesn't deserve you. If my mom ever said anything
of this sort to my spouse, she'd never see me
or hear from me again. Major red flags. He isn't
appalled and confronting it on site. I'm just saying, girl,
you don't want to deal with that the rest of
your life, and you definitely don't want to deal with
that during a divorce. Asking to be treated with respect
by your future husband's family is honestly the bare minimum

(02:59):
and goes without saying he and his family don't seem
to have the capacity to do that, and that's embarrassing
for them. You deserve so much better than that. Please, please, please,
do not waste your time thinking it will change or
get better. It won't. They are showing you who they are.
Believe them, you will be better off. And we have
an update from two days after Sophia. What would you do?

(03:21):
What would you do? I would not.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
I don't think that you necessarily have to break up
with this person immediately, but I do think that no
marriage should be, you know, started, if this man can't
stand up to for you, or stand up to his.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Mom, if he's married a child, he's married to his mom.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Right well, I think just right now, he's still acting
like his his mom is a dependent to his mom. Basically,
he's like, oh what I can't I got I got it,
I can talk back.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
She's going to take away my take away, my video
doing okay. Update. My fiance came home the next morning
two days ago and started acting like everything was normal.
He didn't even mention the fight that we had. Finally,
that night I sat him down and asked him why
he was acting like things were normal. He responded that
it was just a minor fight, and we shouldn't dwell

(04:09):
on it. This may be mad because it was a
big deal for me. Fight made me question our relationship.
I told him this, and he scoffed. In that moment,
I looked at him and I asked him, is it
really not a big deal that your mother called me
the urseler and a gold digger? He just scoffed again
and said something about her getting older and not knowing
what that meant.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Oh, you dumb, me so dumb, You're so dumb.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Just couldn't keep going. I was done. His mother is
sixty three years old and acts the same way she
did when I met her years ago. I packed a bag,
called my friend to pick me up, and left. I've
been staying at her place since then. Not sure where
my life is headed. Now it's headed to not dating
this guy who is, like I don't know, in love
with his mom more than you. Top comments number one.
Your life has headed to freedom and happiness. Your boyfriend

(04:57):
can remain tied to mommy forever. Maybe she can even
learned to do that thing he really likes.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Okay, Well we didn't have to say okay.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Commenter two. He knows that it wasn't a minor fight.
He just knows that you're in the right about it
and doesn't want to address it. Number three seems to
me your life is moving in a better direction away
from your mama's boy who clearly doesn't respect you and
will never stand up to you. Comment number four, Good
for you for standing up for yourself. I'm proud of you.
It feels dark and difficult right now, and it's okay

(05:24):
to grieve the loss of the relationship and the person
he was. Eventually, you'll find yourself feeling much lighter without
that weight dragging you down. I don't mean, I mean
the way his mom and then he made you feel,
and you'll find your happiness again. The number two two
days later, once again, let's get into it to dive in.

(05:44):
Am I eagle for choosing my mom over my fiance? WHOA?

Speaker 4 (05:51):
It's the perspective alert, alert, perspective. We're about to find
out if the supers this perspective was just wildly off base.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I doubt it, and I doubt it. I think mommy boy,
mommy boy, mommy mommy mommy boy. So a mommy boy,
Hey rat it? Yesterday my friend sent me a post
on this subreddit that was made by my fiance. She
totally makes me look like a villain, so I just
have to say my side. We've been dating for a
while now and it's been great, aside from the past
few days. My mother's sixty three female is a single

(06:28):
mother that raised me and my sister alone. She's always
been the most supportive mother ever and I love her
to the end of the world. She is getting on
in her years now. Sixty three is not that old buddy.
She is getting on in her years now and is
not the same person she was. She has always been
a little overprotective of me, and so she has never
fully accepted my fiance. I didn't think it was that
big of a deal since she doesn't say anything directly

(06:49):
to my fiance. Last weekend, when we were announcing our
engagement at her house, my mom wasn't too thrilled, and
I admit she made a rude remark regarding my fiel's auntis.
We left quickly after, and I comforted my fiance for
over an hour. Over an hour, dude, I heard, like
over an hour doing what I was doing. The most

(07:13):
I've made up for it.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
Does she want two hours Jesus, I have a life.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
I ordered her takeout, made a bath for her, and
put on a movie. I explained to her that my
mom is getting older and doesn't have full control of
what she says.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Sixty three.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
My fiance kept pushing and I eventually snapped and told
her I can't do anything about it. I'm not sure
my fiance understands because she doesn't have a close bond
with her mom. I stayed at my mom's house and
went back in the morning. Long argument short. My fiance
started blowing the comments my mother made way out of proportion,
not even bothering to mention her age. Like I said,

(07:50):
my mom is old now. She doesn't understand this fully.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
She's soul. Well, she's like ancient.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
She left and I haven't seen her since. Her friend
comes contacted me and said, I'm the ale for choosing
my mom over her. I'm not choosing my mom over
her though, and we're still getting married. So and are
the a hole? Old buddy? Do I have some news
for You're? All right? So we gave him his trial
Boil boy, the jury jury, what do we think guilty?

(08:20):
That says op was heavily voted You're the a hole.
What I didn't even need to see that. I want
to see the comments. Okay, let's go Commenter one, You
are the e fing a hole. Your mom called your
autistic Beyonce and Ursler gold digger. How is that not
a big deal? There is no good fing excuse for

(08:42):
your mom to call her that. And I'm not buying
the whole age excuse because my mom is five years
younger than yours and she's very much alert and aware
of what isn't isn't okay to say to other people.
Unless your mom has early onset dementia, she knows exactly
what the f she's doing. You're an fing mommy's boy
who can't stay end up for your fiance's dignity. Effing

(09:03):
pathetic shame upon you, shame stinging shame number two. Age
is not an excuse to be a crappy person. After
sixty three years, your mother doesn't have the self control
to keep rude comments to herself. You absolutely could have
done something. You chose not to defend your fiance because
you're too busy hanging on mommy's teat. You're the a

(09:26):
hole and your fiance dodged in efing nuke number three.
Perhaps you should have remained quiet and let us think
you're a butt instead of posting and removing all doubts.
That's truly commentary for the whole point of getting married
is to create a new immediate family. That means your
wife and future kids are your number one priority, and cousins,
uncles and parents are a second or third priority. I

(09:48):
speak from experience where my aging mother is also a filterless,
discriminatory ahle who spoke down on my Filipino wife. Guess
what I did. I chewed her about and gave her
one opportunity to make it right. You only got one
shut Do not miss your chance to blow. My mom
can't control her tongue, so I've since gone no contact.
It's been nine years since I last spoke to her,

(10:09):
and my wife and I just celebrated our eleventh anniversary.
You're the a hole and will always be the a
hole until you put your wife first. Always. Now go
beg for forgiveness with your fiance. Chew your mom out
and tell her she's got one chance to apologize or
she loses her son. Otherwise, you don't deserve your fiance.
And we've got another update from the wife because definitely
little cry baby mama boy is not going to have

(10:31):
the guts to update his post.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
This is start off with I so I'm not getting
married anymore. I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
I'm crossing my fingers. Wife's post. February twenty seventh, twenty
twenty five. Final update. As some of you may have seen,
my fiance posted and am I the a hole post
earlier today. I haven't seen him since our last fight.
He was pretty much getting destroyed in the comments, so
that made me feel a little better. Here's a link
to the post. So after this post, he calls me,

(11:01):
and like an idiot, I picked up and let me
tell you, this man did not sound stable. First he
was crying, begging for me back. Then he was screaming
at me to get the f back here. It was
heartbreaking to hear the man I thought I was gonna marry.
He sounds so psycho. I recorded the call just in
case I needed evidence, and then I hung up and
blocked him everywhere and by the way, you can listen

(11:21):
to full episodes with stories like this practically everywhere like
iHeartRadio and Spotify and Apple podcasts and any other podcast
platform that you can listen to with your ears. Just
search okay story time and you will find day's fifty
one fifty one day, fifty one days in counting worth
of stories. And that's not eight hour days, that's twenty

(11:42):
four hour days. That is a lot. We have a
little bit of story left. Do we have anything else here?

Speaker 4 (11:47):
No, you dodded a really.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Big Yes, you dodged a nuclear bomb shaped bullet.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
You dodged an asteroid.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
We do that all the time. I mean like as
a planet. As a planet, we don't really dodging and
ask you're so, you're very You're a natural.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
A city, a city killing asteroid.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
About an hour later, he shows up to my friend's house,
acting crazy and saying some things I can't repeat here.
I called the police, and after they took him away,
I left to stay at a hotel. My friend has
been really supportive, but I can't put her in danger.
I hope this is the final update, But if anything
else happens, is there a different sub I can post in.
I feel like I'm deviating from amid a hole. Sorry

(12:26):
if this isn't edited properly. I just can't with life today,
and again, thanks for all the support. It truly means
more than I could ever say. And we have some
more comments to finish it off. Number one kind of
sounds like your dodge to the crazy bullet. Number two.
Just read your ex fiance's post, what a spineless mama's boy.
Good for you for finally seeing you deserve so much
better than settling for him and his mommy. Number three?

(12:49):
Can his mommy put him in time out? Number four?
Oh no, the consequences of my actions. That's that's a
quote from him, and that is the end of that.
Wowry wow, wow wow. And I feel the need to
readdress that. When I made that joke, when I said,
what is she the ursler? I was speaking in character
as the husband. I want no backlash from that? Whatsoever?

(13:13):
Do it? None? Ansel, I want zero backlash from that.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
You just tune character.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Man. I'm committed to the bit. Literally on my Hinge profile,
I said, my love language is committing to the bit. Okay,
how's that going? Not well?

Speaker 4 (13:28):
My mother in law guilt tripped my husband to attend
a party then excluded me.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Sounds like she got exactly what she wanted.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Missus Bennett and the family wedding. Hey there, usually I
stick to the comments and the tiny rant thread, but
I figured this was a good time to post. Tell
me how to feel my mother in law, henceforth, missus Bennett.
I don't think we've had a Missus Bennett yet, and
I've been here quite a while. It's just like her
name would suggest, overbearing, obsessed with whatever life milestone she

(13:57):
thinks her son should be having, but not her daughter's.
Strangely enough, and such a martyr that I don't know
why she bothers living indoors, considering all the time she
spends up on her cross bonas she belongs to a
mega creepy mega church. By the way, this comes from
the Wasted Unicorn. And if you want to smit your
own stories, go to our slash okay storytime.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Separate it.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
So, my husband and I are both in our mid thirties,
married several years without children. She and his guilt about
her widowhood is the major reason I hesitate to impale
myself on his unsheathed sword of manhood. Also, I like
soft cheese and booze.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
What also I like soft cheese and boo I mean
so do I very important information there.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
He has one older sister from whom he is estranged,
but both the sister and Missus Bennett are in denial
about this. Mister Bennett is passed away from a freak
medical accident. I only met him once and I will
forever wonder if he was cool or a total ennabler.
My relationship with Missus Bennett and my tolerance for her
antics went to crap when he passed away. Please trust
me when I say that she is of the deaths

(14:58):
from a thousand cuts, and I am effing done. I
have not seen her in a year and a half.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Anyway, I love the intelligence oozing from Op's writing.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yeah, Missus Bennett is love bombing and image obsessed, which
means she has a lot of creepily ameshed family friend
Their family party line is that so and so has
really been there for the Bennett family in hard times.
She refers to them as part of the family, including
his sister, calling the mother of variation on mom and
their last name. She uses this as a reason to
try to obligate my husband and to a lesser extent me.

(15:31):
I suppose he's supposed to get me in line to
do things with and for this family that we never
see and a small part of whom we both flat
out loave. Oh the incidental stories I could tell of
front airbag jobs, pja's weddings and gender reveals.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Oh oh.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
The latest deal is that he had been invited to
a wedding clear across the country from this family, both
of us. Despite missus Bennett swearing it must have been
an honest mistake, it's pretty clear to me that even
if it is a mistake, my husband simply does not
interact with any of them enough for them to realize
he's married. He's also offended on our behalf. But I'm
contending with his mother a offering to pay for him

(16:07):
to go be guilting the crap out of him, because
embly it will somehow look bad if he doesn't fly
across country to attend the wedding of these people. He
doesn't even wish a happy birthday on Facebook. He seems
to be buying the people will be disappointed if I
don't go party line. I've told him I really appreciate
it if he didn't go, mistake or not. On principle,
he also told his mother, who told him it would

(16:28):
mean so much. Fute read it would make me look
good if you go that he'd prefer to just visit
her for a birthday, which is coming up around the
same time and is cheaper. Side note, she's always guilting
him about her financial situation. No, he does not contribute.
That's a hill to pass away on for me. He
does not contribute to like your expenses.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, maybe like they just are very militant about finances.
I can't tell true meaning of that.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Yet She'll spend five hundred dollars plus for him to
fly out for this wedding, and she spends two hundred
dollars to three hundred dollars on each of us for
birthdays and Christmas despite my protests.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
So this is effing b oh Okay, I think I
get it. I think it's more like she's like, we
can't be giving your mom money. Yeah, and then but
her mom keeps giving them stuff that costs a lot
of money, and she's like, stop doing this because we
don't want to owe you. We know what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
So what would you do or say to him anything? Nothing?
I do realize she's my beec, so I could be
overthinking it, But what's BCEC? I also accept creative things
to fling at her while she's up on her cross
of loving too much and there is an update. My
husband left me for his mother or Missus Bennett and
the end of my marriage. Whoa, we found the problem.

(17:43):
First of all, thanks so much for the comments. On
the plus side, I guess now I don't have to
keep quiet about Missus Bennett out of fear of my
husband finding out and getting offended. My mom has been
here taking care of me and cleaning my apartment for me.
She's amazing. I've been to the doctor to get my
own health taken care of because I don't haven't durant anymore,
and I let my friends know what's going on. As
for a legal.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Referral, okay, pause, that acronym basically just means that it's
a person who everything that they do annoys you. Interesting.
What does this stand? It stands for B word eating crackers.
I think is like internet learing. Like I'm old now.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Also, I have accepted a job as a literary agent.
This is an absolute dream of mine. Very cool, but
since that income is sales based, I will be working
freelance and part time. I have an interview at a
bookstore on Tuesday to try and make ends meet.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Buckle down.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
This is long. Here's what led up to the showdown.
Husband had to have some surgery. It was minorish, but
it had been causing him a great deal of pain.
This was a little slash, a lot scary. His father
passed away unexpectedly after surgery. But hey, this is what
people get married for. Only it's cool that I'm there
for moral support, but missus Bennett.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Needs to be there, you guys.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
He went for a week or more, never mentioning it,
to suddenly having to having to have her there lest
you pass away. I knew what this was. Once again,
his mother had pushed all of his preprogrammed buttons to
make him feel like he'd be better off if she
were just there to control supervis thing. She tried to
tell him her non medical experience was vital to his survival.
He wants had a bad reaction to a post anesthesia

(19:13):
medication and she was present and alerted the staff. Definitely
not something the law school educated woman whom he is
married to could handle. This became a make it or
break a fight where eventually he decided that he would
tell her to stay home. We would go to marriage
counseling after the surgery, which I've been asking for years,
and other important stuff. I felt rather hopeful, like he

(19:34):
was finally hearing me.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Oohoo.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Was she unhappy? She kept insisting on coming up, despite
him telling her no repeatedly. Then she insisted that he
fill out paperwork so that she would be privy to
his medical records, since that darn oh hippo would get
in the way. I don't know if he ever did.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
That.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Surgery day arrived, and during pre op, my husband asked
me to text his mother if the surgeon ran particularly late.
I agreed it was fifteen minutes, so I didn't. I
hugged him goodbye and sent him off to be dissected,
then waited anxiously. The surgery went fine. They sent me
back to the recovery room a half hour later. I
kept thinking they'd call me back any second, and he
groggily asked me in to text her to tell her

(20:11):
it went fine. She immediately texted back very specific questions
of a medical nature that were frankly none of her
goddang business. So I ignored them and figured I'd let
my husband decide if he wanted to share details. Five
minutes later, a couple of nurses came to the recovery
room and said to his maiden nurse, apparently husband's mother
is on the phone wanting to talk to him. She

(20:32):
actually called the surgery center. She actually interrupted busy nurses
and office staff because she didn't get her nosy questions answered.
The nurses saw the oh not this crap again, look
on my face, you know the one, the one that
says I will incinerate her with the power of my mind,
and had a telepathic conversation with each other. Finally, one said, husband,
would you like us to tell her you're doing fine?

(20:53):
We need your permission. He groaned and gave them the
thumbs up. The main older nurse said, oh, is your
mother overbearing? He growned again and didn't deny it. The
nurse chuckled and said, I noticed your wife isn't saying
a word. So is your mother a nurse or a doctor? No,
he said she was a non medical job taking place
in a hospital for years. The nurse looked at him.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
And just laughed. Hmmm. She said meaningfully, yes, hmmmm, mom
sucks M My mom sucks M.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
So we went home and I took care of him
as best as I could. The next day, he decided
he was ready to eat something more substantial and told
me this just as I had gotten out of the shower. Well,
we'd been grocery shopping the day before the sougeries surgery. Well,
we'd been grocery shopping the day before the surgery, so
we had bland food on him. None of this was
what he wanted. He wanted me to go get a
rotiserie chicken from the grocery store.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Now, I want the rough tissery chicken from the grocery store.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
I said I would, but right now my hair was
wet and I wasn't ready to go out yet. Or
I could saw some chicken from the freezer and make that. Well,
this started with the tantrum. He went to the store anyway.
Don't worry, he was only taking ibuprofen. I wouldn't have
let him drive otherwise. And came back angry.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Wait, you could just go to the store anyway at
this point, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
And you're trying to make your wife do You're mad.
You're mad that your wife just got out of the shower.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
I had to take five hundred milligrams of ibuprofe and
to get down there.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Okay, when she was offering to make you literally any
other food girl up brother the next day, guess who
didn't listen and actually drove up here anyway up his mother.
Apparently he saw her, confronted her about the calling the
surgery center, and she told him I hadn't texted until
she called. This is not true, but I'm willing to
believe that perhaps she didn't receive my text until ben.

(22:34):
When I asked why he was acting weird, he accused
me of lying because he's seen the phone logs from
his mother, not having his back during the surgery, not
texting his mother. As soon as I knew he was okay,
which I should have known to do. Making it all
about me making a power play, he screamed at me,
told me I was being manipulative. When I burst into
tears and what I said, I was entitled to my feelings.

(22:55):
He yelled, well, whooped in you? In the nastiest voice
I'd ever heard of. It's sort of funny now, but
holy crap, I was stun It's funny that that.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Was whipped and I never ever heard him speak to
me like that.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Then he announced he wanted a divorce, and there we are. Later,
I realized that he had spent the time I was
at book club packing his crap and loading it into
his car. Since then, I've read a bunch of books
on emotional and verbal abuse and realized that, holy crap,
I've been in a verbally and financially harmful marriage and
had no idea. So that's where we are now. I

(23:31):
do not want him back. It hit me last night that,
holy crap, I don't have to deal with Missus Bennett
and her over gifting during my birthday and Chris mats this,
as you can imagine, has been an incredible belief. The
financial stuff is weighing heavily on me, but at least
I don't have to put up with her abuse anymore.
I'm terrified today again, but man, it would be nice
to have regular, spicy sleep once more. Guess what else

(23:53):
I wasn't getting in my marriage but thought Slash was
told it was my fault.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
I think, I think, I know.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Thanks again for all your kindness and wisdom folks. I
wouldn't be able to do this without you all. And
there is an update. Okay, yeah, I think this was
the best way to go about it.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Though, Yeah, I mean, were you going to stay with him. Yeah, no,
and was he couldn't clearly not, so he just kind
of got it out of the way.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
He got Yeah, he let you free. He freed you
from this terrible family and marriage free at.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Last, Dobby Free.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
It's been a year and a half and it's still
so painful. Trigger warning fertility self harming thoughts not acted
upon in anyway. About a year and a half ago,
my soon to be ex husband left me for his mother.
She has been horrible for years, and we had fought
bitterly about her crazy for his mother.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
It's even crazier, though, is that it's not even it's
that's accurate.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
That is accurate, among other things. But then she meddled
during a minor surgery I had had it, refused to
play their game, and he ended up leaving. It was
awful and traumatic. I realized he had been verbally, emotionally
and financially harmful for years. I thought I just deserved
it all, and I've been recovering ever since. In a
lot of ways, life is so much better now, but
I don't know how to get over one thing, and

(25:08):
that is he specifically knew I wanted children. I married
him because that was our general plan barring fertility issues
and other things out of one's control. But he left
me right before my thirty fourth birthday thirty five almost
thirty six now, and I'm just so sad and worried
that I'll never get to have kids. Mother's Day this
year was so painful that the panicky voice in the

(25:28):
back of my head was nearly self I am not
self harming, but one of the fun manifestations of my
panic disorder is that my brain is like self harming thoughts.
I have been in CBT and aware of it being
part of my brain being an ale I won't act
on it other than crying in bed for.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
A while, but it's there and it's awful.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
A lot of these worries are exacerbated by the fact
that I have had trouble finding steady work. On paper,
I am wildly overqualified for most of the work I
apply for, but I can't seem to convince employers that
all I want is a steady, full time job at
a living wage. During my marriage, my contributions were devalued
two so while I have slowly he started building a
reputation in my dream career over the year and a half,

(26:03):
since he left, I'm still working five jobs, have crushing
student loans, can't quite make ends meet, and keep hearing
my ex's voice in my head. They won't hire you.
You shouldn't bother. You need to get a job. You're
a train No not that job. No, you won't be
able to do that. I wrote you a cover letter,
but don't you dare edit or I will punish you
with passive aggression for days on end. Why are you

(26:23):
spending so much money on groceries? It costs too much
to support you. My mother sent you a job posting
for your former career. It will require reactivating your license
and us moving six hours to be near. Why aren't
you applying?

Speaker 1 (26:32):
You know the drill? That guy sounds like yea yeah,
real piece of work. Yeah yeai.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
So while I actually love being on my own and
I have met a man who has taught me what
a loving relationship is like, did you know there are
people out there who genuinely love spending time with you
and giving you attention and affection is something they like
to do. I didn't. I'm still in limbo. Even if
we were ready to have children and our relationship and
we're not, and not in any place to financially do it.

(26:58):
I'm having a hard time believing I ever will be.
It hurts so bad, and there are times, especially Mother's Day,
where I feel such rage. He once flat out said
he was going to leave, but felt bad because I
wanted kids and he knew my time was running out.
Then he'd pretend to be interested in working on the
marriage and kept me on the hook.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
For two more years.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
As always, this was my fault. Grateful I never had
children with him. On the other hand, it's so hard
to know he gets everything he wants, his money, his career,
his mommy, his new girlfriend, and their dogs. Ex mother
in law refers to herself as Grammy to the dogs.
Barf and I get to completely start over with nothing,
But you know it's not nothing listening to full episodes

(27:39):
of stories just like this. Just go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
or i Art Radio and search a Pokes story time.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
You are not starting over with nothing.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
You're absolutely not. I mean, you're thirty six. That is
not at all like you. Your life is just beginning.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
You've gone from. This is what I have available to me.
This is my sliver, narrow eye, liver of the world. Now,
it's so many options, risk could go all the way around.
It'd be like you have the whole the whole globe.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Yeah, you're currently dating a guy, you know, and if
you being in a place where you can have children
when you're forty, then maybe it's time, you know, maybe
we think of an adoption. You know, there are many
different options if biological children are not you know, possible.
But there is a little bit left to the story.
The worst part is that it's invisible pain. So it's
not like I can point to a physical wound and say, well,

(28:23):
it looks so much better than in this time last year.
I think people expect me to be over it by now,
after all, we didn't have kids. How do you deal
with this without being so bitter? Does it get better?
Please tell me it gets better.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
It gets better. Yeah, it just takes time.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
I mean, you're in a marriage, takes more. It's going
to take more than a year.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
But it'll get better. But that is the end of
that story. Maybe like maybe like move somewhere else, like
a different start, start a new life. I mean, having
your support steps Like tattoo is about I have tattoo
that says a man is no one, and it means
that you can just go do whatever. At any point,
you can wipe the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
I mean, you don't live in yourself. You have no
limits right now.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, you can go do anything you want.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
But also you know your support Hopefully you have a
support system, and if you do, then you know rely
on them. But that is the end of that story.
So we're going to jump into NEXTI good.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Hey, it's Sam, your ogi host here reading it. Back
to the stories. But here's three minutes bads from our sponsor.
My friend is manipulative. She turned our friends against me.
You a little bit about me before we get into
the story. I am antisocial and have autism. I can't
read people's emotions as well as most people. I get
hyperactive over little things. I have bad social skills. I
copy from other people, so I'm like a shadow. I

(29:33):
also don't like big groups of people, and I prefer
my small group of close friends. I've said this a
few times before the whole problem started, so I never
used this as an excuse, though, but I thought the
group understood.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yes they didn't.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
By the way, this comes from round programmer nine four four.
If you want to submit your own stories. Go to
our slash Okay story times. I wrote it so, I
nineteen female, had a friend group that I had known
for over three years. At the start of it, it
was myself and sick other guys. The guys in this
group often described me as the light or the party
of the group, one being my boyfriend, another being my

(30:07):
best friend, and the rest being pretty good and close friends,
or so I thought. My best friend and I became
best friends after ten months of meeting online, and this
will become important. Keep in mind he started calling me
his best friend first. This is also important. For most
of the time, I wish there were females in the group,

(30:27):
which we did have for some time, but they would
turn toxic or pick on me for some reason. This
changed when two girls joined the group about a year
and a half later.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
I was very.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Excited to have them and we became good friends right away.
August twenty twenty four comes around, and this is where
things started to get weird. Girl two of the group
was dating another guy in the group when she first joined.
When we met them in May twenty twenty four, we
found out they had been dating for just over three years.
While Girl two was social loud, nice and everything. The

(31:00):
eye was quiet, shy, mostly kept to himself. Not too
long after, another guy joined the group and Girl too
started talking too and getting close to him. About two
months later, the couple broke up and she got even
closer to new guy. In August, she got upset because
he ghosted her. And this time my boyfriend and I
drove from Queensland to Victoria. I think that's Australia, nearly

(31:21):
a day's trip to see our good friend, who I
will call Guy one from now on. As we sat
around the table, Guy one was texting Girl Too and
later asked it would be okay if she would come over.
My boyfriend and I said sure, and we went to
pick her up. The airbnb we were staying at had stairs.
This is also important, A lot of important detail, of
important details, lots of them. For the first night we

(31:43):
had together, all was good, all was well. The next
day we went shopping for food and drinks for all adults,
and we got back, had dinner, and this was when
we started drinking and things started to get a little exciting.
My boyfriend was the only one sober. Guy one got
a little tipsy and Girl two got wasted. Started looking
after her, though tipsy myself like having her still on

(32:04):
the couch. She was sitting on a stool and was
swaying and I didn't want her to fall. Well, we
started playing truth or Dare, and Guy one asked my
boyfriend to dare him, and Guy one and Girl Too kissed.
I was excited about because Guy one hadn't dated anyone
in five years.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay, so I guess this is good.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
But so far everyone's getting saucy, but nothing as bad
as that'll kissy you a little fun, But it's fun
so far.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
The night went well, and after a little more drinking,
Guy one carried Girl two up the stairs to the
room and slept with her. The next morning came around
and all was well since there wasn't any throwing up,
surprisingly to me because it was the first time drinking.
And during the day, Girl Too would go up and
down the stairs as normal, but there would be times

(32:47):
she would freeze at the stairs, as if she had
just seen a crime. Guy one would then come pick
her up and take her to their room, where at
least five minutes later, my boyfriend and I would hear
roars of laughter, not from I won, but from Girl too,
as if she had just heard the most hilarious joke.
My boyfriend got a little upset due to them spending
two hours together each time this happened, and since we

(33:10):
drove all the way there for him to spend time
with Guy one, I would either spend time with the
girls or go see my mom. My boyfriend told me
how he felt, to which I responded, you should talk
to him, not to me. This is your friendship. My
boyfriend did talk to him and got Guy one to
come outside and chat, leaving me and Girl two alone.
She was on her drawing pad while I was doing

(33:31):
dishes after cooking dinner for them. A few minutes went
by and she asked what the boys were talking about.
I responded, don't know, probably guy talk. She scoffed and
went back to her drawing pad. Another few minutes past
and she asked again, to which I gave the same response.
And during this time I tried to talk to her,
but she only gave me short answers and continued drawing.
It had been thirty minutes when she scoffed, what the

(33:52):
f are they talking about?

Speaker 1 (33:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
My boyfriend just wanted to talk to him. They should
include us, though I just shrugged and Girl Too was
getting a little while my boyfriend was looking at his phone.
I said to Girl Too, I'll ask if we can
join Pop my head outside asked we come out, which
they said sure. We joined them. We started talking about
what we were going to do the next day. Guy
one just a walk. Girl Too then said what about
me and op and they Guy one said you can

(34:17):
join it? Are you girls can join? Guy one responded,
she scoff saying you could have at least asked.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
We just looked at each other and afterward we left
to bed.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
The next couple of days went by and Girl Too
continued acting up at the stairs, freezing, having Guy one
pick her up, going to their room and five minutes
later there'll be roars of laughter. They wouldn't come out
for at least an hour. What is going on?

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah, I'm confused? What is going on? Very confused?

Speaker 2 (34:46):
We left for our next airbnb and Girl two went
back home, which funnily enough, also had stairs. Guy one
and then asked my boyfriend and me to sit down
for a chat. In a nutshell, Guy one asked if
he should ask Girl Too to be his girlfriend. I
excitedly said yes, but my boyfriend explained why he should
wait a bit longer. During this time, Girl Too was

(35:06):
calling and messaging NonStop, asking if she could come over.
I lost count after the seventh call and message in
a few minutes. This went on for another thirty minutes
before Guy One silenced his phone, to which my boyfriend said,
and this is why I LOVOP. She respects my space.
He only calls me once and messages to me once,
and if I don't respond, she won't call me again
until I call her back, unless it's the emergency, I added,

(35:27):
and Guy one understood and thanked us for talking. Girl
Too eventually came over and guess what, she was fine
with the stairs the entire two days she was with us.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Stairs are okay? After what awe is happening with the stairs?
Very mysterious stairs.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Now moving on to September twenty twenty four, Girl One's birthday,
My group and I were the first few to arrive.
At first, I was enjoying myself talking and socializing. However,
when things got crowded, I started to be antisocial. I
stayed with my group and sometimes went on my phone
as some of them did too.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
The party.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
A few of my friends would disappear, so I would
go looking for them to make sure they were okay.
At some point, Guy one went missing for some time,
which worried Girl too is now girlfriend I feel like
maybe he's going to Girl one. We found him in
the bathroom taking a crap.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
There were also games, but I mostly stayed back. There
was gohu t to my boyfriend, and I just help
one of the friends while making our own guesses. We
were kind of in the game, but also not really.
At the end, we had to pack up. Part of
my autism is that if you tell me to leave
in one minute, I think we were leaving in one minute.
I asked Girl one when we were leaving, and she
said after we pack up, so about thirty minutes. I

(36:35):
helped for thirty minutes, asked again and she responded, we'll
leave in twenty. That turned into an hour and a half.
We took different cars to the airbnb, which can you guess,
had stared stairs, stairs, stairs, our back stairs. At this time,
Girl one also had stitches on her leg. The place
we were saying was an apartment on the top floor,

(36:57):
meaning several flights of stairs. Girl two was fine going
up and down until at night we got back and
she almost tripped. I don't blame her for how she acted,
but what was interesting was that when Guy one grabbed
the keys and unlocked the door to the stairs, she
was back to her cheerful self. This is also another
guy from the group arrived. He stayed in the place
with us, but was just leaving the next day. As

(37:18):
he was getting ready to leave in the next few hours,
he let us know and we acknowledged it. A couple
hours later we remind us again. Girl Too and Guy
Too went to the bathroom. Since Girl who had stitches,
she couldn't get her leg wet, so she said it
would take around thirty minutes. Thirty minutes past it still
don't come out. An hour before our friend had to
leave and still nothing. Then after he left, they finally
came out, and later I found out from a friend

(37:39):
that at the party Girl Too and Guy To I
told him very harshly that he couldn't come back with
us and had to figure out his own way to
his place because there was no room the Airbnb. Ooh,
good thing is, yeah, couldn't go up the stairs. The
thing is Airbnb could fit ten people and there were
only seven of us eight, including our friend. During our stay,
Girl one slip on the couch. Well, Guy one and

(38:01):
Girl Too slept in the master bedroom. I thought that
was kind of rude, since we had all agreed that
Girl one and Girl Too should have the master room
together because it was Girl One's birthday and she had
also paid for the place. Felt bad and regretted not
giving up my room with my boyfriend for her important Anyway,

(38:22):
before we left Guy one and Girl Too, I'm forgetting
who Guy one and girl.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Dude, And there's so many important details that I'm waiting
for the graind reveal.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Where's the stairs? Clara is so important? Also, maybe another
note for LATA.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Is to give every person names if they don't have names. Anyway,
before we left, Guy One and Girl Too gave me
a stitch plush also important. It's important, which made me
happy because it's stitch. Is that why it's important? What
is this all going to become important?

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Dude? Just you wait, bro, you don't even no.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Also, I forgot to mention that for most of the
time the airbnb, Gry One and Girl Who spent a
lot of time alone together being clinging all they both
of them the same city, whereas the rest of us
live in different states, and one person was even it
from New Zealand. We left the airbnb, and my boyfriend
and I had to stay into the night because flight
tickets were too expensive. I offered for the two guys
who were flying that day to come with us, stay

(39:21):
for a few hours, have dinner, and then go. So far,
I feel like nothing has happened in this story.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Dude.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
We've walked upstairs, we've eaten dinner, we've played games.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Brola, that's true. That's true.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
We are building up to the most monumental ending you've
ever seen in your life.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Just you, oh man, just I can't wait, get ready,
I can't wait this, I says OPI is autistic.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Give her a break. All details are important to her.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Also, Wingle says, why the heck did two people have surgeries?

Speaker 1 (39:49):
No? No, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
So true, But if all these important details don't come
in in the second half of the story, I'm going
to be a little obsessed.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
So let's get back into it.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
I offered for the two guys who were flying that
day to come with us, stay for a few hours,
have dinner and then go. They agreed, and Guy one
was going to join after checking on his mom. However,
Girl Too begged him to stay and come with her
to the appointment to remove stitches. Did I forget to
mention that she works at a hospital. Guy One, being
a sweet guy he is, agreed and went with her,

(40:20):
leaving the four of us a little upsets. We got
to the air and B B and B one of
the guys, expressed how he felt about the whole trip.
He didn't like how Guy one and Girl To acted,
even said he liked my boyfriend and me moore as
a couple because they weren't overly clingy. Again, Guy one
and Girl two are the ones in the relationship with
each other. We included everyone and we acted like normal people.
I mentioned that we noticed it too, but I still

(40:41):
felt happy for them and figured it was just the
honeymoon phase. Our friend was still hurt by it and
said Guy one felt like a stranger to him now.
They had been good friends since the beginning of our friendship.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Three years.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
After that, we all went our separate ways back to
our lie.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Well.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
I think this is where it comes to a head.
A few weeks later, I talked to mine now ex
best friend about my concerns regarding Guy one and girl
whose relationship. I told him I thought girl too was
a bit controlling and gave him examples like the one
of my posts. He agreed and shared the point of view,
and we both concluded Hey as the honeymoon phase and
we moved on.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Well, now to wear the problem came into my life.
Let's go my boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
We're on a road trip to pick up a car.
When he asked, how are things with you and the others?
I replied, we're fine, same as usual, and he stayed
quiet before saying, so you don't know know what? I
asked about what you did and what they said. I
glanced at him no. He then explained how the others,
no names included just a lot of they them felt
about me and how I had been acting meet. I
was a little surprised by this and asked if he knew.

(41:40):
He said yes, but told me they wanted to talk
to me about it at some point. For the next
two hours, all I did was think about what I
had done wrong that the full picture wouldn't come to
light until later. A couple of days later, Girl two
again the girl who's the girl in a relationship with
the guy one got upset with me over the game
we played. I got upset and went quiet, and she
continued to get more upset with me. I left the

(42:02):
call and ended up leaving the group on our game.
Then asked why, and I said no reason, because I
didn't know how to explain after what my boyfriend had
told me. Guy one reached out gotten the guy in
the same relationship with the girl too, asked the same thing,
and I replied the same way. He asked, does it
become of girl too? I said no, stop lying, he said.

(42:24):
I then explained how I felt, and he said, well,
do you know how they feel?

Speaker 1 (42:27):
No? I replied, then.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Explain how the others again no names, had noticed how
I've been acting since he and Girl two got together.
He ended it by describing me as attention seeker and
saying I should get help. In this message, he did
not explain what I had done wrong. I drove to
my boyfriend crying, explained everything and showed him the messages.
My boyfriend then asked, fight any idea what I did.
I replied, I have zero idea what I did wrong,

(42:49):
and no one is telling me After calming down, he
said I should send a message to people who I
thought I might have upset to talk things out, and
I did. Girl too replied, asking I want to know
what you think you did wrong and admit what you
did wrong. I replied, I have no idea what I
did wrong, and I don't want to apologize for something
I don't know what I did, because it wouldn't be true.

(43:09):
She responded, it's right there, read.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Between the lines. I can't.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
I really don't see what I did wrong. Please tell me,
and can I explain myself? She kept saying the same thing,
read between the lines, it's not that hard, think hard,
what do you think you did wrong? Getting angry, I left.
Guy one came up for the holiday and said we
would talk about it properly, and we did. We talked
about what I did briefly and how he saw me
as nothing but his best friend's girlfriend, which hurt a
lot because he had once described me as a little sister.

(43:34):
I had always been there for him emotionally. And he
then asked if I knew him. I replied with everything
I knew, and he was surprised I knew so much
about him. I got upset. And wanted to walk away
after the holiday's. Girl One replied and in a nutshell, said,
I don't want to be your friend anymore. I blocked
her because I didn't know how to respond, and my
old best friend then explained that he didn't like how
I spoke about his friends, so I blocked him too.

(43:55):
So all of this, all the friends are getting blocked away. Dude,
this is crazy.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Girl two kept.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Messaging me and I read them, but knowing she was angry,
I blocked her as well.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Ooh oh.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
For the next few weeks, a friend and I talked
about it. He reached out to Girl One, who explained
everything to him, how I was unsupportive, controlling, two, face,
unhealthy for my boyfriend, the whole list of why Opie's
a horrible person and why you shouldn't be friends with her.
My close friend then reached out to the group and
asked for their side. What they told him was even
more than what Girl one had said. They accused me

(44:26):
of using I've known them for three years and I've
been dating my boyfriend for three years. As a flex,
What I had actually said was there's a difference between
a three year relationship and one just getting started. Each
is very different from another. Each and every day is
a learning experience. Not only are you learning what you like,
but you're learning what she likes. As a girlfriend. And
girl too explained that I was unsupportive because I didn't
congratulate the girls and only got excited for the boys.

(44:49):
I explained at the time, yes, I was more excited
for the boys because this was my best friend's first
girlfriend and Guy one hadn't dated anyone in five years.
I also didn't even know they were dating until the
boys told me that. My best friend told me not
to tell anyone, including girl one. Oh oh, brother, this
just oh gets.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
This is stair stepping up. It's just the love.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Too many stairs, there's too many stairs.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Important details, important details.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
They said my hyperactiveness was just a cover to get
on everyone's good side. I should be a great actor
in that case. They also accused me of liking the boys,
even though I had a boyfriend. My proof of liking
them I once casually told the boys they looked good
in a certain color. Meanwhile, when I saw my boyfriend
walk out in a long black sleeved shirt rolled up
the elbows, showing his biceps and abs, I nearly passed

(45:35):
out blushing, fears of dating, and he still gets me
simp and just remembering it now, I'm a tomato. Another
reason they thought I was unsupportive was that they were
hurt I didn't congratulate them for dating the boys. Girl
too also claimed she was hurt that I uh old
twelve did the old one two uh with a stitch plush.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
The stitch came back important important she and Guy.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
One gifted me, saying it was a beauty to punch
the stitch plush. What my best friend at the time
forgot to mention was that on camera, I immediately picked
stitch up, brushed him off, apologized, and placed him back
beside me. Basically everything the girl said, I explained my
side and stood my ground. Then my old best friend
said something that upset me deeply.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Tell me. He told me that the whole time he
never saw me as a best friend, only as an
online friend. Woooock.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
My friend who had been helping me through all this,
remembered him calling me best friend multiple times. The way
I described them made it feel like we were all close,
but all of them denied it. We never saw her
like that. She was just an online friend. That was
always there acting like she cared started getting more upset.
I explained how I genuinely thought I had found my
lifelong friends, the people I would see at my wedding,

(46:45):
the ones who would look after my kids, the people
I would grow hold with playing games in the same
way retirement home until we passed away.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
From rage and but in the end that was all
one sided.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
I built them on a pedestal too high when they
looked down and never saw me, these friends OPM sorry that.
Then my friends asked, did you know any of this before?
I replied with my boyfriend first mentioned how they felt
I had no idea what was happening or how they
felt about me. That's when I found out they had
made a group chat as far back as August last
year because they didn't want to be part of my
life anymore and didn't know how to approach me. During

(47:14):
all this, my friend pointed out the irony. It's funny
how they accused you of talking crap, but they are
doing exactly the same, and as far as they can remember,
you haven't said anything vile about them. By the way,
if you want stories that are not just like this
and are maybe more densely packed with action. But hey,
we love a little gossip story every once in a while.
Just go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast

(47:37):
app and search. Okay, story time, there's another relevant update
that'll go blazer straight.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I want.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
He also noted how unfair their accusations were. Admitted he
felt bad about how things had ended. This could have
been sorted out if we had just talked it out
communication early and often, instead of hiding things from each other.
This is one big misunderstanding. He could see how hurt
and betrayed I was, and honestly, that's exactly how I felt,
completely destroyed and heartbroken. So am I the a hole
for blocking friends of her problem that could have been

(48:02):
storted by talking things out? Snow, Ope, you are not
the a hole. Preserve your own happiness. Give me an
update right now. I need, I need podcast. But what
about the stairs?

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Bro bug? The stairs? Stairs is the question? What happened
with the stairs? Dude?

Speaker 3 (48:19):
I never that's important? I I, well, we never figured
out what happened with the stairs. My wife wants a
baby with our other spicy partner.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
I'm not having it. Well, yeah, you're not having it.
She's having it with the other guy.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
My wife thirty four female, Lourie and I thirty five male,
have been together for sixteen years and married for thirteen,
and our relationship has been opened since the day we
met in college. Now about eight years ago, we met
another couple, Kyle thirty four male and Andy thirty three female,
who were also open to Polly, and we hit it
off right away. By the way, this comes from uh
top Polly on the r slash okay storytime subreddit. So

(48:55):
in twenty twelve, Andy got pregnant and after a bit
of math, we realized that but I was probably the father.
After discussing our future, we had a commitment ceremony in
July twenty twelve and have all been a family ever since.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Now. At that time Andy.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Already had one baby with Kyle, and Laurie had two
by me. On the periphery of all this was Joseph
thirty four female. Joseph and Kyle have been friends since college,
and I'll call friend Joseph, so friend Joseph, Kyle and Andy,
the other couple, have had an intermittent, spicy related relationship

(49:30):
ever since then. There was never anything serious there, but
he was a regular third man in their thrones after
the commitment ceremony, Joseph occasionally joined all of us for
some bedroom fun, but it was again an intermittent thing
and nothing serious, so it wasn't a huge surprise. When
other wife Andy's baby turned out to be Joseph's the

(49:52):
friend and not mine, it was still a surprise, but
it wasn't a problem. The baby was welcomed into our
family and friend Joseph became a or regular guest in
our home. About a year after the baby was born,
a few things happened that seriously changed things. As if
we wanted more confusing details, yeah, we haven't had any

(50:13):
change so far. So first, both Andy and Laurie, the wives,
both got pregnant again. As we later learn, Andy's baby
was mine, so other wife Andy's baby was opease this
time around, and Laurie's baby was Kyle's, the other husband.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
So.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Shortly after that, a friend, Joseph was involved in a
very serious motorcycle accident. He was hospitalized for nearly two months,
lost his job, lost his apartment, and needed lots of help.
So we ended up moving him in as a temporary
thing quote unquote to help him out. That was a
year and a half ago, he's still here. Kyle is
happy to have his old friend around all the time,

(50:51):
and both women like him a lot. The spicy sleep
is great between all of them, et cetera, et cetera.
So three days ago, Laurie was hinting that she needed
to talk about something serious, but didn't know how to
broach it. After a bit of discussion, it came out
she wants to have one more baby, and not just
anybody's baby.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
She wants to have Joseph's baby.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Specifically, she wants to go off the pill and have
Kyle and Me either abstain from having spicy sleep with
her or use protection until Joseph gets her pregnant.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
When asked her why.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
She shrugged his shoulders, she said that she loved him too,
and that it was only there.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
What do we what do we talk? It's like we
have two, he needs one or it's gonna be weird.
We got to even it out. It's even it out.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
She explained that Andy had a child by each of
the three of us, and she wanted to have a
child by each.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Of us two.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
After a bit more discussion, it came out that the
idea was actually Joseph's he was feeling left out because
he didn't have a child with her.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
He got Fomo, got Homo Bomo having a baby with
Opie's wife Fomo. Everyone's doing. It's all the rage. That's
what I don't understand, Like the you know, it's like
some people when they eat like a meal, it's like
they have to like finish like the burger and the
fries at the same time. Yeah, I feel like this
is almost the same way, where it's like, well, if
she's gonna have a baby from each of us, I

(52:10):
now have to have a baby from each man, you know.
And it all evens itself out, so putting aside the
childish notion that babies should be created solely to placate
someone's sense of quote unquote fairness. I have a few
serious problems with this.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
First, we already have six kids in the house already,
which is already a bit much. At times, I thought
we were all done having kids, and I'm not really
sure that I went anymore.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Second, there is no commitment to Joseph.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Where the rest of us have gone through a commitment
ceremony to join ourselves together, he hasn't. But the biggest
issue is also the simplest. I don't really like the
guy I never have. He's got this vibe and has
always struck me as a bit untrustworthy. He honestly reminds
me of a shady used car salesman. He also drinks
too much, is a bit of a bigot, and has
a personality that I find grading. I didn't object to

(52:57):
him hanging around now and then because he was Kyle's friend,
and I didn't have a problem with a spicy Sleep
because it was just spicy sleep, and I understood the
history of their relationship. But now I'm wishing that I
had to be honest. I've long hoped that he'd meet
someone who wasn't into polyamory, just to get him out
of our spicy sleep lives and relationship. When he moved

(53:17):
in after the accidents, I kept my mouth shut because
they were just trying to be helpful, and the discussions
about his long term plans always alluded to the idea
that he would be moving out again someday. When he
really annoyed me, I'd tell myself that this was just temporary.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
That's actually such a really good mentality to have. This
two shall pass mentality of just like got to just
ride it out. Sometimes sometimes that's what you gotta do.
I don't know if this is one of those times, but.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
When you have a rogue Joseph trying to enter a
seventh baby into the equation.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Yeah, I think the most illuminating thing to me there
was it was like I was just kind of hoping
that he would like leave right, hoping, hope communicating. Yes,
I was just hoping someone would take him from our
amory situation. It's like you gotta take your thoughts and
put him out in the open.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Communicate early and often before seven babies. So now I'm
facing the possibility that this guy is going to be
around forever.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Now.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Kyle and Andy love the idea and think that Laurie
having Joseph's baby is romantic. Now Laurie is looking to
cement some kind of bond with him. I, on the
other hand, seem to be getting angrier and anger every
time I see him, almost violently angry. I want to
chase this guy out of our home and never let
him in again. I want to give him the old
one dude, dittly doo square in his smug little face.

(54:35):
I temporarily quote unquote tolerated someone that I disliked because
I wanted to be generous and helpful, and because he's
the father of one of Andy's children. So now, because
I didn't want to be a wiener and co sign
a disabled man to homelessness, He's worked his way into
our relationship and seems quite content to stay there forever.
If this pregnancy happens, I know he'll never move out.

(54:56):
How do I even begin to approach this? I don't
really care if Joseph gets hurt in the but every
other solution seems to lead to the other people in
my family being miserable, then being angry with me, or
me living in silent misery. I can't see any way
to resolve this that doesn't involve hurting those I love
or hurting myself. Does anyone have any insights or suggestions.
I don't want to lose this wonderful family that we've built,
but every route I see seems to do harm. What

(55:18):
would you do when every member of your family wants
to include the new person in the family and you don't.
We have relevant comments coming up. This might be the
most conundrumist conundrum we have faced in four years of okay,
story time.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
You may think that, but I have a startlingly simple solution.
You just say dibbs. You just go dibbs. Sorry, I
had dibbs. And you talk to your husband and your
wife and your wife and you go, guys, I want
them out. I have DIBs on y'all. I had DIBs.
We did the ceremony. I have DIBs. Multi did.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
This is the first multi DIBs I've ever seen in
my life. They did the dimmittment ceremony.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
They did.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
They didded each other, a didmitment. They did the dimittmentt okay.
So basically what I'm seeing here is I also want
to flag how he was, Like I was silent for
so long and then I got angry, violently angry. It's
like you are, by withholding and not communicating, you are like,
you know, kind of festering and kind of growing these

(56:16):
feelings of anger which could turn into something really bad,
you know what I mean. So it's like, it's just
all the more to what we said earlier. You have
to communicate, and you know the best time was like
I guess before baby number one or whatever, you know,
ten years ago, whatever it was but the next Beech's
time is right now, and I think he needs to
say I'm not comfortable with this.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Y'all, what do we think? What do we feel? You
got to tell your wife?

Speaker 3 (56:39):
You gotta be like, I really don't want to the
relevant commenters on this story, thank you. I didn't realize
until I read in your post that I really do
hate the guy.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Now.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
I'm not sure when that happened. A few days ago.
I just disliked him a lot. Since learning that he
once to have a baby with my wife, that dislike
has been festering in a pool of anger and has
grown into something quite a bit darker I think about it,
the angrier I get at myself, at him, at the
whole situation. You're right that I need to have this
discussion and get these things out there. Yes, keeping it
bottled up isn't healthy, and it's making things a lot worse.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I don't want to hate this guy.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
I don't want to hate anybody, but keeping it bottled
up is eating me alive. So for my own mental health,
I need to get this out there. I think this
was a relevant comment from none other than the OP himself,
But we have another update. Thank you, everyone for your responses.
Your comments have been very helpful. Time for me to
head home for the day, so I won't be responding
any longer. I'll have to think through some of the

(57:34):
suggestions and figure out how to proceed. But I will
absolutely speak up and let everyone know of my feelings.
It may be too late and the damage may be unavoidable,
but it has to happen.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
That leads into the next small update.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
After I got home, I told Laurie that we needed
to talk and that we needed to seriously discuss some
things before there was any more talk about babies. I
told Andy and Kyle, the other wife and husband, that
we needed to have a meeting in the morning to
discuss Joseph, but didn't want to go into it tonight
because he and the kids were already home. They figured
out really quickly that I'm not happy with things and

(58:06):
we'll hash it out tomorrow after Joseph heads off to
his morning rehab visit, Golly and the other kids head
off to school. So OPUS set the table. We're gonna
have the big discussion tomorrow morning. We have the update
right in front of us. What are we feeling, Dakota.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I mean, you did it almost kind of you're there,
You're on the way. You said something, and I like,
you know, I hope that the rage and anger boiling
within you does not become summoned tomorrow morning and you
can stay cool, baby. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, you're
gonna have You're at a crossroads now. You're like, either

(58:46):
gonna have life with Joseph or life without Joseph. And
you've got to present it to the group in terms
of why you think it's best for everybody.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
But ladies and gentlemen, there's only one way to discover
how we unravel this this entanglement. So I began by
clearing the air about my feelings for Joseph. I reminded
everyone that he and I have never gotten along and
that I've always viewed his presence at our home as
a temporary thing. I told him all that I still
view it as a temporary thing, and that I can't
support any moves to make his presence in our home

(59:16):
more permanent. That's when Kyle and Andy, the other husband
and other wife.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Dropped the bombshell.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Following Laurie's announcement a few days ago, they had already
been talking and asking Joseph to join our family formally
through a commitment ceremony, making him a permanent part of
our household. Unbeknownst to Ope, wait and they left you out.
Oh dude, you're trying to be replaced right now. They
were apparently going to bring it up with me today,

(59:43):
So that's when I reminded them that is part of
our original commitment. We agreed that any additions to our
family had to be done unanimously, and I made it
very clear that I would never agree to that. My
statement led to a huge argument, which included them calling
me selfish and stating that the three of them could
hold a commitment ceremony without me. I didn't want to

(01:00:03):
go there, but I shut that down by saying, understand
that if you do that, you're not talking about adding
someone new to the family. You're talking about replacing me
with him. I can't stay in a family that would
hurt and disrespect me that way.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
That led to even more arguing, which didn't have any
real conclusion. That's when I turned to Laurie, the og wife.
I told her that I loved her, and then it
broke my heart that she wanted to have a child
with someone I couldn't stand. I also told her that
I found it defensive that he'd ask her to have
a child to placate his own ego, but that I
thought the request was fairly consistent with his lack of character.

(01:00:38):
I reminded her that a child is not an object
to be traded for affection or love, and that they
should only be created as an expression of that love.
Thanks call me brother ge I guess they suggested that
I told her without any hesitation that having a child
with Joseph would irrevocably change our relationship and drive a
wedge between us. She would be choosing his happiness over mind,

(01:00:59):
and that's how the relationship would end.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
We're here, we have reached the thick of it, and
you're doing a great job in this moment. Yeah. I
think he is.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Clearly stating what his wants and needs are and like
what he will do if she does choose to go forth.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Yeah, and they can call you selfish, but it sounds
like you're just following the rules y'all set up thirteen
years ago now.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
She told me that she loved us both and she
wouldn't choose between us. She flat out said that she
wanted to have one more baby, that she'd already talked
to Joseph about it, and that she wasn't going to
go back on her word. She then offered to get
rid of the exclusive part, saying that she was willing
to go off the pill and have spicy sleep with
the both of us to let fate decide the baby's paternity.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
That's like the equivalent of like letting like you know,
like the trial by combat, where it's just like we
will let the gods decide your faith, choose your champion.
The swimmers are going to be in there, like, oh,
get girl, They're gonna have little swords and bows and arrows.
Oh my god, this just tells you all you need

(01:02:06):
to know. Run away. That is an unhinged thing to think.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I h for real. I told her this was unacceptable.
Reminded her that I'm her husband and family and he's not.
I said that in not making a decision, she was
actually making a choice. I told her that I'd be
more than willing to have another child with her, but
that having a child with Joseph would be the end
of us, and then I went to work. The discussion

(01:02:31):
didn't really change anything or lead to any firm decisions,
but the information is now out there and everyone else
knows where I stand. We'll see where everything goes from here,
and we have that second update, we know we have
the answer to where things will go. I mean, what's
what is there to say?

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
You know, like, when you have a situation like this,
things are gonna get complicated at some point. I guess
they didn't get too complicated until six children were born
and a man moved into their living room. Yeah, that
Andy then had a baby with And now Laurie's like,
I kind of feel like I'm missing out on that

(01:03:10):
Joseph baby train. I want to get in on the action.
She's got three babies with three different daddies. I want
three babies with three different daddies. And I'm just like,
I want to go into the woods and living at
tent if I'm op, I'm like, I'm leaving town. I'm
not coming back. Yeah, and when I do come back,

(01:03:33):
I'll be taking custody of my children. So in the
day since my last update, a lot has happened.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Some things genuinely surprised me, and it looks like my
family will be changing a bit. However, things appear to
have settled down, I should mention this will be my
last updates that may or may not be true. I
mentioned to Laurie that I'd been discussing our situation on
the Reddit poly group and she wanted to read it.
After bawling her eyes out as she read through everything,
she apologized to me for everything. We spent the night together,

(01:03:59):
no spice sleep, just holding each other all night. This
morning she asked me not to discuss this anymore until
we get everything worked out, but she said that I
could post one final update.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
So where to begin? First, Joseph is moving out? Okay,
all right, we got there. He here in, it might
be gone. We did it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Yep, it's actually happened. And the shocking thing it was
his idea. He finally demonstrated some of that nice guy
personality to me that I've never been able to connect with.
I knew that Joseph would be home when I returned
from work yesterday, and I was honestly expecting the worst.
I was sure that someone would have clued him into
our conversation and expected him to react with his usual
a whole persona.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
That didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Instead, a few minutes after I came home, Joseph walked
into my room asked me to join him in the
backyard for a conversation. I was expecting a fisticuffs but
got an apology instead.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Okay, that's nice surprise. We're making a prove in here.
That's a good, nice surprise.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
He admitted that we've never gotten along and that he's
never liked me either. However, he said that he he
didn't feel right about coming in between me and Laurie.
He went on a talk about how happy his son
is in our family and how he didn't want to
destroy the family. At the same time, he admitted how
much he loved living with his son and how he
really didn't want to go back to only seeing him
once a week. I had never thought about that. In

(01:05:15):
the end, he proposed a solution that I accepted. There's
a nice apartment complex about two blocks from our house,
and he wants to get an apartment there when he
lands a job. He's pretty good at what he does
and already has some job leads, so he anticipates that's
going to happen soon. He can visit our house whenever
he wants during the week I'm at work anyways, and
he can spend up to two nights a week at
my house to be closer to his kid. If he
does it right, that means he could still potentially see

(01:05:37):
his son seven days a week, while I only have
to deal with him or two. It's a great solution
that gives us both what we want. He's already told
Laurie that he doesn't want to have a baby with her,
so now that is also off the table. He admitted
that he wanted to have a baby with Laurie but
didn't want to put her in the middle of a
conflict over it, and then we had an adult soda together.

(01:05:59):
I didn't even complain when he handed me one of
his piss water Coors Lats. Totally not kidding. This guy
really does fit certain stereotypes. My low opinion of the
guy went up a notch. As for Laurie, she was
a tearful mess for most of the day, and Joseph
taking the baby off the table was fairly devastating to her.

(01:06:19):
After I got home and we talked a bit, she
unloaded her soul and let me know just how much
she wants another baby and how much it hurt.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
And neither Kyle nor I want one. With her.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
She even felt hurt that neither of us even clued
her in on the level of pain over it. After
several hours of talking to her, we came to an
agreement we are going to have one more baby, but
will wait another year. And interestingly, she wants it to
be mine, not Kyle's, and not Joseph's. Kyle apparently doesn't
have a problem with this at all. So what about

(01:06:51):
her relationship with Joseph, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Asking, I would not be letting go of that. I'd
be like, oh, so, now now somebody wants mine Oh
oh no, now that Joseph said no, now someone wants
my baby again.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
Well, here's where polyamory and open relationships could potentially get complicated.
The commitment ceremony, basically the wedding between all of them
is off the table, but she still wants to date
him and have some sort of relationship with him. No babies,
no pregnancy, just some love and spicy sleep.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Every now and again.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
She won't ever sleep with him when he's staying over
at her house, but she'll still be going out on
dates with him, visiting him at his place from time
to time, and staying overnight on the occasion, maybe once
a month.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Well, I have to admit that I'm still not totally
thrilled with that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
It's really just going back to the relationship they had
before he even moved in with us, which I will
tolerate for her happiness. Andy, the other wife, on the
other hand, is now a problem. She is still furious
with me over all of this and isn't showing any
signs of backing down.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
In a way, It's understandable.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
She's had a a spicy, related and emotional relationship with
Joseph since she was twenty one years old and is
the mother of his child. She was really looking forward
to him becoming a part of our family and deeply
hurt by my rejection of it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Ky All, the other.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Husband, told me last night that she had even talked
about leaving the family over it and moving in with Joseph,
but that that was just quote unquote angry talk.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I mean, is it though? Yeah? Is it just just
bearing like her deepest realist truths? And then she's going, well,
I didn't mean that, that is just angry talk. It's like, no,
I think I think you're obsessed with this guy and
you wanted him in the polycule, and now he's not
in it, and you're going to just continue to grow
more bitter and upset about it. That sounds like it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
Well right now, all I get from her are cold
stairs and slam doors. I really don't know how this
is going to resolve itself, but for the sake of
our daughter, I'll never stop trying.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
I forgot, I forgot they had a kid together, So now.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
I put her in the middle of a fight between
the fathers of two of her children, two men she loves,
and she's furious at me for even forcing the choice.
It may take some time for both of us to
work through it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Again, Do they did this? They went behind your back, yes,
and tried to be like, get this guy into the
group and basically strong arm you into saying yes. Now,
Kyle's a bit of a different story.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
He admitted that he knew Joseph and I didn't get
along and apologize to me for not talking to me
sooner and making sure that I was okay with everything okay.
He apparently blames himself for the arguing, thinking that it
was his job to run interference since Joseph was originally
his friend and I am a life partner in his family.
I told him not to worry about it because it
was my fault that I didn't bring it up myself.

(01:09:38):
We have this big talk and we had an adult
soda Sierra Nevada West Coast Porter. This time, Kyle has
much better taste. So with all that, I'm gonna wrap
this up like you should have before. I'd like to
thank all of you for your insights, are commentary, and
for putting up with my venting. Posting here gave me
a place to mentally work through some of these issues
before I broached him with my family and probably save

(01:09:59):
me it's from making some very ugly comments and choices.
By the way, if you want to save yourself from
making ugly choices and comments and having, you know, the
greatest show on earth give you good advice Googly To
navigate the relationships that matter most, go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
search Okay Storytime and listen to two thousand episodes. That's right,
our new friends, we have two thousand episodes on podcasts,

(01:10:19):
so and counting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
It does not stop before. We actually have a bit of.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
A beefy end for our for our usual end of
stories here, but Dakota as we're kind of on the motorcycle,
you know, rainbow flaps flapping in the wind, riding off
into sunset.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
What are we what are we feeling right now that
this is a hot mess. You're in too deep and
you know, finding a way for this to maybe dissolve
into two families instead of what's going on right now.
Cause it's like you've got Andy who's like sparing her
soul about how she really feels about Joseph and then
being like, psych just kidding, I didn't really mean that.

(01:10:54):
That was just an angry talking No, it wasn't you
meant that. So that's gonna be another you know, corrosive
element of the group collective here. And that wasn't her
saying It was Kyle saying that for her. God, I
mean like they did it really well for almost for
a decade and a half. They did it. They did
it well. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
We do have a little bit left in the story.
It is a good little chunk. Let's see what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
In a way, I genuinely appreciated all.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
Of your responses, and I know that my wife Lori
found many of your comments eye opening.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
And insightful as well.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
She loves the thought that we're a tribe because someone
requested it. We may come back and do and ask
me anything at some point about the emotional and family
dynamics of living in.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
A large poly slash tribal household, but.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
We need to finish working through the current situation first.
Much love to all and Opie on his feelings for
Joseph after the fact. Now, Opie says, this has raised
my level of respect for him a bit, and I'm
trying to move past the resentment this situation created.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
When Joseph and I.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Were talking about not liking each other, we both agreed
that if nothing else, we both needed to be respectful
of each other for the sake of the kids and
the other members of the family. I brought that up.
He fully agreed. Neither of us seems to want any
kind of open conflict or competition in the household. Though,
when I asked him to talk to Andy, the other
wife last night to get her to sit down and
have a conversation with me two days now without a

(01:12:20):
word from hers getting the silence treatment, his blunt response was,
you broke it, you fix it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
I don't think he broke it again. They broke it
by doing all of that behind Opie's back. Yeah, And
then Opie was like, hey, remember the rules how it
has to be an animous, I ain't voting. Yes, Yeah,
And they all went that's not fair and you're selfish
and I lost much, But that's not how the rules
were Opie.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
The author goes back to say, we've still got a
long ways to go.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
There you go, and on why Joseph did what he did.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
In the end, I wouldn't say that I like him more,
but I certainly have a bit more respect for him.
He made it pretty clear that he was doing this
for his son, and that he was putting his son's
needs before his own. His kid has a happy, stable
life and he wants to keep it that way. When
he realized that he couldn't have what he wanted without
also screwing up his kid's life, Joseph put his child first.

(01:13:14):
I have an enormous amount of respect for that decision.
So we went from a bit of respect to do
enormous appeenta.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Yeah ye. This guy, this guy likes Joseph. This guy's
he likes it. He's falling for him, he likes it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
His Joseph's entire solution really revolves around his son. It
keeps him involved with his son's life on a daily basis,
It puts him just around the corner so his son
could visit him constantly, and it reduces strife in his
son's household, thus giving the kid stability. I understand where
it's coming from, too. I mentioned the original discussion that
he'd once liquidated his investments and retirement accounts to buy

(01:13:44):
his sister and her kid's a house after her husband
walked down on them. Joseph is a deeply complicated man,
I am.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Is he a bigot? Is he is?

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
He?

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Is?

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
He also you know, selling everything he owns to give
his his You know, cis who loses her life's a house.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Wow, we've complicated character. We've read precisely zero examples of
Joseph being a bigot, and we've read exactly one example
of him selling his entire life to help his sister.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
Joseph came from a fairly broken, unstable home, and what's
better for his children. When his sisters was facing the
same situation, he was saving her kids more than he
was saving his sister. When his own kid was facing
a self destructed family, he pulled himself out of it
to put the kids while being first. I don't know
that Joseph and I will ever be friends, but my
anger is largely faded, and I wouldn't say that I
hate him. I have a lot more respect for him

(01:14:35):
than I did before any of this happened, but I
think we're too different to actually like each other. As
I said in the original post, he openly admitted that
the feeling is mutual. My only regret is letting my
original wife Laurie read the other thread and she saw
the word hate there. I've never used that word in
an actual conversation over the past week, but Laurie did
mention it to my other wife Andy. Looking back, I

(01:14:55):
think the hatred a reaction to be stuck in the
middle of a situation at the time, and I absolutely
don't feel any hatred towards him now. Still, it's hard
unsay a word, and our word is that this story
is over.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Yeah, it's you know, it's so hard. It's impossible to
unsay a word. It's literally impossible. Once you said it,
it's said, it is said.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
And you know what, just some just some closing thoughts here,
A lot was untangled.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Ope, he did grow and communicate.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Joseph did a lot of communicating and navigating and trying to, like,
you know, prioritize the sun. We've still got some stuff
to entangle, but I think they might be able to
figure this out.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Joseph did the right moves. He did. He literally was like, look,
I'm just gonna remove myself from this whole situation because
I just want my son to not have a crazier
life than he already has. Yeah, so yeah, I'll get
out of it. I'll get out of here instead of
having a baby with your wife.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
And that's what he did. Hey, it's John here, og
host of the show. We're gonna get back to these
juicy stories. But here's a quick three minutes of ads
from our sponsors.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
I hell to my mother in law after her affair.
Did I betray my husband's family? You just might have
a sources say perhaps. I'm twenty eight male and I've
been with my husband, twenty nine male, for seven years,
married for almost one This has been a genuinely good relationship.
I love him deeply and we've built something I'm proud of.

(01:16:20):
He fits in great with my family, and I've always
felt at home with his I'm close with his younger
brother and his girlfriend, but the person I've always felt
the strongest connection with is his mom. Eh but this
comes from a user reasonable while nine sixty six and
user throwaway thirteen one four one, And if you want
to submit your stories, go to the r slash ok

(01:16:43):
story time sub reddit and submit them there. A few
years back, I went through a rough depressive episode and
his mother was the only one who truly showed up
for me. She didn't treat me like her son's partner.
She treated me like family. I've always loved her for that.
I'm close with my father in law too, but with
my mother in law it always felt like more of

(01:17:04):
a friendship. And then everything flipped. Just after Christmas. My
father in law sat us all down and told us
that she had been having an affair and that it
wasn't the first time. He said that he tried to
make things work, but he couldn't do it anymore. He
was heartbroken and it chattered the whole family. My husband
and his brothers were crushed and they all cut contact

(01:17:27):
with her, and she moved out soon afterward. I get
it cheating as a betrayal, especially after decades. Plural of marriage.
I'm not trying to excuse what she did, but I
also couldn't ignore the fact that during one of the
worst times in my life, she showed me care and
kindness when I felt like I had no one that

(01:17:47):
stayed with me. A few weeks ago, she reached out
to me directly. She said she was running low on
rent and didn't know who else to ask. She sounded
anxious and desperate, and I helped her. It wasn't a
huge amount, and she was incredibly grateful. She asked if
i'd be willing to meet her for coffee. I said yes.
When we met, she broke down and told me that

(01:18:08):
she's tried reaching out to her sons, but none of
them responded, so I listened. I didn't try to defend
her or fix anything. I just tried to be there
for her the way that she once was for me.
Later that evening, I told my husband about it, and
he completely lost it. He said I betrayed him and
went behind his back, and he left the house. The
next day. I tried to explain where I was coming from.

(01:18:31):
I told him I wasn't trying to choose sides. I
just reacted to someone I care about being in a
tough spot. He didn't say much and just told me
to not do it again. When his brothers found out,
they were disappointed in me as well. They said I
crossed a line and should have respected their decision to
cut contact. Now I feel stuck. I understand why they're upset.
I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just couldn't turn

(01:18:52):
my back on someone who once didn't turn her back
on mine. I wasn't trying to undermine their pain. I
was trying to act with compassion. I'm not here to
justify what was done, and I understand why my husband
feels hurt. I acted on instinct and compassion in a
tough moment. But now I feel like I've damaged something
really important. I'd really appreciate any advice as to what

(01:19:13):
to do further. How do I navigate this? We have
some comments here, but before we give him up to
the comments, my dear Florida man, John, that is me,
the Florida man with the plan. What are your thoughts
on the situation? Because I've got a handful.

Speaker 3 (01:19:25):
Yes, So basically breaking it down, you have Opie and
Opie's mother in law, who he's had a great relationship
with in the past, but turns out she was a
cheater and this was not the first time he helped
her out in a pinch, gave her a little bit
of rent money, and now Opie's husband is mad at him, like, hey,
what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Why are you helping her? This is really tough.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
I mean, I think one maybe the first thing I'll
call out and curious what your response is on Like
obviously you you know, I get being angry, but like
essentially making them homeless kind of in.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
A way, right, there is a little bit of hypocrisy
going on here in the way where the brothers and
I think the husband as well, we're like, why aren't
you respecting our decision that we cut off my mom?
It's like, well, she's not my mom, yeah, and I
didn't cut her off, so can you also respect my
decision to not cut off your mother because her affair

(01:20:23):
has literally nothing to do with me, Like I'm your husband,
but like she's not my mom. Y'all can be mad
at her in that way in a way that I
cannot because she's didn't raise me, you know what I mean.
So let's get into these comments comment number one where
you went wrong. Is not talking to your husband first
before meeting your mother in law, no matter if your
decision was helping her out, no matter what he said,

(01:20:45):
you should have still let him know first how you
feel and why you feel that way. Going behind someone's
back and asking sorry later is not how loving relationships work.
But again, I don't know if I agree with that comment,
because that makes it sound like you needed permission from
your partner to even speak to their adulterous mother, which
you don't. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:08):
I mean, would it have been good to just like
like let him know. Yes, But also to your point,
there shouldn't be this like kind of permission weird like
permission like structure built into it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
It's like you're kind of forcing op to be roped
in to the family debacle instead of just like letting
them be an outside. Yeah you know, I mean, they're
not a spectator because they're married in but it's like,
you know, it's just fundamentally different. Yeah. Comment number two
probably should have talked to your husband first before going
behind his back. I get you wanted to help, but

(01:21:41):
he is your partner who is hurting, and you deceived
him just like his mother comment number three. In this
kind of situation, people choose sides, especially when it's fresh.
You have to remember that cutting her out isn't just
about them not wanting to see her. It's also about
punishing her. That is part of why your husband's family
is angry. I won't say whether punishing is right or wrong.
Ostracism can be very complex. When people in your orbit

(01:22:04):
initiate something like this, your chances are to participate or
to not. If you're not participating, then likely to them
you are undermining their punishment. I think to your husband,
she's his mother. Your relationship with her exists through him,
so if she is out of his life, he expects
her to be out of your life too. I'm sure
to you, helping her meant that your love for her

(01:22:24):
was stronger than your disappointment in her actions. For people
that were more hurt by her actions, it's just going
to read like condoning. Unfortunately, we don't really get to
choose how our actions impact others beyond that. You say
you acted on instinct and compassion, but is that true.
You make it sound like an involuntary action that you
took her call, met her for coffee where she talked
about her sow, her son's not responding, and gave her money,

(01:22:47):
all without thinking about how everyone else would feel about it.
I don't believe that. I think the first step here
is owning your actions. You either own them as a
choice you made that you deeply regret and wish you
could change, or you own them as a choice you
make again in a heartbeat. That means telling your husband
either I regret meeting with your mother I should have
cared more about how it would impact you, or your
mother means too much to me and I'm not willing

(01:23:08):
to cut her out of my life. Then I guess
you go from there fair enough. That's perfect. There's no
way to get out of this without hurting someone. But
do remember who created this situation. It wasn't your husband
or his brother's comment number four. The difference between your
tough time and her tough time is that yours was
brought on by a mental illness depression, and hers is
the consequence of her own actions cheating. I get that

(01:23:29):
you wanted to return the compassion she showed you, but
you should let sleeping dogs lie talk to me really quick.
It's kind of like an okay, storytime. There is a
man me and my buddy were skiing in Taos, right, yeah,
we get stuck up there on the mountain. We've lost
his keys, his cars parked in the lot. We have
no way. We are three hours from civilization, we have

(01:23:50):
no way to get back home. A guy working in
the parking lot ended up literally giving us his truck.
At the end of the day, we drove it three
hours back to where we lived. His spare key, drove
the truck back and gave it back to that guy.
And his name was Kurt. And I will never ever
ever forget how Kirk had our back so hard and
so like for me, Like I know that that is

(01:24:11):
two very different situations that what's going on in the story,
But I will always remember how much Kurt helped me.
So for op Opie's always can remember how much the
mother in law helped him in that moment. None of
the stuff outside of that matters, Like Kirk could have
an affair with his wife, I would still help Kurt
because he helped. Because you have no idea how screwed

(01:24:32):
me and my friend were. I'm gonna be honest, I
think it's a gray zone, and I think that like
I do understand, especially in other cases. Again, we talked
about the scenario of like, oh what if Opie kept
inviting mother in law to like family functions and like, hey,
we don't want to see this woman.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
Who like broke all of our hearts, broke our father's heart.
Like that's a completely different story where Ope's like kind
of force, you know, interrupting their kind of like siloed experience,
like you said, right, bringing inside instead of being outside.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
She would be hijacked or he'd be hijacking. The no contact, Yeah,
the no contact exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:25:05):
So while I do think it is a gray zone,
I just like you know, putting on our judge robes
and like having to decide on the gray area. I
just don't think it's it's a punishment that fits the crime.
I just I just don't. I just don't think that,
even though I understand, you know, Opie could have just
maybe communicated that that was going to happen, like hey, look,
I'm going to do this. This is why I like

(01:25:26):
your point of like not having like a permission thing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Update March twenty sixth, Three days later,
I lost access to my previous accounts, so I'm posting
it from here. I didn't expect my post to gain
the kind of traction it did. I genuinely appreciate the
advice many of you offered. Some responses were a bit nuclear,
understandably because Reddit, but I did hay in a lot
of perspectives that helped me reflect. I want to share

(01:25:50):
some contexts that I didn't include in the original post,
which I now realize was important. A few years ago,
I went through a rough depressive episode. My husband and
I were doing long distance at the time. He was
working abroad, uh what's her name, and while he supported
me as best he could, it was hard. His mom
was the one who showed up in person. She dropped

(01:26:11):
by often, made sure I was eating, even came with
me to therapy a couple of times. It wasn't some
grand gesture, but it mattered. That kind of consistency stays
with you. So when she reached out a few days ago,
anxious and saying she didn't know who else to ask,
I just reacted. I helped her with a bit of
money from my personal account, nothing major, and I agreed

(01:26:32):
to meet her for coffee. I didn't tell my husband
before doing it, and that was where things really unraveled.
He was blindsided. We've always been the kind of couple
who talks through the hard stuff, and I acted completely
on my own. I see now how that felt like
betrayal to him. After a bit of space and some
heavy conversations, we talked properly. He told me he'd spoken

(01:26:53):
to his younger brother and finally got the full story
about their last attempt to reach out to their mom.
It wasn't just in our It was bad. She said
things that were apparently cruel and deeply personal, the kind
of stuff that cuts years deep. I hadn't known any
of that. Neither of us had hearing it change something
for me. The woman I saw at coffee was warm, vulnerable,

(01:27:14):
even a little lost. But that's not the woman his
brother dealt with. And maybe both are real. Maybe she's unraveling,
maybe she's always been complicated. I honestly don't know. And
I'm gonna pause really quick to say both of them
are real. Dennis hoff or dust not Dennis Dustin Hoffmann
is an actor. Really quick, I'm I promise this relevant
talks about how it's like, you know, actors will be like, oh,

(01:27:36):
I couldn't possibly play like the mean person or the
the you know, and it's like why, and it's like, well,
because I'm so nice. It's like you're not nice all
the time, like that that there's a mean version of
you inside of you that you could bring out, you
just don't want to because you've been told that it's
like wrong or whatever. So there's a version of her
that is that person talking to her youngest son, and
then there's the version of her that you spoke to
that is the warm, empathetic, confused woman. They both exist. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):
I like how he's basically painting the whole portrait of
like it is complicated she she is a whole person
with these multiple size and like she's hurting you know,
her sons over here, and she gave me life changing
help over here.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Yes, both are true at the same time. Yes, Yeah.
What I do know here is that my husband's boundaries
are valid mmmmm, which is true. He told me clearly
that he's not ready to reconnect with her and that
he's not comfortable with me being in touch with her either,
And after hearing what I've heard, I understand that I've
told him I'm stepping back if she does reach out again.

(01:28:32):
I'll tell her that I can't be the person in
the middle, not unless something genuinely shifts between them. First,
we both apologized, he for shutting down so quickly and
me for making a decision without him when I shouldn't have.
We're okay now. I still think there's something more going
on with her, emotionally, maybe even mentally. She's been a
stay at home mom most of her life, and her

(01:28:53):
siblings live abroad, and from what I've heard, she's already
asked her friends for help before coming to me. That
doesn't excuse an, but it does make me think about
how lost she might be right now. Still, that's not
something I can fix. Right now. My focus is on us.
I can care about what his mom did for me
in the past and still recognize that she has hurt
people I love. This whole situation has been messy and

(01:29:16):
a bit surreal. We didn't walk away from it with
everything fixed, but we've come out of it with a
better understanding of where we each stand. We handled it
in the best way we could, and at the end
of the day, we're still solid. And by the way,
you can be so solid, oh by solidly listening to
full episodes with stories like this one. All you have

(01:29:37):
to do is go to iHeartRadio or Apple podcasts or
Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and search. Okay,
story time, But you know, before we finish it, I
mean like we're in a good place.

Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
I am just in awe and love this communication and
just the realness of it. Hey, look, it was messy.
We learned the mom as a complicated person with multiple
thing but you know what, we sat down, we talked
about it. We looked at ourselves, we look at our partners,
we looked at the whole scenario, and we came out better.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
For that's right. What more can you ask? So still,
I can't lie. There's a part of me that feels
pulled toward who she was for me during that rough time.
Letting go emotionally feels messier than I expected. How do
you emotionally let go of someone who was once there
for you when this situation clearly calls for distance. We
have some comments providing some insight here. Couples resolving issues

(01:30:30):
like adults talking them out and listening to each other
is always nice to see. In an update. Yes, I
agree comment too. I think your comment about maybe she's
always been complicated is probably spot on. Most people are complex,
and you only see the side that they allow you to.
Number three tough situation for sure. In the end, you
only knew the part of her she was willing to
show you. Her compassion when you needed a friend was undeniable. However,

(01:30:53):
there seems to be a lot more about her that
you truly don't know and probably never will. You tried
to support her in a similar way that she supported you.
That part is now done, and while you may not
think of it as being in the same meaningful way,
it definitely was for her. Let it go now and
feel good about being compassionate to her, but let your
husband and his family dictate any further involvement. Best wishes.

(01:31:15):
Love that comment, I.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
Love it, OPI and the comment are just locked in,
locked in right now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):
Holy bodly. This is a healthy update and brave of
you to recognize that the person you knew who helped
you and the person who caused a lot of hurt
are not mutually exclusive. They are both capable of existing
at the same time, and they both come with their
own type of grief. In a situation like this, reconciling
the love and esteem you have for someone who fundamentally
supported you through darkness is so challenging in light of

(01:31:44):
them creating that darkness for someone else, many someones. Really,
do you think maybe some therapy might help you short
term in processing these feelings. I commend you and your
husband both for communicating and giving each other grace during
this time. It's easy to lose sight of things when
we're and emotionally charged. You both came together, created space
and acknowledgement for one another, and came to the resolution

(01:32:06):
you have now. However fragile it feels, it is still progress.
Things will become easier with time and a little bit
of distance from it. Good job and ladies and gentlemen.
That is the end of that story. What notes do
I have? None? Perfect ending?

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):
Just what a great analysis, what great self awareness, what
great empathy?

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
What great communication? You can't ask for mee? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
And you know what. Life can be complicated. These people
can be complicated, but we acknowledge it and we just
work

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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 husband’s mother disrespected me… so I made him choose between us! | Reddit Stories