My step mother tried to SABOTAGE my engagement… for her son!-r/okstorytime | Reddit Stories - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, John, you're under arrest. Oh no, don't do it.

(00:03):
I'm an og Okay Storytime podcast host. I don't care.
I'm making sure that you stay here for the next
two minutes.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
All right, I'll be detained for the two more minutes
before we get into this episode.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, we got some ads coming up.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Just stick around.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Stick around.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
My stepmother tried to sabotage my engagement for her son.
Ew my stepmother is trying to sabotage my engagement to
make her son happy.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I'm a twenty four years old male. My girlfriend is
twenty five female. Let's call her Kara. My dad is
fifty two male Toby, my stepmother is Karen, fifty one female,
and my stepbrother Tom is thirty six male. Fake names,
but I'm gonna try and keep it simple. My mother
passed away, so she isn't in the story. By the way,
this comes from Safe Albatross ninety seventy one, and if

(00:51):
you want to submit your own stories, go to the
r slash Okay storytime subreddit.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I'm Carly, I'm Sophia, and I'm Keon.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I met my girlfriend seven years ago an anime convention
in New York City. I remember we used to work
together for an ambulance company. She didn't remember me, but
I remembered her. She was meeting up with someone else,
but he never showed up. We clicked and have been
good friends since then. During the pandemic, I asked her
out to date and we have been together since. Kara

(01:19):
is amazing. She loves anime, fantasy novels, science fiction TV
shows and novels, and my little pony friendship is magic.
She also loves true crime podcast not my thing, but
it makes her happy. Kara had never met my family
when we were together as friends, but once we started dating,
I decided it was time to introduce her to my dad, stepmom,

(01:39):
and stepbrother. Everything was so cool. Kara was a hit
amongst my family. My stepbrother wouldn't leave her alone, but
I thought it was him just getting to know her.
My dad and stepmom loved her too. My stepbrother Tom,
during this time, was becoming a little annoying, coming over
to my frequently, I know what's happening, and texting Kara

(02:02):
a lot. She told me, but we felt it wasn't
anything to be concerned about. Tom's visits became more and
more frequent when Kara and I moved in together. A
year after moving in, my stepmother asked if Tom could
move in with us because he was moving out of
my dad's house and this would be the first time
he would be living alone. Okay, and being with family
would help. We had an extra bedroom in the house

(02:24):
we were renting. It was a guest bedroom. Kara and
myself agreed so long as it was only for a
year at most, You fools. Tom moved in and became
extremely clingy. He wanted to hang out with us every day.
Kara and myself when we get home liked to unwind
by playing video games, reading books together, watching movies in bed,

(02:44):
or going over to a friend's house and playing D
and D. Since Tom moved in, he has been involved
in everything except when we read together.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
He's sitting next to them.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
We read the story.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Why aren't you reading them out loud? Why mommy does
in the do.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
A fun voice?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Except when we read together, we read different books on
the patio. We just enjoy each other's company. Tom would
come outside and start talking to us about whatever, or
sit on the couch when we were playing video games
together and ask to have a turn.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
My time, Mommy said, I could have a ton you've
been playing oh day.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Kara likes to have her alone time just to veg
out and listen to music or a podcast and cook.
Tom would be in the kitchen and strike up a conversation,
so she wasn't able to listen to music or her
true crime podcasts. She wasn't complaining about it, though, because
she does not like confrontation. Tom also would ask to
go grocery shopping with Kara. He also would invite himself
out with us on our date night.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
I want to come on your date night. It's not
fair you always go on your date night.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
You always get all of the date nights with Carara.
I want a date night with Carara. We tried at
first to not tell him we were going out, but
he would cry to his mom and she would say
we were not being nice to Tom, that this was
the first time on his own and he was lonely.
Tom crossed the line when Kara and myself booked a

(04:07):
vacation and he just so happened to book the same
cruise as us. That was a huge red flag because
it wasn't random. We booked a cruise that was hosting
a true crime convention cruise. Tom is not interested in
true crime. I am not interested in true crime like Kara,
but this was my treat for her after the events
of that cruise, and there was a lot of drama

(04:29):
on it. I told Tom and my dad that we
needed our space and Tom needed to move out. My
stepmother did not take this well. Luckily, my dad put
his foot down and told Karen it had been fourteen
months and Tom needed to find his own place. Tom
moved back home with my dad and Karen. We had
our piece for a while. Tom was still coming over

(04:51):
a lot, but we were avoiding him as much as possible.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Is any Tommy is here? Is Kara home?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I want to play my video games. Mommy stopped letting
me when I moved back.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Mommy might let me in anymore now.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
For what is happening now? I asked my dad for
my mom's wedding ring to propose to Kara. My dad
happily gave me the ring, no questions asked, and his
wedding ring too for myself. Karen found out and she
has been unpleasant since. She makes comments about Kara being
older than myself and that she will not have much
time to have children. She said to me that Kara

(05:26):
is an older woman and that is not proper. You
know who's an older man, Cally.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Kara is just not your She's not age appropriate for you.
She should be with a more mature match, a more
mature man like my Tommy. Like what, Tommy, I think
they would be just the mis smashing match.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
I told Karen I don't and that she isn't going
to get married to Kara.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I am.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Tom found out about the engagement and also has been
telling me that Kara isn't right for me. He said,
I don't understand Kara like he does. He also said
we will be divorced in a year of marriage.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
I planned an engagement party for Kara to propose, and
everything was perfect. I planned a pool party in our
backyard with both our friends and family. Two hours before
the party, my dad called and said that Karen accidentally
ate shrimp and had to go to the hospital and
he couldn't come. So I decided to have the party
and not pop the question. I wanted my dad with me.

(06:24):
We know she ate that shrimp on purpose, though, right,
We know she gave herself and offleaxis on purpose.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Right? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:31):
The party was fun. I decided to plan a nice
dinner for Kara's family and mine to celebrate and pop
the question. Unfortunately, Karen got a flat tire up state
and needed my dad to drive upstate to help her
three hours before the dinner, so I decided to wait.
I tried again, and this time I was going to
ask Kara at my dad's barbecue party he was hosting. Unfortunately,

(06:54):
the night before, my dad's grill was broken and he
had to cancel. Hey, Op, I need you to stop
telling them when you pla to propose to Kara.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah. I needed to be a surprise, surprised, stop informing them.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I also want to see the look on Mommy and
Tommy's face. So I decided, since we had a lot
of bad luck, to ask Kara on a vacation to Japan.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Lovely.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
I didn't tell anyone. I had it all planned out
and booked a SPA day in Japan and asked her.
She said yes, and we posted our good news lovely.
But I mean, you're you're engaged now.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Wood, tell me at the wedding. At the wedding and
does anybody have any He's.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Gonna lea know he's gonna like, mommy reason, Mummy object
for me?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Does anyone have any reason why these two should not
be married? Can you leave that part out? Can you
just skip it? I think you could just skip it.
My dad was so happy.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Karen was not. She blew up my phone saying, how
could I do this to Tom? She told me Tom
is in love with Kara and she is his one
and only. She said, we are not a good match.
Kara is older and much better fit for Tom. I
knew Tom had a crush on Kara, but she doesn't
like him like that. Karen was calling and texting non

(08:16):
stop now, saying can I just.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Let Tom have Kara? Tom wants Caara.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I called her crazy butt and told her Kara is
a human and she isn't something to be given away,
and she doesn't belong to anybody. I called my dad
and showed him the voicemail and text messages. My dad
wasn't shocked, but he is staying at my house because
he doesn't know what to do and he doesn't want
to talk about why he left. But Tom and Karen

(08:42):
keep driving by the house and trying to call my dad.
We blocked both of them. I don't know, but I
may get a restraining order because this is making Kara
really uncomfortable. Any advice please, We have some comment Comment one.
I was shocked y'all agreed to let him live with
you for a year.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, a butt man.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Who is ten years older than you does not need
to live with anyone when he is moving out of
his parents' house. He needs to move out on his
own and be an effing adult. Karen was trying to
do everything in her power to stop you from proposing.
I'm glad it didn't work out, but I'm sorry that
she kept your dad from being there. You need to
password protect everything for the wedding, get a protection order

(09:22):
against Tom and Karen, and help your dad realize it's
time for a divorce. Worst case scenario is he goes
back to her. He needs to file for divorce and
give an eviction notice to Karen and Tom if the
house is in his name only.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
I hope you have a.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Great wedding and a happy life with Kara. Comment too,
So is Tom mentally disabled or something? You should definitely
ask Kara's father for advice on what to do about them.
Your stepmother is a psycho, But why can't Tom live
on his own Does he even work? Maybe Kara should
write him a letter telling him she doesn't love him
and that he is making her uncomfortable. What a crazy ordeal?

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Is this real?

Speaker 3 (09:58):
How could you not have noticed how on h hinged
they are before this? Ope, he replies, I don't know
if Tom has any mental disorders. I have no idea
why he can't live alone.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Thank god.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Karen is my stepmother. I met at fourteen, and after
my mom passed away and my dad remarried, grew closer
to my mom's family. I miss my mom and her sister.
My aunt helped me out during this time. My aunt
is very important to me, and she cooked just like
my mom did. So I was at my aunt's house
a lot and didn't pay attention to his relationship slash marriage.

(10:30):
That's the end of that.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
There you freaking go, we go Wowee.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Congratulations, I totally forgot. But isn't that the one that's
from our subreddit? Yes?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh my god, that's even better. Yes, So I hope
he rats. I hope you like that one. My stepfather
is a liar, but my mother refuses to leave him.
And then I said, like a liar. Trigger warning for
harmful relationships and also inappropriate relationships d children. As the

(11:01):
title suggests, my twenty four female mom fifty four female
has been married to my stepdad fifty three male for
about eleven years.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Now.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Throughout those years, she has occasionally decided enough is enough,
invented to me my older sister twenty five female or
other immediate family members, expressing her desire to end the relationship,
and finally find the perfect time to get out of
her toxic marriage. But every time she ends up forgiving him,
they make up, life goes on, and the cycle repeats.
By the way, this comes from Fun Communication twenty thirty

(11:30):
and if you want to submit your own stories, go
to the r slash Okay storytime suppered it. I'm Sophia, I'm.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Carly, and I'm Keon and Op says, but.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
This time was different. About a month ago, I got
an extremely emotional video call from her when she once
again had enough, But this time I could see that
she was packing a suitcase. After a particularly difficult fight.
Things escalated badly enough that she had an emotional bait breakdown,
decided to leave the house and drive over sixteen hours
to the state I live in to get away. I

(12:00):
tried my best to calm her down and understand the situation.
I can't remember the specifics of what finally made her
reach this breaking point, but I'll try to describe. But
the last eleven years with him in our lives has
been like to paint a better picture. My mom met
my step dad on a dating site. On their first date,
they decided they wanted to get married. Marriage is a
big thing in my family and our culture. As much

(12:21):
as I disagree with it, we don't really do dating
no matter how old you are. My biological father was
arrested and deported when we were really young, so she's
been operating as a single mom for quite some time.
It was hard on all of us, but our family
really stepped in to support her by taking care of
us while she worked. Though we were older but still minors,
she felt pressure to find a man to provide stability

(12:41):
for both herself and her daughters. I honestly don't blame her.
There's stigma to being a single mom in our culture,
and the way of being a single parent was overwhelming
for her. Things moved pretty quickly from there. The honeymoon
phase began and he showered her with gifts while she
enjoyed this time, my sister and I started to notice
red flags. This guy to constantly not only talks, but

(13:02):
promises the moon and all the stars to her and us,
then brags to anyone who will listen about what he's
willing and capable of providing. These promises never amount to much.
He's the kind of guy who believes money buys love.
This time, my mom lived about three hours away from
us to work, and we were still miners, living with
our grandma and uncles. He started to isolate her, intentionally

(13:23):
keeping her from visiting us on weekends when she was
supposed to. He'd send us messages or call us, making
it clear he was monopolizing her time. He became very
territorial of her and made it a habit of openly
competing with me and my sister for her attention and love.
Months past, and next thing you know, they got married
in a courthouse and we all got relocated to his
house in a state i'd never been to, hours away

(13:45):
from our family. During this time, I experienced inappropriate behavior
from him that made me extremely uncomfortable. He would also
consistently pick on my sister and me, and and my
mom also decided not to enroll us in school and
just homeschool us with some online study per p he
bought years ago for his biological kids. As time passed,
the red flags continued to crop up over promising, treating

(14:08):
me and my sister like threats, being territorial of me,
and being inappropriate with me. Then we moved to an
even further state, things went from bad to worse. They
plotted to send me overseas because they suspected I was
attracted to the same gender, and they tormented me badly,
turning my family against me to the point that I
struggled severely with my mental health in middle school. During

(14:29):
the tail end of high school and early years of college,
they began another campaign against me for dating someone who
was not the same race or culture as us. He
prevented my mom from co signing my student loans, took
my car away, and completely cut off my financial support
while my grandmother was battling pancreatic cancer. They also managed
to get me punted out of my grandma and uncle's

(14:51):
home where I was staying during college, making me homeless. Fortunately,
I had an acquaintance who let me move in with him.
Despite all this, I learned to be independent and support myself.
After immense pressure from my mom to reconcile with my
stepdad so she could be allowed to speak to me
and visit me or often, I caved, greeted my teeth,
and apologized to him. Shortly after I graduated college, ended

(15:14):
a difficult relationship, landed a stable career. I love and
married my now husband, twenty nine Mail, who I've been
with for four years. I'm also pregnant with our first baby,
a girl who were overjoyed to finally meet. Most relationships
with my family have been mended, and I learned to
cope and move forward. In recent years, it was just
my sister, mom, and stepdad living in a different state

(15:35):
while I lived in my home state where our whole
family is located. As I learned to recover from past trauma,
his controlling behavior escalated With my mom and sister. He
had total financial control over tracking every penny she spent,
while he was free to blow their income on mysterious purchases.
She wasn't allowed to have money in her name. Any
money she had, he needed to know about it and

(15:56):
would perpetually borrow it at any given time. Held over
six figures in credit card debt in her name. He
opened multiple businesses in my mom's name and put most
of the burden of running them on her while she
saw no profits. He would bark orders at her in
front of other people, commanding her like an unpaid employee.
Fast forward to the time at the beginning of my
post where she had enough and decided to drive up

(16:19):
to my home state to get away. I'm currently pregnant
five months at the time of her arrival. Before she came,
my life was pretty stable. I'd move past my trauma,
was planning my upcoming baby shower, and was due to
start at a new job days before her arrival. But
once she came to stay with me, my life centered
around her. I committed energy, emotions, resources, and time to

(16:40):
her well being. It's hard seeing your own mom in
such a vulnerable state, so I spent all my available
time supporting her. My entire family rallied around her. When
she started expressing interest in divorce. Yeah, I would imagine
that everyone would be like, please, please, We'll do anything
to get you out of there. She'd kept most of
our family in the dark about his controlling behavior, but
she finally opened up to almost everyone. I connected her

(17:03):
to a local domestic support group, she found a lawyer,
and she was starting to come to her senses about
the self absorbed person she married. I even found closure
while she was here as she reassessed her priorities to
focus on me and my sister, talking about how we'd
always be there for each other. She was apologetic and
regretful about bringing him into our lives. As satisfying as
it was to see her have clarity and acknowledge the

(17:25):
pain he caused, it was also bringing back difficult memories
for both me and my sister. The divorce proceedings began
and we were waiting for him to be served the paper.
But there was one problem. While my mom found support
and peace away from the toxic environment, my sister was
still in the home, facing my stepdad daily. They constantly
butted heads and he continually antagonized her. She would call

(17:47):
us sobbing most days from the emotional stress of being
alone with him. Naturally, my mom said she had to
face him eventually and needed to go back home to
be there for my sister and tie up loose ends
keeping her attached to him financially. Before she had a
date for a trip back, I got some odd texts
from my stepdad. He broke the news to me that
he had stomacher and passed along a suspicious medical document

(18:08):
to show me his diagnosis. Everyone was obviously shocked, but
extremely doubtful. This guy is a serial liar. If it
was anyone else, I would have been sympathetic and concerned,
But everyone in our family was skeptical. Was this just
a way to get her to come back home? A
pity play because he sensed the marriage was over. The
timing was convenient, to say the least. My mom was

(18:30):
on the fence. Context. My stepdad has about six or
seven phones. Why why My sister mentioned on a video
call with us one day that he left a couple
of them in their bedroom. Out of curiosity, my mom
asked my sister to check the one phone he had
with an absurdly long password. She went on the phone
and saw text with someone with a generic name. Upon

(18:51):
further inspection of the text notifications, it was obvious this
was a woman, and the texts were damning. I mean, yeah,
he's already done literally everything else, so of course he's cheating.
This guy was having an affair. I'm sure he's having
more than one, and if that wasn't bad enough, it
got worse. Finding this out made me recall that about
three years ago, my mom confided in me that she
contracted an STD the kind that you don't get accidentally

(19:15):
and never go away, but isn't life threatening. The only
person she'd been intimate with was him. Remembering this and
discovering his affair connected the dots for me and our family.
What do you mean you knew? You knew that he
was cheating nic shocked. Some days passed and my mom
finally decided she's going to make the sixteen hour drive
back home to face the situation and be there for

(19:35):
my sister. She spent the last day in my state
sobbing at the thought of going back Rafida facing him.
We all advised her against it out of fear for
her mental health and safety, but she insisted she needed
to go back for my sister, so we respected that.
The moment she arrived and made contact with him, everything changed.
Daily updates to me and the family turned to radio silence.
Oh my goodness. Communication about the divorce proceedings became nonexistent.

(19:58):
They started getting comfortable with each other again, calling each
other baby and saying I love you. He constantly stayed
by her side, never leaving her alone for a single moment,
talking her into exhaustion. It was like night and day.
The man she cried from fear over seeing again suddenly
became the only person she was willing to talk to,
while she iced the rest of us out. All the
talks we had about her and my sister moving in

(20:18):
with me, my mom going back to school, and getting
the degree. She always wanted the excitement of her being
able to watch her future granddaughter grow up. The days, weeks,
hours I spent dealing with the realtor, applying and touring apartments,
hundreds of documents I compiled to help her with the
divorce filing. It was starting to feel like it was
for nothing. When any of us would ask or check in,
she insisted, I'm still getting a divorce and stop bringing

(20:39):
me down my neck and treating me like a child.
She started turning on all of us, but we gave
her space and trusted what she said, despite what we
were seeing unfold during this time. The stress of worrying
that he was getting to her head, emotions running high
put strain on my marriage. When I got in an
argument with my husband, I usually called my mom to
rationalize with me and calm me down, since she's always
been on by. But when I called seeking support, something

(21:02):
weird happened. He was quiet, looked, exhausted, and barely said much.
My phone passed away during our conversation. When I charged
it and called back, she wasn't picking up. I called
my sister, who brought my mom into the room. As
she comes in, who's trailing behind her? I stepped out.
He tried to insert himself into my vulnerable moment, blaming
my husband had called him for help, which was a lie.
I went off, and I stepped out of her text

(21:24):
and blocked him. My mom ended up blowing up at me,
telling me not to get emotional allowed with her and
that if I was going to be like this, she
didn't want to live with me. A few days pass
Stepdad and Mom getting much more comfortable with each other
while keeping me and my family in the dark. Then
come the talks about a cruise. There was no talking
her out of it. She told us she had every
right to a vacation and could go on a trip
with her soon to be ex husband. Platonically, days before

(21:47):
the trip. My uncle was still texting with me and
my sister about his suspicions regarding as or diagnosis. After all,
he wasn't showing any symptoms and doctor visits had completely stopped.
We took another look at the document my stepdad's said,
Me and my uncle decided to call the hospital list it.
After some time on hold, he gets in touch with
the worker there. They ask for the m RN number.

(22:07):
That's strange, the worker says, there aren't usually letters in
this number. The worker highly doubted the validity of this dock,
so my sister decided to print it out and go
to the hospital to ask in person. Surprise, surprise, the
person she spoke to confirmed the concern about the m
RN number and pointed out countless flaws in the document.
This guy was faking cancer.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Can you even be mad? Because I'm not surprised?

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yea, because we knew the feeling.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
We knew this, This should have been brought up.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
We brought this information to my mom and she was disappointed,
but not surprised. As more time went on, the less
he stayed true to his original story, confirming without directly
saying it, that yes, the Kiser was a lie. The
cruise date arrives, my mom and stepdad are spending every
waking minute together, no more mentions of the divorce. I'm
running around, touring and applying to apartments to get my

(22:55):
mom and sister to move up here. Me, my sister,
and uncles are growing doubtful that she's really leaving it,
but we tried to stay hopeful. My mom and stepdad
leave for the cruise. She sends some videos of the
boat to show us how nice it is. I ask
her what the rooming situation is the usual, she says,
meaning they're sharing a room. One day into the cruise.
I'm the middle of applying for the perfect place that

(23:16):
can accommodate our needs, but demand for apartments are so
high that we have to act fast. I gently ask
my mom when she can fill out her part. Silence,
another text, silence, A couple of calls, no answer. Two
days of radio silence. She was avoiding me. Our chances
of getting the apartment are long gone. Two hundred collective
dollars we spent on application fees down the drain. On

(23:37):
day two of silence, I get a text from my
sister asking me to let her know when I'm home
the text was odd because she'd never asked me that before,
unless it's something serious. I was out of dinner with
my husband and our friend, trying to cheer me up
from the stress of being ghosted by my mom. A
text from my mom pops up on my screen. I'm
so sorry, please forgive me. Now, I'm in panic mode.
I immediately ask if she's okay. No respons My sister calls.

(24:01):
She's with my uncle, who tiptoes around something he obviously
wants to say. I'm so worried. I ask him to
cut to the chase and just tell me what's going on.
To make a long conversation short. She confessed she doesn't
want to proceed with the divorce. Who's giving him another shot.
I'm in shock, barely listening at this point, my shock
turns to anger. Tears so much reservice trauma, stress brought

(24:22):
on during my pregnancy, henchhin put onto my marriage effort,
putting into filing papers for weeks of looking for apartments,
countless house and tears to put my best foot forward
to support her down the drink. She couldn't even say
it to me or my sister directly. She had her
uncles tell us out of fear of our reaction, fear
of us, her daughters, who despite it all, ride with her,
comforted her, and stuck by her. So that brings us

(24:44):
to present day. Two days since I heard the news.
I'm having a mix of emotions and feeling something different
every hour. One minute I want to cancel my baby
shower to avoid her completely. The next I thought, to
heck with it, I deserve it. This is to celebrate
our unborn child. Hauntstant sobbing, rational, venting, exhaustion. Some moments,
me and my sister catch herselves grieving the relationships we

(25:05):
once had with her, because nothing will be the same
from this point forward. If it was just another fight
and another trip around the same cycle, I wouldn't be
writing this post. But it went so far this time
it felt real. It felt like there was a world
where I could raise a daughter that wouldn't know my
stepdad's face or name. I feel betrayed and once again
like she picked him over my sister and me. He won.
Will we more in our relationship with her. She's on

(25:26):
a cruise, living her best life. My anger for them
both has boiled over so much that I'm debating cutting
them both off altogether. My sister insists on moving up
here to the state I live in on her own,
leaving my mom to deal with our stepdad by herself
so she can finally stop living for our mom and
live her life for her own sake. Despite my mixed emotions,
the one I keep coming back to is betrayal and anger.

(25:46):
I've debated going no contact with only my stepdad, and
I've debated going no contact with both my stepdad and
my mom. I can't even bear the thought of her
being in the delivery room with me. My uncles are
encouraging me to forgive and forget and respect her decision,
but I just can't rational coming back from this like
everything is okay and nothing happened. If you made it
this far, thank you. Yeah. I think you need to
go no contact and just tell her like or it's not.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Really I would say limited only on the terms that
she can reach out if she needs exactly.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I agree. I agree. Hey, y'all, it's John og Host here.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
We're gonna get back to the stories.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
But here's a quick three minute break from as for
more sponsors. My friend ditched me for strangers. Now I'm
rethinking our friendship that's not a true friend. I nineteen
female and my boyfriend, nineteen male, are a part of
a rather large friend group, currently a fourteen person group
chat with other people, sometimes invited to events. As you
might suspect, I am not close with all of these people.

(26:37):
There are two or three that I consider very close,
but the rest are mostly acquaintances. By the way, this
comes from Quiet Animal Girl on the Charlotte do Bray
YouTube subreddit, and if you want to submit your own stories,
go to the r slash Okay storytime subreddit. I'm Carly,
I'm Sophia, I'm Keon.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
The group was.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Formed in twenty twenty three when I was invited to
a party a couple of months after my high school graduation.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
I had one really good friend, let's call her Carly.
Way did you read this?

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Did you know let's call her Carly. With a c
attending and a couple of acquaintances, I thought, what the heck,
this will be a way to meet some more people
now that the heck called high school is over. Albeit
all of these people went to my high school, we
just hadn't really talked due to being in different classes.

(27:24):
One person in particular, I'll call him Bolton, nineteen mail
I had never met at school, but over time we
grew really close. Since that initial party, we slowly expanded
the group as people went to UNI and Bolton met
people he had been friends with online or in primary school.
Bolton is actually how I met my boyfriend. They had
gone to primary school together, hadn't seen each other in years,

(27:48):
but had mutual friends going to my boyfriend's high school.
My boyfriend and these mutual friends were invited to Bolton's
eighteenth birthday party. My boyfriend didn't go because he was
too nervous to meet new people, but we ended up
meeting at one of the mutual's nineteenth birthday parties due
to me becoming friends with him. It's complicated, I know.
I hope it's making sense so far. My boyfriend and

(28:09):
I got together a couple of months later and have
now been dating for over a year. I love him
very much. In December of twenty twenty four, eleven of
the twelve group chat members the group has since expanded,
went on a small trip three hours from where we
live for a few nights. The trip was fine. Nothing
significant happened in terms of group drama. However, in the

(28:29):
months following, I have felt myself becoming more distant from
most of them and not really feeling like a part
of the group. A majority of these people play video
games and communicate via discord on a regular basis, including
my boyfriend, who seems to have grown closer while I
drift further away. I don't play video games and have
no interest in them. I have tried participating in a

(28:50):
couple with them in the past, but it wasn't really
my thing. I also don't have a PC like the
rest of them, so can't participate in lots of the
gaming even if I wanted to. Considering how often they
are all online and talking with each other, it is
unsurprising that they are closer and have inside joke, but
I don't know what I am able to do about that.
In my country, we are all of drinking age, and

(29:11):
my friends like to have parties or events where they
essentially just get wasted and maybe go get McDonald's. I
don't really drink, and I don't like being around people
who are wasted, which makes these parties boring and frustrating
because either I have to take care of someone or
I just sit on my phone. This added to the
inside joke and talk about video games or anime makes

(29:33):
me feel like I have nothing in common with these
people and like I'm not even a part of the group.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
I don't think you are.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
My closest friends are Bolton and Carly. However, they both
have their issues, as I'm sure I do too, but
they really get to me sometimes. Bolton is sometimes late
and bad at communicating, while Carly is terrible at applying
to messages and is always late.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
They live very.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Close to each other, and Bolton usually picks Carly up
to drive her to making him late too. With my
personal values, I find both these things disrespectful to my
time and my planning. I have anxiety, which they both
know about, and planning is very important to keeping me calm.
I have been trying not to let it get to me,
as I still valued them as friends and didn't feel

(30:17):
like they were big enough issues to end the friendship.
Over a few weeks ago, I mentioned to Bolton that
the upcoming weeks and months would be quite busy as
I was covering for a colleague at work and about
to start my studies. I then messaged Bolton, Carly, and
our high school friend Daria about taking a drive to
visit Daria, as we don't get to see her very often,
and I knew that I had very little time before

(30:38):
I'd be completely busy with work, study, and family and boyfriend.
I received interest from all three of them, except Carly
wasn't sure if it would clash with her work as
she hadn't received her roster, and Bolton had a friend
arriving from interstate that morning let's call them Easton, who
he was picking up from the airport. From Bolton's messages,
his only commitment to Easton was picking him up and

(30:59):
dropping him off at a partner's place. Someone in the
group chat who will call Flynn, allowing them to spend
the day together. Not long after, I received a message
from Bolton asking if Easton and Flynn could join us
in visiting Daria. I said that I'd prefer to keep
it small and just our high school friends, but that
I couldn't speak for what Carly and Daria wanted. I
have never met Easton before and am not close with Flynn,

(31:22):
so felt anxious about the prospect of them joining us,
but particularly because I just wanted to spend some uninterrupted
time with Daria, as I don't see her often and
don't want to have to worry about meeting someone new.
Bolton then said he'd spend the day with Easton and Flynn,
but we were welcome to hang out without him if
that was still the plan. Parley then got her roster

(31:43):
and was due at work that day, so she also canceled.
I had to message Daria asking if we could reschedule
since the others couldn't make it. However, I ended up
apologizing to her as I felt bad for canceling on
her and we had to do something by ourselves another time.
We have yet to decide on a day, as she
hasn't responded to my last couple of messages. Since this,
I have been quite upset with Bolton for canceling on us.

(32:06):
It might sound selfish, but it felt like he would
rather third wheel than hang out with me and our
other friends. It especially hurt given that he knew how
busy I was with work and study. I understand that
he had Easton visiting, who he doesn't see very often,
but with how busy I've been, he talks to me
even less. At least they have gaming through which they
can communicate. I told my boyfriend about this because I

(32:27):
was really upset about it. He initially said I should
have let Easton and Flynn join us, however quickly sided
with me when I informed him that I had never
met or talked to Easton and believed Carly and Daria
to have had minimal contact with him as well. My
boyfriend was then invited by Flynn to join him, Bolton,
and Easton in visiting Daria the day after my canceled

(32:47):
plans while I was to be at work. Turns out,
Daria had met Easton several times whilst gaming, seeing concerts
in his state, and she wanted to see him, knowing
about their cancelation. My boyfriend said no out of respect
for me, and was invited to a dinner the night
before instead so he could meet Easton in person. After
gaming a couple of times, my boyfriend ended up mentioning

(33:09):
to Bolton that he should apologize to me for canceling
and for making plans the day after with Daria, but
to wait until after our one year anniversary. So the
morning after my anniversary, I woke up next to my boyfriend,
looked at my phone and saw three long messages from Bolton,
casually saying sorry. For poor communication and justifying why he

(33:30):
canceled on me. I have Life three sixty with a
lot of the group and could see that Bolton didn't
end up spending the day with Easton and Flynn before
the dinner that night.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
You can't lie to people who have your location.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
That's just silly, which made me feel even worse as
he had essentially canceled on me for nothing. That night,
my boyfriend ended up finding out that Bolton had been
telling other people, which added to how upset I was
as I believed it to be a private matter. I
didn't end up responding to Bolton's message until a week later,
as I needed time to think and calm down. When
I did, I carefully drafted a message that would hopefully

(34:04):
convey my hurt without upsetting him. In return, however, I
was met with another not so great apology and justifications.
Since then, I have not said anything else as I
need some space to decide if this is a friendship
I want to keep and if it's worth fighting for
as it was already on the rock.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
My last thought is no, They're not no worth it.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
You need more friends For new friends.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Sometimes your friends kind of suck and you realize, Ah,
these aren't people that I have anything in common with,
and you don't. It's okay, Yeah, like they're not cool,
they're not nice.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
That leads us to now. In less than a week
is Carly's twentieth birthday party. The entire friend group is invited,
including Bolton, my boyfriend, and I. On one hand, I
want to be there for Carly, but on the other hand,
I hate drinking and being around wasted people, and I
suspect Bolan will want to talk to me.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
I am still.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Emotional and don't think that would be fair on Carle
as I'd probably cry due to this. I think it
is best that I don't attend. However, I don't want
to take my boyfriend away as they are his friends too,
so he is going and I will just spend some
time with my mom instead. I am not sure what
to do about the entire situation. Am I overreacting? Was
I being selfish? Do I try to fix things with Bolton?

Speaker 1 (35:13):
What is your advice?

Speaker 3 (35:14):
I think we gave a lot of it. Yeah, new friends,
new friends, new friends.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
With your boyfriend. Seems like that's good. My parents sent
my sister to a camp and used my money for it.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I feel like you should have to go too now right.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Trigger warning for extremeia and conversion camp. I work as
a computer engineer and live away from my parents. I
moved out when I was eighteen, not because we had
a particularly distant relationship, but because I was very hungry
for independence and I didn't want to go to college
like they wanted me to. I fell in love with
programming and got a job a month after I graduated,

(35:48):
and I've done that since. By the way, this comes
from very very very upset to too too, And you
can submit your own stories on the r slash. Okay, storytime,
separate it. I'm Sophia and I'm Angie, and ohp says
I am extremely frugal and I now make about seventy
K year after taxes. Dang nice noise looked jew go

(36:11):
mister money mustache. Both my parents are in traditional white
collar jobs that make significantly more money than I do,
and they are horrific with money. When I was growing up,
my parents were semi religious, church on Easter and Christmas
type of deal. Okay, so they're just Christmas Catholics, yeah,
and not particularly invested in it or politics. Somewhere in
the last three or four years they became interested in it,

(36:33):
and in the last year in particular, regarding the last
election especially, they have become some of the most religious
and over focused political people I've ever seen. I have
tried distancing myself from this by refusing to talk about
these issues over the phone at all. I could not
disagree more with them. I think they have some very
hateful views, but I've chosen not to engage them on it.

(36:54):
Growing up, I was not close to my younger sister,
and mainly because of our age gap. However, she has
grown up and is very pleasant to speak to. We
have spoken on the phone daily. I speak to mom
and dad much less frequently. Since she was around fourteen.
I have not been exposed to too much of this
because I intentionally tell both sides I don't want to
talk about their drama. Although I'm generally clear with my

(37:15):
sister that I agree with her, but I don't want
to bad mouth for parents. My sister is a sapphok,
which I have no issue with whatsoever, and my parents
do not or did not know and would immediately be against. Ooh.
Now I'm wondering what type of camp they're sending her to.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, you know, that's the first kind of camp that
came to mind.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
That was the first time that came to my mind. Yeah.
But then I was like, oh, well, they're using money
for me.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
It's going to be a regular like summer camp, right.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah. I feel like you should sue them if they
stole your money to pay for that kind of camp. Honestly,
we talked about this quite often. My sister also has
political views completely at odds with my parents. She was
in trouble for not supporting their favorite political candidate you
can probably guess who. But I encouraged her to swallow
it and suck it up at home for her safety insanity.

(38:03):
She mentioned a few times in the last two months
about wanting to come out to them, and I highly
highly discouraged it. I have heard both of my parents
approve of a pastor who disowned is attracted to the
same gender son, and similar stories. I didn't want them
to do that to her. I have offered to let
her live with me when she turns eighteen, but imagine
that being in the future. I made her promise not

(38:25):
to do that, and she did. On her sixteenth birthday,
she came out to them. I was a little angry
with her over the phone. I didn't curse her, scream
or anything, but I was annoyed, but with sympathy for
her position. I did chide her a bit, which I
acknowledge was dumb. She was extremely mad at me and
didn't call me for four days, which was a long
time for us to not speak. We spoke afterwards, and

(38:47):
I was much better, but things weren't going well. They
didn't punt her out, but weren't speaking to her at all. Literally,
she was screaming at them, and they just quietly went
to the rooms, not saying a word, Which is it's
crazy for people who have kind of most of Ope's
life not been religious. Yeah, Like these people are going
to Mass on Christmas in Yaster, literally and that's it.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
And then it's just yeah, because it's like even though
they seemed to be diving more into those same kind
of conservative views, like, that's still it's like you still
can't use your religious background for a reason for that.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
No, absolutely, that's my point. It's like one shouldn't do
that even if you are religious too. They just got religious. Yeah,
so it's even more confusing. Exactly, they don't even have
a lake to stand on here right. I offered to
speak to them for her, and she begged me not to,
so I did not. Against my better judgment, my dad
a week later called me over the phone. He said

(39:42):
that he was sick and needed emergency money to have
a procedure. Why do I think that's a lie? I
do I know what they're doing. He begged me not
to tell Mom or my sister he needed about twenty
grand I had refused the money in the past for
a car loan and made it clear that I wasn't

(40:02):
giving the money. But I did for this, cautious but
ultimately trusting him not to lie about his own potential passing.
I disagreed with him about a lot of things, but
he had always been so stadfast about the importance of
honesty that thought of him lying about something like that
seemed ridiculous, and I felt guilty for even thinking that.
About another week after that, my sister stopped calling me.

(40:24):
Oh no, I thought she was mad again for some reason,
but she didn't answer at all. Oh no, I'm so scared.
I was worried. I called my parents and asked about
her after about a week, and they said she was
being moody. They're lying. I thought they thought I didn't
know about her identity or what was going on. I
checked my Facebook that night and I read a day's

(40:45):
old message from one of her friends that explained that
she had been trying to reach me and that my
sister was taken from her house into a van and
driven off by men in a program with her and
my parents there before punting the friend out of the house.
Oh my goodness, my god, these parents should be arrested.
I think any parent that sends their child to conversion
camp should be arrested.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
I think that's child absolutely, This is like no, literally
is no. Yeah, it's just oh my god.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
And also that's just so terrifying for too to be
taken away in a van by just random men when.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
She's sixteen years old. Well there's other camps too. They're
just like outdoor camps, you know. I don't know, they're
not specifically conversion camps, but it's like if your kid
is acting up, uh huh, these certain parents will send
their kids to these outdoor school things, which is the
same thing where you get parted off in the middle
of the night and then you're not allowed to reach
out to people and they it's like terrible.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah that ever, it absolutely is terrible. I think like
that would only be reasonable if, like, I don't know,
the kid.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Was like a danger tugs or something. But even then,
these camps are not helping them. It's like the whole
thing of like holes, you know, right right, seeing that,
like it's a little.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Bit like that.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, the only thing I'm mostly focusing on, like that
sure method of taking them away.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I mean that's just so yeah, so danger ammatized a
child that, like in this situation, has done nothing wrong. Yeah,
her friend visited my parents' house several times, and they
eventually told her they sent her to a religious program.
She didn't get the name. I called up my father
and he denied it twice before admitting it after a
long talk. I was so angry. They seriously have these

(42:19):
religious camps that parents can send teens to any time
without committing a crime forever. I mean, he did commit
a crime. He stole your money. Yeah, I didn't think
it had anything to do with the money, but I
looked it up after that and found out that these
programs are generally very expensive. I called him up again
and he admitted that's where the money went. I demanded
that he let her out, and he told me it

(42:40):
was his money. That's so funny. Oh, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
I told him i'd never speak to him again, and
he just ignored me. I tried calling him every few
hours for the last several days when I found out,
and they ignore almost all of my calls. He intentionally
didn't tell me the name of the facility or camp.
But I've done reading and these are almost always dangerous places.
I don't even know if she's in the US anymore.
People pass away and get brainwashed at these places. I

(43:09):
feel so guilty for giving them the ability.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
To do this.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
I don't know the name of the camp, and I
did technically give them the money. My only recourse at
this point is to go tell everyone in their neighborhood
what they did. I saw a Facebook post they made
about sending my sister to a snooty Christian boarding school,
and that's not what they did. I called the school
they posted, and she isn't going there. They're very connected
to the church suburban town community, and I think it

(43:33):
would threaten them to have their image splattered with the truth.
I would completely disown them. Now if it wasn't completely
destroying my chances of getting her out, I'm at a loss.
Please help me. And there are some relevant comments. Oh
my gosh, I mean right away, I think you could
legally get at them. Yeah, because they lie to you

(43:55):
about the money. Yeah, that was under false pretenses. You
thought that you were giving it to your father a
medical procedure. It was not being used in that way.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
It's tricky because he doesn't probably have any written yeah
statements saying that. Unfortunately, it's very hard to get a
child out of this situation when the parents agree to it, right,
So like, yeply it would be really hard for you
to get her out of it.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Do we know how far away?

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Oh he is from the parents?

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Just like thinking, like if they're not answering calls or
text or anything like that, Like I'm thinking I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Go to them, Yeah, I yah, definitely start there. I
mean go to them to try to talk to them
at all. Record the conversation, see, like because he'll probably
admit that that was your money that he used for that,
and then he doesn't have a medical reason. I record it,
be like, yeah, you said that you were using that
to like save your life or like remind me why

(44:55):
you know I gave you the money? Why? Yeah? Relevant
Commons says, this is very, very difficult under the law
in most of the US most of the world, parents
have a right to decide how to raise their minor children.
There are some facilities for brainwashing people out of being
attracted to the same gender, which are so horrific that

(45:15):
I have little better terms to describe them other than torture.
In fact, a couple of US states have actually passed
laws against these places, but that doesn't help much. Because
parents have a right to send their children to someplace
else that doesn't have such a restriction, there is very
little you can do about it legally. On the other hand,
there is a major legal issue where you do have leverage.

(45:36):
From your description, it sounds like there is plausible argument
that your father committed fraud to scam you out of
twenty thousand dollars. Yes, yeah, I think that's the only
way that OPI can actually do something here. Something. If
you pursue this, there is a decent chance that you
could get law enforcement involved, and it is not impossible
that your father could be convicted of a felony. For

(45:58):
such a fraud, you certainly could sue to get the
money back, and could probably get a judgment to garnish
his wages, seize his bank accounts, and so forth until
you've been repaid. The most obvious thing to do would
be Dad, pull my sister out of that program and
either let her live with you or else send her
to live with me. If you don't, then I'll press
charges and get you thrown in prison for fraud. Don't

(46:19):
do that, because that would be blackmail, at least I
think it would, depending on the exact wording. With a
very careful approach, it may be possible, depending on the
exact details of the law on blackmail in your state,
which I do not know well enough to advise you on,
to get that same message across without actually committing blackmail.
If I were to do such a thing, I would
probably find a lawyer who could help me figure out

(46:40):
how to use this without committing a felony of your own. Because,
if I understand you correctly, you are not happy about
the twenty thousand dollars, but your real concern is for
your sister. My heart goes out to you and her,
and I wish you the best of fortune and a
successful outcome. I mean, I don't think he would have
given the money if he couldn't afford it, so, like,
you know, obviously this was an extreme case, but I

(47:00):
really obviously it's not about the money. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
He did mention towards the beginning that he was genuinely
responsible with money, yeah, or like general's a good saver.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Yeah, so it's clearly it's not about the money. It's
about his sister, and if this is the only way
that he can get his sister back, then yeah. Absolutely. Yeah,
Oh my gosh, it's worth mentioning that. I do have
two texts of him mentioning the need for money for
the emergency, and a short voicemail of him thanking me
for the money. That's great. Yeah, I mean it's difficult
because the emergency could be interpreted in different ways. I

(47:30):
guess so, but yeah, definitely talk to a lawyer. Yeah.
I don't know whether that would constitute prove or not,
but I assume so. I would assume that he wouldn't
be able to get a refund for the money anyway,
and therefore unable to have the financial stuff to get
her out. Quicker without going the quasi blackmail route. So
I don't know. Thank you very much, mastermind says, I
have a very strong feeling that you should just look

(47:52):
for a lawyer because nothing that we recommend should be
taken into consideration due to the serious nature of the situation.
Find a lawyer to discuss if there is anyone I
had to gain custody of your sister. Then talk to
a GSA of some sort and find out what type
of trauma she might end up dealing with and what
to do if you get her, because who knows what
they could be doing to her, And there is an update,

(48:12):
but yeah, let's get into it, because yeah, I just
need her to get out of that I desperately do.
Two days later, I got an incredible amount of varying
advice and support that I really appreciate. I explain the
situation to my boss, who was very supportive and gave
me some time off without an issue to deal with this.
Last night, I left home and drove to them. They
live in another part of Florida, but we all live there,

(48:34):
and tried having a rational conversation with them before I
took it. I pointed out the things I was learning
was regularly at these communities. I told them all the
stuff I've learned about these places. I demonstrated that it
wouldn't even change her identity or opinion, and they just
called me a liar or ignored me. I have never
seen my parents in a lower regard. I didn't even
bring up the money because I had a feeling that

(48:55):
if I mentioned it, he would punt me out. Both
of them seemed incredibly nonchal about the entire thing. Then
I made an appointment with a lawyer and then later another.
Both of them were LGBT friendly and had at least
some experience with similar situations, and both spent about an
hour and explaining to me how I am completely legally
screwed due to the nature of the gift and how

(49:18):
it won't be interpreted as condition, and that I have
absolutely zero legal grounds and getting my sister out, and
that without even the name of the place, I can
literally do nothing. I'm completely screwed. No, well that's not great,
this is heartbreaking. It's terrible. Oh my god, I do
want to say, like, just props pe for finding out

(49:40):
four days after it happened and doing literally everything in
his power to get his sister out of there, right.
I feel like if legally you can't do anything, like
I mean, don't stop fighting for sure, I feel like
what you could possibly do now is like try to
get research and get you know, articles talking about it,

(50:00):
talking about it, like anything that you can get that
talks about any sort of conversion therapy and present that
to them and be like, regardless of if you know
she's or not, this is what's happening to her.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Yeah, like she is hurting. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like,
because it is like torture.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Maybe talk to other pastors and stuff, like people who
would be on your side. Yeah, because there are a
lot of like religious people who are very against this, right.
So like, if you can get people who can kind
of speak their language.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Right, dude, find Bible verses, Yeah, I'd be like, God, yeah,
this is all saying that's bad. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
One drilled into me that I should not post about
this to their friends or it may make any legal
action that could be possible later impossible. But both basically
told me there wasn't a thing to be done. I
was at my wits end, and I had a last
ditch plant. I drove back to my father's home and
told him I would give him my remaining savings around
sixty five K. But I lied and said fifty five K,

(50:57):
so i'd have something if he took her out of
the camp and her to live with me. I was
amazed that he would even consider it, because I'd always
considered him such a high moral figure. But he stepped
in the room with my mother for five minutes and
said yes, but only if I do not involve the police.
I told him he would need to sign a contract
and wait a few days, and he told me he

(51:17):
may not have an issue with that, needs to think,
but did not want her legally in my name, but
she can live with me because he doesn't want to
be on the bill for child support. I wanted to
spit in his face, but I refrained. This just happened
less than an hour ago. I made another appointment with
another attorney tomorrow, but I don't think that this is possible,
and I may not show up to his office. If
I give him the money without any obligation to return it,

(51:38):
he would just take it and do nothing. My idea
at the moment is to agree to give them money
without a contract as soon as she's out and back
at the house I see her and then take her
and move to another state with her until she graduates.
I can keep working in my current job from online
until I get a new one. My father basically gave
the impression that he had completely disowned her anyway, and
I don't think he would spend the money a second

(51:59):
time to get her in another place. But obviously I'm
just guessing. Obviously I cannot have a legal contract written
where I buy custody of a minor. Can I have
one where they promise not to send her to another
institution like that? Like she must go to and graduate
from ex high school or something, or you must return
the money. Is there anything I can do to make
this work in a way where she's out and with me,

(52:19):
whether in my name, with custody or not, and they
don't have legal grounds to come and track us down
and cent her somewhere else. This sounds insane, but I'm insane.
I'm so worried. I'm vomiting randomly from guilt and stress.
I can't sleep, so I'm going to down a few
sleeping pills so I can go to bed. Thank you
very much, You've helped me immensely. It's disgusting how much
the legal system can screw over innocent teens. I've never

(52:42):
felt more angry during a Fourth of July in my life.
I don't know how we can profess freedom when stuff
like this still happens and is legally justifiable. I mean, yeah,
definitely keep going back to your lawyers, TOLLM. You got
this new plan. Yeah, see what you can do? Yeah,
but wow, right, such a terrible, terrible situation.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Maybe something you can do somehow as be like okay, yeah,
like I said, fifty five K, but like because of
this and this and this, like we need to make
these adjustments to our agreement or else it'll I'll.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Give you half.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
I'll actually only give you your twenty more K. Well,
I don't know, but that would still be they still
might just take that.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah. Edit, We met and he detailed to me how
I can easily go to jail with my plan and
just how dumb it is. I'm not giving them any money.
But he made it clear that I have no legal
recourse to get hurt. This lawyer is useless. There's nothing
I can do legally that will go anywhere. He advised
me to try and settle this from a civil perspective.
They won't listen to reason. I've never hated anyone more

(53:40):
than them. I feel like I fell in a black hole.
I don't see any way out. Oh my goodness, there's
an update twenty five days later. Oh my god, we're
getting close to the end of the story, and I
really hope that he gets her out of there. Yeahs terrifying, because.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Here's the thing. Okay, if you can't technically do anything
legal against the dad for that twenty k that op
he gave to him, then it's like, I feel like
you could still do something.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Here, Like sure, I mean a lawyer probably wouldn't like
an I can't do it, But I'm like, this is
the only way I would absolutely give my parents, you know, right,
the money.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I'd just not tell the lawyer, Yeah exactly. I would
just be part of our conversation. That'd be part of
my civil you know, way to deal with it.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, there's an update twenty five days later. This will
be a short update, but the situation with my sister
has ended on a positive no, thank goodness, it has
been quote unquote resolved. I think the mods will remove this,
but anyone who wants to know what happened, will be
able to see currently. I am in the hospital. I
initially thought I had a bad flu from stress following

(54:40):
the incident, but I wasn't getting better. Yesterday I went
to the doctor. She ordered me to the hospital for
a spinal tap. I actually contracted bacterial meningitis. Oh so
I'm not doing so well in that regard. I'm bored
and feel like garbage. But I have free time and
I've been meaning to write because this was just resolved.
If this is an entirely COOKI I apologize. My brain

(55:01):
is obviously a bit fried right now. This is going
to be horribly shortened. I did not give my father
any money, and we both basically ended up pretending that
I never offered the money and that he never theoretically
accepted it. I found out the camp she was staying
it my mother frequently needs computer help, and it was
one of the terribly described religious therapy camps several states away.
I found several horror stories online from people who have

(55:24):
attended this camp, and I showed it to mom and
dad and found a sympathetic religious figure from the community
they both respected. I convinced them, after much struggling, to
go pick her up with me. We did and ended
up flying there and picking her up with a lot
of trouble. They didn't want to let me in at
all and took an extremely long time letting her see us,
which made my parents very very mad. It's very hard

(55:44):
to get people out of those camps. Yeah, good that
you're mad. Of course. They also don't let the kids
send letters to their parents. Oh, or if they do,
they're very highly monitored, and it says I'm happy here,
I'm having a great time. It's all parents think, Oh,
my kid's fine, great, when it's not at all true. Oh,
I get a lot of these outdoor schools, not specifically

(56:05):
conversion camps, but just like these camps. They'll take pictures
and tell the kids that they have to smile or
do they get like in trouble. Oh my gosh. And
so you're only like all these parents are only seeing the.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Best, like right, like this good total isolation.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Oh. My parents were very upset about the small parts
of the facility we were allowed to see. They told
us our sister would lie and that they should go
without seeing her, which made them matter. I thought we
were going to have to call the police, but we
eventually got her out after many hours spent there. I
was nervous she would yell at them, but she knew
to pretend she had changed without me needing to tell her. Good.

(56:39):
She's back home as of several days, I'm in the hospital.
As of yesterday, there is a little bit left to
the story, but things are turning out well, truly, well enough,
I well enough, I mean she's out of there. But like,
genuinely I would never talk to these parents ever again, never, never.
I wish that these people could get arrested.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Right if I was ok, I would be like visiting
as much as I can for the sister.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Of Do we know exactly how old she is?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Well, she was sixteen when she came out, Okay, and
I don't think this happened. Yeah, so she's probably around sixteen, Yeah, yeah,
so young. My parents are basically pretending they were tricked
into the place being a four star resort, and are
laughing the whole thing off.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Oh my god, like they are equal victims in this
and this was all a wacky adventure where they stole
my money and sent my sister to harmful conversion prison.
Me and my sister have disgusted it privately, and we've
agreed that she will not make any waves until eighteen
and that she can live with me during college. Sadly,
we still have two years until then. I despise my

(57:38):
parents and cannot say a thing to them, which is infuriating.
I hate the hypocrisy NBS, but we both have to
swallow it for the moment. I am finished with them
completely and planned to never speak to them again after
she's eighteen. Hey, Sam, we're going to get back to
the stories.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
But here's three minutes of bads from her sponsors. My
mother stole my college funds, so I took her to
court arrest her. I twenty one female lost my dad
suddenly two years ago.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
He struggled with heavy drinking and our relationship wasn't always easy.
We had drifted apart and weren't in contact for about
two years before his passing. When he passed away at
fifty four, it was still a complete shock since it
felt so unexpected. By the way, this comes from Adorable
Axe Lottel and if you can submit your own stories
to the r slash Okay storytime subreddit. And I'm Angie,
I'm Sophia, and op says, my dad didn't have any

(58:27):
other children, My parents were divorced, and I'm an only
child without much extended family. That meant most of the
funeral arrangements and estate decisions fell to me at a
time when I was already grieving. Seeing how much I
had on my plate, my mom stepped in to help
by closing his bank account, explaining that there wasn't much
left in it. I appreciated that support, even though she
stayed fairly hands off otherwise, partly because of their history

(58:49):
together and partly because she's always been a bit distant emotionally.
Just days after the funeral, she started complaining about my grief.
She'd ask why I cared when he wasn't a good dad,
and told me I needed to care about the alive parent,
not the passed away one.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
I don't actually care at all about you. Yeah, you
aren't a good parent either, Yeah, not at all.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Despite our estrangement, I was devastated by his passing. Part
of me had always hoped that he'd overcome his regular
use and returned to us as a changed person. About
a month later, my boyfriend twenty seven mail At then
twenty four, and I were at his apartment collecting some paintings.
When my mom called from the hospital she had a stroke.
Oh my gosh. Due to the VID restrictions, only one
person could visit, but fortunately she was recovering well despite

(59:33):
some walking difficulties. My mom stayed hospitalized for about a week.
On the first day, I was alone at home while
my boyfriend returned to his place for student teaching obligations.
That night was terrifying. I'm still grieving my father deeply.
My mother had nearly passed away, and I had no
local friends since we'd recently moved, and the VID made
socializing impossible.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
That's so tough. I mean, you're already isolating, Your partner's
not there, your dad just pat Yeah, so many things
all at once. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
I spent the entire night having panic attacks and depressive episodes.
The next day is seeing my struggle. My boyfriend decided
I shouldn't be alone since he couldn't stay due to school.
He brought me to his parents' house until my mom
was discharged. His parents worked from home, so someone was
always there while he taught. Meanwhile, my mom had her
boyfriend visiting daily, so she wasn't alone either. Throughout her hospitalization.

(01:00:24):
I called and texted daily and visited when possible. I
can't drive, so I needed transportation. Once she was discharged,
I returned home to care for her. She refused professional help,
so I handled everything alone, which was fine by meat.
Stroke patients often experienced short tempers and memory problems, so
when she became angry for no apparent reason, I tried
not to take it personally. After a couple weeks, her
physical recovery progressed well, but her anger and short temper persisted.

(01:00:48):
She constantly argued over trivial matters. Then we had the
conversation that changed everything. She revealed that she had been
holding a major grudge because she viewed my staying at
my boyfriend's during her hospitalation as abandonment.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
What no, huh, There was no one else at home.
It was just O p a house like you were
in our house that I wasn't in either. Yeah. I
feel so abandoned, un abandoned, like what she should be
keeping the house warm. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
I explained my perspective, how I'd called daily, visited when possible,
and needed emotional support too. She dismissed my feelings entirely,
calling me an, ungrateful daughter who only cared about the
pasted away parent, not the alive one. This devastated me
because it echoed a lifelong pattern where my emotions were
invalidated as a child, when I was upset, she'd tell.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Me to get over it or that it wasn't a
big deal. Once, during a panic attack, she shook me
hard and yelled at me to stop. That'll help a
panic attack, for sure. I think whenever your mom says
like you abandon me, you gotta go. No, stop, shut up.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yet when my dad's wasted words hurt her feelings, she'd
cry to me for comfort. I'd been forced to mature
too early because of their dysfunction. Her hurtful words that
day were the breaking point. I returned to my boyfriends
for several weeks until it was time to move into
college dorms. Starting school was overwhelming. I was still grieving badly,

(01:02:16):
experiencing frequent panic attacks in the unfamiliar dorm environment. I
relied on my college fund, which my dad had established
when I was born, to pay tuition. My mom controlled
this fund, and when I texted asking when she'd make
the payment, she became evasive and repeatedly saying that she'd
get to it and not to worry. As a payment
deadline approached, I realized she wasn't going to pay, leaving

(01:02:38):
me facing a fifteen thousand dollars bill with no means
to cover it. Ooh, yikes, yike, big yikes. I made
the difficult decision to drop out. When I told her
about missing the deadline, she said that she was disappointed
in me again, and then I couldn't move back home
because I stressed her out too much, and that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
I was I'm sorry, she's disappointed that you couldn't go
to school because she didn't pay. Yeah, and also you
can't move home, even though this whole time she's been
like where'd you home? Bitterly and you're calling your daughter
for what? For her not being able to go to
school that you were supposed to pay for? Yeah what what?

(01:03:18):
And like wanting housing from her parent like shocking up?
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
She also threatened to take my dad's baseball card collection
and paintings, the only physical mementos i'd retrieved from his apartment.
I was devastated and ended up living with my boyfriend's
parents again. After explaining the situation over the next six months,
I repeatedly tried contacting my mom about college fund and
getting help with my dad's burial costs, but she never responded.

(01:03:44):
My dad remains in an urn at my boyfriend's parents' house.
She also removed me from her insurance immediately after punting
me out. Wow, which I discovered painfully when I needed
a hospital treatment for a uti.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Oh my gosh, lady's terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
This is so much to deal with. The full impact
hit me gradually. In just over a month, I'd essentially
lost my entire family and became homeless. If my boyfriend
had broken up with me, I would have had nowhere
to go, Thank goodness he didn't. Yeah, honestly. After six months,
I decided to attend community college and made one final
attempt to discuss my college fund with my mom via text.

(01:04:21):
She revealed that she'd returned to school herself, which I
initially supported, assuming that she would use her own money.
Then she dropped the bombshell she was using my college
fund for her education.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Can she even do that? Yeah, Helix in your name,
Yeah right, supposed to use that college fund for your college.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
That is so insane, but you have it. My goodness,
I was shocked and furious. My mom had promised my
entire life that I'd never have to worry about paying
for college like she had. She already held a bachelor's
degree with over thirty years of experience, and had earned
well over one hundred thousand dollars annually at her last job.
She could easily afford her own education and had never

(01:05:02):
mentioned using my fund. When I asked how long she'd
been using my money, I learned it had been six
months since I dropped out. Heartbroken and angry, I texted,
how could you do this? Dad made that for me,
and you promised that it was mine. She responded by
calling me disgusting and money hungry, claiming that she.

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
Needed it more than I did. Dude, what we literally
know you don't? Yeah, so I don't care. You have
a degree, right, Well, he's trying to get a degree.
It's like, maybe if I had that money, I could
be in college and not be so disappointing to you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Literally like what?

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
That was the final straw. I hired a lawyer to
recover my college fund, awesome and my father's assets. The
legal process stretched over a year because my mom fought
installed at every turn, turning what could have been resolved
in months to an expensive, drawn out battle. I arranged
deferred payment with my lawyer and took out a loan
to cover costs. Eventually I won the bank account my

(01:05:59):
mom claim had almost nothing, actually contained around ninety thousand
dollars day. I received forty five thousand of that, plus
my dad's portion of their retirement plans, the baseball card collection,
which is worth approximately fifty thousand dollars ooh, and the paintings.
We also discovered that after punching me out, she'd taken
a European vacation using the remainder of my college fund.

(01:06:22):
I don't think you can do that. Wish she had
to reimburse. Yeah, because it's a college fund, that's yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
What.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
As of today, I haven't spoken to my mother in
over two years. I'm still waiting for the retirement agency
to process the account transfers. So aside from the baseball
cards and paintings, I haven't seen the money yet.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
My boyfriend and I moved into our own apartment nice.
He's now a full time teacher while I continue working
through college with the help of financial aid. We're planning
to marry once things settle. Down more and I'm trying
to figure out my place in the world and how
to move forward. Well that's lovely. There are some comments,
but okay, well you know what, that was a whole frickin'
roll coaster. Yeah. Yeah, we got in somewhere seemingly good place. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
I haven't seen the money just yet, but I feel
like it's on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
I feel like, yeah, I feel like we're right around
the corner. Yeah, I feel like money.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Dang man, I mean, like truly, so so much just happened.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Yeah, that's so relieving that, like, even though the dad
was not a very good parent, it seems still he
still had that like legal sub set up yeah in
his way, which is great. Yeah, really saving her. Very
interesting that the mom is like, yeah, your dad wasn't
even a good parent, and then she goes and does this,
and then we find out that the dad had all
of these legal protections in place rights. It's like what.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
There are some comments. Comment everyone says, I rarely actively
root for another person's passing, but your mom has inspired me.
I'm so relieved you got away from her. What a
walking on the world she is. Comment to number two
says the audacity of that woman to call your father
names when she's literally no better than him. Yep, I'm
glad she's worried for him. Yeah, honestly, he's actively worse. Right,

(01:07:59):
she's still calling Opie names and stuff, and like, you know,
Oh my gosh, I'm glad you didn't just leave it
and fought for what was yours and your father's. She's
a vile woman and you will do well to remember
this when she comes back around, because she will. There
is a little update, oh a year later. Do any
final thoughts before we move on to that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
It seems like you handled that really well. Yeah. I mean,
your mom sucks and I probably would go load to
no contact with her, right, which I'm assuming you might
have done that right, seeing as you literally had to
sue her to get literally your stuff. Yeah. Hopefully you're
still in that relationship with your boyfriend. You seem like
he was, you know, really stepped up there. I hope
you're getting your degree. Yeah. So one year later, the

(01:08:39):
legal matter is officially resolved and I have received all
the money. Yay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
I am now engaged to my boyfriend and we're any
married next year.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
I haven't spoken to or heard from my mom and
have no plans to contact her. She's definitely not invited
to the wedding. This situation leaves me with mixed emotions. It's,
on one hand, it's over, I no longer endure verbals
for my mother and can live freely with my future husband.
On the other hand, it saddens me that I no
longer have a mother in my life, and I'm struck
by how completely out of hand this became. I'm excited

(01:09:12):
about this new chapter, though, I plan to finish school
and surround myself with friends who genuinely love me. I've
even started selling my artwork on Etsy and at local
art events. Oh I'm looking forward to whatever life brings next.

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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 step mother tried to SABOTAGE my engagement… for her son!-r/okstorytime | Reddit Stories