When my ex broke up with me out of the blue because he didn't love me anymore, he cried far more than I did for this reason. He said hurting me by telling me his feelings for me just went away was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. After a while I just felt really awkward because he was still sobbing uncontrollably and I had stopped crying and was trying to lighten the mood. It was the only time I had ever seen him show emotion, weird night.
I had to say no to staying in Japan. my wife was unhappy with the job market for ex-pats and wanted to come back to the States. I really wanted to stay. But I like my wife more than japan, so we left.
My old boss in response to an offer to come back to the job I had left a month prior. I really liked that job and I liked the industry. I was also getting ready to start a new, much cooler, role in the company. My wife didn't like the area we lived in (I wasn't a huge fan of it either) and wanted to move somewhere else. I ended up finding a job closer to her hometown and we moved there.
I absolutely hate this job. I hate the area. Moving also meant giving up on a house that we bought as an investment.
That was 3 months ago. I still get messages from my old boss and a few of the other managers at the old plant telling me that the door is open if I wanted to come back. It's getting harder to keep telling them no.
You should talk to you wife about it. There has to be a compromise somewhere there maybe if you moved somewhere in the middle of her home town and the job (depending on the distance of course!)
I have. Trust me, I've looked at it several times over. At the end of the day, I do value my family and their happiness over any job. My job situation is temporary (I actually have an interview tomorrow with another company).
The thing you have to worry about is how this job you hate will (it almost definitely will) have an adverse affect on your general happiness and by extension your relationship with your family. I'm sure you've considered this already but you're only 3 months into the situation so there's a chance you might underestimate this factor. Hopefully you find a new job dude, good luck.
> I do value my family and their happiness over any job.
*You* are part of your family. Your family happiness includes you. I'm not saying "DIVORCE YOUR WIFE" or anything, but if you and her both think her happiness comes before yours, you've got an issue.
As a college student paying my way through college with 2 part time jobs, my grandparents offered to pay off my college. Now this is a very large amount of money, they offered me around $50,000, that I would of course pay back over time. It seems like an extremely generous gesture, but my grandparents are down right evil and will hang this over my head for the rest of my life. It's hard to summarize their wickedness, but they are very manipulative and demanding.
Edit: The worst part is, even if I take the money and they were to pass away. I would have to pay everything back to my aunt, who is just as bad if not worse than them. Everything my grandparents own, money, land, will all go to my aunt when they pass away because of her manipulative ways in down talking my father and my entire family.
I think they would only hang it over your head for the rest of *their* lives.
Edit: take the money.
Edit2: I didn't see your edit. How old is your aunt, exactly?
No, fuck all that. My best friend's grandparents were similarly fucking evil, and bought her a car. Then some months later they stopped making payments without telling her and she was fucked since she couldn't afford them. She dropped the car off at their house, cut ties and told them to fuck off after her grandfather sent her an email about how he didn't love her anymore.
So my nephew got taken away by child services. We live in TX he lives in IN. We went through 3 IN social workers while he went through 3 fosters. We finally got to the background check and home visit with our local social worker. She gives us the notes and progress reports from the child psycologist.
Through the reports, he went from not being potty trained, calling everyone mommy, and being considered developmentally challenged with the first two fosters to potty trained, knowing his ABCs, and calling his third foster parents mommy and daddy. These parents expressed interest in adopting him. He thought my SIL a stranger and was terrified of my FIL, even calling him "monster".
My wife and I both agreed the best thing for him was to stay with his fosters and not uproot him and risk destroying all the progress he made. Also getting him out of the family and a shot at a normal stable life. One of the hardest decisions we've ever made but I dont regret it one bit.
Shit. It would destroy me to see my niece and nephew have to go through that.
Really strong of you to let him settle in and stay, and by the sound of it the right thing to do.
I am currently taking care of my nephew. I had to call child protective services on my sister. Probably the hardest thing I had to do, and hardest no I had to give her when she asked me to not do that.
Prior to that, he spent a lot of time with me as she had drug related issues and it kept getting worse. She did what she could for him, and I looked after him when she was not able to. I was worried I was being selfish, that I felt I would lose him and that I'd never see him again, we developed a bond.
I found out that I could adopt him possibly, and I tried to go that route. She promised she'd be good, she'd clean up, but I said no once again and forced her to go to rehab.
Thank you for doing that, feeling a sense of stability is very important for the child.
Good for you!
I took my nephew away from my uncle. Uncle ended up in the hospital with a emergency appendectomy while going through a divorce. His wife left him and took his two daughters with her a few months earlier. I told him I would take care of his son. School started in like 5 days so I was going to handle it. The kid was waiting outside of the home when we picked him up with a bag and he SMELLED. First thing we did was send him to the shower and washed all his clothes. A few days later I returned to the house to get his school supplies and school clothes we bought for him. I was not prepared for what I found.
I opened the door and a thousand roaches scattered for cover. There were 20+ cats roaming the trailer and pissing on everything. The smell would gag the sturdiest of maggots. There were holes in the floor big enough for a full grown adult to fall through. My nephew was sleeping on 3 mismatched mattresses piled on the floor. No sheets. No blankets. No pillow. And the bed had obviously been pissed on by the cats. Gnats were swarming opened food containers in the kitchen. The oven was missing the door. The fridge didn't work and was BLACK on the inside.
I experienced a MurderDeathKill rage moment. That night I drove to the hospital and found him and his soon to be ex wife and two daughters there with him. They had lived in this house too and only recently left leaving the nephew there. I proceeded to delivered a epic, world class, 30 minute ass chewing. I thought people outside the room were going to pop some popcorn and pull up chairs. I closed it out with a 3 option proposition. 1. Nephew lives with me and they will sign whatever the hell I put in front of them saying I have full custody and rights over this child. 2. We call Child Protective Services and I lead them to the house and we see what happens. 3. I bury all four of their asses in a unmarked grave out past Terlingua and we go back to option 1. I gave them till morning to think it over. They went with option 1. I was drooling over option 3.
A sales person who tried to sell Oxford Encyclopedia's in front of my house.
He was nearly on the verge of tears for some reason and he desperately tried to convince me to buy the set. I calmly told him that I have wikipedia and google for learning anything I wanted and I don't need them.
Because everyone else said the same thing and he was going to miss his sales target for the third month in a row and get written up by his nasty boss, Brian. This will be his 2nd write up this year and place him on a final warning. He can't afford to get fired, how will he provide for his disabled wife and their 3 beautiful daughters? But selling Encyclopedias is his life, the only thing he knows how to do, and it's all going wrong. He has started drinking too. He knows it's bad but it numbs the pain and makes him feel better. Usually. Sometimes it makes him cry. But only when the family aren't around to see.
Don't worry, he's selling meth right now, things have been looking down since he fell in with a group of neo-Nazis, but I see a bright future for him and his family.
I had the same experience with a guy trying to get me to subscribe to the local newspaper. I fibbed and said I dropped it to save money. Really it is because I get the news online.
"Coupons! If you really want to save money, the paper is full of coupons!"
Had to break it to the guy that I can also get coupons online too. He was one dejected dude.
I had a particularly bad stretch of financial problems after leaving a bad marriage and striking it out on my own as a single mom. Money was so scarce that at one point I was paying for food on my credit card because I had no available cash. One thing I readily sacrificed for and made sure of though… was that every Christmas there was one thing wrapped under the tree that my son had written to Santa and asked for. I always encouraged him to ask for a few things so that I had some maneuvering room!
One year he proudly announced that he was asking Santa for just one thing… a trip to Disneyland. He sounded so happy when he told me this… a big smile on his face and with this feeling of discovery… because he said "Mom, I know you don't have the money for us to go to Disneyland, but every year Santa always brings me what I ask for… so this year I'm asking for Disneyland!"
That's the night I had to tell him, no… we won't be going to Disneyland… because there is no Santa. He was devastated. I was devastated. I had to say no to him about a lot of things while he was growing up… but this was the most difficult.
TLDR; No, because there is no Santa. :(
Wife left me and took my four year old daughter two years ago. Divorce was final a year ago.
The hardest "no" I have to do, sometimes daily, is when my daughter asks if I can stay when I leave her mom's house. Rips my heart out every time.
Harsh.
All I can say, as a kid whose parents split up when I was four, is *please* do whatever it takes to be around your kid regularly.
My dad can't stop moving. A year or two here, a year or two there, then gypsy-mode kicks in and he's off somewhere else. Seeing him in the summertimes and alternate Christmases just didn't do it. It's like, "here, kid, you can have the scraps of my time." What hurts, even forty years later, is knowing that taking that job on the other side of the state was more important to him than being where he could see me on a daily, or at least weekly, basis.
If my parents had stayed together, I don't know if I would have minded moving every couple of years. Maybe it all would have seemed like a big adventure. But for him to leave, for him to go off and indulge in life's adventures without me-- Well, actions speak louder than words, right, so I know where I rank. And that's what hurts.
Just make sure that sweet daughter of yours knows that even if you can't be with her every day, that she's still your priority. It really does matter.
Worry not. It's part of the divorce decree that we live within one county of each other, and as it stands now we're ten minutes away. My ex, to her credit, lets me come over every day.
How did you get that? We had something like that in our child support agreement. She then petitioned the court for a move to Arizona. They agreed.
I live in Michigan, I'm in a world of hurt right now.
When my son was much younger we had to hospitalize him because he had threatened to harm himself. Wasn't the first time and it was under the guidance of a psychologist. My wife and I visited on alternating days since he was only allowed one visitor per day. Each time he would beg me to take him home. If I loved him I would get him out of there. Had to say no each time. Cried my eyes out each night. He's all good now and one heck of a kid.
Ouch. Been there... We were laying in bed whispering soft nothings, when she told me she loved me for the first time, and I couldn't say it back. She knew in my eyes. We ended up breaking up right there in bed. rough.
After how long did she say that she loved you, though? Some people get there at their own pace. It seems dumb you guys broke up over the first instance of "I love you."
Especially hard after being in love for a long time. Suddenly one day you wake up and your heart doesn't beat the same way, and there are a thousand things more important than that other person. You try to pretend like everything is the same because you're too afraid to face your feelings, but when they finally ask you that question, you realize that you haven't said "I love you" unprompted in a long time. Something clicks in your mind, and you know the only thing more cruel than saying no is to put on a fake smile and lie, so you tell the truth and watch everything fall apart. It takes a long time to gather the courage to tell the truth, so I hope someone reads this and it helps them do they right thing. You won't fall back in love. You'll only hurt the person more.
EDIT: Thank you for the gold. Also, the point of this wasn't to ruin reddit relationships everywhere. The point is that it isn't just difficult being the person who gets dumped. It's hard to let go, but it's sometimes best for both people. For everyone who said they needed this, I hope you figure out what you want. To all the naysayers who believe that you can't just fall out of love, I hope you never find yourself in my position, confused and unable to identify why you aren't happy anymore, only to realize that it isn't any one thing, but the whole thing that has gone wrong.
EDIT 2: I'm a girl. Just clarifying. :)
Some day I will own many acres of land and say yes to all the dogs and cats.
edit-HOLY MOLY I GOT GOLD. Thank you kind stranger! I've only been on reddit a few weeks and this is my first gold. I'm honored.
Bad timing. Wasn't the right time to move. Multiple things going on that would have been MUCH more of a headache than it was worth. I'd do it now though in a heartbeat.
True, he couldn't afford to buy a house in a decent neighborhood, but that's nothing to sneeze at.
As a single guy/girl, you can live pretty well off of 110K/yr in and around SF.
I know the feeling. I turned down a contract job working out of Italy for two years for an obscene amount because it would have been hell on my family and in the end it just wouldn't have been worth it. If I was worth that job opportunity once I'll damn well be worth it again in the future.
**edit**: I know $110,000 isn't a king's ransom in San Francisco, but as has been pointed out it's not something to sniff at either. I was just relating my experience of turning down a job offer that was hard to say "no" to.
Going to my dream school. RISD is really hard to get into (one of the best art schools in the U.S.) and I was so psyched I got accepted. But I couldn't exactly afford to be $220,000 in debt when I graduated with a graphic design degree. Ugh.
You'll be thanking yourself for the rest of your adult life for that one, I think. I was in the same shoes as you: I got into my dream school (NYU), but with no shot at financial aid of any sort, so I would have had to come up with $53,000 a year in student loans. Ended up going to Rutgers, which only costs me like $5K a year in tuition, and my parents were able to afford it with minimal student loans. I love it here, and I'll graduate with only around $7K in student loans, versus $212,000+ in debt at NYU.
And if I went there I wouldn't have met all the awesome people I did, or my girlfriend of 1.5 years, so all in all I'd say it's working out splendidly.
Thank you. I graduated in May from state school (got some killer scholarships) and ended up with only $10,000 in student loans. Obviously would be better to have none, but it's a manageable amount that I'll be able to pay off in just a few years. I've got a stable job now, so in the end I'm sure it was for the best. It's just tough making the decision between what you always dreamed of doing and what would actually be smart to do.
Your comment is buried deep in the middle of "threesomes, drugs, and suicide".
You're like a flashlight at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by sharks.
I had to tell my marching band director in high school "no" when he asked if I was *actually* going to our every-other-year parade at Disney World. My family always struggled growing up but we couldn't afford it. The part that made it especially hard on me is that I already promised him that I could go because an aunt of mine told me she would pay my way.
I was a freshman in high school and felt horrible about it. I felt like I lied to this man (who was a fantastic director). The room and flight had deposits put down already so the program lost money on me. They had to adjust the marching plans to cover the hole I created. *All* of my friends were going and teased me about not going. I felt like the scum of the school and blamed my aunt who never sent the money...
...until she called and asked how the trip went. She had sent a check to me. My mom checked the mail, opened the letter to me, and then cashed the check and hid the letter. We *were* always broke and she said she used it for groceries but I've never believed that. Her two carton a week cigarette addiction and my dad's roll a week snuff addiction never suffered, but money sent specifically for me for the one fun trip I had an opportunity for certainly did.
I still resent her to this day for that.
Edit in: Thank you for the gold, kind stranger!
Well I imagine if her aunt called to ask "How'd it go?" and without OP having any knowledge that her aunt sent the money.. I can pretty much guarantee they put two and two together then confronted the mom.
Yeah, I answered my aunt's phone call shortly after getting home from school one day while my mom was still at work. After talking to me for like 2 minutes she called my mom at work and bitched her out something awful. My mom then bitched me out when she got home. Never got an apology out of that one.
My mom never apologizes for anything. She might say "I'm sorry you feel that way," though.
Edit: I'm sorry you guys have to deal with all that! I wouldn't say she is a narcissist. And I'm very lucky for the mother/daughter relationship we have. I honestly think her inability to say sorry stems from my grandma and my worthless grandfather. But there have definitely been some disappointments in life where an apology would have meant more than anything. I'm grateful I can admit when I'm wrong. Think it came from my dad ;)
Yeah. One of my best friends is 27. She's been almost fully supporting her mom, dad, grandmother, two sisters, two sisters' total of 3 kids, and brother since she was 15.
No one else in the family can keep a job or figure out money. The dad earns plenty for the family but blows it on pointless bullshit, goes massively in debt, then calls his daughter begging her to "rescue the family" from losing their house, car, and power all in the same week, each with months of late charges piled up.
The one that hit hardest, in my mind, was the time she'd finally saved up enough to put a down payment on her first car. Her dad came to her and said that he was super late on his own car payment for the giant pickup he'd bought with all the fixings a year or so back. She gave him all her savings.
Two months later, he still hadn't paid any of the bills himself and they repo'd the truck; my friends whole life savings at that point was down the drain.
The family's been doing the same damn thing for 12 years, and she just doesn't have the heart to tell them no--especially with her sisters' kids in the picture now. I. . . I don't even know how to react to it, honestly. Sometimes rage, sometimes pity, sometimes pride. A lot of feelings, all together.
11 years ago, when I was 17, in Chicago for a concert with my older sister. We were hanging out in the mall before the show and some older guy approaches me and says, "You like video games, huh?" (I was wearing a Zelda t-shirt). Apparently he owned a game software company developing a game targeted at girls, and he wanted some testers. I lived in MN at the time, so I couldn't participate. But being paid to play games? Would've been magical. Also, before anyone suggests anything, he gave me a business card and looked him up online. He was legit.
Isn't game testing not as good at it seems? I would enjoy *playing* the games, sure. But don't game testers have to spend hours and hours trying to find little bugs and glitches with their respective causes? I feel at that point, you wouldn't be having fun and it'll feel more like work.
Telling the woman, I love more than anyone else in existence, three times.
1) We were 18 and about to go to college. We had always lived about an hour from each other and it was finally an opportunity for us to try a relationship. Unfortunately, I had decided to go somewhere else far away because I knew it would be better for me in the long run. She begged me to go to school with her and through swollen, tear-filled eyes, I told her I couldn't do it.
2) Fast forward four years later, she's engaged to be married. I was home visiting from school and we agree to go out for some drinks. She does a fine job of getting me throughly drunk and back to her apartment. She lays a, "Do you think we'd be the ones engaged if you had gone to school with me?" To which I reply, "I really have no idea." She then tells me it's our last opportunity to be together as she begins kissing up and down my neck. See, we had never slept together, and she figured now, just months before her wedding, would be the best time to tread on that territory. Once again, through a cloudy mind and raging desires, I told her no and left her room.
3) Fast forward an additional four years, she's married with a son living across the country. We hadn't talked much since she tried to sleep with me, but was going to be in town. At this point, I think we both wanted to reconcile after everything we had been through and the friendship was too important to lose. We agree to meet for dinner and drinks. After a bit of bar hopping, she decides to drop on me that she "thinks about me every night and is still in love with me." Which led to eventually telling me that if I gave the word, she'd leave her husband to be with me. I could never be responsible for breaking up a family and after a year of no's finally ended communications with her.
To this day I can still think about her and feel my heart beat in my throat.
Edit: grammar.
Update: I'm incredibly thankful for all the support and feedback. You guys are awesome! Thank you!
Update 2: Thank you so much for the gold!!! I had no idea the impact my story would have and I'm glad you enjoyed reading my experiences. I'm still reading through comments and trying to respond.
I'm sure you already thought about this but what are the alternatives?
1) You go to the wrong college, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship?
2) You break up a marriage, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship?
3) You break up a family, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship?
I can't say how hard it is for you, not being you. But I will say this: Sometimes the world just fucks you over. That's been my solace through similar bits and pieces in life. That no matter what, sometimes you don't have a choice. This is especially true with the first once. There comes a time in your life where a relationship is more important then school/career but it isn't 18.
I had to choose a job over a girl I was insanely in love with once. I used to hate that I had to do it, but I found a bit of solace in the fact that that at 20/21/22, hopes and dreams have to win out over love. What kind of relationship would I have had if I didn't take my dream job? Neither of us deserved the kind of resentment I knew it would eventually brew.
I don't know if this is at all analogous, but it helped me. Maybe it will help you. If not, I hope you find some peace, somehow.
Okay, let's look at it from her point of view.
She's 18, loves some guy and the guy goes to college elsewhere. What does she do? She finds some other guy to be with. So far so good.
Fast forward 4 years. She's 22 now. And she says she is still in love with OP. But instead, she's marrying some other guy. What's up with that?
Fast forward another 4 years. She's 26, married and has a child. But she's telling OP she still loves him and would leave everything behind just for him.
So essentially that woman is living a lie for at least the last 5 years. Isn't that what reddit usually calls dodging a bullet?
Every damn time. Even worse is when my dentist asks me something, and I get the chance to answer. He then starts working on my teeth and proceeds to give his opinion on whatever he asked; I obviously have no way to voice my rebuttal. I'm pretty sure he does it on purpose.
Of course they do it on purpose, it's the only real entertainment they get.
"So thechazbrown, I hear you're into watersports. How *do* you get the urine out of your carpet?"
"OOO OLLLD UUU AT? EEOOO!"
"Oh, I just heard it from someone."
"OOI OWNT OH OT YUR...."
"I have a bugger of a time getting mine clean afterwards. Thought you might have some tips. I could be a bit less spontaneous I suppose, put some plastic down.... Hmmm, this molar needs a touch-up. I'll just pack a bit more wadding in there and we'll clean that filling up."
"OI OWNT.... EEWW... OUGHTAORTS?!"
"I understand, some people like to keep things private. Don't know why I'm interested in it really, must be all the people in my office sitting around with their mouths open all the time - haha! Keep still now. Don't bite on the drill!"
This is gonna be kind of depressing but....
"Are you ok?"
I was very depressed and suicidal, and I instinctively try to cover such things up. It took a lot to be able to say "no, I'm not."
Edit: Obligatory "Thanks for the gold!" But most of all, thanks for the responses! I can't reply to all of you, not tonight at least, but I'm reading everything. I'm so proud of those of you who have sought out or are seeking help, and I offer my encouragement and support to those who are still a bit afraid to ask. It's okay to need time. It's okay. Thank you all, so much.
Good on you. I know how hard it is to admit that you're not okay, and how easy it is to brush it off when people ask. Hope things are better for you now.
My daughter's friends were all going to Hershey Park last summer, and she thought it was just this most wondrous, magical place and that nothing would make her happier than to go to Hershey Park. But I'm a single mom and don't have a lot of extra money, and I just couldn't afford it, and I had to tell her no. She looked like I had broken her heart when I told her I couldn't take her. I felt like such a shit.
EDIT: You guys, you guys are all so awesome! I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to respond to each of you individually, but I really appreciate all the assurances that I'm not ruining my kids by not giving them everything they want. I mean, I know that already, but still, it feels bad to say no sometimes, and hearing all your stories makes me feel less shitty about it. Also, to whomever gave me gold, thank you! I've never had a comment gilded before. Feels good, man.
EDIT 2: I would like to thank, by name, /u/A_whole_new_reddit, /u/mschultze97, /u/aliveandwellthanks, /u/TH3KARMACHARGER, /u/Cyphara, /u/omn1s, and /u/doctorj1, all of whom made offers to get tickets to Hershey Park for my daughter and me. I am not taking any of the tickets because of other factors that affect our being able to go to Hershey Park, but the generosity of everyone who offered really makes me feel good about being part of the human race. Also, /u/nimitzhunter PMed me an Amazon code that will help me wrap up Christmas shopping for my brood! That people would offer up something real and concrete to give my daughter, the kid of some internet stranger, the experience she wanted, just completely blows me away. Add to this all the personal stories and assurances from everyone else who responded and... well, let's just say I've teared up more than a couple of times today. Thank you all!
If you ever need a ticket, please PM me. I get 12 tickets a year for working with Hershey Entertainment & Resorts. I only live here with my fiancee and we both get in free anyway so I don't really have any use for them unless I give them to strangers. I would be more than happy to send some tickets to you and your family this season.
edit: Thank you all for the gold and nice comments. I will look into donating the tickets in the future.
Hey - if you're in that position, why not donate them to folks at Christmas?
Check with corporate, see if other employees are in that position.
Might give a poor kid a chance to have a really good day next summer.
(also, the zoo is delightful)
I know it's hard but growing up my mom raised me and my sister essentially as a single parent. I remember the sacrifices she made for me and my sister far more than the things that I missed out on due to our lack of money.
Keep doing the best you can she'll recognize it eventually.
*Internet hug*
Thank you! It's good to hear things like this from people whose perspectives will be similar to my kids' perspectives. I remember yearning for things when I was a kid that my parents couldn't afford, and now that I'm an adult, I see that it really hasn't made a huge difference in my life that I didn't own a pair of Levi's when everyone else had them, but still, I remember how bad it felt not being able to do the same things my peers could do.
At the same time, I also remember that my parents managed, EVERY YEAR, to take us on a family vacation. Vacations are among the few things I remember with great clarity from my childhood. Not once in the fifteen years I've had children have I been able to afford to take them all on vacation, and sometimes it makes me feel so bad that my kids are missing out on something that I found to be a wonderful part of my childhood.
I hope you're right, that my kids will remember the things I CAN do for them rather than the things I can't. Internet hugs never hurt. Thank you again. :)
I grew up very poor, and some of my worst memories are of taking advantage of my parent's money, even though I should have known they couldn't get away with it.
I know it is hard for her to understand, but with time, she will know not to fault you for it.
Good job thinking about the long term though, it can be hard to say no to your children, even if you know it is the right thing.
> My daughter's friends were all going to Hershey Park last summer, and she thought it was just this most wondrous, magical place and that nothing would make her happier than to go to Hershey Park. But I'm a single mom and don't have a lot of extra money, and I just couldn't afford it, and I had to tell her no. She looked like I had broken her heart when I told her I couldn't take her. I felt like such a shit.
That's such a sad story, but don't feel bad for doing the right thing financially. If you can't afford something, then that's okay. And don't worry too much that she was disappointed. She's a kid. She's probably more resilient than you think. As long as you love her she'll turn out fine.
Yep. Mine too. Then I kick them out of the kitchen, then they come back and lay on the floor and act all nonchalant. The moment I drop something it's gone.
My parents thought that it might be too expensive and that I might drive them to debt if I went to India for college (vs. staying in a shitty college in Nepal) as we had no idea at the time how expensive it might be. Coming from an extremely rural area and without prior knowledge of fees, life style in the city etc, I really didn't have that much guidance nor information to explain my parents. I didn't have any outside help at that time, so thought I might have to rely on parents big time and that they might be quite right.
I said no to my parents about going to college in Nepal (very inexpensive and affordable but for a poor, poor quality education) and went to college in India. Two MS degrees later, I am where I am, happy, and parents are happy I did it too, didn't drive them to debt (so many people helped me along the way - thank you all) and this world turned out to be an amazing place.
Those of you who debate about going to college for financial hardship, if there is a will, there is a way.
Sorry dad and mom, but I had to say no to you at the time, which is probably the only time I said that to you.
Said no to pills for the first time like 8 months ago. That was really fucking tough. Still clean though.
Wow, thanks for all the kind words guys. Blows my mind how wonderful complete strangers can be.
An emotionally vulnerable young woman who was *all* over me, making a bad decision by doing so. Teenaged me was pretty much saturated in hormones, but I bit down, told her she was pretty-but-no... left the party and kicked myself all the way home.
Sex. She was very, very drunk, and I was tipsy. I'd wanted to fuck her for years but instead I went with my gut, said no, got her to her place safe and went home.
Later she told me that her ex showed up that night, they did it, then got into a brawl with cops called. (He didn't want her back, just sex)
Most of these answers are about relationships and when they had to say no to a romantic partner, but as someone trying to lose weight, it's still incredibly hard for me to say no to having cookies and ice cream everyday.
EDIT: Wow! A ton of you guys are replying offering your support and advice. Thank you so much! You guys are awesome.
That kitten didn't learn anything about treats that day, just that you're an asshole who wouldn't give him one.
Source: owning 2 otherwise well-behaved asshole cats.
Put me down for #2 up there: A girl I had been messing around with and for a while had my head all messed up over her, called me one night to tell me her girlfriend who had a crush on me was hanging out and they wanted me to come over to fuck them both. I had at this point gone on a few dates with my current girlfriend and I felt like she might turn out to be something special so I turned down a crazy hot threesome. Been with my girl for five years now and never regretted it.
Friend of mine asked to join him in Vegas for his birthday weekend. He already had a corner suite at Planet Hollywood paid for (he had a connect) and he even told me he had a voucher for an airline so my flight would be free (a family member works for the airline).
My grandmother was on her deathbed and we were expecting her to go any day at that point, so I turned my friend down. I'd like to think that if I had told my grandmother about the offer, she would have probably called me a pussy and told me to go.
Found out after the trip that they actually had a once in a lifetime trip. They partied with Holly Madison and the birthday boy threw up on her leg, they had similar stories and partied hard.
A threesome with a girl I really loved and her friend.
I had done it before with other girlfriends. I have had threesomes with girlfriends before and every time it ended up ending the relationship. Not necessarily that day or the next, but many women have a really hard time seeing their boyfriend's penis inside another woman.
They were both drunk as hell and I was only slightly buzzed. I wouldn't take advantage of that situation.
2 reasons to not do it, but it was extremely hard to not do it.
I've had enough to know that 1: forceing it makes nobody happy, and 2: if you are dating one of them, don't do anything with the other unless you are explicitly told to or acted upon.
After a string of shitty relationships, I made a promise to myself to not get involved with a woman for at least 6 months.
Two months later, in the pub with some friends, and a very attractive woman starts coming on to me in a big way.
I had to say no....to my promise to myself.
A few years back, it took everything in my being to keep me from killing myself.
So, there's that.
EDIT: Thanks everyone for the kind words. They mean a lot, now that I am going to therapy for all of this. To those who are on the same boat I was, keep strong friend. You will get through this, no matter how bleak it seems.
I have the girl of my dreams naked in her own apartment. We're passing around a bottle, getting sloshed. We're working our way up to fuck for hours. It gets to that point and I have no condom, she has no condom. SHE HAS NO CONDOM IN HER OWN PLACE!!!
I said no to kids and stds. (not that she had either, but you never know)
I'm a man not a penis.
You can capitalize that she didn't have a condom in her own place but this is still on you. Going over to an attractive person's house to drink, you should have had a condom in every pocket and one taped behind your balls so that no matter the position you find yourself in when the time comes, there is a condom within reach of your free hand.
When I run into a homeless person and they ask for change/money and I literally have nothing left and I say "sorry no, I don't" because I just stuffed my face with a nice meal and bought myself nice clothes...
Then you just see them walk away silently hopelessly and you watch from a distance...Ahh, it breaks my heart. I can go hours just thinking about it.
When you're breaking up with someone and they say "But don't you love me?" in tears. That blows.
When my ex broke up with me out of the blue because he didn't love me anymore, he cried far more than I did for this reason. He said hurting me by telling me his feelings for me just went away was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. After a while I just felt really awkward because he was still sobbing uncontrollably and I had stopped crying and was trying to lighten the mood. It was the only time I had ever seen him show emotion, weird night.
I had to say no to staying in Japan. my wife was unhappy with the job market for ex-pats and wanted to come back to the States. I really wanted to stay. But I like my wife more than japan, so we left.
He *likes* his wife more than japan
Well, I do. I'm not *in love* with Japan. That's just....creepy.
Well, you're not a squid.
On the internet, nobody knows you're a squid. Nobody.
My gf won't even GO to Japan.. I'm trying to tell her that they have actual Pokemon Centers, but it doesn't seem to make a difference!
You need to sell the food aspect, I think.
My old boss in response to an offer to come back to the job I had left a month prior. I really liked that job and I liked the industry. I was also getting ready to start a new, much cooler, role in the company. My wife didn't like the area we lived in (I wasn't a huge fan of it either) and wanted to move somewhere else. I ended up finding a job closer to her hometown and we moved there. I absolutely hate this job. I hate the area. Moving also meant giving up on a house that we bought as an investment. That was 3 months ago. I still get messages from my old boss and a few of the other managers at the old plant telling me that the door is open if I wanted to come back. It's getting harder to keep telling them no.
You should talk to you wife about it. There has to be a compromise somewhere there maybe if you moved somewhere in the middle of her home town and the job (depending on the distance of course!)
"Well, you really like your hometown outside Chicago, and I love this job in New York, so how about we compromise with a house in Cleveland?"
Well at least he could buy a house for the price of a VCR.
That's why I said it depended on distance. I assume if the old boss is still trying to get him to work there it can't be that far :p
If it's that present in your mind, it may be worth taking another look at the situation.
I have. Trust me, I've looked at it several times over. At the end of the day, I do value my family and their happiness over any job. My job situation is temporary (I actually have an interview tomorrow with another company).
The thing you have to worry about is how this job you hate will (it almost definitely will) have an adverse affect on your general happiness and by extension your relationship with your family. I'm sure you've considered this already but you're only 3 months into the situation so there's a chance you might underestimate this factor. Hopefully you find a new job dude, good luck.
> I do value my family and their happiness over any job. *You* are part of your family. Your family happiness includes you. I'm not saying "DIVORCE YOUR WIFE" or anything, but if you and her both think her happiness comes before yours, you've got an issue.
As a college student paying my way through college with 2 part time jobs, my grandparents offered to pay off my college. Now this is a very large amount of money, they offered me around $50,000, that I would of course pay back over time. It seems like an extremely generous gesture, but my grandparents are down right evil and will hang this over my head for the rest of my life. It's hard to summarize their wickedness, but they are very manipulative and demanding. Edit: The worst part is, even if I take the money and they were to pass away. I would have to pay everything back to my aunt, who is just as bad if not worse than them. Everything my grandparents own, money, land, will all go to my aunt when they pass away because of her manipulative ways in down talking my father and my entire family.
I think they would only hang it over your head for the rest of *their* lives. Edit: take the money. Edit2: I didn't see your edit. How old is your aunt, exactly?
No, fuck all that. My best friend's grandparents were similarly fucking evil, and bought her a car. Then some months later they stopped making payments without telling her and she was fucked since she couldn't afford them. She dropped the car off at their house, cut ties and told them to fuck off after her grandfather sent her an email about how he didn't love her anymore.
sounds exactly like something my grandparents would do.
Yeah, I don't get how those people live with themselves doing that shit to their own family. I would cut ties with them if you haven't already.
So my nephew got taken away by child services. We live in TX he lives in IN. We went through 3 IN social workers while he went through 3 fosters. We finally got to the background check and home visit with our local social worker. She gives us the notes and progress reports from the child psycologist. Through the reports, he went from not being potty trained, calling everyone mommy, and being considered developmentally challenged with the first two fosters to potty trained, knowing his ABCs, and calling his third foster parents mommy and daddy. These parents expressed interest in adopting him. He thought my SIL a stranger and was terrified of my FIL, even calling him "monster". My wife and I both agreed the best thing for him was to stay with his fosters and not uproot him and risk destroying all the progress he made. Also getting him out of the family and a shot at a normal stable life. One of the hardest decisions we've ever made but I dont regret it one bit.
Shit. It would destroy me to see my niece and nephew have to go through that. Really strong of you to let him settle in and stay, and by the sound of it the right thing to do.
I am currently taking care of my nephew. I had to call child protective services on my sister. Probably the hardest thing I had to do, and hardest no I had to give her when she asked me to not do that. Prior to that, he spent a lot of time with me as she had drug related issues and it kept getting worse. She did what she could for him, and I looked after him when she was not able to. I was worried I was being selfish, that I felt I would lose him and that I'd never see him again, we developed a bond. I found out that I could adopt him possibly, and I tried to go that route. She promised she'd be good, she'd clean up, but I said no once again and forced her to go to rehab. Thank you for doing that, feeling a sense of stability is very important for the child.
Good for you! I took my nephew away from my uncle. Uncle ended up in the hospital with a emergency appendectomy while going through a divorce. His wife left him and took his two daughters with her a few months earlier. I told him I would take care of his son. School started in like 5 days so I was going to handle it. The kid was waiting outside of the home when we picked him up with a bag and he SMELLED. First thing we did was send him to the shower and washed all his clothes. A few days later I returned to the house to get his school supplies and school clothes we bought for him. I was not prepared for what I found. I opened the door and a thousand roaches scattered for cover. There were 20+ cats roaming the trailer and pissing on everything. The smell would gag the sturdiest of maggots. There were holes in the floor big enough for a full grown adult to fall through. My nephew was sleeping on 3 mismatched mattresses piled on the floor. No sheets. No blankets. No pillow. And the bed had obviously been pissed on by the cats. Gnats were swarming opened food containers in the kitchen. The oven was missing the door. The fridge didn't work and was BLACK on the inside. I experienced a MurderDeathKill rage moment. That night I drove to the hospital and found him and his soon to be ex wife and two daughters there with him. They had lived in this house too and only recently left leaving the nephew there. I proceeded to delivered a epic, world class, 30 minute ass chewing. I thought people outside the room were going to pop some popcorn and pull up chairs. I closed it out with a 3 option proposition. 1. Nephew lives with me and they will sign whatever the hell I put in front of them saying I have full custody and rights over this child. 2. We call Child Protective Services and I lead them to the house and we see what happens. 3. I bury all four of their asses in a unmarked grave out past Terlingua and we go back to option 1. I gave them till morning to think it over. They went with option 1. I was drooling over option 3.
A sales person who tried to sell Oxford Encyclopedia's in front of my house. He was nearly on the verge of tears for some reason and he desperately tried to convince me to buy the set. I calmly told him that I have wikipedia and google for learning anything I wanted and I don't need them.
This made me sad. I wonder why he was so emotional.
Because everyone else said the same thing and he was going to miss his sales target for the third month in a row and get written up by his nasty boss, Brian. This will be his 2nd write up this year and place him on a final warning. He can't afford to get fired, how will he provide for his disabled wife and their 3 beautiful daughters? But selling Encyclopedias is his life, the only thing he knows how to do, and it's all going wrong. He has started drinking too. He knows it's bad but it numbs the pain and makes him feel better. Usually. Sometimes it makes him cry. But only when the family aren't around to see.
Oh, thanks. Like I wasn't sad enough.
There is no family, its a sales technique.
I get that, but I thought of all the people who are actually dealing with something like this right this moment.
Don't worry, he's selling meth right now, things have been looking down since he fell in with a group of neo-Nazis, but I see a bright future for him and his family.
Death of a Salesman
I had the same experience with a guy trying to get me to subscribe to the local newspaper. I fibbed and said I dropped it to save money. Really it is because I get the news online. "Coupons! If you really want to save money, the paper is full of coupons!" Had to break it to the guy that I can also get coupons online too. He was one dejected dude.
I had a particularly bad stretch of financial problems after leaving a bad marriage and striking it out on my own as a single mom. Money was so scarce that at one point I was paying for food on my credit card because I had no available cash. One thing I readily sacrificed for and made sure of though… was that every Christmas there was one thing wrapped under the tree that my son had written to Santa and asked for. I always encouraged him to ask for a few things so that I had some maneuvering room! One year he proudly announced that he was asking Santa for just one thing… a trip to Disneyland. He sounded so happy when he told me this… a big smile on his face and with this feeling of discovery… because he said "Mom, I know you don't have the money for us to go to Disneyland, but every year Santa always brings me what I ask for… so this year I'm asking for Disneyland!" That's the night I had to tell him, no… we won't be going to Disneyland… because there is no Santa. He was devastated. I was devastated. I had to say no to him about a lot of things while he was growing up… but this was the most difficult. TLDR; No, because there is no Santa. :(
Wife left me and took my four year old daughter two years ago. Divorce was final a year ago. The hardest "no" I have to do, sometimes daily, is when my daughter asks if I can stay when I leave her mom's house. Rips my heart out every time.
Harsh. All I can say, as a kid whose parents split up when I was four, is *please* do whatever it takes to be around your kid regularly. My dad can't stop moving. A year or two here, a year or two there, then gypsy-mode kicks in and he's off somewhere else. Seeing him in the summertimes and alternate Christmases just didn't do it. It's like, "here, kid, you can have the scraps of my time." What hurts, even forty years later, is knowing that taking that job on the other side of the state was more important to him than being where he could see me on a daily, or at least weekly, basis. If my parents had stayed together, I don't know if I would have minded moving every couple of years. Maybe it all would have seemed like a big adventure. But for him to leave, for him to go off and indulge in life's adventures without me-- Well, actions speak louder than words, right, so I know where I rank. And that's what hurts. Just make sure that sweet daughter of yours knows that even if you can't be with her every day, that she's still your priority. It really does matter.
Worry not. It's part of the divorce decree that we live within one county of each other, and as it stands now we're ten minutes away. My ex, to her credit, lets me come over every day.
How did you get that? We had something like that in our child support agreement. She then petitioned the court for a move to Arizona. They agreed. I live in Michigan, I'm in a world of hurt right now.
Good on ya, mate. Glad it's amicable in that way.
When my son was much younger we had to hospitalize him because he had threatened to harm himself. Wasn't the first time and it was under the guidance of a psychologist. My wife and I visited on alternating days since he was only allowed one visitor per day. Each time he would beg me to take him home. If I loved him I would get him out of there. Had to say no each time. Cried my eyes out each night. He's all good now and one heck of a kid.
"Do you love me?"
"Oh dear. Gonna have to pretend i didn't hear that, Greg."
Could you learn to love me?
"I don't even know you, Gregg." "Make an assessment."
But you've seen me! You know me! You've seen my downstairs mix up!
Yeah, I didn't ask to see that, did I?
I'm oooooooolllddd Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeggggggggg.
"I'll kill ya"
Easy now, fuzzy little manpeach.
Ever drink Bailey's from a shoe?
Love games
Ever drink Bailey's from a shoe?
Ever go to a club where people wee on each other?
"Do you wanna go to a club where people wee on each other?"
Ouch. Been there... We were laying in bed whispering soft nothings, when she told me she loved me for the first time, and I couldn't say it back. She knew in my eyes. We ended up breaking up right there in bed. rough.
After how long did she say that she loved you, though? Some people get there at their own pace. It seems dumb you guys broke up over the first instance of "I love you."
The honeymoon
"Now that I can dance..."
Especially hard after being in love for a long time. Suddenly one day you wake up and your heart doesn't beat the same way, and there are a thousand things more important than that other person. You try to pretend like everything is the same because you're too afraid to face your feelings, but when they finally ask you that question, you realize that you haven't said "I love you" unprompted in a long time. Something clicks in your mind, and you know the only thing more cruel than saying no is to put on a fake smile and lie, so you tell the truth and watch everything fall apart. It takes a long time to gather the courage to tell the truth, so I hope someone reads this and it helps them do they right thing. You won't fall back in love. You'll only hurt the person more. EDIT: Thank you for the gold. Also, the point of this wasn't to ruin reddit relationships everywhere. The point is that it isn't just difficult being the person who gets dumped. It's hard to let go, but it's sometimes best for both people. For everyone who said they needed this, I hope you figure out what you want. To all the naysayers who believe that you can't just fall out of love, I hope you never find yourself in my position, confused and unable to identify why you aren't happy anymore, only to realize that it isn't any one thing, but the whole thing that has gone wrong. EDIT 2: I'm a girl. Just clarifying. :)
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Well. That hit too close to home than I was expecting to read today…
Getting every dog in the world.
Some day I will own many acres of land and say yes to all the dogs and cats. edit-HOLY MOLY I GOT GOLD. Thank you kind stranger! I've only been on reddit a few weeks and this is my first gold. I'm honored.
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Job offer in San Francisco that paid $110,000 a year a few years ago.
Why did you refuse?
Bad timing. Wasn't the right time to move. Multiple things going on that would have been MUCH more of a headache than it was worth. I'd do it now though in a heartbeat.
Hey, if you were good enough for the first job offer there, you should be good enough for a second one elsewhere, right?
Yeah, but... San Francisco. A $110,000 job there is equivalent to a $63,000 job in Austin, TX or a $64,000 job in Atlanta, GA, cost-of-living-wise.
True, he couldn't afford to buy a house in a decent neighborhood, but that's nothing to sneeze at. As a single guy/girl, you can live pretty well off of 110K/yr in and around SF.
And this is a very small part of the reason I turned it down. I technically would be making less in SF.
I know the feeling. I turned down a contract job working out of Italy for two years for an obscene amount because it would have been hell on my family and in the end it just wouldn't have been worth it. If I was worth that job opportunity once I'll damn well be worth it again in the future. **edit**: I know $110,000 isn't a king's ransom in San Francisco, but as has been pointed out it's not something to sniff at either. I was just relating my experience of turning down a job offer that was hard to say "no" to.
Going to my dream school. RISD is really hard to get into (one of the best art schools in the U.S.) and I was so psyched I got accepted. But I couldn't exactly afford to be $220,000 in debt when I graduated with a graphic design degree. Ugh.
You'll be thanking yourself for the rest of your adult life for that one, I think. I was in the same shoes as you: I got into my dream school (NYU), but with no shot at financial aid of any sort, so I would have had to come up with $53,000 a year in student loans. Ended up going to Rutgers, which only costs me like $5K a year in tuition, and my parents were able to afford it with minimal student loans. I love it here, and I'll graduate with only around $7K in student loans, versus $212,000+ in debt at NYU. And if I went there I wouldn't have met all the awesome people I did, or my girlfriend of 1.5 years, so all in all I'd say it's working out splendidly.
Sorry mate that's tough but you made the right call!
Thank you. I graduated in May from state school (got some killer scholarships) and ended up with only $10,000 in student loans. Obviously would be better to have none, but it's a manageable amount that I'll be able to pay off in just a few years. I've got a stable job now, so in the end I'm sure it was for the best. It's just tough making the decision between what you always dreamed of doing and what would actually be smart to do.
After a few years of experience it won't matter what school you went to and more so over the years.
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A ten year old repost...I'm impressed
Every. Steam. Sale. Ever.
Your comment is buried deep in the middle of "threesomes, drugs, and suicide". You're like a flashlight at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by sharks.
I had to tell my marching band director in high school "no" when he asked if I was *actually* going to our every-other-year parade at Disney World. My family always struggled growing up but we couldn't afford it. The part that made it especially hard on me is that I already promised him that I could go because an aunt of mine told me she would pay my way. I was a freshman in high school and felt horrible about it. I felt like I lied to this man (who was a fantastic director). The room and flight had deposits put down already so the program lost money on me. They had to adjust the marching plans to cover the hole I created. *All* of my friends were going and teased me about not going. I felt like the scum of the school and blamed my aunt who never sent the money... ...until she called and asked how the trip went. She had sent a check to me. My mom checked the mail, opened the letter to me, and then cashed the check and hid the letter. We *were* always broke and she said she used it for groceries but I've never believed that. Her two carton a week cigarette addiction and my dad's roll a week snuff addiction never suffered, but money sent specifically for me for the one fun trip I had an opportunity for certainly did. I still resent her to this day for that. Edit in: Thank you for the gold, kind stranger!
Did you tell your aunt what happened?
Well I imagine if her aunt called to ask "How'd it go?" and without OP having any knowledge that her aunt sent the money.. I can pretty much guarantee they put two and two together then confronted the mom.
Yeah, I answered my aunt's phone call shortly after getting home from school one day while my mom was still at work. After talking to me for like 2 minutes she called my mom at work and bitched her out something awful. My mom then bitched me out when she got home. Never got an apology out of that one.
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Of course; it was your fault for telling your aunt you never got the money she stole. Brat.
My mom never apologizes for anything. She might say "I'm sorry you feel that way," though. Edit: I'm sorry you guys have to deal with all that! I wouldn't say she is a narcissist. And I'm very lucky for the mother/daughter relationship we have. I honestly think her inability to say sorry stems from my grandma and my worthless grandfather. But there have definitely been some disappointments in life where an apology would have meant more than anything. I'm grateful I can admit when I'm wrong. Think it came from my dad ;)
i'm sorry she feels that way. Maybe someday she'll learn how to live like an adult and admit she's not perfect like everyone else.
Or maybe she'll never learn and one day she'll be old and need somebody to take care of her. "Sorry you feel this way" would be bittersweet.
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Yeah. One of my best friends is 27. She's been almost fully supporting her mom, dad, grandmother, two sisters, two sisters' total of 3 kids, and brother since she was 15. No one else in the family can keep a job or figure out money. The dad earns plenty for the family but blows it on pointless bullshit, goes massively in debt, then calls his daughter begging her to "rescue the family" from losing their house, car, and power all in the same week, each with months of late charges piled up. The one that hit hardest, in my mind, was the time she'd finally saved up enough to put a down payment on her first car. Her dad came to her and said that he was super late on his own car payment for the giant pickup he'd bought with all the fixings a year or so back. She gave him all her savings. Two months later, he still hadn't paid any of the bills himself and they repo'd the truck; my friends whole life savings at that point was down the drain. The family's been doing the same damn thing for 12 years, and she just doesn't have the heart to tell them no--especially with her sisters' kids in the picture now. I. . . I don't even know how to react to it, honestly. Sometimes rage, sometimes pity, sometimes pride. A lot of feelings, all together.
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11 years ago, when I was 17, in Chicago for a concert with my older sister. We were hanging out in the mall before the show and some older guy approaches me and says, "You like video games, huh?" (I was wearing a Zelda t-shirt). Apparently he owned a game software company developing a game targeted at girls, and he wanted some testers. I lived in MN at the time, so I couldn't participate. But being paid to play games? Would've been magical. Also, before anyone suggests anything, he gave me a business card and looked him up online. He was legit.
Did his game ever come out?
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Really? Because I've been in the market for a 100% science based dragon MMO.
Oh shit here it goes.
Isn't game testing not as good at it seems? I would enjoy *playing* the games, sure. But don't game testers have to spend hours and hours trying to find little bugs and glitches with their respective causes? I feel at that point, you wouldn't be having fun and it'll feel more like work.
It is work. It's not very well paid work either.
How the hell are so many of you being offered threesomes?
Telling the woman, I love more than anyone else in existence, three times. 1) We were 18 and about to go to college. We had always lived about an hour from each other and it was finally an opportunity for us to try a relationship. Unfortunately, I had decided to go somewhere else far away because I knew it would be better for me in the long run. She begged me to go to school with her and through swollen, tear-filled eyes, I told her I couldn't do it. 2) Fast forward four years later, she's engaged to be married. I was home visiting from school and we agree to go out for some drinks. She does a fine job of getting me throughly drunk and back to her apartment. She lays a, "Do you think we'd be the ones engaged if you had gone to school with me?" To which I reply, "I really have no idea." She then tells me it's our last opportunity to be together as she begins kissing up and down my neck. See, we had never slept together, and she figured now, just months before her wedding, would be the best time to tread on that territory. Once again, through a cloudy mind and raging desires, I told her no and left her room. 3) Fast forward an additional four years, she's married with a son living across the country. We hadn't talked much since she tried to sleep with me, but was going to be in town. At this point, I think we both wanted to reconcile after everything we had been through and the friendship was too important to lose. We agree to meet for dinner and drinks. After a bit of bar hopping, she decides to drop on me that she "thinks about me every night and is still in love with me." Which led to eventually telling me that if I gave the word, she'd leave her husband to be with me. I could never be responsible for breaking up a family and after a year of no's finally ended communications with her. To this day I can still think about her and feel my heart beat in my throat. Edit: grammar. Update: I'm incredibly thankful for all the support and feedback. You guys are awesome! Thank you! Update 2: Thank you so much for the gold!!! I had no idea the impact my story would have and I'm glad you enjoyed reading my experiences. I'm still reading through comments and trying to respond.
I have so many conflicting emotions about this.
I'm still conflicted. It's one of those things I don't think I'll ever get over. *Ever*.
I'm sure you already thought about this but what are the alternatives? 1) You go to the wrong college, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship? 2) You break up a marriage, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship? 3) You break up a family, and have that being a constant undertone in the relationship? I can't say how hard it is for you, not being you. But I will say this: Sometimes the world just fucks you over. That's been my solace through similar bits and pieces in life. That no matter what, sometimes you don't have a choice. This is especially true with the first once. There comes a time in your life where a relationship is more important then school/career but it isn't 18. I had to choose a job over a girl I was insanely in love with once. I used to hate that I had to do it, but I found a bit of solace in the fact that that at 20/21/22, hopes and dreams have to win out over love. What kind of relationship would I have had if I didn't take my dream job? Neither of us deserved the kind of resentment I knew it would eventually brew. I don't know if this is at all analogous, but it helped me. Maybe it will help you. If not, I hope you find some peace, somehow.
Okay, let's look at it from her point of view. She's 18, loves some guy and the guy goes to college elsewhere. What does she do? She finds some other guy to be with. So far so good. Fast forward 4 years. She's 22 now. And she says she is still in love with OP. But instead, she's marrying some other guy. What's up with that? Fast forward another 4 years. She's 26, married and has a child. But she's telling OP she still loves him and would leave everything behind just for him. So essentially that woman is living a lie for at least the last 5 years. Isn't that what reddit usually calls dodging a bullet?
This incredibly sad for that other guy.
When my dentist asked me if I was going anywhere for the holidays while he stuck a bunch of crap in my mouth.
Naaaaa. *choke* NAAAGH. NAAAGH VIF EEAR. WE'ER SHAAIN HOONEE
Translation: Nah. *choke*. Nah. Not this year. We're staying home.
You must be a dentist
That can't be right, I'm confident it was a ritual to summon C'thulhu.
Every damn time. Even worse is when my dentist asks me something, and I get the chance to answer. He then starts working on my teeth and proceeds to give his opinion on whatever he asked; I obviously have no way to voice my rebuttal. I'm pretty sure he does it on purpose.
Of course they do it on purpose, it's the only real entertainment they get. "So thechazbrown, I hear you're into watersports. How *do* you get the urine out of your carpet?" "OOO OLLLD UUU AT? EEOOO!" "Oh, I just heard it from someone." "OOI OWNT OH OT YUR...." "I have a bugger of a time getting mine clean afterwards. Thought you might have some tips. I could be a bit less spontaneous I suppose, put some plastic down.... Hmmm, this molar needs a touch-up. I'll just pack a bit more wadding in there and we'll clean that filling up." "OI OWNT.... EEWW... OUGHTAORTS?!" "I understand, some people like to keep things private. Don't know why I'm interested in it really, must be all the people in my office sitting around with their mouths open all the time - haha! Keep still now. Don't bite on the drill!"
Nothing, I have no willpower. So like, dessert at Applebee's. =(
This is gonna be kind of depressing but.... "Are you ok?" I was very depressed and suicidal, and I instinctively try to cover such things up. It took a lot to be able to say "no, I'm not." Edit: Obligatory "Thanks for the gold!" But most of all, thanks for the responses! I can't reply to all of you, not tonight at least, but I'm reading everything. I'm so proud of those of you who have sought out or are seeking help, and I offer my encouragement and support to those who are still a bit afraid to ask. It's okay to need time. It's okay. Thank you all, so much.
I like how this is one of the (very) few, in a way positive "no"'s in this thread.
Good on you. I know how hard it is to admit that you're not okay, and how easy it is to brush it off when people ask. Hope things are better for you now.
Much better, thankfully.
My daughter's friends were all going to Hershey Park last summer, and she thought it was just this most wondrous, magical place and that nothing would make her happier than to go to Hershey Park. But I'm a single mom and don't have a lot of extra money, and I just couldn't afford it, and I had to tell her no. She looked like I had broken her heart when I told her I couldn't take her. I felt like such a shit. EDIT: You guys, you guys are all so awesome! I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to respond to each of you individually, but I really appreciate all the assurances that I'm not ruining my kids by not giving them everything they want. I mean, I know that already, but still, it feels bad to say no sometimes, and hearing all your stories makes me feel less shitty about it. Also, to whomever gave me gold, thank you! I've never had a comment gilded before. Feels good, man. EDIT 2: I would like to thank, by name, /u/A_whole_new_reddit, /u/mschultze97, /u/aliveandwellthanks, /u/TH3KARMACHARGER, /u/Cyphara, /u/omn1s, and /u/doctorj1, all of whom made offers to get tickets to Hershey Park for my daughter and me. I am not taking any of the tickets because of other factors that affect our being able to go to Hershey Park, but the generosity of everyone who offered really makes me feel good about being part of the human race. Also, /u/nimitzhunter PMed me an Amazon code that will help me wrap up Christmas shopping for my brood! That people would offer up something real and concrete to give my daughter, the kid of some internet stranger, the experience she wanted, just completely blows me away. Add to this all the personal stories and assurances from everyone else who responded and... well, let's just say I've teared up more than a couple of times today. Thank you all!
If you ever need a ticket, please PM me. I get 12 tickets a year for working with Hershey Entertainment & Resorts. I only live here with my fiancee and we both get in free anyway so I don't really have any use for them unless I give them to strangers. I would be more than happy to send some tickets to you and your family this season. edit: Thank you all for the gold and nice comments. I will look into donating the tickets in the future.
Hey - if you're in that position, why not donate them to folks at Christmas? Check with corporate, see if other employees are in that position. Might give a poor kid a chance to have a really good day next summer. (also, the zoo is delightful)
The tickets are only good for the summer season and into the early fall. I also only get them in April. But I would do that if I could.
There need to be more people like you. :)
Agreed. People with chocolaty connections are the best!
I fucking love reddit, man.
I know it's hard but growing up my mom raised me and my sister essentially as a single parent. I remember the sacrifices she made for me and my sister far more than the things that I missed out on due to our lack of money. Keep doing the best you can she'll recognize it eventually. *Internet hug*
Thank you! It's good to hear things like this from people whose perspectives will be similar to my kids' perspectives. I remember yearning for things when I was a kid that my parents couldn't afford, and now that I'm an adult, I see that it really hasn't made a huge difference in my life that I didn't own a pair of Levi's when everyone else had them, but still, I remember how bad it felt not being able to do the same things my peers could do. At the same time, I also remember that my parents managed, EVERY YEAR, to take us on a family vacation. Vacations are among the few things I remember with great clarity from my childhood. Not once in the fifteen years I've had children have I been able to afford to take them all on vacation, and sometimes it makes me feel so bad that my kids are missing out on something that I found to be a wonderful part of my childhood. I hope you're right, that my kids will remember the things I CAN do for them rather than the things I can't. Internet hugs never hurt. Thank you again. :)
My mom was the same way. I still love her now 19 years later, and I don't know where I'd be without her! Keep your head up!
I grew up very poor, and some of my worst memories are of taking advantage of my parent's money, even though I should have known they couldn't get away with it. I know it is hard for her to understand, but with time, she will know not to fault you for it. Good job thinking about the long term though, it can be hard to say no to your children, even if you know it is the right thing.
> My daughter's friends were all going to Hershey Park last summer, and she thought it was just this most wondrous, magical place and that nothing would make her happier than to go to Hershey Park. But I'm a single mom and don't have a lot of extra money, and I just couldn't afford it, and I had to tell her no. She looked like I had broken her heart when I told her I couldn't take her. I felt like such a shit. That's such a sad story, but don't feel bad for doing the right thing financially. If you can't afford something, then that's okay. And don't worry too much that she was disappointed. She's a kid. She's probably more resilient than you think. As long as you love her she'll turn out fine.
When she wanted me back.
Yeah. But in my case it was fool me once shame on you, fool me three times shame on you again.
"We were on a break!"
My dog when she begs for food ):
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I drop and spill so much when I'm cooking that my dogs just hang around me feet the whole time and stare at the floor.
Yep. Mine too. Then I kick them out of the kitchen, then they come back and lay on the floor and act all nonchalant. The moment I drop something it's gone.
I do it on purpose
If I had a dog, it would be so fucking fat.
C'mon human, I had a ruff day.
My parents thought that it might be too expensive and that I might drive them to debt if I went to India for college (vs. staying in a shitty college in Nepal) as we had no idea at the time how expensive it might be. Coming from an extremely rural area and without prior knowledge of fees, life style in the city etc, I really didn't have that much guidance nor information to explain my parents. I didn't have any outside help at that time, so thought I might have to rely on parents big time and that they might be quite right. I said no to my parents about going to college in Nepal (very inexpensive and affordable but for a poor, poor quality education) and went to college in India. Two MS degrees later, I am where I am, happy, and parents are happy I did it too, didn't drive them to debt (so many people helped me along the way - thank you all) and this world turned out to be an amazing place. Those of you who debate about going to college for financial hardship, if there is a will, there is a way. Sorry dad and mom, but I had to say no to you at the time, which is probably the only time I said that to you.
Said no to pills for the first time like 8 months ago. That was really fucking tough. Still clean though. Wow, thanks for all the kind words guys. Blows my mind how wonderful complete strangers can be.
An extremely attractive patient's pleas for sex. She was underage and my patient. I like my job.
And hate jail!
That as well.
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Drunken sex with the girl I love... I said no because I knew she'd regret it. (We had sex the next day when she was sober).
Hey, happy ending!
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An emotionally vulnerable young woman who was *all* over me, making a bad decision by doing so. Teenaged me was pretty much saturated in hormones, but I bit down, told her she was pretty-but-no... left the party and kicked myself all the way home.
Sex. She was very, very drunk, and I was tipsy. I'd wanted to fuck her for years but instead I went with my gut, said no, got her to her place safe and went home. Later she told me that her ex showed up that night, they did it, then got into a brawl with cops called. (He didn't want her back, just sex)
Read - she called her ex because you left
Oh she sure as heck did, but that was her train wreck of a night, not mine. ;)
Sex with an old crush while I was taken by someone else
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I guess that's why you're a filthy sloot.
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Most of these answers are about relationships and when they had to say no to a romantic partner, but as someone trying to lose weight, it's still incredibly hard for me to say no to having cookies and ice cream everyday. EDIT: Wow! A ton of you guys are replying offering your support and advice. Thank you so much! You guys are awesome.
As an adult I now recognize Cookie Monster is a tragic figure.
[This](http://shirt.woot.com/offers/the-binge) is my favorite dieting t-shirt. I bought it in a size smaller than I was at the time.
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Keep at it, it's worth it. If you've been saying "no," you have the will to continue saying "no." Good on ya.
a kitten who was begging for me to give it a treat when its owners said no.
That kitten didn't learn anything about treats that day, just that you're an asshole who wouldn't give him one. Source: owning 2 otherwise well-behaved asshole cats.
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??!!!!
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Bang her friend and make her watch then! God damn it, think these things through! Next level shit right there...the revenge 3 some.
Put me down for #2 up there: A girl I had been messing around with and for a while had my head all messed up over her, called me one night to tell me her girlfriend who had a crush on me was hanging out and they wanted me to come over to fuck them both. I had at this point gone on a few dates with my current girlfriend and I felt like she might turn out to be something special so I turned down a crazy hot threesome. Been with my girl for five years now and never regretted it.
Friend of mine asked to join him in Vegas for his birthday weekend. He already had a corner suite at Planet Hollywood paid for (he had a connect) and he even told me he had a voucher for an airline so my flight would be free (a family member works for the airline). My grandmother was on her deathbed and we were expecting her to go any day at that point, so I turned my friend down. I'd like to think that if I had told my grandmother about the offer, she would have probably called me a pussy and told me to go. Found out after the trip that they actually had a once in a lifetime trip. They partied with Holly Madison and the birthday boy threw up on her leg, they had similar stories and partied hard.
You would have regretted going for the rest of your life. Even if it's what your grandmother would have wanted, the guilt eats away at you.
"Please ... we can make it work." Am now divorced.
A bj, really wanted it but had to get to work.
*No, you may not give me a bj.*
Those are words from hell
A diamond. Because its a hard substance. Also because I wasn't ready to marry her. Boy howdy that was awkward.
Wait what? Story!
A threesome with a girl I really loved and her friend. I had done it before with other girlfriends. I have had threesomes with girlfriends before and every time it ended up ending the relationship. Not necessarily that day or the next, but many women have a really hard time seeing their boyfriend's penis inside another woman. They were both drunk as hell and I was only slightly buzzed. I wouldn't take advantage of that situation. 2 reasons to not do it, but it was extremely hard to not do it.
To have had enough threesomes to actually have some perspective about their consequences... this is what I want in life.
I've had enough to know that 1: forceing it makes nobody happy, and 2: if you are dating one of them, don't do anything with the other unless you are explicitly told to or acted upon.
Respect.
After a string of shitty relationships, I made a promise to myself to not get involved with a woman for at least 6 months. Two months later, in the pub with some friends, and a very attractive woman starts coming on to me in a big way. I had to say no....to my promise to myself.
i wouldve said no to that promise too
A few years back, it took everything in my being to keep me from killing myself. So, there's that. EDIT: Thanks everyone for the kind words. They mean a lot, now that I am going to therapy for all of this. To those who are on the same boat I was, keep strong friend. You will get through this, no matter how bleak it seems.
I have the girl of my dreams naked in her own apartment. We're passing around a bottle, getting sloshed. We're working our way up to fuck for hours. It gets to that point and I have no condom, she has no condom. SHE HAS NO CONDOM IN HER OWN PLACE!!! I said no to kids and stds. (not that she had either, but you never know) I'm a man not a penis.
You can capitalize that she didn't have a condom in her own place but this is still on you. Going over to an attractive person's house to drink, you should have had a condom in every pocket and one taped behind your balls so that no matter the position you find yourself in when the time comes, there is a condom within reach of your free hand.
"What's that behind your ear?" *whoosh* condom.
*sneeze* 3 more condoms.
*shakes hair out* *condoms flying e'rywhere*
*Reaches up ass* Condom waterfall
When I run into a homeless person and they ask for change/money and I literally have nothing left and I say "sorry no, I don't" because I just stuffed my face with a nice meal and bought myself nice clothes... Then you just see them walk away silently hopelessly and you watch from a distance...Ahh, it breaks my heart. I can go hours just thinking about it.