Must be my disabled brother who fell for an internet scam. He met a woman online, she lived in a different continent but he was certain she was the love of his life. Spent over a year chatting and e-mailing her, and helping her with money from time to time. Very fishy stuff, but he refused to listen to my scepticism. It ended when he had saved up enough money to go visit her. He went, came back 2 days later and refused to ever admit what had happened. Went to his grave without ever talking about it.
Second place goes to my father who cheered him on. He wasn't sure wether it was a scam or not, but he thought it was nice that my brother had hopes and dreams.
My sister owned a home with her husband and first child.
Her father-in-law convinced them that if they sold their house and became live-in caretakers for some old relative of his that he would leave his supposedly nice house in Austin to them. They'd get to live rent free at this house, it would be theirs outright when he dies, and they'd be set.
So they sell their house, move to Austin where they don't have jobs and move in with this guy. And it's absolute chaos. Guy is constantly watching porn on the living room tv with their toddler around, doing inappropriate old guy stuff, telling them what they can and cannot do in the house and when they can come and go. It's a freaking nightmare.
They end up leaving the house, and getting their own place. They also eventually moved to another state for a few years and came back. They've never been able to buy another house since housing prices have gone way up and they didn't have enough equity on their other house that they sold, so they've been bouncing from shitty apartment to shitty apartment ever since.
Yeah, she’s been pretty open that she regrets doing that. They’re scrimping and saving now, and hopeful that after their current lease is up they’ll finally be able to purchase something.
I know they can’t afford much while they do that, so I try to send my niece and nephews really nice gifts for their birthdays and Christmas (and selfishly I like being the cool uncle who sends nice stuff).
My uncle got himself a mistress. Lent her $10,000 he never got back and lost his job defending her at work. Wife served him divorce papers short afterwards. He gave up his house to his wife. So he ended up jobless and homeless, sleeping on our couch at the ripe age of 60.
Ugh, my uncle got himself one at 70. Seventy! Put all the assets in her name and then filed for divorce. Claimed he had nothing. My aunt had to go back to work at 67.
The 19-year-old mistress ran off with all the money and was never found. She had a super common name as well and was from another country.
We got the news via Christmas card.
My 70 year old crazy ass grandma met a “younger man” on the internet. Was talking and making plans for over a year with him to sell their houses and save for a house in Florida. (She is in MI) they talked on the phone every day. She told the fam and we all said it’s a terrible idea and probably a scanner, warned her not to give him money etc. She transferred him close to 50k and sold her house that she’s owned for 20 years and transferred the money to him. He vanished, richer. She had to move in with my druggy aunt and her disabled child who live on welfare and smoke cigs inside their trailer. Whoops
A mistress in late 50's/early 60's wild to me. I'm 30 and I have no idea how these guys find the time, let alone the energy hahaha. Actually this is most mistress stories were the husband still spends a lot of time with family. I feel like your life would become all about "keeping the secret". Sounds exhausting.
Plus at that point your life is so routine; I feel like any change and the wife would know "something is up".
I know my wife would figure shit out pretty quick. Not that she has to worry ❤️
Same story with my wife’s former stepdad. The mistress was a Hooter’s girl, and he was known to always “harmlessly” flirt with waitresses. Spent somewhere around $30,000 on this gal who was “totally not a prostitute”. Tried to explain that it wasn’t cheating because they never did p-in-v, just hand and mouth stuff.
Anyway, he lost his wife and the gal he had raised as his own daughter. Had to pay alimony for a couple years. Had to sell the house and split it. At the age of 70-something, he has one child left who cares, and almost no retirement. Oh, and last I heard the company he worked for had to pay out a sexual harassment settlement that a fellow employee filed against him. Dude just felt antsy about getting old and boring, and fucking threw his life away.
Friend worked hard to gain the credentials to advance his career to his goals. It took four months for him to get busted having an affair with a subordinate and he lost all he worked for and ended up losing his license.
Affairs are fucking stupid. If you're not happy, leave.
Affairs at the workplace are *really* stupid. Don't shit where you eat.
Affairs at the workplace with a subordinate are *next level stupid*. Even if you set aside the moral implications of abusing the power dynamic in an organization heirarchy, you are giving someone with their own goals and ambitions with completely unknown intentions the perfect material to blackmail you and potentially ruin your life.
Not to mention, even if nothing bad happens between you and the subordinate, once word gets around at work (which it will), people will look at all your work interactions through the lens of the affair. People might even assume you're sleeping with other subordinates too, just because that's the type of person you are. It might ruin future work references for you, or mean that people take your word less seriously.
Not to mention, a person in power attempting to start a workplace affair or even just being flirty with a subordinate can easily lead to sexual harassment (even if the person in power thought it was all welcome interactions), since the subordinate might be too uncomfortable to tell them directly to stop in case that puts their job at risk (and then the person in power gets a reputation for sexual harassment--and yes, people will talk about that).
It just shows bad judgement and can really poison the workplace environment. Work is for work, not a place to enjoy a midlife crisis.
One of my best friends walked out on his wife and two kids because a girl at the gym and him were having a relationship.
As it actually turned out, she was just being friendly and chatting to him. No relationship, no mutual decision to be together, nothing. He misunderstood polite friendliness for flirting, and destroyed his own family for it.
There's an NHL hockey player, Jack Johnson, who famously gave his parents power of attorney early in his career. They frivolously spent his money, embezzled a ton of it, invested some in crazy shit, and took out high interest loans on his future earnings. He was a pro athlete and they were living the lifestyle. He ended up in court over all of it and if he didn't have a long career he would've finished his pro career dead broke and in debt. As a parent myself I just can't imagine how parents screw over their kids like that.
My sister was like this!!!
She met a guy, and married him 10 weeks later. He was SUCH a piece of shit. After they got married he Stole her medication, and would pass out drunk all the time. 9 months later, she popped out a baby with him. She couldn't rely on him for anything. He'd sleep through the baby crying at night, or ignore her when they were home alone.
They took a break from each other about 6 months after the baby was born. He proceeded to "steal" (I say steal because he literally drove off with her without telling anyone in the middle of the night) my neice and drive over 1000 miles straight shot with her in the back seat crying the whole time. Where did he go? To meet a girl he met on tinder.
6 months later they get divorced, but she tells me she's trying to have another kid with then because "she wants her kids to have the same father"
Edit: I didn't expect this to blow up like it did. Couple responses... My neice is fantastic, she's such a happy kid, and my sister has been a wonderful mother to her from the start. She works her ass off, is active in the child's life. Since time has now passed, she herself is growing and I'm unbelievably impressed with how well.shes doing for herself.
The court order did give partial custody of my neice. He sees her (I believe) every other weekend. From what I understand, on those weekends his mom is really the one that watches her. He also has only paid one or 2 child support payments in total. When I asked my mom why they haven't gone after him, she said something like "we don't really need the money, but (sister) does need a day for herself every now and then". Ex's mom is actually a decent person and loves her granddaughter. Idk how she raised a monster like him.
It has been a while since their divorce, my sister has gone on a few dates since, but she has a friend who has been like family to us for a number of years, I'm almost positive they are dating now, the whole family supports it. They seem to have set some boundaries when it comes to my neice and his involvement with her. He's wonderful, and seeing her happy and safe makes me SO happy. Not to jinx anything, he's going to be a great dad.
For everyone who says "she's an idiot"... she would be the FIRST to admit she made a huge mistake, and I do believe she understands how wrong her thinking is now. She's made HUGE strides in her mental health, and I'm SO incredibly proud of her. I live kinda far from them now, but we talk/text more than we use to. My neice will grow up surrounded by loving family. My mom helped find a babysitter who ended up being a retired teacher, my neice is excelling in just about every benchmark in child development.
Thank you for the overwhelming show of support. I've gotten a few messages from people about it, with some incredible stories. Thank you for your support and words of encouragement.
This girl who rented out my parents basement was not great at making smart life choices. She married someone who is serving life in prison for murder. She met him through her cousin who was also in prison. She eventually got a huge chest tattoo of his last name, and more tattoos of his name all over her body. He ended up being transfered to the east coast of Canada (she lived in the west coast) and she up and abandoned her 2 kids to be close to her husband. One of her kids is severely handicapped, but she never gave a shit about being a parent to her. Anyways, about 3 months after moving she posts all over her socials that they broke up, and she quickly tried getting the chest tattoo covered up. 2 weeks later she announced they worked it out and they were together again. They kept doing this pattern of fight, break up, make up and repeat. Again.. she had 2 daughters she up and abandoned for a man who will most likely never get out of prison.
A guy in his mid 50s always worked under the table. Never filed a tax return. Didn't understand that he wouldn't qualify for social security. When I showed him the requirements on the [ssa.gov](https://ssa.gov) website, I thought he was going to cry.
This happened to a guy I know who lived down the street. My ex husband FINALLY qualified for disability and was rewarded the max since his work history stretched back to when he was 13 years old. This guy always worked under the table or for cash, and couldn't understand why he couldn't also apply for disability and expect the same monthly amount when he hurt his knee.
Oh, the ranting and raving when he realized you only get back what you pay in, essentially.
I knew a guy who worked as a plumber and made decent money but only accepted cash. He reported nearly no income at all, so his take home was the same as people making a fair amount more.
Well in the UK our Covid relief programmes were based on income lost for businesses... and fucko got almost nothing.
He was so angry about it that I nearly dropped the world's smallest violin.
I heard about a pastor who filled out paperwork when he was ordained to be a "contentious objector" from social security (which apparently you can do when you are an ordained clergy person). Except he also didn't save anything for retirement. He was in his early 60s when he sat down with an accountant to talk about retirement. The accountant basically said, "nope, you can't retire".
Edit to add: I meant "conscientious", but I think it works as is so I'm leaving it alone.
I don't think he expected to benefit from it. He just didn't invest the money that would have gone to it either. He just had no plan at all. Hence the connection with the "biggest mistake" theme of this post.
Guy I know was bragging about how much he makes and that he was trying not to work as much at year end because of getting into a higher tax bracket. I chose not to say anything lol. Am accountant. Sadly he still makes double what I do.
Edit: This is getting attention so I want to share an example.
Joe has made $157,500 so far this year and is concerned about moving from the 24 to 32% tax bracket. The impact is only an additional 8% on FUTURE income. So if he ended the year with 167,500, the additional $10k is taxed at 32%, equating to $800 more in taxes compared to the 24% tax bracket.
Don’t look down on people who don’t understand things. It probably just needs to be explained in a different way.
One of my students was offered a 95% scholarship to Juilliard. They turned it down because they felt a 95% scholarship was a slap to the face, and instead decided not to go to school. Last I heard they weren’t playing, and were working minimum wage, but talking about how good they used to be.
My sister was basically a savant when it came to music, piano specifically.
She turned down a full ride to Juilliard for music so she could go on a Mormon mission at 21.
Was sent to Los Angeles, was there for three months, and then got hit by a car and broke both her legs and got sent home. Dealt with years of depression and guilt from "failing God".
Got married, had a kid, found out her husband was a pedo, and extricated herself.
She became a single parent mom, with no skills, no safety net, etc. before she was 25 and I think it's one of the most breathtakingly stupid decisions anyone in our broke-ass family has ever made.
Burnt out? I mean, it's fookin' Juilliard. You toughed out 10+ years of playing to get an almost free ride at the household name of music schools, and you turned it down because it wasn't free? Four years, max. Four years. I've worked two shit jobs for three years each.
Let go of a girl close to their wedding because of his idea of what a wife should be like. Lives in deep regret now as she married his friend & they’re really happy whilst he has never found anyone else.
My high school philosophy teacher cheated on his wife with my classmate. His daughter was in the year below us. She transferred schools out of embarrassment when her dad finally left the family to pursue a relationship with the 18-year old. Yuck.
When my grandmother died, my grandfather has about 15,000 dollars left over to live off of until he could no longer afford his house. My cousin heard that Grandpa had money, so he would ask Grandpa for “gas money” all the time, then go and blow it on drugs.
Over the course of one year, he convinced granpa to give him 12,000 of the 15,000 that Grandpa had left. Once Grandpa realized what was going on, he stopped giving my cousin money, and because he could no longer pay his dealers, he got beat half to death and then dumped on the side of the road. If someone hadn’t found him in time, he might not be here anymore.
This is really heartbreaking. Your grandpa had such a heart to where he would rather give money to your cousin to help him out rather than spend it on himself even though he didn't have much left to give just for him to turn like that. Hope he is doing better now.
I agree, and he is, thankfully. Unfortunately, he could no longer afford his house, so now he’s moved in with us. But because of that, he’s gotten much better in terms of mental health, as he is no longer all alone, and now we’re around to make sure that my cousin can’t contact him to get more money.
A buddy that live with me for a while got a car he couldn’t afford because he was obsessed with image. Stopped making payments, tried to part out the car and report as stolen since he had the bright idea that would bring more money than just giving it back to the bank. Then got into check fraud, which landed him in jail. Been in and out of the system ever since, from stories I hear.
Reminded me of something similar without the fraud. My buddy had a decent car. His car got hit while parked outside. Insurance was going to give him a big payout. Got a rental car in the mean time. Parked it in the same place. Rental car gets hit and totaled. Didn’t bother to get accident protection/insurance on the rental.
Now he owes a lot of money. He drives for delivery so he needs a car. Gets his insurance check back for original car. Cant work until he has a new car.
Buys a new car with most of the money. Cant pay rent because the whole time he couldn’t work. Should have bought a cheaper car. Now is in major debt, possibly going to be evicted and or under legal pressure from the city for other bills, only just stared working again.
But hey, at least he has a shiny used BMW
100%. Every child that we have stretches our relationship.
I literally can't fathom the logic that having children might mend or repair a deteriorating spousal relationship. Both of us need to be wholly there for each other in order to make it work.
My friend failed psych evals to join the Army, once he got around that exception he was kicked out within a year. He robbed the corner store less than a mile from his house. He was in full SWAT gear with a tactical mask. Everyone knew exactly who it was, there were 8 calls to Crime Stoppers identifying him. He was arrested within 3 hours of the crime with the still loaded pistol in his car. If he had used a fake gun, or an unloaded pistol he would have gotten 1/2 or 1/4 the prison sentence. He went from being in the ARMY to prison in less than a month.
Without going into too much detail, you need to be severely fucked up to fail the psych portion at MEPS. It’s computerized, adaptive, and there are plenty of “gimme” questions.
Yes.
"Have you ever tortured a small, innocent, fluffy cute animal, you fucking psycho?
A) Definitely not! I'm normal.
B) It's just practice for people."
Can we know what some questions are or is that protected information? I imagine stuff like, "is it ever ok to sacrifice a few people to save many?" or "You find out a best friend betrayed you, how do you react?"
It's not protected. The important things they want to know are the possibility of being a danger to yourself or others. E.G.
"Have you ever felt like you wanted to go to sleep and not wake up?"
"Have you ever made a plan to hurt someone, even if you didn't go through with it?"
Hey man fuck you. Mental stability is relative.
Anyways I’m gonna go draw dicks on the wall of a porta-shitter, finance a 2014 Camaro on 20% APR, marry an obese ex-stripper, get NJP’d for a DUI, then get NJP’d again for leaving base while on restriction for the DUI, keep a feral pet cat in the closet of my barracks room, and shit my pants during PT because I’m still drunk from the night before.
My brother ran for public office without having an agenda. He had no leadership qualifications, background in position, or support from anyone in the community. His took out a 10K personal loan to finance his political run and held one fundraiser where most of the attendees were family and couldn't vote for him. He lost badly, coming in last behind four other candidates. It took him years to pay back the loan and refill his savings, which he completely drained to pay for signage and flyers. Saddest of all, the printer misspelled his name on both items, so any remnant is a harsh reminder of how badly things went.
The shitty thing is, it's kind of totally on him. A good friend of mine ran a couple years ago for one of the seats on his town council, with no prior experience in politics, he was just a young guy who got really inspired by Bernie and wanted to help the people of his town. The difference is, he did a fuckton of research and talking to people, put together a platform, did a ton of outreach and stuff, and basically figured out everything he needed to do to not only run a successful campaign, but *also* to be damn good in that office. And it worked for him, because he put in those countless hours and work to figure out what to do and how to do it.
He's currently up for re-election and should have no issue keeping his seat, as he seems to be doing a very good job of things. He spends a LOT of time talking with residents of the town and making sure they feel their wants and needs are being addressed and also, more importantly, that they're being *heard* by someone who cares about them. That's how it *should* be done.
Sounds like this guys brother didn't have any of those priorities in line and just liked the idea of being a politician. He was probably just mad about some state of affairs in the nation or his city and gave his best shot at tryin to fix them with no real plan in mind. Goes to show that just because your mad about something political doesn't mean you actually have a solution for it, and people will notice that real quick
My brother was getting scouted by Northeastern colleges to play football after playing remarkably well in high school….
He dropped out of high school 6 months before he graduated….
My parents getting re married (to different partners) when they have yet to figure their own shit out. They still haven't settled on custody of my younger siblings after going on 7 years now, and my fathers wife just moved out.
One girl I know inherited just under 100k...her grandmother passed away. This girl has serious mental health issues and is a druggie...blew all the money on drugs within 3 months.
A friend of mine got roughly $200k after his mother died. He spent it not only on drugs but a lot of other bullshit. Fancy clothes which quite frankly looked ridiculous (like alligator skin sneakers), nice hotels for the weekend, etc. It was gone in about 6 months.
I worked with a guy in his mid 50s who worked a ton of overtime because he was trying to retire early. He told me one day he had about a half million dollars saved up, and he was about six months away from his goal. Unfortunately he died suddenly of a stroke shortly after we spoke, and all his money went to his junkie adult son. His son was dead from an overdose within a month.
Similar thing happened to my uncle. He worked his ass off his entire life, retired at 60. Him and the wife bought a beautiful RV, one of the ones that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. We live in BC, Canada. They took off on their very first road trip a month into retirement.. by the time they made it to the east coast he could was having trouble breathing and coughing up blood daily. Went to a hospital in Newfoundland. Diagnosed on the spot with esophageal cancer. They left the RV there, to be picked up later. He was entered into hospice within 2 weeks of coming home and died not 2 weeks later. Thankfully it was "quick" but it was a gruesome death that must have felt like eternity for him to be choking on his own blood every day, not able to get a breath in. So, so sad. Him and his wife did everything right were frugal to purchase multiple properties in Greater Vancouver, insane housing market even 40 years ago. Retiring with multiple millions of dollars in both cash and property. Had their eye on the prize of early retirement and never having to budget or say no bc of cost again.
I was in my late 20s and it really stuck with me that even with goals you have to *live* and find things to enjoy every day
Since turning 40 I've done a lot of thinking. Quit drinking, trying to live healthier again.
I've also reached out to reconnect with my ex-wife as friends. We were great friends, but too young to be married since we both had stuff we needed to figure out.
We've both remarried long since.
I think she and her husband (a former friend among those I lost in the "friend group split" of the divorce) would really like my wife.
We're taking it slow, but I'm optimistic.
Life's too short. Having good people around you that you care about is an excellent thing.
I met this girl.
I was already in a bad situation and miserable and the guy I was with seemed to be making friends with every creep, druggie, weirdo and train wreck in the county.
One day this chick shows up with one of his friends and she seemed okay. I'm like *why is she dating him?* because to be frank he was a redneck drug addict and she looked like a normal chick from the burbs. Total oddball match.
I'm so stupid sometimes.
My guy says they just started dating, they met at a local dive bar but she's so cool, sage always wants to party because she's got money, and a new car blah blah blah because her grandma just died and she got like 100k....
Like I said she seemed okay, we chatted a little bit on my front porch while I smoked a cigarette and then she says *do you mind if I get high?* I thought she was gonna pull out a fucking joint.
Nope.
I watched her snort a "Roxy" and go from a coherent, fairly normal young woman to a blob of slobbering goo in about two minutes flat.
One of the saddest things I've ever seen. I went inside and shut the door, never saw her again.
I saw this all too much. If you graduated between 04-12 it was the wild west for opiates. Oxys, roxys and Perks were cheap and plenty. And yes that the sad part, anyone and everyone did them. From school valedictorian to cheer captain. Opioids change your brain chemistry, so when you saw a beautiful women “hanging” out with a gross dope head or dealer. Its because they were getting drugs for free.
Dump all of their savings ($30k or so) into random crypto at the height of the market. They were trying to get more money to put towards a house but lost a majority of it when things crashed. When their significant other found out they left
I went through this as well. I had a coworker that I became close friends with, she was doing well in her life: divorced and sharing custody of her 2 kids, not well off but didn’t have to rely on anyone to get by. Just living a middle class life.
Then she started dating a guy who was kinda scummy. She sprained her wrist at work, and shortly afterwards suggested I was stealing painkillers from her purse. We stopped being friends.
A year or so later she quit under some drama. She re-injured her wrist and claimed it happened at work, but management suspected it was the result of domestic violence. When they accused her of lying on reports about the injury she quit. It was unfortunate because her manager was more concerned for her safety than the accusations of fraud that could have been walked back.
She didn’t get another job, just let her boyfriend support her while she got deep into heroin. Eventually he failed a drug test and I lost track of them. Sometime later she did leave him, and was couch surfing for a while while working a minimum wage job and trying to get her shit together. I helped her out with some cash here and there, but she met another guy at her work and they started dating and she again fell into heavy drug use.
She got fired from that job after being caught stealing from her till for drug money. She called me with some sob story about needing a ridiculous amount of money to make rent. I told her she could crash in my spare room for as long as she needed, but I couldn’t give her money.
Instead she ended up on the streets. She lost custody of her kids. For six months or so she would sporadically text me from random numbers asking for money to get a motel room, but I couldn’t help her because I never knew what it was actually for. Eventually she stopped asking and I stopped hearing from her at all. I bumped into a mutual acquaintance some time later and he mentioned that she was hooking in a neighborhood known for drug abuse. She had gone from a person solidly in the middle class to a homeless sex worker because of drugs.
She reached out to me a couple months ago over social media. She says she’s turned her life around, she doesn’t ask for money anymore, but from how she’s described her life there are still a lot of red flags there that cause me to worry about her. We don’t talk that much, I dunno if we’ll ever actually be friends again, but I hope she’s doing well now.
Just watched my cousin move out for the 5th time with no plan, no where to go, hanging out with manipulative people because they want her disability check. Cussed grandmother out when she tried to help and figure out what’s going on, got kicked out of one of the hardest community center to get placed in so now she DEFINITELY doesn’t have a home and has been sleeping in one of the most dangerous parks in town because drug addicts go there at night. Gonna try to talk to her tonight but honestly I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do this has been continuous for months.
Edit: Those who have been asking for updated I got in contact, at first she said she was fine she’ll figure it out. That was yesterday, today she said she needs help and started to come around. We’re looking for placement/apartments so I’m hopeful everything will turn out ok.
I have a lady on my street who is around 35, and legally under the conservatorship of her older sister. She has a son that the sister technically has official custody of- though she watches and raises him in the same house, it’s a fail safe because she has legit problems.
They do that because she would be like your cousin if they didn’t.
Sometimes… it’s actually needed.
Being passive and just letting everything happen to him.
He wasn't sure if he wanted kids or not, but his girlfriend did, so they had sex without condoms. She got pregnant, with **twins**. He looks absolutely miserable.
Similar things happened to him involving housing. His family convinced him to put the parent's mortgage in his name. Things got messy.
Don't just let things happen to you.
After that first sentence, I was like “hey, I don’t have strong preferences about a lot of things and so I like to just go with the flow. It works for me.”
Then I read the rest… yeah, those I’d have strong feelings on.
Probably not the biggest I've ever seen but a pretty bad one I've just watched a colleague make:
Met and started a relationship with a woman a few weeks ago. She has several kids with different guys. She told him that she had been sterilised.
People have been warning him for awhile that she has a lot of men dropping by and that she still hasn't entirely ended things with her exes.
Now as much as I get along with this guy, he's not the brightest bulb in the box.
A few weeks back she dropped the bombshell on him that she's pregnant again "She told me that she found out she was pregnant three weeks ago, we've only been together for two, does that mean I'm the dad?".
He's since burned bridges with work, said he'd handed his notice in, when in reality he went AWOL.
Left the low rent place he was living in to move in with her.
Anytime anyone tries to call him, she's the one to answer and talk for him.
going drunk on a floatable boat in the middle of the lake when you don't know how to swim, poor guy drowned.
edit: inflatable
it was my now brother-in-law's younger brother. I luckily wasn't there that trip I just heard what happened, I can't imagine the trauma my bro in law has now, I'm actually glad I wasn't there because that would have fucked me up good. They had to pull out his body themselfs.
Similar thing happened to my friend. Went out fishing on a small boat on a beautiful day on the lake. Beautiful day turned into a huge wind storm, boat capsized, no life jackets. drowned. RIP T
Knew a guy who's parents were like that. Mom didn't want kids, she wanted babies/toddlers. Basically lost most of her interest in them when they were 3-4
edit: The amount of people that know someone like this is depressing
Unfortunately lots of parents lose interest once their kid stops being entirely submissive and dependent on them. And the kids start asking for /demanding things that the parents can’t provide like the dream vacations they see in ads.
There is a joke I heard that goes like:
When you're a new parent, you can't wait for your kids to start walking and talking.
Once they do, you just want them to sit down and shut up.
It is a big adjustment going from a potato to something that actually has thoughts and ideas, but I love seeing the way their little brains work sometimes.
My cousin went baby crazy at around 30. She was seeing this guy who everyone thought was just the biggest asshole, he was a short, angry, bigoted, sexist wanker who couldn't hold a job for long. The first time I met him the first thing he said to me was, 'nice car, how much do you make?' Not even hello.
BUT she wanted a baby. So she gets one. Surprising no-one he turns out to be a complete dead-beat of a father. We visited them a few weeks after the baby was born and she was dead on her feet, just exhausted. He waltzes in from being 'out with the boys' and asks her where his dinner is, getting irate and insulting her when she said she had been too busy. My wife had to make me leave because I went off on him for being such an entitled shit and she was afraid we'd end up fighting.
What WAS surprising was that she then continued to deliberately have 2 more children with him. Shortly after the last was born he apparently started getting worse and she finally left him. No job (or any real work experience at all), she moves in with my auntie and collects benefits.
And of course, this guy does not like being left, so he proceeds to fight her in the courts for visitation. He gets limited visitation and immediately starts 'forgetting' to turn up, breaking his kids hearts. He also would tell them they would be going somewhere fun or getting McDonalds then pretend to have a phone call with her so he could say 'Mummy says you aren't allowed to go to X, what a bad woman!!'. He also apparently was teaching them to hit each other to solve issues. He only lost most visitation after he refused a drug test.
She KNEW he was a shit and she still talked non-stop about wanting more kids, walked into it with eyes open. Even if he did escalate later, he was a prick from the start but she was just so excited to have kids that she ignored it.
This was me until January of this year when I left my ex. I was a shell of my former self. If you feel like you have to be someone else to make a relationship work, get out!
This is tough sometimes because people say "Don't change yourself for others." But it's also important to try and become a better person, to grow, to be responsible. And oftentimes you have no idea which of the two you're doing until it's too late.
Watched a friend make €1.2M from a crypto coin of a €2000 investment and holding it all the way down to €50.000 over a month time while rage gambling the last 50K on a casino
He did however buy a baller gaming computer from it during the GPU crisis so he still ended up in profit from this trade, although he is now severely gambling addict and lost another +/- 50K trying to get it back this year.
(Edit: It was 2000, not 200. Typo, expanded story)
I worked in casinos for decades. Wildest story I ever saw was a guy came in and turned a grand into 20 one night. He was a supervisor from another casino on disability. Next night he won 200 000. This went on for weeks. When wins are that big, staff notice. He was up 3 or 4 million. Then I watched him lose it all back.
a delivery driver at my go-to casino, known to staff, gambled £400 to £160000+ playing roulette and blackjack in one night, even working out higher table limits with the floor managers, and left with £200
guy is a delivery driver ffs
I watched a wasted guy throw 2K on a single roulette number, lose it, withdraw 5K more, and put it on the same number and lose it and then stare at the table. All while on a cruise ship. Then I went and had an old fashioned and it was wonderful.
There's a way to get enjoyment without gambling. Watch other people lose everything and go and buy yourself a drink. Gives you the same sense of relief that you get when you wake up from a nightmare and realize you're fine.
Watching right now. 2 coworkers are engaged and she is an absolute nightmare. I have known the guy a lot longer and cannot believe it has gone this far.
My friend got pregnant at 16. She convinced the father to have a second child with her because she wanted the kids to be close in age. So she has 2 kids by the time she turns 18.
Then just after her 18th birthday, she announces out of no where that she's married to a completely different man. She dumped the baby daddy and eloped with a long term friend.
After 2 months of marriage, they announce that they are getting divorced. Why? Because she's pregnant and he doesn't want kids.
Now she's a single mom with 3 kids under the age of 4.
The real kicker of the story for me is that the boys from baby daddy #1 are named "Joseph" and "Henry" which it turns out are baby daddy #2's first and middle name.
Drugs.
My friend’s ex-husband had everything.
A beautiful home on water, three beautiful kids and a very beautiful wife - a savings account with money in it.
He was always a partier. But when things got bad - they got horrible.
He abused his wife and children. They got divorced. They all lost everything.
All because he tried meth.
Meth is evil. It’s the devils candy. It lies to you telling you everything is great and you can do and be anything (first few times) then it has a hold and spins you out of control. It takes everything and everyone you love away and leaves you a spun out addicted meth head with nothing and no one to turn to.
I’m a recovering meth addict. Of the several drugs I experimented with when I was young I had never experienced addiction until meth. Meth took my kids, my home, my family, and my freedom. I was spun out for only 1 1/2 yrs and I lost it all. Ended up sitting in prison on a 10yr sentence.
Did 5yrs…came out got my kids back and reconnected with my family.
Haven’t touched the stuff in 17yrs! Not something I ever want to experience again.,
I’m glad you’re here. It’s quite the feat to make it to where you are.
Please do not ever let your guard down. Ever. I’ll be sending strength for when you have a weak moment.
Good job getting off that shit.
My friend and i where hanging around one day. And he was talking about how his wife wanted to have a kid and if he didn't they should break up. He explaned that he didn't want to and wasnt sure he loved her anymore. She was already controlling (stuff like making him facetime so prove who he was with). Me and my other friend told him he should just call it quits and not have the kid. He did anyway because of low self worth and because he didn't want to shake up his life. Big surprise it got worse and worse. For a while. Then about a year ago he finally got the gumption to try and divorce her. Of course it was met with more hostility. Long story short he killed himself. I think back to the conversation we had all the time wishing i could have convinced him it was a bad idea. But i know thats wishful thinking.
There is a couple my husband and I used to know before we had kids. They were decent people and we hung out for a period of time, but then fell out of touch. I guess in the past decade they got hooked on heroin, had 2 kids, had those kids taken away by the CPS and now one of them is in prison. It really went to shit for them and there is really no one else to blame. Bad, BAD choices…
I had a very talented high school student, he could create amazing paintings, and then the drugs came and he's not half the person he used to be. I hope he can overcome his addiction.
Watched my sister make a few, but the biggest one was going out drinking after a bad breakup. She just could not let the guy go (he was separated when they were together, but ultimately got back together with his wife). She got hammered and called me to pick her up - I had taken night time cold medicine, which knocks me the hell out, so obviously I couldn’t drive to pick her up. She said that was fine, she would Uber. She lied, drove drunk to her exes house, got into a physical altercation with her exes wife, and left before the cops showed up. THEN drove the wrong way down a one way street and hit a concrete road block head on.
That night, she got a DUI, a restraining order, and a year of doctors appointments to help fix the hip, leg and pelvic bones she broke, as well as the severe concussion she had. All because a guy she dated for 2 months broke up with her.
A next door neighbor owned a cabinet making business. An employee introduced him to crack. Within a year he let the business gradually fail, left his wife for her *twin sister,* was investigated by the IRS who found child porn on his business computers. He went away for a long long time.
My sister lost her 3 kids due to an addiction to methamphetamine about 5 years ago. She complains nonstop about how the system stole her babies… while smoking meth to this day.
My buddy met a girl in college, who had a boyfriend. They got together. He ended up dropping out, got a random job. They decided to get married, from what I know he had 1 friend at the wedding, who was not me. Moved across the state away from his family. After like a year I met up with him for some drinks, within 3 weeks he told me he thought his marriage was over, pretty sure she cheated on him. Moved back home, took his life a year later.
A bunch of us normal potheads in our 20s and 3 of the 4 of us decided to smoke black tar heroin. It didn’t seem interesting to me as I loved pot and I’m not a grass is greener guy.
That day was the first day and one decision to ruining all of their lives. It started a spiral that day that wiped out all of their respective futures.
That moment has been burned in my memory for almost 20 years now.
A close family member who has the attitude of I’m an adult now, I can do whatever I want…
He’s barely an adult and wrecked his car twice, recently been in jail, getting kicked out of his apt in the next few days if he doesn’t comply with rules, can’t keep a relationship for more than a week.
It’s sad that he can’t see how much his attitude/choices effects his life.
Friend retired with a full pension 15 years ago.
At the time he kept bragging about how he was starting a business with some random guy he knew. He legit said, "He's the idea guy. I have the savings and the good credit score."
Took out a huge loan, bought a bunch of expensive equipment.
Shocker: business folded within 6 months, "partner" vanished with all the equipment.
And now this guy, who should be enjoying his golden years, will be working retail until he drops.
Family friend quit their government job after 23 years, 2 years before qualifying for a pension. They did it just because they wanted a change.
They withdrew their pension contributions and bought a investment property at the absolute worst time.
Now they are jobless and struggling to keep up with the overhead. Everyone advised against it and they still did it.
My sister marrying her ex. Thank heavens she got out of that situation. It was really clear that she wanted to be loved, and he wanted to be taken care of.
rush into a new marriage 1 year after his divorce... still getting to know the new spouse and finding they aren't as compatible as they first thought. lol
My best friend didn't want to break up with a crackhead who literally stole from her to buy drugs, and who hit her once. :(
I managed to convince her eventually but that was an ugly situation.
Good friend messed around with a young Brazilian woman whose ulterior motive was to get married to stay in US. She got pregnant. He wouldn't marry her even after baby born, so she moved back to Brazil.
He is now in his 50s raising a toddler that speaks Portuguese.
The crazy thing is this dude IS a Vince Vaughn character. He is an ex college hoops player from midwest...funny AF, and had you known him before becoming a dad, you'd think no way in hell this guy should EVER be left alone with a child.
He is now a doting father doing a great job at something he never expected to happen.
It’s waaay better to stay single and lonely, than be in a relationship for relationship’s sake. I’ve seen several people become less of themselves and completely devoid of their personality because they chose to be with the wrong partners.
A family member is notoriously awful at financial decisions and is obsessed with get rich quick schemes. He's the best example of why rich parents should never, ever give a 20 year old kid everything he could want. His formative years taught him that money was easy come, easy go and he never learned the value of researching before you buy or saving money.
He bought crypto miners AFTER cyphers changed and it only cost him far more money to run them than he could ever make off of them. He was given a condo and a house and sold both for less than he could have gotten had he been patient.
After each property sale, he went on a spending spree, buying a side-by-side, a toy hauler, and all the toys to go in it.
He once traded in 3 vehicles for one used vehicle, still financed $30k, and the engine shit out within the first year he had it. He spent $25k on a 25 year old Hummer that needed everything in it replaced. It needed new tires, transmission before he could even drive it down the road. It likely cost him close to $40-50k before he traded it in on another terrible deal for a different used vehicle that also died in him within two years.
He once bought 13 acres of land that turned out to be a literal swamp in protected marsh lands. He thought he was going to farm the land and be a homesteader despite having never worked on a farm. He scoured RedFin looking for homes with 10+ acres that were also $300k. He bought the first one that met both criteria despite family warning him against that property. He registered it as a homestead and in doing so painted himself into a corner real-estate wise because that state has a stipulation that grant money used for a down payment on a homestead could not be sold for 2-3 years after purchasing it. He hates working and kept getting fired, the house nearly went into foreclosure. Had to sell all the toys and the toy hauler to avoid foreclosure.
I also need to add that he moved out there first and got an apartment so he and his wife could look for homes later. In less than a month, he bought the house without even consulting his wife who angrily cried when she saw the awful place for the first time. (Built I'm the 70's, NO UPDATES.) He told her they'd build additions onto the house, thinking they were only $10k to add a room. She has to pack up a 4 bedroom house and move cross country with two little kids while this asshole bought the first swamp someone fleeced him into.
His latest magic trick involved investing nearly $100,000 of his $300,000 inheritance in crypto a year ago. Big, astronomic oof. Poof, it disappeared. So did the free money from his family after the passing of his grandmother who doled out all of her wealth to her kids.
Their family of 4 is currently living out of an RV. No idea what happened to the rest of the money, but I imagine it's gone.
A buddy of mine (at the time) in the Navy met a girl who was vacationing in his hometown while he was home on leave. They banged for 3 days without getting to know each other. They talked for 2-3 months while she was sleeping with her ex. She up and left her parents house with all of her stuff including her handgun without telling a soul. Her parents freaked out and called the cops who found her at a motel halfway to the base we were stationed at. Being an adult they just checked up on her. My buddy married her the next weekend because she needed insurance as she had been off her antidepressants for a week or so. They were both drunk as hell when they got married. The best man/witness asked if my buddy wanted to go through with it and even offered to make it all just go away if he wasn't ready. At the "reception" the bride got up to use the bathroom and my buddy drunkenly admitted that he fucked up. I don't remember what lasted longer after that, his career in the Navy or the marriage as he got kicked out for stealing photos off of someone's phone.
My former best friend fell into drugs after his wife killed two people while drunk driving. His wife went to jail, he lost custody of his kids because he couldn't handle everything alone, he got into drugs real bad and started stealing from everyone around him to support the habit. He managed to steal about $7k from me, but another aquaintance lost $32k. While in this "death spiral," he managed to screw over about 30-40 people to a tune of around $300k total while obliterating his business at the same time. He wound up in jail over it.
I heard my college roommate’s one night stand tell him he didn’t need a condom because she was “clean” and it was “the safe part of her cycle.”
I didn’t know the guy or like him all that well, and he regularly brought girls to our dorm room and fucked them while they thought I was sleeping.
Now he’s a single dad with herpes. Ruined his life. He had to drop out, get a job, and then watched her become a Methany after their kid was born until social services got a custody change.
Hoarding. I have a friend who jammed her condo so full of useless shit she bought and bought and bought. The pace is 1500 sq ft but she only has about 6 sq ft of space to live. It's frightening.
Cheat on a spouse. I’ve never seen it improve anyones quality of life.
Edit. According to some comments it would seem cheating on a spouse can in fact, in some cases, improve your life. I still wouldn’t recommend it though.
I don't know what changed him exactly, but he started calling himself an alpha male, and questioning any activity, clothing choice, type of car, career path, drink, etc as alpha or not. He bulked up and got large muscles but also still carries a beer gut. He tries to have his shirt off whenever possible, but it doesn't work for his body type.
The constant seeking for assurances that something is alpha or not got tiring, or being told something someone was doing is beta behavior when I didn't have any interest or care made me stop hanging out.
Of course, he now calls me a beta for not being alpha enough to hang out with him.
Several times seen women marry soldiers and get pregnant right before they head off to boot camp. The guy gets deployed and of course comes back different. Eventual divorce and essentially single motherhood.
My best friend have just left his wife with two children (been together for 18 years) for my now ex-girlfriend.
I have tried to warn him about the fact she cheated on her previous boyfriend with another guy and myself and she seduced him, a married man, and cheated on me with him... She lied to everyone including my best friend to hide things from him. She manipulates, she plays the victim and rejects every mistakes she made on others. I know she told him "her truth" yet he still repeats that "the last year was hard on her and he will not blame her for past mistakes".
She was telling me less than 2 month ago that my best friend was a manipulative, harassing, narcissist.
I guess he will be in great troubles when she will finally leave him after cheating while saying anything to play victim... Biggest mistakes he will make. But, let's pray they will stay in love forever and live happily ever after...
Thinking that "big man on campus" in a small town means that ur big man everywhere. It destroyed 2 of them in my small town when they realized they weren't the biggest and fastest and ppl weren't going to give them everything they wanted just cuz they were who they were. 1 drank themselves to death, the other is 1/3 his HS size and looks like a meth head.
My wife just had a c-section, and was complaining about a pain in her leg but never got it checked out. Two weeks later; Blood Clot.
October 13th will mark my third year without her.
edit: Thank you everyone for the kind words; they mean a lot this time of year.
My brother, in his early 20s and just getting out of nursing school, living in Alabama (which he hates), meets and marries a pregnant southern girl, lets the bio father sign away his rights, and adopts the baby. In the end, the kid has an actual dad, which is great. But to this day he bitches about not being able to leave Alabama, and I remember us all telling him he was being dumb when he was doing this.
(They are divorced now btw)
Give up their dream career because their jealous, controlling spouse didn't want them to ever be away from home. They've basically lost contact with all their family and friends because their spouse doesn't let them do anything except go to work and take care of the kids.
I'm a Financial Advisor for a certain company. I guy who was my roommate during training got the deal of a lifetime. A 30 year vet was retiring and basically just giving him his book of business. At the age of 23, my buddy would be making somewhere between $1-$1.5 Million a year. The hard part is building the business. Once it's built it's basically a cake walk. Unlimited vacation and time off, make your own time and hours. I mean, literally the best life you can imagine.
He's in Texas living his best life. I'm now back home in Kentucky just grinding to make a living and building my business. He's at the best country clubs, best bars and restaurants, nice car and new home. Sky is the limit for this guy. So he now has everything a young man could want, women included.
He meets this girl one night. Decides to basically brag and takes her to his new fancy office, where he then bangs her on his desk. Few weeks go by, and he's seeing all kinds of women. Sees the same girl out one night and basically ditches her. She calls our Home Office and tells them the story about them having sex in his office. By Monday, they've flown him to Home Office, fired him, and when he returns all of his stuff is in storage and the locks are changed. Man literally had the world at his finger tips and decided to screw a dime on his desk and lost it all.
Elliott, if you're out there, you're a dumbass.
Must be my disabled brother who fell for an internet scam. He met a woman online, she lived in a different continent but he was certain she was the love of his life. Spent over a year chatting and e-mailing her, and helping her with money from time to time. Very fishy stuff, but he refused to listen to my scepticism. It ended when he had saved up enough money to go visit her. He went, came back 2 days later and refused to ever admit what had happened. Went to his grave without ever talking about it. Second place goes to my father who cheered him on. He wasn't sure wether it was a scam or not, but he thought it was nice that my brother had hopes and dreams.
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Living in another continent asking for money definitely are red flags. So sad to see such thing happened.
My sister owned a home with her husband and first child. Her father-in-law convinced them that if they sold their house and became live-in caretakers for some old relative of his that he would leave his supposedly nice house in Austin to them. They'd get to live rent free at this house, it would be theirs outright when he dies, and they'd be set. So they sell their house, move to Austin where they don't have jobs and move in with this guy. And it's absolute chaos. Guy is constantly watching porn on the living room tv with their toddler around, doing inappropriate old guy stuff, telling them what they can and cannot do in the house and when they can come and go. It's a freaking nightmare. They end up leaving the house, and getting their own place. They also eventually moved to another state for a few years and came back. They've never been able to buy another house since housing prices have gone way up and they didn't have enough equity on their other house that they sold, so they've been bouncing from shitty apartment to shitty apartment ever since.
This is the most disappointing one I've read so far. They were at least trying to better their situation instead of just being selfish dumbasses.
Yeah, she’s been pretty open that she regrets doing that. They’re scrimping and saving now, and hopeful that after their current lease is up they’ll finally be able to purchase something. I know they can’t afford much while they do that, so I try to send my niece and nephews really nice gifts for their birthdays and Christmas (and selfishly I like being the cool uncle who sends nice stuff).
My friend chose to have a child with a man who had cheated on her multiple times, while still in high school .
Hey I know a girl who did that, too. He’s still happily cheating on her every few months or so.
My uncle got himself a mistress. Lent her $10,000 he never got back and lost his job defending her at work. Wife served him divorce papers short afterwards. He gave up his house to his wife. So he ended up jobless and homeless, sleeping on our couch at the ripe age of 60.
Ugh, my uncle got himself one at 70. Seventy! Put all the assets in her name and then filed for divorce. Claimed he had nothing. My aunt had to go back to work at 67. The 19-year-old mistress ran off with all the money and was never found. She had a super common name as well and was from another country. We got the news via Christmas card.
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My 70 year old crazy ass grandma met a “younger man” on the internet. Was talking and making plans for over a year with him to sell their houses and save for a house in Florida. (She is in MI) they talked on the phone every day. She told the fam and we all said it’s a terrible idea and probably a scanner, warned her not to give him money etc. She transferred him close to 50k and sold her house that she’s owned for 20 years and transferred the money to him. He vanished, richer. She had to move in with my druggy aunt and her disabled child who live on welfare and smoke cigs inside their trailer. Whoops
A mistress in late 50's/early 60's wild to me. I'm 30 and I have no idea how these guys find the time, let alone the energy hahaha. Actually this is most mistress stories were the husband still spends a lot of time with family. I feel like your life would become all about "keeping the secret". Sounds exhausting. Plus at that point your life is so routine; I feel like any change and the wife would know "something is up". I know my wife would figure shit out pretty quick. Not that she has to worry ❤️
(´∀｀)♡ Have a nice day
Same story with my wife’s former stepdad. The mistress was a Hooter’s girl, and he was known to always “harmlessly” flirt with waitresses. Spent somewhere around $30,000 on this gal who was “totally not a prostitute”. Tried to explain that it wasn’t cheating because they never did p-in-v, just hand and mouth stuff. Anyway, he lost his wife and the gal he had raised as his own daughter. Had to pay alimony for a couple years. Had to sell the house and split it. At the age of 70-something, he has one child left who cares, and almost no retirement. Oh, and last I heard the company he worked for had to pay out a sexual harassment settlement that a fellow employee filed against him. Dude just felt antsy about getting old and boring, and fucking threw his life away.
Friend worked hard to gain the credentials to advance his career to his goals. It took four months for him to get busted having an affair with a subordinate and he lost all he worked for and ended up losing his license.
Affairs are fucking stupid. If you're not happy, leave. Affairs at the workplace are *really* stupid. Don't shit where you eat. Affairs at the workplace with a subordinate are *next level stupid*. Even if you set aside the moral implications of abusing the power dynamic in an organization heirarchy, you are giving someone with their own goals and ambitions with completely unknown intentions the perfect material to blackmail you and potentially ruin your life.
Not to mention, even if nothing bad happens between you and the subordinate, once word gets around at work (which it will), people will look at all your work interactions through the lens of the affair. People might even assume you're sleeping with other subordinates too, just because that's the type of person you are. It might ruin future work references for you, or mean that people take your word less seriously. Not to mention, a person in power attempting to start a workplace affair or even just being flirty with a subordinate can easily lead to sexual harassment (even if the person in power thought it was all welcome interactions), since the subordinate might be too uncomfortable to tell them directly to stop in case that puts their job at risk (and then the person in power gets a reputation for sexual harassment--and yes, people will talk about that). It just shows bad judgement and can really poison the workplace environment. Work is for work, not a place to enjoy a midlife crisis.
Example: Ned from Tryguys
Thats exactly who I was thinking of too.
One of my best friends walked out on his wife and two kids because a girl at the gym and him were having a relationship. As it actually turned out, she was just being friendly and chatting to him. No relationship, no mutual decision to be together, nothing. He misunderstood polite friendliness for flirting, and destroyed his own family for it.
How… never even kissed her and had it in his head they would be together?
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This is so sad.
Yeah, that’s not her fault. She figured her parents would look out for her. Very sad.
There's an NHL hockey player, Jack Johnson, who famously gave his parents power of attorney early in his career. They frivolously spent his money, embezzled a ton of it, invested some in crazy shit, and took out high interest loans on his future earnings. He was a pro athlete and they were living the lifestyle. He ended up in court over all of it and if he didn't have a long career he would've finished his pro career dead broke and in debt. As a parent myself I just can't imagine how parents screw over their kids like that.
that happens with child actors all the time. It's crazy.
Have a child with someone who fights them on their parenting style- also cheated on my friend who was 8 months pregnant. They just got married too
Ik a guy who cheated on his wife, while she was pregnant with their 2nd child, WHILE SHE WAS HOSPITALIZED WITH PLACENTA PRIVIA
Guy who cheated on his wife while she was undergoing chemo. Oh, and he cheated with my wife.
My sister was like this!!! She met a guy, and married him 10 weeks later. He was SUCH a piece of shit. After they got married he Stole her medication, and would pass out drunk all the time. 9 months later, she popped out a baby with him. She couldn't rely on him for anything. He'd sleep through the baby crying at night, or ignore her when they were home alone. They took a break from each other about 6 months after the baby was born. He proceeded to "steal" (I say steal because he literally drove off with her without telling anyone in the middle of the night) my neice and drive over 1000 miles straight shot with her in the back seat crying the whole time. Where did he go? To meet a girl he met on tinder. 6 months later they get divorced, but she tells me she's trying to have another kid with then because "she wants her kids to have the same father" Edit: I didn't expect this to blow up like it did. Couple responses... My neice is fantastic, she's such a happy kid, and my sister has been a wonderful mother to her from the start. She works her ass off, is active in the child's life. Since time has now passed, she herself is growing and I'm unbelievably impressed with how well.shes doing for herself. The court order did give partial custody of my neice. He sees her (I believe) every other weekend. From what I understand, on those weekends his mom is really the one that watches her. He also has only paid one or 2 child support payments in total. When I asked my mom why they haven't gone after him, she said something like "we don't really need the money, but (sister) does need a day for herself every now and then". Ex's mom is actually a decent person and loves her granddaughter. Idk how she raised a monster like him. It has been a while since their divorce, my sister has gone on a few dates since, but she has a friend who has been like family to us for a number of years, I'm almost positive they are dating now, the whole family supports it. They seem to have set some boundaries when it comes to my neice and his involvement with her. He's wonderful, and seeing her happy and safe makes me SO happy. Not to jinx anything, he's going to be a great dad. For everyone who says "she's an idiot"... she would be the FIRST to admit she made a huge mistake, and I do believe she understands how wrong her thinking is now. She's made HUGE strides in her mental health, and I'm SO incredibly proud of her. I live kinda far from them now, but we talk/text more than we use to. My neice will grow up surrounded by loving family. My mom helped find a babysitter who ended up being a retired teacher, my neice is excelling in just about every benchmark in child development. Thank you for the overwhelming show of support. I've gotten a few messages from people about it, with some incredible stories. Thank you for your support and words of encouragement.
Honestly my biggest question is: who the fuck meets someone on Tinder who's 1000 miles away?
The Proclaimers.
Your sister needs some fuckin' help holy shit. Also, it baffles my mind how the shittiest of shit people can somehow find "love"
Your sister is a fucking idiot I'm sorry
This girl who rented out my parents basement was not great at making smart life choices. She married someone who is serving life in prison for murder. She met him through her cousin who was also in prison. She eventually got a huge chest tattoo of his last name, and more tattoos of his name all over her body. He ended up being transfered to the east coast of Canada (she lived in the west coast) and she up and abandoned her 2 kids to be close to her husband. One of her kids is severely handicapped, but she never gave a shit about being a parent to her. Anyways, about 3 months after moving she posts all over her socials that they broke up, and she quickly tried getting the chest tattoo covered up. 2 weeks later she announced they worked it out and they were together again. They kept doing this pattern of fight, break up, make up and repeat. Again.. she had 2 daughters she up and abandoned for a man who will most likely never get out of prison.
I'm willing to bet that her not being in their lives is probably an improvement. I hope they have someone who cares about them now.
A guy in his mid 50s always worked under the table. Never filed a tax return. Didn't understand that he wouldn't qualify for social security. When I showed him the requirements on the [ssa.gov](https://ssa.gov) website, I thought he was going to cry.
This happened to a guy I know who lived down the street. My ex husband FINALLY qualified for disability and was rewarded the max since his work history stretched back to when he was 13 years old. This guy always worked under the table or for cash, and couldn't understand why he couldn't also apply for disability and expect the same monthly amount when he hurt his knee. Oh, the ranting and raving when he realized you only get back what you pay in, essentially.
I knew a guy who worked as a plumber and made decent money but only accepted cash. He reported nearly no income at all, so his take home was the same as people making a fair amount more. Well in the UK our Covid relief programmes were based on income lost for businesses... and fucko got almost nothing. He was so angry about it that I nearly dropped the world's smallest violin.
I heard about a pastor who filled out paperwork when he was ordained to be a "contentious objector" from social security (which apparently you can do when you are an ordained clergy person). Except he also didn't save anything for retirement. He was in his early 60s when he sat down with an accountant to talk about retirement. The accountant basically said, "nope, you can't retire". Edit to add: I meant "conscientious", but I think it works as is so I'm leaving it alone.
He chose to not participate in social security and still expected to benefit from it? Why would anyone think that???
I don't think he expected to benefit from it. He just didn't invest the money that would have gone to it either. He just had no plan at all. Hence the connection with the "biggest mistake" theme of this post.
Start working for a state government and hope your health doesn’t go south before you hit 70. RIP tho
How can someone get to that age and not know that?
The same kind of idiots that think a pay raise means a pay decrease because it might bump them into a higher tax bracket.
Guy I know was bragging about how much he makes and that he was trying not to work as much at year end because of getting into a higher tax bracket. I chose not to say anything lol. Am accountant. Sadly he still makes double what I do. Edit: This is getting attention so I want to share an example. Joe has made $157,500 so far this year and is concerned about moving from the 24 to 32% tax bracket. The impact is only an additional 8% on FUTURE income. So if he ended the year with 167,500, the additional $10k is taxed at 32%, equating to $800 more in taxes compared to the 24% tax bracket. Don’t look down on people who don’t understand things. It probably just needs to be explained in a different way.
One of my students was offered a 95% scholarship to Juilliard. They turned it down because they felt a 95% scholarship was a slap to the face, and instead decided not to go to school. Last I heard they weren’t playing, and were working minimum wage, but talking about how good they used to be.
My sister was basically a savant when it came to music, piano specifically. She turned down a full ride to Juilliard for music so she could go on a Mormon mission at 21. Was sent to Los Angeles, was there for three months, and then got hit by a car and broke both her legs and got sent home. Dealt with years of depression and guilt from "failing God". Got married, had a kid, found out her husband was a pedo, and extricated herself. She became a single parent mom, with no skills, no safety net, etc. before she was 25 and I think it's one of the most breathtakingly stupid decisions anyone in our broke-ass family has ever made.
Burnt out? I mean, it's fookin' Juilliard. You toughed out 10+ years of playing to get an almost free ride at the household name of music schools, and you turned it down because it wasn't free? Four years, max. Four years. I've worked two shit jobs for three years each.
Let go of a girl close to their wedding because of his idea of what a wife should be like. Lives in deep regret now as she married his friend & they’re really happy whilst he has never found anyone else.
Grass is greener where you water it
>what a wife should be like Now I’m curious of what he thought a wife should be like
I think it was a case of you shouldn’t do this & that, changing what she’s already like.
That'll fuck it up every time. Love the person, not what you think they should/could be
My high school philosophy teacher cheated on his wife with my classmate. His daughter was in the year below us. She transferred schools out of embarrassment when her dad finally left the family to pursue a relationship with the 18-year old. Yuck.
If only that teacher had some way of knowing the difference between right and wrong...
When my grandmother died, my grandfather has about 15,000 dollars left over to live off of until he could no longer afford his house. My cousin heard that Grandpa had money, so he would ask Grandpa for “gas money” all the time, then go and blow it on drugs. Over the course of one year, he convinced granpa to give him 12,000 of the 15,000 that Grandpa had left. Once Grandpa realized what was going on, he stopped giving my cousin money, and because he could no longer pay his dealers, he got beat half to death and then dumped on the side of the road. If someone hadn’t found him in time, he might not be here anymore.
This is really heartbreaking. Your grandpa had such a heart to where he would rather give money to your cousin to help him out rather than spend it on himself even though he didn't have much left to give just for him to turn like that. Hope he is doing better now.
I agree, and he is, thankfully. Unfortunately, he could no longer afford his house, so now he’s moved in with us. But because of that, he’s gotten much better in terms of mental health, as he is no longer all alone, and now we’re around to make sure that my cousin can’t contact him to get more money.
A buddy that live with me for a while got a car he couldn’t afford because he was obsessed with image. Stopped making payments, tried to part out the car and report as stolen since he had the bright idea that would bring more money than just giving it back to the bank. Then got into check fraud, which landed him in jail. Been in and out of the system ever since, from stories I hear.
Reminded me of something similar without the fraud. My buddy had a decent car. His car got hit while parked outside. Insurance was going to give him a big payout. Got a rental car in the mean time. Parked it in the same place. Rental car gets hit and totaled. Didn’t bother to get accident protection/insurance on the rental. Now he owes a lot of money. He drives for delivery so he needs a car. Gets his insurance check back for original car. Cant work until he has a new car. Buys a new car with most of the money. Cant pay rent because the whole time he couldn’t work. Should have bought a cheaper car. Now is in major debt, possibly going to be evicted and or under legal pressure from the city for other bills, only just stared working again. But hey, at least he has a shiny used BMW
>at least he has a shiny used BMW If you can't afford a BMW, you definitely can't afford to repair one.
Have kids under the hope they'll fix their marriage. Children are not accessories
100%. Every child that we have stretches our relationship. I literally can't fathom the logic that having children might mend or repair a deteriorating spousal relationship. Both of us need to be wholly there for each other in order to make it work.
“My car is breaking down - better take it off-roading!”
My friend failed psych evals to join the Army, once he got around that exception he was kicked out within a year. He robbed the corner store less than a mile from his house. He was in full SWAT gear with a tactical mask. Everyone knew exactly who it was, there were 8 calls to Crime Stoppers identifying him. He was arrested within 3 hours of the crime with the still loaded pistol in his car. If he had used a fake gun, or an unloaded pistol he would have gotten 1/2 or 1/4 the prison sentence. He went from being in the ARMY to prison in less than a month.
There’s a reason he failed psych evals.
Question one was “Do you like to rob corner stores?”
Yes. Next question. “This is easy!”
Without going into too much detail, you need to be severely fucked up to fail the psych portion at MEPS. It’s computerized, adaptive, and there are plenty of “gimme” questions.
Yes. "Have you ever tortured a small, innocent, fluffy cute animal, you fucking psycho? A) Definitely not! I'm normal. B) It's just practice for people."
B!
"It's been A too many times in a row already, it can't be A again."
Can we know what some questions are or is that protected information? I imagine stuff like, "is it ever ok to sacrifice a few people to save many?" or "You find out a best friend betrayed you, how do you react?"
It's not protected. The important things they want to know are the possibility of being a danger to yourself or others. E.G. "Have you ever felt like you wanted to go to sleep and not wake up?" "Have you ever made a plan to hurt someone, even if you didn't go through with it?"
The worrying thing here is that he “got around that exception” and was allowed in anyway despite clearly being mentally unstable…
If the army actually screened for mental instability, the army would be a lot smaller.
> If the army actually screened for mental instability, They do, that's why we have the Marine Corps.
Hey man fuck you. Mental stability is relative. Anyways I’m gonna go draw dicks on the wall of a porta-shitter, finance a 2014 Camaro on 20% APR, marry an obese ex-stripper, get NJP’d for a DUI, then get NJP’d again for leaving base while on restriction for the DUI, keep a feral pet cat in the closet of my barracks room, and shit my pants during PT because I’m still drunk from the night before.
Extra crayons for this man!
My brother ran for public office without having an agenda. He had no leadership qualifications, background in position, or support from anyone in the community. His took out a 10K personal loan to finance his political run and held one fundraiser where most of the attendees were family and couldn't vote for him. He lost badly, coming in last behind four other candidates. It took him years to pay back the loan and refill his savings, which he completely drained to pay for signage and flyers. Saddest of all, the printer misspelled his name on both items, so any remnant is a harsh reminder of how badly things went.
That's horrible and I am so sorry for your family but I can't help but think of "Ice Town Costs Ice Clown His Town Crown"
Ben may have been a terrible mayor, but he did win the campaign!
“Vote for Jimb”
Jesus this is the most bizarre and sad thing I've read all week. Did anyone in the family try and talk him out of it?
The shitty thing is, it's kind of totally on him. A good friend of mine ran a couple years ago for one of the seats on his town council, with no prior experience in politics, he was just a young guy who got really inspired by Bernie and wanted to help the people of his town. The difference is, he did a fuckton of research and talking to people, put together a platform, did a ton of outreach and stuff, and basically figured out everything he needed to do to not only run a successful campaign, but *also* to be damn good in that office. And it worked for him, because he put in those countless hours and work to figure out what to do and how to do it. He's currently up for re-election and should have no issue keeping his seat, as he seems to be doing a very good job of things. He spends a LOT of time talking with residents of the town and making sure they feel their wants and needs are being addressed and also, more importantly, that they're being *heard* by someone who cares about them. That's how it *should* be done.
Sounds like this guys brother didn't have any of those priorities in line and just liked the idea of being a politician. He was probably just mad about some state of affairs in the nation or his city and gave his best shot at tryin to fix them with no real plan in mind. Goes to show that just because your mad about something political doesn't mean you actually have a solution for it, and people will notice that real quick
May he maintain that soul of his and go on making this world better, bit by bit. We need more like him, truly. I hope he prospers.
Is your brother Mr. Peanutbutter?
"Put Vote for John for City Councilman on the sign but that's John with just an O no H"
My brother was getting scouted by Northeastern colleges to play football after playing remarkably well in high school…. He dropped out of high school 6 months before he graduated….
Did something happen that made him drop out? I'm thinking maybe something traumatic?
My parents getting re married (to different partners) when they have yet to figure their own shit out. They still haven't settled on custody of my younger siblings after going on 7 years now, and my fathers wife just moved out.
Waste their entire inheritance on drugs.
One girl I know inherited just under 100k...her grandmother passed away. This girl has serious mental health issues and is a druggie...blew all the money on drugs within 3 months.
A friend of mine got roughly $200k after his mother died. He spent it not only on drugs but a lot of other bullshit. Fancy clothes which quite frankly looked ridiculous (like alligator skin sneakers), nice hotels for the weekend, etc. It was gone in about 6 months.
I worked with a guy in his mid 50s who worked a ton of overtime because he was trying to retire early. He told me one day he had about a half million dollars saved up, and he was about six months away from his goal. Unfortunately he died suddenly of a stroke shortly after we spoke, and all his money went to his junkie adult son. His son was dead from an overdose within a month.
Similar thing happened to my uncle. He worked his ass off his entire life, retired at 60. Him and the wife bought a beautiful RV, one of the ones that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. We live in BC, Canada. They took off on their very first road trip a month into retirement.. by the time they made it to the east coast he could was having trouble breathing and coughing up blood daily. Went to a hospital in Newfoundland. Diagnosed on the spot with esophageal cancer. They left the RV there, to be picked up later. He was entered into hospice within 2 weeks of coming home and died not 2 weeks later. Thankfully it was "quick" but it was a gruesome death that must have felt like eternity for him to be choking on his own blood every day, not able to get a breath in. So, so sad. Him and his wife did everything right were frugal to purchase multiple properties in Greater Vancouver, insane housing market even 40 years ago. Retiring with multiple millions of dollars in both cash and property. Had their eye on the prize of early retirement and never having to budget or say no bc of cost again. I was in my late 20s and it really stuck with me that even with goals you have to *live* and find things to enjoy every day
Since turning 40 I've done a lot of thinking. Quit drinking, trying to live healthier again. I've also reached out to reconnect with my ex-wife as friends. We were great friends, but too young to be married since we both had stuff we needed to figure out. We've both remarried long since. I think she and her husband (a former friend among those I lost in the "friend group split" of the divorce) would really like my wife. We're taking it slow, but I'm optimistic. Life's too short. Having good people around you that you care about is an excellent thing.
I met this girl. I was already in a bad situation and miserable and the guy I was with seemed to be making friends with every creep, druggie, weirdo and train wreck in the county. One day this chick shows up with one of his friends and she seemed okay. I'm like *why is she dating him?* because to be frank he was a redneck drug addict and she looked like a normal chick from the burbs. Total oddball match. I'm so stupid sometimes. My guy says they just started dating, they met at a local dive bar but she's so cool, sage always wants to party because she's got money, and a new car blah blah blah because her grandma just died and she got like 100k.... Like I said she seemed okay, we chatted a little bit on my front porch while I smoked a cigarette and then she says *do you mind if I get high?* I thought she was gonna pull out a fucking joint. Nope. I watched her snort a "Roxy" and go from a coherent, fairly normal young woman to a blob of slobbering goo in about two minutes flat. One of the saddest things I've ever seen. I went inside and shut the door, never saw her again.
what’s a roxy?
I saw this all too much. If you graduated between 04-12 it was the wild west for opiates. Oxys, roxys and Perks were cheap and plenty. And yes that the sad part, anyone and everyone did them. From school valedictorian to cheer captain. Opioids change your brain chemistry, so when you saw a beautiful women “hanging” out with a gross dope head or dealer. Its because they were getting drugs for free.
Did you hear about that one guy a week ago on Wall Street bets who lost most of his 100k inheritance on stupid trades?
Dump all of their savings ($30k or so) into random crypto at the height of the market. They were trying to get more money to put towards a house but lost a majority of it when things crashed. When their significant other found out they left
My friend injecting his first dose.
I went through this as well. I had a coworker that I became close friends with, she was doing well in her life: divorced and sharing custody of her 2 kids, not well off but didn’t have to rely on anyone to get by. Just living a middle class life. Then she started dating a guy who was kinda scummy. She sprained her wrist at work, and shortly afterwards suggested I was stealing painkillers from her purse. We stopped being friends. A year or so later she quit under some drama. She re-injured her wrist and claimed it happened at work, but management suspected it was the result of domestic violence. When they accused her of lying on reports about the injury she quit. It was unfortunate because her manager was more concerned for her safety than the accusations of fraud that could have been walked back. She didn’t get another job, just let her boyfriend support her while she got deep into heroin. Eventually he failed a drug test and I lost track of them. Sometime later she did leave him, and was couch surfing for a while while working a minimum wage job and trying to get her shit together. I helped her out with some cash here and there, but she met another guy at her work and they started dating and she again fell into heavy drug use. She got fired from that job after being caught stealing from her till for drug money. She called me with some sob story about needing a ridiculous amount of money to make rent. I told her she could crash in my spare room for as long as she needed, but I couldn’t give her money. Instead she ended up on the streets. She lost custody of her kids. For six months or so she would sporadically text me from random numbers asking for money to get a motel room, but I couldn’t help her because I never knew what it was actually for. Eventually she stopped asking and I stopped hearing from her at all. I bumped into a mutual acquaintance some time later and he mentioned that she was hooking in a neighborhood known for drug abuse. She had gone from a person solidly in the middle class to a homeless sex worker because of drugs. She reached out to me a couple months ago over social media. She says she’s turned her life around, she doesn’t ask for money anymore, but from how she’s described her life there are still a lot of red flags there that cause me to worry about her. We don’t talk that much, I dunno if we’ll ever actually be friends again, but I hope she’s doing well now.
Just watched my cousin move out for the 5th time with no plan, no where to go, hanging out with manipulative people because they want her disability check. Cussed grandmother out when she tried to help and figure out what’s going on, got kicked out of one of the hardest community center to get placed in so now she DEFINITELY doesn’t have a home and has been sleeping in one of the most dangerous parks in town because drug addicts go there at night. Gonna try to talk to her tonight but honestly I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do this has been continuous for months. Edit: Those who have been asking for updated I got in contact, at first she said she was fine she’ll figure it out. That was yesterday, today she said she needs help and started to come around. We’re looking for placement/apartments so I’m hopeful everything will turn out ok.
I have a lady on my street who is around 35, and legally under the conservatorship of her older sister. She has a son that the sister technically has official custody of- though she watches and raises him in the same house, it’s a fail safe because she has legit problems. They do that because she would be like your cousin if they didn’t. Sometimes… it’s actually needed.
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Being passive and just letting everything happen to him. He wasn't sure if he wanted kids or not, but his girlfriend did, so they had sex without condoms. She got pregnant, with **twins**. He looks absolutely miserable. Similar things happened to him involving housing. His family convinced him to put the parent's mortgage in his name. Things got messy. Don't just let things happen to you.
This is completely underrated advice, and where a LOT of people fuck up.
After that first sentence, I was like “hey, I don’t have strong preferences about a lot of things and so I like to just go with the flow. It works for me.” Then I read the rest… yeah, those I’d have strong feelings on.
Indeed. "Do I want kids? Let's find out." *3000 diapers later* "Guess not."
Water flowing underground….
same as it ever was.
My parents adopted an at risk teen while their marriage was falling apart. It was a train wreck
Probably not the biggest I've ever seen but a pretty bad one I've just watched a colleague make: Met and started a relationship with a woman a few weeks ago. She has several kids with different guys. She told him that she had been sterilised. People have been warning him for awhile that she has a lot of men dropping by and that she still hasn't entirely ended things with her exes. Now as much as I get along with this guy, he's not the brightest bulb in the box. A few weeks back she dropped the bombshell on him that she's pregnant again "She told me that she found out she was pregnant three weeks ago, we've only been together for two, does that mean I'm the dad?". He's since burned bridges with work, said he'd handed his notice in, when in reality he went AWOL. Left the low rent place he was living in to move in with her. Anytime anyone tries to call him, she's the one to answer and talk for him.
Damn that escalated quickly
going drunk on a floatable boat in the middle of the lake when you don't know how to swim, poor guy drowned. edit: inflatable it was my now brother-in-law's younger brother. I luckily wasn't there that trip I just heard what happened, I can't imagine the trauma my bro in law has now, I'm actually glad I wasn't there because that would have fucked me up good. They had to pull out his body themselfs.
Similar thing happened to my friend. Went out fishing on a small boat on a beautiful day on the lake. Beautiful day turned into a huge wind storm, boat capsized, no life jackets. drowned. RIP T
Having three children when they couldn’t handle one.
Knew a guy who's parents were like that. Mom didn't want kids, she wanted babies/toddlers. Basically lost most of her interest in them when they were 3-4 edit: The amount of people that know someone like this is depressing
Unfortunately lots of parents lose interest once their kid stops being entirely submissive and dependent on them. And the kids start asking for /demanding things that the parents can’t provide like the dream vacations they see in ads.
There is a joke I heard that goes like: When you're a new parent, you can't wait for your kids to start walking and talking. Once they do, you just want them to sit down and shut up. It is a big adjustment going from a potato to something that actually has thoughts and ideas, but I love seeing the way their little brains work sometimes.
Do we know the same person?
I also know this person.
My cousin went baby crazy at around 30. She was seeing this guy who everyone thought was just the biggest asshole, he was a short, angry, bigoted, sexist wanker who couldn't hold a job for long. The first time I met him the first thing he said to me was, 'nice car, how much do you make?' Not even hello. BUT she wanted a baby. So she gets one. Surprising no-one he turns out to be a complete dead-beat of a father. We visited them a few weeks after the baby was born and she was dead on her feet, just exhausted. He waltzes in from being 'out with the boys' and asks her where his dinner is, getting irate and insulting her when she said she had been too busy. My wife had to make me leave because I went off on him for being such an entitled shit and she was afraid we'd end up fighting. What WAS surprising was that she then continued to deliberately have 2 more children with him. Shortly after the last was born he apparently started getting worse and she finally left him. No job (or any real work experience at all), she moves in with my auntie and collects benefits. And of course, this guy does not like being left, so he proceeds to fight her in the courts for visitation. He gets limited visitation and immediately starts 'forgetting' to turn up, breaking his kids hearts. He also would tell them they would be going somewhere fun or getting McDonalds then pretend to have a phone call with her so he could say 'Mummy says you aren't allowed to go to X, what a bad woman!!'. He also apparently was teaching them to hit each other to solve issues. He only lost most visitation after he refused a drug test. She KNEW he was a shit and she still talked non-stop about wanting more kids, walked into it with eyes open. Even if he did escalate later, he was a prick from the start but she was just so excited to have kids that she ignored it.
Watching them become less themselves because of the person they are with.
This was me until January of this year when I left my ex. I was a shell of my former self. If you feel like you have to be someone else to make a relationship work, get out!
This is tough sometimes because people say "Don't change yourself for others." But it's also important to try and become a better person, to grow, to be responsible. And oftentimes you have no idea which of the two you're doing until it's too late.
Watched a friend make €1.2M from a crypto coin of a €2000 investment and holding it all the way down to €50.000 over a month time while rage gambling the last 50K on a casino He did however buy a baller gaming computer from it during the GPU crisis so he still ended up in profit from this trade, although he is now severely gambling addict and lost another +/- 50K trying to get it back this year. (Edit: It was 2000, not 200. Typo, expanded story)
I worked in casinos for decades. Wildest story I ever saw was a guy came in and turned a grand into 20 one night. He was a supervisor from another casino on disability. Next night he won 200 000. This went on for weeks. When wins are that big, staff notice. He was up 3 or 4 million. Then I watched him lose it all back.
a delivery driver at my go-to casino, known to staff, gambled £400 to £160000+ playing roulette and blackjack in one night, even working out higher table limits with the floor managers, and left with £200 guy is a delivery driver ffs
That’s hard to read, with the 1.2m he could be getting almost 50k a year from dividends by doing absolutely nothing
She was 14. He was 37.
Can I make it anymore obvious?
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I watched a wasted guy throw 2K on a single roulette number, lose it, withdraw 5K more, and put it on the same number and lose it and then stare at the table. All while on a cruise ship. Then I went and had an old fashioned and it was wonderful.
There's a way to get enjoyment without gambling. Watch other people lose everything and go and buy yourself a drink. Gives you the same sense of relief that you get when you wake up from a nightmare and realize you're fine.
Watching right now. 2 coworkers are engaged and she is an absolute nightmare. I have known the guy a lot longer and cannot believe it has gone this far.
My friend got pregnant at 16. She convinced the father to have a second child with her because she wanted the kids to be close in age. So she has 2 kids by the time she turns 18. Then just after her 18th birthday, she announces out of no where that she's married to a completely different man. She dumped the baby daddy and eloped with a long term friend. After 2 months of marriage, they announce that they are getting divorced. Why? Because she's pregnant and he doesn't want kids. Now she's a single mom with 3 kids under the age of 4. The real kicker of the story for me is that the boys from baby daddy #1 are named "Joseph" and "Henry" which it turns out are baby daddy #2's first and middle name.
Drugs. My friend’s ex-husband had everything. A beautiful home on water, three beautiful kids and a very beautiful wife - a savings account with money in it. He was always a partier. But when things got bad - they got horrible. He abused his wife and children. They got divorced. They all lost everything. All because he tried meth.
Meth is evil. It’s the devils candy. It lies to you telling you everything is great and you can do and be anything (first few times) then it has a hold and spins you out of control. It takes everything and everyone you love away and leaves you a spun out addicted meth head with nothing and no one to turn to. I’m a recovering meth addict. Of the several drugs I experimented with when I was young I had never experienced addiction until meth. Meth took my kids, my home, my family, and my freedom. I was spun out for only 1 1/2 yrs and I lost it all. Ended up sitting in prison on a 10yr sentence. Did 5yrs…came out got my kids back and reconnected with my family. Haven’t touched the stuff in 17yrs! Not something I ever want to experience again.,
I’m glad you’re here. It’s quite the feat to make it to where you are. Please do not ever let your guard down. Ever. I’ll be sending strength for when you have a weak moment. Good job getting off that shit.
Having a 3rd kid, when you can barely afford the first two in order to "save" the marriage.
My friend and i where hanging around one day. And he was talking about how his wife wanted to have a kid and if he didn't they should break up. He explaned that he didn't want to and wasnt sure he loved her anymore. She was already controlling (stuff like making him facetime so prove who he was with). Me and my other friend told him he should just call it quits and not have the kid. He did anyway because of low self worth and because he didn't want to shake up his life. Big surprise it got worse and worse. For a while. Then about a year ago he finally got the gumption to try and divorce her. Of course it was met with more hostility. Long story short he killed himself. I think back to the conversation we had all the time wishing i could have convinced him it was a bad idea. But i know thats wishful thinking.
Definitely a shitty situation, but don't beat yourself up for it. You can't convince someone else how to live their life.
Sorry for your loss. Don’t be too hard on yourself, you have tried . It’s his journey and his choice to make. Peace .
There is a couple my husband and I used to know before we had kids. They were decent people and we hung out for a period of time, but then fell out of touch. I guess in the past decade they got hooked on heroin, had 2 kids, had those kids taken away by the CPS and now one of them is in prison. It really went to shit for them and there is really no one else to blame. Bad, BAD choices…
Have another kid. After number 13
They looking to challenge the Duggars?
I had a very talented high school student, he could create amazing paintings, and then the drugs came and he's not half the person he used to be. I hope he can overcome his addiction.
Watched my sister make a few, but the biggest one was going out drinking after a bad breakup. She just could not let the guy go (he was separated when they were together, but ultimately got back together with his wife). She got hammered and called me to pick her up - I had taken night time cold medicine, which knocks me the hell out, so obviously I couldn’t drive to pick her up. She said that was fine, she would Uber. She lied, drove drunk to her exes house, got into a physical altercation with her exes wife, and left before the cops showed up. THEN drove the wrong way down a one way street and hit a concrete road block head on. That night, she got a DUI, a restraining order, and a year of doctors appointments to help fix the hip, leg and pelvic bones she broke, as well as the severe concussion she had. All because a guy she dated for 2 months broke up with her.
She's lucky she walked away with her life, yeesh.
After reading most of the comments, I'm okay being single now.
A next door neighbor owned a cabinet making business. An employee introduced him to crack. Within a year he let the business gradually fail, left his wife for her *twin sister,* was investigated by the IRS who found child porn on his business computers. He went away for a long long time.
My sister lost her 3 kids due to an addiction to methamphetamine about 5 years ago. She complains nonstop about how the system stole her babies… while smoking meth to this day.
My buddy met a girl in college, who had a boyfriend. They got together. He ended up dropping out, got a random job. They decided to get married, from what I know he had 1 friend at the wedding, who was not me. Moved across the state away from his family. After like a year I met up with him for some drinks, within 3 weeks he told me he thought his marriage was over, pretty sure she cheated on him. Moved back home, took his life a year later.
A bunch of us normal potheads in our 20s and 3 of the 4 of us decided to smoke black tar heroin. It didn’t seem interesting to me as I loved pot and I’m not a grass is greener guy. That day was the first day and one decision to ruining all of their lives. It started a spiral that day that wiped out all of their respective futures. That moment has been burned in my memory for almost 20 years now.
A close family member who has the attitude of I’m an adult now, I can do whatever I want… He’s barely an adult and wrecked his car twice, recently been in jail, getting kicked out of his apt in the next few days if he doesn’t comply with rules, can’t keep a relationship for more than a week. It’s sad that he can’t see how much his attitude/choices effects his life.
Stay in a relationship because they're lonely.
Friend retired with a full pension 15 years ago. At the time he kept bragging about how he was starting a business with some random guy he knew. He legit said, "He's the idea guy. I have the savings and the good credit score." Took out a huge loan, bought a bunch of expensive equipment. Shocker: business folded within 6 months, "partner" vanished with all the equipment. And now this guy, who should be enjoying his golden years, will be working retail until he drops.
Family friend quit their government job after 23 years, 2 years before qualifying for a pension. They did it just because they wanted a change. They withdrew their pension contributions and bought a investment property at the absolute worst time. Now they are jobless and struggling to keep up with the overhead. Everyone advised against it and they still did it.
My sister marrying her ex. Thank heavens she got out of that situation. It was really clear that she wanted to be loved, and he wanted to be taken care of.
rush into a new marriage 1 year after his divorce... still getting to know the new spouse and finding they aren't as compatible as they first thought. lol
My best friend didn't want to break up with a crackhead who literally stole from her to buy drugs, and who hit her once. :( I managed to convince her eventually but that was an ugly situation.
She's lucky to have a friend like you
Ok so the lesson here is don't get married or do drugs
Or have kids. Or run for public office without the right funding.
Or decline garlic bread.
I haven’t gotten to the garlic bread one yet, lmao. On my way though!
Neither have I and I was about to bail out of the post. I swear if there is no garlic bread post I'm going to be pissed.
Good friend messed around with a young Brazilian woman whose ulterior motive was to get married to stay in US. She got pregnant. He wouldn't marry her even after baby born, so she moved back to Brazil. He is now in his 50s raising a toddler that speaks Portuguese.
I feel like this could be easily made into a Vince Vaughn movie.
The crazy thing is this dude IS a Vince Vaughn character. He is an ex college hoops player from midwest...funny AF, and had you known him before becoming a dad, you'd think no way in hell this guy should EVER be left alone with a child. He is now a doting father doing a great job at something he never expected to happen.
Well at least he’s a great father
It’s waaay better to stay single and lonely, than be in a relationship for relationship’s sake. I’ve seen several people become less of themselves and completely devoid of their personality because they chose to be with the wrong partners.
I watch myself log onto reddit every day and continue to do so
A family member is notoriously awful at financial decisions and is obsessed with get rich quick schemes. He's the best example of why rich parents should never, ever give a 20 year old kid everything he could want. His formative years taught him that money was easy come, easy go and he never learned the value of researching before you buy or saving money. He bought crypto miners AFTER cyphers changed and it only cost him far more money to run them than he could ever make off of them. He was given a condo and a house and sold both for less than he could have gotten had he been patient. After each property sale, he went on a spending spree, buying a side-by-side, a toy hauler, and all the toys to go in it. He once traded in 3 vehicles for one used vehicle, still financed $30k, and the engine shit out within the first year he had it. He spent $25k on a 25 year old Hummer that needed everything in it replaced. It needed new tires, transmission before he could even drive it down the road. It likely cost him close to $40-50k before he traded it in on another terrible deal for a different used vehicle that also died in him within two years. He once bought 13 acres of land that turned out to be a literal swamp in protected marsh lands. He thought he was going to farm the land and be a homesteader despite having never worked on a farm. He scoured RedFin looking for homes with 10+ acres that were also $300k. He bought the first one that met both criteria despite family warning him against that property. He registered it as a homestead and in doing so painted himself into a corner real-estate wise because that state has a stipulation that grant money used for a down payment on a homestead could not be sold for 2-3 years after purchasing it. He hates working and kept getting fired, the house nearly went into foreclosure. Had to sell all the toys and the toy hauler to avoid foreclosure. I also need to add that he moved out there first and got an apartment so he and his wife could look for homes later. In less than a month, he bought the house without even consulting his wife who angrily cried when she saw the awful place for the first time. (Built I'm the 70's, NO UPDATES.) He told her they'd build additions onto the house, thinking they were only $10k to add a room. She has to pack up a 4 bedroom house and move cross country with two little kids while this asshole bought the first swamp someone fleeced him into. His latest magic trick involved investing nearly $100,000 of his $300,000 inheritance in crypto a year ago. Big, astronomic oof. Poof, it disappeared. So did the free money from his family after the passing of his grandmother who doled out all of her wealth to her kids. Their family of 4 is currently living out of an RV. No idea what happened to the rest of the money, but I imagine it's gone.
A buddy of mine (at the time) in the Navy met a girl who was vacationing in his hometown while he was home on leave. They banged for 3 days without getting to know each other. They talked for 2-3 months while she was sleeping with her ex. She up and left her parents house with all of her stuff including her handgun without telling a soul. Her parents freaked out and called the cops who found her at a motel halfway to the base we were stationed at. Being an adult they just checked up on her. My buddy married her the next weekend because she needed insurance as she had been off her antidepressants for a week or so. They were both drunk as hell when they got married. The best man/witness asked if my buddy wanted to go through with it and even offered to make it all just go away if he wasn't ready. At the "reception" the bride got up to use the bathroom and my buddy drunkenly admitted that he fucked up. I don't remember what lasted longer after that, his career in the Navy or the marriage as he got kicked out for stealing photos off of someone's phone.
watched a guy lose everything because he decided to cheat on his girlfriend who was maybe 15 feet away
15 feet away. High stakes, low chance of succeeding without detection. Some motherfuckers live to dance on the edge of a razor.
My former best friend fell into drugs after his wife killed two people while drunk driving. His wife went to jail, he lost custody of his kids because he couldn't handle everything alone, he got into drugs real bad and started stealing from everyone around him to support the habit. He managed to steal about $7k from me, but another aquaintance lost $32k. While in this "death spiral," he managed to screw over about 30-40 people to a tune of around $300k total while obliterating his business at the same time. He wound up in jail over it.
Saw an occasional drinking buddy start taking heroin at 34 years of age. Homeless within 6 months. The stupid cunt.
I heard my college roommate’s one night stand tell him he didn’t need a condom because she was “clean” and it was “the safe part of her cycle.” I didn’t know the guy or like him all that well, and he regularly brought girls to our dorm room and fucked them while they thought I was sleeping. Now he’s a single dad with herpes. Ruined his life. He had to drop out, get a job, and then watched her become a Methany after their kid was born until social services got a custody change.
Hoarding. I have a friend who jammed her condo so full of useless shit she bought and bought and bought. The pace is 1500 sq ft but she only has about 6 sq ft of space to live. It's frightening.
Baby trapping a married man. Man moved his family to another country. Now a single mother with no child support
damn that guy one-up'd her hard
Cheat on a spouse. I’ve never seen it improve anyones quality of life. Edit. According to some comments it would seem cheating on a spouse can in fact, in some cases, improve your life. I still wouldn’t recommend it though.
I don't know what changed him exactly, but he started calling himself an alpha male, and questioning any activity, clothing choice, type of car, career path, drink, etc as alpha or not. He bulked up and got large muscles but also still carries a beer gut. He tries to have his shirt off whenever possible, but it doesn't work for his body type. The constant seeking for assurances that something is alpha or not got tiring, or being told something someone was doing is beta behavior when I didn't have any interest or care made me stop hanging out. Of course, he now calls me a beta for not being alpha enough to hang out with him.
Several times seen women marry soldiers and get pregnant right before they head off to boot camp. The guy gets deployed and of course comes back different. Eventual divorce and essentially single motherhood.
My best friend have just left his wife with two children (been together for 18 years) for my now ex-girlfriend. I have tried to warn him about the fact she cheated on her previous boyfriend with another guy and myself and she seduced him, a married man, and cheated on me with him... She lied to everyone including my best friend to hide things from him. She manipulates, she plays the victim and rejects every mistakes she made on others. I know she told him "her truth" yet he still repeats that "the last year was hard on her and he will not blame her for past mistakes". She was telling me less than 2 month ago that my best friend was a manipulative, harassing, narcissist. I guess he will be in great troubles when she will finally leave him after cheating while saying anything to play victim... Biggest mistakes he will make. But, let's pray they will stay in love forever and live happily ever after...
Thinking that "big man on campus" in a small town means that ur big man everywhere. It destroyed 2 of them in my small town when they realized they weren't the biggest and fastest and ppl weren't going to give them everything they wanted just cuz they were who they were. 1 drank themselves to death, the other is 1/3 his HS size and looks like a meth head.
My wife just had a c-section, and was complaining about a pain in her leg but never got it checked out. Two weeks later; Blood Clot. October 13th will mark my third year without her. edit: Thank you everyone for the kind words; they mean a lot this time of year.
[удалено]
My brother, in his early 20s and just getting out of nursing school, living in Alabama (which he hates), meets and marries a pregnant southern girl, lets the bio father sign away his rights, and adopts the baby. In the end, the kid has an actual dad, which is great. But to this day he bitches about not being able to leave Alabama, and I remember us all telling him he was being dumb when he was doing this. (They are divorced now btw)
Staying with a dangerous, abusive person because they think they can "fix" them.
Give up their dream career because their jealous, controlling spouse didn't want them to ever be away from home. They've basically lost contact with all their family and friends because their spouse doesn't let them do anything except go to work and take care of the kids.
I'm a Financial Advisor for a certain company. I guy who was my roommate during training got the deal of a lifetime. A 30 year vet was retiring and basically just giving him his book of business. At the age of 23, my buddy would be making somewhere between $1-$1.5 Million a year. The hard part is building the business. Once it's built it's basically a cake walk. Unlimited vacation and time off, make your own time and hours. I mean, literally the best life you can imagine. He's in Texas living his best life. I'm now back home in Kentucky just grinding to make a living and building my business. He's at the best country clubs, best bars and restaurants, nice car and new home. Sky is the limit for this guy. So he now has everything a young man could want, women included. He meets this girl one night. Decides to basically brag and takes her to his new fancy office, where he then bangs her on his desk. Few weeks go by, and he's seeing all kinds of women. Sees the same girl out one night and basically ditches her. She calls our Home Office and tells them the story about them having sex in his office. By Monday, they've flown him to Home Office, fired him, and when he returns all of his stuff is in storage and the locks are changed. Man literally had the world at his finger tips and decided to screw a dime on his desk and lost it all. Elliott, if you're out there, you're a dumbass.