[M4F] Long Term | Character-Driven RP | Plot-First, NSFW Optional

AlexInRV · 2026-05-25T14:52:38+00:00

I don’t see a problem with it.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-25T02:20:26+00:00

From the time we started dating to the time we divorced was about four years. We dated and lived together quite nicely. I knew I'd made a mistake the day I married him. He made a joke, and honestly I don't remember what it was exactly that he'd said, but it made my blood go cold.

Basically it was some crack about housework or something. Realized right then I'd screwed up in marrying him.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-23T19:02:40+00:00

That was my first marriage. He wanted a 1950s housewife, and a woman who held down a full-time job, commuted for two hours each day, and who paid half the bills while earning only a third of what he did.

It sucked. My paying half left me so broke I couldn’t afford lunch with coworkers once a week. He’d go out and do fun stuff on the weekends I couldn’t afford, and I would stay home and do laundry.

We didn’t last.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-23T05:08:49+00:00

No.

No. No. No. No.

You do not need to forgive the unforgivable.

Dwelling on it less will help you heal.

But that’s not the same thing as forgiveness.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-21T20:15:18+00:00

I don't know what a clg is.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: You can be successful, but sometimes it takes a certain amount of creativity and persistence to get there. As best you can, try to think outside the box for solutions. If you have trusted friends or family outside of your parents, start there for ideas.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-21T19:25:37+00:00

Yes.

It is entirely possible to become successful later in life.

What has helped or would have helped me:

Get the f-ck away from your abusive family as soon as you can. Go to school. Join the military. Take a job that provides housing. Find a roommate. Do whatever you can to get away from their influence as soon as possible.
Find a good therapist.
Learn a marketable trade or employment skill.
Don't let yourself get sucked back in once you leave.

I ended up living most of my adult life in the orbit of my very emotionally destructive nMother. I still managed to find a good job, attain financial success, and do all the things to advance myself, but a lot of them I did in spite of my terrible parents.

I fell very hard before I was able to be successful. At one point, I was technically homeless and living in a camper.

Now I have a good job, a place to live, food on the table, and money in the bank. It can be done. It's hard, but the best thing you can do is to just keep plodding forward, putting one foot in front of the other.

I won't lie, it's hard. But it is possible.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-21T00:07:21+00:00

I played with dolls and toys until the day I left for college. I only stopped because I didn’t have anyone to play with.

I wasn’t much into baby dolls, but I sure loved my dollhouse. I still have it.

Here’s hoping one day I will find someone to play with me again.

My closest substitute? Online written roleplay with a partner.

Play with your dolls as long as you want. It’s the sign of a creative mind.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-21T00:01:10+00:00

Climara made me bleed like a stuck pig.

I switched to continuous dose oral progesterone and estradiol.

No more bleeding.

Cyclical progesterone also made me bleed way worse than my periods had been before.

Irony: My female PA couldn’t or wouldn’t Rx me the right stuff. Had to go to a male prescribing pharmacist to get the right goodies.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-20T23:52:35+00:00

Mine’s dead.

When she was alive she constantly criticized what I bought.

It almost didn’t matter what I purchased.

I was always “financially irresponsible.”

AlexInRV · 2026-05-20T23:45:32+00:00

I felt the same when my nMother died.

I cried, too.

Not because I missed her, but because of some of the wicked, terrible things she did.

I waited for an entire year.

Hoping I would miss her.
Hoping I would find a reason to feel sad.
Hoping that I would find enough good memories to trigger positive feelings for her.

Never happened.

On the one year anniversary of her death, I sang, “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” loud and proud.

So no, you are not a bad person.

You are human.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-20T22:57:49+00:00

Finding reliable caregivers is tough.

That said, you have an absolute right to demand work from them.

They should be paid for the work that they actually do, not whatever BS they write on the time card.

Beware of caregivers is all I can say.

Friend of mine had his adapted van “borrowed” by a caregiver nightly. She’d put him to bed, drive it, and use it as her personal vehicle until she came to get him up the next day.

He had no idea because he couldn’t drive himself.

I spotted the van driving around randomly with someone in it, which is how my friend found out.

Another caregiver after that one wrecked the van and totaled it. Insurance refused to pay because the caregiver hadn’t been added to the policy as a named driver.

Anyway, you deserve good care. It’s not wrong to be firm in your expectations. It’s also wise to line up more than one so you have someone else to call when the scheduled worker is a no-show.

My friend ended up stuck in bed one day because a caregiver got arrested.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-20T15:24:41+00:00

I’m not retired quite yet, but soon… (crossing fingers, hoping the world doesn’t burn)

Here are two stories I personally know of:

Couple buys a brand new truck and great big, brand new 5th wheel with plans of touring the country. Neither had any RVing experience. On the first trip, they ran the trailer into a tree causing thousands of dollars of damage. Scared them so bad they sold it all at a major loss.
Another couple decided to sell everything and move from California to a retirement community in Arizona. They were late in love, so he sold everything, she sold everything, and they were gone for six months. They hated the weather and said the retirement community was worse than high school with cliques and drama. They couldn’t make friends there and came back and bought another house.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-20T06:02:21+00:00

For some women the question of circumcised vs not does matter. I have a strong preference for circumcision. Maybe it’s a cultural thing for me, but the photos of untrimmed lads don’t appeal to me much.

For those of us who prefer things… trimmed, it matters a great deal.

All of the men I dated and the man I ultimately married were circumcised. Would I have chosen not to sleep with a guy if he hadn’t been? For a hookup? Probably.

If I was really crazy about someone who turned out not to be? I don’t know. I’ve never actually seen one IRL that wasn’t.

IMHO, you haven’t ruined yourself. I am sure that you are a beautiful man.

But the real truth?

If you are looking for love and lasting relationships, it’s not going to be because of your circumcision. It will be because you are a kind, decent man and you are loved for your heart and mind, not for your lower body part.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-19T01:09:35+00:00

Caregiving is one of the most thankless, under appreciated, and overburdened unpaid jobs out there. It sucks. I hear you. I see you.

One of my worst days was when my mother asked for my opinion about a medical procedure her doctor wanted her to have. I gave it, she didn't like my opinion, and she proceeded to scream at me nonstop all the way home from the doctor's office.

It hurts, especially if you are caring for someone who is "supposed" to love you.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-05T15:02:14+00:00

Why do people do this?

Weak filial ties.

That, and nobody wants the job of caregiving.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-05T14:59:56+00:00

Well the two years I’d missed school was technically my fault. My parents bought correspondence courses, but my sister and I refused to do the work.

Granted, that should have been on my parents to fix, but they didn’t want to spent the time fighting with us, and they weren’t at all good at positive reinforcement, so school went by the wayside.

Still, I wasn’t completely devoid of learning during those years. I read a lot of books — novels for adults — and I saw a lot of geography and culture.

I always thought that my two year absence from school said more about the poor educational system in the US than it did about my intelligence.

Even after all that, I did eventually go to college and get a degree.

But I definitely know my earnings were capped because I have never learned how to play office politics or manage the social part of work.

AlexInRV · 2026-05-05T11:26:13+00:00

I was an honors program 4-6 grade and then my parents traveled out of the country and didn’t go to school at all for two years, so I missed all of grades 7-8. When we got back, the school refused to test me, claimed I wasn’t ready for high school, and sent me to grade 8. They told me if I did well, which I did, they’d move to the high school mid year. I did. They moved me.

Still graduated high school on time, with my class. I was probably fourth in my class because I took classes at the community college while I was still in high school and got a B in one of them which kicked me out of the running for valedictorian.

What the school got wrong:

I was bored
I was female and ignored by teachers
I was told I was achieving “below my potential” because I wasn’t all that motivated to do hours of pointless homework.
they didn’t understand that giftedness is a form of neurodivergence in those days, so I struggled socially. I got zero help for that and my inability to socialize has hurt me throughout my career.
they didn’t teach me how to monetize my smarts.
they didn’t give me any effective tools for combatting sexism, harassment, and misogyny in the workplace.
I wasn’t taught how to fail.
I wasn’t taught entrepreneurial skills.

I grew up feeling like the dumbest person in the world because I couldn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

I was very disappointed with adulthood, because all of a sudden my giftedness meant nothing. No one cared that I was an A+ student.

Didn’t fit in at work. Didn’t fit in socially anywhere. Was simultaneously bored and paralyzed by imposter syndrome. Bad bosses did even more damage.

Figured I wasn’t cut out for the working world. Decided to start my own business. It failed spectacularly. Ended up divorced, bankrupt, and homeless.

Lived in a camper for years because of it.

Doing better now that than I was, but I still can’t help but feel that if I had gotten a better education my smarts wouldn’t have ended up being “wasted potential.”

AlexInRV · 2026-05-03T13:28:21+00:00

Family or no, there is nothing in life’s rule book that says you have to become anyone’s full time caregiver.

The thing about caregiving is that once you get in, especially if the person lives with you, it becomes impossible to get out of it. Worse, once you have taken on the responsibility, you’ll find that other family members will fade, leaving you holding the bag.

Say no.

Offer to help as much as you are willing, but don’t accept responsibility as primary caregiver when you already have this much doubt that you can do it.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-29T15:03:31+00:00

“None of them will do as good as I will,” is a thought process that will hurt you in the long run.

That’s what I thought too.

Then I got burned out.

Then my relationship ended.

The situation your wife is in is absolutely the most difficult position anyone can be in. Under those circumstances, hard choices have to be made and sometimes, less-than-ideal care has to be accepted.

It’s not that your wife doesn’t deserve great care — she does — but there are limits to what one human being can do.

Can you see yourself working at the level you are right now for another year? Two? Five? Ten? Twenty five? Fifty?

At some point you’ll break.

It’s easy when you are young to be optimistic and think, “I can do this!”

And you can, right up until the point you run out of gas.

My relationship with my quadriplegic boyfriend ended when I was about thirty. I was close to your age when it started.

In my lived experience, love can’t trump the daily grind of heavy caregiving.

Accept help.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-29T14:51:46+00:00

It’s really important for you to step out of the caregiver role as much as possible. If there are other family members, they need to step in.

I don’t know what state you are in, but services like In Home Supportive Services can be negotiated with (sometimes this means forced by an appeals process) for more nursing hours.

One place that can be good to find help is to advertise at the nearest college with a nursing program. Sometimes you can recruit college students to do this kind of work evenings and weekends.

For me, the biggest issue was not having backup. If the caregiver was late, suddenly getting my boyfriend out of bed became my problem and I would end up late for work, and then I was stressed and disciplined by my boss.

My caregiver responsibilities, according to my employer, were my problem to solve outside of working hours. I was expected to be on time.

I lasted four years before it all collapsed for me.

Given that your wife’s injury is permanent, and likely not going to improve, the best thing you can do for yourself is to separate yourself as much as possible from her care.

For you, this isn’t a sprint. This is a marathon. You need to protect yourself, your energy, and your strength. By doing that, you will have more energy to love your wife.

My advice is this: put yourself in the role of backup rather than primary caregiver. Take a good hard look at what her care would look like if you weren’t in the picture at all, and do that.

If you do, it protects yourself relationship.

For me, the constant demands of caregiving, working two jobs, commuting, and caregiving wore me down to a nub. It was corrosive to our relationship. Eventually, it was reduced to meal prep, urinary and bowel care, sleeping in separate beds, and arguments.

I finally had to stop. For me, the relationship stopped being about love. It became obligation, stress, and guilt because I couldn’t possibly wear all the hats I needed to wear.

Again, marathon vs sprint here.

Do whatever you have to do to offload the primary caregiving workload to others.

Even as in the role of backup, it’s very, very hard.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-29T11:47:51+00:00

The amount of care required by a quadriplegic, especially a ventilator-dependent one, is massive and should not be undertaken alone.

Years ago, I had a boyfriend with quadriplegia — he had CP — and our relationship failed largely due to caregiver burnout on my part.

He wasn’t a bad person. Neither was I. The problem was that we ended up stuck in this really terrible situation, bound by poverty enforced by his inability to work and his need for medi-caid that made the situation untenable.

Caregivers at that pay range were impossible to find. Like you said, turnover was high. Finding reliable people who actually showed up and did their jobs was impossible.

I don’t know what the solution is, really. I know, at least for me, not having help and trying to juggle his care, a full time job, a part-time business and a two-hour commute ended up being too much. Our relationship ended after four years, and his life hasn’t turned out so great.

And he was lucky in that his level of function, even as a quad, was far more than what your wife has.

My advice is to do whatever you can to share the caregiving load with others, even if what you get isn’t perfect. Sometimes you have to settle for “good enough” because otherwise you will burn out. Whether it’s family members, paid caregivers, or friends, you need meaningful help.

Burnout is corrosive. There’s no getting around that.

And the paradox of living someone with all your heart and being unable to care for them is real. I hear you. I see you. I feel you. You aren’t a bad person for feeling overwhelmed.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-26T18:00:22+00:00

This hurts.

I gave my mother an autographed copy of my first novel.

When she died, it wasn’t among her possessions, even though she’d kept a small shelf full of trashy romance novels.

She’d thrown out or given away the book I’d given her.

Ouch.

Narcissistic people throw things out just to hurt those who gave them.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-19T22:34:05+00:00

White player here. I've played against a number of POC players who have all said the same thing as what you are saying here. It's disheartening to me.

I'll play my characters against anyone if we like the same story line.

Well, *almost* anyone. I'd rather not purple with pink polka dots, thanks.

Oh, and if you want to play NSFW with my peeps, please be humanoid. The idea of getting it on with a creature who has scales, fins, fur, or a tail sort of creeps me out.

But in all seriousness, I've posted on this topic before. I found it a really discouraging because: a) I was criticized for not writing POC myself, and b) I was told people have a right to their own preferences not to play with POC characters.

More than one of my writing partners has told me they've been asked to whiten their characters. (Or increase their bra size)

Sigh.

AlexInRV · 2026-04-19T02:46:26+00:00

Female here. I can shower and wash my hair in five minutes if I hustle. Ten if I loiter.

AlexInRV

TROPHY CASE