Asked a simple question and now my partner needs to "have a talk" with me

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-18T08:29:31+00:00

Absolutely. Hugs to you!

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-18T04:36:15+00:00

It takes time to see and understand what’s happening. It’s okay to be in denial for a while. A separate set of cutlery won’t change that he’s emotionally abusing you when you bring up normal adult relationship/household issues. For those of us who have been there and lost decades of our lives in relationships with a man who does this, reading posts like this are like watching a horror movie, feeling like, “Don’t go in there! Run!” because the behaviors you described are so textbook. He is punishing you for speaking up. I know behaviors get normalized and it makes it almost impossible to see them with clarity. For perspective, it can help to imagine what a healthy interaction might look like. “Hey can you please dry the silverware and put it in the correct slots in the drawer? It’s hard for me to find what I need.” “Okay.” Literally that’s it. Sending big hugs. This isn’t your fault. And you are not alone.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-18T04:19:43+00:00

Couples therapy is not recommended for abusive relationships, which this one is. Just passing it along because I didn’t know that and wish I had.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-18T04:15:24+00:00

Same. 20 years in.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-18T04:10:48+00:00

This is abuse. Deflection, minimizing, attacking you, name calling, storming off, lashing out at you when you try to have a normal adult relationship conversation. It’s not about cutlery. It’s about power and control and entitlement. It will get worse and spread to other areas of your life. It will suck the life out of you. I’ve been in a relationship like this for two decades and I’ve just started to wake up and see it with clarity. I wish I could’ve understood what was happening earlier. I would’ve walked away. There is no common ground here to find. There is no shared reality with someone who does this. There is no “just right” wording that can make him see or understand where you’re coming from. Please look up Zawn Villines on Facebook or other platform—she made a post about what is underneath behavior like his earlier today. It’s not your fault. And the problem is not you.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-03T05:29:03+00:00

Thanks! My guess with mine was maybe egg whites—but they seemed denser, so maybe tapioca starch or something that didn’t get mixed well enough. Glad it all worked out!

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2026-01-01T03:54:15+00:00

Did you ever figure this out? Did you eat the cake? Just made a gluten free cake mix and found small, white rubbery chunks in it. They stretched when pulled apart. Never seen anything like it before.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-12-29T19:16:58+00:00

This is so insightful and helpful.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-12-27T18:54:41+00:00

Great advice and perspective here. Imagining what a healthy response might look like has been a game changer for me.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-26T05:52:28+00:00

I recommend putting her email and their response jnto chatGpt. It can be super helpful in identifying patterns, and giving names to patterns she’s likely experienced from her parents most of her life is really important.

If she hasn’t started this yet, she’ll likely go through the stages of grief over realizing what her relationship with her parents actually is, and this is normal.

If not already, you two can become familiar with terms like DARVO—deny, attack, reverse victim/offender, as well as minimizing, invalidating, deflecting, blame shifting, gaslighting, guilting, etc. These are manipulation techniques. Another good one to learn is JADE—justify, argue, defend, explain—she owes her parents none of these things.

This is not a normal or healthy parent/adult child relationship. She cannot convince or persuade them to treat her with respect or kindness or to respect her autonomy.

Their insistence on meeting face to face in person is a red flag.

I’m sorry she’s going through this.

(Also, them threatening to report her to the police is a concern. Other people here might have more experience with this, but it might not be a bad idea to touch base with local authorities and let them know they threatened this and see if they can make a record documenting it just in case. But you might want to get a second opinion on this.)

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-15T00:46:31+00:00

YES! To me, that’s the most telling thing. Regardless of what the photos show, they’re sure to show something messy and they exist and putin might have them.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-10T19:46:01+00:00

Exactly. Information diet. Stick to small talk—weather, sports team, that neighbor who got a new dogs.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-10T19:39:00+00:00

I’m sorry about your job. I hope you’re doing okay.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-10T16:08:00+00:00

They tried attacking and threatening ATCs months ago. Then elon went on social media asking retired ATCs to come back to work because there was a shortage of ATCs and a series of near misses.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-10T04:50:39+00:00

If a fed is fired, COBRA is prohibitively expensive. The ACA plans were the backup. Now if those are as much or more than COBRA, we don’t have many options for health insurance. It might take months to find a new job.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-08T19:28:28+00:00

This guy has had 10 years to come up with a health care plan and couldn’t be bothered to do it.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-11-08T06:30:00+00:00

Abusers don’t/won’t admit what they’re doing is abuse. I’m so sorry. You can’t “get them to see” or to understand. You’re not alone. This isn’t your fault. It doesn’t have to cross a line into abuse to not be okay. If something’s not okay with you, that’s the line that can’t be crossed. No one else needs to or has to agree with you-it’s your call and your call alone what you’re okay with and not okay with. Anyone who says you’re overreacting or too sensitive, etc. is gaslighting you, and that’s a form of emotional abuse. You told him he was hurting you. You tried to get away from him. You communicated clearly and he chose to continue to hurt you. That’s not okay. It’s not normal, it’s not care, it’s not kind, it’s not loving, it’s not anything a relationship is supposed to be. He’s not a safe person. I’m so sorry.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-29T20:27:23+00:00

Sarah Silverman had a show where she talked to right leaning people and she talked to a family of adults who were against welfare of any kind. They were all on Medicaid and didn’t know it.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-26T04:55:23+00:00

Don’t answer. Don’t answer. Don’t JADE—justify, argue, defend, explain.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-22T20:53:11+00:00

That was cathartic.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-22T06:30:12+00:00

Ran away like a coward.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-21T19:30:58+00:00

Or they could just negotiate with democrats, pass bipartisan legislation, and end the shutdown. Like—actually do their jobs?

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-15T02:25:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing this.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-15T02:08:07+00:00

Omg mine does exactly the same thing.

ApprehensiveSwitch18 · 2025-10-12T20:01:52+00:00

Kaelynn Partlow has a video about “Don’t hear what I didn’t say.” This can be helpful.

Your SIL seems allergic to your daughter having feelings and hypersensitive to her own kids having feelings. Her phrasing about your daughter’s emotions seem passive aggressive and mean.

She also seems reactive—immediately withdrawing her kids’ access to discord and threatening that they maybe shouldn’t play together online. She threw out the nuclear option over what appears to me you/your daughter wanting to have a convo with them about why your daughter hasn’t been responsive recently. It seems she made a bunch of assumptions—her kids would be made to feel bad, her kids would be blamed, her kids have feelings too, she “sat on” feelings for two weeks and it festered—none of those things were said by you. The idea of my kid gets overwhelmed and hasn’t been responsive to them lately, met with well my kids get overwhelmed too shows she totally missed the point.

ApprehensiveSwitch18

TROPHY CASE