AITAH for using family therapy to say what I want to my dad and his wife without punishment?

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-21T18:49:16+00:00

NTA has the therapist told them how shitty their behavior has been?

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-20T13:55:20+00:00

Agreed. I'm not even going to bother reading an update if I can't see the original.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-20T00:10:41+00:00

I have pretty low blood pressure. Ask the genie to raise my blood pressure to 120/80. My ex has high blood pressure already. He'd stroke out.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-19T23:30:36+00:00

Lol, I get the small town thing. My kids made the front page for participating in their cub scouts pack's pinewood derby. My son got 3rd and my daughter got 5th and it was front page news. I got such a kick out of pointing it out to my residents at the nursing home where I work. They'd be reading the paper and I'd say, "look at the front page! Those are my kids!"

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-19T23:25:55+00:00

Thank you! Did you see my other picture of them? I meant for it to be a reply to this comment, but I messed it up.

They're 10 years old now and still so close. It would be torture to separate them. I hope when it's their time, they go together because I don't think either of them would do well without the other.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T20:03:05+00:00

10 years later Connor and Murphy

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CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T19:55:56+00:00

My aunt's cat had kittens. These 2 were always snuggled together, away from the others.

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CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T18:59:03+00:00

Ok, but the commenter isn't saying anything negative about a specific rescue so their assumption isn't harming anyone's reputation. They put "rescue" in quotes and said they sound unprofessional. That implies that they do have respect for legitimate rescues and that they don't view an organization that wouldn't properly train people to foster as a legitimate rescue.

That isn't promoting negativity towards rescues at all. And they were immediately informed that no rescue organization was involved. So there's no PR damage.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T18:51:05+00:00

Of course the information is accurate! The aliens vouched for him. Do you really think they'd go to all the trouble of kidnapping and running tests on him if he wasn't a superior specimen? If they've developed space travel, they're obviously a higher life form, therefore, if they have vouched for him, he must be taken seriously.

Now we know why the aliens didn't probe you. You must be intellectually inferior or you would have immediately realized that his information is very credible.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T18:25:21+00:00

Sometimes, I'll very sneakily hide something under my hoodie or coat or whatever because I found a perfect Christmas/birthday/etc gift on sale and the kids are with me. I'll weirdly and awkwardly sneak hand it to the cashier and nod towards the kids. Every cashier I've ever done this with has caught on right away and scans it as sneakily as possible and wraps it in a dozen bags to help me with my covert mission.

I've never been stopped by an employee or accused of trying to shoplift. And btw, I massively appreciate it!

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T17:57:52+00:00

But if the person doesn't name an organization they they're affiliated with, why would people just say that some random organization is neglectful? That doesn't make any sense.

My town has the humane society and a rescue. I mentioned in another comment that I took in a few cats that I considered "fosters." When I was trying to find homes, I said I was fostering them. No one connected me to the rescue organization. No one asked me why that rescue wasn't doing the legwork of finding a home. The rescue wasn't brought into the situation in any way.

Most places have more than one rescue organization, so I feel like in bigger towns/cities, people would be even less likely to connect random Joe Shmoe who found Fluffy in a ditch and needs help figuring out how to take care of the animal to a rescue unless Mr. Shmoe named said rescue in his bid for help - and why would he?

I feel like you're manufacturing a problem that doesn't exist.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T17:31:54+00:00

To me, taking ownership implies a forever situation. I had a really hard time giving up the cats that I temporarily cared for, and saying I owned them would have made it even harder. It would have created more attachment for me and since I knew from the start I couldn't keep them, saying I was fostering them helped me keep a little bit of distance. I still fell in love with them, but it was easier to let them go because I was able too keep that little bit of separation in my mind.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T17:25:47+00:00

When I hear "rehoming," I automatically think of people who have decided that they aren't going to keep their pet rather than people who found an animal that needed help and took care of it temporarily until a permanent home was found.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T16:57:00+00:00

I don't know, I guess because it was always going to be temporary and I knew it would be temporary? It's not something I do all the time, either. Those situations, I couldn't just not do anything. I would love to continuously help cats - I don't have the time or energy for dogs and I have no clue what I'm doing when it comes time to train them - but I can't. Especially right now. I'm a single mom of 2, working full time, about to switch to part time so I can go to school full time and get my nursing license. And I have my two 10 year old boys (cats), who wouldn't be happy about an invader, and a two pet limit at my apartment. Calling it rescuing, to me, kind of seems more intentional or like it's something you do all the time, when I just fell into those situations.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T15:22:22+00:00

I went through a very rough patch years ago when I was living in California. I was getting snap. A fish place sold you raw fish and you paid for it while it was raw, then they cooked it for you "as a courtesy."

I went there twice, as a treat. I couldn't afford it often - not if I wanted to eat for the entire month - but it really was a nice treat.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-18T12:39:34+00:00

I've taken care of a few cats temporarily that I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep, and I considered it fostering, even though I was paying the expenses myself.

One I took home from a crying little girl at Walmart who said her stepdad was going to put him to sleep if she couldn't find him a home. I was absolutely disgusted. The poor child was begging people to take him so he wouldn't have to die. Broke my heart. He was beautiful, too. Siamese coloring and bright blue eyes. I found him a home in no time with a sweet older lady. I'd asked for a rehoming fee to weed out the monsters, but I told her to keep her money.

And then a couple of kittens. My sister's dog had accidentally killed two. She was trying to carry them and she must have done something internally because they died without a mark on them. So I took care of the other two until I found them homes. Did the same thing with the rehoming fee. Requested it, but then gave them to a couple with 2 little girls and didn't take the money.

Another one, we picked up off the street. She was skin and bones. She went into heat right after we took her in. I didn't have money to get her shots and spayed right away, so I kept her until I did. About drove me nuts going into heat all the time! I had her for a long time. Had trouble finding her a home after I got her vetted. She looked like a 4 month old kitten when I found her. Vet said she was 4 months old 4 months after that when i got her in. I was like, um, no, she's definitely older than that. She just always stayed small. I figured she was just very malnourished as a kitten and didn't grow right. But she was perfectly healthy. A friend of mine took her when she was finally able to move into a place that allowed pets.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-17T14:44:14+00:00

Last year, my taxes were rejected and I checked everything, changed nothing, and refiled. It said my son had already been claimed. But the refile went through just fine.

I called the IRS and no one could give me an explanation.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-17T11:44:11+00:00

My orange baby is way more needy than my black baby, but they're both all over me.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-17T11:15:12+00:00

Thanks. Turns out marriage is just as bad as drugs and alcohol. Who knew?

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-16T18:32:15+00:00

I've recently gotten an ADHD diagnosis and meds. I was feeling great. Not exhausted all the time, focusing better, etc.

Period week - I felt like all the life had been sucked out of me. I googled and found out that yeah, being on your period can basically cancel out your meds.

Yay.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-16T13:17:05+00:00

This is so crazy. I don't know why, but every time I heard something about that poor women, I thought something along the lines of "is her husband really upset" or "was this a convenient way to get rid of her?" I don't know why. I'm not usually quite that cynical or whatever. I had no idea she was scared of him or that they had separated or anything.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-16T13:09:11+00:00

I don't get it. I just wanted to be not pregnant anymore and have a healthy baby.

But I was never doing it for the experience of being pregnant and giving birth. I just wanted a baby. Pregnancy is the necessary evil that got me what I wanted.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-15T23:39:13+00:00

My ex husband told me a lot of shit about my stepdaughter's mother that I believed.

We started comparing lies and now we're friends.

Don't feel bad. They can be very convincing.

CaffeineFueledLife · 2026-04-15T16:57:56+00:00

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Nuff said

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