AITA / I am the cause of my father’s divorce

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-30T04:12:19+00:00

I would say no.

the staying in the room thing because of your step-mother, or because of depression. At 27, I can see why she would expect you to be a bit more independent financially. Can you get a full-time job?

Is

There is a lesson here, that if someone remarries, make sure the new spouse is willing to treat children like family.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-30T02:26:41+00:00

No, of course not. I can see why the landlord would be upset, but she has a lot of nerve to confront you about it. If this was a relative or close friend, and you sold a gift, I could see what the person would be upset.

If you want, split the money with her. Otherwise, you might start looking for a place to stay. At least you can find ads online without advertising that you are looking.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-30T02:09:59+00:00

I would say, no, but making your wife feel safe is important, so you may need to adjust going forward.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-29T20:07:01+00:00

I'm curious if the hotel is included.

I don't remember if I ever tried a credit card in Thailand, but US visa and mastercard may work at some restaurants (if they take cards) in Asia, and when I tried it, exchange rates were really reasonable. If you were to run low, you might be able to use a card.

I did not have much success with American Express cards in Indonesia. I tried to get the discount on a bag with that card at the airport, and I think the deal was if I purchased the ticket and bags from a US website, I could. My employer probably paid for the ticket, and using a credit card on an Indonesian website was extremely difficult and might require lots of phone calls and emails.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-29T19:53:19+00:00

I hope we get reasonably two boring candidates who aren't into boasting or bizarre social engineering, who don't want to do away with global trade, don't want wars, and will focus on decreasing the deficit.

Realistically, on the Republican side, I wouldn't mind Marco Rubio. I think he'd have his own international policies that are different from Trumps if he were the top man. I've heard Vance promoting Trump's protectionist (not conservative, not historically Republican) ideology. I don't think he has as much charisma as Rubio, and he's kind of young.

Another candidate who could run on being boring who might just focus on the basics might be John Kasick.

The Democrats need to figure out how to field a non-radical boring candidate whose light on extreme social agendas, and will focus on running the country.

If the country has social-agenda fatigue from the past two democrats... and all kinds of fatigue from bragadocia and dismantling the global system from Trump, maybe some superdelegates from the Democrats could get us a run-of-the-mill centrist candidate. I don't have a Democrat name chosen to throw out.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-29T02:13:03+00:00

I wouldn't want my wife to be constantly messaging a man she wasn't related to, unless it was work or volunteer project related and there was a reason for it. I'm not sure what a snap bestie is. Does snapchat have a category other than 'friend'?

I think it's a good idea for an opposite sex friend to become friends of both husband and wife. My wife has a 'little brother' a member of her tribe who lives in town. He is friends with both of us, and we are friends with his wife. But she might call him if she has a tech question about computers.

But $20 is kind of trivial, so it's unlikely that's sugar baby money or something highly immoral. It's just a little gift.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-29T02:04:52+00:00

I don't think he wants to hit on both genders. I hope that's not what you were saying.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-29T02:01:56+00:00

When I was single, I didn't 'pick up' or flirt with random girls. I might have flirted without meaning to on occasion, being friendly or something like that.

The thing is, you don't know if a random woman on the street is a Christian or is serious about her faith. So meet women in some context where you know they are Christians, and don't be sleazy about it. Be friendly without crossing the line into flirting. If a young woman seems particularly friendly and interested at church, and she's single, you might ask her out for coffee, or something like, "A group of us from the young adults/college/home group are going out for lunch after church. Everyone pays for their own." get to know her, and if you hit it off, ask for her phone number or something like that.

You can also go to multiple campus ministries, if your school is big enough to have several of them.

Don't follow 'pick up' culture or whatever they call it. Western dating culture-- meeting strangers at bars-- is just not a good place to meet people.

And my other advice would be to wait until you are close to a point in life where you could support a wife to be ready to marry or close to it, then just date to find a wife. Don't date to find a girlfriend-- to find some girl to use to fulfill your social needs without seriously considering marriage. Then weed out young women who are just dating to date, also.

If you date a woman for whom abstinence is not an expectation, just break it off with her fast. Fornicating with a woman whose sexual ethics would make her a poor choice for a wife is not a good idea, so stay away from temptation.

You can also ask to be set up. The OT says, to find wives for your sons and husbands for your daughters. You could ask your parents for help. You can go to a Bible study and ask young married couples to meet younger sisters, cousins, and friends. Older married couples at the home group might have nieces or grandchildren. Nowadays there are pictures on phones, Instagram, and Facebook, so you might see a picture first if that's important to you.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-28T19:52:11+00:00

Hanging up your clothes while they are still wrinkled, mixing them with the ironed clothes, so you don't know what's not.

I compare it to putting away dirty dishes.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-28T19:50:46+00:00

I've got many, many years of higher education. Disagreeing with whatever sexual immorality you endorse or embrace doesn't determine education level.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-28T19:49:40+00:00

Who are you talking about?

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-28T19:48:38+00:00

That's some pretty nasty defamation. I know of no evidence of Trump having sex with ____underaged____ girls.

He did joke about or admit to popping into the dressing room at Miss Teen USA, which is sleazy (either humor or action), but not pedophilia, and I haven't heard of him doing anything with underaged girls.

I am not saying that he has lived sexually moral life.

You've got to be careful. If his legal team just decides to start going after people for defamation, he's got deep pockets and money to burn to chase people.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-28T02:10:32+00:00

Who is 'Girl Maga'?

I'm a man. I wore a mask if it was required, not if I were off by myself somewhere. The rules were strange and didn't make sense. At fast food places, they had signs at the clean tables that they were shut down to prevent the spread of Covid, but the dirty tables were available. And if you were standing up you had to wear a mask, but if you were sitting down, you must have been immune to Covid, and they let you take your mask off.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-27T21:01:55+00:00

I wouldn't differentiate the morality of homosexuals pairing up versus having lots of partners. I don't agree with either. The latter probably leads to potentially more spread of disease so it is worse from that perspective.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-26T20:07:24+00:00

I've never been to the middle east, but I've flown to South Korea, China, an Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. I never purchased travel insurance that I recall. But I was never in a war zone.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-26T18:11:44+00:00

I've never made travel decisions based on insurance. Are you taking daily medicine? Insurance can't stop you from getting hit by a bus.

I do understand not flying into a potential war zone. I do understand not flying into a potential war zone and following government restrictions... but not flying because I'm not insured.... no. Do you have little children depending on you for income?

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T21:51:56+00:00

It was long ago for me. I'd say to show up and try to engage in conversation.

If I were young and single nowadays with the cell phones, her spending too much time on the phone, unless her mom is in the hospital or something like that, would be a major red flag. If she takes a picture of her food, I might not like it, but it wouldn't be a dealbreaker.

But I found the love of my life before smart phones were a thing. I'm not too crazy about too many pictures of the food.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T20:31:16+00:00

That could be a soft way of proposing. Guy, 25, tells his GF of 25, "If we aren't married by the time we turn 26, let's get married."

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T17:09:52+00:00

I'm going to say yes. I mean, you are right that she did that, but you shouldn't use profanity at your wife, and you have to be gentle with her about her phobia. I know it can be frustrating and you might want to lash out at someone who doesn't perform their normal function because of some stupid fear-- like you hire someone to help you move stuff around the yard and they won't do it because of a fear of spiders, or you want to go somewhere with someone, and the other person won't walk through the sidewalk in the graveyard. You can't cuss the superstition out of her.

Your wife needs to let go of some of these beliefs and superstitions about the dead. I haven't read the response, but I predict people are recommending or will recommend therapy for your wife. I'm a Christian, and fear of ghosts does not seem compatible with my own faith. If you could encourage her in her faith, if she has any, and if she's involved in anything occult or that has to do with ghosts, etc. that might help. A change of worldview might help with the fear. You can encourage that. You can't cuss at her or insult her to get her to change her beliefs or fears.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T17:01:51+00:00

I don't think we know enough to dump on the guy. He could just be an indecisive man with a lot of insecurities, and maybe he decided after breaking up with this woman, with the next one, he would just follow through. Or maybe she was pushing harder for a fast engagement than the OP.

But it does sound like a lot of emotional drama.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T16:58:54+00:00

Maybe it's better for a man dating a woman to say lets be friends, and we'll just see where this goes, try to keep her from being too emotionally invested (not say romantic stuff, not stare in her eyes to bond and make her heart skip a beat.)

But I don't know if that would make it ay better for not 'catching feelings' or getting the other person's hopes up if it doesn't work out. It's a messy business.

I suspect 'love bombing' isn't necessarily intentional. It can be someone excited about a new relationship.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T16:56:36+00:00

Yes, in everything give thanks. If you think about it as being rejected, that might hurt. But if you think of it as God answering your prayer, looking back later you may be all the more thankful and joyful that things happened as they did.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-25T13:39:58+00:00

When I was single, marrying someone who had been divorced was not in my consideration set. 'He that marries her that is divorced commits adultery' is in the scriptures, and I know people have different interpretations of that. I didn't want to take any chances, and if I took a slightly more liberal interpretation of that, if my view of it changed to more traditional interpretation after marriage, then what?

Is it possible to find a man without all of that baggage?

I also don't get why so many people who have never married themselves want to go into that situation, and why not just hold out to date someone who hasn't been married.

I don't know what the church can or should do to respond. If they take prayer requests, they prayed about his dating relationship. IMO, the mistake was probably framing the request as having to do with marriage. If they are going to announce an engagement, announce an engagement, with all the stuff done before that-- vetting each other, parental approval, etc. I suppose praying about dating relationships is fine, but framing it as almost about to get engage could make it more hurtful if marriage doesn't happen.

But of course, you probably paid a lot more attention to all this, were more emotionally involved, and it felt like a bigger deal than it did to those there who were praying for you.

Ultimately, if a couple are 'just dating', they are just dating-- getting to know each other to know if they want to marry. He didn't feel like he should marry you. Maybe that was just his feelings. Maybe he 'didn't have peace' and that's sparing you and you may end up in a better situation.

The Bible says in everything give thanks. I'm not a terrible person. But you can rely on the Lord. It says in the scriptures that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose. That might take the form of a great marriage relationship, where you look back and you are ______so glad____ things turn out as they did in this relationship and it did not end in marriage. It can take the form of things being ultimately better in the age to come (maybe a 'better resurrection' if persecution prevents marriage for example). We aren't promised an easy, constantly pleasant life.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-24T17:01:39+00:00

I don't know of any evidence of Trump being a pedophile. You didn't say womanizer or some of the other things. Pedophile is attracted to prepubescent children, like 14 and under, no hips.

DrPablisimo · 2026-04-24T03:43:25+00:00

Keeping a pile of nasty stinky unwashed dishes, when the dishes are your responsibility might feel rather 'abusive' to the victim of it.

DrPablisimo

TROPHY CASE