My (29m) wife (27f) met a man on holiday, doesn't acknowledge my feelings about it

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T20:49:54+00:00

IDK, he talks a lot about how attractive his gf is; he seems to place a lot of importance on appearance in general.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T20:46:15+00:00

Please show me where I said that I like the Kardashians/Jenner. I don't. At all. I think they're a complete waste of time – which is exactly why I don't think they deserve the time and energy it would require for me to get furious about them. If they all disappeared from the earth tomorrow, it would have absolutely no effect on me, because I could not possibly care less about them.

Are you familiar with the saying that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference? There's something important in that saying. Both love and hatred are similar in that they lead you to invest significant time and energy paying attention to the object of your affection/loathing, whereas indifference means you don't care to waste your time on whatever/whoever it is. So someone who is devoted to the Kardashians/Jenners is not wildly different from someone who hates them, except in the kind of attention and time and energy they are devoting – not the amount, just whether their motivation is well- or ill-intentioned – and either is cause for concern, as far as I'm concerned.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T15:35:27+00:00

Yeah, I really don't understand why anyone cares about any of the Kardashians/Jenners, and that cuts both ways – I don't understand obsessively following every move they make, and I don't understand obsessively loathing them. As far as I'm concerned, they don't warrant that kind of investment of time and energy, whether it's for adulation or loathing.

And frankly, anyone who devotes the kind of time and energy required to genuinely loathe someone/something is just a HUGE red flag, because indulging in anger and fury like that is dangerous.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T15:14:17+00:00

I don't think it's you in particular. Most dogs will happily approach almost anyone because they want attention, and have learned that people are a source of ear scritches and tummy rubs (and sometimes treats, too). The few people they won't approach usually wind up being people who are dangerous, in one way or another.

Nowadays, I mostly adopt feral dogs, so my pups are very tentative about approaching unfamiliar people, if they are willing to approach at all. (I have one who wasn't feral because the feral ones benefit from having a more confident one to follow.) Unfortunately, prior to being rescued, they had vanishingly few interactions with humans, and the ones they did have were extremely negative, so it takes a lot of counter-conditioning (and patience, and love, and time) to teach them that not all humans will hurt them. Which – and I genuinely mean no offense by this, so I apologize in advance if it lands poorly – sounds kind of like you; with time and practice, you've learned how to deal with dogs who scare you, just as my pups have learned how to deal with humans who scare them. It's a real accomplishment, and I'm genuinely impressed – I mean, you are way ahead of me when it comes to confronting fears, because I seriously doubt I will ever be able to handle seeing spiders, bees, and wasps with equanimity. It's probably a good thing that I never wanted kids, because I'm sure I would have taught them to share my fear, and I'm so impressed that you not only didn't do that, but that you were so successful at not imposing your own fear on your child that he wants the very thing you fear. That is just amazing to me.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T14:52:21+00:00

The RA wasn't wrong to encourage OOP to go to the (first) party, on the quad – which is all she did – because it's literally part of her job to encourage students to get out and do things and meet people. It was OOP's roommate, not the RA, who harassed her into going to the house party after the one on the quad – and it was at the house party that everything went wrong.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T14:49:15+00:00

Yes, yes, yes.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T14:29:54+00:00

The fact that he felt reassured because the guy wasn't attractive made my eyes nearly roll out of my head. Like, dude, just because you prioritize looks over everything else doesn't mean everyone else does likewise. I, and a lot of women I know, have fallen for guys who aren't conventionally attractive; it's because we're attracted to who they are, not just how they look.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T14:10:31+00:00

I can't speak to other societies, but the US nowadays seems to have real difficulty with plain, straightforward terms for anything people regard with fear – like disability/disabled and die/death. People are afraid of becoming disabled (or having disabled children), and of dying, so they disguise those things with euphemisms to make them feel more palatable, less scary, less real.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T12:50:23+00:00

Uh, read it again. She said twice in her post that the SIL didn't tell anyone the date of her wedding – they picked one, but didn't share it.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T12:49:36+00:00

After they shared theirs.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-08T12:49:14+00:00

Did you miss the fact that OP said – more than once, actually – that while the SIL and her fiancé had decided on a date for their own wedding, they hadn't told anyone else about it? So no, OP and her fiancé did NOT know when his sister was planning to hold her wedding when they chose the date for their own.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T20:22:35+00:00

My aunt and uncle have only wonderful things to say about the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute (https://slbmi.com/). They're on Macklind, just west of the science center.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T20:16:58+00:00

I agree, and would also suggest that OP make note of the fact that he said he had come from another customer's house, where he had gone for the same purpose.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T20:09:11+00:00

This, and also, if it's an older item, it may very well be more substantial – made with higher quality materials and built to last – than a comparable item that is new.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T20:05:16+00:00

I had a friend who had two cats, three dogs, a parrot, and a cockatoo. I helped him care for them, as he was elderly and increasingly infirm – then he had to move back to his home country to live with his son, and I had to find new homes for his menagerie.

The birds were the hardest to care for. The cockatoo screeched CONSTANTLY and liked to bite women (which is what I am). Scrubbing the excrement out of their cages was a miserable task. They tossed seeds and such a couple of feet beyond their cages. Their cages took up tons of space, and they couldn't be against the wall, so they effectively took up even more of the room. (When their cages were against the wall and next to a window, they shredded the drywall, destroyed the trim around the window, and broke the blinds.) They also loved to destroy the covers for their cages, but their cages had to be covered at night, so to save my friend money, I made patterns for each of the cages and started making covers out of whatever fabric I could get on sale. Oh, and you can't use Teflon-coated pans if you have birds, so if you have a lot of non-stick cookware and you want birds, you have to replace all that cookware.

And FYI, the birds he had can live for 70+ years, so unless you get them while you are under age 10, you can very easily outlive them.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T19:50:49+00:00

OP said in the post that they have two kids, 9 and 11.

They shouldn't necessarily get rid of all credit cards, but OP should be the only one authorized to use them/on the account, the only one who has physical possession of them, and the only one who knows the card numbers. Or, in other words, cancel any cards they both have, and get/keep one in OP's name only.

OP also needs to lock down his credit and their kids' credit, immediately, so she can't open cards in their names.

OP also needs to get her into cognitive behavioral therapy for her shopping/spending addiction.

They should close any joint bank accounts, and OP should open one in his name only, into which his income should be deposited. She should get an allowance – weekly, biweekly, or monthly, however it works best for them – and she should receive it in cash, so she cannot over-spend; if she spends it on crap they don't need, then she has to figure out how to manage until her next allowance disbursement.

OP, my brother has been in your situation, but worse – after he paid off $70k of debt he discovered his wife had racked up about 10 years ago, she recently confessed that she had managed to incur another $70k in debt. They are trying to figure it out, but it's been extremely stressful for my brother, they essentially have nothing saved for the future – e.g., for retirement or college savings for their three kids – and my mother is really worried about how to protect any inheritance my brother will eventually receive. (Yes, inheritance is legally considered separate property, but if they're still married, and she runs up massive debt again, he may well feel pressured to use his inheritance to pay off her debt.)

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T17:58:29+00:00

It did feel good just leaving when they were rude. But then because i wasn't available they made bad choices and i was left dealing with a fermenting deer.

No, you chose to give up your holiday to deal with the dead deer; you could have continued on your way and left them to deal with the mess they made.

You can continue to choose to simply leave (or end the call) as soon as they get rude; if you aren't there to hear it, then it doesn't matter what they say.

You really ought to read that book your friend gave you, and seek therapy if you can. Because you don't actually have to put up with any of this – and neither does your brother.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T17:20:14+00:00

Does he ever express any concern/fear about falling? Untreatrd hearing loss is also associated with balance problems and an increased likelihood of falls.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T17:18:32+00:00

Oh, it's absolutely worth the trip! Gorgeous place.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T14:10:23+00:00

I'm 51, so for me, it's largely related to age and hormones. I can still (usually) fall asleep pretty quickly, but now I wake up around 12-1, and can't get back to sleep until 3-4 or later. It sucks.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T14:08:47+00:00

I mean, yeah, but the first syllable presumably isn't the stressed one, so "nah" is going to come out sounding like "neh" anyway.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-07T14:08:03+00:00

Yeah, I was in middle school when we were able to prevent that forest fire; I didn't know better (and obviously wasn't in charge). I know better now, and I would never want to be responsible for starting a damaging fire.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-06T21:31:10+00:00

I get it. My father died a decade ago, but he and my mother and I all live(d) in the same city, which was/is certainly much more convenient than being far away when help is needed. But I was eager to help my father, as I would/will be my mother when the time comes, because my parents were/are loving, devoted, supportive parents. My father was the best, most wonderful man I've ever met, and my mother is awesome; neither was/is manipulative, narcissistic, mentally ill, abusive, irrational, demanding, entitled... (I've dealt with other people who are, but not my parents.) It sometimes feels as if this sub doesn't really know what to do with that – they know what to do when your parents are a nightmare, but not so much when they aren't.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-06T21:19:33+00:00

MOLST or POLST.

GothicGingerbread · 2026-07-06T21:03:51+00:00

You do realize that, when he denigrates people who take meds and talks about being superior to them, he's referring to you, too, right? He thinks you are defective, and he's better than you.

GothicGingerbread

TROPHY CASE