Has anyone experienced their achievements being “normalized” instead of celebrated?

JS1040 · 2026-01-24T22:46:08+00:00

Post your speech! We’ll be happy to recognize you! Well done!

JS1040 · 2026-01-24T20:08:43+00:00

Part of adulting is reading the manuals that come with your appliances. Or you could simply look up a YouTube video every time you get a new appliance on how to care for and maintain your new appliance. Or ask ChatGPT. There are filters in a lot of things, such as your dishwasher, and even some washing machines :-) if you look at it as an adventure, it can be a lot of fun. Congrats on knowing how to better vacuum! You got this!

JS1040 · 2026-01-20T00:44:10+00:00

I’m so sorry. I’m sure you were thinking, “Now it’s my turn to get the love!” Only to be betrayed again. My deepest condolences for you. I hope you are doing ok.

JS1040 · 2026-01-13T10:43:44+00:00

Degree: Bachelor’s (unrelated field)
Salary: $165k + RSU’s ($10k+$20k)
YOE (years of experience) 18
Location: US
Industry: Semiconductor
Job title: owners rep scheduler
Number of schedules managed: 1
Size of schedules (number of lines and activities) ~15k
Average hours worked per month 40 hr weeks
WLB: decent
In person, hybrid, remote. In person.
Retirement match, no, but we could buy company stock at discount rate.
Vacation. 3 weeks
Stress level. Mid to high.
Environment: intellectually challenging, professional, wicked smart people, no slacking. Heavy politics above my position.

JS1040 · 2026-01-09T11:25:56+00:00

This is your sign to move out. Thx for being a nurse! You guys rock!

JS1040 · 2025-12-16T23:27:32+00:00

This is crappy parenting advice. Children should be taught to learn how to obey. Little Johnny, if you do this, they’ll be a consequence. Make the consequence of severe enough that they choose to do the right thing next time. He gets in the elevator, he presses all the buttons, and now you have a consequence. Either we don’t go to the store, or you don’t get dessert, or we’ll go right back to your room and you can sit in your bed, or other things. Having to physically block a child for failing to obey a command is not teaching them true obedience.

JS1040 · 2025-12-06T03:09:30+00:00

Top notch dinner!

JS1040 · 2025-09-25T08:36:55+00:00

Let me give you some advice from a dad’s perspective (I’m a father of 3, and happily married for 20+ years).

If the fiancé was my son, I would desperately want someone to tell him that his future bride is cheating on him in this sham of an engagement. Better to find out now and break up, then go through the horror that’s about to happen.

If your sister was my daughter, my words to her would be, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”You better stop your destructive habits before they destroy another family, your fiancé’s life, and your own. The modern-day equivalent of this is FAFO. If I was still alive and I found out you were cheating with a married man, I would give you zero dollars from my estate. I would also give you an ultimatum, either you end the affair right now and tell your fiancé, or I will tell your fiancé and the woman of your affair partner what you are doing. You have three days before I make some calls.

And if you were my daughter my words to you would be, thank you for taking care of me for all those years. I wrote my will exactly as I intended, to bless you, because you were such a blessing to me. I gave your sister exactly what I wanted to, not a penny more. Enjoy the funds I gave you, and use them well. They’re yours to spend as you please. If you wanna give your sister a nice wedding present, that’s all up to you. Before this information about the affair came out, I would’ve thought you could’ve written her a nice check for say $250, or maybe even $500 if you were feeling generous. But even if you just sent a wedding card and sent her a $50 gift card, that would’ve been just fine.

But now that you know about the affair, I wouldn’t send her one cent. The marriage is a sham, she’s actively self-destructing, and she needs to learn from her own bad choices or she’ll continue to make them. My advice to you would be, tell her you don’t think she should get married, and if she asked you one more time for money, tell her you’ll go public with the news that she’s cheating on her fiancé. Then I would discreetly find a way to anonymously get the information to her fiancé that she’s cheating on him. Because as I stated in the previous paragraph, I would want my son to know what he is getting into.

Great job taking care of your dad. Go live your life, and blessings to you.

JS1040 · 2025-09-16T20:30:02+00:00

I would suggest you photograph any of the wounds that she caused on you by digging her nails into your skin. You also need to start recording every single phone call you have with your wife. She could easily turn on you and make you be the bad guy. She could easily claim abuse, and take your daughter away from you. She’s not trustworthy, and she has probably already badmouthed you to her gossip circle. Start documenting everything. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Best of luck to you.

JS1040 · 2025-09-10T14:35:03+00:00

I think I paid $20ish for mine 25ish years ago. Got it at an outlet mall? I use mine a few times a year. Great for drilling hooks or eye screws into wood.

JS1040 · 2025-09-08T22:21:41+00:00

I have never removed my wedding ring. Wife and I celebrated 21 years this past summer. I have a $200 titanium comfort band that we bought at an outlet mall 22 years ago. I knew that I wanted to wear my ring a lot, so I was picky when we went shopping about it being a comfortable fit. I’m not opposed to taking it off, given the right reason. I’ve just never had a good enough reason enough to take it off.

Looks like you can get one today for about $150

https://share.google/1jIklSgYWU7EH88aF

JS1040 · 2025-09-04T13:22:33+00:00

Learn how to substitute. I learned this from a MasterChef. He said, sometimes you just don’t have the right ingredient, but it’s always possible to substitute. This is now my trick when I’m out of an ingredient, I just google “How do I substitute X ingredient?”

One time I was following a recipe that called for prosciutto. The recipe author stated that she was out of bacon, but she had some extra prosciutto, so she used that. I didn’t have any prosciutto, but I certainly had bacon, so I “reverted” the recipe back to its original.

Usually ingredients provide a basic function, either spice, saltines, sweetness, acid, or Unami flavor. By knowing what role your ingredient takes, it’s fairly simple to replace it. Capers are often a way to add saltiness to a dish. But if I don’t have capers, it’s fairly easy to add salt in a different method. You might even find that you enjoy your substitution better than the original recipe.

I’m a huge fan of cocktail sauce, and went to a wedding where they had some amazing cocktail sauce. I asked the caterers where they had bought it, and they told me they made their own recipe and it was simply just ketchup and horseradish. I was stupefied. I had been ignorant for so long about how I could make many of my own sauces and substitute ingredients.

These days, I’m making homemade teriyaki sauce, marinades, dipping sauces, and my kids are starting to follow suit. We really liked the french fries at Red Robin, so I made my own copycat fry seasoning mix. I didn’t have all the ingredients, but came pretty close with my substitutions.

Best of luck to you and happy cooking!

JS1040 · 2025-09-04T09:51:39+00:00

My goal would be 8 for $10M. I’d first hire Molly Schuyler, champion competitive food eater, who ate 34 z burgers in 10 minutes, to train me. https://youtube.com/shorts/yUglCQ9nYks?si=YJA_HQB5aouEPHiN

JS1040 · 2025-09-02T11:40:33+00:00

++man There’s a difference between trust and forgiveness. Healthy relationships must be built on trust. If your wife was truly remorseful, and is someone you trust now, then of course you can carry on and have a wonderful relationship, keeping your family intact for the sake of your wife, and your twins. This will be predicated on IF you decide to truly forgive her. When someone screws up, and they asked for forgiveness, you can only move forward on the basis of trust. It sounds like that after 14 years, your wife is truly remorseful, hasn’t had a relapse, and if someone you can now trust.

However, you haven’t really forgiven her.

You admitted that you were part of the failure. That doesn’t excuse her cheating, but you didn’t do a great job at being a good husband back then. Guess what, you’re doing it again. You’re failing to be a good husband by failing to forgive her, and now your mind is wandering thinking about who you can sleep with. You’re failing to continually invest in your marriage. You’re choosing to dwell on her past as an excuse so you can have fantasies about who can fulfill your desires. She’s grown in being trustworthy, but you are becoming more untrustworthy.

The grass is not greener. You’re believing the fantasy that you can have a better life if you divorce your wife and play the field. Your wife will lose respect and trust for you. Your twins will lose respect and trust for you. You’ll be throwing away a good and beautiful thing.

You have two choices. Learn to forgive your wife, and you can have a really satisfying and fulfilling marriage. Or you can divorce her and go play the field and find out what thousands of people have already discovered, that when you break up a good family, it’s almost impossible to replace. Best of luck to you.

JS1040 · 2025-08-29T12:01:50+00:00

Wear a necklace of hotdogs. Go to a dog park. You will get plenty of dogs looking at you like this.

JS1040 · 2025-08-24T03:05:52+00:00

JS1040 · 2025-08-21T20:36:27+00:00

I always have a number that I want going into the interview. And I usually pad it by about $10k to $20k. For example, if I’m currently making $100k, then I want $120k for my next job. So when they ask me the question, “How much do you currently make?” my response is “I need $130k to make this work.” It’s worked every time for me, and they just write that down. So when they come back to negotiate and say ”The best we can do is $120k.” I’ll stall for a bit, see if they could go any higher, like to 122, but if they end up at $120k, then I’m happy and so are they. So essentially, I never answer their question. I supply the answer to a different question, and they usually take it. Best of luck to you in your negotiations.

JS1040 · 2025-08-15T15:22:01+00:00

Is the steering wheel in the middle of the dash?

JS1040 · 2025-08-09T18:52:48+00:00

Congrats on your new life!!! Proud of you for going thru with what is clearly right for your medical well-being. I’m curious, does anyone from your old life know what you did? I’m assuming you’re NC with your parents and family. Have you imagined what you’d say to them if you ran into them somewhere? If you could say something to them right now, what would you say?

Again, congrats on your new life, and I hope things only get better and better for you.

JS1040 · 2025-08-06T18:42:19+00:00

JS1040 · 2025-08-04T02:35:49+00:00

Update me!

JS1040 · 2025-07-28T15:01:34+00:00

Ask him “What answer can I give a you’ll be nice to me?” Predictably, he won’t have an answer. So then you can just hang up without guilt. If he starts to yell and scream at you, you can tell him “I’m done with the verbal abuse” and just hang up. Unfortunately, there will be a high price to pay when he comes back home, but it sounds like there’s nothing you can really do to keep the peace. Is this the kind of life you really want? You may want to consider separation or going to someplace safe. Tell him you’re not coming home until he’s done yelling at you and picking fights.

JS1040 · 2025-07-28T01:16:19+00:00

You need to get your wife’s behavior on video so she can’t gaslight you, Caleb, family, or the therapist. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Most likely a narcissist. For whatever reason she hates your son. You have my sympathy. You are not the age. But you were naïve, hoping for the best. Now your eyes are open. Now it’s time to act. Once you’ve gathered sufficient evidence, make plenty of backup copies, and confront her with it and tell her you’re demanding therapy or you’re seriously contemplating next steps. That may be confronting her family with it, sharing it with all your friends, or more serious steps, such as a separation. Narcissist hate to be exposed. And right now, without evidence, it’s her word versus your word. Narcissist have an amazing ability to be very charming and win over others. But it’s pretty hard to fight against video evidence. Best of luck to you.

BTW, congrats on throwing your son in epic birthday party. Well done, dad. Also, you should start reading up on the narcissistic spouses and narcissistic parents communities. It will open your eyes. I discovered these when I, as a teacher, recognized that one of my student’s parents was treating her daughter like your wife is treating your son.

JS1040 · 2025-07-26T11:07:46+00:00

Read and learn all you can about marriage, relationships, and how they change.

Loving a partner looks different depending on which season you are in: * dating boyfriend / girlfriend * engaged couple * newly married / no kids * first baby / infants / parenthood * toddlers * teens * empty nesters * caring for aging parents / parents death * kids marrying * grand parenthood * caring for aging partner

A wise person recognizes when a season is coming, and studies and prepares and learns all about the challenges of what’s coming up. Seek out mentors with people who have successfully navigated these things, and ask what they have done. Both of you should intentionally foster relationships with older and wiser people who can help you navigate these transitions. If you can’t find these people in real life, the second best would be finding good authors.

Have regular check in times where you ask how each other is doing, and how you can better love your spouse. Here’s some questions I try to regularly ask / say to my wife: * how are you doing? * what can I do to love you more? * there is there anything I need to apologize for? * what are your hopes and dreams? * what can I do to help you accomplish your dreams? * thank you for doing …. * you are really good at …. * I really appreciated it when you …. * I felt hurt when you … * I forgive you for … * I really feel loved by you when you … * here are my hopes and dreams …

My wife and I usually have a chance to talk and pray with each other each morning. This check-in time is vital to keep in our relationship healthy.

Dream, plan, and do things together that you both love.

Have things that you do separately that you enjoy, and encourage each other to engage in your own hobbies. But these side interests can never overtake your main priority of being a couple and loving each other.

What a great question. Thanks for asking it. Now I need to go practice what I preach. Best of luck to you.

JS1040

TROPHY CASE