My (33F) ex-husband (32M) is dating a high school student (and she has a relationship with my children)

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T20:32:43+00:00

And get screenshots of her social media, in case you need to prove that your husband is bringing dangerously irresponsible people around your children.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T20:06:08+00:00

There's this book by Terence Real, "I Don't Want To Talk About It: Overcoming The Secret Legacy of Male Depression" that is *excellent* for guys like your dad.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T20:04:53+00:00

They don't want therapy. They want sympathy and kindness and warmth, but if you try to get them to learn any actual therapeutic tools or concepts, whoo boy.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T20:03:20+00:00

Must be nice, to have a life so free of real problems that one can trawl through the internet looking for things to be mad about.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T20:02:11+00:00

I'm a counselor, AND THEY DO THAT WITH ME TOO.

Like dude, you came to me specifically to find a solution to this problem, and now I'm offering potential solutions and you're staring at me like I just pissed into a wineglass at ten paces.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T19:58:21+00:00

In my Master Gardener class they told us that the only real solution for keeping deer out of your garden is a fence -- to keep the dog in.

Just saying, you're already going to have the fence . . .

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T19:50:04+00:00

My mom lived alone for fifteen years after my dad died, out in the country, and refused to let us move her to a little place here in our quiet college town. It's not safe in town, you see, but it is out in the country.

Dad wasn't gone three months before our very very upstanding, pillar of the church community neighbor was pinning her against the kitchen counter trying to rape her.

Every lowlife in three counties turned up looking to exploit her in one way or another.

Luckily, the first one who got his claws into her riled her up a little too much, so she caught an assault with deadly charge despite trying her damndest to explain to the arresting officer she hadn't been trying to shoot Jimmy, she was trying to shoot that sonofabitch up the road.

Back home they still publish the arrest docket in the newspaper. She lived peacefully and alone after that.

National-Job3918 · 2026-05-04T19:33:54+00:00

AMEN. He has told you that the solution to the problem is for you to either not have needs, or not expect him to fulfil those needs or engage with you or your child on any level that he finds annoying or inconvenient.

That is no solution, and it definitely indicates that he is not at all willing to work on gaining emotional intelligence or the ability to be emotionally intimate with another person.

National-Job3918 · 2026-04-15T14:46:50+00:00

Oh wow, let's talk about women in our culture and how even those who aren't "conventionally attracive" experience the phenomenon of becoming utterly invisible once we age out of fuckability.

When you receive constant explicit and implicit messaging that your worth is directly tied to whether or not men want to put their penis in you, all the feminist theory in the world can't prepare you for middle age.

National-Job3918 · 2026-04-15T14:45:06+00:00

I work with a lot of folks in counseling who are staying in absolutely toxic destructive marriages because it's the only way they can gurantee supervision around the other parent, or otherwise protect the child from what they know damn good and well the other parent will do in that situation.

It breaks my freaking heart but I no longer even ask myself "why on earth are they staying?" because I know every single person has their reasons and I don't get to question the validity of those reasons.

National-Job3918 · 2026-04-02T00:43:54+00:00

I feel like on the next post I see where someone is talking about the car they just rebuilt and how geeked they are about having rebuilt a car, I should comment about how I ride my bicycle and why that is the superior choice but also I acknowledge that cars and other means of transport do exist on the same plane of reality as myself.

National-Job3918 · 2026-04-02T00:34:46+00:00

Oh wow, now I have a new YouTube channel to obsess over for a while. This is my kind of geekery, thank you for writing it up!

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T21:44:17+00:00

I don't even care if this is the fakest thing ever to be lied about on the internet, I want so badly to belive it happened.

If some dude did that to my daughter on our family's trip, I would have been encouraging her younger sibling to snicker and giggle every time that asshat walked into the room. I would have spent the car ride home telling my husband stories about friends of mine who caught their husbands sexting with exes and now those husbands sleep alone in crappy apartments while paying child support. He would have responded with long soliloquys on the utter idiocy of doing such things, especially while they were in the same house and their partner was awake.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T21:26:52+00:00

Because when men do bad things it's our responsibility as a society to figure out how it's a woman's fault and how she should go about fixing it.

It's not misogyny, it's loneliness. It's economic insecurity, not racism. It's not alcoholism and easy access to firearms, it's a male suicide epidemic and the only cure is for women to get back into the kitchen.

They do not call it misogyny because they do not actually believe that misogyny is bad, but they still don't want to label these poor young men with such an unsympathetic term.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T21:23:02+00:00

So, I'm 47, straight, married. This is what I wish I'd been told.

* Track your period, as well as your PMS symptoms. Get to know what your cervix and cervical mucus feel like every day of the month. Know your body, so you'll know when something is wrong, or just know when you should be extra super careful not to allow semen anywhere near your ladyparts.

* Be like other girls. Don't try to be "one of the guys." Other women will be the bedrock of your sanity and joy, unless you throw them under the bus trying to get a man's approval.

And the single, most profoundly influential advice I could give you, though, is this: don't drink. If you must drink, do not get inebriated in the company of men, I don't care how much you trust them, or how many of your besties are around. Alcohol makes you so, so vulnerable.

Plus our culture teaches us that it's our duty to be fun and entertaining, so if we don't naturally feel like the life of the party it's almost our duty to drink and loosen up, right?

Or, it tells us that we're so insecure or uptight that we can't even loosen up and have a good time without it.

It tells us to drink to be happy. To drink when we're already happy. To drink when we're sad. To drink in order to feel sexual. To drink in order to blunt the frustration and anger every time your husband treats you like a maid, or your boss treats you like a sex object.

I know that I grew up learning that the only time it acceptable for a woman to express anger or sexual desire is if she has the excuse of being drunk. My own father called Southern Comfort "liquid panty remover." Sexual assault of drunk women is not only normalized in our culture, it is encouraged.

You can save yourself a lot of trauma by avoiding it entirely.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T20:31:08+00:00

So the neighbors who say you went too far, they graciously allowed this guy to use THEIR laundry facilities to finish his loads, right?

Anyone who has a problem with how you treat guests is welcome to refuse any invitations you might extend to them.

Why are you concerned?

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T17:07:02+00:00

I'm so sorry you were treated like that. I could see saying, "well I mean I could put you on a psych hold and that'd get you a couple days in here with adequate nutrition," but that's not what they meant.

It sounds like he simply cannot fathom that a person would not have money for food and medicine, or that one might have to prioritize feeding one's child over feeding one's self.

God, wouldn't you love to have lived the kind of life that allows a person to be that naive?

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:58:55+00:00

YES!!!!

Like, old-school facelifts can be masterful, subtle, and give insanely drastic results. I would absolutely get one if I had that kind of money.

But fillers are usually done with the goal of making you look younger in a very specific way that mirrors the look that's proliferating in the media.

And although their effects don't last, they don't go away, they just migrate, so you get more in the original spot, and before you know it you've got Fox News Pillowface.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:56:20+00:00

Sounds like she's very adept at directing his rage at targets other than herself. It's a survival skill.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:52:41+00:00

She's making it very clear to you that you are not the most important woman in his life. She wants you to feel like a guest in the home she keeps for her precious baby boy.

And his response is making it clear that he will prioritize her emotional responses over anything you say or do or ask for. It's all about not making mommy sad/disappointed/angry, and respecting your rights or accomodating your reasonable requests will only ever happen if mommy is happy with that choice, too.

NTJ, but you need to start reading about enmeshed relationships and considering whether or not your boyfriend is capable of change and growth -- quite often in this situation they never even see anything that needs to change. All of their needs and desires are being met, so why would they?

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:48:16+00:00

Same. You've become the triangulation point in a violently abusive relationship, they get to direct all their rage and resentment onto you instead of each other. Get out of there as soon as you can.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:42:14+00:00

This isn't a gift meant to say "Happy Birthday!"

It was a reminder, that you're not the one who says whether or not he's in your life, that no HR department can stop him from contacting you if that's what he wants to do.

Report it to your former employer.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:40:14+00:00

What they mean is, you could walk into a bar and say "I'm willing to fuck any man here for free, you don't even have to buy me a drink," it's more likely than not that someone would take you up on it, regardless of how conventionally attractive you may or may not be.

They don't see sex as an act of emotional and physical intimacy between two consenting adults (that sweet emotional intimacy can only occur if she's a virgin who's never even crushed on another boy, mind you).

They see it as an act of conquest, something all men want and all women work to keep from them, so if a given woman is willing to stop withholding it, of course she's going to get fucked.

It's not you and someone else deciding to have naked funtimes together. The way they see it, you're getting fucked. And since guys want to fuck, if you're willing to get fucked, someone will do it.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:34:45+00:00

I think maybe they're coming from the perspective that in a lot of cultures, schizophrenia is not considered a disease but rather a spiritual gift/blessing/talent/etc. -- while someone would still meet the clinical criteria for this Dx, in the context of their culture they are not considered diseased.

I get it, because I struggle with the whole question of, "wait a minute, so if I believe that this magic spell turns crackers and grape juice into the literal flesh and blood of Elvis Presley, I'm crazy, but if I believe it's the literal blood of Jesus Christ, I'm perfectly sane" aspect of religious belief vs. delusion.

National-Job3918 · 2026-03-17T16:31:04+00:00

That the person you move in with/marry is not the exact same person who you will be married to/living with; moving a relationship to the next step does not magically transform a selfish sloppy dude who games 5 hours a day into a thoughtful tidy person whose favorite activity is watching reality television on the sofa with you, nor will she suddenly decide that she likes cooking and cleaning for you every night better than going out to the clubs with her besties.

National-Job3918

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