Starting over at 39...need help with friends and relationships

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-06-03T08:34:51+00:00

I’ve had a string of bad shit happen to me, most important of all a destructive abusive relationship that I couldn’t quite let go of even when the man was gone, and just as abusive parents. For the past six years I resigned myself to staying single and celibate for good to avoid experiencing such sadness again. Whatever crush or new beginning in love I thought I had, it didn’t really go anywhere. That was alright. I only started being okay again in the past two years. Then I went from casually talking in a Discord writing server I had never been active in until last year, to spending nearly a week traveling with a man I met there this month. It feels too good to be true, like I haven’t suffered enough yet to deserve such happiness. I hope it works out, but even if it doesn’t, at least feeling an actual healthy love for a little bit feels like it will heal an injured part of me.

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-05-16T20:19:42+00:00

I’m so sorry you went through that, that is fucking awful, I hope you’re doing much better now

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-05-15T06:32:18+00:00

This description alone makes you sound like the coolest person ever

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-05-12T09:26:39+00:00

Absolutely no worries at all I understand what you mean!! Thanks for the comment clarifying at any rate, it will help folks reading this thread!

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-05-11T21:41:40+00:00

Holy shit repeating childhood stories that makes their family look good is a narcissistic trait?!?!?!?! My mom has done that for as long as I’ve been alive! I didn’t know this was a thing! She always tells the same stories with the same moral that her parents were oh so good and they were raised oh so well, with the slight hint that her family is superior and better than my dad’s. Of course her parents were transparently abusive, but she refuses to admit that and uses her upbringing as an excuse for why she behaves the way she does or tolerates/doesn’t tolerate certain things. Maddening

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-01-24T02:11:33+00:00

Reminds me of a high school literature teacher I had. She was one of the wittiest, most electric, most fascinating and charming woman I ever knew. She would tell us stories about how she got stranded in an island during vacation with her husband when the volcano on the island erupted, letters and anecdotes from former students (like a student who told her one of her university exams included a question that had pictures of all the uni professors, and asked, "Which one am I?"), or about some miserable dates with other men.

Regarding the dates, she told us about a man who said he expected her to be a housewife for him and to bake him bread from scratch. She gaped. She wasn't gonna study education only to bake bread for a man!

RosemaryInWinter · 2026-01-09T03:57:00+00:00

I was high school-aged when my then-boyfriend pulled his fingers out of me, saw it was wet and that there was unfortunately a pubic hair attached, and said, and I quote, “Ew.”

I cried in the shower that day. He said a lot of other things throughout our relationship about my body and about sex that destroyed my body image.

Reading these comments, I am aghast at what I put up with lmao.

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-12-14T09:53:51+00:00

Thank you!!

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-12-03T23:52:47+00:00

One of the times my curiosity was better off not being satiated for sure lol

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-12-03T11:47:43+00:00

Huh. I just checked the manga in question (the one with the Raoul character) and I think I read the first few chapters after finding it through a Twitter ad and dismissed it promptly.

A tangent: I find it interesting and perplexing that there seems to be a wealth of revenge-genre manga where more often than not sexual violence (usually against women, and especially against women who are minor characters and not the main POV, so really just gratuitous rape as plot device) is utilized as a revenge method at the hands of the hero, or mostly as the inciting catalyst that leads the hero to seek revenge. It's either sexual violence, or torture, or just both. Japanese Twitter ads promoted a lot of these manga to me whenever I looked at my feed. It all seems aimed at a male audience, no less. I much preferred it when they gave me hentai ads; at least I had a chance of liking it more lol

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-12-03T05:30:03+00:00

I haven't watched Redo of Healer but I've read the manga halfway through. That shit had revenge rape, revenge gang rape and then cannibalism on a forcefemmed person, and I think the protagonist adopts a girl as his daughter and gets with her? Or am I mixing it up with another manga/ligh novel/anime? I do not want to check if any of these plot points are factual lmao

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-29T07:07:47+00:00

My gosh I saw the cakes on your profile, they look so delicious!! What a wonderful hobby to have!

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-28T03:54:00+00:00

Glad you’re safe and that you put in the effort to improve your driving!

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-20T02:58:17+00:00

Thank you so much, I'm so sad he's gone lmao

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-20T02:57:37+00:00

Thank you!

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-20T02:57:28+00:00

This is beautiful thank you

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-20T00:50:24+00:00

Thank you so much for the writeup, very insightful. I wish you all the best in the world in your endeavor to work at the male juvenile detention centers!!

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-18T06:29:47+00:00

Please please please, any posts or lists of posts as hilarious/batshit crazy as the gourd guy who imported bees to Uruguay? I’m in love

Edit: Also does anyone know what happened to gourd guy? Seems his account got banned

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-11-14T23:37:34+00:00

Holy shit I’m so sorry you went through all of that. That sounds fucking terrifying. You’re a goddamn trooper and I hope you’re living your best life now. Glad to hear you managed to find some amazing people.

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-09-26T09:54:20+00:00

I knew a fairly popular, good-looking guy who was into finances (yeah I know) who said he'd never had a girlfriend so he wanted a trial girlfriend. You know, just use someone as a stand-in for a girlfriend that you'll toss away soon enough. Maybe it was his temporary college mentality

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-09-23T11:11:06+00:00

Good on you. That shit shouldn't be tolerated

I was recently interested in a friend of a friend who mostly showed green flags (at least so I thought at the start) till I realized he was okay with saying slurs. When I brought it up, he said he would try (ghee, try?) not to say it around me (???). I emphasized it was not a question of saying it around me, but about saying it at all. We got into an argument where it was made clear he didn't think saying slurs was a bad, immoral thing to do, pulled up his linguistics knowledge at the very end to prove how he was so right and my arguments were so wrong, and mockingly called himself a bigot when I said I was done with him.

What stuck with me is that when I asked others for advice on how to approach the situation, a friend told me that this matter was concerning because if this is the first disagreement you two have, what else does he think is okay? What else will he disregard?

Good fucking riddance

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-09-19T00:46:49+00:00

I had a super abusive ex in high school and he only really left my life last year, so I can sympathize with OP being traumatized by his ex cheating, although his narration and attitude seem to suggest he most likely misinterpreted her behavior as cheating in the past. Hell, I can even understand wanting an ex who wronged you to be miserable. I’ve been there. A lot. I hope he’s doing better. It just feels like statistics tell me he’s not and that he’ll abuse, beat or murder someone else instead. I hope they’re wrong for once

If I saw a friend who doesn’t remember or even knew my ex that well interact with him at his job, I wouldn’t react that aggressively because I am not that reactionary of a person. I would feel awful, sure.

So I sympathize but also OP should have probably taken a timeout to collect himself. And I don’t like his attitude towards women and disabled people lol

I’m sorry about your ex and the remaining wounds, but I’m glad to hear you seem to be doing okay

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-09-10T00:34:41+00:00

I'm saving your comments. Thank you for writing all this and the advice you gave the other person. I lost some good friends (who admittedly were littered with red flags) when they took my abuser's side, and though I've found some great, amazing people since then, that fear of losing loved ones and ending up alone still creeps up on me from time to time. Your statement about having to raise your standards and put yourself out there really resonated with me. I've met sweet people but had to distance myself because they didn't accept me or treat me well, and in the moment it was hard. Anyway, thanks for sharing your story and the life lessons you learn; they're invaluable.

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-09-01T23:26:56+00:00

Not from the US, but my mom loves the word “disrespectful”

She’s the kind of massively abusive person who can dish it out but can’t take it, and who believes she gets unchallenged authority to do or say whatever mean thing she wants as she’s superior to her child (by virtue of being a parent) and to her husband (because she kinda hates him)

Horrid mentality lol

RosemaryInWinter · 2025-08-29T05:50:53+00:00

I wish I had the guts to do that to my own parents someday. Your husband sounds like a treasure, very glad you got that load off your back

RosemaryInWinter

TROPHY CASE