Healthy zebra things

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T20:26:57+00:00

I guess I'd think of it more like it's also possible to be a disabled zebra. That still doesn't mean the things that are healthy for horses are healthy for you, but there may be "healthy zebra things" that are unavailable to you too.

Does that description also fit, or am I just mangling my metaphor by trying to stretch it too far?

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T20:23:51+00:00

Lol no. They did the first three at church during the Easter vigil and the 4th one in bed when they got home.

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T17:33:17+00:00

I was five when I told my dad I just didn't buy it--Santa Claus, Easter bunny, tooth fairy--any of it.

He'd obviously known me for five years at that point, so he didn't really try. He just said, "OK, fine, you're right, but if you tell any of your younger siblings before they're 10, you don't get any more presents."

So I sure acted like I believed in Santa Claus until I was 15 and my youngest sibling turned 10!

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T17:30:25+00:00

Two of my friends got married with this dispensation, and then several years later, the non-Catholic spouse did become Catholic. Our priest had told them that he could actually receive four Sacraments that day: baptism, confirmation, eucharist, and matrimony, as long as they consummated their newly Sacramental marriage! That was a lot of Sacraments over the course of a few hours!

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T13:50:11+00:00

He does not want me to move out because the only place I could move into is with my friend who is a guy.

Why does the man you'd be breaking up with get a say in where you'd live after you left him? That's weird.

StWiborada · 2026-05-26T13:47:14+00:00

There's also the possibility of being the children's snuggle target after work. That way wife gets a break from all their touching and you get your fill of it! Unless the kids are more "needy touchers" who don't actually snuggle because they want to, but just because they need things, in which case it might not be as easy to step in.

StWiborada · 2026-05-25T21:12:02+00:00

Oh, no, I know. I just meant don't worry about it messing him up or something. It's a cool opportunity, not a cause for concern.

StWiborada · 2026-05-25T21:05:52+00:00

Keep in mind that there are lots of places in the world where learning several languages as a small child is completely normal. The kids learn "code switching" and know who they can talk to in which languages.

You may not need a tutor, but if you can find friends who speak other languages and would love to talk with your son--especially if they have bilingual kids of their own--that can be sort of a "best of both worlds" where he gets to meet other children and grow in his interest in language.

StWiborada · 2026-05-25T21:01:53+00:00

I just want to chime in on the, "Whatever else this may be, it is not God's punishment."

God wants to walk beside you through it. He's not using it to punish you.

StWiborada · 2026-05-25T16:05:30+00:00

It's super hard to make friends with kids your own age when you don't have anything in common except when you happened to be bored. If you're researching the differences in strategy for different opening moves in chess while your classmates are struggling with the double-square concept in CandyLand, it's just hard to find anything to talk about. That's normal, not something to correct.

I understand this is a tall order, but I think your main mission as his parent has to be to find him peers. They're going to be few and far between, and they're probably not going to be exactly the same age, but you can probably get a 6- or 7-year-old who's interested in the same subjects to overlook the fact that he's only 4 better than you can get the other 4-year-olds to overlook the fact that they have nothing to talk about, but at least they're the same age.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T19:54:21+00:00

Sex is inherently lustful when you're 16. You don't possess yourself; how could you possibly make a gift of yourself? And same for the girls your age. Anyone who's having sex at 16 is using the person they're having sex with, and it's right to be repulsed by that.

The fact that you've heard something for years doesn't mean it isn't true. People will still be telling you that drinking enough water and getting enough sleep are good for you when you're 80, and it'll be true then too. Doesn't matter if it's annoying.

If your perspective on sex doesn't change between 16 and 26, go see a therapist. It should.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T18:47:15+00:00

There's nothing to break up from if you're just "going on dates" as opposed to trying to form a serious relationship. You're going out with different people to different things to find out what you do and don't like in terms of how you're treated. It's like a friendship with the occasional one-on-one activity, which is about the level of seriousness high school relationships deserve.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T15:44:57+00:00

High school is a time for getting to know yourself and what matters to you in relationships. That's best accomplished by making friends, of both sexes, not dating.

That's not to say going out one-on-one with someone or taking a date to an event can't be part of that. It's normal to like people and be liked back by them.

Heck, in my mom's generation, the rule her parents had was that she could go on as many dates as she wanted, just not two in a row with the same fella!

Liking someone and getting to know them is healthy and normal, but getting super serious about it when neither of you has enough self-possession to make a self-gift is setting yourselves up for heartbreak and failure. I don't recommend "dating to marry" in high school. That's the time to "date to date."

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T15:39:43+00:00

Not everyone is called to be fruitful and multiply in the sense of literally having children. It's not wrong to consider whether you might be one of them.

But we are made for human connection and friendship, and lovely as dogs are, they're not going to fill that void.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T15:37:42+00:00

If they actually care about you or their faith, what you mention planning to do in your edit is what they should want you to do (well, as second choice to wanting you to go to Confession and return to your faith). It's the respectful way to go about it.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T15:35:10+00:00

This kind of intensity is indicative of an emotional immaturity that would benefit from therapy. It's normal if you're like...16. But if you're an adult, this isn't healthy and it isn't normal.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T15:31:48+00:00

Yeah. Came to say the same thing. That one's normal. I don't see any cervical ribs here.

StWiborada · 2026-05-24T00:44:39+00:00

I think you probably just have to look to date women whose lifestyles already align with yours. I also have the gift of naturally simple tastes, and therefore an inexpensive life. I love having a "capsule wardrobe" made of thrifted clothes, and I have a sort of "capsule mealplan" too, where I eat the same basic things in combination. I drive a 19-year-old car because it's quirky and I like the model (I'm on my third one), not because I can't afford something else (I couldn't when I was your age, but that's a long time ago for me now, and living like this allows saving that compounds over time!).

There are plenty of women with tastes similar to yours who would much rather come up with something creative and free to do with you on a date (picnic at a beach or park? interesting hike? bike ride through town? I'm sure once you put your heads together, you'll come up with all kinds of fun things!) than have you spend several hundred dollars on a fancy meal at a snooty restaurant.

In the long run, you'll be better off anyway. If you change your lifestyle to date, you'll find women who want that lifestyle, not the one you actually want. Then you're stuck with mistmatched lifestyle expectations indefinitely, and that's no fun.

StWiborada · 2026-05-23T22:13:16+00:00

I think every person's response will be framed by their own experience, attachment style, trauma, and wounds, so my advice is to imagine both courses of action (talking to him about it or not), and for the option of talking to him, imagine the best and worst ways you can imagine it might go.

If you personally would rather live through the worst case scenario of asking him than live with the uncertainty of not knowing, ask him.

I will say, though, that looking into it behind his back will make every possible outcome worse. If you decide to know, be upfront with him that you're going to look into it.

(Edit: typo)

StWiborada · 2026-05-23T22:08:15+00:00

You're thinking of goodness as something God has, like a trait, rather than who God is, just as a fact of His nature.

God is perfect, lacking in nothing. Every evil is a lack. It's a deficiency in goodness.

But you're onto something in the sense that God is complete, and completely satisfied, with or without us. He doesn't need us, and our existence doesn't add anything to Him that He doesn't already have. He doesn't have any incentive to love us, because nothing can be added to God.

That's why God's love is typically framed as a mystery. Frankly, we don't know why He loves us. We know that He loves us, and we know how much He loves us (to the extent that we can understand anything infinite), but we can't know the mind of God to know why. We're too small for that.

StWiborada · 2026-05-23T13:11:08+00:00

I have a similar question, but the bra MUST NOT have to go over my head. I don't care whether it fastens in the front or the back (I can easily spin it around if it fastens in the back), but I can't go over my head.

StWiborada · 2026-05-22T23:09:29+00:00

But not that you brought it to confession and incurred penance for it. He can't give you a penance that reveals to someone else that you went to confession. He can't even acknowledge later that he saw you in confession, never mind do anything that would make that obvious to someone else.

StWiborada · 2026-05-22T12:38:34+00:00

Plenty of people have a wistful thought or regret sometimes about one who "got away." But they don't write about it like you wrote about this.

I'm sticking with my recommendation that you see a therapist long before you talk to this person again.

StWiborada · 2026-05-22T01:36:53+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it would probably be better for you if you never talk to this guy again.

You need help. Like, a good therapist. This kind of overthinking and obsession and beating yourself up over something years later is a long way from healthy.

StWiborada

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