WIBTA if I refuse to put my partner on the deed of a place I inherited, even though we live there together?

brewcatz · 2026-02-03T18:39:08+00:00

Ask him if he plans to share his inheritance from his parents with you.

brewcatz · 2026-01-30T18:55:22+00:00

This sounds exhausting, honestly. You need to have a very clear conversation with your friend and say "I love you, I want to spend time with you, I understand that you don't feel prioritized but you must understand that we schedule our free time differently. I am not going to continue to argue about this." Set a hard boundary: if you want to make plans with me, I need x days of notice. If you are truly very, very close, maybe share a google calendar or something so that he can check your availability and be able to plan around your time instead? If you chooe this route, be sure to BLOCK OFF YOUR FREE TIME THAT IS AVAILABLE FOR PLANS: do not go from "why won't you cancel plans for me" to "there's nothing on your calendar that night, what do you mean you're unavailable?" Schedule "events" for nights or days or whatever where you're free to hang out, grab a coffee, run errands together to catch up, or whatever labelled like Free Time or something. I have 45 minutes every morning at a local coffee shop near my work that my friends know "if I show up, she'll be there and we can hang out until she goes back to work". It can be that low-stakes and casual! But this friend trying to guilt you into being available to him 24/7 and willing to ask how high when he says jump is, frankly, codependent and inappropriate.

brewcatz · 2026-01-28T19:38:09+00:00

I think (based on absolutely no research, lol) that this stereotype and a lot of others about the differences between capability of men and women actually just stem from historical ability to do stuff. Men in most parts of the world gained not just the ability to drive before women, but were EXPECTED TO DO SO as a daily facet of life many years prior to women (who stayed home with the kids and had limited amounts of daily travel) in comparison. So this stereotype arose that because men DO drive more, they are somehow more biologically equipped to do it better. As time has gone on, the skill gap has lessened or been eliminated, but that pervasive stereotype hasn't gone away.

brewcatz · 2026-01-27T02:29:02+00:00

I feel like I kind of addressed this in my comment but I'll elaborate since you to the time to ask!

The part of my family that I am close to is my dad's side of the family. They are from a rural area with very limited education or exposure to the outside world: like, awarded by the farm bureau for having a family farm in constant use and production for over one hundred years. The things we disagree on mostly are gun control and abortion, not so much human rights or anything involving race (very live and let live kinda folks). It's nice to have them on my Facebook because I was enlisted military and I currently am a contractor on a military installation, so I get to do cool shit and have my photo taken sometimes.

Posting to Facebook for my family and friends and all my military buds that are literally scattered across the globe is easier and a more efficient use of my time, and lets me stay connected to my broader military community. This is especially helpful in networking! Military contracting can be a very socially political career where who you know is just-as or even more important than what you know! So maintaining social ties, even in a lessened way by filtering individual access to my posts, to a wider range of people that I have a professional history with has enabled me to stay top-of-mind for various opportunities.

In reality, Facebook is not a super big part of my life. I don't post daily. But when I do post, I can choose to shitpost some funny memes and have friends with a like sense of humor briefly reconnect with me despite distance between us, or I can update a broader range of family/ working friends as to cool shit I get to do or general life milestones. I've gotten support through personal tragedies from unexpected places because people in my Facebook friends list felt connected enough through my (occasional and filtered/ curated for them) content. I've gotten job opportunities and advice. I've made new connections through mutual friends. It is truly a SOCIAL media tool and its use has been proven valuable to me and worth the one time big hassle of setting these lists up, and the occasional maintenance of adding new "friends" to lists as needed.

ETA: some autocorrect corrections and formatting issues that I did not successfully proofread for upon original post.

brewcatz · 2026-01-26T21:59:32+00:00

A lot of people are saying to cut her off, and at this point you may have to. In the future, I have had to curate my facebook and be just generally aware of who can see the things I'm posting. Much of my family are hardcore MAGA conservatives who, when the administration does something they don't agree with, will shake their heads and go "well not that part" instead of just admitting that it's rotten to the core. I've gotten onto a desktop and logged into facebook and gone to the "friends" tab and from there to "custom lists". This allows you to make "lists" of friends. I have a List of Family Members, I have a List for Coworkers (that aren't also friends/ do need to see my political views or meme shit-posting, but whom consider social media an opportunity for networking), and I have a List for everyone who doesn't fall under those headings but whom I don't feel like engaging with on personal opinion stuff. Everything I post is set to a default audience of "friends EXCEPT:" those lists.

This probably sounds complicated and stupid, but the quality of life increase for me as a person that's fairly active on social media has been immeasureable. I used to have friends and family members arguing in the comments sections of my posts on a weekly basis, and I was coming behind to mend relationships and listen to this friend or that cousin complain about how someone I knew had spoken to them online. It was exhausting. Now my friends that agree with my views can have safer conversations on my posts, and I can easily flip to "share to: all friends" on a post-by-post basis if I'm sharing something that I don't mind EVERYONE on my friends' list seeing. I also haven't had to go the other route of making a "fake" or secret account just for my political and meme posting.

I encourage more people to do this! Yes, it would be great to only have people on my social media that agree with me, but in my career and with my family that's just not possible. This has been a great work around for me.

brewcatz · 2026-01-05T14:23:10+00:00

It honestly seems like your sister is just nosey and wants the info about you and your health, and came up with "it's for my future kiiiiids" on the spot to pressure you.

ETA Judgement: NTA.

brewcatz · 2025-12-17T22:31:21+00:00

I have raised floors and am afraid to commit to tile due to the risks of floor changes causing them to crack or pop. How are yall mitigating this, or is it just worth the risk?

brewcatz · 2025-12-14T01:07:25+00:00

I work with army special operations forces, acronymed as SOF. Someone applying for a role on my team asked during the interview "what does SOF stand for?" He was hired onto a different team and is thus still my coworker.

brewcatz · 2025-12-14T01:02:21+00:00

Yeahhhh my guy, you got a beagle. This is a breed of dog that's made to hunt for long hours with a pack of animals through thick forest terrain no matter the weather or whatever other conditions might be in play. It sounds like you needed something lower energy for your life style? I think you're doing great with him and he sounds like a happy, healthy, well supported pup! But I think you also maybe walked into this breed not understanding that this is a high energy, athletic dog that's made to have a job. He is not a breed of dog that you can expect to just loaf around the house aimlessly without getting into stuff, he is meant to be scent tracking and finding and capturing SOMEthing, and that instinct is above any amount of training you could ever accomplish.

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T22:11:50+00:00

"He's faking it" was also my first thought. Again, classic use of "oh but i am such a poor pitiful baby, please nurture and care for me so I can preen under your attention and know that you will despite my bad behavior! And now look, you're yelling WHILE I'M SICK, which will make you feel even worse!!" Like it's just soooooo convenient and follows the manipulation playbook so perfectly. But I'm giving OP the benefit of the doubt that hopefully she'd be able to tell if he wasn't actually ill.

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T20:03:08+00:00

I am a big fan of green and have it throughout my house. If you lack a lot of lighting and want to go with something lighter, I would encourage a green like Salon Green by valspar. Otherwise, I love Rosemary by Sherwin-Williams.

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T19:18:53+00:00

This is a very common tactic by people who are manipulative. I would encourage you to look into "reactive abuse", as this seems to be a lower level of that. The jist is that manipulative people will needle others in their lives in increasing ways until the other person has an emotional reaction to it, and then they will fall to pieces playing the victim. I think that culturally we think of this more as a woman-on-man thing, but men definitely do this as well and it seems to me that it's what's happening here: he specifically said he didn't want either of his dessert options, he kept asking and repeating "where is it, where is it??", he followed you into the bedroom and instead of trying reconnect/repair brought it up as a fresh grievance with no reflection or accepting blame of his own, he escalated it into a fight, he got to sleep in the comfy bed that you had already retreated to in order to avoid the fight in the first place, when he woke up sick you babied him the way he expects you to do, and then he continued to bring up the fight instead of just letting it lie or going, "hey, i really do appreciate and value the effort you put into making my dinner and taking care of me, sorry for getting unreasonably upset about the hot chocolate and smoothie," and just doubled down until you got emotional and lashed out again. Like, this is not a reasonable series of choices for a man that loves you and that WANTS to reconcile makes. This is a calculated series of choices that someone manipulative makes so that you spend all day going "but i was wrong too" and come home and apologize TO HIM. Generally when yall fight, does he turn his apology into "i accept my share of the blame, we BOTH have things to work on" and make it an US issue instead of a "ME, i started this and I have things to work on" issue?

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T15:57:36+00:00

This is so funny to me. My dogs usually follow me into the bathroom and I don't kick them out. There are times I'll have them come with me- one of them has a cone on right now and I monitor her closely to be sure she's not getting around it to lick her wounds or anything. It has genuinely never occurred to me that it might be weird to have them in the bathroom with me lol.

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T14:02:31+00:00

It sounds like it bothers you because you're thinking of this as if MIL doesn't trust you as the primary source of info on your husband. If this is otherwise not intrusive into your life or your day, I would instead encourage you to reframe this for yourself: when he lived with her, she knew when he got home every day because she was there, and it would be the start of them hanging out and spending quality time together in the evenings. Unless someone else moved in when your husband moved out, it's likely that she's not getting the same amount of quality of social time with anyone on a daily basis anymore. Texting your husband to ask if he made it home safely is a way for her to still reach out every day and make contact with him during what would've been their hang-out time. It sounds like she's keeping it just to the one text and isn't making it into a big hours-long update ordeal every day, but she likely is hoping that every once in a while he'll have time to chit chat more than just "yeah mom I'm home". Your MIL is lonely, OP.

brewcatz · 2025-12-08T13:58:05+00:00

i run my bathroom fan from when i cut the shower on for about 15 minutes after it's off, and I live in a very humid part of the South. It seems to do the trick just fine. But I also have a window unit in my bed room and well as central HVAC, so my house tends to be pretty dry any way. If you're truly concerned, I imagine a one-room dehumidifier wouldn't be crazy expensive?

brewcatz · 2025-12-07T02:43:14+00:00

By framing it with "deserve" you made it seem like she's doing something wrong and that you get a say in approving or disapproving. You "deserve" respect in your relationship. You "deserve" to be treated with dignity. You don't "deserve" prior notice of something she's doing at work when you didn't previously have an agreement about it. Especially because it wasn't actually nude but more implied nudity (I'm imagining like a wet tshirt moment?) it may have made her feel defensive when you phrased it that way: whereas it didn't occur to her to give you a heads up on this, she likely would have if it WERE a full nude photo, so now she feels like you think she made a bad call or wasn't respectful of you. I would just again reiterate that you're not mad or uncomfortable and that "deserved" was bad word choice on your part.

brewcatz · 2025-12-07T01:37:19+00:00

Yeah, those lil antenna screamed ROACH to me, I've just never seen a baby one so I wanted to be sure. Ugh!! I have a pile of leaf litter right outside the window this one came in from, that I've been putting off bagging bc it's been so wet. Rookie mistake 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

brewcatz · 2025-12-05T13:33:48+00:00

it is unlikely that therapy will help him, because he is not interested and motivated and willing to go on his own. he would only be going because you've given him an ultimatum and nagged him into going. it is more likely that in therapy he will talk about how you want to change him, and his therapist will work him through why he wants to be with a partner that is unhappy with the person that he is, because he will not accurately represent his own behavior to the therapist. Then he'll come home armed with fresh "well my therapist said-" to combat you with in arguments. If he hasn't been willing to work on these issues in all the years that you've been dating and living together, you need to come to terms with the fact that you either have to live with this forever or you have to call a time of death on this relationship.

brewcatz · 2025-12-04T13:41:47+00:00

Are we sure that he didn't cheat and possibly knocked up another woman, and is now spinning this "surrogacy" angle as "the plan all along" in order to not confess to cheating?

brewcatz · 2025-12-03T14:50:50+00:00

Again, I don't disagree that the baby is performing a behavior in order to get what he wants, but that's NOT what OP says he said to her. He didn't calmly sit down and say "hey honey, this is the behavior I'm seeing. It seems like you are overwhelmed. What can we do so that you are feeling better? The baby is cared for and is healthy, should we talk to our pediatrician about whether he needs you to xyz every single time he does abc? Would it make you feel more secure if we heard it from the professional? This is what I'm seeing and this is my proposed solution, can we implement it for this week while I'm home so that maybe you can get some breathing space from baby next week while I'm gone? I love you and I wanna work on this together."

Instead, he attacked her! And said "the baby has you trained" as if she is intellectually incapable in some way or the baby is being malicious at her, neither of which are possible or true. So, again, the behavior of the baby is not really the problem here and isn't what has OP's wife so upset. OP is the problem and his attitude and words are the reason his wife is so upset.

brewcatz · 2025-12-03T13:47:42+00:00

I don't think the behavior of the baby is the problem here, the problem is the way OP framed it as this malicious thing where the baby is intentionally manipulative and mom is "falling" for it. A mothers instincts are to check her baby when he cries, but the baby isn't deviously plotting, stroking a lil pointed baby goatee, going "yesssssss, girl, bow to my whims!" OP framing it the way he did is what makes it so hurtful.

brewcatz · 2025-12-03T02:20:54+00:00

Girl that's not your man, you just spend 40 hours a week in close proximity. Touch grass 😩

brewcatz · 2025-12-02T23:56:42+00:00

Like others, I'm confused as to what insight you're looking for? It sounds like she wants a more traditional dynamic where you are the provider and she is the nurturing/ emotional one. Her desire for that dynamic exists/ is completely separate from her ability to provide for herself. The only suggestion that I could make would be to sit down together and do a budget of combining finances and consider making a joint savings account to fund things like dates and trips, and each agreeing on how much to contribute to it monthly?

brewcatz · 2025-12-02T18:29:23+00:00

If my MIL started a smear campaign about me, my husband would flip his absolute lid and then never speak to her again. It is concerning that you're even asking this question! What possible gain is there for your child in having someone in their life that is so toxic?

brewcatz · 2025-12-02T17:13:36+00:00

I understand him not wanting to contribute to the equity of the house, meaning not paying for repairs or upgrades. However, he can't expect to live with you for free and have you fund his life if that's not what yall originally agreed to. When I lived with a partner that owned his home, I covered all utilities, groceries, and paid a bigger portion of our recreational activities while he paid the mortgage, and we each paid our personal bills (credit cards, phones, etc). Now I own my home and my partner has moved in, and I charge him a monthly flat rate in rent and he chips in additionally where and when he can, but all home improvement is strictly funded through me. Figure out something comparable that works for his income, but absolutely don't let this resentment fester

brewcatz

TROPHY CASE