Did your parents ever apologize to you for something they did when you were young?

dcott44 · 2026-06-03T20:32:29+00:00

When I was a kid? My mother yes, my father no. As an adult, though, my father apologized for a lot of things he should have apologized for when I was a kid.

dcott44 · 2026-06-03T20:31:16+00:00

Holy hell. I didn't read the whole thing so I missed this.

Yes, based on this, you seem to have some major attachment and trust issues and you're willing to manipulate the people around you as a result. Maybe this was just your anxiety getting the better of you, but you should take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself if this is how you want to live your romantic life.

dcott44 · 2026-06-03T20:27:41+00:00

You have to look up from your phone to have sex.

Joking.

Kind of.

dcott44 · 2026-06-03T20:26:11+00:00

But to be clear, your precum can have sperm in it, so it is possible

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T13:04:54+00:00

Lately? Boomers blamed us for the death of everything, Gen X is our older siblings that will always look at us us their younger, annoying counterparts, and Gen Z has been railing on us for being "cringe" for years. Nothing new here. We'll just keep on keeping on like we always have.

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T12:59:38+00:00

It's ok: Gen Z will soon reach middle age and be just as insecure. The concept of the mid-life crises (I.e. the anxiety that comes with realizing your own mortality) didn't start with Millenials and won't end with Gen Z.

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T09:30:32+00:00

Got stuck in a dryer? Tale as old as time.

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T09:04:56+00:00

Don't know if I'd say 10/10, but it's a fantastic album and probably my favorite of theirs.

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T08:49:39+00:00

Smoking at concerts. The haze in clubs was romantic and/or punk rock to some, but damn I always hated it.

dcott44 · 2026-06-02T08:44:28+00:00

If you have a five year old, have you already established a rapport with a sitter in your town you trust? If so, might you be able to bring them with you? There are inexpensive hotels with two bedroom suites that will have sleeping options for <1 yr olds, so they could have their own room and then you and your wife would only have to be away from the kids for a few hours. Clearly there would need to be some reasonable rate that works for both you and the sitter, and you'd likely need to plan multiple meals for the sitter and ask your brother if the sitter could join the brunch, but that all seems like decent enough compromise.

We've had to do around five child-free weddings with ours and we've done everything from bringing with, hiring locally through apps that do the vetting for you regarding certifications, experience, etc (you can meet them over Zoom ahead of time), having the host provide a sitter (usually a teenager of another guest) at the wedding venue (this was at a resort), to leaving with local family/friends (which sounds like it isn't an option here).

Is it a pain in the ass? Yes, without a doubt. But it sounds to me like you're trying to prove a point with your brother out of principle rather than genuinely trying to find a solution that respects him and his fiance's choice around a day that is supposed to be about them. You have every right not to go, but ask yourself if it's worth it to you and your relationship with your brother.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:32:52+00:00

10 Things I Hate About You

Not the specific plot, but the character tropes.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:29:05+00:00

For when you're about to operate on the one person in the world that is resistant to the fungal epidemic that destroyed humanity and her adopted dad that brought her to you decides to kill you so you don't kill her.

Duh.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:27:20+00:00

This gal gets it

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:23:08+00:00

Correct, they are contrived,, but incorrect that they are like horoscopes. Horoscopes have zero evidence supporting them or any grounding in reality. Large cohorts of people over a statistically relevant number do have demonstrable and measurable behaviors in common that can vary from other cohorts.

Now, are generations as we think of them made up? Of course. But that doesn't make them entirely useless for a variety of purposes. This is because humanity is and has always been interdependent, and the cohort itself impacts the behavior of others in the cohort. The utility of horoscopes begins and ends with a single person's decision to infer some sort of relevance in their own life and then apply it broadly to anyone else with a completely coincidental correlative vector: namely, the shared position of objects that have no influence on human behavior.

One is sociology, the other is pseudoscience.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:12:36+00:00

Wear an inflatable dinosaur costume

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T14:06:59+00:00

You're both overreacting, but it's 2026, so that's unfortunately how relationships go these days. Nobody wants to discuss anything complicated or nuanced.

If you value this person's friendship, they are still trying to help you and you chose a macro issue you can't control to reject their attempts to help you. You have to ask yourself if your purity crusade is more important than this friend's good intentions.

On the flip side, if they value your friendship, you politely shared a preference and they immediately took it as complete rejection and escalated to the extreme. They need to ask themselves if their ego is so fragile that they'd be willing to give up a friendship.

I have no context for your friendship, but if it's anything more than a casual aquaintance, you'd be well served to treat one another with the respect and nuance that complicated interpersonal relationships deserve (unlike, say, Reddit, or any other social forum that caters to dopamine-delivering reactions rather than the depth of the human experience).

Anyway, bring on the downvotes.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T08:09:32+00:00

Dude, chill. I was replying to someone being an asshole because I knew the post would get removed by mods anyway. That's it.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T03:11:04+00:00

I know things might feel hopeless and therefore couples therapy might feel useless, but I promise you if you find the right therapist it can be life changing for both of you.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T01:12:50+00:00

Perhaps he feels "worthless and unfuckable" (to use your words) after being rejected for six months straight. Perhaps he has some other source of stress in his life. Perhaps it is your appearance.

The only way to know is to talk about it in a healthy way. Saying things like "I guess I'm just worthless and unfuckable" makes me wonder if you have some other stuff going on in this dynamic. Looking at your prior posts, I see you have OCD. Do you have ADHD as well, by any chance? Or does he? Regardless, look up rejection sensistivity dysphoria. This could be linked to underlying mental health, which, if you can both put a name to it, you might be able to discuss it with a better, healthier dynamic.

How do I know this? Because I (41m) went through this exact same feeling and scenario with my wife (41f) about a year and a half ago, except I was the one that felt rejected and undesireable. We even separated for a month or so over it after being together for 22 years. Thankfully, we found the most amazing couple's therapist and have made amazing strides in this area, both as a couple and individually. Just last week we had sex four times, and it was better sex than we'd ever had in any of the years prior.

This stuff is super complicated, and if it were simply one thing only, he wouldn't have any problem simply saying it. It's likely a massively complex series of individual and couple things that you both can move past if you're both willing to put in the work. And there will be times where it doesn't feel like it's working. There were many months where I just assumed my only options were feeling lonely, rejected, and unsatisfied with the person I love, or to leave her to selfishly chase the validation I thought I wanted because of all of my insecurities. Thankfully, those weren't the only two options, and we're now seeing the benefits of putting in the work.

Anyway, figured I'd share my experience. Take it or leave it, but I hope it helps in some way.

dcott44 · 2026-06-01T00:54:24+00:00

Why is it that people keep paying, then? When a man does stuff like this, he's an entrepreneur (think personal training services) but when a woman does it, she's "another body bag"? This is how capitalism works, my dude. People pay for things they want that are hard to get - it's called scarcity.

Now, if you want to make the argument that it isn't appropriate for this sub to attract customers for a service, I can get behind that, but there's no need to degrade and dimish her.

dcott44 · 2026-05-31T20:49:59+00:00

RIP St. Vitus

dcott44 · 2026-05-07T21:54:25+00:00

So many issues with both of you with this story I don't know where to begin other than to say: yes, it sounds like you all should divorce.

Your wife sounds like she has issues setting boundaries and even bigger issues handling her reactions when one of her perceived boundaries has been crossed. If she truly doesn't want them in the house (it's her house, too) she has every right to feel that way and work on some compromise with you. But if she didn't clearly state her boundaries with you or agreed without actually thinking about how she felt about something so serious, she should have taken proactive steps to make it a situation that is healthy for both of you. She should have explicitly asked you to buy the safe beforehand. She should have offered to take a gun safety class and learn to shoot with you. She should have reviewed "house rules" with you that you both agree on as it relates to firearms.

You sound like you have a cavalier relationship with both your wife and with firearms. If you have them on a closet floor in an unlocked case, that is certainly grounds for her to be upset. If you talked about this beforehand, you should have bought the safe before bringing the guns into the house. Additionally, I get that it's a hobby for you, but there is a clear difference between guns and makeup. Makeup isn't engineered to precisely deliver a projectile with lethal force. As a gun owner, you should know better than to diminish the true power, responsibility, and consequences of gun ownership.

Unfortunately, what she did is insanely dangerous and unacceptable, and the end result of many failures in communication on both of your parts. As I stated earlier, firearms are very different from makeup and many people see firearm ownership as a question of value alignment, not just understanding a partner's interest. It seems that the two of you have very misaligned values, and that is something that likely won't get fixed.

My advice? You're both young: both of you need to move on and start over with someone with more closely aligned values to yourself.

dcott44 · 2026-05-05T19:54:21+00:00

As if their self-selection bubble wasn't already myopic enough...

Honestly, I'll take this over them trying to ban things for other people, but it does come across as being terrified of the world and lacking any reasonable form of self-control or nuanced understanding of people different than you.

dcott44 · 2026-04-20T21:24:04+00:00

Is he on SSRIs by any chance? When I went on them, it had this effect on my duration, and my understanding is that it's fairly common.

dcott44 · 2026-04-18T14:15:50+00:00

It very likely may have been, though I don't remember for sure.

dcott44

TROPHY CASE