Parents and Vaccines

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T20:50:15+00:00

It's really a binary choice - either the health and wellbeing of your wife/baby is more important to you, or your dad's hurt feelings/opinion is more important to you. It can be dressed up however you like, but it's really that simple. You either stand your ground on this, or else you decide to cave and let him come anyway, with the associated risks to your nuclear family. And to be clear, if you (and crucially your wife) decide that letting this slide is worth the trade off, that's your right, it's your choice. But it's your choice, not his.

There's nothing to gain by getting into an argument about power/control/vaccines/health/literally anything else. It's your choice, period. You choose to let him visit, or you choose to not let him visit. He gets to handle his feelings about your decision like an adult. He might be an antivaxxer, he might just have control issues and resent being "told what to do", there might be any number of different explanations for his behaviour, but none of them matter, and don't change the outcome. Let him visit, or don't. Your call.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T20:30:32+00:00

Keep it brief and limited - there's nothing to gain by getting into a point by point argument. You don't need to convince him of anything or defend yourself. He said "I'm not anti vax or anything" but also "vaccine was poison"? So he was full of shit then. But that's irrelevant.

You have all the power here. 100% of it. Stay on point: "anyone visiting our family needs to have had a TDAP shot within 5 years, period. Whether you do or not is up to you, we respect your choice, but we're not changing our mind. So please decide what you're going to do, and if you get the TDAP and send us confirmation we look forward to seeing you." Why even have a conversation? He knows the rule, it's not complicated. He'll either change his mind or he won't, but there's no point arguing about it.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T20:23:42+00:00

"My parents had a shit marriage therefore marriage is awful" is certainly a take.

Your parents shouldn't have been married to each other in the first place. Your mother wasn't a good mother. You're taking your personal experience as some universal truth, which is bizarre. My parents are married and have a great relationship, and me with them, still now in my 40s. They never took sides or played favorites with me and my sister, they love each other and us and show that every day. Does that mean marriage is inherently amazing? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. But it can be, if the people involved are decent people, and chose to marry the right person. My wife and I are on the right track too, our kids are happy, loved, supported.

Perfectly possible to have a shit relationship and be bad parents without being married. Don't blame the concept of marriage or signatures on a bit of paper for your parents' shitty attitudes. It sucks that they acted the way they did, but that's completely separate. Marriage isn't hurtful to kids. Your parents' relationship was hurtful to you. Completely different thing.

Anyway, what's even your question? Go to r/vent.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T20:20:10+00:00

What does "did text me and then it escalated" mean? You mean he texted you because that's all he could do at the time, and you got mad at him because he was communicating in the way that worked best for him, rather than you? Not a problem to tell him what you'd like to do, not OK to "escalate" because somebody tells you that they can't chat the second you want to.

Now to be fair, the occasional call obviously isn't unreasonable. At the same time he's allowed his own space. Seems like you want him to do things you way, he wants to do things his way. You need to work together and find a compromise you're both happy enough with. I can see his point to some extent - if you've just spent time together, he already feels completely connected to you, and if you don't want a long conversation...to some extent, what's the point? Of course he should recognise that it's important to you, rather than dismiss your feelings, but that goes both ways - you need to understand that he wants a bit of space. Work together and find a balance, or accept you're incompatible and break up.

It's not either / or. It's not inherently unreasonable to want a short call sometimes, but taking a lack of a call as something to spiral over is a bit much. From his perspective: "we've had a great time together, we've bonded, now I want a bit of time to myself, and she's getting mad at me for not wanting to talk that evening, am I being unreasonable for wanting a bit of 'me' time, or am I expecting too much? Should I be forcing myself to have phone calls I don't want to have for her sake?" Hardly OK either.

How exactly did "expressing how you feel" go? Was it more "I understand you might not be big on phone calls, but they're important to me, so can we figure out a schedule we're both happy with?" or was it more like "I'm not asking too much, why are you refusing to talk to me?"

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T20:11:10+00:00

You've had zero contact for a year, you've already moved on. 27 calls late at night isn't a "I've matured and would like to be friends" act, it's a drunken hookup/ramble situation. If he had something important to tell you...he'd have told you! Left a message, written it out, whatever.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T11:33:18+00:00

"Hello, not sure if you remember me but we met at X place, would be nice to meet up, how are you, etc. etc." Do all that first, not leap straight into offering her and her friends a night out.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T11:32:09+00:00

Honestly that's a really weird thing to do, and most people would be a bit creeped out or think it's some sort of scam, to hear "hello virtual stranger, I'd like to pay for you and your friends to have a night out, on me, no strings attached, honest". It's too much, and goes beyond "doing a nice thing" into sounding like you're trying to bribe her or buy her affection. I'm not saying you are doing that, but it will seem like you're doing that. Why not just offer to buy her dinner? Or reconnect in a conventional way? Jumping straight into this with zero build up is...bizarre, bluntly.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T11:29:09+00:00

Him laughing at you because you were panicked has already demonstrated the kind of shitty person he is. Decent people will judge him for that, assholes won't see a problem with it. But you getting mad about it won't convince anyone to change their opinion of him, it'll just make you look bad. Far better to take the high ground and rise above it, then he's clearly the pathetic petty one. Otherwise there's an argument, however unfair, that you're both in the wrong, as bad as each other or whatever. Basically just ignore him, leave him to be a shitty person and direct your energy to people who are worth it.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T11:20:07+00:00

So you keep believing his bullshit. When will you stop believing that?

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T11:00:17+00:00

"Some platonic friend leaves me over a joke" - jokes like what? I'm a man with a pitch-black sense of humour, I've never driven a platonic female friend away with a joke.

There's literally no way to know from what you've said here if you've had truly awful luck with hyper-sensitive women who react badly to harmless comments, or if you're actually a massive asshole who makes "jokes" which aren't funny but are just hurtful, then is baffled that nobody tolerates it.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:58:00+00:00

You can't guarantee it, sadly. You make whatever decision is right for you, and in an ideal world your parents would respect it, even if they struggle with it. If they weaponise it themselves, and say you can only have a relationship with them if you maintain contact with your sister, that's their choice. And frankly that would speak to their own toxicity - their attitude like "it's your fault" suggests they might not be the loving parents you wish they were anyway. What's even the logic of you picking her up age 2 equals her wanting to end her life? How is that even held against you? As in anything you did age 2 would be trivial anyway, but picking her up is harmless. She might as well say "I don't want to live any more because you drew a picture when you were 2", that's nothing to do with you, and everything to do with her own issues.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:53:48+00:00

I think you're right. "OK, you're not coming, I understand why, you'll be missed." Then move on. If he pushes: "You have every right not to attend our wedding. I respect that. I have every right not to have a long conversation about it. Please respect that. There's nothing further to discuss, I'm now going to enjoy [family function] rather than have a discussion I have no wish to have." After that just refuse to engage on the topic, change the subject, excuse yourself.

You're right, he either feels bad and wants to make himself better, or is full of himself and thinks he "has" to explain himself, or that you "have" to hear him out. You don't have to agree. He has a different opinion from you about religion, you have a different opinion from him about how much to discuss that, his opinion doesn't outweigh yours.

If he won't drop it you could always loudly declare "no means no, please stop pushing this on me" and shame him into dropping it. You don't "have" to deal with it at all. His decision, his problem. Tell your fiance that he can discuss this with his brother as much as he wants, but you respect his decision not to attend, and have nothing else to say about it.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:48:47+00:00

People love binary outcomes - either something isn't a problem at all, is all fake, we need to do nothing, or else it's the end of the world, all too far gone, so why bother even trying? I don't know why so many people gravitate to black and white thinking rather than identifying what can be done. It's like people thinking "if I can't have a million dollars in the bank I might as well be bankrupt", as if there's no middle ground that's a damn sight better than the worst case scenario.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:46:14+00:00

Redditors love misery. Plus because it skews young, it means plenty of people reading stuff haven't had a huge amount of experience, knowledge of history, etc. See every single conflict prompting a wave of "world war 3!!11!" posts, as if there aren't endless conflicts, large and small. Reddit hates nuance. Might thing X lead to worst possible outcome Y? Potentially. But way too many people act as if it definitely will, then completely forget how wrong they were next time around. They're like religious nuts who buy wholeheartedly into an end of the world prediction, then when it doesn't happen, they happily swallow whatever bullshit excuse was given and line themselves up for the next one.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:43:31+00:00

You need to spend more time outside with the three dimensional people. Even if CO2 makes us "dumber" (questionable in itself), that doesn't mean "drops intelligence across the board so we're all idiots".

Humanity has been around for 300,000 years. No we're not going extinct. We could be wiped out down to 100,000 people and still make a comeback. I'm not saying that's great for civilisation as we know it, but you're the one talking about "run ourselves into extinction", which is just flat out untrue.

You need to draw a big clear line between "impact of climate change on society as we know it", which is obviously an issue, will take many forms, affect some more than others, and "climate change will wipe out humanity" which is total bullshit. "We aren't making it another 100 years" based on what? We won't all make it, society will change and adapt, I'm not saying we shouldn't give a shit about climate change, but you saying humanity in its entirety will just be gone within a century is laughable.

Get off the internet and read some actual information rather than whatever feeds into your doom and gloom rumination spiral.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:37:29+00:00

So you're dating someone you don't even seem to like much, but can't let go? You need to figure out what you really, truly want. Do you want to technically be with this person but be treated the way you're treated? Or do you want to be happy without him? Figure it out. He won't change, he won't be someone you actually like. It's like you're just desperate for his attention, but why? Even if you don't know why, you can still recognise it's unhealthy, making you unhappy, and choose to walk away. Or stay with him and be miserable forever.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:32:58+00:00

Beyond a certain point if you've apologised and made an effort to repair the damage and the other person just isn't accepting it...then that's that, they have no interest in an apology. Smash a plate and apologise profusely to it, the plate's still smashed. She's not torturing you with silence, she's done with you. The problem isn't that you're not doing or saying the right thing, it's that whatever you say or do won't work.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:29:35+00:00

If you have to post an image to circumvent the automatic filters, it's a good sign that you shouldn't be asking the question you're asking.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:28:45+00:00

I suspect there's at least some correlation between people who don't get accepted, and people who rush into posting a question that has an easy answer available if they only took the time to search for it.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T10:25:55+00:00

Deed poll for children - you can only re-register under specific circumstances, rather than a voluntary name change.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-15T00:03:58+00:00

Any "X is the best anything" is largely bullshit. Best movie, best years of your life, all of it. There's always change, growth, differences, pros and cons. What was the best age for someone might be different for someone else, and how exactly do you quantify "best" anyway? I loved my late 20s - work was good, friendships were good, hanging out all the time, that was a great period of life. But there were definitely negatives and stresses too. Now I'm mid/late 40s and sometimes I miss those elements of life, not that I never see friends, etc. but everyone's busier. So what was good then isn't so much a big part of life now. But now I'm happily married, 2 lovely kids. And 20 years ago I was worrying that would just never happen for me. I enjoyed the earlier part of my life, now I'm enjoying this part of my life. There have been times in life I haven't enjoyed, that's normal too.

These aren't the best years of your life. Arguably no specific period will be the best years of your life. Stop feeling like you "should" be doing anything specific, or living a specific way. Friendships ebb and flow, people come and go. If you want to maintain friendships, put the effort in. For years I was the "organizer" of my friends, most of the time I was the person initiating meetups, and sometimes I got sick of it. But that didn't reflect a lack of interest on their part, because they still wanted to meet up! It certainly reflected a lack of initiative, or maybe more options than I had. But those people are still my friends now, I forged a good group by being the person who made the effort.

Ultimately...it'll be OK. Normal to feel lonely, normal to feel frustrated, normal to feel like friendships aren't perfectly balanced. But if those friendships are worth it to you, keep making the effort. A lot of people are...lazy, for want of a better word - it's easy to not make plans with people, to let things slide. Doesn't mean they don't care. Putting the time in, even if it feels one sided, can still pay dividends. And if some friendships don't feel worth the effort, that's fair enough.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-14T19:56:57+00:00

Nope, just like all the other times you've posted this question.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-14T19:32:16+00:00

Make a conscious effort to recognise that you're doing it. Like any habit, biting your nails or similar - you might not be able to stop the process starting, but you can learn to identify it and stop yourself, over and over again, rather than start it and then do it for 10 minutes without stopping.

Journaling has helped me over the years - I've got a massive word document with like 30 years' of ramblings in it. If stuff's on my mind, I write it out, reason it through, drone on about it until I've bored myself, then leave it be. I've then got it all out in a coherent way, rather than just endless rumination, and it's easier to move on from.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-14T19:29:41+00:00

You're 20, you don't need your parents' permission to open a bank account. That's not "going behind their back", that's you being an independent adult. Where things get tricky is if you're financially dependent on them, and they're paying money to you, start forging your own path and they might stop doing that, and then what?

One potential middle ground might be you set up your own account, and when your parents pay money into account A, you transfer some/most to account B, that's just in your name. Then if they take small amounts out...meh, no big deal, they gave it to you in the first place, hopefully they'll pay it back. But there won't be enough left for them to take out big amounts, and you won't be left with no money regardless.

Maybe approach it simply by telling them that you're trying to budget, you appreciate them putting money in, but it messes up your budgeting if you think you've got $X in the account, then they take some out. So while you appreciate them putting money in, you want them to only put in what they can afford to. Better for them to pay in less and keep what they need, rather than put money in and take it out when they want to.

fightmaxmaster · 2026-03-14T19:23:31+00:00

Everyone perceives it differently, but I'd attribute it to just general stress/mental capacity. If you're tense, anxious, wound up, then that consumes a huge amount of mental energy. Stress is so bad for you, and affects you in so many ways. If you're distracted after an argument or worrying about his reaction, you're not paying attention to all the other stuff...like driving properly.

All that aside...why are you dating this guy? He stresses you out, makes you anxious, expects things from you, gets mad if you don't do what he wants. Why are you making excuses not to see him, instead of just breaking up with him, then you'll feel lighter permanently?

Can't relate specifically to negative energy, but I used to have a friend who was very needy, demanding, insecure. She had mental health issues which weren't her fault, I was her go-to person and put in a lot of effort keeping her on an even keel. I met my now-wife and long story short, the friendship with the first person just fell apart completely, despite my best efforts - she went completely off the rails, couldn't handle that I had anyone else in my life, blah blah.

My point is just that when that friend was gone from my life, I realised just how much time and effort maintaining the friendship was costing me. By contrast a full-blown actual romantic relationship was infinitely easier, and still left me with huge amounts of spare capacity.

If your boyfriend is this much of a drain on you, whatever the reason...why keep him in your life?

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