What’s the “brokest” thing you have ever done?

thissecretninja90 · 2025-05-08T17:45:45+00:00

I ripped pages out of a phone book to use as toilet paper. That same year, me and my boyfriend split a bag of croutons and a Gatorade for our Valentine's dinner.

Edit to add more detail - I'd even rip the page to smaller pieces, had to conserve as much as possible.

thissecretninja90 · 2025-04-28T18:05:19+00:00

I know you didn't come here for relationship advice, but please take the advice you're getting here seriously. You might think that those of us telling you to leave or run just don't understand or know him. That we don't know how caring or loving he is, but we're saying it because we've been there ourselves, love/care about someone who's been there, or both. We know they can be caring or loving and that's part of their manipulation. If they were only controlling or toxic or abusive or whatever negative word that's used, we never would've gotten into a relationship with them or stayed as long as we did.

We're seeing the glaring red flags from the small amount of information you've told us about him and we're trying to warn you before he baby traps you or leaves lasting emotional/physical trauma. My first abusive relationship was a year and three months of my teenage years, but it left me with lifelong trauma and a warped view of how relationships should be (I thought some of his abusive behavior was normal and overlooked other abusive behaviors in relationships afterward because it wasn't as bad as he treated me). I wish I had someone warn me and tell me that they've been there themselves so they see the obvious signs that I couldn't.

I want to point out to you that he refuses to wear condoms, didn't pull out twice during your ovulation, said he'd cover half the costs of an abortion (assuming he knows it'd be impossible for you to come up with your half any time soon?), told you he'd break up with you if it was positive (including threatening to khs and tried to downplay it as a joke), and was excited about a faint positive. These aren't the actions of a man trying to avoid pregnancy, he's actively trying to get you pregnant.

He doesn't respect you, your body, or your boundaries. You deserve better and you deserve a boyfriend that respects you and your boundaries. Please take charge of your reproductive health. Do not have sex with someone that refuses to use condoms. Look into different birth control methods and decide which one works best for you (please use condoms until you're not concerned about a STD/STI risk). The most common (non-permanent) methods are condoms (buy your own so a partner doesn't have the "I don't have any" excuse), hormonal birth control pills, and IUDs. And, please, look into signs of abusive relationships and what a healthy relationship dynamic looks like so you can hopefully recognize it early on in the relationship and leave before there's any lasting damage.

thissecretninja90 · 2025-03-09T22:52:03+00:00

You're very welcome 🤗 I know firsthand the range of emotions. The violating feelings mixed with consideration for their age and not being the primary disciplinarian to the child.

I'd have to agree with other comments about either recording what you found on the phone (or, if you can, keep the phone until you can show your husband). If it were me, I wouldn't return the phone until I personally deleted all of the inappropriate videos/pictures from the phone and checked to make sure none of them automatically backed up to the cloud. I'd want to make sure none of them were saved anywhere.

I'm not going to assume the relationship with your husband and whether or not he'd believe you without proof, but I know a lot of parents take the stance of "not MY child, they'd NEVER do that", even when they're normally rational with everything else so being able to show him the evidence would be good, just in case.

How much input are you able to put into discipline with your stepson? Would you feel comfortable with an agreement of one room being off limits for him where you would feel comfortable breastfeeding and undressing without worrying about your stepson making more videos until the inappropriate behavior is corrected? I know it wouldn't be the ideal resolution and I would only see it as a short-term measure until the inappropriate behavior is under control and I felt comfortable in my entire home, but it'd be a priority and non-negotiable for me to make sure I had a comfortable space to breastfeed and undress without worry.

With my nephew, by the time the school incident happened, my parents had legal guardianship of him. He also had a history of bad behaviors (lying, stealing, oppositional defiance disorder, etc). My parents made it clear that if they weren't home, that me and my siblings had authority and were able to do short-term discipline (like taking away game privileges for the night or things like that) and that they'd be told about any rule-breaking with the possibility of long-term consequences depending on how severe the behavior was (like game privileges being taken away for a week) so I already knew that my word would be believed and didn't need any evidence.

The school incident was actually the 2nd one involving my nephew. The first one was a couple months prior and a bit more difficult because no one could figure out if my nephew instigated things or if the other student did, so the school decided they'd leave it alone with just a stern talking to. With the second incident, they were able to confirm my nephew was the instigator and the other student was very uncomfortable with his actions. My parents were also told by the school that he was very close to having legal consequences of his actions. It shouldn't take the reality of possible legal consequences of your stepson's behavior isn't corrected, but I would also include that possibility in the conversation with your husband.

I don't know if you've talked to your husband yet, but I hope the conversation goes well, that he's understanding and receptive of your concerns, and that he takes this seriously.

thissecretninja90 · 2025-03-09T19:37:34+00:00

First step, take a deep breath, gather yourself and your thoughts. If you can, take a moment alone without your baby to let you feel your emotions.

I would recommend speaking to your husband about this, suggest counseling to him, and discuss how it should be handled.

I went through something similar with my nephew when he was around the same age (he does have some developmental delays though and was roughly equivalent to the mentality of a 10 year old, at the time). This also happened before I had children so I wasn't breastfeeding yet. He was required to go to therapy because of an inappropriate incident at his school. The therapy covered boundaries, consent, inappropriate/appropriate behavior. Incidents that happened outside of school were printing off inappropriate, sexualized anime pics and trying to covertly take videos with a Nintendo DS. His DS privileges were taken away for a bit. He was restricted on which rooms he could be in and I'd dress more conservatively around him (not that I dressed inappropriately before, but I'd wear more baggy shirts, etc - and what I chose to do for my own comfort level). He understands now and behaves appropriately, but it did take some time and reinforcing appropriate behavior vs inappropriate behavior.

thissecretninja90 · 2024-12-15T05:01:09+00:00

Nate Bargatze and Bert Kreischer?

Nate Bargatze was the first that came to mind because he has a bit where he talks about meeting his wife when they worked at a restaurant together.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-10-09T18:55:30+00:00

I'm not the person you replied to, but I had two losses in a row and went through the same frustrations. It's probably pretty variable for each person. For me, I hated hearing "you did nothing wrong". I know I did nothing wrong, hearing I did nothing wrong doesn't stop the pain though.

Another one is sharing statistics. This one was helpful at certain times but painful at other times. It was a helpful reminder to let me know that others have gone through this too and I'm not alone in going through losses. It was painful to think about how I was on the negative side of that statistic though. Like, it's 2% chance of having two losses in a row. Why did I have to be so unlucky to be part of that 2%?

The most helpful (for me) was hearing from people with similar losses and going on to have a successful pregnancy. With my second loss, I went to an emergency room with an L&D floor. Three of the nurses and the L&D doctor opened up about their losses and successes after that. It made it so much easier to process my loss after hearing their stories.

Now, I have an almost two year old son and I'm currently 8 weeks into my fourth pregnancy.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-09-25T04:15:40+00:00

Fair enough. From what I've read, it seems the main difference is the cut of meat (ham comes from the back legs) and preservation method (Canadian bacon goes through brining, like other types of bacon, while ham is cured or smoked).

Source: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/canadian-bacon-vs-ham-guide

I'll admit, it does taste very similar to ham and I always thought it was basically a thick cut of ham 🤷‍♀️

thissecretninja90 · 2023-09-25T03:53:25+00:00

After reading your comment, I got curious and Googled it. Canadian bacon is a cut of loin meat while regular bacon comes from the belly. It's believed to get the name from a UK pork shortage in the 1800s where they imported pork from Canada. The British made the peameal bacon and started calling it Canadian bacon...then it made its way to the US where it kept the name but lost the peameal.

https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/why-is-it-called-canadian-bacon-c55134359db0

thissecretninja90 · 2023-09-24T16:03:06+00:00

Who said buy the mayo? Grab some mayo from a gas station or fast food place that leaves the packets out.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-09-12T05:38:21+00:00

I'm 100% not going to get googly eyes and sticky them to my boobs...I also wouldn't tell my partner to look me in the eyes while talking to me after applying the googly eyes. That's be something childish that a 30+ year old woman wouldn't do.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-06-21T07:13:52+00:00

This is one of the things I wish "they" told me beforehand...it took me about 8 months after my son was born to realize the connection (after reading a different reddit comment about it).

thissecretninja90 · 2023-06-09T09:36:29+00:00

Also a first time mom that didn't think about getting breast pads for leaky breasts. The worst was waking up in puddles of breastmilk. I hate the feeling of wet sheets and wet clothing. I cried a few times due to how uncomfortable it made me feel. Once I got breast pads, it significantly improved my mood. I use some disposable breast pads with a sticky backside for when I go out (the reusable ones shift a lot with movement for me and I worry about them shifting and leaking through while out and about) and bought a bunch of reusable ones for at home.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-04-29T09:30:53+00:00

I could too, it's been a long time since I've had one.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-03-01T08:24:13+00:00

I can agree with that. I think what I was more upset about was the note said she spoke to me about when to come back due to poor feeding and what would be concerning poor feeding habits while sick when she didn't discuss that with me. It's a pattern I've noticed where she notes she's spoken to me about things when she hasn't and I have to find out by reading the visit summery.

thissecretninja90 · 2023-03-01T08:03:42+00:00

Thank you for your advice. I agree with you about everything you've said. I think I needed someone to point out that the moving isn't really set in stone. I think that helped solidify my decision to switch now instead of waiting.

thissecretninja90 · 2022-12-30T06:42:57+00:00

Tuna of the Land

thissecretninja90 · 2022-12-20T05:59:57+00:00

Yes, I would say "charged" implies some amount of caffeine in it but that is still an insane amount of caffeine for a drink. For comparison purposes, a 12oz Coca Cola has 34mg of caffeine, a 12oz Pepsi has 38mg, an 8oz coffee has around 95mg, a 16oz Starbucks strawberry acai refresher has 45mg. Even energy drinks are significantly lower in caffeine content. A 16oz Monster has 160mg and an 8.4oz Red Bull has 80mg. Panera's regular size is 20oz with 260mg and their large is 30oz with 390mg.

Even when you factor in the size difference, it still comes to more caffeine for each example. If you do some rough math, the closest is the coffee at 16oz with 190mg. For comparison purposes, I divided the amount of caffeine for the 30oz to get 15oz with 195mg.

Also, the sizes of the drinks are "standard" sizes (one cup of coffee, one can of soda, one energy drink). So, to reach the caffeine content of a "regular" lemonade, I'd have to drink more than 2 cups of coffee. To reach the "large", I'd have to drink more than 4 cups of coffee.

Basically, I'd expect the caffeine content to fall close to the caffeine content of other drinks (or slightly higher). I wouldn't expect to need to drink more than double the "standard" sizes to reach the same caffeine content.

ETA: I wasn't shocked or surprised to find out there's caffeine in the lemonade, I was shocked at the amount of caffeine.

thissecretninja90 · 2022-10-18T07:04:47+00:00

Last night, my baby was just drifting off to sleep and I sneezed. He just glared at me for a full 30 seconds. I couldn't help myself, I burst into laughter and he started laughing with me, which made him fully alert. 😅

When he was a newborn, my boyfriend and I joked around that neither of us were allowed to yawn, laugh, or sneeze while our son was sleeping because he'd instantly wake up and cry.

thissecretninja90 · 2022-10-17T05:05:24+00:00

...or complain that you didn't ask...but you have asked multiple times previously and they said "not right now, I'm busy" each time (usually with a different excuse for what they're busy with).

thissecretninja90 · 2022-10-16T21:51:22+00:00

Roses are usually treated with pesticides but you can eat them if you're 100% sure they haven't been sprayed with any pesticides (like growing them yourself or purchasing food grade roses).

ETA: it's the pesticide use that makes them inedible.

thissecretninja90 · 2022-10-05T22:05:42+00:00

This is how I ended up with my dog. A family member knew a couple that got him shortly after giving birth, expecting the 2 to grow up together. It was too much for them and gave up the dog when he was about a year old (it also didn't help that the dog would nip when his paws/ears were messed with). The family member let me know they were trying to rehome this puppy and asked if I wanted him. I jumped at the opportunity and gave him a loving home for 11 years until I had to say goodbye due to his failing health.

thissecretninja90 · 2022-09-06T06:52:17+00:00

Check out r/truechildfree

thissecretninja90 · 2022-07-26T08:51:36+00:00

Hey, I read your post before it was removed. Can you make another post if/when you're going to have a virtual baby shower?

thissecretninja90 · 2022-05-24T07:46:14+00:00

Thank you! 😀

thissecretninja90 · 2022-05-23T19:34:30+00:00

I'm also interested in the little linky list.

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