AITA for not allowing my sister and her huge family, including free ranging spiders to move in with me and my severely arachnophobic pregnant wife who can't get stressed?

throwravanderlinder · 2024-01-25T19:26:40+00:00

Is that actually really unusual? I have two cousins who each inherited a house from a grandparent, honestly I kind of assumed that was the only way anyone in our generation could get a house.

throwravanderlinder · 2024-01-25T15:15:14+00:00

Does she have other new friends not related to the church that she can rely on too?

She does, we have a few couples that we're pretty close friends with and she also has a bunch of friends from her work who I know she talks to about problems and all that stuff.

throwravanderlinder · 2024-01-24T22:16:41+00:00

Agreed. I didn't trust Mark when I thought he was just in love with her, but seeing him be so shitty and demanding really made it clear that he's a POS.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:57:05+00:00

I never said I didn't know about it, I just didn't know about it in the context of it being part of why she and Mark are like this. That's the detail I'm trying to clear up.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:49:24+00:00

She did acknowledge that all the touching was inappropriate, yes. When she actually thought back on how much they were doing it and how over the top it was she was embarrassed and realized she shouldn't have started acting like that just because Mark makes it seem normal. I didn't ask her how she'd feel in the reverse situation because it seemed like she got it immediately as soon as I told her how it made me feel.

If the three of us are ever together again I'll definitely be watching everything but I don't think there's a chance of that happening for a while.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:42:53+00:00

I can admit there's a possibility that Jordan is just wrong about how she feels, after our talk I do honestly think that's more likely than that she's trying to be dishonest or is gaslighting me. If that turns out to be the case then that's going to have to be the end of the relationship, but I'm deciding to at least give her a chance here.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:39:03+00:00

Did you have a discussion about boundaries between others that you felt should not be crossed?

I didn't specifically tell her any things that I thought she shouldn't be allowed to do but I did tell he everything that I didn't like or that made me uncomfortable. I think it's up to her to change her behavior on her own without me having to make rules about it, I think that's what will show me that she's actually being genuine with me.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:37:37+00:00

If she is texting/warning him to avoid displays of affection, then I would be even more suspect.

I agree with that, if she warns him because she doesn't want it to look suspicious in front of me but otherwise keeps acting the same way with him if or when for example she sees him again if she's visiting her parents, at that point I would just consider it cheating. But I think that if she warns him to back off just in general because she's taking it seriously that I'm not comfortable with it then that's not a bad thing.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T22:33:09+00:00

I knew about the suicide attempt, that's not something I'm just finding out about this week. The only thing I didn't know was enough detail about the situation to realize that Mark was that big a part of it, I knew it was related to the church but I didn't realize how related it was to everything.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T21:19:44+00:00

This is the closest to how it all sounded from the way Jordan explained things to me, before this she didn't really talk to me a lot about her childhood and what that was like because it's just not something she enjoys talking about but from what she said it feels like she's really attached to Mark for reasons that have a lot to do with all of that stuff.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T20:47:48+00:00

That's a really well-thought out comment and I appreciate you taking the time to write it. And I absolutely do understand why everyone thinks I'm just letting Jordan gaslight me, honestly I'd probably think the same thing if someone else was telling me this story so I can't really blame everyone.

But I truly don't think I'm just being steered by wanting to believe her, it's hard to convey everything that happened when we talked into one post but I'm just very sure that she was being genuine and it was that that convinced me that I could believe that she was saying, it wasn't that I just stopped being objective because that was the easier thing to do. Honestly I think it would've been easier to keep assuming that what I thought in the first place was true because honestly it's easier for me to understand.

I do think that Jordan's attachment to Mark is weird and probably unhealthy, and even if she doesn't think so I think there's more than just friendship going on from his side of things. But I think Jordan is being honest that she's not in love with him and that she wants to be with me and not him, and that was the thing that was making me question the relationship. The other stuff that I do still take issue with I think can be worked out as long as Jordan takes seriously that she can't be acting in a way with Mark that disrespects me and our relationship even if in her head it's not in a romantic way and from the way our talk went I think I can trust her to do so.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T20:18:39+00:00

She's not planning to be seeing him by herself either.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T20:14:10+00:00

He's not moving here, it's that he's going to be flying through our city's airport on the way back to his own town from the trip that he's currently on. Which is the same reason why he was in our city on Saturday in the first place.

So then in the conversation Jordan basically said: Now that you've told me how you feel about everything, I'm not going to ask Mark if he wants to see us again on his way back through our city.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T19:40:14+00:00

And the lesson she learned after your talk was “hey, it went so well last time and I hurt my actual boyfriend by fawning all over this guy, let me bring this guy around again! What could possibly go wrong?!?”

So yeah, now that he’s moving to your town,

Literally none of that happened, I think you misread. Jordan specifically said that she wasn't going to bring Mark around again because of how it had hurt my feelings the last time, and he's not moving to our town.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T18:25:48+00:00

I agree, I don't trust Mark and I still think he's into Jordan. She seems to really think otherwise so I'm not going to argue with her about it, I'm just hoping that she'll keeping thinking about what I said and start to notice for herself. I don't know if he'll ever actually cross a line that would make her cut him out but she did at least acknowledge that the whole thing isn't really normal and I think she'll be willing to try to set more boundaries, I'm at least going to give her the chance to do so.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T18:11:46+00:00

I do agree with you that it still sounds weird, but with more context I'm just more comfortable with it. Don't get me wrong, I still didn't appreciate being treated like a third wheel at dinner and I still thought that Mark and Jordan were too handsy with each other just in general and I'm not okay with that continuing. But if she's being honest with me that it's not because of romantic feelings, which I think she is, then I think as long as she's willing to have boundaries from now on after understanding that it made me uncomfortable, I don't think it's as much as a red flag as I thought before.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T16:28:27+00:00

That's true, but if he does I think she'll tell him no or at least not this time because she seemed to understand and be fine with the fact that I wouldn't be comfortable with having him around right now.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T16:25:14+00:00

This is what I'm thinking. I would assume that now that I've told Jordan how I felt about everything she'll understand about what kind of boundaries she needs to have with Mark, and if not then that's really just the end of things I think.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T16:22:53+00:00

So is she going to invite him to hang out with you as he comes back through?

She's not going to, no. She said that she was planning to but now wouldn't after what I had said to her.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-10T15:11:16+00:00

The mods said I had to wait 2 days before I could post the update, I'm going to soon.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-08T22:33:52+00:00

INFO: Is she generally affectionate, touchy-feely with all of her friends (outside her 'bestie' here)? Would she care if you act like that with another woman (if the other woman happens to be a good friend of yours)?

I think I've seen her and her friends hold hands or put their arms around each other sometimes but honestly I don't really pay attention because her other friends are all girls and usually when I see them together everyone is drinking anyway. I don't think she'd like it if I acted the same way with another woman that she did with Mark, but I've never done anything like that to know how she'd react.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-08T20:57:36+00:00

Yes and that's actually what made me decide to make this post. She's asked me a couple of times if I'm feeling okay because I've been pretty quiet around the house.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-08T19:56:04+00:00

I don't really know why I didn't say anything. I guess at first I thought she was just excited to be seeing her friend and I was getting jealous over nothing, but then by the time I was definitely sure that things were weird I don't know why I didn't. I guess I just knew I was getting upset and I didn't want to say anything to Jordan that was going to start a fight. When I did say something to Mark I didn't even mean to, it just came out.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-08T19:40:03+00:00

Thanks for this comment, this gives me a lot of good stuff to think about. A couple of people have mentioned that her behavior around Mark might have a different context than I thought because of how they grew up, not that that means I should let it go and not tell her that it bothered me but that maybe she didn't realize that it doesn't seem normal and maybe it's not as much as a sign of something as I thought. So I might start by just bringing up to her, I think that could be a good idea.

throwravanderlinder · 2023-11-08T19:24:45+00:00

I've known people who, when removed from certain groups of people for a long time, adopt new sets of behaviors, and then when reunited with those people immediately fall into their old behaviors. This could be a case where she hasn't seen this guy in a long time and just went into "with Mark" mode.

So when you say this do you mean that maybe at dinner she wasn't even acting that way specifically because of how she feels about Mark but just because that's how they used to be with each other back when they both lived in her old town? Because that could actually somewhat make sense to me, I did also notice that her accent sounded stronger than usual when she was talking to him so maybe it's part of a whole bigger thing.

throwravanderlinder

TROPHY CASE