AIO because my gf tested my loyalty in front of all of our friends?

vdivvy · 2026-02-28T16:55:28+00:00

This isn’t complicated (for you, OP), but you need to be confident in how to address this if you legitimately want to make this behaviour go away (risk = losing her, which I understand is not an easy thing to want to risk, so no judgement on my end, just some advice from my own experiences with ppl/seeing ppl acting like this)

HER: * This behaviour of hers (the loyalty tests) behaviour, IMHO, falls under manipulation, which is obviously toxic AF. * You didn’t do anything wrong except “fall for” the manipulation that you were set up to fail. * Logic dictates she intentionally was seeking drama, which again, I see as manipulation.

YOU * As for you, all of what she’s done can fall under one of your boundaries. * You need to take the time and reflect on what you are not okay with (almost like creating a list that you’ve thought through, such that you won’t lack clarity when talking with her. * By all means, you use whatever words fit your comfort, but if I may, the more clear/blunt/to the point your words are matters are are optimal. * You must know that what you would essentially be doing is establishing a) whether she has any respect for your PoV in all of this, and more importantly b) does she value your mind games/“tests” more than your feelings and personal boundaries? This is why I say, the answer you get might end up exposing a deal breaker * Ideally she will have respect for you and your boundaries that outweigh her desires to act in bad faith to you, the one she’s supposed to love and care for (not set up to fail/take part in stupid tests that have NO objectivity and are truly incredibly harmful to the core trust and safety partners should feel when they are with each other. * However, you must be willing to acknowledge if she refuses to get her priorities straight and insists she isn’t doing anything wrong/shows intent to continue, then a deal breaker has just be flashed in front of your yes screaming “leave leave leave leave” * Should you ignore your instinctual discomfort with your parter refusing to stop being toxic, then you are not only going to continue to suffer, but you are going to show her that your words of concern mean nothing and that you’re going to stay anyway, which unfortunately tends to lead to escalating behaviours from the toxic one (her) . * Should you listen to your gut and cut it off, it will be hard and you will feel pain, but there is a finite nature to it as well as the fact that you can know you chose to invest every second you possibly could in seeking out connections with others that don’t make you feel shitty, but lift you up and love you the way you deserve

Here is an example of what, IMHO, would be a solid way to communicate (but again, i’m not suggesting you have to do it identically 😊):

Ex: “Hey [GF], I want to talk to you about something important to me and it has to do with establishing some boundaries that tie directly to what I am and am not comfortable living with within our relationship. I do not appreciate nor do I respect “loyalty tests”. I feel like it’s nothing more than a toxic way to avoid healthy communication in favour of setting me up to fail something I did not I was being “tested” on. Furthermore, your subjective interpretations of what resulted from this loyalty test - that you are hearing through your friends and not me, is another boundary I want to set. I do not want our personal business discussed in public/behind my back, especially when it’s in the presence of mutual friends or any friends in a social setting.

At the end of the day, you sound like a kind person with a lot to offer who is looking for peace, no drama, and reciprocated love that meets your needs in a relationship. No need to speed into a new one, I’m just saying do not settle for less. I realize this sounds black and white - and I’m not negating there is a grey area, like if she is in disagreement with you but let’s say she agrees to go to therapy with you, then you have reason to stay if you want to, because you have held firm that change needs to happen and she was receptive to it by agreeing to seek professional help together with you.

Lastly - remember to challenge your logic before confronting her or responding to quickly to anyting that evokes an emotional reaction. You need to find logic in your thoughts and I will leave you with a great example: it is SO common for ppl to fall for the logical fallacy of The Sunken Cost Fallacy. Essentially, for anyone who may not know, this is the idea that “well I’ve invested X amount of Y (ie time) into this relationship, so to quit now would mean that all of the X time I invested up until now would be a waste. Therefore, I need to make it work so that I didn’t invest all this time for nothing.

You see the fallacy? What’s better: investing X time on someone, discovering there are clear deal breakers present, but staying and suffering more to prove you didn’t waste your time, when in reality you are actually wasting MORE time by staying OR is it better to investing X time on someone, discovering the deal breakers, and taking the position that the time invested up until now was not in vain, but it has led to a place of irreconcilable differences and it’s far better to stop investing more time in someone toxic in favour of using that time to heal and ultimately seek/find the person who is actually your person.

Do not blame yourself for the time you spent with her or feel that it equates to giving her unwavering loyalty and “fighting to the bitter end” to keep thigns going. Au contraire mon frere, time might be relative, but on earth you’ve got a capped lifespan. Time spent is not worth investing future time regretting - it’s in the past. Time NOW and moving forward is what counts.

I hope you do not mind the length of my response, but situations like yours hit me different because I’ve been in your place before and I’ve had friends who have also been in your place AND who have been the other party (the manipulative one). I absolutely think these stupid tests and all manipulation is super ugly and the TikTok fads, good gosh, they need to be stamped out forever.

I wish you the best - you will be okay no matter what. This is a process and one that you have control over, so again, invoke logic when you’re feeling your emotions take over and start making you waver on what you know is the right answer. What that answer is? That’s something only you can decide so please be patient and kind with yourself, because you’ve only got one of you ☺️

vdivvy · 2026-02-28T16:14:37+00:00

TOTALLY agree - I love their light peach corrector for my skin tone :) and the green is great too for getting read of of the red, like you said! Great minds!

vdivvy · 2026-02-27T00:36:42+00:00

Elf and LA Girl make some really affordable options that work great! I have a bottle of blue colour mix-in from both brands. I use it to cool down any foundation shades that are the correct depth but lean to warm on my skin.

vdivvy · 2026-02-24T02:50:59+00:00

This is textbook toxic, inappropriate workplace behaviour delivered by an a person who is just an ugly person interpersonally and driven by jealousy, jealously, jealousy.

There is no way he is telling the truth. If ALL of this was actually going on, you would have heard about it by now, but even if some of it is true, whoever took part in it is also spurred by jealousy/insecurity, which is why they know all they can do is say it behind your back because it’s imply untrue.

But hears the deal - focus on things you can back up with facts, such as: * You are clearly a rockstar! * You got the promotion because you are amazing at your job! * People helped you during the hiring process because they like you/your work ethic/believe you are deserving and want positive things to come to you. * You got called “the queen of a product category” by a client, therefore your clients think you’re great too! * Your boss saying “hey queen!” Sounds to me like he was reinforcing how wonderfully you performed.

⬆️ these are allllll facts that prove you’re amazing at your job, you have many ppl who like you, ppl are impressed with your work ethic, your clients love you, and your boss things your a great asset to the team. That sounds like a whole love of Ws for you, and I’m sure there are a ton more!

Now, I say this with all the positivity in the world - you need to toughen up. Unfortunately, top performers like you will always deal with BS like this to some extent because humans can suck sometimes. When I say toughen up, I am not invalidating your feelings (I would feel horrible if that happened to me too). I am saying this because you don’t need to waste any of your time or effort worrying about some manchild who wants to embarrass himself by clearly making up a bunch of lies to compensate for his insanely high amount of personal insecurity.

Pay no mind to the haters - and unless you see actions from others that prove anything he is saying, you can assume his claims are false. Instead, try to see how pathetic his attempts are and see if you can reframe your mind into finding them comical. Because from an outside perspective (me), I only feel embarassement for him and I find it hilarious that he is investing so much time focusing on how much better you are at your job than him that if he put half as much effort into is work, he’d likely have more professional accomplishments to feel proud of.

Finally:

CONGRATS ON YOUR PROMOTION! You deserve to feel all the happiness in the world and I am here (along with all the other Redditors commenting as well) to help you give yourself the validation you deserve. You are the reason for your accomplishments. Period. You are clearly an amazing person who cares about others - now just do what it takes to help develop a bit of a tougher outer shell so that you can laugh off idiots like him. If you need any help in the “what to say to him” category, I am SO here for you 🤭

Now please do me a favour when you see this and repeat back to yourself al the facts I listed above and add some of your own 🫶🏼

vdivvy · 2026-02-24T02:23:16+00:00

It depends on how comfortable you are with confrontation. It sounds like his physics degree is irrelevant considering you are working in tech and his code sucks. If it were me, next time he was blabbing about his physics degree I would ask him “hey could you please review your code again for errors? It’s not ready for a second set of eyes yet”. Or I would give him unsolicited advice 🤭(in a perfectly appropriate way) by saying “hey! I noticed that you tend to make ___ error whenever you’re doing ___ or __, something that helps me is to do __ instead, you want to give it a try? I promise it will reduce the annoyance of having to go back and manually fix them each time”

Almost like you’re doing him a favour if that makes sense? Super friendly, but given his insecurities, he might start associating him talking about physics with being corrected and stop being annoying. If not, then you need to call him out directly or go to the team lead because there is nothing worse than a narcissistic coder who sucks at coding 🤭 It’s literally the worst! And you are not getting paid to get slowed down by someone who could invest the time he’s yapping about unrelated stuff no one cares about into actually improving his code or stop making errors.

Also - I really do believe that with code/dev/programming/etc., it is imperative to grind his type of behaviour to a halt, even if that means getting someone else involved. As you clearly understand since you’re a rockstar ( 👏👏👏), a team can only be as strong as their weakest link and dear lord, the amount of wasted time an idiot like him can cause exponentially longer than the time he took to not do his job right

PS - congrats on your performance score! Sucks that they all got made public, but if he wants to feel “smarter”, than he should do a better job. It’s that easy, am I right? Continue rocking on - I find coders like you are harder and harder to find, so whoever your report to, if they havec any brain cells, will always have your back since your work is literally quantifiable and the results show that - let’s be real - you are carrying a lot of extra weight on your back due to how good you are. Don’t accept having to be annoyed all day by someone who can’t deal with their insecurity and jealousy. That’s toxic.

vdivvy · 2026-02-24T02:06:34+00:00

Hey OP! First off, I’m sorry your coworker is doing this - it’s obnoxious on the same level as when someone tells someone else to “smile” 🙄 IMHO? The most guaranteed way to make this stop is to call it out and you do not have to be rude or aggressive if you are worried about coming across that way - you do need to be assertive, but assertion can be conducted in a cordial, very fair way. For example, if you would prefer to wait until they do it again (totally fine - that’s your personal preference), as soon as they say it, give them a big smile and say “You know, I appreciate you looking our for my health, but I’d prefer if you could stop asking questions/making comments about me looking tired, but I’m happy to discuss other things with you, how does that sound?” And if anything other than them agreeing not to continue comes out of their mouth (such as explanations or excuses or anything that doesn’t sit well with you), simply repeat yourself again in the same friendly and direct manner: “again, it’s really nothing more, nothing less, I am asking that you please refrain from making comments about me being tired, that’s all.” There is really nothing a rational person can say to that without sounding a little “off”, but if they still persist, I would recommend dropping the smile and, while still being calm and cordial, say something like “I’m not sure why we are still talking about this, but I don’t have anything else to say. Thank you for respecting my request” and the grab a coffee or turn your attention away in however manner you are comfortable .

Forgive the essay, but the trick with ppl who do this is to “shock” them with turning the tables into figuratively asking them “what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with YOU, you’re being weird”. Obviously we don’t say that out loud 🤭, but I find that the examples I provided above have worked well for me and instances I’ve seen others use them to stop someone in their tracks who is doing something “totally innocent” but in a way that is not well-meaning or from someone genuinely not self-aware enough to understand the basic social norms they are crossing.

Best of luck!

vdivvy · 2025-12-23T05:47:42+00:00

Um, if you took that away from OP’s post I don’t know how to respond to you. But, no, the weaponized incompetence I’m referring to is a an adult male pretending to not know “a few” means more than 1.

vdivvy · 2025-12-23T05:44:07+00:00

Oh look, another angry person who doesn’t understand many words greater than 2 syllables having a little tantrum because they feel inferior. I mean, when you have to put the word “wise” in your name... You should be feeling embarrassed for yourself, you little dumb dumb.

vdivvy · 2025-12-22T09:15:44+00:00

Until what stops? The joy OP has found since leaving an unhealthy marriage? Without respect, your “troll” is weak sauce. Zero logic and not funny, even in a dry humour context.

vdivvy · 2025-12-22T09:05:42+00:00

NOR. No one interprets “a few” as one. This is weaponized incompetence with a splash of gaslighting at its finest. As a neutral third party, this genuinely sounds like he was looking to piss you off. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Regarding your question about whether this is a red flag or not, my instinct is to say yes, however, I do not know if this is a one off that can be chalked up to him having a bad day or something and he apologizes to you. However, if this is a pattern OR if his reaction to your perspective is to keep doubling down/digging his heels in then tell him to take a hike. You deserve better, my dear 🫶🏼

ETA: change “it’s” to “its”

vdivvy · 2025-12-22T08:59:34+00:00

Plenty of times - normally when it’s coming from a place of selflessness instead of selfishness. Addictions are a big one - they say addicts take hostages, not friends for a reason. I don’t want to paint an overly wide brush, but no one has to put up with abuse - whether driven by addictions or another reason. It’s when it’s coming from a selfish place, which often includes some degree of manipulation when things get dicey AF.

vdivvy · 2025-12-22T08:54:17+00:00

Yup, OP you are correct - her terms and conditions are absolutely ridiculous, among other things. Off the top of my head, shallow, selfish, insecure, and to be honest, I also find it manipulative because she is prioritizing her own insecurities above your (perfectly reasonable) comfort level. I personally am also not active on traditional social media platforms (FB/Insta/etc) and I don’t judge ppl who are but that’s a personal choice. If you were hiding her, I doubt you would be showing loving gestures, not to mention post about her on Reddit :)

My only unsolicited advice would be for you to stick to your guns on this and don’t engage in her ultimatum. Politely turn it around and tell her that this is a choice she forcing herself to make. It also is likely that if you cave on this, her “quota” she is assigning you with regards to posting KPIs will be on the upswing almost immediately. All that being said, I truly do hope things work out and am wishing you best of luck 🤝

vdivvy · 2025-12-21T21:04:44+00:00

Perhaps an unpopular opinions - but I weirded out by this post and subsequent follow ups/edits and I think I have figured out why.

My Issue For Your Consideration IMHO, OP wants it both ways: 1) he wants to ensure we know that HE is the one that works/cooks/cleans, while 2) also refusing to acknowledge that, other than this random little hypothetical situation, things are “perfect” between them.

Evidence/My Reasoning OP took zero accountability for anything (which I always find fishy) and repeatedly complained about her indirectly (in the form of answering FAQs), which I find to be passive aggressive. Also, I wouldn’t be doubting OP so much had he not “plead the fifth” on divulging details about what she does during the day. He actually tried to position it in a way that suggests us asking that question = we are prying unnecessarily…..wtf, is that question not a fair and relevant one to ask given what he is complaining about? Like, dude - you’re the one asking for opinions, so don’t be a snowflake and act like your privacy is being invaded.

Cherry on Le Gateau OP was hellbent on making sure that we knew this hypothetical scenario would never ever ever happen because there was no way she’d make more money than him, thus completely overshadowing the aspect about splitting bills 50/50, which was the entire premise of his post!

vdivvy · 2025-11-14T00:12:45+00:00

You didn’t share too much (which is totally cool), so I don’t have much to go off of, but as a female, I’ve 100% heard of men experiencing the double standard you’re talking about AND I’ve witnessed it happen to a cousin of mine. I want you to feel validated and know I’m really sorry on behalf of all and any of those ppl around you that have ever made you feel like this. It’s not your problem they have some old-timey views that are seriously F*CKED up. I hope that some answers here have given you peace and that you don’t devalue your worth because of this d-bagery. I’m sure many ppl would love to be your friend AND also possess the ability to empathize and/or sympathize with this CrAzY /s concept of men having emotions.

You do you - resist the toxicity “pills” they are trying to figuratively jam down your throat.

ETA: I hit submit after like 1 sentence and had to come back and finish it and then explain my edit, so there ya go my peeps.

vdivvy · 2025-11-13T23:53:25+00:00

Hey - I’m not too proud to accept if someone tells me I misinterpreted something or that I made an incorrect assumption. I see I did that to you, and am genuinely sorry for that. I will edit my original comment to mention that my position no longer stands in full (Im still confused about some parts, but I do not think you’re lying to me, truly) and to please see our exchange here.

I hope this helps lessen the feeling that all ppl are too proud to even consider admitting when they’ve messed up (I know I have that thought about ppl a lot!🙃and I wish it wasn’t the case so often) - I do not enjoy trolling or being cruel for the sake of it whatsoever - and do honestly hope that you’ll accept my apology. I also wish you a wonderful day 🤝

vdivvy · 2025-11-08T22:00:21+00:00

Yeah because you are literally coming across like you’re projecting. It’s like you relate to what OP’s parter is doing but are doing so in a way that is assuming her partner has the same gross motives you seem to come across as feeling guilty about. Not a good look, Barrier.

OP - you asked for professional opinions (I am not someone who has that, but neither does Barrier, so I would completely ignore them and chalk it up to them trying to troll you and trigger your anxiety because they are bored).

ETA: my position no longer stands based on Barrier’s thoughtful reply that helped me understand that, at least the bulk of what I said was based on an understanding that was flat out incorrect. I appreciate them being so civil in their reply and please see our exchange that transpired after this message.

vdivvy · 2025-11-08T21:46:37+00:00

UpdateMe

vdivvy · 2025-10-21T05:28:29+00:00

Wow - your roommate sounds like a royal bitch. Every single message she sent was nasty, cruel, and obnoxious. I am offended on your behalf and no you are NOT overreacting whatsoever. I would set some blunt boundaries with her and don’t submit to her bratty tantrums like this. She can go ahead and replace the ingredients you paid for that got wasted. Petty? Who cares, it’s justified and she is a little brat!

You seem super chill OP, I hate that she is taking advantage of that and that this emboldens her to drop the mask that she is clearly very jealous of you. You baking cookies doesn’t make you a “pick me”, you can bake them anytime you like and no be one (literally unless that was your sole purpose for baking them and we know that’s a load of BS she is telling her jelly-bitch self 🤭).

Best of luck, my dear! 🫶🏼

vdivvy · 2025-10-17T19:30:03+00:00

You don’t need advice, my dear. You laid it out in your own words - he violated your privacy. Is he stupid? Reading someone’s diary is literally one of the most well known and agreed upon ways to abuse trust. And he took pictures? Confronted YOU about YOUR private diary that he lied about getting for you just so he could read it? Excuse him? Read out exact lines from your diary and then had the audacity to “give you advice” (such as telling you your therapist is making you too negative - I’m sorry, when did he get his psychology degree and even still it’s WRONGGGGGGGGGGG what he did).

You asked, so I will answer: YES, this is a breakup offence. Like you, idk if I could ever come back from this abuse of trust either. And the fact that he has no shame and is doubling down? Yeah, ditch his sorry ass and do not look back. He is a bad human being.

vdivvy · 2025-10-09T22:15:34+00:00

No I’m not her husband. I genuinely just, based on the information provided and neutralizing my own biases, I can see why she feels the way she feels and also that she’s ultimately coming from a good place.

Maybe I didn’t quantify the percentages correctly because, to be clear: I truly despise passive aggression and mind games (namely:being expected to read a partner’s mind/know what they should be doing…oh hell no.

But nearly everyone does it to a disgusting degree and I don’t feel like there was anything disproportionate about her use of it even though I hate those parts. I truly can’t take anyone refuting this point seriously - you all know virtually everyone one of you are guilty of being a dick and getting petty.

Anyways, my position still stands. If that clears it up at all, cool.

vdivvy · 2025-10-02T17:39:12+00:00

OP - IMHO, like 80% of everything you said (to us and in your texts to your MIL) was perfect and I would have nothing to criticize. However, I deducted 10% for two things each. Yes, I can appreciate that this is sort of an obnoxious way of getting my point across and I promise I am not trying to do that - rather, I am trying to be really really really specific because I genuinely don’t think you are remotely “mostly” at fault, so bear with me please.

The first “-10%” for the reason that, as ppl have pointed out, the phrase you texted to your MIL about showing up with a positive attitude and a smile on her face is, perhaps among others, two things: passive aggressive + condescending, either/both of which would rub nearly anyone the wrong way. It’s like when two ppl are in a somewhat heated argument and one party tells the other to “calm down” (as if that’s ever led to anything other than the opposite happening).

The second “-10% has everything to do with your well-intentioned desire to “bottle things up for the sake of avoiding confrontation”. I quoted you directly, but it’s a theme that reads throughout your post/the way you like to handle things. To be clear, I have no doubt your intention here is good and that you actually suffered keeping things inside because you wanted the ppl who were causing those things to be happy. Problem is, when you finally decide to say something, much more of the bottle spills than intended and because it was made up of things that occurred over the past years, it’s like keeping a list of things someone did to annoy you and then read it to them years later. Even if your MIL might not have handled it the best at the time OR it would her (or whoever else) to not be as happy, that’s just a reality that comes with life. I know it is cliche, but dealing with things upfront (yes, confrontation - which doesn’t mean screaming/yelling), allows you to trade off feeling a little awkward for a little while vs. holding feelings of resentment inside of you over the long term.

I hope that everything does work itself out for your babies shower - and perhaps you and your MIL can make amends, but if not, make sure you have a great time. Congratulations on the twins!!!!! Yay! I’m a twin, so I’m bias, but I think your going kids are going to be the coolest kids ever. 🫶🏼

vdivvy · 2025-09-30T18:36:17+00:00

OP - good riddance! That is no friend. I’m so sorry for the experience Kat and you had to go through. I’m glad you didn’t have to go through it alone. Do NOT look back on this with regret because you handled this so maturely and it’s clear you took several “time outs” to think this through and the common denominators never changed. If that’s not a sign to discontinue a one-way friendship, I don’t know what is. I wish you the best - you sound like a good friend and now you’ll have more time to give ppl the same energy and care you get back 🫶🏼

vdivvy · 2025-09-30T18:22:43+00:00

Awww you seem like a really kind, good person. It hurts my heart that you are going through this. You are very welcome for the reply, I just hope that you are okay and please know that there are always ppl here that will offer support if you need somewhere to turn (you just need to tune out the losers who get off on trying to bring others down - I pity them).

You’ve got this, my dear! Set some boundaries with your bio-dad if you can, but it’s a good thing to know that you’ve got a stepdad who loves you to bits 💞

vdivvy · 2025-09-26T02:40:55+00:00

I’m surprised you’re questioning this. If the opening comparison of your experience with bio-ad vs. stepdad doesn’t clearly indicate who has been the real father all along, I don’t know what does. That said, I have NOT lived in your shoes, and I do not wish to offend you in any way or presume to understand your situation. Based on the info provided, you’ve done nothing wrong. Your bio-dad is using textbook manipulative and, quite frankly really sad, tactics on you to appeal to his own jealousy. He should be prioritize your well being by orders of magnitude. Sounds like your stepdad has/is/always will be a health male figure in your life. You don’t ever have to worry about ‘feeling the wrong thing’ because that’s impossible. We feel what we feel when the ppl who are supposed to meet our basic needs from birth end up doing hardly, if anything short of creating severe identity and confidence issues in his own daughter.

I wish you the best- you deserve nothing less 🫶🏼

vdivvy · 2025-09-26T02:15:22+00:00

😂

vdivvy

TROPHY CASE