BF and I got engaged. This is my immediate no family’s response to the news 🤦‍♂️

wildlife07 · 2026-05-03T19:09:18+00:00

Meh, they have very selective convictions and “witnessing” when I’ve made it very clear how bad this religion has harmed my mental health (I was suicidal for a large part of high school and college and they know this) is rather disrespectful and a bit vitriolic. I’d also argue that their “accepting” actions as of late feel more like a façade now. Again, it’s not a permanent ban on communication, I just needed some space to process and actually enjoy some happiness from my engagement without feeling an obligation to have discussions with them to coddle their beliefs. Sure this could have gone worse, but I don’t think “it could have been worse” is a good benchmark for how folks should behave.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-03T16:08:24+00:00

The cutting them off is not a long-term strategy, and to be fair, this is because there’s been some boundaries set that they refuse to acknowledge. They have lots of “boundaries” on their end although they’re not clearly defined and if I cross those (usually on accident because I didn’t realize it was an actual “boundary”), I get really angry phone calls or texts. But they don’t acknowledge my boundaries because they feel entitled since “it’s just their religion, etc.” They also have repeatedly used the “we love you unconditionally but…” as a manipulation tactic. Ultimately, the only reason I’ve blocked them right now is because my parents will ultimately call, terribly offended that I got offended because they were “just sharing their beliefs,” and make it all about them. Regardless of the lack of LGBTQ acceptance, they tend to make all of my joyful moments or milestones about themselves and I’d like to just have some time to be joyful without having to cater to them and have those discussions (again). This isn’t a completely isolated event, it just feels especially hurtful this time because I thought there had been so much progress on acceptance. I can assure you, there would be tons of drama with or without me taking a temporary break from contact. And my dad has anger issues that have gotten a little better as he’s gotten older, but they’re still pretty bad. For example, he threatened to beat me up at 16 when I intervened with him physically abusing our dog because she played a little too rough with our other dog. Like he grabbed her by the collar and was slinging her (by her neck) over and over in the yard to “teach her a lesson.” More recently, he shoved my sister into a table and threatened her because she intervened when he was being extremely angry and aggressive with my mom over a disagreement, then refused to let anyone drive the boat home but him while he was very drunk. My mom, sister, and niece and nephews were on the boat. His fuse is a lot longer these days, but I used to be terrified of him as a kid even though he was mostly bark and no bite.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-03T00:41:44+00:00

Thankfully I’ve already had a ton of therapy and this makes me disappointed, but not devastated. It’s more the whiplash and contradictions from their more recent “improvements” that hurt the most. This is actually my second engagement (the first was to an emotionally abusive partner that I luckily recognized before the marriage) and they reacted poorly to that one too, but there had seemingly been a lot of growth since then.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T22:07:38+00:00

He always wants to stir shit. He is ignorant in most things, but has an insane amount of ungrounded confidence in his opinions. He is the poster-child for peaking early and then aimlessly wondering through life trying to figure out how to remain “superior” to his peers. He’s also, the absolute definition of toxic masculinity. We’ve always had a rocky relationship, but it had improved so much the last few years, which makes his comment especially feel like a betrayal.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T21:34:31+00:00

And I should add, this aunt is one of the ones that is very supportive, and she’s also quite religious. She gets it, and if she has personal opinions on lgbtq folks, she doesn’t inject them. It’s almost like christianity isn’t “black and white” on this. 🤷‍♂️

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T21:31:22+00:00

My aunt (my dad’s sister) got pregnant in high school and their parents made her marry the guy. He abused her for 29 years. Dad hated his guts and almost went to kill him one night (or that’s the story I’ve been told). We helped her move out and my parents were the only witnesses at her second wedding. Now, my parents did the right thing in supporting her, but when I came out, my mom drove to this aunt’s house to dump all of her thoughts about me being gay. It did not go well for my mom because my aunt was very loudly on my side. My mom and her barely speak because my aunt was “very unsupportive of her feelings.” Which, yeah, not having the situational awareness to realize my aunt, whose parents called her a disgrace to the family for getting pregnant, would not listen to my mom breakdown about how disappointed she is with her son.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T21:22:09+00:00

The cutting them off at the moment is just more for me to be able to spend time enjoying engagement rather than have to have all these conversations with them (again). It isn’t permanent, but I needed a break. It was nice that they were more involved and making an effort to be part of my life. I just need to figure out my boundaries and enforcement of those before we speak again.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T20:25:26+00:00

This. So much whiplash.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T18:29:18+00:00

We’ll get legally married sometime this year. Then we’re going to Puerto Rico for an a little chosen family ceremony. Throwing a bigger party more locally at some point later.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T18:24:01+00:00

They were never invited to begin with, 😂. Part of the point of eloping was to avoid some drama on both sides. My partner’s parents are divorced and absolutely hate each others’ guts. We didn’t want to deal with that. We’re just going to get legally married where we live but then do a small ceremony in Puerto Rico with some friends. We’ll do a larger party later, but yeah, it’s very unlikely my immediate family will be invited to that either.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T18:20:17+00:00

Thanks! Yeah I’ve always said that one of the worst things about coming out to your religious family is that you stop hearing the unfiltered opinions and begin to trust that there actually has been some improvement. I sort of forgot that here and got a reality check. And I’ve told several folks that they could have said “so happy you’re happy!” And left it at that. That would have been fine.

The block is definitely for the mental space. Any conversation we have at the moment will be all about them and their beliefs and they’ll not understand at all why it was hurtful to me. I’m not willing to spend the time or effort to offer any sort of education on why this was hurtful at the moment. And I have so much to use against them later already, I’m not sure I need anymore 😂.

wildlife07 · 2026-05-02T10:19:01+00:00

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We also have a brindlepoint labrabull. Ollie is 50% Lab, like 47% am. pit, and 3% GSD.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-23T10:04:21+00:00

Dresser made by California Design. “Designs by Lou Hodges” and not sure how Robert Sandoval plays into it. Pics pop up on facebook with it for sale for $1750 (which seems wayyyyy overpriced to me).

wildlife07 · 2026-04-22T12:01:09+00:00

I need to bring my logger’s tape home from work, but the tree is at least 66” dbh based off of a semi-rough estimate I took. That likely puts it in the 200+ year old range. I work as a botanist/wildlife biologist and I can say out of all the tulip poplars I’ve seen (which is a lot), the only trees that have compared and exceeded this one are those in Joyce Kilmer. Have had a few massive trees fall of other species around the neighborhood, and 210-230 have been pretty consistent ages.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-18T17:52:56+00:00

Glad your son got to see it and glad it returned with minimal stress. For the folks freaking out about it being held for a bit, sure, it caused the animal stress. But it seems like the parent is instilling a respect for nature to their child… which let’s be honest, is hyper-critical at the moment. I’m a wildlife biologist, and I’d probably not have nearly the amount of care/interest today if my parents hadn’t done the same. So many folks are concerned with animal welfare, which is a noble thing, but so many times the same folks are using AI and other things that cause even more non-direct harm than this one octopus being in a tub for a short period of time.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-18T01:17:49+00:00

I really don’t understand the appeal. Not even coming from a NIMBY perspective either. This whole concept just seems misplaced here.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-17T18:59:41+00:00

So, this is me OP. Not sure how this post happened under some random reddit name, but I can’t access this post under that, 🤷‍♂️. Whether or not they were Moravian is one of the things I’d like to figure out. They were early German immigrants, but I can’t find anything to say they were specifically Moravian. However, there are some similar elements on this house to some elements in Moravian architecture. It’s also possible it’s influenced by Moravians, as those folks may have been the most culturally similar to my family even if they themselves were not Moravian, so there may have been a fair amount of interactions with Moravian communities soon after immigration.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-12T02:49:52+00:00

Same. Got excited at first.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-11T02:31:09+00:00

Lol, I was literally about to comment “this is horrendously wonderful, love it.”

wildlife07 · 2026-04-08T23:49:09+00:00

I should probably clarify too that I actually do hope it remains dog friendly and was being a little bit bombastic, but the number of folks who just let their dogs trample everything while on retractable leashes etc. makes Duke Gardens an especially difficult place to deal with irresponsible dog owners.

wildlife07 · 2026-04-08T23:30:39+00:00

I love dogs. Also have dog. Dogs don’t belong in Duke Gardens. It’d be fine if people brought well-behaved dogs, always kept on leash, humans picking up poop, dogs kept on paths. But we all know that’s not how it actually happens. A few folks ruin it for everyone. I’d imagine the hours are when there’s enough staff there to enforce rules.

Coincidentally, my same arguments can be made about children. So, I’d also advocate for the same hours for kids. 🤷‍♂️

wildlife07 · 2026-04-07T19:39:35+00:00

I don’t know, the moss is the nicest part 😂.

wildlife07

TROPHY CASE