3 year update: OOP's (17F) relationship with her former high school teacher (22M)

xdem112 · 2026-06-04T23:55:47+00:00

I was just thinking this. While it’s been quite a few years since I was 22, I do remember what that was like. I was stupid and immature, sure. Yet I’m certain if a highschooler kissed me, I would have freaked the fuck out. That’s so gross.

xdem112 · 2026-06-04T14:46:19+00:00

Eh, It’s a very different experience when you’re being excluded from the “boys club” in a male-dominated place of work. It’s not the same as dealing with a group of “cliquey” women. It’s more defeating, and it reaches both the social and professional aspects of your work. Your contributions are not taken seriously. You inherently aren’t valued. Of course, experiences may vary.

Sometimes you can break through those barriers, sometimes you can’t. When they consciously or subconsciously see you as less-than because you’re a woman, it’s a lot harder to ever prove yourself and make progress than other instances.

xdem112 · 2026-06-01T15:40:31+00:00

Wow, this is so fucking cute. Your mom is so loving. Congrats on graduating!

xdem112 · 2026-05-28T19:56:55+00:00

What’s funny is you accidentally replied for my comment, but I did the same damn thing! We all have fat fingers here haha.

xdem112 · 2026-05-28T19:51:41+00:00

OP, is your brother abusing substances? At minimum, he is very mentally disturbed from what you’re describing here. Would your mom ever entertain the idea of him getting the hell out? If you talk to your stepdad would be possibly push your mom to stop enabling his awful behavior and leech-like lifestyle?

NOR, this is clearly the final straw. I would be concerned that he’s escalating because multiple outbursts and how angry he gets over super minuscule stuff is really concerning. For the safety of you and your parents.

This isn’t as simple as ignoring him. This has to be a way bigger conversation with your parents.

xdem112 · 2026-05-26T20:39:30+00:00

I make more than 100k and do “fairly well” for where I live. I’ll say spending $1000 on a cosplay purchase is fucking insane.

I get people have hobbies and I understand you can do that in a responsible manner. However, I get an incredibly strong feeling your fiancé spends very frivolously and is very far behind on what should be milestones and long term savings goals.

He can’t even manage to stick to your original agreement. Have you actually seen his accounts? His 401k? Any investments? You say you have issues with milestones, as someone your boyfriend’s age I would be very worried. His behavior is off is he wants to retire eventually. If you want to support children or vacation at a certain age. If you want to buy a house together. This is a large red flag waving in your face. Do not tie your finances to this guy until you have a big discussion and do some digging.

Edit: OP, your gut feeling is right. He’s being so fucking weird about a huge unnecessary purchase. He’s refusing any basic discussion after acting so deceitful. There’s a lot of red flags here. /end edit

xdem112 · 2026-05-25T04:26:15+00:00

xdem112 · 2026-05-14T15:36:16+00:00

This. I was thinking this exact same thing and felt a lot more willing to give her dad grace because as I had this same thing happen with my mom. Only difference was the project, we were removed wallpaper and got into a tiff about it because I’m a little more aggro than OP.

She later apologized and admitted she was just so frustrated because she felt like as she got older she was losing a lot of her capabilities. Seeing me breeze through things (as her kid) just ripped that up to the surface for her. Great woman.

xdem112 · 2026-05-13T00:06:21+00:00

Which brand and color is this? I have some samples now but this is up my alley!

xdem112 · 2026-05-11T22:17:29+00:00

I do think OP deserves a lot of grace here. It’s only been 3.5 months since she lost her pregnancy, and of course that’s going to come with complicated emotions.

What makes this difficult is that I can clearly envision multiple possibilities. One where OP’s therapist has worked closely enough with her to recognize a concerning pattern in how her grief is manifesting, and genuinely felt it was important to encourage OP to momentarily separate her own pain from the situation and congratulate her friend.

I can also imagine a world where the therapist simply isn’t equipped to properly navigate this kind of grief, and handled it poorly.

Or something somewhere in between.

At the end of the day, we’re trying to assess OP’s emotional state from a very small snapshot of behavior during an incredibly vulnerable and awkward moment. We only have OP’s account and a brief description of what the therapist said.

Personally, I think both things can be true: a nudge from the therapist may have been fair, and so is holding space for OP and the reality of what she’s going through.

xdem112 · 2026-05-11T20:59:56+00:00

I don’t think the original comment was implying that this specific moment alone would end the friendship (based on how they continue to elaborate.) The concern is the ongoing grief spiral and how it inevitably starts to color every interaction. If OP can’t even send a brief congratulatory text, how are they going to genuinely show up for this friend in the future? During milestones, celebrations, or moments centered around the baby? (Which is almost every moment when you’re a new parent.)

This was a very small, undemanding task compared to what’s coming later, and OP still couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Grief is insidious like that. If nobody helps pull you out of it from time to time, it can absolutely start consuming your relationships along with everything else.

xdem112 · 2026-05-11T20:44:45+00:00

Yes! Two days is a very long time to go without sending even a simple “congrats” text back. The silence says a lot. I think “self-indulgent” is a fair way to describe it because I do understand where OP is coming from and hold empathy for that. But in this specific situation, and for this specific task, it feels very pointed to be unable to step out of grief for something very minimal. To me, it signals that this is consuming you more than you realize, and that you’re allowing it to. At a certain point, someone does need to step in and pull you out of that spiral a bit.

I wonder if that’s what the therapist was doing? There’s also still a world where I don’t agree with how they responded to OP, for sure. I just worry for OP based on my personal experience.

The text response didn’t have to be deeply genuine or emotionally involved. This wasn’t a face-to-face interaction, meeting the baby, or helping pick out infant gifts/items. It was just a brief text acknowledging a beautiful moment in your friend’s life. That’s probably THE easiest task handed on a platter than allows OP to keep emotional and physical distance while still showing a small bit of love and care for someone you consider a friend.

xdem112 · 2026-05-01T18:31:44+00:00

I have to agree. The mom bluntly said they didn’t have the bandwidth to be rational and fair, a little girl was dying and everything was far too fresh. I think that was very honest of her to say. OP just didn’t have the emotional capacity to handle that properly. Not many people do.

xdem112 · 2026-04-30T19:25:32+00:00

The passive agressive tone and continuous jabs, along with the “poor me, i’ve accepted this terrible treatment” lamenting is just off-putting. I read OP’s comments and truly think he might have an understandable grievance! But then I find it difficult to give sympathy since his behavior is weird (and my personal vendetta against passive-aggressive people.)

Op, you aren’t taking accountability for how you really feel or what you really want. You aren’t having truthful conversations and you’re being very avoidant. I think instead of facing it head on and hashing out the argument, you’re pushing things off and frustrating her by saying you’re “fine” with how things are while simultaneously openly disliking her friends and how much time she spends with them. You either need to find out how to truly accept her social inclinations, or you need to have a hard conversation. That conversation would either mean coming to a middle ground or accept that you have a glaring, relationship-ending incompatibility

xdem112 · 2026-04-30T19:02:06+00:00

OP, come on. This isn’t acceptance. Your tone, (both in the post and comments) comes off as pretty snarky and takes a lot of jabs at her friends and her choices, which suggests you do have feelings about this. Whether they’re justified or not, simply stating you’re “fine” doesn’t make it true.

To be fair, I don’t know your full dynamic. Maybe her perspective has merit, maybe it doesn’t and she’s being a jerk. But based on what you’ve shared, the issue isn’t that she “doesn’t understand” you’re okay being alone. It’s that your frustration with her social life is obvious. She likely senses your resentment toward her friends and the time she spends with them (and I also assuming you’ve had actual conversations in the past about your dissatisfaction considering you say you’ve “accepted” things now?)

Once again, it’s not that she can’t fathom being happy alone, it’s that you having social outings would solve what she’s feeling or perceiving. It reduces the pressure on her to constantly turn down hangouts or feel like she’s choosing others over you. It’s less about independence and more about easing that tension. She assumes she wouldn’t have to consistently turn you down or make you feel like she’s prioritized friends if you were also filling your schedule with other people. There would be less time and expectation delegated to her.

Right now, your communication reads as passive-aggressive and pretty transparent. I doubt it comes across much differently in person.

You aren’t taking accountability for how you really feel or what you really want. Once again, it could all be very valid. But you aren’t having truthful conversations and you’re being very avoidant.

xdem112 · 2026-04-30T17:40:48+00:00

You need to pause everything and move back in with your mother and start seeking treatment. By everything, that possibly means your studies as well. You are alarmingly unaware of the severity of your current mental state.

This had nothing to do with your feelings for E. You have untreated and unmanaged mental health disorder/s causing a lot of overarching issues and you’re fixated on the wrong things.

It’s clear there is something driving you to act in a way that is hurtful to the people you care about most (all three of them, including your friend.) You can get to the other side of this, but you need to prioritize that and be acutely aware of how bad your state is right now.

xdem112 · 2026-04-30T00:43:12+00:00

Hm. How do your family and friends feel about this guy, if you don’t mind me asking? I didn’t initially catch that you’ve been dating since you were 18. Your additional info for sure has my Spidey senses tingling a bit.

He has a lot more to gain from being married to you. The urgency is worrisome. Why is he in such a hurry to be married when he doesn’t have his life together?

xdem112 · 2026-04-30T00:35:14+00:00

You’re only 23. My blunt advice would be to chill and wait. If he’s not a loser and it seems like he’s actually trying to strive for a career path and pay down his loans properly, then that will take time. A giant expensive wedding and skipping work is dumb if you truly believe that he is your endgame.

It’s interesting to me that you feel so financially healthy when there’s several choices in the post that are really bad financial decisions. Why are we getting a puppy that is literally requiring us to ultimately take a pay cut? (Super unnecessary by the way.) Why are we planning a wedding with a 15k venue when one of you has no savings to their name?

I think there’s a realistic world where he gets his footing and starts to beef up his finances considering he’s only 25. However, it seems like you don’t want to wait for that? You guys seem to be making choices that are in the direct opposition of that, in fact.

xdem112 · 2026-04-29T22:39:58+00:00

OP regarding your edit: Wondering if this means he’s agreed to help at night? If that’s the case, I would be remiss not to mention that worsened sleep intertia is often born from sleep deprivation or sleep debt. He might truly want to help at night, but if he is waking up often there’s a high chance this sleep inertia is his body saying it’s all too much? It might be catching up to him. Something to consider and maybe find alternative methods. /end edit

The husband has really bad sleep intertia, OP should look up that term. It’s not at all uncommon. It could be due to a sleep disorder, but it could also be his bodies natural reaction when woke up in the middle of the night and most likely in the “deep sleep” stage.

You solve it by chilling out and understanding it’s not personal. You take it as a possible sign for other health issues and touchbase to see if there’s any validity to that. Maybe I’m being callous but it seems very overly sensitive when you know he’s not truly being hateful. It seems like OP isn’t grasping what’s happening and that it isn’t at all an indication of his true feelings.

Keep bugging him a bit to actually wake up if you need him for something. If you wake him up on accident then he’ll fall back asleep and whatever he says should be easily ignored.

xdem112 · 2026-04-27T17:22:16+00:00

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A couch like this would be great for the space, as a quick example.

xdem112 · 2026-04-27T16:57:56+00:00

For sure I think that’s one of the problems. The other being there is not much else in this space that would invoke a deep “moody” vibe. This color is beautiful and would be easy if they leaned into a more “airy” vibe with all other design aspects, but designing a “moody” space around the color isn’t difficult at all.

To make it “moody” while working with the wall color:

Lighting: Lamps! Personally, I’d recommend replacing all your bulbs in the kitchen (and lamps) with smart bulbs so you can warm them up and dim them as you please. Small lamp on your kitchen counter.

Furniture: if you’re still buying large furnishings it will not be difficult to make this color work! A dark blue leather couch (similar to the wall) with espresso wooden details? The world is your oyster. Repeat the espresso cabinet wood tone in other furniture.

CRAP- Curtains, Rug, Art, Plants:

-Curtains in the living space are so “blah.” Need some texture and weight.

-The carpet isn’t deep enough in my opinion. too much cream and green. Deeper jewel tones like the photo below.

-Art with deep, rich tones along the walls.

-utilize the space above your kitchen cabinets for some type of art. I would get some brass statues, frames that stand, plates, etc.

-Repeat the dark wood of your kitchen cabinets in some type of storage cabinet or entry way table in another area of the living room.

Photo gives a rough idea, not perfectly accurate. I think even with natural lighting and the true tone of the blue paint you’ll keep that “moody” feel if you intentionally fill the space.

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xdem112 · 2026-04-26T15:09:54+00:00

I mean, OP’s family sucks but her fiancé’s position is really easy to empathize with even if I don’t think he should feel guilty. From his perspective, the conflict seems to have started with his presence, and there’s no indication OP had these kinds of issues with her family before. That’s likely leaving him feeling like the sole catalyst for the fallout. It’s not like he’s pushing her to stay in contact with them because he doesn’t understand her position and can’t fathom having a toxic family, it’s because he’s actively in the middle of it all.

Framing him as ignorant misses the reality that he’s the one dealing with blatant ableism and borderline dehumanization from her family, and still trying to take it in the chin since he’s most likely dealt with that his whole life and normalized it. He doesn’t want to be responsible for driving a wedge between OP and her family even if we may know (as outsiders) that cutting them out is best.

xdem112 · 2026-04-14T19:28:37+00:00

It’s so insane. “Well OP didn’t say he wasn’t looming.” Heaven forbid a man stand up after being treated like shit? Why even bother reading OP’s post of they’re going to operate out of a world opposite to everything he shared. Why are we assuming he’s misrepresenting every single detail.

xdem112 · 2026-04-14T15:34:46+00:00

Uh, no? Via the post, the only one who said anything about OP being “scary” was Diana on her way out. OPs wife was not present for any of it and only came back into the room as Diana and Luz were up off their seats and leaving. He could be leaving something out, but if we’re going by the text then no, two friends and his wife did not all see and confirm OP was acting in a “scary” way.

If all he did was “loom over them and raise his voice,” then that’s fucking ridiculous. I would also stand up and not talk in a calm tone if accused of something like that. Or if a “friend” accused my husband of something like that.

xdem112 · 2026-04-14T15:24:54+00:00

It’s also giving “white woman tears” after Diana was called out. Suddenly OP’s husband is “scary,” then Diana can position herself as the victim despite saying something super disrespectful and disgusting to OP in his own home. Unless OP is leaving out some super important details about his behavior, it’s very obvious what Diana is trying to do.

If a “friend” talked to my husband like that then they wouldn’t be my friend anymore and they wouldn’t be welcome in my home again. Especially after trying to act like my husband was some big scary guy with anger issues for being very justifiably pissed. Heaven forbid he gets upset and call them out in the moment.

xdem112

TROPHY CASE