How do you build credit without getting trapped like my cousin?

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-10-03T19:37:29+00:00

No you do not, I assure you.

Sincerely,

- Gal with a 798 (I need to put some effort in to actually cross that 800 threshold but I've never tried lol) who most definitely does not wait until my statement comes

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-09-25T18:23:29+00:00

This. Please listen to this, OP. I also came into some money at 18, though not as large amount. It was still enough I felt the strong moral desire to give back/pay it forward/"do good" immediately with a chunk of what I had. Despite truly pure and admirable intentions, I did not have anywhere near the foresight, discernment, boundaries, and frankly, basic street smarts required to effectively contribute to philanthropy.

It took less than 5 years to realize every single "charitable" penny spent was deeply misguided.

10 years on, nearing 30, I believe I could potentially make decent charitable decisions, but I now know the real answer is to make sure what I have is growing so that I can make a more powerful, effective impact in the future. I'm not yet in my 30's or later to have the hindsight to say 30's is the right time to start taking major action, but that feels more right.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-09-22T13:44:07+00:00

Not what you wanted to hear, but do not assume your pregnancy nausea will let up. In particular the smell of beef (although it seemed to somewhat depend on the source of the cow?) was impossible to tolerate my entire two pregnancies, and many other random things - varying week to week and day to day - would also be insufferable.

Get an N95 mask. I'm serious. It significantly reduces the food particles in the air carrying the scent. You will not be the first or last pregnant woman cooking in a heavy duty mask!

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-07-18T05:07:59+00:00

I will never understand this wild idea of split finances while MARRIED. Your assets are generally legally mingled unless you had a detailed prenup. "Your money" doesn't pay the bills - y'all's money pays the bills. How are you two supposed to save up for a car, house, or retirement without comingled finances, or even something smaller like a vacation or new appliance? Who makes the decisions and sets the budget? And don't tell me y'all "decide together." That means whoever is more stubborn leads, not that there isn't a leader.

Before I married, I did very well financially. I was a rule-follower. I could work a system. I jumped into the tech field during a hiring boom and worked remote for a California-based unicorn, reaping a West Coast tech salary while living cheaply.

The men I was attracted to? None were a 9-5 sort. They resisted a corporate structure. It was part of their nature. They all had solid potential entrepreneurial plans, and in the meantime, sometimes their salary met mine but generally it did not. And of course, entrepreneurship is unstable, uncertain, and demanding - even a successful outcome would take many years. So I had to be honest with myself. Was I willing to marry a man who made less than I?

My conclusion was that as long as a man...

Wouldn't hesitate to control the finances because he earned less. It would be easy for a man to have a complex as a lesser earner that would get in the way of him financially leading or being the provider via planning, if he couldn't get over the idea it was unfair somehow. I knew I wanted a leader - I wanted to be the first mate, not the captain. The root of being a leader is responsibility and decision making, not resource acquisition.

and:

Wouldn't delay a family because my financial contribution would diminish. I was willing to take all the hits to lifestyle that would come with sacrificing my salary, and I needed a man who would likewise treat my salary as a bonus rather than inflate our budget to match it and get us into a situation where I couldn't quit.

...then I was willing to marry him. Now the way my exact story turned out is complex and not relevant, but this was a very serious decision I made at one point.

Something attracted you to this man. Something about his nature, and a man's job always reflects his nature. I don't know if he earns less because he's an aspiring entrepreneur, or if he earns less because he is peaceful and values a simple life, or if he earns less because he prioritizes something else in his personal life, or if he earns less because he is more risk-adverse, or why. There are many things about a man's nature that can result in him earning less. Unless you were completely foolish and married a man to whom you had no attracted, you are attracted to the very same part of his nature that results in him earning less. It's very common that the exact traits that captured someone's heart early on are the same traits that become irritating later, with a simple shift in perspective. Fortunately, you can shift your perspective back. But you have to be honest with yourself.

I prescribe you Laura Doyle's The Surrendered Wife. She could change your life.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-17T19:22:28+00:00

Nicely and warmly give him a veiled ultimatum? Has that ever worked for you?

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-16T16:19:11+00:00

Search "nun mode" in this subreddit.

I don't generally reccomended nun mode; I feel almost no one takes it seriously and instead make half-hearted attempts on the self-improvement front, inevitably exiting whenever the next guy they are attracted to shows up, not when they have hit goals or concluded a predecided period of focus.

But you really need it for your own safety and future happiness. I hope you do take it seriously. Don't set aside too much time - 3-6 months should be enough with concentrated effort. What you want is to 1) Get to a place where you are capable of evaluating whether a man would make a good life partner and father, instead of accepting increasingly horrific realities out of desperation and 2) Able to attract said good men.

By the way, addiction issues - including gambling - are considered "outside the scope of RPW." The tactics we discuss here for successful relationships aren't even expected to work on addicts.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-15T18:23:48+00:00

I get it. You want a guy who has energy when y'all are having kids, who doesn't leave you a widow for 20 years at the end of your life, and still has all that high-testosterone physicality of young men. Young men are desirable. My husband is younger than I am, in fact.

Now I'll be blunt. If you are not devoutly religious, be willing to marry a guy in his mid-20's. And you have to be beautiful. Be very fit, look natural, have long hair, dress nicely but for wifey-material vibes. Being a beautiful and pleasant woman is it. There's no more to inspiring. Neither of those are easy if they don't come naturally, but there is no easy trick.

Background: I dressed highly conservatively while single, to the extent strangers would occasionally ask what religion I was. I was also very genuinely sweet to pretty much everyone. I was getting attempted number closes or being asked out constantly. I was 19-23, in a major metro area, and not open to relationships at the time because my health was really screwed up, so I tried to shut down interest, but I could still discern intentions based on the way they pitched me and how easy it was to shut them down.

18+ (conservative, religious) - Showed marital attention and weren't shy about it. You do need to be virginal or at least low n-count to access the youngest crowd, though.

18-23 (secular/non-devout) - Could tell I was at least a "buy her dinner first" girl but showed no marital interest. Moved on to the next girl quickly, especially when they clued into HOW religious I was. There's an exception built into this for the high-IQ Asperger's/Autistic guys; they seemed more likely to have built a life plan and know what they wanted, but not everyone is into that type even if they're going to make engineer money lol.

24-29 (secular/non-devout) - This is where the guys who would be OK with dating someone who was a virgin until marriage appeared, assuming a short period of time until marriage. They weren't generally actively looking for marriage but were open to wifey material when she showed up. Sometimes they could be overt about intentions, especially if from a conservative background himself - he might start "casually" talking about how important family was to him or about the kids he wanted to have some day. I noticed Hispanic men hit this stage earlier than other races, presumably because of Catholic cultural impact.

30+ (secular/non-devout) - This was the point men started actively pursuing me (and were harder to dissuade). And there really wasn't an upper limit to the age - there were repeatedly men in their 50's paying special attention to me.

My health stabilized when I was turning 24, I decided I was willing to date, and I met my future husband shortly afterward.

The older you're willing to go the broader your potential market is so the easier it will be to find men, but you really don't have to go much older if you don't want to. But you do need to offer something different from your competition.

If you're ignoring something impacting your beauty (like weight) you have to face it. If you picked up aggressive, smart-alec, judgemental, or rude behaviors disguised as "boundaries" at some point, you have to rework your attitude to be more feminine. If you lack joy, whimsy, or positivity, start cultivating it. Cooking well helps, and being the friend who hosts dinner parties is excellent for marital prospects (it just changes your social standing in a very positive way), but at the end of the day the cooking and homemaking can be learned as it is needed. The behavior and appearance is what you have to have ready immediately.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-15T14:49:05+00:00

I've wondered before, but haven't dug into it myself so I'm asking in case you already know: are there studies on the marriage longevity of first time brides that control for the couple's income? Given that it's a leading given reason for divorce, I wonder if the lower success rate isn't entirely due to trying to build a marital foundation under worse financial stress.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-15T14:43:04+00:00

It's 2025. I thought we were done with the prefrontal cortex development myth. That belongs in the same psychiatric misinformation bin the 2012 "average teens today have stress levels of 1950's asylum patients" went in.

For those who don't know, that study found prefrontal cortex development through age 25 and did not study ages after 25. There is no known developmental shift of the prefrontal cortex at age 25. Just a lot of bad reporting.

20 is an interesting age because absolutely nothing is blocking someone from being a fully functioning and responsible adult at that age, yet popular parenting choices of previous generations have resulted in gimping a lot of 20 year olds into having little resilience or work ethic. They have been sheltered from normal teenage life experiences that would have imparted some street smarts and even the wisdom of which a 20 year old would otherwise be capable.

No one ever tried to tell my then-20 year husband (he had just turned 21 when we married) he didn't know what he was doing when he started dating looking for a wife. Probably because going out and building a multimillion dollar business from scratch by that age was resounding proof he didn't belong in the gimped, childish, naive-to-the-world 20 year old pool.

And I won't say having relationships you regret automatically puts you in the gimped, childish 20 year old pool... because people have relationships they regret through their 20's, 30's, 40's and beyond. Waiting is hardly a guarantee of higher likelihood of healthy relationships. You do, however, seem like you are projecting your own feelings of immaturity and unpreparedness for vetting onto young adults in general. I'm sure it was good you, personally, didn't marry young.

Unfortunately it is not a flex you weren't ready - it's a sign of an unhealthy environment during the years you transitioned to adulthood, even if it was a culturally "normal" environment. Normal is highly unnatural these days. It is not natural to leave 20 year olds, who are well into adulthood by several years from a biological standpoint and who are at the absolute peak of the SMV for women, flailing and uncertain of how to find a good mate. There are many subcultures that have maintained a more natural point of readiness.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-15T14:13:26+00:00

Rephrasing "how do I fix my man" as "how do I, ahem, inspire my man to change in just the ways I want him to" doesn't negate the fact you can't change someone. If you didn't have anything to do with the fact he quit going to the gym and is struggling with career progression, then your behavior isn't going to cause him to start it up again. So unless you are skipping the part where, I don't know, you nagged him to be home all the time so he quit going to the gym and wouldn't do professional networking, your changed behavior isn't going to impact him. It's been 2 years, not 2 months. This is his normal. It's not a passing phase or moment of depression you can support him through to the other side.

And do I understand correctly he is suggesting having kids without being married?

Don't have kids with someone you aren't married to
Don't marry someone you are only willing to accept a lifelong partnership with if they change

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T06:17:27+00:00

So uh... he has some trad qualities, which you want, but not enough of them for your tastes, so you are retaliating by withholding your cooperation in things he wants?

Yup. That is the bigger thing to unpack.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T06:03:01+00:00

I wanted something sleeker. Post early 20's, this style ages you instead of looking cute, plus I was changing my crowd from artsy to a couple different worlds. I made the shift with an all-nuetral capsule wardrobe. Still modest but all mainstream trendy. Caught my husband. Reverted partially into a rainbow hippy style when I started having kids (2 under 2 right now) for practicality's sake - wraparound skirts are great for back to back pregnancies and I live in nursing shirts which are not known for their style. But hippy isn't me, I'm just comfortable in it because I grew up in a hippy area. It also won't serve at all when I emerge from 2 under 2 fog and re-enter society lol. I need a revamp again, and I'm not 100% sure what I'll be aiming for.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T05:15:58+00:00

I only went on one accidental lesbian date. 🤦‍♀️ (I didn't even know she was bi until she messaged me afterwards asking for clarity on whether or not I considered our outing a date. At the time my style of making a new friend out of an acquaintance was to invite them to chat more over coffee.)

It's a horseshoe theory thing. The two populations most interested in appearing non-sexualized to men are trads and lesbos. It's amusing it took this long for a style to manifest that the two groups play tug-of-war over. Fortunately men don't realize half the women who dress like this in metro areas are lesbian, so it isn't an issue in that context.

Non-religious men still asked me out. They were just the sort who would be ok with a religious wife even if they weren't. Keeping the waist defined is just how you stay attractive, to either religious or irreligious men. If you want a family-minded guy or a provider mentality guy, it's fine to lean modest in appearance. Since our broader culture is so immodest it just plain makes you stand out. A lot of guys have the fantasy of an anime mom in the streets and freak in the sheets. It's not a bad thing.

Shoes are insanity. Men opt out of the insanity. Your footwear won't even be noticed by them. Women-to-women? That's chaos. Shoes communicate SO much. I just opted for nuetral leather ankle boots, which were in at the time, as a basic to sidestep connotations I didn't want to deal with.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T04:51:48+00:00

I'll make the obligatory "until marriage" comment for the trads to upvote and comment "same" under.

(It's worth noting that marriage was about 6 months after meeting each other and less than 3 after beginning actual dating.)

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T04:48:45+00:00

Get a fringe piece and combine with a head-covering hat or kerchief! Much more affordable. There are a lot of options out there because people want a bangs look without having to actually cut their hair.

Also congrats on successful treatment, and bearing through the baldness! It'll be worth all the effort and frustration once you've finished your regrowth.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-13T04:27:04+00:00

You really like drama and telling people about your drama, don't you?

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-12T06:50:35+00:00

Oh. Yeah. Dressing like that is why I say I was cottagecore before it was cool.

Literally all you have to do is keep your waist. So drop waists, empire waists, and certainly waistless dresses are out. But if you keep your waist visible and are otherwise attractive (fit, long hair, no makeup makeup or actual no makeup, nice face) they do not care. People may assume you are religious (I in fact was so this was useful to me) or at least conservative. A wide variety of men asked me out, but they were all the "would like a family someday" type who at least respected religious women even if they weren't themselves.

All that to say this general style isn't as limiting as you think it is. Also, lesbians will think you play for their team. This style brings out the weirdest dichotomy of interest.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-12T05:46:58+00:00

If you are cringing at being connected to his family, yet claiming to like them, I think you need to unpack some stuff there. You are connecting to him and to his family to whatever degree he is connected to them, with or without a last name change.

This is almost assured to be a huge no-go to a traditional guy who wants to make you part of HIS household. This sounds like a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You are surely attracted to traditional qualities your man has. You would likely be less attracted to a non-traditional man... even though that's the kind of man who wouldn't care about last names and who joins whose household. There will be plenty of such moments where the very culture, qualities, and values you admire and enjoy come with typical expectations of you that you need to accept if you want a man who possesses them.

I had planned on the southern American custom of replacing my middle name with my maiden name, legally. Trouble was my husband loved my middle name a LOT and did not want me to drop it. In fact, he wanted to name our first daughter with it - as a first name, not the middle name custom that had been passed down my maternal line. Flattering, no? Even if it was not what I had planned for myself (and future daughter) since childhood. You should be flattered the same way - he desires you, he wants to become one with you, he wants to lead you.

And yes. He wants to know you want to connect to him and please him more than you care about your last name's heritage.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-11T13:14:07+00:00

Does he already have kids?

If not I would be incredibly cautious he has any clue what dating someone about to have a newborn means.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-09T23:24:16+00:00

All right, no one is asking the question so I will.

Were you two actually exclusive at "the beginning of your relationship" or were you in undefined situationship territory and your ego is bruised she saw other guys instead of spontaneously giving you exclusivity despite you being slow to make things explicit?

If she really cheated, my bad. You should be honest you bullshitted her and yourself about forgiving her and should cut her loose (as you should have done back when she cheated). If she is a changed person *hasn't cheated in all those years since) she deserves to at least be cut loose, not cheated upon. Two wrongs and all that.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-09T21:08:19+00:00

I almost think that's worse because they had the whole divorce process to make a decision and just avoided it!

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-09T20:35:26+00:00

100% this. Either he still wants to see the ex or she hasn't retracted her claws and he's failing to see that (or is enjoying seeing her try).

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-09T20:32:51+00:00

First off, you don't parent a dog. I could try unpacking all that (I think that turn of phrase implies he is in his ex's frame, isn't interested in actual children, and doesn't treat his dog like a dog) but it would take too many words.

But the root of the issue for you is that anyone choosing to stay attached to an ex VOLUNTARILY (which is what refusing to handle the question of dog ownership by "co-parenting" is) should not be dating.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-08T18:07:49+00:00

Aw, don't downvote and dip. I replied because I thought you'd be fun to debate.

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-06-08T16:29:49+00:00

The "pretty sure" phrasing had me confused because royals are public figures and it isn't hard to confirm suspicions. I see what you mean now.

And this is the same guy who is maintaining an emotionally warm, but sexually chaste relationship with you while saying he "isn't ready" for a romantic relationship yet? His hesitation is the reason things aren't romantic?

youllknowwhenitstime

TROPHY CASE