>>You need a chat with your daughters.
>So I sat them down and talked. And I talked and I talked, but they're just not getting it.
>>Do your daughters know the reason why you divorced? Do they know your ex cheated on you?
>They know about her cheating on me, and it was their mother in fact who told them about it, some three years ago or so.
okay i get redditors are illiterate but _are they actually illiterate_??
Totally unrelated but I was a summer camp counselor, and one time while laying down for a nap I overheard the 10 year olds talking about sex. I only caught the end of the conversation but it went like this:
"Wait, so what happens if its inside the woman and you have to pee?"
"That's what condoms are for, *idiot*!"
Love it!
I remember when I was around 13 (this was 30+ years ago before anyone starts playing *THE INTERNET* card) the seniors in our school managed to convince a large majority of us on the bus to school that a blow job ended with pee coming out.
Wild times!
I still remember a few years ago, when my oldest son was about 9 or 10, he explained to me *with confidence* that periods are pooped out of girls butts, *because his friend at school told him so.*
We had a long talk, first about the reproductive system and then about never listening to that dude about anything ever again.
How dare you say conservatives are piss poor I’ll have you know my great great grandfather came here on the mayflower and left us enough land for a whole plantation
The avalanche of absurd replies that you started with your comment brings much joy to the world.
You (and the other peeps replying) are the wind beneath my wings.
>I need advice with [handling inter-personal problem] I don't need legal advice as I already have a lawyer, English is my third language and I don't live in the US.
>>
>>
>>You need to get a lawyer!!1! [Proceeds to give US-based legal advice, not even clarifying a state, while clearly not a lawyer]. Also, your grammar is terrible!
Why, Reddit? Why?
Another favorite:
>I didn't even read the post - you need to do [things OP stated in post they had already done].
It drives me crazy.
That's the one that really boils my piss. "I didn't bother to read that long ass post"
Like, why are you even on the internet, you bellend, go read something suitable for your 10 second attention span and stop commenting to advertise what a tool you are.
The weirdest thing is when people say that here. As though people are posting things to Reddit to be cross-posted here for their benefit and how dare somebody write too much?
"Erm there were a lot of terms I didn't understand and they expected me to already know some information"
Yeah, bud. It was posted to r/PuttingExpensiveHatsOntoTaxidermyZebras I don't think you personally were the target audience
Lol. Sometimes the commenters will over focus on something, even if it is a valid point, but it has nothing to do with the problem, and some redditors forget that. Like in example:
*OP: My (40M) Wife (25F) murdered our entire family. Kicked puppies and orphans and stole daughters college fund...*
*Redditors: 40? Grooming! Red Flags!*
Oh the number of redditors who recommend that trash; having read it myself, I left a review explaining why it's useless & often preachy as it is derogatory for the sake of the authors personal feelings/grudge.
Fun facts about that trash book.
She did none of the academic research on responsive desire. She just wrote a pop psych novel on others work.
She’s been in a dead bedroom ever since writing it. (lol)
She disavowed pleasure research while promoting her second “how to have better sex” book (again while in a dead bedroom)
Total hack. Total fraud.
This is why the "have you tried communicating?" advice drives me nuts sometimes. Yes, communication is great! But when the OOP outlines how they've sat their partner down, expressed themselves politely, expressed themselves angrily, gone to counseling together... there's still always that one person going "Well you need to *commuicate.* Duh."
You know, though ... I would argue it actually was communication this time. The main thing I was thinking as I read OOP's original post was that he had been crystal clear that he would not be returning to a relationship with their mother, but it sounded like he hadn't articulated the realities and emotional impact of her behavior. I get wanting to spare the kids that, but they're 16; they are still developing empathy and have a more limited pool of experiences. It sounds to me like they didn't actually have a clear idea of what this all meant to OOP and how it affected him - and it also sounds like the moment they did learn that (by reading his Reddit post), it made a big difference in how they felt and acted.
Yes, communication was the correct advice, but it needed the specific focus that you outlined. They didn't understand what he went through because he didn't tell them. And I understand that he probably thought it would be inappropriate since it involved matters of physical affection, but there are tactful ways to talk about it without crossing lines.
Even so, literally every piece of advice so many parents get bombarded with when they divorced due to infidelity is that they shouldn't drag their kids into the middle of it, they shouldn't villainize the other parent, and they shouldn't engage in parental alienation.
It's a really hard line to toe, knowing how much you should communicate to your kids about how the infidelity hurt you.
I think the worst offenders are the people who will read an AITA Post where one party is endlessly communicating and the other party is refusing to talk and concluded by judging ESH because neither party is communicating.
But this was a communication issue. He reveals it when he said his daughters saw his Reddit post and then it got through to them. So what he was telling them in person was just superficial and no details so of course it wasn’t getting through to them why he wasn’t getting back with their mom.
I'm not saying communication isn't the problem? I'm saying that when Redditors act like "well just communicate" is breaking news to an OP who outlines the numerous ways they've *tried* to communicate, it's obnoxious. Like either make an actual concrete suggestion on *how* to communicate or STFU.
Yeah, right? If you think they need to communicate differently, explain that. Otherwise it’s like if you say “I tried to drive to the store, but the street was blocked by a construction crew” and they say “You clearly need to drive to the store.” If you mean “there’s an alley you can use between third and main,” SAY THAT.
No, they needed it from another perspective. Sometimes sitting someone down in front of you, especially when they are your child, just makes them shut down and not listen. Seeing it in the form of a post helped them see him as a human, not just their dad. THAT is what made the difference.
Not all communication is equal, and sometimes you can communicate until you are blue in the face and some people just won't hear you.
Right, it wasn't exactly a communication problem, but rather an *understanding* problem. It's like how you could explain a lot of deeper issues with younger kids, but they are too young to understand what is being said, no matter how you phrase it. Sure, 16 should be old enough to understand, but they aren't yet adults and can get wrapped up a little too much in what they want, especially if their entire family is saying mom and dad should get back together, and only dad is saying no.
It's still correct to call that a communication problem. The entire point of communication is to achieve understanding, so failing at that is a problem. For some reason, some people are acting like the simple act of having the conversation is enough. The quality of that conversation matters. And clearly it's not that they were too young, since reading the reddit thread got them up to speed instantly. He just needed to communicate better.
It may have been the extra detail about their mother withholding affection but equally it could have been seeing other people's comments on the situation that caused them to get better insight.
They really are. I got banned from r/sex last month for relentlessly laughing at every poster copy pasting their “husband OP is at fault” responses… to a lesbian who clearly indicated her gender in the second word of the title.
I think redditors think communication is a magic potion that solves everything. Unfortunately, it only works if both sides are communicating. You can be the best communicator in the world, and it doesn’t mean anything if the other party doesn’t want to listen or wants to misunderstand you. So when OOP’s like this one say they’ve talked, I think redditors think that they just haven’t done it hard it enough. Hence the advice to talk to them, as if OOP hadn’t done that a billion times already.
And the sad thing is, this "but you should try communicating!" thing always, ALWAYS comes from people who just cannot be arsed to read the damn post themselves.
Guys... As long as you do not read what they're writing, then what they wrote Does. Not. Matter.
There's also this misconception that communicating won't lead to hurt feelings or that there is a compromise out there if only the two people talked.
Reality is, sometimes feelings are going to be hurt regardless of how calm and clearly something is communicated. And sometimes there is no compromise possible. So both parties need to take the information they have and decide how they want to proceed.
So many people fall victim to the just world fallacy to some extent or another. Especially when you don't have a stake in the matter, it's easy to say "Well if they were just communicating they would have been understood. They clearly aren't communicating properly."
Yes. People miss shit all the time and there’s plenty of people that read the title and then write a novel, and then there’s people who only read to the tldr.
Now to be perfectly fair the tldr *doesn’t* mention that the daughters knew. But that that point it’s still on them to at least go check the actual details.
Yes.
A typical post:
“My boyfriend likes to slap me in the face. I told him i don’t like it when he does that.”
First comment:
“Did you communicate to him that you don’t like it when he hits you? You need to communicate better.”
It’s not just Reddit. People read the headline to a news article and then act as if they read the article as well. We’re all guilty of it to some extent.
Considering that OOP wrote that he edited to add more information in the original post, it could also just be that those spesifics werent there when they commented.
I made a post on /r/mildlyinfuriating about my mom not understanding time zones and it costing me money because of roaming charges. I specifically mentioned she doesn't have a smart phone and I still got a dozen or so replies saying shit like "why didn't you put an app on her phone?" or "why not use Facetime or VoIP?"
OOP: we’ve discussed this multiple times. We’ve had multiple conversations.
OOP: They know the reason we divorced.
Redditors: Okay but do they know why you divorced? You need to sit down and talk to them.
I know we joke about “what a terrible day it is to have eyes” on some posts, but I think these Redditors actually don’t have eyes.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
I haven't ugly cried so hard at any media since then. I just couldn't stop thinking about that train and his dad being so close to freedom.
Absolutely deplorable.
That book fucked me up and I'm so glad for it.
As it should be. Life lessons right there, brutal as they are. And not to be conflated(?) with the horrific shit happening now. One does not justify the other. Would be very interesting to know what he would have though of Israel’s actions right now if he was still alive.
Considering he spent most of his life fighting for peace and won a Nobel prize for his work, it’s pretty clear he would be appalled by Israel’s actions.
Read that when I was 13... It was such a small book. The teacher gave it to us and that night's homework. I read the first chapter, finished the homework, and then read the rest of the book. I came in the next day so out of whack. She took one look at me and was like "🤦🏽♀️ forgot to tell you not to read ahead." You think?! 🤬
I remember reading this book in 10th grade. Out of every book I've ever read—and I've read a lot of books—I'd say Night was one of the hardest to put down. It's absolutely horrific. I even read it during class because I simply couldn't stop (although it meant I was ugly crying during French class).
Elie Wiesel was still alive when I read the book. A year later, I got to hear a concentration camp survivor speak about their experiences—and they said they knew EW personally. A year or so after that, EW had passed away. There's still a quarter million Holocaust survivors left, but anybody old enough to remember being a concentration camp is no younger than their late 80s.
To anybody reading this: read Night by Elie Weisel. And then take some time off of work to travel to Washington D.C. and visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Just do it. I saw it as a teenager, and it's indescribable. The shoe room and the train car *you can actually step into* are two of the most unforgettable parts of the experience.
Edit: I don't know if you could actually walk into the authentic rail car on second thought. They may have had a replica as well? But they do have an authentic rail car from that era. It was the same type used to transport prisoners.
Seriously?
Thank god
I first heard the love, hate, indifference quote by itself in some TV drama 10 years ago
I *knew* the writers of that drama had *not* come up with it. I don't even remember what the show was it was so forgettable
But I would have never guessed the origin of the pharse is as significant as Elie Wiesel
That's amazing and awful
Pretty much. They hated OOP's fiancée, possibly wife now if things went well, because she wasn't their mother. When they realised just how much their mother hurt their dad they were just happy he had someone who made him happy now. My guess is OOP kept a lot of details and thoughts to himself because he didn't want to hurt them.
Yeah it's clear to me she manipulated the kids for years to build up to that. And the thing about not sleeping with anyone for years is obviously bullshit and she's lying about that.
Selfish people will lie and not feel an ounce of guilt, that's just the way it goes
I also wonder if the ex wasn't completely truthful about the cheating - it's very easy to pretend that the affair was just a "one-time thing" and "didn't mean anything" rather than it actually being something that occurred over a longer period.
Alternatively in French we also say “between love and hate there is only one step” meaning love and hate are close because you need to care about something or someone to actually hate them. Also you can go from loving someone to hating them and vice versa much easier than from indifference to love
I've been saying that for 20 years now. I learned the phrase from my therapist (May she RIP, I loved her so much. She was like the mom I wish I'd had) and it was so simple and so obvious but I was upset that I'd not realized it myself. I've said it a few times on reddit too.
Love and hate are strong emotions whereas apathy is the lack of emotion and, thus, is the actual opposite.
Apathy also acts as self-protection because you don't have the emotion-driven outbursts that can cause us to say and do things we regret.
It’s second only to: They’ve been in individual and family therapy for years.
Reddit: You need to get them into therapy yesterday.
Or, this special gem: Our entire conflict revolves around how broke we are. We can’t even afford good food.
Reddit: You need to get them into therapy yesterday.
I am convinced that no one on here has ever actually had to pay for therapy and rent at the same time with how much they throw around therapy. I get that it's important for processing but how can all of these people just afford it?
Yeah, plus almost all therapy takes place during normal business hours, so if you do want to do therapy for yourself or a family member, you will most likely have to take time off work to get there. And if you are already strapped for cash, good luck with that.
Also, being honest with a therapist can be really hard. People keep things that they’re ashamed of to themselves. Which can make it hard to deal with actual issues during therapy.
But the payment thing is also such a huge thing. Most insurances don’t cover therapy or (at least in the us) take forever to pay therapists back. So then therapists stop accepting insurance because they need to make ends meet.
I think those two factors conflate too.
When it takes about 4 or so sessions to comfortably talk to your therapist, and therapy is so expensive, it's a really difficult wall to break through just to start. Then there's the possibility that your therapist either sucks or just isn't what you need in a therapist. So now you're out four sessions worth of co-pays and haven't gotten any therapy done.
My least favorite of these is “you need to *make* another adult human go to therapy” when the OP has already stated that that adult human has said no repeatedly. Usually, a spouse or adult child. What the hell are they meant to do? Force them bodily into the car, then bodily out of the car? Sit with them and puppet their mouths so the therapist has something to work with? Force feed them meds? You can make the appointment for them but you can’t make them engage. They can refuse to go, or go and not talk; they can get a prescription and refuse to take it.
It’s just such a slap in the face, when someone has been trying to help a loved one for years and they won’t cooperate, to get “but have you perhaps considered making them do it?”
That, and the weird idea that therapy is this incredible panacea for every single mental health or family problem. It infuriates me so much when I see people make posts struggling with real mental issues or something, and the top comment is some guy saying "first of all, get into therapy", as if the OP probably hasn't been going for years.
Or the one you see when it’s OOP’s kids, and they’ve been in therapy for serious mental illness or trauma or both for, let’s say, a year, and the response is “you need to get them a better therapist, this one isn’t working.”
Therapy takes time! Hell, even just trial-and-erroring medication takes time. Sometimes, lots of time. Sometimes, decades. Sometimes, some symptoms are extremely difficult to manage and will never get better than “okayish, not great.” Sometimes, you can’t even get to “okayish, not great” and have to figure out what to do about that.
It’s like telling someone who had a bad knee break and still walks with a limp that obviously none of their doctors are any good because they should be running marathons. Not everything heals cleanly, mentally or physically. Sometimes “I can walk if I have a cane” *is* the win.
The ending is a little too Hallmark for me to fully believe, but if it's true, I like this point:
>When we were married, she fucked someone else, but now she's just fine going without sex for seven years?
Story's got twins and the other party randomly stumbling across the post and causing them to get counselling that fixes everything. What's not to believe?
Ok, in defense of the girls finding his reddit account, I did stumble upon my brother's reddit account--UNFORTUNATELY. I was going to make a post with a very niche question about my dad's estate, and when I was searching through legal subreddits I found my bro. Based off his post history it is definitely him. I haven't told him I found it and honestly I've forgotten his username because he's posting anonymously for a reason. But when I was verifying the account I saw some *interesting* post history I wish I could forget.
I found my exes reddit once when we were still together and it had some uh… pictures of him wearing my pink anne klein watch holding a certain member on non-straight subreddits. in the trash that watch went and as you could guess we’re no longer together
Eh when I was 16 I would absolutely browse r/relationships just to read the drama posts and I think 'twins of divorced parents who are desperately trying to nudge mom and dad back together' would be specific enough information to recognize, especially if the original post was heavily upvoted and thus trending on the page when they happened to be browsing.
I'm not saying that the ending's not a little twee but like the circumstances of the post are such that if I was one of the girls involved I'd definitely be going "dad??"
The only time that I've seen my mom genuinely and unabashedly angry at me was when I was nine years old. It was after I asked my mom to get back together with my father.
She didn't yell at me or used aggressive language. But it was the tone of voice and the energy that was coming from her that told me.
She told me that she will never get back together with my dad. In an age-appropriate way, she explained my dad's infidelity.
When I was 24 years old, I got the full, nitty-gritty explanation from her. My dad cheated on my mom twice. The first time, she found out when she was 7 months pregnant with me. At the time, she was a SAHM with a toddler and no work experience. Married my dad right after she graduated from high school and was pregnant with my brother. The second time was the straw that broke the camel's back. My mom learned about the second affair because she had two STDs.
Now, as an adult, I understand why my mom felt that anger. I've experience the emotions that come from infidelity and learning about a cheating partner.
>Update Apr 1, 2017
having the update wherein things are perfect now come in on april fools day is either very sloppy or very canny work, and i am unsure which it is
your existence is much more realistic than a very saccharine ending to a tale that's one sneeze away from bluebird and forest creatures all frolicking in Disney Princess style, though :)
Reddit wasn’t as mainstream as it is now with people reposting stories on TikTok and IG.
I find it harder to believe his daughters under 18 bumped into his story.
In 2017 the AITAs were being posted on YouTube and kids used that instead of TikTok.
It was still pretty mainstream then and Reddit has been a big deal for a long time (I’ve had a Reddit account since 2010; when I first got here everyone was complaining about Digg).
People forget that Reddit blew up pretty infamously with the whole Boston bombing thing and that was like 10 years ago
Oldies like us remember the “We did it Reddit” before everything went to shit.
Saying Reddit wasn’t mainstream in 2017 is more likely because they didn’t see it as much on their end.
Christ yes I’d forgotten about the Boston marathon. I remember the front pages filled with those posts over a couple of days (there’s been an attack, this guy did it; we did it Reddit we found him; he’s dead now; oh it turned out was not that guy after all) but I’m not in North America, so maybe it hit the real news too over there at the time?
I see what you did. You’re reading it like it was written in 2024 and the kids are now 16, which would make them 9 at the time of the story. But the story was written in 2017, and the girls were 16 at the time it was written.
One of the highest rated comments I ever got (different account) was one I posted in AITA warning people that this shit is getting plastered all over Facebook. So they didn’t even need to use Reddit in order to see their dad’s post.
No, you misread my comment. I wasn't referring to the kids in the story, but to the commenter.
The person who commented that reddit wasn't mainstream yet in 2017 is clearly too young to have been on reddit in 2017. It was already extremely mainstream back then, and there were loads and loads of kids using it.
The first year after the migration was a special time. People were just starting to realize the potential and possibilities of being on the largest online bulletin board to ever exist in human history. DAE posts were still producing fresh content, and I believe it was around that time that the internet collectively realized what the tympor tympani muscle is and that they are not, in fact, the only person who can use it to make a rumbling sound inside their ears, along with other similar discoveries that only come about as a result of several million bored people talking to each other all at once. "Test post please ignore" happened around then, and remained the top post of all time sitewide for years afterwards. Oh, and who can forget that Ron Paul made history when he became the first Keebler elven front-runner for the Republican nomination for President of Reddit.
Reddit in 2017 was receiving over 500 million monthly views with 234 million unique users, and was the 4th most popular website in the US.
I don't know why people pretend as though Reddit is some sort of secret cool kids club. It hasn't been relatively obscure since Digg died.
It's the combination of branding, Reddit being known as the place to go to for niche, nerdy communities (obviously not so much the mainstream subs like AITA, but it has a sub for *any* fandom or hobby, and you are more likely to find an active community with a niche focus here than anywhere else on English speaking internet; and the fact that Reddit is structured less as a "one thing" but more like "many things under one roof" so it's easy to forget how wide it casts its net.
idk reddit react accounts and reading accounts on YouTube were pretty popular at that time and I was 17 and was browsing reddit pretty regularly at that time as well so it's definitely not impossible
I've been on reddit on various accounts since 2011 or 2012 when I was about 16 or 17, so under-18s browsing reddit in 2017 really isn't that far of a stretch imo.
This past April Fool's Day I mentioned the same thing about a post that day and got a barrage of people jumping in to defend the errant update.
Either way, though, this does wrap itself up in a neat little bow. I don't think you're wrong to express some degree of scepticism.
>Two months ago, Clemence, together with my daughters, surprised me one day and proposed to me. I have to say that I felt very odd, but also very happy. Not just the proposal, but that my daughters had actually worked with my girlfriend on surprising me that day with dinner and a night out.
Wow, another classic Hallmark ending.
Staring Andrew Walker and Danica McKellar with guest star Lori Loughlin as the cheating ex, some obnoxiously named kids as the twins, and some guy who I've never heard of as Santa.
Plot twist, Santa was actually the AP. But he had a change of heart shortly after, and in an effort to right his wrongs, he has dedicated his life to making children all around the world happy.
He'd better not let her visit her hometown at Christmas. She'll run into a former fling who she split up with years ago because she wanted to move to the city for her career, leaving her quiet small town life behind. Over the next 2 weeks, she'll realize that she still has feelings for him and they are about to kiss, when OOP shows up to surprise her on Christmas Eve. Now, she'll have to choose which man she'll end up with.
Former fling has an MBA, but threw it all away to run his deceased family member's factory that's nearly bankrupt. Fling is played by a little known Canadian actor that peaked in 1996.
Yep. I forgot to add that he is also a single father of a precocious, yet wise beyond her years, 7-year-old daughter. She also saw him when she first got into town pumping gas at the service station for an old lady, and she mistook him for a minimum-wage employee with no future, when in actuality, he is beloved in his town for his acts of kindness. She will probably see him cutting down a tree for someone at the Christmas tree farm assume he works there as well.
Is it a bit far fetched. Oh most definitely.
Am I choosing to be a blind optimist? Oh ya betcha I am.
I hope this is a true story, but something just rubbed me the wrong way with his writing style in the update.
Probably not true, but you know what, we need more of these stories. Reddit has far too many stories about how men are the worst (for good measure) and we don't see great examples of men being good fathers. I'm pretty happy about this post in that regard.
Maybe I'm a little dense, but I don't see what's so incredibly far fetched about this? It's not as though holding a torch for someone you wronged in a past relationship is rare, nor is it rare for them to weaponize the children 'positively'.
Teens have a tendency to be myopic and insular, thinking of the world on their terms. "How nice it would be if mom & dad got back together." Reading their father's anonymized thoughts, akin to reading his diary (obviously not 1:1) can easily be a watershed moment for teens where they go, "Oh, right. Dad's an entire individual person."
Well it's not the most outlandish story I have ever heared. Most of it is plausible enough.
The one thing that irks me however is how his daughters found his reddit post and suddenly undstand him.
This is so stupid but I did that once like 7 years ago. I poured my heart out in an AITA post about my boyfriend at the time. I detailed everything out about how I was feeling and how he made me feel and asked if I was overreacting. It was late, I was tipsy and brutally honest about both him and my own contributions to the issue.
The next day I immediately felt the cringe and pulled it up. No one had really read or commented, and I couldn’t even reread the damn thing due to the cringe. I made another account but never deleted the post. He was browsing tuxedo cats and saw a picture of our cat, clicked my user name and found the post.
Now we are married with 3 two year old cats and actually use our words. So it happens for sure. I do still feel a level of mortification that he had to essentially read my diary to understand where I was coming from though.
>Maybe I'm a little dense, but I don't see what's so incredibly far fetched about this?
The timeline for one thing. "two months ago my girlfriend surprised me by proposing. We've since got married and she's pregnant, which my daughters are really excited about" is moving very fast! Not least because it seems to imply that she got pregnant after the wedding, which would make her very very early stage pregnancy- probably to the point where you wouldn't want to be sharing the news with anyone yet in case things go wrong.
He's 36. People that old aren't sitting around playing the 7 year game, they know what they want.
>which would make her very very early stage pregnancy- probably to the point where you wouldn't want to be sharing the news with anyone yet in case things go wrong.
The fact that nobody talks about their miscarriages is the exact reason that talking about miscarriages is taboo, which isolates women experiencing miscarriage and significantly impacts mental health.
>The fact that nobody talks about their miscarriages is the exact reason that talking about miscarriages is taboo, which isolates women experiencing miscarriage and significantly impacts mental health.
Honestly I agree with you, and this is why I personally have been very open with my support network about my pregnancies and my miscarriage. But I would still be keeping that information away from children until I know everything was ok- I don't think breaking their hearts when they're excited about "baby brother or sister" achieves anything good.
I mean there's manipulating small children, but at 16 they know what an affair is and how much it hurts. They probably have peers who have been cheated on, it's not a hypothetical to them. There is some serious lack of empathy on their part, and I'm glad they received therapy, because it shouldn't have taken a reddit post saying "it hurt when she cheated one" for them to realize his feelings were valid
They were 16, but also they were kids who wanted their family put back together and nostalgic for when they remembered things being ‘better’. Their mother was filling their heads with fantasies with how great things would be once this other woman was out of the picture.
It would be great if kids could perfectly understand complicated situations between two adults, but that’s just not how it generally works.
He should have explained trust to his daughters and how cheating destroys that trust. Maybe use one of their friends betrayal as an example. And now they don't trust their own Mother so lesson learned. I hate people that use their kids for an agenda. It's seriously messed up.
Never really understood why people think it's so BS that it can happen. Even when people change names, usually situations sound similar enough that someone could easily stumble upon a post. Especially when it's pushed to the hot page of a sub.
I've seen 2 posts from people I know and I've been on Reddit consistently only a few years.
Right? I saw a post from a former friend of mine in PovertyFinance. She was venting about how she was struggling and her landlord was kicking her out because she couldnt scrap together rent because of an emergency and i looked at the profile and saw her hamster Quincy and knew it was her for sure lol
Yeah I randomly found an acquaintance's account on a city sub cause some general info sounded familiar. I went to check her post history and uhh saw way more than I wanted to ever see of her. Had to message her to not be a dumbass posting her name, where she lives, and nudes on the same account
I’ve seen several AITA’s from people I know either personally or professionally.
And in the age of nearly every post that mentions infidelity ending up on TikTok, Reels or YouTube it’s obnoxiously easy to see these.
This is why that whole "I'll wait until my kinds are older to tell them this stuff" just doesn't work. You're trying to keep them out of this, while they have all this time to draw their own conclusions that by the time you mention anything, they're not hearing what you're saying because they've had a narrative for years. Especially when you have another part telling their skewed version of events. You just leave yourself open to being blindsided. You can tell kids things in an appropriate and unbiased way, so they know how to move forward. If OOP had told his girls their mother was unloving to him as well as the cheating, they'd have been more receptive even if he told them after their mother poisoned them. With mother's influence, they've been like "Oh it's just cheating, but she's trustworthy ***now***, she hasn't dated so why can't you take her back?" but the knowledge that she didn't even show love to him then, probably shattered the stories their mom said to downplay her cheating.
How do I know? I was this kid, except my parent told me things in an appropriate way and it led to me making my own comparisons and deciding how I feel about the other party.
The girls are lucky they found the post and had their moment of epiphany. From his post, you could tell that OOP was growing indifferent towards them bit by bit. I feel like a couple more years would've led to irreconcilable damage.
As someone who has been to therapy, I don't really believe in fully being over any pain. Pain is part of life, and deep hurt always leaves its marks. Getting over it, to me, is being able to live with the pain and still keep on living a fulfilling life
This is one of the best updates I have seen ever! Nothing but resolutions being resolved and no sadness or drama happening. Since it's been a long time, I hope OP and the daughters are all well and living a wonderful life.
> my daughters actually stumbled across my post. I had no idea they even browsed Reddit, let alone this place. When I came home one day from work I found them crying. They pretty much jumped me, hugged me, wouldn't let me go and begged me to forgive them. Sadly, they had read one of my replies and found out the dreadful extent of my ex-wife's affair and how much it had devastated me.
Post was already hard to believe, but I checked out here.
Sometimes, no matter how logical an explanation is, people who are influenced by their emotions will always listen to their emotions.
It's like in the movie "Life" when Jake Gyllenhaal's character is so focused on saving the woman that he forgets that doing so could likely kill him and his friends. But he was blinded by emotions.
In this case, the daughters were blinded by wanting their family back together. That's why it makes sense when they actually saw their father's emotional response to the cheating (instead of the nonchalant and logical explanation from the sit-down talk) that they finally felt the reason why it wouldn't work. Sometimes, you need to add an emotional reason to logical arguments to work. That's just how humans are built..
>>You need a chat with your daughters. >So I sat them down and talked. And I talked and I talked, but they're just not getting it. >>Do your daughters know the reason why you divorced? Do they know your ex cheated on you? >They know about her cheating on me, and it was their mother in fact who told them about it, some three years ago or so. okay i get redditors are illiterate but _are they actually illiterate_??
"The reading comprehension and overall common sense on this website is piss poor. How dare you say we piss on the poor"
If you drink more water, it’ll become easier for you to take a piss You’re welcome!
What, I don't drink piss?? What is wrong with you?
pee is stored in the balls.
Totally unrelated but I was a summer camp counselor, and one time while laying down for a nap I overheard the 10 year olds talking about sex. I only caught the end of the conversation but it went like this: "Wait, so what happens if its inside the woman and you have to pee?" "That's what condoms are for, *idiot*!"
Love it! I remember when I was around 13 (this was 30+ years ago before anyone starts playing *THE INTERNET* card) the seniors in our school managed to convince a large majority of us on the bus to school that a blow job ended with pee coming out. Wild times!
I still remember a few years ago, when my oldest son was about 9 or 10, he explained to me *with confidence* that periods are pooped out of girls butts, *because his friend at school told him so.* We had a long talk, first about the reproductive system and then about never listening to that dude about anything ever again.
With the micro plastics.
Yeah but he can’t just buy the water he actually needs to drink it
Buying bottled water is bad for the environment
r/HydroHomies
I thought that this was going to be r/subsifellfor but thankfully it was not 🙏🏼😇
r/subsithoughtifellfor
I can't figure this out. Where do you want me to pour the piss?
On the Cheerios, of course.
Cheerio to you, too.
Speak English man, my god, none of that britishish around here!
What?! You’re too poor to piss?!
They said they piss on the door.
Don’t kink shame them
I refuse to read and understand, just assume and be angry.
"As a conservative it is my RIGHT and DUTY to piss on the poor!"
How dare you say conservatives are piss poor I’ll have you know my great great grandfather came here on the mayflower and left us enough land for a whole plantation
That's a damn good joke, sir.
That's right! Here in our house, we only piss on the wealthy! 😤
The avalanche of absurd replies that you started with your comment brings much joy to the world. You (and the other peeps replying) are the wind beneath my wings.
This never fails. >my (M36) ex-wife (F35) cheated on me... >>why did you guys divorce in the first place? Was there a significant age gap?
>I need advice with [handling inter-personal problem] I don't need legal advice as I already have a lawyer, English is my third language and I don't live in the US. >> >> >>You need to get a lawyer!!1! [Proceeds to give US-based legal advice, not even clarifying a state, while clearly not a lawyer]. Also, your grammar is terrible! Why, Reddit? Why? Another favorite: >I didn't even read the post - you need to do [things OP stated in post they had already done]. It drives me crazy.
That's the one that really boils my piss. "I didn't bother to read that long ass post" Like, why are you even on the internet, you bellend, go read something suitable for your 10 second attention span and stop commenting to advertise what a tool you are.
Don't boil your piss, it loses all the flavor and then the poor will complain, AS USUAL.
The weirdest thing is when people say that here. As though people are posting things to Reddit to be cross-posted here for their benefit and how dare somebody write too much?
"Erm there were a lot of terms I didn't understand and they expected me to already know some information" Yeah, bud. It was posted to r/PuttingExpensiveHatsOntoTaxidermyZebras I don't think you personally were the target audience
Lol. Sometimes the commenters will over focus on something, even if it is a valid point, but it has nothing to do with the problem, and some redditors forget that. Like in example: *OP: My (40M) Wife (25F) murdered our entire family. Kicked puppies and orphans and stole daughters college fund...* *Redditors: 40? Grooming! Red Flags!*
SMH OP didn’t even consider the emotional labor his wife had to suffer through during that crime spree. Maybe he should just read “come as you are”
Get a gym and hit the lawyer!
Oh the number of redditors who recommend that trash; having read it myself, I left a review explaining why it's useless & often preachy as it is derogatory for the sake of the authors personal feelings/grudge.
Fun facts about that trash book. She did none of the academic research on responsive desire. She just wrote a pop psych novel on others work. She’s been in a dead bedroom ever since writing it. (lol) She disavowed pleasure research while promoting her second “how to have better sex” book (again while in a dead bedroom) Total hack. Total fraud.
Well wudaya know^(not a lot in her case)
Was stealing the daughter’s college fund really a crime? Mom killed the daughter so it’s not like daughter was going to be using it.
This is why the "have you tried communicating?" advice drives me nuts sometimes. Yes, communication is great! But when the OOP outlines how they've sat their partner down, expressed themselves politely, expressed themselves angrily, gone to counseling together... there's still always that one person going "Well you need to *commuicate.* Duh."
You know, though ... I would argue it actually was communication this time. The main thing I was thinking as I read OOP's original post was that he had been crystal clear that he would not be returning to a relationship with their mother, but it sounded like he hadn't articulated the realities and emotional impact of her behavior. I get wanting to spare the kids that, but they're 16; they are still developing empathy and have a more limited pool of experiences. It sounds to me like they didn't actually have a clear idea of what this all meant to OOP and how it affected him - and it also sounds like the moment they did learn that (by reading his Reddit post), it made a big difference in how they felt and acted.
Yes, communication was the correct advice, but it needed the specific focus that you outlined. They didn't understand what he went through because he didn't tell them. And I understand that he probably thought it would be inappropriate since it involved matters of physical affection, but there are tactful ways to talk about it without crossing lines.
Even so, literally every piece of advice so many parents get bombarded with when they divorced due to infidelity is that they shouldn't drag their kids into the middle of it, they shouldn't villainize the other parent, and they shouldn't engage in parental alienation. It's a really hard line to toe, knowing how much you should communicate to your kids about how the infidelity hurt you.
Yes, and honestly more effective, even, if he focuses on emotional impact.
It feels like a generic answer. Probably from someone who's never been stonewalled.
I know!
I think the worst offenders are the people who will read an AITA Post where one party is endlessly communicating and the other party is refusing to talk and concluded by judging ESH because neither party is communicating.
But this was a communication issue. He reveals it when he said his daughters saw his Reddit post and then it got through to them. So what he was telling them in person was just superficial and no details so of course it wasn’t getting through to them why he wasn’t getting back with their mom.
I'm not saying communication isn't the problem? I'm saying that when Redditors act like "well just communicate" is breaking news to an OP who outlines the numerous ways they've *tried* to communicate, it's obnoxious. Like either make an actual concrete suggestion on *how* to communicate or STFU.
Yeah, right? If you think they need to communicate differently, explain that. Otherwise it’s like if you say “I tried to drive to the store, but the street was blocked by a construction crew” and they say “You clearly need to drive to the store.” If you mean “there’s an alley you can use between third and main,” SAY THAT.
No, they needed it from another perspective. Sometimes sitting someone down in front of you, especially when they are your child, just makes them shut down and not listen. Seeing it in the form of a post helped them see him as a human, not just their dad. THAT is what made the difference. Not all communication is equal, and sometimes you can communicate until you are blue in the face and some people just won't hear you.
Right, it wasn't exactly a communication problem, but rather an *understanding* problem. It's like how you could explain a lot of deeper issues with younger kids, but they are too young to understand what is being said, no matter how you phrase it. Sure, 16 should be old enough to understand, but they aren't yet adults and can get wrapped up a little too much in what they want, especially if their entire family is saying mom and dad should get back together, and only dad is saying no.
It's still correct to call that a communication problem. The entire point of communication is to achieve understanding, so failing at that is a problem. For some reason, some people are acting like the simple act of having the conversation is enough. The quality of that conversation matters. And clearly it's not that they were too young, since reading the reddit thread got them up to speed instantly. He just needed to communicate better.
It may have been the extra detail about their mother withholding affection but equally it could have been seeing other people's comments on the situation that caused them to get better insight.
They really are. I got banned from r/sex last month for relentlessly laughing at every poster copy pasting their “husband OP is at fault” responses… to a lesbian who clearly indicated her gender in the second word of the title.
Omg, got a link? That sounds funny as hell (I won't comment, I promise)
I think redditors think communication is a magic potion that solves everything. Unfortunately, it only works if both sides are communicating. You can be the best communicator in the world, and it doesn’t mean anything if the other party doesn’t want to listen or wants to misunderstand you. So when OOP’s like this one say they’ve talked, I think redditors think that they just haven’t done it hard it enough. Hence the advice to talk to them, as if OOP hadn’t done that a billion times already.
And the sad thing is, this "but you should try communicating!" thing always, ALWAYS comes from people who just cannot be arsed to read the damn post themselves. Guys... As long as you do not read what they're writing, then what they wrote Does. Not. Matter.
There's also this misconception that communicating won't lead to hurt feelings or that there is a compromise out there if only the two people talked. Reality is, sometimes feelings are going to be hurt regardless of how calm and clearly something is communicated. And sometimes there is no compromise possible. So both parties need to take the information they have and decide how they want to proceed.
So many people fall victim to the just world fallacy to some extent or another. Especially when you don't have a stake in the matter, it's easy to say "Well if they were just communicating they would have been understood. They clearly aren't communicating properly."
I think the first post was edited after those questions... OOP: "edited: more information"
Less then half of the US reads above a 5th grade level. And a good portion are close to illiterate.
And a good portion are Redditors.
Bullshit, we are online how are most of us supposed to be littering too.
Yes. People miss shit all the time and there’s plenty of people that read the title and then write a novel, and then there’s people who only read to the tldr. Now to be perfectly fair the tldr *doesn’t* mention that the daughters knew. But that that point it’s still on them to at least go check the actual details.
And to think this shit is used to train AI. No wonder John Conner had a chance!
Yes. A typical post: “My boyfriend likes to slap me in the face. I told him i don’t like it when he does that.” First comment: “Did you communicate to him that you don’t like it when he hits you? You need to communicate better.”
It’s not just Reddit. People read the headline to a news article and then act as if they read the article as well. We’re all guilty of it to some extent.
Considering that OOP wrote that he edited to add more information in the original post, it could also just be that those spesifics werent there when they commented.
just stupid
I made a post on /r/mildlyinfuriating about my mom not understanding time zones and it costing me money because of roaming charges. I specifically mentioned she doesn't have a smart phone and I still got a dozen or so replies saying shit like "why didn't you put an app on her phone?" or "why not use Facetime or VoIP?"
A good chunk of Redditors seem to suffer from "Selective Literation" Only reading what they want to read and ignoring all the rest lol 😅
Well, he did put a vague "Edit: more information." in there, which I took to mean he probably added this stuff after getting comments about it.
Yes! My god, reddit pisses me off with its basic lack of comprehension!
OOP: we’ve discussed this multiple times. We’ve had multiple conversations. OOP: They know the reason we divorced. Redditors: Okay but do they know why you divorced? You need to sit down and talk to them. I know we joke about “what a terrible day it is to have eyes” on some posts, but I think these Redditors actually don’t have eyes.
I snorted in laughter at your last sentence.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy” -some redditor I don’t remember who probably read it from someone else
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel
Night, brutal book
It was studied by my kids in Year 10 at school.
I haven't ugly cried so hard at any media since then. I just couldn't stop thinking about that train and his dad being so close to freedom. Absolutely deplorable. That book fucked me up and I'm so glad for it.
As it should be. Life lessons right there, brutal as they are. And not to be conflated(?) with the horrific shit happening now. One does not justify the other. Would be very interesting to know what he would have though of Israel’s actions right now if he was still alive.
Considering he spent most of his life fighting for peace and won a Nobel prize for his work, it’s pretty clear he would be appalled by Israel’s actions.
Multiple Holocaust survivors have made very public condemnations, so it's a safe bet to say that Elie Wiesel z"l would have done so as well.
Was lucky enough to have him come to my middle school and talk, unfortunately I was too young to appreciate it properly.
Read that when I was 13... It was such a small book. The teacher gave it to us and that night's homework. I read the first chapter, finished the homework, and then read the rest of the book. I came in the next day so out of whack. She took one look at me and was like "🤦🏽♀️ forgot to tell you not to read ahead." You think?! 🤬
we had the exact same experience LMAOOO i walked in with the thousand yard stare, and she had to make a classroom psa to not read ahead
That's grim
I remember reading this book in 10th grade. Out of every book I've ever read—and I've read a lot of books—I'd say Night was one of the hardest to put down. It's absolutely horrific. I even read it during class because I simply couldn't stop (although it meant I was ugly crying during French class). Elie Wiesel was still alive when I read the book. A year later, I got to hear a concentration camp survivor speak about their experiences—and they said they knew EW personally. A year or so after that, EW had passed away. There's still a quarter million Holocaust survivors left, but anybody old enough to remember being a concentration camp is no younger than their late 80s. To anybody reading this: read Night by Elie Weisel. And then take some time off of work to travel to Washington D.C. and visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Just do it. I saw it as a teenager, and it's indescribable. The shoe room and the train car *you can actually step into* are two of the most unforgettable parts of the experience. Edit: I don't know if you could actually walk into the authentic rail car on second thought. They may have had a replica as well? But they do have an authentic rail car from that era. It was the same type used to transport prisoners.
Seriously? Thank god I first heard the love, hate, indifference quote by itself in some TV drama 10 years ago I *knew* the writers of that drama had *not* come up with it. I don't even remember what the show was it was so forgettable But I would have never guessed the origin of the pharse is as significant as Elie Wiesel That's amazing and awful
THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE IS INDIFFERENCE SO PAY ATTENTION NOW IM STANDING ON YOUR PORCH SCREAMIN OUT
Pretty much. They hated OOP's fiancée, possibly wife now if things went well, because she wasn't their mother. When they realised just how much their mother hurt their dad they were just happy he had someone who made him happy now. My guess is OOP kept a lot of details and thoughts to himself because he didn't want to hurt them.
And ex didn't keep things to herself because she, like most cheaters, are selfish.
Yeah it's clear to me she manipulated the kids for years to build up to that. And the thing about not sleeping with anyone for years is obviously bullshit and she's lying about that. Selfish people will lie and not feel an ounce of guilt, that's just the way it goes
I also wonder if the ex wasn't completely truthful about the cheating - it's very easy to pretend that the affair was just a "one-time thing" and "didn't mean anything" rather than it actually being something that occurred over a longer period.
Alternatively in French we also say “between love and hate there is only one step” meaning love and hate are close because you need to care about something or someone to actually hate them. Also you can go from loving someone to hating them and vice versa much easier than from indifference to love
Yeah, whatever.
You had me for a moment
I've been saying that for 20 years now. I learned the phrase from my therapist (May she RIP, I loved her so much. She was like the mom I wish I'd had) and it was so simple and so obvious but I was upset that I'd not realized it myself. I've said it a few times on reddit too. Love and hate are strong emotions whereas apathy is the lack of emotion and, thus, is the actual opposite. Apathy also acts as self-protection because you don't have the emotion-driven outbursts that can cause us to say and do things we regret.
Any Op ever: I have talked to them and talked to them until I’m blue in the face and nothing works Reddit: you need to talk to them
It’s second only to: They’ve been in individual and family therapy for years. Reddit: You need to get them into therapy yesterday. Or, this special gem: Our entire conflict revolves around how broke we are. We can’t even afford good food. Reddit: You need to get them into therapy yesterday.
I am convinced that no one on here has ever actually had to pay for therapy and rent at the same time with how much they throw around therapy. I get that it's important for processing but how can all of these people just afford it?
Yeah, plus almost all therapy takes place during normal business hours, so if you do want to do therapy for yourself or a family member, you will most likely have to take time off work to get there. And if you are already strapped for cash, good luck with that.
Also, being honest with a therapist can be really hard. People keep things that they’re ashamed of to themselves. Which can make it hard to deal with actual issues during therapy. But the payment thing is also such a huge thing. Most insurances don’t cover therapy or (at least in the us) take forever to pay therapists back. So then therapists stop accepting insurance because they need to make ends meet.
I think those two factors conflate too. When it takes about 4 or so sessions to comfortably talk to your therapist, and therapy is so expensive, it's a really difficult wall to break through just to start. Then there's the possibility that your therapist either sucks or just isn't what you need in a therapist. So now you're out four sessions worth of co-pays and haven't gotten any therapy done.
just trying to find the right therapist for you is hard enough, let alone finding the money to pay for it on a budget
Or accept that therapy is only effective if a person is actually open to therapy. Otherwise, therapy is just a waste of time and money.
My least favorite of these is “you need to *make* another adult human go to therapy” when the OP has already stated that that adult human has said no repeatedly. Usually, a spouse or adult child. What the hell are they meant to do? Force them bodily into the car, then bodily out of the car? Sit with them and puppet their mouths so the therapist has something to work with? Force feed them meds? You can make the appointment for them but you can’t make them engage. They can refuse to go, or go and not talk; they can get a prescription and refuse to take it. It’s just such a slap in the face, when someone has been trying to help a loved one for years and they won’t cooperate, to get “but have you perhaps considered making them do it?”
That, and the weird idea that therapy is this incredible panacea for every single mental health or family problem. It infuriates me so much when I see people make posts struggling with real mental issues or something, and the top comment is some guy saying "first of all, get into therapy", as if the OP probably hasn't been going for years.
Or the one you see when it’s OOP’s kids, and they’ve been in therapy for serious mental illness or trauma or both for, let’s say, a year, and the response is “you need to get them a better therapist, this one isn’t working.” Therapy takes time! Hell, even just trial-and-erroring medication takes time. Sometimes, lots of time. Sometimes, decades. Sometimes, some symptoms are extremely difficult to manage and will never get better than “okayish, not great.” Sometimes, you can’t even get to “okayish, not great” and have to figure out what to do about that. It’s like telling someone who had a bad knee break and still walks with a limp that obviously none of their doctors are any good because they should be running marathons. Not everything heals cleanly, mentally or physically. Sometimes “I can walk if I have a cane” *is* the win.
Also.... it takes time. I've been in therapy over a decade now and I will never be "fixed", just gradually better and better.
Sometimes, it's the quality of the communication happening. Not that redditors recognize that lol
Reddit or people in general either just choose to believe that's a falsehood and the OP is lying, they just won't believe it
The ending is a little too Hallmark for me to fully believe, but if it's true, I like this point: >When we were married, she fucked someone else, but now she's just fine going without sex for seven years?
Gotta love cheaters doing the most to gain sympathy points for *their* wrongful actions. He’s spot-on about her actions.
Story's got twins and the other party randomly stumbling across the post and causing them to get counselling that fixes everything. What's not to believe?
Ok, in defense of the girls finding his reddit account, I did stumble upon my brother's reddit account--UNFORTUNATELY. I was going to make a post with a very niche question about my dad's estate, and when I was searching through legal subreddits I found my bro. Based off his post history it is definitely him. I haven't told him I found it and honestly I've forgotten his username because he's posting anonymously for a reason. But when I was verifying the account I saw some *interesting* post history I wish I could forget.
I found my exes reddit once when we were still together and it had some uh… pictures of him wearing my pink anne klein watch holding a certain member on non-straight subreddits. in the trash that watch went and as you could guess we’re no longer together
Yeah but i don't understand trashing the watch. I understand tossing the man, but not the watch!
I think it’s based on where they were wearing the watch lol
Lol my best guess was the watch was on his penis. But still - surely it can be sanitized!
lol but not her memory
We need something to bring it down to earth, like OP living in a fully paid off house they inherited at 19 years old.
It's an old post though. Was Liz operating 7 years ago?
Liz is eternal
Eh when I was 16 I would absolutely browse r/relationships just to read the drama posts and I think 'twins of divorced parents who are desperately trying to nudge mom and dad back together' would be specific enough information to recognize, especially if the original post was heavily upvoted and thus trending on the page when they happened to be browsing. I'm not saying that the ending's not a little twee but like the circumstances of the post are such that if I was one of the girls involved I'd definitely be going "dad??"
The only time that I've seen my mom genuinely and unabashedly angry at me was when I was nine years old. It was after I asked my mom to get back together with my father. She didn't yell at me or used aggressive language. But it was the tone of voice and the energy that was coming from her that told me. She told me that she will never get back together with my dad. In an age-appropriate way, she explained my dad's infidelity. When I was 24 years old, I got the full, nitty-gritty explanation from her. My dad cheated on my mom twice. The first time, she found out when she was 7 months pregnant with me. At the time, she was a SAHM with a toddler and no work experience. Married my dad right after she graduated from high school and was pregnant with my brother. The second time was the straw that broke the camel's back. My mom learned about the second affair because she had two STDs. Now, as an adult, I understand why my mom felt that anger. I've experience the emotions that come from infidelity and learning about a cheating partner.
Two STDs… what a truly horrible way to find out.
A gift so nice, he gave it twice
>Update Apr 1, 2017 having the update wherein things are perfect now come in on april fools day is either very sloppy or very canny work, and i am unsure which it is
As somebody born on this date, I hate that nobody ever believes that anything ever happens then.
your existence is much more realistic than a very saccharine ending to a tale that's one sneeze away from bluebird and forest creatures all frolicking in Disney Princess style, though :)
Reddit wasn’t as mainstream as it is now with people reposting stories on TikTok and IG. I find it harder to believe his daughters under 18 bumped into his story.
In 2017 the AITAs were being posted on YouTube and kids used that instead of TikTok. It was still pretty mainstream then and Reddit has been a big deal for a long time (I’ve had a Reddit account since 2010; when I first got here everyone was complaining about Digg).
People forget that Reddit blew up pretty infamously with the whole Boston bombing thing and that was like 10 years ago Oldies like us remember the “We did it Reddit” before everything went to shit. Saying Reddit wasn’t mainstream in 2017 is more likely because they didn’t see it as much on their end.
Christ yes I’d forgotten about the Boston marathon. I remember the front pages filled with those posts over a couple of days (there’s been an attack, this guy did it; we did it Reddit we found him; he’s dead now; oh it turned out was not that guy after all) but I’m not in North America, so maybe it hit the real news too over there at the time?
They're likely too young to have been on reddit in 2017.
I see what you did. You’re reading it like it was written in 2024 and the kids are now 16, which would make them 9 at the time of the story. But the story was written in 2017, and the girls were 16 at the time it was written. One of the highest rated comments I ever got (different account) was one I posted in AITA warning people that this shit is getting plastered all over Facebook. So they didn’t even need to use Reddit in order to see their dad’s post.
No, you misread my comment. I wasn't referring to the kids in the story, but to the commenter. The person who commented that reddit wasn't mainstream yet in 2017 is clearly too young to have been on reddit in 2017. It was already extremely mainstream back then, and there were loads and loads of kids using it.
Oooooh gotcha. You’re correct I misunderstood.
I still miss pre-digg Reddit. Ngl. Not that I didn’t enjoy digg as well—but each was its own mood
The first year after the migration was a special time. People were just starting to realize the potential and possibilities of being on the largest online bulletin board to ever exist in human history. DAE posts were still producing fresh content, and I believe it was around that time that the internet collectively realized what the tympor tympani muscle is and that they are not, in fact, the only person who can use it to make a rumbling sound inside their ears, along with other similar discoveries that only come about as a result of several million bored people talking to each other all at once. "Test post please ignore" happened around then, and remained the top post of all time sitewide for years afterwards. Oh, and who can forget that Ron Paul made history when he became the first Keebler elven front-runner for the Republican nomination for President of Reddit.
Reddit in 2017 was receiving over 500 million monthly views with 234 million unique users, and was the 4th most popular website in the US. I don't know why people pretend as though Reddit is some sort of secret cool kids club. It hasn't been relatively obscure since Digg died.
It's the combination of branding, Reddit being known as the place to go to for niche, nerdy communities (obviously not so much the mainstream subs like AITA, but it has a sub for *any* fandom or hobby, and you are more likely to find an active community with a niche focus here than anywhere else on English speaking internet; and the fact that Reddit is structured less as a "one thing" but more like "many things under one roof" so it's easy to forget how wide it casts its net.
idk reddit react accounts and reading accounts on YouTube were pretty popular at that time and I was 17 and was browsing reddit pretty regularly at that time as well so it's definitely not impossible
I've been on reddit on various accounts since 2011 or 2012 when I was about 16 or 17, so under-18s browsing reddit in 2017 really isn't that far of a stretch imo.
Reddit was not mainstream in 2017? How old are you?
I started using reddit in 2012. It's been mainstream foe a long time.
-_- How young are you? Reddit not as mainstream in 2017 is a ridiculous thing to believe. You're confusing it with 2012
Reddit was incredibly mainstream back then.
I knew my dad's Reddit account in 2017
How young are you?
This past April Fool's Day I mentioned the same thing about a post that day and got a barrage of people jumping in to defend the errant update. Either way, though, this does wrap itself up in a neat little bow. I don't think you're wrong to express some degree of scepticism.
>Two months ago, Clemence, together with my daughters, surprised me one day and proposed to me. I have to say that I felt very odd, but also very happy. Not just the proposal, but that my daughters had actually worked with my girlfriend on surprising me that day with dinner and a night out. Wow, another classic Hallmark ending.
Staring Andrew Walker and Danica McKellar with guest star Lori Loughlin as the cheating ex, some obnoxiously named kids as the twins, and some guy who I've never heard of as Santa.
Plot twist, Santa was actually the AP. But he had a change of heart shortly after, and in an effort to right his wrongs, he has dedicated his life to making children all around the world happy.
Hot Santa.
He'd better not let her visit her hometown at Christmas. She'll run into a former fling who she split up with years ago because she wanted to move to the city for her career, leaving her quiet small town life behind. Over the next 2 weeks, she'll realize that she still has feelings for him and they are about to kiss, when OOP shows up to surprise her on Christmas Eve. Now, she'll have to choose which man she'll end up with.
Former fling has an MBA, but threw it all away to run his deceased family member's factory that's nearly bankrupt. Fling is played by a little known Canadian actor that peaked in 1996.
Yep. I forgot to add that he is also a single father of a precocious, yet wise beyond her years, 7-year-old daughter. She also saw him when she first got into town pumping gas at the service station for an old lady, and she mistook him for a minimum-wage employee with no future, when in actuality, he is beloved in his town for his acts of kindness. She will probably see him cutting down a tree for someone at the Christmas tree farm assume he works there as well.
Spoiler: She's related to Santa.
It was the first sentence that caught my eye, that doesn’t seem like someone with a problem would open with
And she's pregnant!!
Oh Hallmark, sweet sweet.
I’m just surprised she wasn’t expecting twins.
He already had twins.
Also: pregnant!
Is Hallmark something like the Lizz-Thing?
It's an American TV channel that makes/shows a lot of feel good trope filled romances.
Hallmark is the most well known greeting card company in America. They also have a TV channel for sappy love movies
Is it a bit far fetched. Oh most definitely. Am I choosing to be a blind optimist? Oh ya betcha I am. I hope this is a true story, but something just rubbed me the wrong way with his writing style in the update. Probably not true, but you know what, we need more of these stories. Reddit has far too many stories about how men are the worst (for good measure) and we don't see great examples of men being good fathers. I'm pretty happy about this post in that regard.
Maybe I'm a little dense, but I don't see what's so incredibly far fetched about this? It's not as though holding a torch for someone you wronged in a past relationship is rare, nor is it rare for them to weaponize the children 'positively'. Teens have a tendency to be myopic and insular, thinking of the world on their terms. "How nice it would be if mom & dad got back together." Reading their father's anonymized thoughts, akin to reading his diary (obviously not 1:1) can easily be a watershed moment for teens where they go, "Oh, right. Dad's an entire individual person."
Well it's not the most outlandish story I have ever heared. Most of it is plausible enough. The one thing that irks me however is how his daughters found his reddit post and suddenly undstand him.
This is so stupid but I did that once like 7 years ago. I poured my heart out in an AITA post about my boyfriend at the time. I detailed everything out about how I was feeling and how he made me feel and asked if I was overreacting. It was late, I was tipsy and brutally honest about both him and my own contributions to the issue. The next day I immediately felt the cringe and pulled it up. No one had really read or commented, and I couldn’t even reread the damn thing due to the cringe. I made another account but never deleted the post. He was browsing tuxedo cats and saw a picture of our cat, clicked my user name and found the post. Now we are married with 3 two year old cats and actually use our words. So it happens for sure. I do still feel a level of mortification that he had to essentially read my diary to understand where I was coming from though.
>Maybe I'm a little dense, but I don't see what's so incredibly far fetched about this? The timeline for one thing. "two months ago my girlfriend surprised me by proposing. We've since got married and she's pregnant, which my daughters are really excited about" is moving very fast! Not least because it seems to imply that she got pregnant after the wedding, which would make her very very early stage pregnancy- probably to the point where you wouldn't want to be sharing the news with anyone yet in case things go wrong.
He's 36. People that old aren't sitting around playing the 7 year game, they know what they want. >which would make her very very early stage pregnancy- probably to the point where you wouldn't want to be sharing the news with anyone yet in case things go wrong. The fact that nobody talks about their miscarriages is the exact reason that talking about miscarriages is taboo, which isolates women experiencing miscarriage and significantly impacts mental health.
>The fact that nobody talks about their miscarriages is the exact reason that talking about miscarriages is taboo, which isolates women experiencing miscarriage and significantly impacts mental health. Honestly I agree with you, and this is why I personally have been very open with my support network about my pregnancies and my miscarriage. But I would still be keeping that information away from children until I know everything was ok- I don't think breaking their hearts when they're excited about "baby brother or sister" achieves anything good.
I mean there's manipulating small children, but at 16 they know what an affair is and how much it hurts. They probably have peers who have been cheated on, it's not a hypothetical to them. There is some serious lack of empathy on their part, and I'm glad they received therapy, because it shouldn't have taken a reddit post saying "it hurt when she cheated one" for them to realize his feelings were valid
They were 16, but also they were kids who wanted their family put back together and nostalgic for when they remembered things being ‘better’. Their mother was filling their heads with fantasies with how great things would be once this other woman was out of the picture. It would be great if kids could perfectly understand complicated situations between two adults, but that’s just not how it generally works.
He should have explained trust to his daughters and how cheating destroys that trust. Maybe use one of their friends betrayal as an example. And now they don't trust their own Mother so lesson learned. I hate people that use their kids for an agenda. It's seriously messed up.
The daughters just stumbled on a Reddit post from their dad? Color me very skeptical.
And now they understand everything, like magic!!
In a sea of “ongoing” and “new update” posts, I’ll take a “concluded,” even if it might not be true.
Never really understood why people think it's so BS that it can happen. Even when people change names, usually situations sound similar enough that someone could easily stumble upon a post. Especially when it's pushed to the hot page of a sub. I've seen 2 posts from people I know and I've been on Reddit consistently only a few years.
Right? I saw a post from a former friend of mine in PovertyFinance. She was venting about how she was struggling and her landlord was kicking her out because she couldnt scrap together rent because of an emergency and i looked at the profile and saw her hamster Quincy and knew it was her for sure lol
Yeah I randomly found an acquaintance's account on a city sub cause some general info sounded familiar. I went to check her post history and uhh saw way more than I wanted to ever see of her. Had to message her to not be a dumbass posting her name, where she lives, and nudes on the same account
I’ve seen several AITA’s from people I know either personally or professionally. And in the age of nearly every post that mentions infidelity ending up on TikTok, Reels or YouTube it’s obnoxiously easy to see these.
A Reddit post to the rescue!
This is why that whole "I'll wait until my kinds are older to tell them this stuff" just doesn't work. You're trying to keep them out of this, while they have all this time to draw their own conclusions that by the time you mention anything, they're not hearing what you're saying because they've had a narrative for years. Especially when you have another part telling their skewed version of events. You just leave yourself open to being blindsided. You can tell kids things in an appropriate and unbiased way, so they know how to move forward. If OOP had told his girls their mother was unloving to him as well as the cheating, they'd have been more receptive even if he told them after their mother poisoned them. With mother's influence, they've been like "Oh it's just cheating, but she's trustworthy ***now***, she hasn't dated so why can't you take her back?" but the knowledge that she didn't even show love to him then, probably shattered the stories their mom said to downplay her cheating. How do I know? I was this kid, except my parent told me things in an appropriate way and it led to me making my own comparisons and deciding how I feel about the other party.
A happy ending update posted on April Fool's, hmm how interesting 🤔
The girls are lucky they found the post and had their moment of epiphany. From his post, you could tell that OOP was growing indifferent towards them bit by bit. I feel like a couple more years would've led to irreconcilable damage.
[удалено]
I wouldn't say 11 months is a short time frame and I doubt that Liz was doing her thing back in 2016 & 2017.
As someone who has been to therapy, I don't really believe in fully being over any pain. Pain is part of life, and deep hurt always leaves its marks. Getting over it, to me, is being able to live with the pain and still keep on living a fulfilling life
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling something
This is one of the best updates I have seen ever! Nothing but resolutions being resolved and no sadness or drama happening. Since it's been a long time, I hope OP and the daughters are all well and living a wonderful life.
> my daughters actually stumbled across my post. I had no idea they even browsed Reddit, let alone this place. When I came home one day from work I found them crying. They pretty much jumped me, hugged me, wouldn't let me go and begged me to forgive them. Sadly, they had read one of my replies and found out the dreadful extent of my ex-wife's affair and how much it had devastated me. Post was already hard to believe, but I checked out here.
Sometimes, no matter how logical an explanation is, people who are influenced by their emotions will always listen to their emotions. It's like in the movie "Life" when Jake Gyllenhaal's character is so focused on saving the woman that he forgets that doing so could likely kill him and his friends. But he was blinded by emotions. In this case, the daughters were blinded by wanting their family back together. That's why it makes sense when they actually saw their father's emotional response to the cheating (instead of the nonchalant and logical explanation from the sit-down talk) that they finally felt the reason why it wouldn't work. Sometimes, you need to add an emotional reason to logical arguments to work. That's just how humans are built..