I was on food stamps for a few months after I quit my job a few years ago. I felt like I didn't have much choice but to quit because I worked in a doctor's office, came down with bronchitis, and they made me continue to work when I was sicker than most of our patients. I immediately put in my two weeks. I felt like if…

It's still too early in the morning to read about something this sickening.

The proposal didn't quite happen, but he'd already bought the ring. He was my high school sweetheart. I really did love him. But I decided at the beginning of the summer that I was sick of being the one to drive hours to see him while he played video games and failed out of college and refused to talk about any of the…

eh, I wouldn't have been offended, personally. My fiance proposed on our anniversary, which I thought was sweeter. But I love outdoor weddings, so unless I lived in Hawaii or Florida, February would not be my pick for a wedding date.

omg I am obsessed with this. <3 <3 <3

I think it's the ritual piece in particular that's missing from those celebrations. Any of them could fit the bill if they were celebrated that way, but they are missing the awe, the ceremony and the solemnity of a wedding. Bar and bat mitzvahs fit the bill, as do sorority and fraternity initiations, but birthday…

What I think this is about is that marriage serves as a rite of passage in our culture and we really don't have many other rites of passage, which often fill a psychological need. We need to come up with some other ceremony/ritual that would help people feel like they've succeeded or made it to adulthood.

In our case, yeah, we'd both just walk away. We don't own anything valuable, I am by no means rich or even really solidly middle class, just make enough to know I can pay the bills, and if we did break up we'd still care about each other and I wouldn't regret having helped him. I've had to disentangle from…

My fiance and I have lived together for a few years, and when we got engaged we talked about money and decided that since he is going to school right now and doesn't have a lot of money, he would pay for my ring (which cost about 3x what his will cost) and I'd pay for his ring plus the wedding (not counting the venue,…

It was an abusive relationship and I felt like I had to leave in secret to get away safely. I left the state and drove all night with two friends to Las Vegas, where one of them lived. The next day I got up, took a shower and left my ring on the bathroom counter because I couldn't bear to wear it, and then we all went…

I once had a roommate who was providing drugs to her underage brother, and when we kicked her out for it her brother shot a hole in our window.

lol it's a long story. here's the explanation: http://itheedread.jezebel.com/ok-i-get-how-t…

I honestly didn't say anything to her about her decision, because I've been in abusive relationships in the past and I know you're right about criticism making it worse. I told her I couldn't come to her wedding but I love her and I am here for her if she needs me, and left it at that. It still makes me sad and a bit…

I responded to her email by telling her I'm always here for her, and I mean it. I love my sister, even if I'm a little mad at her and a lot scared for her. I hope she does come around and wants me back in her life. I'm sorry that your family hasn't allowed your sister-in-law to grow - that's really sad.

it's a long story. She was a really close friend like 10 years ago when we were in high school, and I knew she would have been hurt by being left out. But she's also really, really bad at communicating and has a lot of untreated PTSD symptoms, which is basically why she was such a shitty friend/roommate. So I put up…

I get where you're coming from, but it's not really that straightforward. This is also about her making a stupid, dangerous decision. The guy she's marrying is extremely conservative and I'm willing to bet a lot of money he's going to be abusive based on a few things. My dad is abusive, my mom (also conservative but…

Yeah, that's basically true, I do feel like it's not fair. My fiance and I have already been engaged for a year and she already agreed to be in the wedding party months and months ago. It's a huge breech of etiquette to have a wedding so close to mine in the first place, but if it were in the country I wouldn't even…

In the case of the ex-roommate, I'm not really sure. Guilt, mostly. That's the main lesson I've learned from all this: don't be friends with people out of guilt!

hahaha. I hope so, because the guy she's marrying is a serious douchebag, but they're both religious so I doubt it. :/

She's religious and I'm not, so she kind of acts like I don't matter *since I'm going to hell anyway.* The other people, well, honestly the first was in my wedding out of guilt - I mean, she was my roommate, I felt like she'd be mad at me if I didn't include her - and the second actually was a good friend of mine for…