This is a really nice story :)

I think this is why a lot of people get divorced. It takes time to be together and life with work and children leaves little of that left over for the couple. Then kids grow and become their own people and leave an empty space; where people once connected as parents is a gaping hole that they’re staring across like…

Can you please explain the free rider? Thanks

Chill. The virus isn’t even here. If you did get it, the chances of birth defects from it are LOW. Other viruses, including the ubiquitous cytalomegavirus, are also “linked” with microcephaly. You’ll be fine and your baby will be fine. There is enough stress associated with pregnancy anyway, and it’s usually over…

Sometimes I break down into giggle fits when I’m trying to be ‘hard’ with my tween. They are some real bonding moments, we end up hugging and I give him a noogie and end with “just stop being a jerk, ok?” or something along those lines. I’m hoping he’ll grow up knowing there is no definitive LINE between being an…

I’m really sorry to hear you have been in a similar situation, and glad you got out. The anxiety and depression is really hard to recover from. I felt suicidal at times with him, even when I had a small child, because I just couldn’t see that it wasn’t me that was the problem, and believed him that there was something…

I’m sure you’re right. It might be worth thinking about why you got into that relationship in the first place too, if your parents are not very supportive. I think I was so used to getting scraps of affection from them, it was hard to see that the terrible treatment from my ex was anything but normal. I’m pretty sure…

That sounds awful. I’m so sorry your parents treated you like that! My dad did something of the same thing with my ex. Not immediately, but over time. Like he forgot because he wanted to forget, and started advocating for me to “be nice” to him. Projecting his own issues I think, but damn that messes with a child’s…

“believed that anything he did that was hurtful wasn’t abuse because I wasn’t capable of being abused. I thought that anything he did wrong was my fault because I knew that I was a stronger person than he was and if I could just control myself and my reactions to his bullshit better, he wouldn’t be such a dick all the…

Totally agree. My husband worries that he seems dull to people. When really he is wonderful, and quiet about most things.

This was me too. My overconfidence in myself and feeling like I could take anything life (or my ex) threw at me got me in a lot of trouble. And when I reached out for help from people that both of us knew, it was denied because I “didn’t seem like a victim.” How people act publicly and how they are privately can be…

So if the baby had died, would she be charged with murder? Is that what’s happening now?

The baby is alive. Didn’t catch that on the first go-round.

There is a boy named Declan in my kids’ school and the kids think his name is “Duckling.” Fortunately, they’re in elementary school, but I hope they figure it out by highschool.

yes

narcissism? jk no sisters for me

Eh, it’s not “only because” though. It’s because you value her as an equal and if you want to have the same name as her, you have just as much to “lose” or “gain” as she does and you’ll consider it without regard to your or her gender.

Are you my brother?

I don’t exactly buy this as a good enough reason not to. There are a lot of women walking around who took their husbands’ awful sounding or boring, or rhyming, or ugly last names.

And like I originally said, it is really a good, quick way to evaluate someone’s values. If that is important to you, I hope you find someone who it is important to as well, or who at least supports your decision. It may not be a coincidence that your relationship with someone who wasn’t open to the idea, didn’t work…