Category - Personal Stories

Fresh updates and insights

AITAH for deciding to cut my stepmum out of my life after how she treated us following our baby’s death?

I have always had a rocky relationship with my dad and his wife - my stepmother. If she decides you’re her best friend, you can go from spending every weekend together to not speaking for months and being badmouthed. She has a reputation for being cold, calculating, and, at times, downright vindictive. Other family members refuse to be in her company due to similar experiences. We’ve excused her behaviour in the past, saying she’s misunderstood, but from the outside, it’s clear that’s just who she is. In May 2024, my wife and I lost our daughter. She was stillborn, and it has been the most excruciating time of our lives. Two days later, my dad and stepmum came to visit. They didn’t bring flowers or a card (apparently, they “didn’t have time”), which I could forgive. But when I offered water and juice, she scoffed, asked if that’s all we had, and requested a glass, ice, and "something stronger"—as if it were a party. I went along with it to keep the peace, but the resentment built. She said all the wrong things to grieving parents, like “At least you can get pregnant” and “It’s just something you’ll have to get on with.” My dad, usually silent, was visibly embarrassed. We had shown more sorrow for her dead dog than she did for our daughter. We had a phone call later, where she seemed to want to make amends—until she blamed my wife and me for the awkwardness and demanded we take responsibility (for what, I have no idea). She ended by saying she was “giving us space” but would always be there for us. That was the last we heard from her. She never reached out for our daughter’s funeral, my birthday, Father’s Day, her due date, Christmas, or New Year. She ignored our second pregnancy announcement and didn’t attend the charity walk we did in our daughter’s memory, where the rest of the family showed support. My wife hasn’t reached out as she’s beyond hurt and is now navigating a high-risk pregnancy. The last straw was when she posted on Facebook at New Year, saying 2024 was the best year of her life—the same year she lost what was supposed to be her first granddaughter. Now, with eight weeks until our second daughter arrives, the thought of her pretending everything is fine, holding our baby, makes us feel sick. I don’t want her in my life anymore. She has shown zero respect for my wife or daughter, and I refuse to let her overshadow what should be a joyful time. AITAH for cutting her out?

2025-10-19 06:06:57

Anya Petrova

Personal Stories

AITA for refusing to leave the room so someone could tell a story?

My MIL was born in Iran and her family had to flee during the late revolution in the late nineteen seventies. She has always made it clear that she doesn’t like me and that she doesn’t approve of her son marrying a white woman. Interestingly enough her other son did not marry a Persian but MIL decided Filipino was close enough and treats SIL much better. BIL and SIL have a 15 year old and 13 year old. Last night we had family dinner and SIL said the 15 year old had been wanting to ask MIL something and she explained that she wants to learn more about her culture and she is interested in her life in Iran and the revolution. MIL looked right at me and said she wasn’t telling the story with me there. I refused to leave on principle and clearly everyone at the table was annoyed with me. My husband told his mom she was being rude and she got emotional and said it’s a very painful story, and hard to tell, and I don’t get to know it. I still refused to leave and after dinner she took SIL and her two granddaughter in her bedroom and I’m assuming she told them because when they call me out the two girls had tears in their eyes. I told my husband that was so rude and exclusionary that I don’t even want to go back but everyone else in the family thinks I was rude and dramatic.

2025-11-21 15:27:52

Elise Dubois

Relationships

AITAH For Refusing To Give My Ex “Full Access” To My Life Just Because We Co-Parent?

I (25F) have a six-month-old baby with my ex (24M), and we’ve been trying to co-parent since we split a few months ago but now he’s saying I’m being an “Asshole” for not telling him everything I do when the baby isn’t even with me. We were together from high school (2015) up until recently. Our breakup happened shortly after I gave birth, when I found out he had been cheating with multiple women. His excuse? That I wasn’t being “sexual enough” postpartum and he had a “high libido.” Yeah… that was enough for me to walk away. Since then, I’ve been rebuilding my life. I got more involved in my church, formed new friendships, and started feeling like myself again for the first time in a while. I’ve also done everything I can to keep things calm and respectful for the sake of our baby. But now, he’s making it an issue that I don’t share details about my personal life with him. He says I should be more “transparent” and that it’s important for co-parenting. He wants to know who I’m hanging out with, what I’m doing, who my new friends are, even if I’m just out while he has the baby. His reasoning? He tells me about what he’s doing, so I should do the same. But here’s the thing: I’ve never asked him for any of that information. He voluntarily tells me, “I’m about to hang out with this girl,” or “I’ve been seeing someone new” even when our child is not in his care at the time. It’s his personal time, and I’ve told him I don’t need or want those updates. Yet now he’s acting like because he shares that info with me, I owe him the same level of openness, even though I’ve never requested it and it’s unrelated to our child. He’s also been following some of my new friends on social media and asking me questions about them. My account is private, so I don’t know how he’s even finding them. I suspect he’s using a burner account or he’s viewing my church’s page who posts pictures of me and the people I hang out with. I had to ask them to stop posting me for a while because he was using those posts to find my friends and follow them. He’s never reached out to any of them, but the whole thing feels really creepy and invasive. It’s crossing a boundary for me. I’ve talked to some friends about this, and their opinions are mixed. Some say he has a point — that we should be transparent with each other since we share a child. Others think he’s overstepping and that this isn’t part of normal co-parenting, especially since our child hasn’t met any of these people and I’m not dating anyone right now. Even my mom is siding with him. She’s liked him since we were together in high school, and anytime we argued, she tended to take his side and ask what I did wrong. Now she’s saying I should be open about who I’m hanging out with, for the sake of peace. I’m not trying to be shady or difficult. I believe in healthy boundaries. If someone’s going to be around my child, I’ll share that. But just living my life and seeing friends when my baby isn’t with me? I don’t think I owe him a play-by-play.

2025-10-18 07:03:45

Anya Petrova

Family

AITA for telling my mother to stop telling people the story behind my name?

Mobile so sorry for formatting I (15M) and my mother (39F) have similar names due to my mother naming me after her. I don't dislike my name at all. But the story behind it and how my mother constantly wants to tell it to the world is the problem. For backstory, I am her second child and for her first child, my older brother (20M) she wanted to know his gender, and she found out and named him. For me however, she decided to keep it a surprise, however, she for some reason was confident that I would be female and was dead set on naming me after her. Her name is Alexandra, so she would have named me Alexandra as well (fake names) When I came out male, she simply named me Alexander (fake name) However she would constantly tell everyone she befriended, if we were together, the story on how I was named. It embarrasses me to no end and I've told her over and over to please not tell that to every new friend her or I make. She even told all of my friends parents the story despite me asking her to not tell them (she wants to meet my friends parents for the first time if I want to sleep over for whatever reason) This all boiled down to Thursday when my mother and I went to the grocery store and as we were leaving a duo of Charity workers came up to us to ask us if we were willing to donate to their cause. My mother being the social butterfly she, sparked up a conversation with them. As the two introduced themselves to us, my mother followed suit and, of course, told them the story I dreaded she would "My name is Alexandra and this is my son Alexander, he was supposed to be a girl and take my name. But he came out a boy so I named him after me" I got a bit angry and told her "I really wish you wouldn't tell every stranger you meet on the street that, it makes me feel embarrassed and mad" It got silent and my mothers face twisted and just told the Charity workers that she'll donate next time and started walking to the car. The car ride home was silent and when we got home she told me that I really embarrassed her back at the store and that I should have told her something after we got in the car that I didn't like her telling that story. I've said to her that I've told her repeatedly that I don't like her telling everyone with a pulse that she befriends that story and that I got fed up with her blatantly ignoring me and my request to stop. She just told me to go to my room and to not come out. She of course told everyone in my family what I did and my stepdad and grandparents said I shouldn't have embarrassed her like that and to apologize to her. My brother and best friend told me I was right to call her out since I've told her many times to stop embarrassing me with that story and that she needed to learn what I felt. I do feel bad and want to apologize and talk to her, but at the same time I still feel like I'm right and that she needed to feel what I feel. So AITA?

2025-09-24 13:39:33

Clara Jensen

Personal Stories

I completely cut this guy out of my life after an abortion

So this guy (m32) and I (f35) had been dating for around 3.5 years. It was always FWB/casual relationship, due to cultural differences there was no future for us. However, we loved and cared about each other a lot. We were best friends, we talked all day every day. We shared everything and had a very close connection. We had an amazing sex life, and despite using birth control, accidentally got pregnant last month. I already have children and didn’t think my body could physically endure another pregnancy so I knew I’d get an abortion, Guy agreed. Prior to meeting Guy, I had been in an abusive marriage, from when I was 19 until I was 30. During that time we had 4 children and 5 miscarriages. My ex husband was particularly abusive to me during these times (I ended up leaving him when our youngest was 5 weeks old, he caused several of my miscarriages due to violence). I have so much trauma around pregnancy and miscarriage, which has been difficult to process (I’ve healed well in other areas). What I went through when I was pregnant is very difficult to think about. I really struggle to process it, even 5 years later I still cry about it and feel shattered. I was conscious that being pregnant was going to be triggering for me because my experiences of being pregnant before were connected to being treated violently, but I was surprised by how good I felt, despite knowing I would end the pregnancy. I spoke to Guy about this and explained that I was worried a lot of old trauma would be triggered once the abortion process had started. But I told him I felt calm and peaceful and I wanted to remain in control. I asked him specifically not to rush or hound me about the process, to let me take it all at my own pace. Guy is so much more “on the ball” than I am, we’ve had fights before about him low-ley harassing me about things that I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. I knew he was prone to act this way so I specifically explained to him why he needed to not put pressure on me to do things to his timeline. I said this on 4 different occasions, even going quite deep into my trauma to share things I had never told him before about what my ex husband did. I told Guy that I had contacted the abortion service and they’d get back to me within 5 days (contacted on Monday so expected to hear back by Friday). For the first 2 days he asked me if they’d contacted yet and I said no. On the third day he asked me to phone them, and I said no (I have the worst phone anxiety lol). He asked me why and I explained to him my reasons. He didn’t feel like they were valid and dismissed them all. He said that if I wanted his respect, I should respect him by calling the clinic. I reminded him that I had asked him not to do this, and it turned into a 2 day fight. He mocked everything I said, twisted my words and undermined every point I made. I kept reminding him that I specifically wanted to avoid this, and he kept insisting that because he felt anxious, I should accommodate him and ring the clinic. I don’t usually ignore him but I’m this instance I just needed to focus on myself. My nerves were wracked from these fights and I could feel anxiety and fear creeping in. I just wanted to maintain some kind of control. On the Thursday evening I started bleeding and immediately felt panicked and distraught. I messaged Guy that I was bleeding but he didn’t get my messages because he had taken a spur of the moment holiday abroad. When he eventually got back to me, I told him he was an absolute bastard and blocked him. I was so upset that he had caused me stress and anxiety, when I had specifically taken steps to avoid it, and then he had pissed off on holiday after fighting with me for 2 days. It’s been 3 weeks since, I went to the clinic and got the abortion. He has been emailing me and apologising. But I feel like I could never trust him to respect my needs when it really mattered. Was I wrong?

2025-09-06 17:43:23

Clara Jensen

Family

AITA for being angry about my parents and grandparents keeping a secret and hiding a part of our family history from me?

My grandfather (my mom's dad) passed away recently. After he died my grandmother decided to move into a seniors community. She was moving from a house to a one bedroom flat so there was lots of items she didn't need. The house was pretty full and lived in because she and my grandfather lived in it for like 50 years. When we were going through the attic we found boxes and boxes of old pictures. My grandmother wanted to go through them. In some there were pictures of my mom when she was little and there was a baby in them or a kid younger then her. I asked her who it was because she doesn't have a sister, and she doesn't have any aunts and uncles so no cousins either. My dad said my mom had a younger sister but she died from cot death and to not say anything to my grandmother because it would upset her to talk about especially so close after my grandfather's death. At the time what my parents told me made sense. After that I helped to move the furniture to her new flat or to sort what she was not keeping. I honestly forgot about the pictures. The next month I found one of my dad with a woman in a bridal grown. It wasn't my mom and I could not figure out why my mom's parent's would have a photograph of my dad at a wedding not to their daughter. My mom was there when I found it and she couldn't explain it then. The next day my grandmother told me the truth when I confronted her. My mom had a sister. She was married to my dad. My dad played away with my mom, who was his wife's sister and I was born from the affair. My dad divorced my mom's sister to be with my mom. My mom's sister went away somewhere else because my grandmother and grandfather wouldn't condemn the divorce and they are estranged and not in contact now for almost 30 years. My dad's parents also knew all of this and didn't tell me. My mom and dad never bothered to get married after his eventual divorce from my mom's sister. I'm angry that the only family members I have, my parents and both sets of grandparents have kept this from me. I would never have known if I didn't accidentally see those pictures. My grandmother had thought they got rid of all the photographs of my mom's sister. My parents and my other grandparents have admitted this too and told me the same thing as my grandmother. My parents tell me it is none of my concern since it happened before I was born and doesn't affect me. I disagree such a big secret should have been kept from me plus I don't agree with the behaviour of anyone involved in this. Do you believe I'm right to be angry or are my parents and grandparents correct and I'm in error?

2025-10-04 17:46:46

Jonas Bergström

Relationships

AITA for breaking up with my ex by getting married to the love of my life.

I am 29(F) and I met my ex at work, we’ll call him Brad. He was my boss’s brother and he was helping me with my project- I was hired to be the project manager for a new vertical of their business. We spent 2 months literally joined at the hip doing everything together, talking and catching up on coffees between vendor runs. I started falling for him and he for me. Cut to the launch of the project 7 weeks later, he and I are constantly talking and the evening before the launch he tells me that he’s married with a kid and he loves me as he has never met anyone like me. I reluctantly go with him for a coffee to hear him out where he tells me how he was pressured into marrying her and they had a kid as he was sick on a deathbed and how he never loved her and they barely shared a loved bond. We started secretly meeting and going on dates as no one at work or around us could know about our affair. We did this for 3 months, and every time we would go out, he would make me buy him gifts and pay for our dates saying he didn’t have money or had a family to support.

2025-08-31 05:40:57

Jonas Bergström

Relationships

AITA: my boyfriend read my diary without consent and got angry about past lover in there

My boyfriend (21m) and I (21f) were studying in the library with our friends when he asked to use my computer for homework. I agreed since I wasn’t using it at the time and was chatting with our friends. After about 20 minutes I noticed his mood go extremely sour, and I tried to get him to look at me to figure out what was happening but he wasn’t having any of it. I just stayed talking to our friends to prevent it from getting awkward. He completely shut down. After we were done and left the library, I asked what was wrong. He told me he found a diary entry in my computer and read through it. That diary entry was from about a year before this, and I hadn’t met my current boyfriend yet. I had just had the best summer of my life, working at my dream summer job. So I decided to write about it to remember it. In this diary entry, I wrote about fun experiences, meeting new friends, and a fling I had that summer. It was short, and there wasn’t much to write, but I did put in some details about sex. And about how much I had liked him. My boyfriend was very upset at me after he read my diary, stating that I shouldn’t have kept that stuff. He believes I look at that diary entry all the time and relive the sexual experiences in it. I was very mortified to hear this because I felt I was the one who should be upset by that intrusion of privacy. And to be honest, I forgot about the diary entry and never opened it again after I wrote it. But he doesn’t believe me. I feel very heartbroken and betrayed and embarrassed. He feels jealous and disgusted I would keep such a thing. We’re both angry at each other and we haven’t come to any agreement in arguments. AITA for feeling like I did nothing wrong and I’m allowed to be upset that he read my diary without my consent?

2025-09-27 09:19:21

Jonas Bergström

Personal Stories

AITA for not letting my mom control my life?

Hello everyone, I don't really know where to begin... I have been dating my fiancé for 4 years and have been living together. We are very happy and we can't wait to get married in August. My mother, however, doesn't want me to get married, at all. She wants me to get back with my ex, who turned out to be an addict, which was very hard for me and I did not have the capacity to deal with those struggles in my young life. She knows about this, and even encouraged me to break up with him. She has been protesting against our relationship from literally day 1, because he is Muslim. She has called him all sorts of serious insults, bizarre disturbing accusations (the worst you can come up with) and more, before he could introduce himself. My soon to be husband has been nothing but respectful, kind, patient and loving towards me. All my friends and colleagues love him, he sends me every 2 weeks flowers, showers me with love and gives me peace. So I haven't thought nor ...𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. 💫

2025-07-31 12:22:38

Anya Petrova

Family

AITA for refusing to change my life just because my dad got remarried and his wife wants us all to act like a family?

My mom died when | (17m) was a baby and my dad didn't step up so my maternal grandparents did. They helped take care of me for dad and when | started school I'd go to their house until 7 or 8pm those days. The older | got the more time | spent with them. | technically lived with my dad but he wasn't a very good dad and he didn't ever try to be one. Without my grandparents I'm not sure where | would have been. Probably neglected and taken into foster care if my dad was the only person in my life. His family aren't the best so | never spent much time with them. | still spend any free time I'm not hanging with friends, with my grandparents. | go to their house every day. I'll eat dinner with them and lunch and dinner on weekends if I'm not busy. | spend holidays with them and sometimes | just spend the night there. We talked about me moving all my stuff over but on a weird chance dad would be thinking they could try for child support, we didn't want to rock the boat. My dad started dating something 3 or 4 years ago. | don't pay that much attention. She moved in with him in May and they got married in September. She has kids. | don't know the first thing about her or her kids. But she's attempted to spend time with me and she's attempted to invite me in. | told her | was good and didn't want to get involved. ...𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻.. ⬇️

2025-07-18 16:33:50

Jonas Bergström

Personal Stories

AITA for telling my best friend that she isn't the biggest priority in my life anymore?

My best friend (L) and I (both 22f) have been best friends since we were about 3. We have a large friendship group with 10 other girls. L has always been a massive part of my life. Her mother died during childbirth and her dad has struggled with alcoholism pretty much her entire life, so my parents always did their best to remove her from that situation as much as possible and we were practically inseparable as kids. L has always had pretty bad attachment issues, and really struggles to form connections with anybody outside our childhood friendship group. She has however been in a relationship for about a year and doing really well. This has never had a major impact on my life until this past year. In June of last year, I bought a dog with my boyfriend and obviously many adjustments came with this. I couldn’t spend as much time as usual with her or the rest of my friends but this had little impact on our ...𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. 🍿

2025-08-16 20:01:47

Anya Petrova

Family

AITAH for telling my sister it isn't my fault , that i planned my life and she didn't

I am 30f and recently gave birth to my son. My husband 30m and I met in college, dated and got into same job field at age of 22. We got married at 25 and decided to wait for kid. As we loved to party and travelling. We bought our house, travelled internationally and finally now focused on building our family. As we want our baby to have a stable family life and no more late night outs. No regrets, we lived our 20s fully. My sister 38f ran away with a jobless man 40m, when she was 21. My parents weren't in favour of this relationship, as he was known drunkyard. But she didn't listen. She left her MBA mid way and got married. Had her daughter at 22. She lives with my parents, as her in laws kicked her out with her husband, just six months into the marriage, as both were lazy and contributed nothing to family. She has exploited my parents to core, but my parents refused to change and i can help the blind, till a limit. They won't accept, but they have soft corner for her. As they lost their first child, whe he was two months old and she was the precious child afterwards. I have already told parents to give my house share to niece in their will, 16 f, who is good at studies, a sensitive kid. I don't need the house. My parents have good pensions and i have saving account for niece too. My sister and her husband barely lives cheque to cheque. She has decent job, but she has multiple expenses, like going to parlour once a week and her useless husband wastes, all of his money on drinks. My niece isn't close to her parents, as they didn't raise her at all. Just appearances. They openly cheat on each, but refuse to divorce, as they know they can't get better. Recently, she kept making bitter remarks on my perfect life, how my husband do lots of pda ( he is too romantic openly which makes me blush and embarassed ). How I post my duplex house pics on insta. That I am gonna spoil my son. I had enough and told her, it was my life choices and she made her own life choices. Told her, her daughter dislikes her, because she is failure of a mother, failure of a sister and daughter. I told her and her husband, how they caused loss of near 100k usd to parents. Because they took money from loan sharks. And my parents had to sell land to save them I told her to stop being jealous and focus on being better. She is near 40 and still acts like she is in college. She started screming and crying. I left. Now my parents messaged me to be not harsh on her, as she keeps screaming at them. I told them, it was their decision to house her and they have to develop spine. Although I understand their country dependency on her as they are aging. But I have given them option to live with me as they age. My sister made a social media post, that some women become airhead and arrogant when they have some money. I wasn't boasting about this at all

2025-10-28 17:24:53

Elise Dubois

Relationships

AITAH for resenting my wife for not believing my side of story

I (M, 46) have been married to my wife, Heather (F, 45), for 18 years. We have two kids (16F and 14M). We work for the same company but in different departments. She works on a different floor of our building. We recently hired a new employee, Sarah (F, 30). I helped her a lot with her training and even prepared a guide for her so she could catch up on the new role quickly. I told her she could drop by anytime if she had a question. She kept coming to my desk to chitchat. Even my coworker, Chris, who shares an office with me, noticed. I thought she was new and lonely, so not a big deal. She asked me to go out for lunch with her. I laughed and joked, asking if Chris wanted to join us for lunch. Then Sarah looked at me and said no, she meant just us to talk, plus she wanted to buy me lunch because I had been so nice to her. Chris gave me a look. I told her she didn’t have to and that I was just doing my job. She insisted, and I agreed. During lunch, she started rubbing my hand. I moved my hand and changed the topic to my wife, bringing her up repeatedly. She eventually said she found me attractive and wanted to be more than friends, suggesting we start with friends with benefits and see where it goes. She said she thought I wasn't happy in my marriage because I was having lunch with her and laughing, while she never saw me having lunch with my wife. I told her I was married and wanted to keep our friendship professional. She didn’t like my reply and became quiet. I apologized, but she said it was all good. I paid the bill for both of us since it was so awkward, and we went back to work. I received a letter from HR telling me they needed to talk to me because Sarah filed a complaint. She said I had asked her out for lunch, been inappropriate and handsy, and even pressured her to have sex with me, but she left. I was floored. Luckily, my coworker Chris can confirm my side of the story. I immediately told my wife the whole thing, and she got furious at me. She said she believed Sarah's side because she stands by the victim. I told her Sarah was lying! Chris can confirm she invited me! Also, I wasn’t inappropriate; I didn’t touch her and turned her down. My wife rolled her eyes and said Sarah is a gorgeous woman much younger than me, implying I took advantage of her. I was so annoyed! I have always been faithful to her. How could she possibly think of me like this? Luckily, the HR issue was resolved, and I just have to do some training. I asked to move to another team so I won’t be working with Sarah anymore. Am I the asshole for resenting my wife for not believing my side? For taking her side without any proof? I basically barely talked to my wife since the incident.

2025-09-11 18:24:54

Anya Petrova

Family

AITA for calling my parents AHs after they shared my former therapy diary with my younger brother?

I (20f) have a younger brother (15m). I was 5 when he was born and had suffered a trauma during the pregnancy (I was alone in a house with my grandpa who had passed away while my parents were out of town) that made his impending arrival very stressful for me. To be honest I was angry and sad. I did not want a sibling and I know the next three to four years were very rough for my family. I would scream and cry and have night terrors and when either of my parents showed him any attention I would lose it. There were times I would tell them to send him away, times I would think things you should never think about anyone really, but the fact he was a baby and I was so young, it was concerning. My parents put me into therapy and for about a month I didn't open up. I didn't speak at all. I wouldn't even play with the toys. So the therapist came up with the idea for me to write stuff down. She would let me write and I would do that. Most of it in the first year to hear and a half made no sense but it helped her a little because she could pick up on some things. There was a lot of heavy stuff in there. Stuff that I hate that I wrote and felt. But I also know from my therapist that it was not my fault and trauma affects everyone differently and for me the change of a sibling as well as the feeling of losing my parents to him were intensified by the trauma I had suffered. And I was incapable of not feeling like he was the cause, or like if he went away everything would get better. I actually never showed my parents the journals. They knew they existed but the therapist suggested they should not read them but if I ever felt like I wanted to go over the journals with them I could. I chose not to. They knew some of how I felt but I never wanted them to hate me for feeling how I did. There were a lot of rough days. My brother never remembered any of it though. It turns out my parents actually kept them. I put them in the trash a couple of years ago, before moving out, as kind of a way of moving on from that, and my parents kept and read them and not only that but they decided a few weeks ago that my brother had a right to know. I had no idea about any of this until my brother DMd me going nuts saying I was shitty and how could I ever say those things or feel those things and I was sick. I called my parents and they straight up told me they felt he deserved to know and so did they. I told them they were AHs and they should not hold that stuff against me. They called me sick and said what I wrote went far beyond normal sibling rivalry or trauma. They basically said how dare I call them AHs after "that". Now I'm just doubting whether I am being a dick now. I'm so mad and feel like I'll never escape from this shit. AITA?

2025-09-03 20:12:33

Clara Jensen

Family

AITA for telling my stepmother she's not the most important woman in my life?

My dad is married to Jani. They've been together for a little over six years and married for about four now. Dad was a widower when they met. I'm 16f and my siblings are 14f and 12m. Our mom died 8 years ago. Jani has not adjusted well to being a stepparent. I think she thought she would be just a parent to us because our mom had died and didn't consider that we'd still talk about and have photos of mom. Over the years she has been to therapy and her and my dad have gone to couples sessions. In the last year the five of us have gone to family therapy and she has admitted it's hard for her because she feels like she's second best or a consolation to us and that we don't really love and want her. Dad assured her that \*we\* all love her just as much as mom, that she's his number one and is vital to our family. For a while then in sessions she and the therapist would talk about how she feels like she's not a true member of the family, like she's a second class member, not someone we see as important in the structure of the family. She said she never felt love from any of us and she feels like even extended family, which she explicitly said was grandparents and any aunts and uncles, come before her when it comes to us kids. She said she sees it in so many things including the way we don't regard her parents as our grandparents or her two sisters as our aunts and how when I turned 16 and we did a nice dinner party, my guest list included both my mom and dad's sides of the family but not her side. My sister was the first to speak during all this and she said nothing was ever done to make her feel bad. That she just doesn't think of her as her mom or as being her parent. Once that was said she was talking about how much that makes her feel bad and like she's not truly accepted. The therapist asked us to consider whether we'd be willing to deepen the relationship so she felt equally as loved and important as our dad and dad wanted us to consider ditching our typical Christmas dynamic and spend the time with her parents exclusively this year. Then three weeks ago she brought up that I had made something for class that went into details on my family and she pointed out that she and her family were not mentioned. Then she asked me why my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were mentioned on both sides, all with their own pages, but I couldn't make room for the most important woman in my life (her). I told her because she is not the most important woman in my life. I told her that will always be my mom, followed by both my grandma's. She asked if she was just second best then, if she was unimportant and I refused to answer. Afterward my dad and Jani both told me that I was cruel to say she wasn't the most important woman in my life when she is there every day and has done her best. AITA?

2025-09-29 16:00:28

Luca Moretti

Relationships

AITA for getting mad when I saw "Hidden Spy Camera" in my boyfriend's search history

Sorry for formatting, I'm writing this on mobile. I've been dating a guy for a few months now. He is kind, caring and funny. A little eccentric but nothing about him has ever seemed "off". The other day, we were talking about something we wanted to buy together, so he opened up his phone to the AliExpress app and when he clicked the search bar I saw the search history had multiple variations of "Hidden spy camera" "secret camera" "WiFi camera". When I saw this I wanted to double check, so I took his phone and typed the first few letters into the search bar and sure enough the variations dropped down from the search bar in bold. At first he pretended to not know what I was talking about. Then he said "it came up as a suggestion because you typed the first few letters in." I was calm but kept telling him no, that's not true. Then he told me him and his friend had been talking about how she recently stayed at a hotel where she suspected there was hidden cameras, so they decided to research them together to see what they look like. This also sounded like bullshit to me, and at this point I was kind of freaking out. I've never seen him so annoyed before but he was in disbelief that I thought he'd really be the kind of person to buy hidden cameras. He said "Ok then, I will call my friend right now and she will tell you it's true" and I stayed silent, then he said "search my whole room, there's no cameras" Then he texted his friend to prove to me the conversation they had was real. The texts said something like "hey remember when we were researching spy cams together, well my partner saw and they think I have hidden cameras. Can you reply so I can prove we talked about them together and that I don't have any cameras" he said he feels embarrassed he had to send a text like that to his friend. I feel like him texting his friend kind of proves his story, because otherwise he'd be outing himself as a total creep to her too, and I feel bad for jumping to a conclusion and accusing him. It's been a few days and I think I believe him, but things are still kind of tense between us, I don't think he forgives me. AITA for jumping to that conclusion or is it a rational reaction?

2025-09-19 12:32:45

Clara Jensen

Family

AITA for being honest about my life with my boyfriend's sister who glamourizes my childhood?

So I (18f) didn't have that great of a childhood. When I was 14, I was dumped at my uncle's house under the false promise that my mom would come back for me. I haven't seen her since. It hurt, but at least I was with my uncle right? Well... I love him but he had some severe mental health issues that he refused to acknowledge and that made living with him extremely hard. He was essentially this recluse who lived on the outskirts of a tiny town in the middle of the forest. He didn't take care of the house at all and it resulted in me adopting things that are seen as 'aesthetic' by kids today. I was essentially neglected. I will admit, at first I would spin my circumstances as 'i'm living with my odd and eccentric uncle in the woods in a small town. you could make a movie out of this' but I would always stress that it hurt me a lot. I stopped this line of phrasing and have fully embraced (is that the right word?) my childhood because I realised I was only kidding myself and that helped no one. This is where the issue lies: My boyfriend's sister (16f) is super into the whole 'cottagecore' and general aesthetic thing and she seriously glamourizes my childhood (wearing hand-me-downs/thrifted items, being in the forest, etc). Anyway, last night she came home from shopping and she was showing us the stuff she had gotten. A lot of it aligned with her style but then she pulled out her phone and showed us this board she had made that was 'inspired by your (my) life'. As I expected it was more glamorization of my life (she would constantly say stuff like 'this is like x event' and then show some super saturated straight from tumblr image. But this time I wasn't in the mood to brush it off. I turned to 16 and said 'hey 16, I can tell you worked hard on the board and it's great, I love it, but you should know that my childhood was nothing like this and it really, REALLY sucked. It's nothing like what you think it is. I'm happy you found a style you like, but it really upsets me when you compare my truama to your tumblr-made style. You've been glamourizing it a lot, please stop. It hurts me.' Both my boyfriend and 16 looked stunned and 16 walked out super upset. Boyfriend went to check on her (which is fine). He came back and said 16 is really upset at me. I tried to apologise but she didn't want to listen. Boyfriend is on my side (he said that sometimes being blunt means you're an asshole and that's ok) but his parents are miffed with me now. AITA?

2025-09-29 17:45:11

Clara Jensen

Personal Stories

AITA for replying to my co-worker's "compliments" with a negative story?

Throwaway etc. First post was deleted b/c character count. Lately I (29F) lost some weight, and I am slowly exchanging my wardrobe for better-fitting pieces. I work in a small office. For work I like to dress nicely and business appropriate. There is no specific dresscode, I just try to look good in my (new) day-to-day wear. I have a colleague, Cheryl. She is in her 50s and we generally get along well. The annoying thing, however, is her habit of commenting on my wardrobe a lot, especially since I have started to change my style. They're not necessarily unkind comments, sometimes it's just along the lines of "Oh, cute dress! Where from?" but sometimes her comments feel... backhanded? IE one day she looked at my striped shirt and said: "Cute shirt, but only people with thin waists can pull off that pattern." The other day she said about my scarf: "I don't really like the color on you. You usually have such good taste." I have asked her in private to stop commenting because I feel scrutinized. She said she would, but soon enough it started again. I have tried to ignore it, but no avail. I have thanked her and smiled, but I found myself dreading going to work in the morning because I *knew* that she'd comment on something again. Now where I might be the asshole. The other day I was watching a documentary about classical conditioning and behavior, and I came up with the idea that if Cheryl subconsciously linked her behavior to a negative “experience”/story, maybe she would then stop? So the next morning, Cheryl made a comment about my black dress. Cheryl:"All in black today? It makes you look so gloom." Me: "Yeah, I know. I bought this dress for my grandfather's funeral but I think I can also wear it for work." The next week I had on a new-ish pair of shoes. Cheryl: "Ohhh, new shoes! You really have a lot of shoes!" Me: "Actually I bought them last year to cheer myself up after I had to put my cat down." The next time she made a comment on my shirt and that the color didn't suit me. I replied (not verbatim): "Yeah my sister made it for me. I would not buy from [fast fashion retailer], not after that garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh some years ago. Over a 1000 people died!" Ever since then I have told a sad story every time my wardrobe came up (think operations, break ups). None of these stories are made up btw, they're just not happy chit chat. I feel that ever since I started my little experiment, her comments have died down. The other day though another co-worker told me that Cheryl complained about "someone in the office being a downer and not being able to accept a genuine opinion." Now I feel like an asshole and for not just sucking it up, because actually Cheryl has been very helpful ever since I started working there. It's just her comments that drive me up the wall. AITA for replying to my co-worker's "compliments" with a negative story? (edit: missing word)

2025-09-23 19:40:36

Elise Dubois