Latest / ok storytime / My fiancé EXPECTED me to cook for his family every holiday... so I reconsidered marrying him! -r/BestofRedditorUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3108

Transcript

My fiancé EXPECTED me to cook for his family every holiday... so I reconsidered marrying him! -r/BestofRedditorUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3108 · ok storytime

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Angie.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And this is Dakota, your favorite OK Storytime hosts. And
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: we've got some great stories coming up.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep this show running.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: My fiancé expected me to cook for his family every holiday,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: so I reconsidered marrying him.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Mmm, yes, chef.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: My fiancé has a rather large family. Parents, two brothers
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: with significant others, numerous adult nieces and nephews and their partners.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And there's usually always some distant aunt, uncle, or cousin
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: that tags along. I have two family members that join holidays.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: This year, neither will be able to attend. Last year,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: one was present. So for the past four years, I've
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: been single-handedly cooking from scratch and hosting for both Thanksgiving
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: and Christmas. So essentially, I've been cooking dinner for 20
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: people or so while my partner... Baby sits a brisket
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: in the smoker. There's a lot of logistics behind cooking
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: for a large crowd. I start prepping the night before.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Cook all morning and afternoon, and by the time everything's done,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I'm too exhausted to enjoy the.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Food I cooked and eat.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Last year, I requested that everyone attending brings one side
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: dish or dessert.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: No one brought anything. What are we doing?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I had a feeling that's what it was going to
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: be as no one mentioned what they're bringing. So I
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: prepared for it anyway. And by the way, this comes
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: from Final Blackberry. If you want to submit your own stories,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: go to the r slash ok story time subreddit.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: I'm Dakota. I'm Keon.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: We're going to read this story. We're going to have
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: our thoughts and give maybe a little bit of good advice.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: But we're just a bunch of goofballs. We don't know everything.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: It might be bad advice. It just might be. But
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: let us know what you would do in the comments.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: As OP says.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Just to mention, I have never been thanked for hosting
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: or cooking. Literally by no one. What is this nightmare family?
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: I guess we don't know manners. Just common courtesy manners.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Goodness for my parents. They engraved that into my brain
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: to be like, say thank you.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Good boy, say thank you. And bring food when the
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: person says, everyone bring a side. Never come empty handed. What?
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you never come empty handed unless you are told
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: to like, don't come, don't bring anything.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm so George Costanza, or I was for so
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: long when it came to that. I was like, what
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: do you mean I gotta bring something? They didn't say
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: to bring anything. It's just good manners. All leftovers get
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: picked over and taken home. Last year I also had
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to cook the following day because... There was nothing left
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: to eat except some baked brie that my mother-in-law turned
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: her nose up to, and I wanted to enjoy leftovers
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: at least.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: That's... Well, okay, keep reading. But that's like the best
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: part of Thanksgiving in my opinion. Other than like eating
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: and celebrating with family.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: But the leftovers like next day.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So you brought and cooked all the food and everyone
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: else took it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: I think OP doesn't say anything. Or Opie tells her partner, Hey,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: can you talk to your family for me?
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: Shut up.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I like how his first response is, well, then it's
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: not going to happen. If you're not cooking, it just
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: isn't going to exist. Oh, no.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Christmas and Thanksgiving is ruined.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: My reaction was, nope, that's your tradition. I will not
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: make boxed stuffing. And if they're planning on coming, you
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: better put in that catering order. He has not spoken
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: to me since. I also had to explain everything. when
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't have to, that I haven't been feeling well.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I finished an eight month course of a pretty rough
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: medication that dries out all the.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Joints in your body.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I've been achy and miserable and I feel stiff when
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I overwork myself.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I wonder why.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Am I the a-hole for not wanting to entertain 20
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: plus people twice a year every year? I've decided to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: possibly sit out Thanksgiving completely and Buy a pre-made single-serving
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving dinner at the local grocery store that just needs
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to be popped in the oven for a while and
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: going to watch the new Lady Gaga movie. Verdict, not
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the a-hole. And we do have some comments, but yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: of course.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we all knew that. We all knew you weren't
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: the a-hole. Of course not the a-hole.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Um, maybe make it prolific that, hey, one. I'm achy
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: and I hurt. I can't cook this year. But also,
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: why is everyone expecting me to cook for 20 plus
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: people when I get no gratitude? Everyone takes all the
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: food that I make. I don't even get to enjoy it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: And not even a no thank yous.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Everyone. No, no one brings anything. Not even a thank
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: you is crazy.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Like I spent many years of my life not bringing
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: things when I should. But if somebody cooked a whole
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving dinner, I'm saying thank you so much for this
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: delicious food.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Crazy. Doing it for
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: your family, Opie. Thank you.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I would, all that other stuff you said, I
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: would just point out the fact you've never been thanked
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: and shown any appreciation.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: Genuinely, just make your husband cook. You remember he does
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: the brisket?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: That he just watches?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Which, yes, it takes a long time to cook a brisket,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: but it's because it sits in a smoker for 10
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: hours and you just have to go over there and
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: spritz it with like juice every once in a while.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just make enough, honey, make enough brisket for everyone.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: And that's it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Chellerks81 says, what does your son say about it?
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, we've got a son? We have a child? Opie
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: says he's fine with either way.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: He said we can cook or not cook at all.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I hate being the person that goes to establishments on
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a holiday. I feel like that everyone deserves time off
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: and I haven't patronized any businesses open on holidays. I
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: will most likely pick something up the day before. I
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: was also sent a link by a wonderful Redditor for
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: a Thanksgiving sheet pan dinner for two, which sounds easy enough.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And that's an option as well. OP elaborates on having
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: to do the cooking and the cleaning. I wash all
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the pots and pans as I go.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: This story just gets worse and worse. It's like a
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: nightmare for anybody.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah. Otherwise, it's a never ending disaster.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: But even by doing that, it is a big kitchen cleanup.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Things have to be put away. Floors have to be
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: swept and mopped. Then the actual dinner cleanup starts. It
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: is a lot and I can't do it this year.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And I doubt I'll ever do it again if I
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: feel better health wise. Not on this scale, at least.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: When OP is told they're ruining the relationship, you know,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: they're out there.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: They're out there. The people who think like this.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: OP says, I don't think I've ruined anything that was
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: built on a solid foundation of partnership and respect. Because
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, isn't that what a relationship should be? If
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: me saying no to cooking for a crowd several years
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: in a row ruins a relationship, so be it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: It's not a relationship I should be in anyway.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I have made my peace. Updates coming in a few days.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I will not be cooking this year. I explained how dismissive, hurtful,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: and inconsiderate his actions have been, along with a few
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: other things in this relationship. I'm stepping back from the
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: relationship until further notice. He needs help in the form
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: of counseling or alone time to figure himself out. There's
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: nothing I can do for him with that, and he
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: needs to self-reflect. Of course, today he... pretended everything was okay.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: It wasn't for me. And there's also an edit. Guys,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: my partner found this post and sent me the link.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Now apparently we're canceling everything because I'm venting to strangers
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: on the internet.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: I guess he didn't like what he read. Oops. They
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: never do. Yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: For like the most part, like 90% of the time, 85%
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: of the time, they never do. Hey, I found this.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: You're talking to strangers on the internet. And they say
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I'm the a-hole. And that's not nice of you. You
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have done that. You should try talking to me first. Yeah.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, I did.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Remember?
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: I did. And you told me, no, this is your
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: job forever now. And you're going to ruin everything. Yeah.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: We got some more comments.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Pride of Cape Town says, quick kind of sort of
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: related question in your edit. When you said we're canceling
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the whole thing, did you mean Thanksgiving or the engagement?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And OP says, we can cancel.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Both at this point. Uh-oh. Go girl. Let that cook.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Go girl.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen him since this post. I just received
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a message saying I ruined his whole week. The feeling
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: is mutual. I just got off work, picked myself up
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a lobster mac and cheese. Yum.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to watch true crime all night. Yum.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Update from eight days later.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: I think OP knows it's been over for a while.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It sounds like there's a lot more going on
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: behind the scenes.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: A little bit more meat, uh, It's just like.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: A microcosm of like the problem with them, it feels like.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Truly, truly. You go, girl. You know, I think she's
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: been checked out for a while and I don't blame her.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Eight days later, since everything was canceled, I picked up
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: a ready-prepared meal from the store that needed to be heated.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Turkey breast, stuffing, brussel sprouts, pie, the usual.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: My son and I decided to make mac and cheese,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and that was going to be our Thanksgiving with our cats.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Wednesday evening, I was told that Thanksgiving lunch was at
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: my fiancé' s mother's house at 1230.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Sure, I attended.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I brought a pan of mac and cheese, cleaned up
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: after myself, and said thanks. and left at 3. I
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: spent the rest of my day on the couch in
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: my pajamas drinking mimosas and watching TV.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: We had our store-bought Thanksgiving meal for dinner.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: This is turning out... I mean, Opie, again, Opie's just ready.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: And I don't blame her. She's ready to just go.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: Done.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: It turned out you were dating a turkey. Gobble, gobble.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: You gotta put that boy in the oven because you
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: cooked him. As far as the relationship, this event hit
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: me like a ton of bricks. It made me reconsider
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: this relationship. And right now I don't want to marry him.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: He needs to reflect and figure out how his behavior
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: affects people around him and what he can do to
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: change it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I laid out everything on the table.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: What I need from a partner and what he could
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: contribute to this relationship emotionally and otherwise. He argued and
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: made it about himself because that's easier than acknowledging his shortcomings. Eventually,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: he apologized and according to him, we'll do better. Whatever
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: that means. Mine was quite relaxing after all.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Time to put up.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: The tree and some more comments here pride of cape
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: town says about the lunch at his mother's place was
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: that awkward were there any comments or questions about what
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: happened to the tradition or did everyone including him treat
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: you well as if nothing happened op says the only
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: comment i got was when i turned down leftovers because
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: i had a dinner waiting his brother said so you
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: cooked after all i said oh <HAL>.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> Way to
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: push the wrong button. Wow.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I would have just Cyclops laser beam vaporized to that man.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I said, I didn't cook. The store cooked for me.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, it wasn't awkward and everyone seemed okay, which leads
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: me to believe they didn't care much about the tradition.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Tradition. And it was more about my partner than them.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry that your Thanksgivings and your Christmases were dreadful.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, every time he comes around, you're like, you're
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: probably dreading it and it's giving you stress and anxiety.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Hopefully you don't have to deal with that anymore and
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: you can enjoy it in the future and get people
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: get to cook for you.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: That's the end of that story. We have another one
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: coming right up. Tradition.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: My partner refused to get a job until an offer
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: came from me. Well, it's best to lead by example. Alright,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: I guess some background on myself first.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I grew up poor.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Like, on the verge of homelessness for most of my
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: childhood kind of poor. My mother and older brother both
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: worked two jobs busting their butts just to make ends meet.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: I started my first official job. I'd been doing odd
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: jobs to help out since I was 13. on my
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: 16th birthday. Since then, I haven't gone more than three
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: months without having some kind of job, be it waiting
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: tables or cleaning houses. Basically, I was raised with the
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: principle that not having a job or working is just
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: not an option. It was difficult, but both my brother
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: and myself were able to balance school and work, and
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: since graduating college, I've been able to provide for myself fully.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: It's a huge source of pride for myself. On the
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: other hand, there's my significant other. His family is most
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: definitely not mega-rich, But to my knowledge, they have never
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: been anywhere near the financial situation of my childhood. Both
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: of his parents had fairly lucrative careers. They've both since retired.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: They have always had a lovely big home and food
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: on the table. So my significant other was never expected
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: to work or get a part-time job. Today, he's still
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: living at home. And by the way, this comes from
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: user GetADangJob. And if you want to submit your own stories,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: go to the r slash OKStoryTime subreddit.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I'm Keon. I'm Dakota. And we're Goofy Goobers. We only
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: know how to be Goofy Goobers. Rock! See, we don't
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: know everything.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: We only know what we do. So let us know
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: what you do in the comments down below. Pretty please.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you what I would have done.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I would have made my son get a dang job,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: even if he is living at home, especially if he's
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: living at home.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: What's going on with that?
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: As OP says, now that we both graduated with our
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: respective degrees. First, I got to commend you and your
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: brother and shout out to your family for really just
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: going through hard times and getting through hard times.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: That's the first thing. Shout out to his family.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Now that we've graduated with our respective degrees, I'm currently
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: working at an entry-level position in my career field. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: have no delusions about myself or a current job market.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: I realize I got lucky getting a good job, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: a lot of equally qualified graduates are having serious problems
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: getting jobs. But I do think my work ethic played
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: a huge part. It may have been crappy service-related jobs,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: but they taught me responsibility and how to be a
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: good worker. I'm not ashamed of doing work that's beneath
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: me because it made me into the dedicated and hardworking
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: person I am today. My significant other is having a
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: much harder time finding work, or that was the excuse
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: a few months after graduation last year. And I do understand,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: his major doesn't lend itself to a whole lot of
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: career options at the moment, And he got extremely dejected.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: But nearly a year later, he is still dejected.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: He's only sent out two applications in almost a year.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, come on. Come on.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I know people who send out like 50 applications a week.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but the thing is, that's because those people need
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: it and want it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: This guy. This guy's like, eh, it'll come to me.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Then you don't care.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: I brought up numerous times that he can always apply
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: to a part-time whatever job while still searching for his
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: career job. He always sounds like he agrees, but still, no.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: No applications have been sent. I've offered to ask around
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: at my past workplaces and see if they're hiring, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: he doesn't seem interested. On some level, I get not
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: wanting to take work that's below him or his degree,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: but guess what?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I was able to suck it up and do it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: We had plans to move in together once my lease
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: is up this year, but I've all but given up
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: on that happening. And he knows that I was really
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: counting on him because my current apartment is not owned
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: by a new landlord who's raising the rent ridiculously high.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: And if we don't move into a place together, I'll
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: need to majorly downsize on my own.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: And I realize.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that it isn't his responsibility to take care of my
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: living arrangements, but still. He knows that him not getting
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: a job, any job, is going to put me in
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: a crappy position, and I know on some level that
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: he cares about that, but apparently not enough to suck
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: it up and get a job. I don't like ultimatums,
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: and I've tried to be understanding and empathetic about the
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: situation as possible as I can be, but his lack
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: of taking initiative and lack of trying and seriously unaliving
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: the rest of the otherwise perfect relationship for me.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And honestly, You need to tell this guy, I'm leaving.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: If you're not going to have a job, I'm leaving.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: We get a lot of these stories where like someone
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: worked really hard and like the other person didn't work
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: hard enough or is working hard enough.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And it just never, it's never going to work out.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: It's two different mentalities. Sometimes it does, but usually this
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: comes up and it pisses off. the one person who
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: works their butt off, they don't understand that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's their values. They're like, I value working
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: hard to provide for yourself. And if you're not willing
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: to just get a job, like it doesn't have to
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: be the last job you ever have. It's just a
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: job in the meantime, because in the real world, you
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: got to do what you got to do. OP continues saying,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I'm starting to just feel angry when I look at him.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Oh no.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Jeez. And I tried to bring this up to him,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: but he just gets defensive and tells me not to
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: worry that he's working on it. At what point do
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: I say enough is enough? Am I not being supportive enough?
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Am I being too hard on him? Any advice would
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: be seriously appreciated. And we have an edit. But Dakota,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: what do we do?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Do you think he hasn't he hasn't tried to get
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: a job for like a year? I mean, two applications,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: even if you do want like your your dream job
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Two applications in a year doesn't even reflect that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: I would be like, hey, have you asked your parents? Like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: your parents seem like they know people. They're retired already.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: They have to know people. Do they know anyone that
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: could help you out or something that you want to
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: like at least do?
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: I would be, I would ask if you really want
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: to stick it, stick through with this, this person in
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: this relationship, be like, I'm going.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: To start signing you up for things. I'm going to
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: start sending out your application. Give it to me. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to start sending in applications to little Caesars.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I mean like straight up, just get a, get a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: job working at a restaurant, something and literally anything.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: This just shows his initiative. It's not good. But we
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: have an edit.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, what is he doing all this time? Like,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: is he working to better his skills in his career?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I want to know what his degree was. Because she
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: did say... I feel like it was probably, I mean,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: just going out on a limb here, maybe software related.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: I think it's like communications. It's like, what is that? Exactly.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: People in the comments, let me know. We have an edit. Wow.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you everyone for your responses. As a few people suggested,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I'm going to take tomorrow to sit down and do
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: some serious thinking. Also, a few people have mentioned the
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: possibility of depression. I think there is definitely a chance
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: that he is slightly depressed and has found himself stuck
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: in a vicious cycle. That is the post, you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: post-college thing. people yeah for sure which it does happen
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: i'm going to try to approach him about this as
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: gently as i can if that is a major factor
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: in why he hasn't been looking for work what does
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: that mean for my approach with him i tried my
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: best to be supportive this past year am i justified
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: in telling him he needs to start taking steps to
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: pull himself out of it and we have an update
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: and I think that's a great we like hey if
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: you're in a funk let's talk about it like are
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: you are you should we get you help but you
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: just sitting there and not changing this problem or just
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: allowing it to happen or let the cycle continue it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: it's the Ouroboros yeah we have an update five months
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: later do we think he has a job do we
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: think They're broken up.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I sure hope so, man. I hope he's got a job.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Let's find out. Or at least been sending out applications.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: So after posting, I had another serious talk with my
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: significant other about his work ethic and how it was
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: poisoning the relationship for me. I explained that his life
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: choices were his own. But if he wanted to be
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: with me, then he had to step up and get
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: some sort of job. Just any job. He took it
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: surprisingly well and explained that he was too frustrated with
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: his situation. Apparently, his parents had been putting a good
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: deal of pressure on him to not get a part-time job.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: What?
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: His mother in particular. Without revealing too much personal information,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: his family culture is pretty accepting of mama's boy syndrome.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Not Italian, but geographically and culturally pretty similar.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Greek.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Greek. I don't know. I have no idea. I would
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: say Greek. That would be my biggest guess. Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: Basically, that's where he got his attitude of certain work
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: being beneath him. Plus, his older brother had lived at
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: home well into his late 20s. Now, I do love
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: his family. They've been nothing but warm and welcoming to me.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: But I told him flat out, that it was terrible advice.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: I also pointed out that his brother was in an
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: extremely different position as he was working on a PhD
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: at the time. The real resolution came about a month
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: and a half ago. Out of the blue, my company
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: offered me a position halfway across the country. This forced
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: us to have a very serious come to Jesus type
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: of talk about our relationship and our future. I told
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: him plainly that I didn't want to rush him But
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: we needed to either work out this problem or I
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: would be taking the position. Well, Reddit, that certainly lit
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: a fire under him.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: This man just say he's going to burn you at
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: the stake. I'm going to light a fire under you
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: if you don't. What's that smell? What's that smell?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Purity.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: A little bit left here. What do we think?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: To be clear, it's not really in so many places
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: all around the world. It's not a weird thing to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: live at home with your family. Oh, but I think
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the biggest thing is you're not just like laying.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Around doing nothing on the teat. You got to be
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: off the teat.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: If you're living at home, you live at home to
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: provide for your family, not to leech off of them.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Truly.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, if that's my growing up and he saw
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: his brother do it, I can see him just like, okay,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: this is okay.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Especially if you got the pressure, like the pressure from
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: your mom to be like, don't get a job, sweet baby.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I'll provide.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Hopefully that fire that you lit under him, that that
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: was the wake up call. It it it got him
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: up and was like, OK, let's do it. I'll support
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: you and we'll I'll get a job.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Figure it out.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Every day he would send me pictures of applications he
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: was sending out around three to five a day not
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: amazing but certainly better than two a year and guess
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: what within two weeks he got a job nice would
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: you look at that anything is possible if you put
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: your mind to it it's a part-time end of the
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: shtick kind of job but it's a job once he
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: got his first paycheck he raved about it how rewarding
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: it felt to earn for himself then he took me
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: out to dinner and he paid so here we are
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: that position across the country ended up being a bad
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: fit for several reasons So, I stayed here and actually
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: ended up getting a promotion recently. He's been asking for
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: my advice about saving slash financial independence, which I'm more
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: than happy to give. I'm still hesitant to move in together,
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: but we've definitely taken a step in the right direction.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: And that is the end of that story.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a big thing to move in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: together and then like also move halfway across the country.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: That's, that's a huge step.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but again, keep this in mind. OP, I think he's,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: I think this is a thing. OP's partner has never
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: been like flew away from the nest.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Like never been like a real adult like financially taking
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: care of himself he got his first paycheck he went
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: it's like getting he's like a star on like on
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: like his homework look mom i got a star gold
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: star it shows op's been doing that for since 13
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: but talk to them i think everything's working out i
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: think it's gonna be a little bit of slow approach
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: but it's a good this is a good step yeah
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: that is the end that story though but we have
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: another one coming right up.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah we do My fiance was relieved I wanted equality
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: until I kept.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: My last name. Uh-oh, this is gonna be fun.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Since day one of dating, I established that I wanted
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: a partnership, not traditional gender roles.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Drolls. Grolls? Dave Groll.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I've always paid my half of the dates, unless it
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: was my birthday or something. We'd take turns planning how
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: we spent our time together, etc. When we started talking
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: about marriage, I made it clear that I don't want
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: any of the sexist traditions. Engagement ring, white dress, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: But rather, I want us to make a commitment to us.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: He agreed and was, quote, relieved. I didn't want all
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: those things. We were planning on marrying soon. And so
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the other night, we were discussing concrete plans to go
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: to courthouse next month when I brought up the subject
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: of naming our future kids. I know that sounds creepish.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: We've actually discussed first names. So I thought now would
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: be a good time. And I said, I'd like to
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: either hyphenate or if he hates hyphenated names, do something
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: like his last, my last, which is still, still a hyphen.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: That's still the hyphen. Or is it like morphing it
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: like Dave Grohl?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So OP says, I want to do something like his last,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: my last for girls and my last, his last for guys.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: That's like for the last name. Oh, then he stops
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: me and says, wait, wait, wait, wait. Aren't you just
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: taking my name? I say something like I thought you'd
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: know I'm not since I'm not following any of the
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: other traditions. I said I'd prefer to just keep my
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: name and explained why it was so important to me.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: But if it mattered a lot to him, I would
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: hyphenate if he would as well. He went berserk.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, cue the berserker from Gears of War.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Adamantly denied it. He said, women change their names and
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: men don't.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: Whoa, remember how this started off?
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Whoa.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I said, that's a... Tradition. I don't agree with. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I thought you'd understand since you were on board with
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: everything else. He accused me of not being fully committed
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: to him. I said, that was crazy. That I knew
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I wanted to keep my name way before I met him.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And by the way, this comes from NeedAdvices1. If you
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: want to submit your own stories, go to the r
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: slash OKStoryTime subreddit.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: I'm Dakota. I'm Keon. We're going to read this story
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: with this silly man. We're going to have some silly thoughts.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: We're going to say them.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: You can have your own thoughts and put them in
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: the comments and let us know what you're thinking. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: OP says, I asked and then begged for him to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: keep an open mind. Then I got angry and yelled
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: something like, this is stupid. Why does this matter to
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: you when everything else doesn't? You're not making any sense.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Then I asked to be left alone so I could
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: cool down. The next morning I called him and apologized
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: for getting so worked up. He apologized too. Then he
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: said he wasn't willing to change his name and would
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: be incredibly hurt even if I hyphenated mine. I said,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: if he didn't care about all the other stuff, why
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: care about this? He said it was the way he
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: always imagined things. How did this, again, everything was covered.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: It seemed like everything was very covered on the basis
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: of like, don't want the traditional wedding, don't want this,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: don't want that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: How did the last names never come up?
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I think OP said that they just assumed that their
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: partner would understand.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but... Which, to be fair, I kind of agree with.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: With when they're, like, on board with 99% of everything else?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: When your whole point is, like, I don't like doing
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the traditional move, then, yeah, I think the tradition of
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: just taking the man's last name, which is super arbitrary and, like,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: not really based on anything.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Be like me. I have a hyphenated last name.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: It made it harder for people to read my name.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Hyphenated last names are, you know... It's the new thing
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: that's in. They can be really cool.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like me.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I told him I'm not changing mine and asked him
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to please think about it some more.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I feel so duped.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, if he had been the chivalrous traditional type,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: I could totally understand his reaction, but we planned on
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: doing literally everything else in an equal way. So I'm
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: completely blindsided as to why he cares so much about
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: this sexist tradition. I love him, but I'm not willing
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to give up this part of my identity. I love
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: my family and my heritage, and like I said, I
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: made this decision long before I met him.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Sorry for the word vomit.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: This is the best relationship I've had, and I'd hate
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to break up over something as little as this, but
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not willing to get rid of my name, even
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: though I love him. And I think it's downright mean
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: of him to ask me to compromise on something so
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: important to me when I offered to compromise with hyphenating.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Or am I being selfish? I need advice. I plan
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: to talk to him about it tomorrow. And there is
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: an update. I don't know.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: It just seems like he's stuck on that one thing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Everything else he's cool with. But if that's something you
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: don't want to do, I think we're at a standstill
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: right now. I don't think if this is like really
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: the deal breaker for you, which again, you're on one end,
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: he's on another. I don't think it's going to work out.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I think the compromise was hyphenating the last names. And
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: I think that works. But if he's set on that,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's going to work, unfortunately.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You had your values.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It's ridiculous that it really is such a little trivial thing.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Truly.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: But, I mean, to us it is. To them, it's
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: a deal breaker.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. On both ends. No, I mean, yeah. I personally think...
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess if it's trivial one way, it's
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: trivial the other. Yeah. But, like, you don't want to
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: give up your name.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Only one person has to give up their name in
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: that scenario.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: So, really, only one person is paying a prize. Or
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: you get both. Yeah, where you can just have both.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Get both.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: What's the problem? I mean, out of all these, this
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: is a fair assumption. If you're like, I don't even
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: want the white wedding dress. I don't want the engagement ring.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not about tradition. It's like, yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: You know what they say when you assume, you know
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: what that does? It makes you a Dave Grohl.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Update! I talked to my boyfriend this afternoon.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: At first, when I told him I still wanted to
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: keep my name, he got really upset and called me
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: some not-so-nice things.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Uh-oh, that's a preview into your marriage.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Then he calmed down and said it was very important
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: to him that his wife take his name, that he
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: had always imagined it that way. I said something like,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I know this is very important to you, but it's
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: important to me as well.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: It was wrong of me to assume you'd be fine
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: And hypocritical as well, since we both want the biggest
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: tradition of all, marriage.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: True. What's a bigger tradition than marriage? The World Cup? Birthdays.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: I guess you're right. I am.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Holidays. Nailed it. First try. Yeah, you're welcome. Neither of
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: us is right or wrong, and I'm not angry with
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: you at all.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: This is a values thing, but I am willing to
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: compromise by hyphenating my name. And I really want you
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: to consider that because it is very important to me
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and I love you and want us both to be happy.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: If I change my name to yours, I would be unhappy.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: And if I kept mine by itself, you'd be unhappy.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: He said he'd still be very unhappy with a hyphenated
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: name because they are pretentious and wishy-washy.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Hey, look, it's me. I'm pretentious and wishy-washy. It's just
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: such a.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: What a lame idea. What a lame, like, thought process.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Hyphenated names are lame and wishy-washy? Sorry, my parents had
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: me before marriage.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Hyphenated names are just cool. Mine's cool. I get to
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: have both. He's just jealous. Yeah, dude, just like... I
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Embrace things. Embrace the change, dude. It's not that deep.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: It's way deeper for her to just get rid of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: her name entirely than for you to both get to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: have your names.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: This seems like a hill that they're both standing on.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: And like Opie came down the hill a little bit.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: But he's not budging.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: He's ready to take his last breath on this hill.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Truly. Wishy-washy. What a terrible reason.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I said I thought it wasn't wishy-washy at all because
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I'm making it known to the world that I'm part
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: of his family and he's still a part of mine.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Booyah. He said tons of women are fine with changing
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: their name. No hyphen. So why not me?
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I explained again that my name means a lot to
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: me and.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: It's what I'd heard my whole life. that's a part
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: of me.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: He said that wasn't a good enough reason and said
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: that all the women who changed their name still love
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: their families and heritage.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Here's the point. It's right here, right in front of
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: my face. Missing it. He's looking the other way. I mean,
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: at this point you can go, great. So I make
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: my last name, my middle name now, and then I.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Just go by that. So no matter what happens, I
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: still just go by that name.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: You know what? I'm going to be fun. Non-traditional.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, like how the Japanese do it over there.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: My last name first, first name last.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Last name, first name. Suzuki Ichiro. Then we let it
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: go for a while.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Later, he told me, or I guess confessed, that his
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: parents had a more traditional, old-fashioned type of relationship and
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: it was always what he had envisioned having. But when
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: he met me, he fell so hard and loved being
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: with me so much that he thought he could just
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: forget about what he grew up thinking about. I have
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: never heard any of this, by the way. But he
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: said after thinking about it really long term, like marriage
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: for 50 plus years... He wasn't sure if a non-traditional
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: marriage was something he wanted or not.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: I like how he's debating that while he's.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: In a relationship. Bro, it's time to walk.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Basically, what this man basically said was, I just went
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: along with it the whole time until.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: It became like.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: When he got to the point, we'll get there. Until
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: it became decision time and I realized I'm the opposite
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: of what you want. I was very surprised and thrown.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: I said, but we're really happy right now. And he
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: said he's the happiest he's ever been when he's with me.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Throughout our relationship, I didn't pressure him or anything. I'd
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: say things like, I want this. What do you think?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Or I've always liked the idea of this, but if
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: you disagree, I'm definitely willing to talk about it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Or what's your opinion on this? And then give my own.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I never presented it as you have to do this
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: this way or we're breaking up. I feel bad we
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: were in a relationship he apparently didn't see himself in,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: but I wish he would have communicated it to me.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I thought we just happened to agree on most things,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: but apparently he was compromising on his beliefs, which makes
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: me feel very guilty about the whole thing.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: That's not on you, though. It was a facade on him.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: He lied the entire time.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: That's not on you. It's totally not on you at all.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And honestly, dude, people get so wrapped up in these
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: stupid wedding marriage things. It should really be as simple as,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I love you so much, I literally can't even imagine
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: not being with you.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: And I'll do, yeah, like, not like I'll be on
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: the floor and beg on my knees kind of thing.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: But yeah, the fact that he said, I'm the happiest
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: I've ever been with you. And he is going to
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: be like, no, but see what you think? Different from
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: what I think, but I'm happy. That's a lie.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: The worst fights we ever had were about our bedroom.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I wanted it more than he did, but we compromised.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: And chores.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Originally, he put all the female chores on me and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: got really upset initially when I asked him to do
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: the dishes in exchange for me doing the lawn. and
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: things like that, but eventually we came to a compromise
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: that he seemed happy with. We had a few little
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: fights a month, but they were things like me forgetting
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: to pick up dry cleaning or something. I guess that
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: we didn't have many big fights, and that was a
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: red flag? I told him, please be honest with me
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: even if you think we'll disagree. I care more about
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: your happiness than anything else, and that we can work
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: things out together. I wish he would have told me
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: a more traditional relationship was what he wanted. I hate
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: to think I was putting him into something he didn't want.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I wish he would have told me. I've always been
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: very bad with subtlety and body language. I told him
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: this lots of times. I actually had a diagnosis of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Asperger's when I was a kid. I have to rely
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: on words and actions, so I think maybe he could
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: have been upset or uncomfortable, but I didn't realize it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Which also makes me feel really bad.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: But he told me today I should have noticed the
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: signs he was upset, snapping at me or things like that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I always assumed he just had a bad day or
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: something since he never mentioned our relationship.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: But that he also should have communicated his feelings explicitly.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: So I'm very in the wrong here, but I think
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: he will be more open with me from now on.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: You're not really in the wrong. I don't.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you were very upfront. You did your part. He
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: did not do his part. Stop saying you're guilty. You
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: feel guilty.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I'm in the wrong. Maybe a couple of things here,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: but stop it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely going to try extra hard to keep my
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: eyes and ears open and notice these subtler things while
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: he tries to communicate them verbally to me. He said
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: in the past that I act like your average man
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: when it comes to being perceptive. As far as names go,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: he said he really wanted me to take his name,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: but he acknowledged how important it was to me. So
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: he would think about hyphenating as a compromise. He made
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: it clear, though, that he would not be happy about it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Then if you do this, he's going to regret it
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: and resent you for the rest of your life. Or
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: at least the rest of the time you are together
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: with that hyphenated name.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is going to become like, well, what else
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: is he expecting? It's like what what's going to once
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: you're married is are all of his expectations about what
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: you're going to do like change? Because, well, now we're married.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Now it's different now. Like he feels like that kind
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: of guy. What he actually said was, why can't you
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: do this one thing so many others do?
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: But he isn't calling the whole thing off.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: So I really hope we can come to some agreement
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: like me legally hyphenating, but he can call me Mrs.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: His name at social events or something. He agreed to
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: go to counseling.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And if nothing else, I want to go to a
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: few sessions so we can be sure to split amicably.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: but I'm still confused and not sure whether we are
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: incompatible or not. He said to me for the first
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: time in two years that he had always wanted a
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: more traditional relationship, but also said he's very happy with
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the way things are now, minus the last few days,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of course. So I hope we can come to some
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: sort of mutual understanding and agreement.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: I love him a lot and really want to try
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: and make things work.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: It really feels like y'all should do that counseling before
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you get married, because I don't think he's just going
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: to magically stop not being... Honest with you, I think
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: he sees getting married as this like goal line. And
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: then once he's married, he can exercise his more traditional
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: will upon you, which is going to result in divorce.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we need to pump the brakes here.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Not fully, not to complete stop, but just... Let's slow
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: things down here because this is big. This is a
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: big revelation in a relationship that you've had for a
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: while now.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: If I have learned two things from this, it is
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: to one, never assume anything and to make your wants
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: about your relationship 100% clear and also make sure you
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: understand your partner's. Three, pay close attention to your partner's behavior.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It may be indicative of something they're not telling you.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Thanks for the comments, everyone. It turned out to be
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: a much bigger issue than just I want you to
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: have my name, which surprised me. But I'm glad it's
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: come to light now and not in the future. I'm
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: hoping my boyfriend and I can come to an agreement
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: about all this. I really love him and want to
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: make things work. But we have both agreed we have
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: issues to work on before getting married if we decide to.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: That's the end of that story.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Hey it's dakota your favorite rat brain host here and
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: we're gonna get back to the stories.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: Soon but here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: my sister disrespected my fiance constantly so i cut her
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: from my wedding slice and dice have a nice life
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: so i 28 female am getting married in a few
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: weeks to my fiance jake 30 male and i couldn't
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: be happier However, my sister Emily, 26 female, has made
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: it painfully clear that she doesn't approve of him. It
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: all started when Jake and I first dated two years ago.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: And Emily's criticisms have only escalated since then. I get
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: she might have some reservations, protective sibling, look out for
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: one another, right? But when I say her comments have
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: been harsh, I mean it. She called him too lazy
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: and not ambitious enough on more than one occasion. And
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: she doesn't seem to understand how much it hurts me
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: when she says these things, especially to a guy.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, is she on the money though?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Cause you say that it was like way out of
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: pocket and that sounded like it could be squarely in
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the pocket.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Depending on certain factors. Depending on the pocket.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, we haven't gotten a reason yet. The jury's
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: still out. But I will say, if you ever do
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: call that to a guy whose job is, you know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: maybe to provide, that.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Ow!
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Is he providing?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Ah!
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: I've tried to brush it off, insisting that Jake treats
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: me well and that we compliment each other perfectly. But
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: Emily continues to dismiss my feelings, and even when I
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: ask her to stop... She insists she's just looking out
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: for me for context. Yes, he has a job, but
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: we both work at a mall. I at beauty shop
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: and he's a part of a maintenance engineering team. And
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: we have saved for this day. He's kind to me
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: and we share household chores. So when I asked her
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: how he was lazy and She said he should have
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: to put his engineering degree to better use than working
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: at some mall. By the way, this comes from Master
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Prune 73. And if you want to see my own stories,
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: you know where to go. I'm Riley.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: I'm Dakota.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I'm Keon.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: And we're here today to read stories goofily. We don't
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: have all the answers. Please comment down below if you
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: have anything to add. So, the last straw was a
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: few months ago when I shared that we finally got
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: a beautiful venue for the wedding ceremony. and that invitations
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: will be going out soon. Emily jumped in with a
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: snide remark about how I might end up regretting my
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: choice in partners.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: What?
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: All because what? He's got an engineering degree and works
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: at a mall?
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: I could feel my blood boil. I told her that
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: I appreciate her concern, but I'm happy with Jake, and
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: I don't want to hear any more negativity about him.
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: After that conversation... I realize I couldn't invite her to
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: our wedding.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. I back up that sentiment.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: I just don't think I could enjoy my big day
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: with her there, making comments or rolling her eyes. It
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: feels unfair to have her in attendance when she doesn't
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: support my choice.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: Mentioned my decision to my parents, they were furious. They
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: think I should overlook Emily's behavior for the sake of
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: the family unit.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Question, Dakota.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: How old does Emily have to be for you to
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: overlook her behavior?
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Teenager. How old? Between the ages of 13 and 19.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: All right. Keon Bot. How old is this Miss Emily?
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: She is.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: Drum roll, please.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: I'm going to guess 39.
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: 42.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: 26.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Oh!
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: Too old.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Too old.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: Your frontal cortex is connected.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'd be slinging a couple shots back
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: over there. I'd be like, sounds like somebody's a little
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: jealous I'm getting married.
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: Oh!
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: Yes!
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm going to get a little.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Ow.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Ow.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Ooh, that burned, didn't it?
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: They believe I should just ignore her criticisms and not
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: make a scene. It's put me in a tough spot
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: because I love my family, but I also have to
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: protect my happiness and the day I've been dreaming for
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: so long. Now I'm feeling really conflicted. Part of me
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: thinks I should just invite her and try to have
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: a good time despite her presence. Another part of me
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: feels justified in my decision. Am I the a-hole for
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: deciding I don't want to invite Emily to my wedding?
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: To address some comments, the wedding is in three weeks,
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: August 9th.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Holy cow.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: My parents are the type that think she's an adult.
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: She can make her own decisions. My fiance is very
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: supportive of whatever decision I make. He just wants me happy.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: We have an update.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: I think you're fully justified not inviting her.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: I like how your parents said she's an adult. She
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: can make her own decisions.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: What about me?
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I think if your parents really want to mend the
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: gap here, your parents are going to have to go
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: to your sister and plead to her to be like,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: you need to make this right. You need to come
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: and apologize to your sister for being out of pocket.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And if you can do that and express that you
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: do support them, then maybe you'll get invited.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: Emotionally available money bags, man. I think you're looking at
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: it wrong. I say Emily do whatever she wants. Parents,
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: you want me to invite her? How much cash you got? Yeah,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: how much cash you got? The mall engineering fund is
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: running low. Oh, wait, no, it's not. Am I going
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: to break even on this wedding? Or am I going
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: to have a little extra for the honeymoon?
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: 9 p.m.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Saturday, I spoke with my fiance when he got home,
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: and he said that he is 100% okay with me
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: not inviting my sister, and that he also worried that
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: she may have alternative motives but she's never treated him
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: in any way that he thinks she might be into
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: him and that actually really freaked him out but he
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: also said if my parents chose not to come to
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: the wedding his father would probably more than happy to
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: walk me down the aisle his family kind of loves
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: me and me and his father and mother get along
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: so well i got lucky in the mother-in-law department We're
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: meeting with them on Monday to discuss the stipulations and
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: our decisions not to invite her.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: To the wedding.
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: So I'll have that update for everyone either Monday evening
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: or sometime Tuesday. Update to dinner with my parents and sister. Oh, yum.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: Can you think it's going.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: To go well?
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: I think it's gonna be so much fun. This would
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: be so much fun.
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: I could see you being in a situation like this.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Couldn't you?
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: With my girlfriend?
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: No, just like with some random sister.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Me?
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: Like his sister or just someone's sister.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: I can't, dude. He gets along with every woman on Earth.
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: Except for his sister.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Just about. Just about. But my sister's a different entity
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: in a whole other universe.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Well, let's just say it was exactly how I expected
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: it to be. About halfway through dinner, my sister made
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: a snide remark about how simple our wedding would be
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: because of my husband's little mall job.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: So, like, how much does your husband... I need to
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: know now how much your husband makes. How much does
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: she make?
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: Why are you on her side?
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: They're happy.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not on her side. I'm just saying, like,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: I want to know how much this little rinky-dink engineering
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: at the mall job makes him. Does she even know?
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: I immediately spoke up. I mentioned to my sister... that
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: the way she's been speaking about my fiance has been
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: completely inappropriate. I told her that if she's going to
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: continue to behave this way, I couldn't have her at
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: the wedding.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: She looked at.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: Me with this weird look, almost like she was confused
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: as to what I was saying.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: She was like, wait, I didn't expect you to come
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: at me.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: She was like, are you serious right now over a joke?
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: There was a comment on here that I had been
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: working really hard to memorize, so I basically repeated it
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: for her. That this type of disrespect that she has
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: been portraying was definitely not how I wanted my entire
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: wedding to be.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Get her.
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be exchanging my vows with her
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: little huffs and eye rolls. I just didn't need her
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: attitude messing with my day. She was either going to
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: come to the wedding and behave herself or the moment
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: she disrespected or interrupted in any kind of way, I
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: would have her escorted out. Thankfully, prior to this, I
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: did speak to my best friend and she said absolutely
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: she would help me with this so that I wouldn't
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: even have to know if anything bad happened. I would
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: just realize that my sister was no longer at the venue, etc., etc.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: My father didn't say a word. He just nodded in
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: agreement with me. But this was when my mom finally
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: woke up.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Ooh!
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Like a sleeper agent. Bright and early, let's go! Well,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, she slept in, but... She's up! She's up! Boo!
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: She's right.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: Emily, you have been very disrespectful and unsupportive of your sister.
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: And if you can't behave, we will not bring you. Finally,
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: my sister spoke up. I'm really sorry, Emily. I was
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: just trying to joke around. I wasn't trying to be disrespectful,
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: and I promise I won't spoil your day. But I
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: guess this all makes sense now why you didn't ask
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: me to be your bridesmaid. So my parents stuck up
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: for me. My sister promised to behave herself and is
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: going to come to the wedding, but I will have
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: to back up to make sure that the moment that
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: she does anything disrespectful or makes any comments whatsoever, she's
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: going to be out. But I did realize with her
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: bridesmaid comment, That may have been why she had been
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: a little extra snippy after we started planning the wedding.
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: So hopefully this all goes well. I guess we'll find
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: out in a couple of weeks, but either way, I'm
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: going to have an amazing wedding and I'm going to
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: marry my best friend. So in all, it looks like
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: things are going to be okay. I'm sorry for those
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: that said I should just cut her out, but I've
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: learned that thanks to my amazing mother-in-law, that communication is
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: the foundation for any relationship regardless of what kind. But
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: I did warn her at the end of the dinner
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: that if she did cause any issues at the wedding,
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: I would be going either low contact or no contact
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: with her after her promise to behave herself. We hugged
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: it out and I went home quite happy and even
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: had a little cry in the car that things seemed
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: to be working out. I guess I will talk to
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: everyone in a few weeks after my wedding. I am
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: not the type to just hop on here and update
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: everyone after the wedding. We go on our honeymoon, and
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: the last thing I'll be doing is being on Reddit,
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: so it's going to be quiet for a long time
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: before I update, even if I do remember to. Update three.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, thank God. Thank God.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: There is an update.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: I was about to be like, F you.
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: You give us this beautiful story, and you aren't even
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: going to see the end of it?
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: We could probably get the update on a couple years
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: into the marriage, maybe. Who knows how long it's been.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Update three.
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: Does the sister still be nice? Thoughts?
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: Thrup date.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Your husband has a better job. Even though the job
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: he has right now is not even bad. I mean,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: it's got to be a bonus.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Like, you work at the same place as your partner. Like,
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: in a way. Same area. Same area, different departments. But
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: it's like carpooling, maybe. Different stores. See each other on lunch.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Different places. Yeah, but what if, like, you know, the
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: makeup shop needs an engineering fix, you know?
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking sister probably made a couple snide comments, but
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: nothing too major.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: And everything was great. That's what I'm thinking.
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: So my sister saw the post and figured out it
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: was her and I. She was hurt at first and
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: a bit angry until she read the comments. And she said,
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: and I quote, Wow, I'm really a witch, huh? I
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: am so sorry.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I really effed up.
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: I promise no shenanigans. So I truly believe the wedding
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: should be fine. She was truly smacked in the face
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: with her own BS attitude. And I think everything will
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: be perfect day of. But if everyone insists on a
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: full wedding update, I can do it at a later
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: date after. But hopefully this is all good news.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Update four. All right, we got it. Yeah. What was
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: that whole like?
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to update you guys because I'm going
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: to forget about it.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to update you guys. It's in the
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: heat of the moment when you post it, you know.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I won't update you guys till after i've been impregnated
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: i'm not i'm not gonna draw more attention to myself
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: and then does.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: How'd your mouth get all small like that why'd.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: You do that you made it so small update four
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: i'm married But not sure if this is the update
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: you wanted. Everything went fine. No drama, no stress. And
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: it was a beautiful day. And Emily was the perfect sister.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: So a happy ending. I don't know if it's what
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: everyone expected, but it seems a happy ending is always
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: a good update.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Let's go. Agreed. Agreed. The world is healing. Everyone needs
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: a happy ending now and then. We can't have it
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: all be bad. And that's the end of this story.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Let's head to the next one.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Angie, your favorite fashion host here. We're going
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: to get back to the stories, but here's three minutes
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: of ads from our sponsors. My sister insisted on planning
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: her entire wedding alone, but it unraveled.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, unraveled into a huge mess.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: My sister has been planning her wedding for over a
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: year now, and the event is scheduled for May. She
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: decided to schedule her wedding for the week after we
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: graduate from college and after our other sibling graduates from
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: high school. So our entire family will be stretched thin
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: for her wedding. Additionally, my sister has a hard time
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: choosing anything for herself. For example, she told me that
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: she was marrying her fiancé because he felt safe, even
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: though he is five years older than her and unemployed.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Nothing says safe like that.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, safe in what way? Is he just like a
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: giant meatball?
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming nice guy.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Meatball. She also had no definite reason for choosing the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: wedding dress she did. Not even in, I can't explain it,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: but I like it. Just nothing.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: What?
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: This has resulted in her telling my parents and me
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that she made a choice. Then we ask for her
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: reasoning and she ends up changing her mind to seemingly
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: make us happy. She is determined to plan this wedding
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: by herself. No help from her fiance, family, or a planner.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't know how to plan a wedding at all.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like she can really do much. She doesn't
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: really have any reason to.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: I feel like we need to sit her down and
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: be like, hey, we gotta slow things down.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Slow it down, baby. Here is a non-comprehensive list of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: things that she has done. She scheduled the photographer from
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: noon to 8pm. but wants to get sunset photos with
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: her fiancé even though sunset is scheduled around 8.30 p.m.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that day. By the way, this comes from My Middle
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Name is Sky. And if you want to submit your
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: own stories, go to the r slash OK Storytime subreddit.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Savannah.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: I'm Keon. I'm Riley.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: And we're here to talk about some stuff. Maybe make
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: you laugh, maybe make you cry, I don't know. I
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: don't know what's in store tonight. But I am excited
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to be here, and I'm also going to tell you
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: that we don't have all the answers. We'd only tell
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you what we would do. So let us know what
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you would do down in the comments. As Opie says,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: she publicly promised a short intermission between the afternoon ceremony
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: and dinner, but planned a two-hour intermission for photos and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: private vows. She did not ask for our stepfather to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: be the officiant of the wedding or walk her down
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the aisle, She just planned for that in her head.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: She wanted to send wedding invitations to all guests by
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: mail less than two months before the wedding, and some
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: people who received Save the Date cards did not receive
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: an invitation because she was working out of two different lists.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: What? Two months before the wedding?
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: This seems like just a huge dumpster fire. It keeps
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: getting bigger and bigger.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: Some people can't even.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: Have dinner two months out. You need like three months out.
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: That's how Keon is during the summer.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: It's true. This is very true.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: She told the DJ that roughly 200 people would be
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: there but told the caterer it would be about 150
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: people with the guest list currently reaching 250. She passed
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: all decoration planning over to her future mother-in-law who has
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: no experience decorating but does have a plant nursery. She
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: somehow wants to prevent our divorced parents from being in
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: the same room during the wedding for the whole day
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: even for the reception.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like this girl is just throwing darts at
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: a planning board and going, that makes sense.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. That makes sense.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's going to go so bad. It's going to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: go so horribly bad. She didn't invite her uncle, who
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: is in his 40s and in a wheelchair, to her
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: wedding because she assumed he couldn't make it, even though
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: he has been to our city before. Her future mother-in-law
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: and father-in-law were not on the guest list.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: This is so bad. What is her husband doing in
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: all of this? Or her fiancé?
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Nothing, because he's unemployed, and so he has all the
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: time in the.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: World to do nothing. I don't even know these people,
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: and it's stressing me the F out.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: Dude, you know what's cute? Is that my mom bought
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: my sister-in-law a wedding planner, and she used it for
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: two weeks straight and planned her wedding out in two weeks. Yeah,
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: she was on top of it, dude.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Wait, you mean a wedding planner is in like a journal?
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like a wedding planning journal.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Not like a person who plans it?
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: No, no, no, sorry. My mom got her a wedding
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: planning journal and she just went through everything. And my
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: brother was just like, yep, whatever you want. Sounds good.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: That's funny because imagine hiring a person and they got
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: it done in two weeks.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: It was very impressive. Katie says this lady seems very disorganized.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: More than that. Where are her friends? Where's the squad? Yeah,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: this is even her family. You're her family. I'd be like, girl,
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: what are you doing?
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: The three-year-old ring bearer was on the guest list, but
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: his parents or anyone who could watch him were not. What?
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: He's just going to drive there? Yeah, just drop him off.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: We'll take care of him. Drop him off.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: He'll be able to spend the day at the wedding.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: We'll just get him an Uber. It's fine.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we'll just go home after.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: This is so messy.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: She scheduled makeup for 9.30, but as mentioned, the photographer
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: arrives at noon, so no getting ready photos are going
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: to be taken unless someone is really dedicated. She scheduled
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the dinner to start before the grand entrance.
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: What?
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: What? Is she doing this on purpose?
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Does she know how weddings work? Does she know, like, yeah, sure,
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: there could be, like, a little bit of, like, disorganization.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: She told the DJ that the first guest that will
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: arrive at the reception after the ceremony will be at
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: 3 p.m., but her wedding ceremony is scheduled to start
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: at 3.30 p.m.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: I feel like anyone who's hired for this wedding is
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: going to be like, you know what? I'm getting my
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: money's worth, and I'm just going to be paid from
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: this time to this time.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: That's it. No questions asked. I don't need to ask questions.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: This is the short list. There is so much more,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: especially when it comes to who is paying for the wedding,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: how the guest list has expanded, and more. Tomorrow is
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: the bridal shower, which is what made me think to
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: post this stuff, but I am happy to keep you
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: all updated with future events. There's an update.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: This is so stressful.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Remember when we read that story where someone was like
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: crying so hard that they started throwing up? Yes.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: She's giving me that.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Babe, please.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do this. Yeah, that's what she's
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: giving me right now. You got to sit her down
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: and be like, hey, we got to make a list.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Check it twice.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: Got to find out who's being naughty or nice because
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: this is not good.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Update! I needed time to process everything that occurred. I
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: first posted to the sub about three months ago regarding
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: my concerns about my sister's wedding, and I really appreciate
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: the support and the critiques that I received. I agree
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: that a lot of my concerns were petty, and I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: was not doing a great job of supporting her. So
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I had a talk with her where I brought up
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: some suggestions and asked how I could best support her.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: And she was adamant that she knew what she was
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: doing and did not need or want help planning the wedding.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: And she would let me and my family know if
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and when she needed us. I respected that choice and
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: told her that I would be there for her if
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: she needed anything the day of. So here are the
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: bits that occurred before the wedding day. I learned from
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: her that her fiance had no part in the wedding planning,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: not even expressing his preferences. I wonder if he was
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: on the guest list. Like, I would, it would not.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Surprise you?
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Surprise me, yeah. If, like, they just forgot.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God, the groom.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: We didn't accommodate for the groom. Oh, no.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: Do we think all 250 people are showing up?
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Two months out?
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: They even invited more people after that. So I don't
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: even know.
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: That's crazy. I mean, it makes sense why this guy
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: didn't participate, because he's too busy looking for jobs.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: You know? This is so bad. I hate this.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: She told me the only thing he was doing or
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: in charge of was choosing suits, which had already been
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: done two months before this conversation. He was also refusing
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to steam or iron his own or his groomman's suits,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: so she asked our dad to do it.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: Oh!
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: Oh man, you're supposed to be the one to provide,
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: not the dad still.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: What are we doing?
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Set up for the wedding and reception was on the
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: day before the ceremony and the father of the groom
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: did not attempt to help with set up or take
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: down the day after. Additionally, my sister and her in-laws
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: brought a bunch of flowers for the ceremony arc, which
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: looked beautiful, but didn't bring any food to eat or
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: additional decorations. The rest of the wedding party was told
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: when we got there. that we should have brought our
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: own lunches, even though my sister had promised to bring
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: us lunch. The rehearsal dinner was scheduled at the reception
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: venue the night before, and I had offered to my
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: sister that I, as the maid of honor, could text
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the wedding party the rehearsal dinner information, but I would
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: need the wedding party's phone numbers. I never spoke to
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: a single member of the groom's party until the rehearsal dinner.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: And the timing information for the dinner to send. My
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: sister said she would get back to me on that,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: but she never did. I reminded her a few more times,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and she eventually told me she wanted to take care
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: of it and to stop asking her.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: Then you stop. You know what?
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: You did all what you needed to do, O.P., You
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: let this mess be handled by her. You've told her
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: numerous times you want to help or how can you help?
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: And she said, I got it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: That's just.
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: I walk away, if anything. If I'm UOP, I walk
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: away because this is way too much.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: And she decided that instead of making a group chat
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: with everyone in it, she made smaller group chats based
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: on the rules people held in the wedding. Groomsmen, flower girls,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: ring bearer, parents of the bride, parents of the groom, etc.,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: but forgot to create one for the bridesmaids.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: That is like the first thing you do. You walked
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: in on a mess. This is a mess.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I knew the rehearsal dinner date and time from my parents,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: but she didn't inform her other two bridesmaids who didn't
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: show up.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: Gee, I wonder why.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: Because they didn't get an invite or there was zero communication.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I took the two bridesmaids and walked them through the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: ceremony on the morning of the wedding so they had
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: some idea of what to expect. She asked our dad
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: to officiate her wedding, but kept refusing to talk to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: him about what things she wanted included in the ceremony,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: telling him she would get to it later. A few
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: weeks before the wedding, instead of initiating a conversation with him,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: she sent him a word-for-word script that she wanted him
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to follow, which maybe wouldn't be so bad, but for
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: the fact that she used AI to write it.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: No, don't do that.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: This story should be titled, How to Burn a Bridge
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: with Everyone You Know and That You're Inviting to Your Wedding.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: How to burn that bridge.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I like how my chanclas are vibrating off my feet.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I thought of this.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: I guarantee you she asked AI how to plan a wedding.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Even AI can't help this person. There were so many
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: stupid errors in the script. The most memorable being a
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: line about... Like this speech, their love will last forever. Y'all,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: we are in the Midwest.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Three hours from anything that could be interpreted as a beach.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: My dad then took the speech, edited out the incongruent parts,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and sent it back to her. My sister texted me
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to complain that clearly my dad must have used AI
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: to edit the speech because it read as if it
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: were AI written.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: Girl.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: That's what you did.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? Surely you just AI'd the edits
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: after I already AI'd it. So you're using too much AI.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: How?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: The story's pissing me off. Not even pissing me off.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: Can't even think of the word right now.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Frustration.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Sure. That's the one.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: A week and a half before her wedding, our mom
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: asked her what time brunch and decoration takedown were going
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: to be on Sunday because she was in charge of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: getting the food for the day, to which my sister
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: looked her in the eyes and said, I don't know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: brunch time? And walked away. Not brunch time. That could
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: be anything. I would say brunch time is usually around
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: like 11 or noon.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: Every time my sister starts talking about anything wedding related,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: I'm just going to give her a look.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Let's go. Hey, what do you think, sissy? What do
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: you think, OP?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: She told the caterer to bring an appetizer tray of
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: 75 chicken wings for 150 guests. She also made 50
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: veggie spears for the same 150 guests and thought that
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: would be enough between the ceremony and dinner.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: No!
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: No!
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: No, actually, not even everyone's about to have a wing.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Everyone just gets, like, one nibble. Everyone, pass around your nibble.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: Like, what?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: Your sister's the type of person, like, you know what
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: we're eating today?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Air. Yum. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. And then if
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: you see grass on the ground, it's free.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Five days before the wedding, she came to my parents'
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: house and begged for help with a bunch of stuff
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: that she told us she was going to do herself.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Things like steaming the flower girl dress, making chocolate-covered pretzels, etc.,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: which we took on and completed, but we explained that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: they would not be of the highest quality because of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: the limited time frame we had. My family was dispatched
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to the store two days before the wedding because we
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: were told that the mother-in-law was handling all the decorations,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: but apparently that meant only the centerpieces and the wedding arch,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: so no additional decorations were available whatsoever. For the sweetheart table,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: gift table, cake table, etc.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: I would not do this. I'm sorry.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: I would stare her right in the eye like I
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: did earlier and go, Are you kidding me? You waited three,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: four days prior to the wedding to stress everyone out?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: I back out. I'm not going to this wedding.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: My sister went with my mom to the store to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: pick out decorations, but when we got there, she couldn't
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: pick out a single thing she wanted. Well, of course.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: No flowers, vases, or random decor. She would walk up
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and down the same two aisles, then get to the
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: end and just stand there for a few minutes before repeating.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: My mom and I began begging her to tell us
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: what she wanted and what she was thinking. And she
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: said she had a vision of some flowers being on
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the floor by the head table. To which we said, okay,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: how are we going to do that? Do you see
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: any flowers you like? Do you want to put them
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: in a standing vase? and she just stared at us
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: blankly before pacing the aisles again. So she just wants
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: some flowers on the floor. What's wrong with that? She
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: told the venue that she wanted 15 tables with 8 chairs,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: each for the reception, which is 120 seats for a
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: wedding with 150 people who RSVP'd yes. My dad caught
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: this issue five days before the wedding, during the final walkthrough,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: but when he brought it up to my sister, she
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: became irate because it messed with the vision in her head.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: and would change how the photos would turn out.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: I shake her and say, what is the vision in
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: your head? What is in your head right now?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Show me your head vision!
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: Show me your vision!
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Please!
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if you know how to decipher it!
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: Come on!
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Come on!
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: She couldn't articulate why it would change them, and eventually
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: just said, okay, to more tables.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah!
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do with the 30 people who
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: don't have seats?! Oh my god, I mean, just be like,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: oh sorry, we ran out of room. They'd be like, what?
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Five days before her wedding, at the same walkthrough, she
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: told me that the wedding party would line up outside
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the garage door for the grand entrances, to which I said,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: which one?
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: Because there were three!
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: She looked perplexed and turned around to stare at the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: garage doors, as she had never noticed them before, before
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: seemingly choosing one at random. I say choosing one at
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: random because that garage door had the cake table in
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: front of it.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Uh, that one.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: They all go in and they just tackle the cake.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: They go, all right, cake time.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: This is funny.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: We asked her how that was going to work and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: where the cake table would be moved to. And she
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: just went quiet and eventually said that going in through
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the garage door would make for good pictures. We said, okay,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: how can we do that? And she snapped at my mom, fine,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: we can go through the regular door before storming off.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Those were the highlights before the wedding. Here were the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: events the night before and day of. My parents and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I planned to bring all our suits, dresses, and snacks
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: for the day in our cars so the work was
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: evenly distributed among us. I mentioned this to my sister
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: at the rehearsal dinner and she gave me a blank
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: look and said, well, who's bringing my steam dress then?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: To which I said, what do you mean? And she
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: informed me that she had hidden her dress at my parents'
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: house and had lied to us about taking it with
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: her when she moved out. And she expected us to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: know that and have already steamed her dress and bring
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: it to her on her wedding day. Oh, my God.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: I think she's genuinely trying to do this.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: I think she's.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: Trying to sabotage every little thing. There's no way in
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: hell someone is doing this and be like, oh, I forgot.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: Or sorry, miscommunicated. She's doing this has to be blatantly
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: on purpose.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I immediately informed my parents and my mom's first reaction was,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: I would have thought that the wedding dress was something
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: you think about more in advance than the day before
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: the wedding. But we found her dress and my dad
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: steamed it on the morning of the wedding on site.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm going to say this right now.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: Your family, you, angels. Arc, not archangels. She's an archangel.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: You're all angels for doing this.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: She brought in straight vodka in a water bottle and
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: drank it the morning of the wedding. My sister, the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: moment she gets any booze in her, turns into the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: meanest person you have ever met. Oh, no.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: You know that that stuff was saved. She had that
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: for like. Drink in case of emergency.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: She kept snapping at everyone and we just thought she
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: was stressed. But then when I was cleaning up the
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: getting ready area later, I caught a whiff of the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: water bottle she had been nursing all day and it
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: all made sense then. My sister ordered her bouquet but
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: didn't get any for the bridesmaids. The three of us
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: bridesmaids gathered the decorative flowers from the centerpieces to make
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: passable small bouquets. The deflowering of the centerpieces also upset
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the mother of the groom, who had arranged them. She
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: reamed me out privately for not asking her before touching
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: the centerpieces, and in hindsight, I should have talked to
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: her instead of just getting permission from my sister. My
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: sister did not have a list of the orders she
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: wanted people in for photos after the ceremony and truly
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: seemed to be making it up as she went along.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: The photographer was amazing and very quick. She had fantastic
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: ideas for whom to take pictures with and what poses
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: to do, so she was extremely helpful. Thank God. However,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: my sister took a long time to decide who was
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: up next for pictures, to the point that by the
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: time everyone had finished taking family pictures, there were only
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: 15 minutes left for couple pictures. Thankfully, one of the
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: pieces of advice she did implement for me was to
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: talk to the photographer and schedule a time for couples'
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: sunset shoot where they read their private vows to each other,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: but my sister was very upset and frazzled by the
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: end of the photo shoot. I did my best to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: support her by helping to fix her gown and trying
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to get people where she wanted them to go, but
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: it was hard to understand what she wanted in the moment.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: I will say the pictures themselves have already come back
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and they are stunning!
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: Yes!
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Thank God. I am sorry it was so stressful for everyone,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: but the pictures came out beautifully, so I am glad
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: that my sister and her husband have them to remember
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the good parts of the day. I have no idea
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: what was happening with my sister's father-in-law after the wedding
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and during dinner, but he was pissed off. He was
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: there all day but didn't talk to anyone, including his son,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: the groom, before the ceremony. He stayed to get after-ceremony
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: pictures with his son and his wife, noticeably in all
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: the pictures. Though the mother-in-law has both her arms wrapped
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: around her son instead of her own husband.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: I know why he's upset. Are you ready for this?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: Wasn't told until today. He's paying for it.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: That could be it. That could very much be it.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: So who's paying for this? And they all looked at
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: him and went.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: You are.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Then when it was dinner time, he got up, got
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: two plates, piled one with food, covered the food plate
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: with the other plate upside down, then sat at his
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: table with his arms crossed, sullenly staring at the plate
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: for over an hour.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: Somebody's paying for this. Remember what the sister said? We'll
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: get to that later. Who's paying for this? We'll get
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: to that later.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Dang, so he's like, well, I make the best out
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: of it, taking all the food. That isn't even enough
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: for everyone there.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: Dang.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: And just staring at it.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I didn't really enjoy this story.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: If you guys didn't see or hear my reactions, this
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: was one of those stressful ones that I didn't like.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: It's going to stick with me for a while.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm going to just go ahead and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: finish it up.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: Truthfully.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: This is in no way the end of the craziness
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: that occurred before and during this wedding, but these were
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: some of the moments I felt comfortable sharing. My sister
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: has pretty much nuked her relationship with our parents because
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: of many factors, some of which are above, and my
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: sister and I aren't really talking. Not because we are fighting,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: just because we don't have anything to say to each other.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: The day after the wedding, my sister was pretty quiet,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: and at one point said, I should have talked to
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: you about this stuff, but then turned away. Well, I
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: think we all did the best we could, and it
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: went as well as it could have, because it truly
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: could have been much, much worse.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: Dang.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: And that's, that's it. That's actually insane. And the fact
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: that I don't know if it was just her ego
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: that she was like, no, I can do it on
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: my own. I can do it by myself. I don't
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: need any help, blah, blah, blah. Or if she didn't
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: trust anyone to do anything. But girl, nothing got done.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Nothing went well. And now you have broken relationships because
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: of this. Maybe next time, either get a wedding planner
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: or just ask for help. And not the day of
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: or the week before. Maybe like, you know, four or
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: five months out. Be like, hey, I'm going to need
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: help with all this. Do you want to help with me?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: You know, whatever, blah, blah. That's all. Just take the initiative.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: Next time. It'll go better next time. And that's the
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: end of this story.