Latest / ok storytime / My sister TOOK my daughter out without telling me… then blamed my wife for it! -r/BestofRedditorUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3065

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My sister TOOK my daughter out without telling me… then blamed my wife for it! -r/BestofRedditorUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3065 · ok storytime

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Angie.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And this is Riley, your favorite OK Storytime host. And
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: we got some great stories coming up.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: our sponsors that keep the show alive. My sister took
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: my daughter without telling me. Then blame my wife for it. Yeah, yeah,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: it was your wife. I didn't do anything wrong. I,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: 36 male, got married 12 years ago.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: And my wife and I had a daughter, Rebecca, 10 female.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: My sister, Lindsay, never really liked my wife. And I
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: had to put some strong boundaries in place. It was
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: not a good time. And Lindsay really hated my wife
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: more since she said I had chose my wife over family. Well,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: two months ago, my wife's father got really sick. And
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: after a long talk, we decided that she will go
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: take care of him until he Wait, that's the last
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: of her family. We thought he would move in with us,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: but he wanted to go to his home. So my
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: wife packed her stuff and flew across the country to
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: him and is his full-time caretaker. He probably has a
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: month or two more. When Lindsay heard about this, she
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: made a comment at dinner when Rebecca was at the
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: table that my wife has abandoned her. This was the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: last straw and I went no contact with her. Rebecca
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: really loves her aunt, though, and it's been hard. Rebecca
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: wants to hang out with her aunt, and I have
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: refused to let her. By the way, this comes from throwaway54231212144.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: And if you want to submit your own stories, go
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: to the rs.showcase storytime subreddit.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Sophia. I'm Savannah.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: I'm Keon.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: And we've got thoughts, but they're not always the correct
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: thoughts or what you think is correct. So put down
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: what you think is correct in the comments below. OP says,
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I work from home and yesterday around lunchtime, I can't
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: find her. There's a note in her room saying she
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: went to have lunch with Lindsay.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: furious.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I tracked Rebecca's phone the first time that has ever
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: happened and they were at a restaurant. I get there
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: as fast as possible and grab my kid. I told
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Lindsay she will never see my daughter again. This started
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: an argument and I literally walked out halfway through. Rebecca
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: the whole time was crying and I asked for her phone.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: She gave it and I deleted her aunt's contact information
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: and told her you will never be talking to her
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: again as long as you are a minor. This is
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: not how we handle this.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: But also, 10 year old having a phone and.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah i don't think it's 10 years old nah i
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: got it at 13 i got mine at 14 yeah
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: i told my wife and she thinks i did the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: right thing and has been on the phone with rebecca
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a lot since it happened i've been fending off calls
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: from all of.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: My family calling me a knucklehead i need an honest
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: opinion since rebecca and my family sure think i'm awful
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: and we've got comments but what do you think do
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: you think OP's approach of kind of shutting it down
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: getting rid of the contact was the right one I mean.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I guess that was I think that was more like
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: spur of the moment yeah just like I'm so emotional
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: right now and this is how worried yeah this is
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like get rid of all contact like
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: immediately from this person I get that and I get
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: also you know like deleting it and because you don't
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: want her to like contact you or whatever but.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: It's just I think the deleting I think spur of
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: the moment is a great way to put it yeah
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: But I think that, you know, when you take a beat,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: you have to go back to her and say, hey,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry I reacted that way.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But it is a serious thing and I need you
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to know why.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: And there's a reason why we don't. hang out with
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: Auntie Lindsay. Lindsay? Yeah, Auntie Lindsay anymore.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lindsay, disrespect your mom.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Like, you have to explain because, yes, she's 10, but
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: she deserves to have a reason.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Comments.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Why does your daughter love Lindsay so much if Lindsay
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: is so disrespectful and hateful to her mother? OP says
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Lindsay loves to spoil Rebecca, and usually the comments are
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: not heard by her. Main target is my wife, and
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: since she is not here and she knows I won't
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: put up with it, Moved to Rebecca. Comment two, you're
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: absolutely not the a-hole, but does your daughter know why
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: she can't see her aunt? If not, I think a
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: kid-friendly discussion needs to happen.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: ASAP.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: OP says, I have explained it to her and so
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: has her mom. She is still very sad. She's also
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: having a hard time understanding why going out to lunch
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: with her aunt was a bad thing. Since Lindsay would
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: take her out to eat before.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It's a mess.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Comment three says, did your sister take your daughter to
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: a lunch across a state line? If so, the FBI
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: might want to talk to your sister about child trafficking.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: You have a very specific set of skills to get
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: your daughter back so fast. Your sister should be glad
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: you are.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Not Liam Neeson.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: No.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: No, it was a 20 minute drive to a Red Robin.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: We live in the middle of the States. When I
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: noticed she was gone, I used to find my iPhone
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: and it brought me right to her. Common Forest says,
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: how did your sister take your 10 year old daughter
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: out of the house without you being aware? I'm not
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: trying to attack, but I'm honestly trying.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: To figure it out.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: OP says, I have an office and it's summer. Rebecca says,
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: schedule when she doesn't do clubs is to wake around
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: 10 and watch tv have a bowl of cereal and
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: at 12 i come out of the office and make
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: lunch she has never left the house without permission before
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: At most, she'll go to my backyard, and she usually asks.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Since she likes to play in the backyard, my office
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: is towards the back of the house where I can
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: see the backyard. So I watch her through the office window.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: She's old enough that we don't have to watch her 24-7,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: and she's learning to be independent, so she gets herself
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: ready for events. So yesterday, she woke up and got
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: ready and left out the front. I went to make
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: lunch at 12, and she was gone. Lindsay never stepped
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: foot in this house. And we do have an update.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: That's still crazy.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that does make sense that the, you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: he was home, but working.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the same. Like, like the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: people who I nannied, if I wasn't there, I mean, they're,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: they would not know where their kids were. Like, I mean,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and I knew where they were at every second of
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the day because that was my job. But like, in
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: any case, if, if one of the dads were to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: come up and be like, Hey, where's, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, Oh, they're there. But if, the off
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: chance that I'd be like, I actually haven't seen them,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that would cause worry. But we got an update two
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and a half weeks later.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So it's been like two and a half weeks since
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: all this happened. Thank you to everyone that responded. So
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: after this whole mess, me and my daughter traveled to
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: where my wife is and her dad. We're all going
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: to stay there until her dad passes away. And I
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: have a feeling it will be soon. He is not
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: doing well. Rebecca is still kind of upset that she
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: won't see her on again, but having her mom around
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: really helps. My wife and I discussed it for a
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: long time and we decided to make a paper trail
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: about what happened. So all that happened is now on record.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: My family kept blowing up my phone for a bit
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: until I told them she's lucky I didn't call the cops.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: They got quiet for a bit and according to my cameras,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: showed up at my place. It took them a while
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: to figure out we left to be with my wife. Now, Lindsay, yesterday,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: it must have sunk in that I wasn't joking and
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: she called so many times. And I gave in to
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: see what she had to say. It was a long
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: apology on her end and asked if she could see Rebecca.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I told her no.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Crazy that Lindsay's like, I'm going to crap talk your wife,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: say the worst things about your wife.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And she doesn't realize until now that, oh, wait, those
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: have consequences?
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I told her no, that she needs to stay away.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And she crossed a huge boundary. She asked if she
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: could talk to my wife. I put her on speaker.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Lindsay then apologized to my wife about what she did.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: My wife was quite brutal and basically said if she
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: really meant it, then stay away from them. At the moment,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Lindsay won't be seeing my daughter again for a while.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: If she does stay away, then maybe she'll see us at.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Thanksgiving and Christmas. If she doesn't behave, then she probably
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: won't see my kid until she's 18. Again, thank you
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: to everyone for.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: The good advice.
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: Edit.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: She knows why.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: It was explained. Still, Lindsay was a huge part of
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: her life. It's like when you have a friend that's
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: great to you, but she's awful to others. It's, I
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: can be her friend since she's nice to me and
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: ignore what the friend does to others. Common One says,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I really think you need to explain to Rebecca why
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: she can't see her aunt. If you don't, she'll only
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: get her aunt's version and will likely keep seeing her
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: once she turns 18. OP says we did explain it
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: to her. She knows in child-friendly terms. A lot of
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: what she did is not suited to be heard by
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: a young kid. There's a lot of bad blood and
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: other stuff. She knows the basics, especially what happened in
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the post. When she's older, we will explain in more detail.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: She's having trouble due to Lindsay being a huge part
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: of her life and now that she's lost her. She
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: still misses her and is dealing with Lindsay not being
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: a good person to mom and me, but she was
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: good to her.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of course. A 10-year-old's going to be like, yeah,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: I really like her. She bought me things and gave
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: me everything that I wanted.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: She treated me good.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: You guys don't give me everything that I want.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you always yell at me and you don't let
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: me see my aunt. Since she was good to Rebecca,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: why couldn't she be around Rebecca? Comma 2 says, does
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: your sister have kids? She seems overly attached to your child.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: OP says, no, she doesn't. She actually wants to be child-free.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: She is fantastic with kids in small amounts.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Like a day trip.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: She gets to be the fun aunt that spoils the kid.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: And that's the end of the story. But I think
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: you did everything right. I think you explained it to Rebecca,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: which is the only thing that we were kind of critiquing.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: So I think you did everything you needed to do.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this all ended up the way that
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it should. I agree.
• 8:26
  Speaker 7: And that's the end of the story. We're going to
• 8:27
  Speaker 7: go on to the next one.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: I took my dad to the movies and he picked
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: the couple's seat.
• 8:32
  Speaker 8: With you?
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: So, I convinced my father to go watch The Odyssey
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: with me. This is recent! What I expected to be
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: a wholesome father-son bonding experience ended up being an awkward
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: situation that became nightmare fuel. My f-up was set in
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: motion the moment my dad and I arrived at the
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: cinema and realized The Odyssey was almost sold out. It
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: was opening weekend. I should have booked it online in advance,
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: but it was the first screening of the day, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I thought not many people were going to show up
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: for the earliest show. I was wrong. Limited seats were available.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: My dad and I had one of two choices. Choice
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: number one, we select any of the normal seats available,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: but then we wouldn't be sitting together. Choice numero dos,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: we select the love seat. which is basically two seats
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: merged into one so that couples can sit as close
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: to each other as possible. My dad opted for the
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: love seat instead of the random seats that would separate us.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Before I could even think of suggesting anything else, my
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: dad said, if I was worried about what strangers might think,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: then I should stop because no one was going to
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: pay attention to us. By the way, this comes from
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: user It Comes At Noon. And if you want to
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: submit your own stories, go to the r slash OKStoryTime subreddit.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: I'm Keon.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I'm the Odyssey.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: And I'm Riley.
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: We're going to take you on an adventure, just like
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Odysseus went. to go back home. With this story, I
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: hope you enjoy it. Cut to my dad and I
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: awkwardly moving down a crowded row. My dad was leading
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: the way. We were repeatedly saying, excuse me, sorry, sorry,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: because people had to make space for us to pass.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Would my dad not interrupt his own sorry excuse me
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: to ask a random girl if the available seat next
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: to her was the seat reserved for couples? The girl
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: looked confused at first, but then she nodded. My dad
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: turned to me and said, Found.
• 10:03
  Speaker 8: The love seat!
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Your dad's just making this fun.
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: Your dad's just being an awkward dad. I was practically
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: hiding my face behind my popcorn at that moment. As
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: my dad and I sat down, he thanked the girl
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: for assisting him, and then he decided to specifically introduce
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: me as his son, which would have been fine if
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: that word ended. However... My dad thought it would be
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: funny to tell the girl how afraid I was that
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: people were gonna think we were together. I could tell
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: the girl was caught off guard by the continuation of
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: the conversation, but she was kind enough to at least
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: pretend she kinda cared. My dad attempted to include me
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: in the conversation by encouraging me to repeat the word
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: I used earlier when the two of us were still
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: debating the love seat situation. I refused to repeat the word,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: but my dad kept asking until I finally said, twink, dad, twink.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: This just sounds so fun. Your dad's fun. Honestly, what
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: your dad is giving me is he's a good time
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: and he's going to embarrass you.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, I didn't know it was going that route.
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: I thought, wow.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: You know, on Monday's bingo card for me, I was
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: not expecting me to read twink dad twink.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was not on mine. Maybe queer dad queer,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: but not twink.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: My dad snapped his fingers like he heard me say
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: something like that was on the tip of his tongue
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: before he made it clear to the girl that even
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: though we were sitting where couples usually sit, we were
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: not twinking. I interrupted my dad and made him aware
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: that he might be bothering the girl. My dad apologized
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: and left the girl alone. Before we get into this
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: adventure of Odysseus getting back home on the Odyssey, how
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: do we feel about this?
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: This?
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Has your dad done this to you? Or has your
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: dad or mom ever embarrassed you in front of like
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: somebody else?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: My dad has. My dad has called me kind of
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: in front of some of his friends before.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: My dad has done that too. For those who don't know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: I went to an all boys Catholic school. That was
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: his decision. I hugged one of my friends and he's like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: what was that? I was like, a hug? He was like,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: is that what they teach you here? And I went,
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: oh my God. I thought the worst was over until
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: my dad leaned in during the movie and quietly asked
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: if it was twing If a father wanted to put
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: his arm around the shoulder of his son in the
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: love seat. I said the word was twink. He was
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: using it very wrong. I was okay with my dad
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: putting his arm around my shoulder. Not gonna lie, the
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: experience was somewhat embarrassing, but I still appreciated spending time
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: with my dad. Anyway, not the craziest FF compared to
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: what I've seen on here, but it definitely had moments
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: I wished never happened before LOL. Your dad's funny. Your
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: dad's funny. He made your serious moment unserious.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was just trying to have some father-son time.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Be funny. He's probably missed you. Yeah, it's totally good.
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: And that's the end of the story. We're going to
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: go on to the next one.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: My future in-laws uninviting me from Christmas.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: Over a phone?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Over a phone? Over a phone?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: My 23 female fiancé, 24 males, parents consistently nitpick about
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: what I do and say. It's definitely more his dad
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: than his mom, but sometimes I feel uncomfortable talking to
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: him about it. It bothers him when his dad texts
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: or calls him about what he perceives I did wrong.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: So when I go talk to him about it, he's
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: also upset. We're going to premarital counseling soon to talk
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: about it there. But I wanted to just get it out.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Here is a list of things his parents have done
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: that upset me. We went to a wedding where I
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: had two drinks. His parents don't drink at all. And
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: they were upset I drank at all and made comments
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: regarding it. His dad once told my fiance he needs
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: to put me in my place because I didn't want
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: to text my father-in-law. Father-in-law insists I need to be
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: texting him regularly and checking in on his life. I
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: told him I was uncomfortable with this and he said
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: it was an excuse. He says I have bad communication
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: because I don't reach out asking about him and don't
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: respond exactly how he wants me to. Every single time
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: we're with his family, whether it's dinners, holidays, whatever, His
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: dad will find something wrong with what I did and
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: text fiance about it to complain and essentially insinuate he
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: needs to fix it. By the way, this comes from
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Throwaway In-Laws 2025, and if you want to see your
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: own stories, go to the r slash OK Storytime subreddit.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: I'm Riley. I'm Samuel Donner.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm Savannah.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And we're here to be goofy and read the story goofily.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: We don't have all the answers, but if you'd like
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to add something down below, please do in the comments.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Father-in-law used to say that he and I needed to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: bring up our issues with each other so as to
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: not upset my fiance. I agreed and used this to
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: but gave up when he was texting my fiance upset
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: with what I was saying anyways. He offered to officiate,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: saying it would be a great opportunity for him to
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: be an important part of our big day. It bothered me.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: that he only talked to his benefits of doing it.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Father-in-law said my parents aren't being good parents since they
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: weren't letting us move in together. Father-in-law regularly posts on
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Facebook and gets upset when I don't interact with the posts.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: At one point, he unfriended me and got mad when
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I didn't reach out asking why. He regularly asked my
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: fiance why I hadn't reached out and why I didn't care.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: He was mad at me. Fiance knew I knew and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: we both decided So let it be. So anyway, advice
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: would be appreciated. Yesterday, mother-in-law sent a text in a
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: big group chat saying that at Christmas, she wants all
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: of us to put our phones in a box. I
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: politely told her I didn't want to because since I
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be with my family. I wanted to be reachable
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: to at least say hi by text. I said I
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: had no intention of even picking up my phone unless
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: there was a text and would just keep it nearby.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: This made it all fan. They kept telling me I
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: couldn't do that and that I had to put my
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: phone in the box or on the shelf and it
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: shifted back and forth.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: That's like, I won't go on my phone.
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: Reasonable.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: She's an adult, not a 14 year old child. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Don't tell me that I have to put away my phone.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Hey, listen, that's a good point. What would father-in-law do
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: with Opie's phone?
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like he'd do some weird things because he's
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: weirdly infatuated with him.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: I reiterated that I would not be doing that and
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: admittedly got somewhat more stern and sappy as the conversation
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: went on throughout the day. My fiance was on my
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: side and when his father called him, he said he
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: didn't see why it was such a big deal. Father-in-law
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: tried to tell him it was the same as my
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: mom asking him to not talk politics at my grad party,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and that since they were the hosts, they get to
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: choose these rules. I disagreed, even that it was a
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: whole party, not a small family gathering with just the
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: six of us. There was nothing before this that would
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: have indicated we needed a rule like this. At our
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving celebration with this same group, the only phones that
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: were used was when sister-in-law's boyfriend and I were in
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the dining room alone for a few minutes. And as
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: soon as everyone came back in, We were off and talking.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Then last night around 10 p.m., mother-in-law sent a text
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to the group chat saying that since we could have
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: come to an agreement, I was now uninvited from Christmas?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Dramatic.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: What?
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: I saw that one coming a mile away. These are
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: the type of people who are like, If you don't
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: follow our rules, I guess we won't force you to
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: follow them.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Can't follow the rules if you're not here.
• 16:41
  Speaker 8: Who are these people?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Now it was just the four of them. So I
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: and my sister-in-law's boyfriend are no longer invited. Beyonce and
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I had a problem with this. Since now we're engaged,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: we would like each of us to be included in
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: family events. instead of just one of us. My family
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: has always included fiancé in everything, even when we were
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: just dating. So the separation thing is confusing to me.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: This morning, my fiancé sent a text in the chat
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: essentially saying that they either invite both of us or
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: neither of us. Mother-in-law responded a while while saying that
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: both of us were uninvited and that they would do
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: a separate celebration with the six of us later. Then
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: father-in-law calls fiancé and we picked up on the second call.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Father-in-law begins to lay into him bringing up my mother
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: asking him to not talk about politics, saying, how would
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: you feel if this was my last Christmas alive and
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: you missed it? Father-in-law has no existing health conditions and
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: is relatively in good health. He also said my parents
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: raised me to be disrespectful.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Shut up.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Beyonce ended up handing me the phone and I told
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: father-in-law that if he was going to continue to talk
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: to us like this, we weren't going to continue the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: conversation anymore. since he was upsetting Fiance. I also pointed
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: out that at nearly every family celebration on my side,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: his father has called and interrupted and would not stop
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: calling until Fiance picked up, and these calls were just
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to talk about football or criticize the event. Ten hours later,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: we sit basically in the same spot. Fiance and I
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: are willing to come to Christmas if both of us
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: are invited, and I am allowed to talk to my
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: relatives if they text. My family doesn't celebrate on Christmas Day,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: since my brother-in-law is an EMT, So if they end
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: up not allowing us to be there, we'll likely spend
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: the morning together and then go to my parents' house.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Update two, are we going to this house or not?
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: No, I don't want to go. I mean, food, sure,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: that sounds fun, but no. Until they actually respect me
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: and put some respect on my name and my family
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: because you disrespected both of us.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: No.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: The fact that your fiance is like, it's us two,
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: but I'm still allowing my father-in-law to talk to us
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: like this.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: This is insane.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Mother-in-law made a post on Facebook about how it'll be
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the first Christmas without father-in-law's father and attached a link
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: to a 35 Bible verses about respecting your parents. She
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: tagged me, fiancé, sister-in-law, and father-in-law, though tagging all of
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: us is a frequent occurrence. I untagged myself and encouraged
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: fiancé to do the same. Father-in-law texted fiancé yesterday saying
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: that he felt like he was losing a son. Fiancé
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: reiterated that the only reason we weren't coming to Christmas...
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: was because they chose to uninvite us. Father-in-law continued to
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: try to put the blame on us. Beyonce kept telling
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: him that we were adults and we can make our
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: own decisions and that he is tired of father-in-law only
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: talking about the things he doesn't like me doing. Father-in-law
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: said that if we are going to continue to act
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: like children, referring to me, not wanting my phone on
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: a shelf, we were going to be treated as such.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: He keeps trying to use the I'm the parent card
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: But since we're both in our early to mid-20s, we
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: just reminded him that being the parent doesn't mean we
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: have to listen to what he says. At this point,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: we told him we wouldn't be discussing it further. A
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: few minutes later, mother-in-law texted that we would no longer
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: be having a separate celebration either, and that we would
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: use sister-in-law's place as a drop-off point for gifts. That's
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: where we sit now. And I was able to get
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: in at our couple's counselor for for this week. So
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: we'll be talking about this to hear her side of it.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I'm proud of my fiance for enforcing our boundaries and
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: sticking up for me.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: Update four.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: It's exhausting. Honestly, at this point, why are we even
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: trying to get, we're not coming. Plain and simple.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Golly.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: The Christmas event.
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: Great.
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: Cool.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: We're not coming to spend time with you guys.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: We had counseling yesterday and it went well. She was
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: happy that we stood up for ourselves and was completely
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: caught off guard by their actions and by how we
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: were choosing their rule overseeing their son at Christmas. She
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: even brought up how it's a method of control and
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: their way of trying to get to him to continue
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: their bad habits. Today, both of the in-laws called him
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: separately and I didn't get a lot of info on
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: father-in-law's call, but it was a lot of the same stuff.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Mother-in-law began saying how she was sad they won't get
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Christmas with him and that trying to insinuate it's our
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: choice not seeing them, even though they uninvited us. Both
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: fiance and I are getting exasperated with the situation, and
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: it's getting admittedly difficult. And I'll update further if anything
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: monumental happens. Update 5. I posted here about a month
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: ago about how my fiance and I were uninvited from
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: his family's Christmas for not wanting to put our phones
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: on the shelf instead of next to us. Since then,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: we've kept up with therapy. And our counselor has continually
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: told us we're making the right decision by telling father-in-law
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: we weren't talking about this when he asked. Last week,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: we went on vacation with my family. Father-in-law kept having
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: an issue with his vacation since we were going to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: see them at Christmas. The whole vacation, about five days total.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Father-in-law was texting fiance constantly. I wouldn't care if his
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: family were texting him in general. What bothered me was
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: all of the texts pertained to this. Father-in-law kept guilting him,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: saying that fiance would rather be with my family, that
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: he doesn't respect or care about his parents, and so on.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Each time fiance would reiterate that he wasn't going to
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: talk about it, and that these discussions weren't productive. Mother-in-law
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: also texted me a few days in, and said she
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: wanted to video chat when we got home. Upon arriving home,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: she asked if I was available to call. I told
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: her sure, but that I need to voice call unless
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: she wanted the phone facing the ceiling since we were unpacking.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: After 10 minutes of back and forth, she said we
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: just would have to do it later. Around 9 that night,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: mother-in-law and I began video calling, and I could tell
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: from the beginning that she just wanted me to give
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: in and say they were right. She kept on trying
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: to put the blame on my fiance and me, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I repeatedly reminded her that if they hadn't uninvited us,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: we'd be still coming for Christmas. She also made sure
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: to say that when her mother-in-law was alive, she would
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: have done anything she asked. And I said the only
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: reason we weren't cooperating is because we're adults who don't
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: need to follow a no phone rule and because they
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: repeatedly push past our boundaries.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: They're trying to make it about the phone, but truthfully,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it's like they just want to be the ones in charge.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: They need like either that ego boost or like to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: know that they are still like the big dogs here.
• 23:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah!
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Like, it's not that me saying no to putting my
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: phone away doesn't take any power away from you, truthfully.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It's just, I just don't feel like it.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Mother-in-law said that next year, they'd be doing the no
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: phone rule again. And I told her we'd have the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: same feelings about it. She called me condescending. and I
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: need to learn empathy and sympathy, and said that I
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: wasn't challenged, as in I was essentially spoiled as a child.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: At this point, I ended the call, telling her it
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: was going nowhere, and we needed to discuss it another time.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: But she managed to try to guilt me in one
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: more time. On Christmas Day, we did manage to see
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: his sister, and she essentially confirmed having seen father-in-law and
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: mother-in-law that morning. They believed they were right. When we
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: were leaving her place, we saw that mother-in-law had tagged
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: us all in a post about Christmas morning, had gone
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: so well when Father-in-law tagged fiancé in a post about
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: how phone-free Christmas had been so great and what a
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: great idea it was.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Like you are pushing it so hard now that I
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: will never accept it because now you have thrown it
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: about here and there, have told everyone, making it a
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: public thing now that everyone knows, oh my gosh, like
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: it was such a fun time. And everyone tagged in
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: this photo had a really fun time too. Like, oh
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: my God.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Give it up. We decided to do the mature thing
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and ignore both posts. And fiance even removed his tag
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: from father-in-law's post. After seeing sister-in-law, we went to my
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: parents and had a good evening with them. That night,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: father-in-law sends text to fiance essentially saying that he missed
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: out on Christmas and that it's fiance's fault and that
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: if fiance continues to stand by me on this, this
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: is how Christmas will be in the future. The bright
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: side about all of this is that I can see
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: fiance realizing things that were wrong about his childhood and
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: he's beginning to heal from what that was like as
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: well as his situation. My family has been very supportive.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And has been helping us through it. That's it.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: You know, it is weird. How did they, if they
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: had no phones, how was he taking pictures for social media?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, good point.
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: And that's the end of the story. We're going to
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: go on to the next one.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, this is Riley, the new Californian here. We're going
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to get back to these stories, but here's three minutes
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: of ads from our sponsors.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: My mother-in-law faked an emergency to trick me into a
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: party I said no to.
• 25:24
  Speaker 8: It's your party. You can cry if you want to.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: My husband, Brandon, hate that name, is 29. I'm 25.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: We've been married a little over two years, and we're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: having a baby due in October. I chose not to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: do any kind of pregnancy announcement, and I haven't talked
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: about it much on social media. That's just my preference.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I've always been a private person and I kind of
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: don't see my pregnancy as anyone's business, but my own
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and Brandon's. We didn't tell anyone at all until I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: was about 16 weeks along. Brandon's parents are super excited,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: but that's the problem. His mom, 53 female, immediately started
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: telling everyone she knew. She made it her Facebook status
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and it got over 100 likes. She, according to Brandon's dad,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: stood up in church and announced it. And anytime I've
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: gone anywhere with her, she likes to point out my
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: bump to waiters, retail clerks, you name it. It's very annoying. Okay, well,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: she's just, she's just proud. She's a proud mother-in-law.
• 26:23
  Speaker 8: I guess so. I wonder, okay, because if we're doing
• 26:26
  Speaker 8: the math, she's 25 and they got married two years
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: ago when she was 23 and he was 27. And
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: then maybe they got together before then. It's just, it
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: doesn't seem like the greatest timeline to me. But not
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: the end of the world.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: True, true. I made it clear I didn't want a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: baby shower or a gender reveal party. That's apparently a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: thing she saw on Pinterest and insisted we have, even
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: though we've told her we're waiting to find out. Oh,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, you're finding out. Oh, they're waiting to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: find out the gender.
• 26:54
  Speaker 8: We're waiting to find out if we're having a baby.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, wait, what?
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: We think it might come out a creature.
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: I'm hoping for the Black Lagoon kind.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: When I told her we didn't plan to do a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: birth announcement, just like we didn't do a pregnancy announcement,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: she blew me off and said, of course you will.
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: That's silly.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you? By the way, this comes from BabyThrowaway052590.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And if you want to submit your own stories, go
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: to the r slash okay story type subreddit. I'm Savannah.
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: I'm Claire.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: I'm Dakota.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: And we're here to talk about some stuff, get some advice,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: but we don't have all your answers. We're only going
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to tell you what we would do, but let us
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: know what you would do down in the comments. As
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Opie says. she's also bought me loads of maternity clothes
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: even though i already have plenty that a friend gave
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: me okay well that's just that's just moms you know
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they're gonna.
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: A lot of this just kind of seems like that's
• 27:45
  Speaker 8: just what moms do like yeah oh the moms announced
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: it when i didn't want them to oh yeah so
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: i guess it's like she's just going to reddit to
• 27:52
  Speaker 8: complain about this that's not a big deal but it
• 27:55
  Speaker 8: these don't it doesn't seem like she's doing anything.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Super out of the ordinary yeah I completely agree. She's
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: constantly trying to get me to tell her the gender.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I don't effing know it. So she can decorate a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: nursery and buy clothes, all of which I've graciously said
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I don't need her to do. And she emails me
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: articles about parenting and breastfeeding day and night, which would
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: normally be fine, but much of it is religiously affiliated
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm not about that life, which... she is well
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: aware of. It probably seems like I'm not excited about
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the baby. I totally am. I just don't like being
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the center of attention or talking about my personal life.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: When the baby is born, I'll send pictures individually to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: friends and family who request them. Brandon and I are minimalist,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and the baby isn't going to have mountains of toys
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: or 50 outfits, but his mother is having none of that.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: On Saturday morning, I get a call from Brandon's sister Erica,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: 24 female, and telling me that she and her mom
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: are stranded at a craft fair because her car ran
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: out of gas, and could I please come get them?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I offer to bring a gas can, and she quickly says, No,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that's okay. Please just pick us up. That should have
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: been my first clue that something was odd. Brandon was
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: at work when this happened. So I leave to go
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: get them, and I text Erica to say I'm in
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the parking lot. She texts back, Oh, come inside really quick.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: We have something to show you. Keep in mind, I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: had not planned on getting out of the car. My
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: hair was up in a bun. I hadn't showered and
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I was wearing stretchy pants and an old shirt. I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: go inside and guess what? It's an effing surprise baby
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: shower with only friends of Brandon's mom. Of course, none
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of my friends or my sister or anyone I actually know.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not proud of this, but I'd had enough and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I was humiliated. I just stared at Erica and Brandon's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: mom after everyone yelled surprise and I said why did
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you think this was a good idea after I told
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you I don't want any parties and then I left.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Dang.
• 29:49
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but I get it. To be at a party
• 29:53
  Speaker 8: you didn't want and they haven't even done a good
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: job throwing it, I would probably leave too.
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't know anyone there.
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Like, none of my friends, none of my family are there.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It's just the mom's friends and, like, the sister-in-law. And
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you're like, um, hi, everyone.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Like, who do you talk to? And I specifically don't
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: like this.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: I don't like this. parties for me. I don't like
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: being the center of attention.
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: Yeah. It's like, it's like if you're like, I don't
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: like chocolate ice cream. And then everyone's like, Oh, that's crazy.
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: I love chocolate ice cream. And you're like, yeah, I
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: just don't. And then they're like, Oh, uh, well, have
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: you tried it?
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: Can you come over? I really need your help. There's
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: like a spider in my room. And then they.
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: Surprise you with 50 pounds of chocolate ice cream. And
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: you're like, this is the dumbest thing. This is the
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: dumbest thing anyone's ever done.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't, Opie, I don't think like, You're the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a-hole and all this. You literally, you told her multiple
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: times that you didn't want this. And the fact that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: she like kind of set this up to be a
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: surprise and be like, oh my God, hi, that's on her.
• 30:53
  Speaker 8: I wonder what her relationship is like with her son.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: That's true. I mean, he's at work right now. He
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: has no idea what's going on.
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: He's at work.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: They immediately started blowing up my phone, but I ignored
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: them and called Brandon. He had no knowledge of this
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and was just as pissed as I was. When Brandon
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: got home, we listened to all the voicemails as mom
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: left calling me ungrateful and a witch and a spoiled brat.
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: Oh my God.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: She made it seem like I'd left the party because
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: it wasn't up to my standards and she was upset
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Then I made her look bad in front of her friends,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: which I do feel bad about. She said I was
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: making my pregnancy all about me.
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: That is literally the one thing you get to make
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: all about. I'm sorry. With your pregnancy, you can do
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: just like anything you.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Want with it. That it is. I'm carrying it. I'm
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: going to make it about me because it's in me.
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: I'm going to get to choose how I go into labor.
• 31:43
  Speaker 8: I'm going to get to choose. I mean, you can't
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: choose how you go into labor. But you know what
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: I mean? But have an idea. How I'm going to
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: try to deliver this baby. How I want to act
• 31:50
  Speaker 8: while I'm pregnant. Like, you get to make those decisions.
• 31:53
  Speaker 8: It is all about you.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: You are growing that inside of you. So it is you.
• 31:57
  Speaker 8: I've become less. I was before like, well, she's just
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: kind of being a mom, I guess.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: And now it's like, no, she's.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Now, that was a line that was crossed. Yeah.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Period.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: She said I was making my pregnancy all about me
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and that I won't be a good mom if I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: can't even treat her with respect. Erica apparently wasn't aware
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: that I'd specifically said I didn't want to party and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: apologized for not warning me. So I'm not mad at her.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: His mom is also demanding I pay her back all
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the money she spent on the party, which was apparently
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: catered by a fancy company. I need to know, first
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: of all, whether I'm being unreasonable in not wanting a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: giant spectacle made of this pregnancy and what we should
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: say to her. I do plan on apologizing for making
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: her look bad, but I don't know if I'm obligated
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to pay her back for the party. Brandon said he'll
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: talk to her, but I feel like I need to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: address this myself because I want to be able to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: set boundaries with her and I can't always have Brandon
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: step in for me. I think she should have a
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: relationship with our kid. but I don't want her ignoring
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: my wishes because if I let that happen now, next
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: time it'll be something else she oversteps me on. She's
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the only grandmother our baby will have. My mom passed
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: away a few years ago, so I don't want to
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: cut her off completely. And there's an edit. Yeah, you
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: aren't being unreasonable. There's no like you're the a-hole or anything.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: She specifically did exactly what you didn't want and you're
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: allowed to be like, I don't want this. I'm upset
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: about this.
• 33:24
  Speaker 8: I also just feel like she's being so incredibly mature
• 33:27
  Speaker 8: that she's like, I'm not mad at the sister because
• 33:29
  Speaker 8: the sister didn't know.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 8: I'm not trying to cut her off. I will still apologize,
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: even though I feel like she truly has almost nothing
• 33:35
  Speaker 8: to apologize for.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: For real.
• 33:37
  Speaker 8: And is like, but I just don't think I have
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: to pay her back.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no.
• 33:40
  Speaker 8: Because you didn't plan that party. You didn't have the
• 33:43
  Speaker 8: food there. There was your guests weren't even there. It
• 33:45
  Speaker 8: was just all of her guests. It was a party
• 33:47
  Speaker 8: for her. Why would you have to pay for it
• 33:49
  Speaker 8: at all?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And so if I would have stayed and had
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: a miserable time, I wouldn't have had to pay for it.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: but because I left because you threw a party for
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: basically yourself and your friends on my behalf. Now I
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: have to pay for it because I'm ungrateful for the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: party that I didn't ask for.
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: Okay, mom. Edit.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to know I'm not crazy. I have to
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: go run some errands, but tonight when Brandon gets home,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I'll have him call his mom and set up a
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: time for us to talk And then I'll update you
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: all with how that goes. Second edit. I talked to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Erica and learned there were only about six other women there.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: No one had brought me a gift. My mother-in-law had
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: wrapped up some gifts she'd already told me she bought
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: for me and told everyone else not to bring one.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: What?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: So what was the point of all of this? So
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: OP would just be there to sit and they would
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: just talk about her pregnancy or something?
• 34:40
  Speaker 8: I don't understand this at all.
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: It's a party for my friends so they can see
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: my pregnant daughter-in-law. Okay. And she has to pay for
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: it now because she didn't like it. Erica had planned
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: to give me a little homemade coupon book for things
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: like babysitting. When Erica called me, she told me word
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: for word what my mother-in-law told her to say. After
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I left, some of the women my mother-in-law had invited
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: confronted her and told her what she did was deceitful
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and mean-spirited. and I'm inclined to agree. The party was catered,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: but it almost certainly did not cost what my mother-in-law
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: told us it did. This is all further solidifying that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: my mother-in-law did not do this to honor me or
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: be nice to me. Erica believes she did it to
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: get back at me for not listening to any of
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: her advice, which she'd been complaining about before I got there.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Some of her advice has consisted of telling me I'm
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: ridiculous for having a home birth, for planning to use
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: cloth diapers- and for planning to make my own baby food.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Erica is just as angry because she lives and goes
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to school in Houston while we live in Austin, a
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: 2.5 hour drive, and she thought it was a real
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: baby shower. If there was ever any doubt in my
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: mind that mother-in-law is a self-absorbed person, there isn't anymore.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Brandon is seeing her tomorrow to find out what her
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: mindset was. She requested that I not be there because
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: she doesn't want to look at my face. Well, I
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: don't want you in my child's life. Oh, and there's
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: an update three days later. Well, what are you thinking?
• 36:12
  Speaker 8: Well, I'm just feeling like I would cut her out
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: of my life completely. But she's not doing that, which
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: I feel like is sort of pretty mature. But it's
• 36:21
  Speaker 8: like she is such a classic mother-in-law. Sorry, I'm having
• 36:25
  Speaker 8: flashbacks to my ex-fiance's mom. And it's like she would
• 36:29
  Speaker 8: act exactly like this.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: Yikes.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: If you're like not doing something that she thinks is
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the right choice, then it's like, you know, you're this, that,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and the other thing. Ungrateful. Just name calling.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh, cool.
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I forgot your son was supposed to marry you instead.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: There's an update.
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: Three days later.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Few things to address. Left over from the last post,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Brendan's mom has never cared for me. Some people seem
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to think we were close because we've gone places together,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: but she only began to take a real interest in
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: me when I got pregnant. She's always blamed me for
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: her son not going to church in the five years
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I've been with him, even though he's been an atheist
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: since he was 12. She also thinks I convinced him
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: not to get a master's degree when I had no
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: part in that decision at all. There really was no miscommunication.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: His mother broached the subject by telling me her plans
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: for my baby shower, not asking if I wanted one,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: telling me she was going to throw me one. I
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: said thank you, but that I didn't feel I needed
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: one and we could do something different. She persisted and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I said I really didn't want one because it would
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: make me uncomfortable. She said, okay, and I thought the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: subject was dropped. Until she sprang the shower on me.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: For everyone telling me I should have stayed and toughed
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: it out, when they called me in under false pretenses,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I was in an old paint-stained t-shirt, leggings that are
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: getting too small for me, flip-flops, and greasy hair in
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: a bun, and it was 80 degrees out. I did
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: not think I had to get out of the car
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: because I thought I was just picking them up. If
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I'd been dressed appropriately, I probably would have stayed a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: while before making a pregnancy excuse to leave.
• 38:07
  Speaker 8: That is the classic problem with surprise parties also, is
• 38:10
  Speaker 8: that it's like so many times I've heard someone has like, oh, yep,
• 38:14
  Speaker 8: I was surprised with the party and I looked like crap.
• 38:16
  Speaker 8: I just looked terrible.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: This is absolutely relevant. Some people were under the impression
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: she did this to be nice. I thought so at
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: first too, but the fact is she did it after
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I explicitly told her no. She tricked me into coming.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: She didn't invite a single person close to me and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: when I justifiably didn't stay- She called me a witch
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and said I'd be a bad mother. Many of you
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: made me realize this was done for her. Projecting.
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: When you're a bad mom, so you're like, uh, you're
• 38:45
  Speaker 8: going to be a bad mom because you don't want
• 38:47
  Speaker 8: to party.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I thought you said rejecting.
• 38:49
  Speaker 8: No, projecting.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: And I was like, who's getting rejected?
• 38:51
  Speaker 8: You're like, what are you saying? Who got rejected?
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 38:53
  Speaker 8: No, projecting.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Projecting. It's true. Many of you made me realize this
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: was done for her. Not for me. Once again, projecting.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: A few people said, I sounded like I wasn't letting
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: her be excited. I probably worded some things wrong. I
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't upset that she told people at church or made
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it her Facebook status. There is a huge difference between
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: being excited and using my pregnancy as a means of
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: getting attention. It makes me feel objectified and I don't
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: like it. On to the update. Not long after I
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: made my Reddit post, Erica called me. She was back
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: in Houston and wanted to say she was sorry and
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that she'd the shower was legit she was surprised when
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: she didn't see anyone who could have been my friends
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: or my sister and even more surprised when i came
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in dressed like i was erica then told me her
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: mother had been complaining all day about how i won't
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: take her advice on anything pregnancy related how I won't
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: tell her the gender, I don't know it, and how
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not excited about being pregnant. Erica surmised that this
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: party was meant to put me in my place, as
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: did a few of the people mother-in-law invited. We took
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: advice from many of you. Yesterday, Brandon went to his
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: mom's house on his lunch break. He told her in
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: so many words that she was allowed to be excited,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but not allowed to run the show. He repeated that
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: she cannot post baby pictures to Facebook or else she
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: won't be getting any. If family and friends want copies,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I'll send them straight away, but they're not going online
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: as long as we can help it. He told her
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the shenanigans with pointing out my belly to strangers are
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: to stop, as are the inquiries about the gender, her criticisms,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: and her gifts with strings attached. She said we wouldn't
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: pay her back for the party I didn't want, and
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that for her to even ask was manipulative. You know what?
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Snaps for Brandon.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: He's really giving it to her.
• 40:44
  Speaker 8: And, you know, you're always worried with these stories about
• 40:46
  Speaker 8: mother-in-laws that it's like, and her precious baby boy said,
• 40:49
  Speaker 8: stop being so mean to my mommy. My mommy is
• 40:51
  Speaker 8: such a good baby.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: We get so many of those.
• 40:55
  Speaker 8: So it honestly feels like, well, you guys are going
• 40:57
  Speaker 8: to have a great little family. I'm really excited for
• 40:59
  Speaker 8: you guys to become parents because you're already doing a
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: good job mothering your mother.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Right? Correct. And lastly, she was to apologize to me
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: for humiliating me for ignoring what I wanted in favor
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: of what she wanted and for calling me names and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: saying I'll be a bad mom. He said those were
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the terms and if she chose not to take them,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: she would not have a relationship with our baby or
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: with us. I told her to make sure she knew
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I wasn't against her seeing the baby and I just
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: wanted her to stop stirring the pot and accept that
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: this is my pregnancy and my child, not hers. She
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: vehemently denied that she asked us for money or called
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: me a witch. We have the effing voicemails.
• 41:38
  Speaker 8: And that's so funny to leave a voicemail saying that
• 41:41
  Speaker 8: and then be like, I don't think I did that.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I don't recall.
• 41:46
  Speaker 8: I can neither conform nor deny, but I'm pretty sure
• 41:50
  Speaker 8: it's a deny. I'm pretty sure I didn't.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: That wasn't me, actually. That was my twin.
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: That was actually the crazy lady who lives in my walls.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: That was my evil twin.
• 42:00
  Speaker 8: So don't hold that against me.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Please. She vehemently denied that she asked us for money
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: or called me a witch, which we have the effing voicemails,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and that I ever told her I didn't want a
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: baby shower BS. Then she said she'd think about it,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: but that she still felt I owed her an apology
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: for storming out. Brennan asked how she expected me to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: stay dressed the way I was, and her response was,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: it's not my fault she's such a slob.
• 42:24
  Speaker 8: Ooooooh.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Woof. Mama, you are digging yourself a hole, Mama.
• 42:30
  Speaker 8: She is not going to get to see those grandkids, Mama.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: Uh-oh.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, no.
• 42:35
  Speaker 8: It's not my fault she's such a slob. She should have,
• 42:38
  Speaker 8: when she was picking me up for an emergency, doing
• 42:40
  Speaker 8: a nice thing, she should have come in full Sunday best.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like what?
• 42:45
  Speaker 7: What the heck?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: That was it for Brandon. He got up to leave
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: and said, if you plan on treating my wife with respect,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: call me and let me know. Otherwise, you can forget
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: about ever seeing the baby. Mother-in-law called him a few
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: hours later while he was at work to say she
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: was sorry and that she wanted to see the baby.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Brandon replied that she needed to say it to me,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: not him. And then I'd be waiting for her call.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: That was eight hours ago. Has she called me?
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: Nope. Yep.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I'll give it some time. If and when she does call,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I won't gloat. I'll be gracious and accept her apology,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: assuming it's a sincere one and not the kind that goes,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: sorry you took it that way, but. So now we're
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: just playing the waiting game. We are right at the end.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And you know what? I'm just going to finish it.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I got a lot of support from many of you
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: who suggested I visit Raised by Narcissus and I subscribed
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: on my regular account. It's been really eye-opening. I've read
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: some of the stories aloud to my husband who keeps saying, yep,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: sounds just like my mom. We decided we're going to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: plan a little baby moon for next week to give
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: us something to look forward to. I'm just trying not
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to let his mom take up too much space in
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: my head. I really hope she comes around because like
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I said, I want our baby to have a grandmother.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: But the ball's in her court, so we'll see how
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: it goes. Thanks again to everyone who was supportive. I
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it. And so does Brandon.
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: This is making me so happy for them that they
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: have such a strong relationship. Yes. Because it reminds me
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: so much of my ex-almost mother-in-law and how much my
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: ex-fiance would just be like, she didn't mean it. She's
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: really a nice lady. She doesn't mean it at all.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like making excuses because they're family. And
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: it's like, okay, when do they get to take accountability?
• 44:29
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: When's that going to happen? Tell me when that's going
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, we're just going to sit here and wait.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Ball's in your court for eight years.
• 44:35
  Speaker 8: I'm lying in wait, wait.
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: Hamilton.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Lying in wait.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: But that's the end of that story.
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: I rented an apartment six minutes away. My parents call
• 44:47
  Speaker 8: it betrayal.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. I guess it should have been five seconds away. I,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: 24 female.
• 44:56
  Speaker 8: Recently rented an apartment six minutes away from my parents' house.
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: I didn't tell them beforehand, I just told them after
• 45:02
  Speaker 8: everything was signed. And now they're saying I betrayed them.
• 45:06
  Speaker 8: For context, I have a full-time job as a civil
• 45:09
  Speaker 8: servant in IT. Not as chill as people assume. I'm
• 45:14
  Speaker 8: graduating college this year, and I make enough to support
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: myself comfortably.
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: Oh.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: What?
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: Life at home is intense. There are daily fights, no privacy,
• 45:43
  Speaker 8: no space to study or relax. My dad sleeps on
• 45:46
  Speaker 8: the floor because there aren't enough beds.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, this is like a Charlie and the
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: Chocolate Factory situation.
• 45:53
  Speaker 8: But if the family, instead of being like, we don't
• 45:55
  Speaker 8: have a lot, but what we have is love. If
• 45:57
  Speaker 8: instead of being like that and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
• 45:59
  Speaker 8: it was like, hey, why don't you get another GD
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: job if we're so freaking bored?
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Look at your dad. He's on the floor. He's sleeping
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: on the floor.
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: Your dad works at that toothpaste factory day and night.
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: And he doesn't even have a bed to come home to.
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: Comes back down and sleeps on the floor. And that's
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: why he's allowed to do whatever he wants.
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: And look at your freaking grandparents. All they do is
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: stay in bed all day long. They're like, what?
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Bless you. Go get some cabbage and boil it.
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: Is this really loud? I can never tell.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: Also, you've been gaining weight.
• 46:31
  Speaker 8: It's all those chocolates you love munching on, you pathetic, ungrateful,
• 46:36
  Speaker 8: spoiled brat. Okay, anyways. My dad sleeps on the floor
• 46:42
  Speaker 8: because there aren't enough beds. I'm not allowed to play games,
• 46:46
  Speaker 8: talk to friends on the phone, or even use my
• 46:49
  Speaker 8: computer freely. Everything must be turned off by 9, 10 p.m.
• 46:53
  Speaker 8: They watch my screen, monitor everything, and after a stalker
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: situation and finding out I had an American friend, they
• 47:01
  Speaker 8: double down on controlling me. Okay, so she comes from
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: an immigrant household.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 47:06
  Speaker 8: There's a bit of a culture shock. The family is
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: a bit... overbearing and protective.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: They said, ooh, those Americans. No, no, no, no.
• 47:13
  Speaker 8: It would be funny if she was like, my parents
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: are Canadian.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: They hate America.
• 47:17
  Speaker 8: They hate my American friend. Ooh. By the way, this
• 47:21
  Speaker 8: comes from hopefulbag2020. And if you want to submit your
• 47:25
  Speaker 8: own stories, go to r slash OKStoryTime subreddit. And I'm Claire.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I'm Savannah.
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: I'm Dakota. And we're here to give good advice goofily.
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: But we don't have all the answers. We only know
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: what we would do. So let us know what you
• 47:41
  Speaker 8: would do in the comments. And let's see. As OP says...
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: My mom has a condition where she gets seizures at
• 47:47
  Speaker 8: night when she's under stress.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 47:50
  Speaker 8: I'm the only one who stays calm enough to help
• 47:52
  Speaker 8: because my dad panics and rocks her. My sister just
• 47:56
  Speaker 8: cries and hugs her. So yes, I know they depend
• 47:59
  Speaker 8: on me emotionally. But the doctor says it's a lifelong
• 48:02
  Speaker 8: condition and not fatal.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Well, that's good.
• 48:05
  Speaker 8: The seizures aren't fatal? I guess.
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: I guess.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: They're not good enough.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: As long as you don't let her bite her tongue off,
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: she'll be fine.
• 48:12
  Speaker 8: We've tried to keep the peace at home, but nothing
• 48:14
  Speaker 8: really works. The stress is constant. So I made a choice.
• 48:18
  Speaker 8: I found a nice, quiet place nearby... I thought I
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: was helping everyone because they wouldn't need to pay for
• 48:23
  Speaker 8: my health costs anymore. My dad could take my bed
• 48:26
  Speaker 8: and my sister could use my room to study. I
• 48:29
  Speaker 8: stayed close in case they needed me. But when I
• 48:32
  Speaker 8: told them, they cried, yelled and said I was a
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: traitor and ungrateful. And if I really cared, I would
• 48:38
  Speaker 8: have asked their permission first. They said I need to
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: break the lease or they will never speak to me again.
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: and will turn my whole extended family against me, including
• 48:47
  Speaker 8: my elderly grandparents. Now I'm second guessing everything. Was I
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: wrong for acting fast and not involving them in the decision?
• 48:54
  Speaker 8: Was it cruel to do it without asking, even though
• 48:56
  Speaker 8: it's my life and money and my health at risk?
• 49:00
  Speaker 8: Am I the a-hole for renting an apartment without their input,
• 49:03
  Speaker 8: even if it means finally being able to breathe? I
• 49:06
  Speaker 8: think you come from a controlling family and controlling families
• 49:09
  Speaker 8: are going to do everything in their power to keep
• 49:11
  Speaker 8: you under their control.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think that everyone's kind of struggling and
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: they think that, oh, you know, someone's leaving now. this
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: is going to change the dynamic and what are we
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: supposed to do without them you know like you're ruining
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: it for everyone type of thing but it's like no
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: i'm doing this for myself i am six minutes down
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the road I am literally a block, maybe two blocks away.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: So it's really, you know, like I could walk to
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the house if I if need be. Like, it's not
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: like I live across the country or live like hours away.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: This is literally like it is still in the neighborhood.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: So she did take you guys into account. It's just
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: she didn't want you guys to like work because obviously
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you were going to be like, no, you can't move. Like,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: that's not fair to us. All this stuff. But it's
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: but also, yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker 8: I also think she, like, knows in her soul, like,
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: if she were to ask them, like, hey, I think
• 50:03
  Speaker 8: I might move out. I found this apartment. It's six
• 50:05
  Speaker 8: minutes away. What do you guys think? They'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: You can't do that.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: You can't do that.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: You have to stay here.
• 50:10
  Speaker 8: You can't live here. We need you. We need you.
• 50:11
  Speaker 8: We need you. We need you. So, like, she knows
• 50:13
  Speaker 8: she had to do this. That's the only way she
• 50:15
  Speaker 8: was going to be able to leave.
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 50:17
  Speaker 8: And I think hopefully they will see that this is
• 50:19
  Speaker 8: actually better. It's just going to take an adjustment period
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: for everyone.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Yes. Which I think overall, it's going to be okay.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: You know, you can be there. You can make emergency runs,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: you know, in the middle of the night or whatever.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: You'll still be able to be there physically whenever they
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: need you.
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: But I think her knowing, I think she needs to
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: take more space and be farther away from her family.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I think so too.
• 50:41
  Speaker 8: It seems like they are super codependent.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. It seems very, it's a very unhealthy balance
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: going on here.
• 50:49
  Speaker 8: Okay, you ready for an update? I did it, but
• 50:51
  Speaker 8: they came to my new apartment. Mom faked a seizure,
• 50:54
  Speaker 8: so I let her in. They dragged me out of
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: the apartment. Police was called. Okay. They sent all of
• 51:02
  Speaker 8: us for a psychic evaluation and the doctor sided with
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: my parents saying I'm emotional right now, that I'm phone
• 51:10
  Speaker 8: addicted and that I should talk to a priest and
• 51:13
  Speaker 8: stay close to my family. I'll update more as the
• 51:16
  Speaker 8: situation progresses. I scheduled a second psych evaluation with a
• 51:20
  Speaker 8: non-Christian professional now so I can prove to him I'm
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: sane and escape again. Thank you all for your help.
• 51:25
  Speaker 8: I'm going to stay strong. Escalated to 10,000%. What just happened?
• 51:31
  Speaker 8: What kind of doctor's like, you need to see a
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: priest and give her.
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: What's it called?
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: You need to exercise the phone addiction out of here.
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: They just gave a guy they know from church a
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: doctor's coat.
• 51:45
  Speaker 8: He just had a stethoscope around him and he was like,
• 51:48
  Speaker 8: sounds like in your heart the devil is in there.
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: Hmm.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Sounds like what you move six minutes away.
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: Also, is that legally like so what that that guy
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: said that now you're it's illegal for you to have
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: your own apartment.
• 52:01
  Speaker 8: She's 24. It's not like she's a child who's run
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: away from home. She she cannot they cannot force her
• 52:07
  Speaker 8: to live with her parents. I don't understand this at all.
• 52:10
  Speaker 8: Do we get the next update?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that just went, no, it went zero to one million.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: To one million.
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: Also just gives an even more insight onto like how
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: insane your family is.
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but it's like my mom faked a seizure so
• 52:22
  Speaker 8: I let them in. Police called, drag her out of
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: the house, psych evaluation.
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: It's like, oh, what?
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: So your mom said she had a seizure and then what,
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: your dad carried her over to your place while she's
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: seizing being like, what do we do?
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Is this like the 1600s? She got diagnosed as high emotions. Yeah.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: She's highly emotional right now. Uh-oh.
• 52:43
  Speaker 8: She has hysteria.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: She's 6.66 seconds away.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: Somebody get her one of those unicorns.
• 52:50
  Speaker 8: Oh, my gosh. Okay, here's the second update. I'm updating
• 52:54
  Speaker 8: because I know many people got scared after the first one.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no crap, OB.
• 52:59
  Speaker 8: You can't just leave us there.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Some people got scared after that. Yeah, I was pretty
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: freaked out. I'm sure you were too.
• 53:09
  Speaker 8: I slept at their place with the doors locked. I
• 53:11
  Speaker 8: had a talk with my parents this morning and my
• 53:13
  Speaker 8: dad insists in the story that I'm phone addicted. When
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: I talked with my mom alone, she cried and said
• 53:19
  Speaker 8: how sorry she was that she made many mistakes raising
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: me and is willing to change. I asked her about
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: my dream to studying in another country, and she said
• 53:28
  Speaker 8: she will never give me her blessing if I leave
• 53:31
  Speaker 8: the country to study, that I'm throwing away a certain
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: job for the uncertainty of another country. And because she
• 53:37
  Speaker 8: had a terminal illness, scares, in the past, she thinks
• 53:40
  Speaker 8: that I should have a stable job because if I
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: get sick, I can financially help myself slash her i
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: felt bad for her tears i really did but i
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: want to move out i want to study abroad my
• 53:52
  Speaker 8: country has not many opportunities and i know if i
• 53:55
  Speaker 8: study abroad i can not only have a better education
• 53:57
  Speaker 8: but a better job got a university acceptance with all
• 54:00
  Speaker 8: of my bills paid including food and housing and other
• 54:04
  Speaker 8: necessities and a remote internship offered if i study there
• 54:07
  Speaker 8: And I said I had no problem sending her money
• 54:10
  Speaker 8: with the job in the other country, but she's still
• 54:12
  Speaker 8: against it.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: That solved nothing.
• 54:15
  Speaker 8: Your family is super controlling. You have to go study abroad.
• 54:17
  Speaker 8: I don't understand as a 24-year-old woman.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Super manipulative in lying and being like, oh my gosh,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: she's having a seizure.
• 54:24
  Speaker 8: Help, help, help.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: And then she comes out and it's like a trap.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And then she gets diagnosed with high emotions and then
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: has to be locked in a room without her phone
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 54:33
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: She's phone addicted with high emotions. And then now they're...
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Now the mom's like, you know what? I may have
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: made many mistakes and I am willing to accept that.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, what is happening?
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but it does make sense. I thought they were
• 54:46
  Speaker 8: in America, but they're not in America. They're in a
• 54:48
  Speaker 8: different country and she had an American friend in the other.
• 54:51
  Speaker 8: So that all makes kind of like a little bit
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: more sense.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is all hurting me.
• 54:56
  Speaker 8: All right, here's update three. They are now taking turns
• 54:59
  Speaker 8: on whoever watch me. I woke up with my phone
• 55:02
  Speaker 8: locked up because they tried to unlock it so many times.
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: Thank you for all your comments. They are giving me
• 55:07
  Speaker 8: strength and reassurance I'm doing the right thing. Trying to
• 55:10
  Speaker 8: move out and find my own peace. I know many
• 55:13
  Speaker 8: won't understand because of culture, but I am mixed Latino
• 55:16
  Speaker 8: and Asian, so that's why family is everything. And someone
• 55:19
  Speaker 8: guessed it correctly. Yes, I'm the oldest daughter and the
• 55:22
  Speaker 8: oldest cousin as well. Also, every single one of my
• 55:25
  Speaker 8: family members and extended family thinks I'm in the wrong.
• 55:29
  Speaker 8: Every single aunt, uncle, cousin, everyone. And now here's update four.
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: God.
• 55:34
  Speaker 8: I'm at work now, so I'm responding, you all. I
• 55:37
  Speaker 8: got the second evaluation who told me what was happening
• 55:40
  Speaker 8: was mistreatment. She recommended a therapist for myself and one
• 55:43
  Speaker 8: for my family and said it didn't make sense to
• 55:46
  Speaker 8: medicate me or the phone regular use thing. She gave
• 55:50
  Speaker 8: me a pill to relax slash sleep instead. It's less
• 55:52
  Speaker 8: strong than the other one. My parents still making me
• 55:55
  Speaker 8: turn off my phone and let it not in my
• 55:57
  Speaker 8: own room at night. And by the marks on it,
• 55:59
  Speaker 8: I think they tried to unlock it again. They're clawing
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: at it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I know. Let me into that thing. It's just like blood.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: The blood streaks.
• 56:09
  Speaker 8: I tried speaking to mom about me moving out. I
• 56:12
  Speaker 8: gave her a lot of options of ways I could,
• 56:14
  Speaker 8: and after a lot of talking, she admitted that she
• 56:16
  Speaker 8: will never be okay with me moving out. I'm staying
• 56:19
  Speaker 8: strong and taking a little time to understand everything that happened.
• 56:22
  Speaker 8: I never thought it was that bad until I laid
• 56:24
  Speaker 8: it all down, but I also love them very much.
• 56:27
  Speaker 8: Being isolated made me have rose-colored glasses, and now I
• 56:30
  Speaker 8: need friends more than anything, especially because I know that
• 56:33
  Speaker 8: when I leave, they won't talk to me for at
• 56:35
  Speaker 8: least a very long time. So feel free to give
• 56:37
  Speaker 8: me any tips on places I can make friends. I'll
• 56:40
  Speaker 8: update again when I'm out. Thank you all. So I'm
• 56:42
  Speaker 8: glad she kind of sees that her situation is terrible.
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Like truly, truly, truly horrible.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: This is a horrible set of circumstances. Don't like any
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: of this. And I kind of wish, OP, you just like.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: would run away without a trace. I feel like that
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: might be the easiest thing because no matter what you say,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: they're not going to agree with what you want. They're
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: going to be like, nope, you have to stay here.
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:06
  Speaker 8: And it feels like it would be actually setting a
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: good example for your younger siblings and cousins to be like, hey,
• 57:11
  Speaker 8: this is actually super messed up and we have to go.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Cause I mean, I like, she's 24. OP is so,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you can, you can make a life for yourself.
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: Update number five. I'm running away with my fiance tomorrow morning.
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: She has a fiance.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know when that happened. Is that the American?
• 57:28
  Speaker 8: And it's like, wait, she was going to move out.
• 57:32
  Speaker 8: She was going to move out anyways. If it's like
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: her mom was never okay with her moving out.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: So what?
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: She thought the fiance, when they got, they were going
• 57:37
  Speaker 8: to move into the house where dad sleeps on the floor.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: You sleep right next to daddy on the living room floor.
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: You sleep next to papa here. They discovered my post,
• 57:47
  Speaker 8: but they are sleeping. And by the time they read this,
• 57:49
  Speaker 8: I will already be on an airplane.
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: Face.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 57:52
  Speaker 8: I can't believe she has a fiance.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: I don't know where that came from. It's also funny
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: to say I'm running away when you're 24. I feel like,
• 57:59
  Speaker 8: can you call it running away at that point?
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: If she's physically running, yes.
• 58:03
  Speaker 8: I guess so, yeah.
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm running away from prison. I'm escaping.
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: I'm running away from the oomps-a-loomps.
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: I'm running away from the factory.
• 58:11
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: Oomps-a-loomps.
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: I cut a hole in the net.
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: I'm out.
• 58:15
  Speaker 8: My dad became very distant, and my mom has this
• 58:18
  Speaker 8: explosions of anger where she apologizes for her wrongdoings with me,
• 58:22
  Speaker 8: but then says I always blame her, and I'm ungrateful.
• 58:25
  Speaker 8: Living with them this past month undid everything I did
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: for myself, and I'm again with this tremendous guilt. They
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: also say my fiance is a bad person because why
• 58:34
  Speaker 8: would he want me and not someone light-skinned from his
• 58:37
  Speaker 8: own country?
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Mean i just don't that's.
• 58:44
  Speaker 8: That's just evil that is just an evil and so
• 58:47
  Speaker 8: how can you say that to your own child someone
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: light-skinned from his own country and i'm not smart or
• 58:54
  Speaker 8: special and that really messed with my mind yeah you're
• 58:58
  Speaker 8: not smart or special like you're your they're your daughter
• 59:01
  Speaker 8: like how can you say that yeah that's so horrible.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Like he literally they just said you were a mistake
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: you should have never been here it's like.
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah and then you're supposed to go you know
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: what i will stay.
• 59:12
  Speaker 8: Wait i think i am such a bad person i
• 59:15
  Speaker 8: should stay with you guys i'm horrible on the inside
• 59:18
  Speaker 8: jesus okay but yeah i think it's best i'm scared
• 59:21
  Speaker 8: feeling guilty but very excited i trust my fiance's love
• 59:25
  Speaker 8: for me And if everything works out, I'll have a
• 59:27
  Speaker 8: mad mom lore to tell her children. And that's the
• 59:30
  Speaker 8: end of the story.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: That's it?
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: Oh.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I hope.
• 59:33
  Speaker 8: I wish there was an update where she was like, yep,
• 59:35
  Speaker 8: I ran away and my fiance loves me and we
• 59:37
  Speaker 8: have beautiful babies now. And everything's fine. And I'm raising
• 59:39
  Speaker 8: them in a way that I feel proud of and
• 59:41
  Speaker 8: I wish that I was raised in.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: So where, did she say where she's going?
• 59:45
  Speaker 8: No, she just said on an airplane.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: So I'm guessing out of the country then.
• 59:50
  Speaker 8: I'm guessing.
• 59:52
  Speaker 6: Whatever you do, don't let your family find out where
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: you went.
• 59:56
  Speaker 8: No, and don't be sending them money back, OP. OP,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 8: do not be sending them money back to support them.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 8: They do not deserve you.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just gotta cut them off, be done. You know, just...
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Just let them live in that.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 8: You can reach out to your sisters. Sisters are forever.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: But not your mom and dad.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Let them sleep on the floor and be, I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: don't know, happy about it, I guess.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 8: I guess. Enjoy the floor, Papa.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the floor bed.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 7: And that's the end of this story. We're going to
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 7: go on to the next one. Hey, it's Angie, your
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 7: favorite fake redhead host here. And we're going to get
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: back to the stories. But here's a three-minute ad break
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: from our sponsors.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: My brother envies the trips I can afford, so I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: told him the real reason. He stinks. I, 35 male,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: have a wife, 35 female, and we have two children,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: seven female, three male. My brother, 37 male, has a wife,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: 37 female, and they have five children, 10 male, eight female,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: six male, four female, one female.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: If the age and gender of every single one of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: those kids is not relevant to this story, I hate you, OP,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: and I don't care how in the right you are.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: Mm.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Me and my brother are both high earners. We earn
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: a similar amount of money each year, so it's not
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: like there is a huge financial divide between us. My
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: wife and I could afford to raise a large family. However,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: we decided to stop having kids after our second child
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: was born. Mentally, we know that we could handle raising
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: two human beings, and we want to give the two kids...
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: We have the best life possible. We live in England
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: and comfortably live in our three bedroom house. We have
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: a standard five seater car, but with the money I earn,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I love to take my family traveling. We're able to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: afford to travel multiple times a year and we travel
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: during the school holidays or whenever there is a bank holiday,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: we try and go on extended weekend trips. I am self-employed,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: so I am able to afford a good chunk of
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: time off as long as I plan my finances correctly.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: By the way, this comes from TurbulentWolf9461, and if you
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: want to submit your own stories, go to the r
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: slash ok story time subreddit. I'm Savannah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: I'm Claire.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: I'm Dakota.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 8: And we're here to.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Talk about some stuff, get some advice, but we don't
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: have all your answers. We're only going to tell you
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: what we would do, but let us know what you
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: would do down in the comments. As OP says, my
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: brother and his wife decided to have five kids, which
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: is fine. They can comfortably afford to raise five kids
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and they don't struggle as a family. They manage to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: go on holiday once a year, which is a privilege itself.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: But my brother has less money at the end of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: each month because providing for a family of seven is
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: naturally more expensive than providing for a family of four.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: So this means he doesn't have as much money to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: travel as much as my family does.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 8: Can I just say something really quick?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 8: This man is a really bad writer. He has not
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 8: hooked me for even a second with this story. It's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 8: so much into the nitty gritty details. I'm like, get
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 8: to the drama. I do not care about the ages.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 8: I understand it's more expensive to raise a family. We're
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 8: like 20 minutes into this thing. Say something interesting.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: He's like, I have two kids and I can afford it.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: He has five kids. He can also afford it, but
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: at a cost.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: But at a cost.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: And the cost is fewer family vacations.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm like, ugh.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 8: Okay, keep going.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: And I also don't think he has the mental energy
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: to take five kids on a trip so frequently. Whereas
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: my wife and I tend to find traveling with only
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: two kids fairly manageable. Especially now my youngest is three
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: because there are two parents and two kids. We aren't outnumbered. Plus,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: as a family of four, my wife and I tend
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: to be able to find holiday packages and we are
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: able to book trips at a much more reasonable price.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: We understand, OP. We get it.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 8: Oh, my God.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Whereas my brother.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 8: Say something interesting.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Sorry. Whereas my brother would have to pay a lot
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: of money just for one trip for seven people. Well,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: today I didn't end up working because my wife had
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: to rush off to her parents house last minute and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: she couldn't take our three year old son with her
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: whilst my seven year old was at school. So I
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: took my son to my brother's house so he could
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: play with his cousins. Whilst I was there, I had
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: to quickly check an email in regards to a ski
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: trip I just booked for February. My brother asked what
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the email was for and I told him about the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: ski trip and scoffed and went on a whole rant
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: about how lucky I am that he wishes he could
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: travel as much as we do and that I really
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: take my luck for granted. Here's where I might be
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the a-hole. I shrugged and said, I'm no luckier than
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: you are financially. I just didn't have five kids. If
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: you wanted to go on more trips, you shouldn't have
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: had five kids. Yeah, that is a whole of you
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: to say that, I believe.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 8: I guess it is.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's also just facts, though.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: He said, well, brother, if you would have liked to
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 6: take more trips, you should have had less offspring. For
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 6: as you see, the larger your number of offspring, the
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 6: larger your financial burden becomes. We actually make pretty close
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: to the same amount of money, you and I.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: He didn't say it like that at all. He said
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 8: it like this. Rather, actually, you made it because of
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 8: the financial burden of the five children that you have sired.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 8: Much more of a burden upon your finances than mine.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Actually, you're both wrong. Well, I just wish I had
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: five kids.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 8: Oh, wait!
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: And now I got to take care of all my
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: dang kids while you go and have your two kids
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: and go on all these ski trips and all these
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: other things while I just sit here and twiddle my thumbs.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 8: Oh, brother.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a British accent.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: That's a British.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 8: Accent for sure.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, you guys were doing, oh.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: Because he's British.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Because he's from England.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: Because he's from England. To be clear, I also did
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: not do British.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: Only I did British.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: I just thought we were just doing different accents.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 8: I bet you wish you were saving more quid, don't you?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 8: But it's fewer pounds for me than it is for you.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: In for a penny, in for a pound, you know.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 8: As they say. The pence, you're penniless.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: He laughed. By the way, I said he laughed. He laughed.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: He thought it was funny.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 8: I guess you wrote a Reddit. You wrote a 45
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 8: minute Reddit post about a comment that your brother laughed at.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: He probably laughed maybe at first. Now he regrets it.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 8: OK, we'll see.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: By the way, I said this after a five minute
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: long rant about why I am apparently so much luckier
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: than he is. I was slightly annoyed by the end
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of his rant. But my son and I left the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: house an hour ago so I could go and pick
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: my daughter up from school. And that's when I received
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: a text from my brother.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 8: Okay. Here we go.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: He said what I said to him was really uncalled for.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Am I the a-hole?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 8: Um, I, I don't.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Know because it's just, I would have to hear the
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: rant truthfully, but also.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: This is the most British coded nonsense of all time.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: My brother sent me a text. I believe what you
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: said was uncalled for.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 8: It was uncalled for the way that you behaved towards me, brother.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I don't like how you said that to me. I'm
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: going to whack you upside the head with a chicken.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 8: I'm going to whack you upside the head with a chicken.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 8: This is how we talk down in the south of England.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry. I was thinking South England.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 8: Sorry, guys. I was thinking New England.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, truthfully, I think you kind of are the a-hole. Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: But if he is like annoying and constantly bringing up like, oh,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I wish we could do that. I wish we could
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: do that. I'd be like, OK, well, I don't know.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: We we can afford it because we don't have as
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: much responsibility as you. But you also chose to do that. So, yes,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: I agree. Everyone sucks here. Yeah, I will agree with that. Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 8: It's like what you said was not very nice. And
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 8: I find you quite annoying because of the way that
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 8: you tell this story.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Because you're just English.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 8: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: <HAL> Now, if you were South English, that was a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: different freaking story.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: Edit!
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I should add that we are both British.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: And me saying, you shouldn't have had five kids, was
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: very much said in a joking tone. British banter is
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: a different level of banter. He has said to me
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: in the past things like, Well, you shouldn't have had kids.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Or that's what happens when you have two kids. If
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I've complained about parenting, that's our banter. I've never been
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: offended when he has said things like that. So me
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: saying this didn't seem like a big deal at the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: time from my perspective because we joke about things like
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: this all the time. I just think everyone kind of
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: sucks here. It's just kind of, you know... No one
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: needs to do anything different. You kind of just, you
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: guys just really got in a tiffy and that's the
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: end of it.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to sever any ties or
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: now no one can see each other. You're going low
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: contact or something like that.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: This is what I feel. I feel like OP sucks
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 8: because it's like, this is a non-issue. Your brother just
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 8: was like, that kind of hurt my feelings a bit.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 8: And you're like, I gotta run to Reddit. I have
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 8: to run to Reddit to see.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: If I'm in the wrong here. Am I the a-hole?
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: for saying something back to my brother when he said
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: very mean things back to me at some point.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: It just has like, how insecure are you that like
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 8: one person says like, yeah, that kind of hurt my
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: feelings and you have to be like, that can't be true.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 8: That cannot be true.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: And then just the, it's British banter.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: It's just British banter.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: It's banter.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 8: If you don't understand it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: And then there's British banter and it's like, oh, you
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: should take your own notes on that, idiot. Your brother
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: was just like, Oh, my feelings. And you're like, instead
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: of just being like, oh, my bad. I just was
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: trying to tell you, you know, she's joking.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: You're like, Reddit.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 6: I do believe my brother is out of line for
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: the way he feels about my comments.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Tell him.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: He has five children. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: But that's the end of that.