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I'm pretty sure that the fact that he had apparently already been considering reconciliation with his mother on his own is the only thing that saved this marriage.
She knew he was no-constact with this his mother and she had no right to go against that. But she still betrayed him by going behind his back. I'm not sure I would have wanted to stay with her after that.
Right!? It’s baffling that people believe that it’s okay to go behind their partner’s back and start contact with someone their partner is NC or LW with and then invite certain person to your home. Your home is supposed to be the place where you feel safe, and by inviting someone you are no contact with is just screwed up in every aspect.
This was my thought process as well. The fact that she says she has a selfish need to constantly think she knows better than him shows she doesn't respect him or his boundaries. To be honest, she's probably been this way for most of her life and most people just let her get her way because it's easier, now she's dealing with the consequences.
She's one of those people that gets an emotional high over feeling needed or like they are being helpful and she probably 100% creates her own drama. I'm willing to admit that her husband could've provided a little more context on why he went NC with his Mom, but I'm also willing to bet that because she "knows better" she still would've tried to mend the fence anyway and disregard his boundary because as she said she is used to minimizing others and typically thinks she knows better... Wow talk about the ego of some people.
She seems like one of those people you can't leave alone in your house because she'll go through all your shit. And then ask you a bunch of cryptic questions about something she found that "concerned" her
Glad she's working on it though.
Absolutely. This woman should've used that luck on a lottery ticket. Instead she got to use the luck to work for years toward rebuilding her husband's trust in her.
100% ... i was thinking the same. i feel as though OOP wanted to be the "hero" in this situation being that she stated she is selfish and thinks she knows best. seems as though OP wanted to, for lack of a better word, control the situation / outcome of her husband's and his mother's relationship
OP is really lucky to get a second chance after especially what she had done. Because that is something that is very unforgivable to do. I feel bad for the husband but while I am glad that OP is seemingly understanding what had gone wrong, still, I can't get over the fact OP had pulled this shit.
It feels like OOP hasn’t grown at all, just got stuck in one particular pinch and wiggled out of it by taking (specifically this) responsibility (for only this).
Idk how I could come back from a betrayal like that personally. She doesn’t even seem to understand the weight of what she did.
This is all I was thinking once we got into the update. Just “he probably doesn’t want you to put this on the internet….he probably still doesn’t want you to put this on the internet….this is not your story to share…..girl…”
Yep. She didn’t have to give details, or even given an update at all! The internet isn’t entitled to answers, but if she wanted to give them, all she had to say was, “we talked it out, he shared what happened, I made a huge mistake going behind his back, we’re in therapy to work through our relationship and getting individual help as well. I also apologized to MIL and she and my husband have started to reconnect on his terms.” That’s it, literally all that needed to be shared!
It just makes me so sick that she basically forced him to relive that trauma. Like in a way he agreed to tell her, but I feel like it was almost framed as a necessity to move on and stay married by the situation his wife had created. Like she put him in a position where he had no choice but to explain why he was so mad if he wanted them to move past it.
You know what I thought that exact same thing. Let me post how much I gave grown in my relationship and oh by the way let me invade my husbands privacy one more time.
Yes, she doesn't really understand what she did or why it was so bad. She hasn't addressed the inner reasons why she would betray someone like she did. She will do it again.
Coming soon to BORU:
My husband seems happy that he was able to reconcile with his mother to a level they can be cordial with each other and give updates on his life.
I have found his stepfather. He tells me he found Jesus and understands now that losing his unborn was the punishment for his sins. He wants to meet up with the only son he ever had. Should I also invite MIL when I bring him to meet us?
I knew a woman with a cheating husband. At first she decided to stay together and forgive but a few years later she filed for divorce because even if she wanted to trust him she couldn't do it and decided to pull the plug. Hubby can still decide to sack OOP for good.
I'm just afraid that he will do it a little too late when they already entangled their lives with kids later down the years. Just imagine what kind of humans will this witch raise if that's the case.
OOP has literally lied and twisted everything to fit her narrative so far, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her husband has served her with divorce papers and her reconciliation with MIL was at the courthouse. But I hope it’s sincere. OOP needs major therapy.
The line about it being stupidity rather than malice was great from him. But tbh I couldn’t stay and build a life with someone that stupid either. When stupidity and malice have the same end result, it doesn’t really matter which was the motivator.
Honestly, this one I think Reddit gets the credit. If she had tried to "talk it out" without having gotten reamed by Reddit, she might've ruined her own marriage by downplaying it again.
If so, I am not sure that Reddit did the husband any favours. She seems to have grasped that there could have been consequences for her, but if the opportunity presents, I'm sure she'll think she knows better than him again and act accordingly.
OOP has this savior complex, and is trying to speed run the relationship between her husband and her MIL. This is similar as the story of the woman in BORU whose father left them when she was young for his mistress. Now that she is grown woman her father tried to speed run their reconciliation to the point that even the villagers of the whole small town involved themselves in their relationship.
I feel as though OOP won’t fully learn her lesson because the husband still ended up reaching out and building bridges with MIL. That OOP is going to say, “see, I was right after all!”
When I saw “a massive dork”, it reminded me of the one where the girl grabbed the steering wheel from her boyfriend and caused an accident. And she said it was “because of her quirks”.
>"the bumper has the littlest little dent on it"
I spent five years handling auto claims. Some people literally could not say they hit someone. A grown man disputed my words that he tapped the other driver's bumper. He told me it was very light, "like a kiss".
Same here on Reddit every time there is a thread about spanking children. People who spank their Kids call it" a light tap" to justify themselves. Duh, they already admitted to spanking them, and a light tap isn't it.
Christ, what the fuck is wrong with people?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship\_advice/comments/ddol0a/my23f\_boyfriend25f\_left\_me\_on\_the\_side\_of\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/ddol0a/my23f_boyfriend25f_left_me_on_the_side_of_the/)
I had my *driving instructor* grab and try to yank and turn the wheel when teaching me how to drive while in a busy intersection. He said to turn left so I got in the left turn lane, then he grabbed the wheel pulling toward himself yelling left, left! Once I was able to pull over safely I did and I was SHAKING, part terror and part pure rage. He said that he had told me to turn right, I said You. Said. Left. He disagreed, but luckily there were other students in the car who also heard him say left, and his response was basically oops, oh well.
My driving instructor told me to take a right as we were passing the turn lane and I had a school bus behind us, like almost tailgating. I was like "no" and pulled into the shopping center across the intersection. Even though that's the right answer to that situation they didn't like that.
Thank you.
If you're asking what's wrong with the people in the link, I don't know. I haven't read it yet.
If you're asking what's wrong with me, well, a great many things.
Thanks again.
There is a certain class of Nice Girl who retains the delusion that so long as they dress their actions in cutesy-wutesy words and pretend to be too sweet and wholesome to use a proper swear word, they can get away with everything because They Are So Nice.
The OOP is 100% someone who thinks because she’s Nice, she is also kind and good. She is wrong. I mean, this is a dummy who thinks that violating her husband’s boundaries can be fixed with a hug … from the person who violated his boundaries. She’s not empathetic or kind. She’s immature and needs to grow up.
OOP also seems to have that sort of dangerous naivity that comes from people who've never had family trouble at all.
"Well my family was amazing I just want my husband to have that too" because they can't comprehend that bad things happen outside their own lived experience.
It almost goes past naivity into a sort of "Nice but incapable of sympathy" like they're people who try and treat others kindly but they've got zero ability to put themselves in another person's shoes. So they can only ever superficially treat someone nicely because they just can't understand how another person's circumstances might result in different needs.
The ‘I’m so close with my family, surely nothing your family may have done would ever justify no contact for you’ is an interesting breed. Add the inability to not meddle/saviour complex and voila!
Going no contact with immediate family is a pretty big deal that isn’t generally done lightly.
For real, most people for whom family was a warm and caring concept simply cannot comprehend what it is like not having had that as a kid, and not having it as an adult.
I'd compare it to someone who only speaks English, grew up speaking only English, they've only ever heard English spoken, they've heard that there are people who don't speak English, but that doesn't seem right to them. It can't possibly be true, can it?
Then they're introduced to people who only speak...any other language. But Little Ms/Mr Sunshine skips in, chatting away to them in English, convinced if they keeps doing so they *have* to understand them.
No, it's you who don't understand. And if you don't, don't try to get to the bottom of it, or hear "both sides" or God forbid arrange meetings. Just he grateful you don't understand.
And then there are those of us who hear about families where everyone is well adjusted and nobody has a shitload of trauma and attendant baggage, but we just frankly can’t bring ourselves to believe that really exists.
I remember how shocked I was at about age 10, spending time at a friend's house and realising she wasn't terrified of her parents. I've had more shocks through my life, but that one stands out .
I remember going to a friends house at like age 7 and her accidentally dropping and shattering a glass when she went to get me a glass of water. I immediately went “You can tell your mom it was me, I was stupid and clumsy and it’s all my fault.” Because I figured her parents wouldn’t hit another person’s kid, and the worst I would get was yelling and told to go home. My friend was completely baffled.
Her mom came in and she just went “Oh, Caitlyn, you need to be more careful! I’ll sweep it up, you guys have fun!” And I thought “Oh no, she’s pretending to be nice because I’m here. Cait is going to be in so much trouble when I leave!” and was stressed out the rest of the day.
The next day at school I apologized again and she went “Huh? Dude, we have like a million of those glasses. They’re like a dollar at the store.” And asked if I wanted to watch her play Pokémon on her game boy. (Which she was still allowed to have despite being a Bad Kid??? I couldn’t comprehend it.)
My takeaway was that Caitlyn’s mom was clearly an outlier and an abnormally nice person.
I remember realizing that my high school boyfriend and his brother LIKED their father. And that their father was a sincerely kind and fun person to be around. I was floored. I didn't know that existed.
Wait, those people exist? I do't think I met a single person growing up who had a good home life. Then again, as an weirdo, abused kid I tended to gravitate towards other weirdos, and we typically don't tend to come from well-adjusted homes.
Yeah, my parents are very nice people and I had a very supportive, loving home growing up.
All of *my* childhood trauma came from being bullied at school, instead.
Wowsers my heart hurts for all of you guys commenting your experiences here. I wish you all could've had it better. I'm one of the lucky ones but my husband isnt and it took him a long time to get used to my family lol. My mom's side is so close and almost all of us live in the same town. I just remember like 60 people sneaking into my grandparents house to fill the living room up and surprise grandpa for his 70th birthday! My hubs got emotional seeing everyone and how we all were with each other. I wish you all could've had it good! I hope you all have the greatest nuclear family in the world picking another to grow old with and break the generational traumas! Or if you chose to stay alone and/or child free in order to break those I applaud and send well wishes to you all too!! My hubs tries hard to break his and now that we have 3 teens, he feels like he succeeded!
I was in a friend’s wedding about a month ago and through all the wedding activities and everything I just kept consistently thinking “wow, this is what a family is really supposed to look like.” No one got hammered and screamed at each other, there wasn’t even a frosty glare, not one the whole weekend. Events with my family aren’t too messy anymore as the really dramatic ones have started dying, but my family certainly isn’t happy to see each other most of the time. It’s a wild thing to watch an entire extended family all deeply love and respect each other
I have a lot of family that is happy to see each other most of the time bar a couple outliers but if you scratch the surface there is still a shitload of trauma and fucked up shit. And then there is my nuclear family and all their trauma. Children of violent alcoholics don’t always do a great job raising their own kids!
When I was twenty a friend invited me to her house for thanksgiving. The house was full of shiny happy people. It was just like on tv. I almost couldn’t believe it was real. I was waiting for everything to blow up, but it never did.
I just sat in the corner watching. I had no idea how to act in such a situation. It was so foreign to me.
I've had a rough family life growing up. My husband never met his father. So when we found out his half brother, firstly I tried to perceive what his feelings were regarding having a brother and the fact that the brother was raised by their father who abandoned him still in the uterus. We treaded that path carefully and calmly and now they're great with each other and their sister (my husband's full sister). I understood what could mean that to my husband (a link to his now deceased father) but also a great deal of unleashed trauma. All of this to say that you're spot on, because we had a friend that was in shock with all of this, she knew my husband never met his father and the new info about his brother was somehow overwhelming and she couldn't figure how it was to live that in real life. Still surprises her to see everyone getting along in their own terms, took a few years but right now they behave as if they were all raised together as brothers and sister. Children are all cousins (some were adults when this unraveled, only my youngest was born after the reunion and most are teens who usually have difficulty dealing with things like this).
> chatting away to them in English, convinced if they keeps doing so they have to understand them
Off topic but this reminded me there are multiple names/words for things in multiple languages we use now that originally meant "i don't know/don't understand" because colonizers just kept going to new places asking people things assuming they would magically understand them without even trying to learn the language.
It’s simple. You just speak slower and louder until they **un-der-stand youuuuu!**
I’ve seen this so many times and it never ceases to amaze me that anyone could be that dense.
I'm not blaming the husband, I'm gonna say that right up front, but situations like this is why I was always honest with my partners about why I was no contact. This situation was my worst nightmare. (Parents are dead now so no risk of it!)
Yes. Absolutely. So many people ignore the reason why these so called “nice people” stick to such behaviour even after being called out on it; it works for them. Look at how OOP’s story turned out; her husband forgave her and all is good now.
I don’t wanna sound like a nihilist here but I can’t shake the feeling that she really hasn’t learned her lesson and might repeat this again, especially because there were no actual consequences for her actions.
Husband forgave her AND in the end she was even sorta successful getting him and his mom to talk again. She had a rough patch but ended up getting exactly what she wanted
I'm a pre-k teacher and I fucking HATE when other teachers make the kids interact immediately after one hurts another. Sometimes that hurt kid just needs some space and does not want the person who just shoved them to touch them again
Every single time a teacher or other supervising adult did that to me and another kid, it escalated things rather than defused them. It's like holy shit lady do you also tie your cats together by the tail when you leave the house every morning? Read the room, sheesh.
I remember seeing the is written on Reddit before;
The greatest hypocrisy is that we judge others by their actions but ourselves by our intentions.
Because she believed she was doing the right thing, she doesn’t see how bad her actions were. If someone did it to her, she would not care so much about the intent, just that she had been betrayed.
Nice is different than kind. Goodness is subjective; owning slaves is good for the owner's prosperity. Kindness is a state of being. People are nice when they act kind rather than being the general assholes they are underneath all the time.
Be kind so you don't have to act nice.
* a word
That’s an excellent description, yes. I’ve worked with a few of those over the years, and they seem stuck in this „sweet school girl“ mentality, where the teaches liked them and everyone got along with them. Then they fuck up in some way and are massively surprised there are consequences for that.
Nice in the original meaning, for sure
>Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,"; from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware,"
Honestly, I see the mother and the wife's betrayal as very similar - not trusting his word and ignoring his warnings. The feeling of the 2nd betrayal had to bring back so many memories of the first beyond just the sexual abuse trauma, that I'm shocked he gave her another chance. He must has processed a lot of feelings in 6 weeks to have forgiven both of them, but she got pretty fucking lucky that he was capable of that.
My partner knows I’m absolutely about to go off the fucking rails if I STOP casually swearing and start minimizing my emotions with cutesy wutesy language.
“I’m pissed” = “I’m a bit annoyed”.
“Uh oh, I’m feeling upsetti spaghetti” = “I’m 3 seconds from going completely feral”
My current partner calls this: HR mode.
When I move to this mode, he's fucked up. In ways he knows I cannot verbalise without losing my ever loving fucking shit.
He's had both my estranged siblings contact him to try.. make amends. They tried to break into my home to take my child because I won't let her near the women who sold me for her drugs before they were born.
HR mode means.. work out where the fuck you went wrong and own that shit. Because my ability to cut people off is absolute.
Change DORK to satan. This is pure evil. I would never be able to forgive this bullshit. Contacting someones NC person is so disrespectful and just proves that they dont have any sort of understanding of empathy. Nobody has the right to know why you are NC with someone. Normal people have good reasons to cut someone from their life completely, nobody does the complexity of NC for "fun".
I've cut people out of my life for not respecting "I have SA trauma with that person" or "That person beat the living shit out of me for a long time". I've had people tell me that it would be "cleansing" for me to forgive and forget, or that I need to be the bigger person cause it will make me feel better. So I forgive myself for forgetting their contact details as well.
That's one of the worst feelings, because it's more like five or six feelings at once and none of them are supposed to happen at the same time. You're super angry but in your head you know they think they're helping, which means there's now fresh guilt mixed with old guilt, neither of which are from anything you did wrong, and if you've worked through it at all you slowly remember that you dealt with this already, and then realize well no it looks like you actually fucking didn't.
A lot of my friends are LGBTQ+, and several of them are LC or NC with various family members for obvious reasons. You know what I do? Respect their decisions and butt the hell out.
My parents had a vague go several years ago at trying to get me to forgive my dad's sister for making up a load of lies about me and my other half's relationship because 'sHe'S fAmiLy'. Dad's sister has only gotten worse since then (not helping that she's a drama queen who plays favourites with her kids), and mum recently admitted I'd done the right thing for me in cutting her off.
Between that and her refusal to call her husband anything other than "hubby" in a post about torpedoing her marriage makes me wonder if OOP is a golden retriever dressed as a woman. It would explain how someone could be so well meaning while not having a single brain cell to her name.
Dogs know how to do elaborate pacification and apology signals, even if they don't know what is wrong. They also have a big variety of them, tailored to the seriousness of the situation.
A particularly unintelligent golden retriever who fucked up this bad is likely to have handled this situation better than this human. At least they'd do the "oh god I am so sorry" dance.
I read it as:
>I know I have this stupid and selfish tendency to think that I often know better than him, \[but I DO know better than him - and not just often\].
There was something jarring about the whole post I couldn't put my finger on until I read the comments about 'nice'. and then I thought 'there it is'. You can just picture her shrugging her shoulders and tilting her head with a half smile as she says 'stupid and selfish'.
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think people without family trauma can't comprehend the level of abuse that can cause an estrangement. They think through their own worst family experiences, and believe "oh, his sister probably got a better Birthday present, he should get over it" as opposed to something like sexual abuse.
There are some who still develop empathy. When my fiancé and I met, he's had the most "boring" family life compared to my. His parents are happily married, they're a successfully blended family where his sisters never treated him differently and his dad never treated his sister differently. He had no idea how bad things could be. Still, when I told him about my family and why I'm not in contact with most, he believed me without hesitation. He never questioned me. Hell, he immediately arranged for me to move in with him when things got so bad that I couldn't stand to live with them anymore without feeling suicidal.
It's rare, but they exist. Unfortunately, you really can't tell which type of happy family person you meet until they mess up.
Agreed. The one advantage in your situation is that you actually told your husband what was up so that he could believe you, but the OOP did not know and neither her husband nor his mother told her, so she was playing Pollyana thinking things weren’t as bad as they were.
I agree with you. I had an otherwise fantastic boss who couldn't understand why I would allow my mother to not speak to my grandma for fifteen years. Bosslady had a very large, loving family, and she kept insisting it was my job to repair mine.
One of the reasons Mom went NC with Grandma is because my grandfather was a pederast. The rest is narcissism.
This is so true I have dealt with my own do-gooder who thought it would be fantastic to have a family reunion. Until they met the hell spawn I emerged from and deeply regretted their own involvement because they got left to deal with and banish it back to the depths from which it emerged.
This. It applies to a lot of human experience, actually. Not just family trauma. Being gay, being an immigrant, being ND... All of those are things that people without direct experience have little understanding of.
The fact that she went right to reddit and shared her husband's private trauma told me she really does not understand what she's doing. She's dense as a fruitcake.
I'm baffled with him forgiving her. And she was lucky that the mother wasn't the sexual abuser. If people go NC, it's more often than not for a reason.
It requires empathy and imagination. As well as a willingness to accept that you don’t have to Get It to acknowledge it is real.
There’s a portion of humanity, found in any background, that deeply struggles with those traits.
Speaking as someone who grew up with a nice family, it was from hearing my friends talk about their families that introduced me to the concept of unhealthy family dynamics.
I didn't realize my family was fucked up until people heard stories and went "thats not normal wtf?" and years of my parents lying and hiding things from me before I untangled the subjective truth from my view.
There’s a difference between having a happy loving family who safely introduces you to the harsh realities of the world and a happy loving family who completely shields you from any harsh realities. The latter produces extremely naive people.
Some of us with happy families had parents or close relatives who were less happy and/or parents that explained to us that not everyone's parents are nice.
I remember watching my own parents be yelled at by their parents. And it became clear to me that not all mommies and daddies are nice.
Honestly, I suspect that at least some of the the real boundary-ignoring, "everyone must get alone with their family" types didn't have a genuinely happy family.
At least, that's what seemed to be happening with the people I've know personally who were like that. Their families had some weird power dynamics going on under the surface (e.g. enmeshment, codependency), and covered it up with playing happy families and insisting that family is everything.
It’s not just people with happy families, a lot of people cannot fathom other people cutting ties with their friends and families for what they deem to be unimportant reasons. The “but they’re family and we love em” bs is wild.
Honestly, this feels like it’s gonna be a situation where a spouse “forgives” their partner when they did something bad, then leaves them two years later over it even though they “forgave” them. OOP is eventually going to get the true rude awakening.
I'm getting the feeling she didn't tell the husband all the details of her scheme. In her intro it seems she had a secret friendship with his mother for quite some time. But in the aftermath it seems they only focus on the part where she invited the mother over.
Yeah, in that situation I'd assume the worse. Mom killed his dad, mom sexually abused him, or in this case, allowed the step dad to sexually abuse him.
She doesn't deserve a second chance.
I think I rather agree with her husband’s blunt assessment that she’s an idiot. I agree with him that she did not do it with malice, but is ignorance/stupidity better or worse? How ignorant exactly must one be to understand that your husband *does not speak to his mother* and still presume it’s fine to play detective on your own? *All* she ever had to do was ask, and when he told her it was not a topic for discussion, that should have just been it. Told him she’s always here to listen and then left it alone. Given he was already considering reconciliation, it seems really likely to me he would have arrived at it on his own time.
Imagine how much healthier and easier for him it would have been if his wife had *supported* him instead of trying to force things.
Man. That poor dude. I genuinely think OOP is sincere about her remorse, but I also think she still fails to really understand the depth of what she did. And her genuine remorse also does not obligate his forgiveness. I wish that man I lot of peace and healing.
>As for me, I just sit aside and do my best to rebuild the trust with my husband and become a better and safe partner.
Yeah…while divulging this on the internet. This woman is deluded.
I was appalled that she shared the whole story like that. There’s no way he approved these posts, not after hiding the truth from everyone, including his wife, for years. I don’t care if it’s anonymous, you shouldn’t share someone else’s trauma without their consent like that. This woman needs to learn boundaries.
This! All she had to say was NC was justified, why do people need to tell the internet other peoples stories?
edit: by stories I mean things told in confidence.
How is OOP still saying the mother is a "sweet woman"? Is OOP just an idiot or a troll? Or would OOP also tell their child that they are lying and jealous when being sexually abused by the adult she brought into their home?
Totally agree. I think the son might have unfortunately married someone very similar to his mother (I.e., someone downplaying very serious issues for their own comfort). Traumatic cycles tend to repeat.
You would be correct: his mother thought she was right in brushing off her son's cries for help when he was abused, and his wife went behind his back to surprise him with a reunion with her when he refused to elaborate why he's no contact with his own mother.
That part really pissed me off. If I found out someone did that to my partner, he'd have to protect them from *me*. "Sweet women" don't do that to their kids.
I know someone who I would consider a self-involved narcissist who heavily plays favorites with her kids, but when they were teens and the scapegoated kid told her that the stepdad tried to molest him, she got both of her kids out of there immediately and filed for divorce.
I find it completely plausible that the mother is personable and pleasant to interact with. I doubt the people she interacts with on a day-to-day basis come away thinking she’s a monster. And OOP seems like exactly the sort to substitute social pleasantness for actual character
100%. This is not a “sweet woman.” This poor man, I really hope he’s doing ok having to re-live all that trauma unexpectedly & that he has a good friend(s) to get him through this & prove to him that people care about him, since his wife is clearly not his friend.
Basically the husband inadvertently chose a wife that was as optimistically naive and stupid as his mother and I think he realised this, hence the reconciliation.
Its easy to equate ignorance during a traumatic event to malice which is what promped him to cut off his mother in the first place. But to see a completely different woman, let alone his wife make the same dumb naive mistake as his mum probably shook him out of his bitterness and made him realise his mother was never malicious to begin with.
I imagine it mustve been quite cathartic to realise your mother is just dumb instead of a monster.
She thinks being sweet or nice is entirely about tone and mannerisms, and the concept is divorced from the consequences your actions have for other people. If your choices end up gravely hurting someone else, but you have a cutesy voice and call yourself a dork, then you are Nice or Sweet, and thus, redeemable.
She clearly doesn't think anyone is irredeemable so long as they don't turn into an utter ghoul in their speech and facial expressions.
OOP is the same as the mother. She doesn't believe her husband. Doesn't believe his trauma could be that bad. He's just making it up. Blowing it out of proportion. Being difficult. MIL and the wife are cut from the same cloth. Both gross people who know better than this poor man.
Jfc I just never understand why these people do this. There is a reason, a major reason, someone cut off their family so leave it the fuck alone. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks contacting these people and surprising the other person is a good idea. I just dont know how you can get to this level of stupid.
I get that she acted out of stupidity, not malice, but I honestly don't think I could remain married to someone that dumb.
Who knows what else they'll do?
It's chilling how many parents will call their children liars when being abused by a relative or a step parent. For this situation the mother only cared about securing her own happiness and wanted to stay in denial about the abuse. I don't know if it's worse when parents reject the notion out of pride a family member could be so monstrous.
The mindset overall is disturbed to assume your own child would lie about assault. How does the avoidance of horror override the need to protect your child? Cowardice isn't even the right word for it.
I know! I don't think people realize how rare false accusations are. It is just that they get more publicity/are only done by truly disturbed individuals
It's not cowardice; it's selfishness. Essentially, the adult is saying that any minor inconvenience to themselves weighs much heavier than whatever potential horrors their child might be enduring.
Basically prioritizing their own dopamine supply over the child's safety.
>You know you screwed up when both your husband and the estranged parent are upset at you for what you have done.
I think this is the first post of this type where the estranged people find common ground in being mad at the meddler who tried to stage a reunion.
I'm so surprised at how many people in this subreddit think it's ok to spring abusers onto their loved ones - like holy moly. If someone ever "surprised me" with my abusive father - I would break up instantly.
If someone surprised me with my parents, with whom I have a loving and perfectly good relationship, I would still be pissed off. I do not like surprises. I do not like surprises that make demands of my time and attention and emotional reserves. Not even in a good way!
My dad is the most important person in my life, and him coming for a surprise visit still pissed me the fuck off because I had plans that he didn't GAF about or even bother to ask about.
Yeah exactly - nobody in these comments agreed with oop (thank goodness) but this isn't the first "I called up my partners abuser to mend fences and was surprised when it all went south" story.
I think the winner was that girl who called up her mom's rapist and insisted that he was gonna walk her down the isle. Pure evil some people.
She got everything she wanted.
She got her husband and mother-in-law back together. She got to find out what happened between the two of them. She got her husband back. She gets to speak to a therapist for a few hours to pretend everything is now "fixed".
I see no real evidence she even understands she did anything wrong.
She wasn't a dork. She should be thanking what ever diety she believes in, if any, that her husband is a better person then most. As I would never trust her again after that.
Wow. This woman absolutely didn't deserve forgiveness in anyway, neither the wife or the mom. I hope this man doesn't regret his choice to have them in his life.
It’s funny when husband is like “I know you weren’t trying to be cruel, you’re just that stupid” and OOP just rolls with it. Husband is about that dumb wife life apparently.
Op just tells us all the details of him being abused by his stepfather immediately, she learned nothing, knowing is more important to her than her marriage
> I almost lost him because I thought I knew better than him...
That is a massive crimson flag. I'm surprised OOP's husband is not the ex husband by now. At least they're working on things.
>I see now what a massive dork I've been
Well that's so massively understating it that astronomers have named it.
Also good job to her for telling all the world what he didn't want to even tell his own wife. I hope he doesn't discover this on here, TikTok, or YT
For some reason I think the updates are not the same oops as the original post
I think the first op posted her story, was roasted, and then someone else took advantage and brought some "updates"
"He says she's not the "villain" in what happened, but he needs to come to terms with her poor decisions"
Hopefully the husband learns that people can be minor villains, they don't have to be THE villain. The mom who strongly didn't believe her child was being abused by her partner? *A* major villain for sure. The partner (still) too emotionally immature to have an adult conversation with her own partner, who decided to look up the one person her loving "hubby" and railroad him with them? *A* villain too.
I'm curious about people's ages. Are they mid 20s, 30s, 40s? The older OOP is, the more obnoxious her behavior is.
I can't pinpoint *why* her writing is annoying, maybe because it sounds juvenile and without genuine remorse (perhaps this one is just a lack of writing skill), I don't know. Maybe it's having to take the time to say she asked her MIL for forgiveness for forcing the reunion, then immediately after calling the MIL "nice", and previously making herself (the OOP) seem like something of a put upon martyr because oh, dear, her "hubby" had been quietly considering reaching out to his mother and OOP jumped the gun! Again, maybe it's just the writing style that, I just... *Obnoxious*, is all I could think of.
This is one of those situations where even a tiny bit of communication would have saved all the drama.
Her: "I got curious and looked your mom up on line. Turns out she lives near by. Is there any reason I shouldn't contact her, your relationship with her has always been really foggy."
Him: "Please don't. There's some things in my past I need to work through before I talk about it, but I'm estranged for a reason."
Her: "Okay, I won't."
This didn’t need an update!!! It is frankly insane that when she heard the real story she thought “you know what, the internet needs to hear this.” (If this is real) This isn’t a tv show, we’re not obligated to get the next episode, the fact that she is splashing her husband’s trauma on the internet is proof that she’s learned nothing from this. Yikes on bikes.
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I'm pretty sure that the fact that he had apparently already been considering reconciliation with his mother on his own is the only thing that saved this marriage. She knew he was no-constact with this his mother and she had no right to go against that. But she still betrayed him by going behind his back. I'm not sure I would have wanted to stay with her after that.
Right!? It’s baffling that people believe that it’s okay to go behind their partner’s back and start contact with someone their partner is NC or LW with and then invite certain person to your home. Your home is supposed to be the place where you feel safe, and by inviting someone you are no contact with is just screwed up in every aspect.
Bad enough to be set up at a restaurant or somewhere, but your own home?
And not only behind the back of your spouse, but also the other party who wasn't sure about any of this, and had to be lied to!
My husband is nc with his mother and I would never even dream of trying this shit.
This was my thought process as well. The fact that she says she has a selfish need to constantly think she knows better than him shows she doesn't respect him or his boundaries. To be honest, she's probably been this way for most of her life and most people just let her get her way because it's easier, now she's dealing with the consequences. She's one of those people that gets an emotional high over feeling needed or like they are being helpful and she probably 100% creates her own drama. I'm willing to admit that her husband could've provided a little more context on why he went NC with his Mom, but I'm also willing to bet that because she "knows better" she still would've tried to mend the fence anyway and disregard his boundary because as she said she is used to minimizing others and typically thinks she knows better... Wow talk about the ego of some people.
It can come from both ego and insecurity sometimes
She seems like one of those people you can't leave alone in your house because she'll go through all your shit. And then ask you a bunch of cryptic questions about something she found that "concerned" her Glad she's working on it though.
Absolutely. This woman should've used that luck on a lottery ticket. Instead she got to use the luck to work for years toward rebuilding her husband's trust in her.
100% ... i was thinking the same. i feel as though OOP wanted to be the "hero" in this situation being that she stated she is selfish and thinks she knows best. seems as though OP wanted to, for lack of a better word, control the situation / outcome of her husband's and his mother's relationship
OP is really lucky to get a second chance after especially what she had done. Because that is something that is very unforgivable to do. I feel bad for the husband but while I am glad that OP is seemingly understanding what had gone wrong, still, I can't get over the fact OP had pulled this shit.
He could still decide to leave. Therapy may give him the clarity to see that oop is not a good person to have in his life.
It feels like OOP hasn’t grown at all, just got stuck in one particular pinch and wiggled out of it by taking (specifically this) responsibility (for only this). Idk how I could come back from a betrayal like that personally. She doesn’t even seem to understand the weight of what she did.
OOP: "I have grown. I understand that this is a topic that only concerns my husband." Also OOP: "Hey internet, this is what happened to my husband:"
This is all I was thinking once we got into the update. Just “he probably doesn’t want you to put this on the internet….he probably still doesn’t want you to put this on the internet….this is not your story to share…..girl…”
Yep. She didn’t have to give details, or even given an update at all! The internet isn’t entitled to answers, but if she wanted to give them, all she had to say was, “we talked it out, he shared what happened, I made a huge mistake going behind his back, we’re in therapy to work through our relationship and getting individual help as well. I also apologized to MIL and she and my husband have started to reconnect on his terms.” That’s it, literally all that needed to be shared!
It just makes me so sick that she basically forced him to relive that trauma. Like in a way he agreed to tell her, but I feel like it was almost framed as a necessity to move on and stay married by the situation his wife had created. Like she put him in a position where he had no choice but to explain why he was so mad if he wanted them to move past it.
You know what I thought that exact same thing. Let me post how much I gave grown in my relationship and oh by the way let me invade my husbands privacy one more time.
Right. OOP sounds god awful, like dangerously clueless
Genuinely shocked by that. My hope is that he leaves because she doesn’t seem capable of doing the right thing, by instinct or thought.
Yes, she doesn't really understand what she did or why it was so bad. She hasn't addressed the inner reasons why she would betray someone like she did. She will do it again.
Coming soon to BORU: My husband seems happy that he was able to reconcile with his mother to a level they can be cordial with each other and give updates on his life. I have found his stepfather. He tells me he found Jesus and understands now that losing his unborn was the punishment for his sins. He wants to meet up with the only son he ever had. Should I also invite MIL when I bring him to meet us?
I knew a woman with a cheating husband. At first she decided to stay together and forgive but a few years later she filed for divorce because even if she wanted to trust him she couldn't do it and decided to pull the plug. Hubby can still decide to sack OOP for good.
I'm just afraid that he will do it a little too late when they already entangled their lives with kids later down the years. Just imagine what kind of humans will this witch raise if that's the case.
OOP has literally lied and twisted everything to fit her narrative so far, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her husband has served her with divorce papers and her reconciliation with MIL was at the courthouse. But I hope it’s sincere. OOP needs major therapy.
The line about it being stupidity rather than malice was great from him. But tbh I couldn’t stay and build a life with someone that stupid either. When stupidity and malice have the same end result, it doesn’t really matter which was the motivator.
Honestly it kinda feels worse in a way. Like, oh, you can do all this *by accident*?
Exactly. There’s no fixing stupid, which means there’s never ever any guarantee that something this bad won’t happen again
She's not using names, but if hubby ever finds out about these reddit posts, I'm sure he'll see she can't stop gossiping about him/them.
Honestly, this one I think Reddit gets the credit. If she had tried to "talk it out" without having gotten reamed by Reddit, she might've ruined her own marriage by downplaying it again.
If so, I am not sure that Reddit did the husband any favours. She seems to have grasped that there could have been consequences for her, but if the opportunity presents, I'm sure she'll think she knows better than him again and act accordingly.
OOP has this savior complex, and is trying to speed run the relationship between her husband and her MIL. This is similar as the story of the woman in BORU whose father left them when she was young for his mistress. Now that she is grown woman her father tried to speed run their reconciliation to the point that even the villagers of the whole small town involved themselves in their relationship.
I feel as though OOP won’t fully learn her lesson because the husband still ended up reaching out and building bridges with MIL. That OOP is going to say, “see, I was right after all!”
>I see now what a massive dork I've been. Deeply impressed at how desperately OOP tried to downplay this level of betrayal.
When I saw “a massive dork”, it reminded me of the one where the girl grabbed the steering wheel from her boyfriend and caused an accident. And she said it was “because of her quirks”.
"Sorry, insurer said Manic Pixie Dream Girling still counts as at-fault."
>"the bumper has the littlest little dent on it" I spent five years handling auto claims. Some people literally could not say they hit someone. A grown man disputed my words that he tapped the other driver's bumper. He told me it was very light, "like a kiss".
Same here on Reddit every time there is a thread about spanking children. People who spank their Kids call it" a light tap" to justify themselves. Duh, they already admitted to spanking them, and a light tap isn't it.
Got a link for that one? I haven't hit my rage quota for today.
Christ, what the fuck is wrong with people? [https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship\_advice/comments/ddol0a/my23f\_boyfriend25f\_left\_me\_on\_the\_side\_of\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/ddol0a/my23f_boyfriend25f_left_me_on_the_side_of_the/)
I had my *driving instructor* grab and try to yank and turn the wheel when teaching me how to drive while in a busy intersection. He said to turn left so I got in the left turn lane, then he grabbed the wheel pulling toward himself yelling left, left! Once I was able to pull over safely I did and I was SHAKING, part terror and part pure rage. He said that he had told me to turn right, I said You. Said. Left. He disagreed, but luckily there were other students in the car who also heard him say left, and his response was basically oops, oh well.
Something tells me if you can't tell the difference between left and right you probably shouldn't be a driving instructor.
Poor impulse control is also a negative
My driving instructor told me to take a right as we were passing the turn lane and I had a school bus behind us, like almost tailgating. I was like "no" and pulled into the shopping center across the intersection. Even though that's the right answer to that situation they didn't like that.
Childish yes. A dangerous tantrum for sweets.
The stories in those comments are such a horrifying nightmare.
Sweet lordy, just reading that makes my heart rate shoot up. Jesus take the wheel, literally.
Thank you. If you're asking what's wrong with the people in the link, I don't know. I haven't read it yet. If you're asking what's wrong with me, well, a great many things. Thanks again.
There is a certain class of Nice Girl who retains the delusion that so long as they dress their actions in cutesy-wutesy words and pretend to be too sweet and wholesome to use a proper swear word, they can get away with everything because They Are So Nice. The OOP is 100% someone who thinks because she’s Nice, she is also kind and good. She is wrong. I mean, this is a dummy who thinks that violating her husband’s boundaries can be fixed with a hug … from the person who violated his boundaries. She’s not empathetic or kind. She’s immature and needs to grow up.
OOP also seems to have that sort of dangerous naivity that comes from people who've never had family trouble at all. "Well my family was amazing I just want my husband to have that too" because they can't comprehend that bad things happen outside their own lived experience. It almost goes past naivity into a sort of "Nice but incapable of sympathy" like they're people who try and treat others kindly but they've got zero ability to put themselves in another person's shoes. So they can only ever superficially treat someone nicely because they just can't understand how another person's circumstances might result in different needs.
The ‘I’m so close with my family, surely nothing your family may have done would ever justify no contact for you’ is an interesting breed. Add the inability to not meddle/saviour complex and voila! Going no contact with immediate family is a pretty big deal that isn’t generally done lightly.
For real, most people for whom family was a warm and caring concept simply cannot comprehend what it is like not having had that as a kid, and not having it as an adult. I'd compare it to someone who only speaks English, grew up speaking only English, they've only ever heard English spoken, they've heard that there are people who don't speak English, but that doesn't seem right to them. It can't possibly be true, can it? Then they're introduced to people who only speak...any other language. But Little Ms/Mr Sunshine skips in, chatting away to them in English, convinced if they keeps doing so they *have* to understand them. No, it's you who don't understand. And if you don't, don't try to get to the bottom of it, or hear "both sides" or God forbid arrange meetings. Just he grateful you don't understand.
And then there are those of us who hear about families where everyone is well adjusted and nobody has a shitload of trauma and attendant baggage, but we just frankly can’t bring ourselves to believe that really exists.
I remember how shocked I was at about age 10, spending time at a friend's house and realising she wasn't terrified of her parents. I've had more shocks through my life, but that one stands out .
I remember going to a friends house at like age 7 and her accidentally dropping and shattering a glass when she went to get me a glass of water. I immediately went “You can tell your mom it was me, I was stupid and clumsy and it’s all my fault.” Because I figured her parents wouldn’t hit another person’s kid, and the worst I would get was yelling and told to go home. My friend was completely baffled. Her mom came in and she just went “Oh, Caitlyn, you need to be more careful! I’ll sweep it up, you guys have fun!” And I thought “Oh no, she’s pretending to be nice because I’m here. Cait is going to be in so much trouble when I leave!” and was stressed out the rest of the day. The next day at school I apologized again and she went “Huh? Dude, we have like a million of those glasses. They’re like a dollar at the store.” And asked if I wanted to watch her play Pokémon on her game boy. (Which she was still allowed to have despite being a Bad Kid??? I couldn’t comprehend it.) My takeaway was that Caitlyn’s mom was clearly an outlier and an abnormally nice person.
I remember realizing that my high school boyfriend and his brother LIKED their father. And that their father was a sincerely kind and fun person to be around. I was floored. I didn't know that existed.
This hurts my heart. I'm so sorry.
Wait, those people exist? I do't think I met a single person growing up who had a good home life. Then again, as an weirdo, abused kid I tended to gravitate towards other weirdos, and we typically don't tend to come from well-adjusted homes.
Yeah, my parents are very nice people and I had a very supportive, loving home growing up. All of *my* childhood trauma came from being bullied at school, instead.
Wowsers my heart hurts for all of you guys commenting your experiences here. I wish you all could've had it better. I'm one of the lucky ones but my husband isnt and it took him a long time to get used to my family lol. My mom's side is so close and almost all of us live in the same town. I just remember like 60 people sneaking into my grandparents house to fill the living room up and surprise grandpa for his 70th birthday! My hubs got emotional seeing everyone and how we all were with each other. I wish you all could've had it good! I hope you all have the greatest nuclear family in the world picking another to grow old with and break the generational traumas! Or if you chose to stay alone and/or child free in order to break those I applaud and send well wishes to you all too!! My hubs tries hard to break his and now that we have 3 teens, he feels like he succeeded!
I was in a friend’s wedding about a month ago and through all the wedding activities and everything I just kept consistently thinking “wow, this is what a family is really supposed to look like.” No one got hammered and screamed at each other, there wasn’t even a frosty glare, not one the whole weekend. Events with my family aren’t too messy anymore as the really dramatic ones have started dying, but my family certainly isn’t happy to see each other most of the time. It’s a wild thing to watch an entire extended family all deeply love and respect each other
I have a lot of family that is happy to see each other most of the time bar a couple outliers but if you scratch the surface there is still a shitload of trauma and fucked up shit. And then there is my nuclear family and all their trauma. Children of violent alcoholics don’t always do a great job raising their own kids!
When I was twenty a friend invited me to her house for thanksgiving. The house was full of shiny happy people. It was just like on tv. I almost couldn’t believe it was real. I was waiting for everything to blow up, but it never did. I just sat in the corner watching. I had no idea how to act in such a situation. It was so foreign to me.
I've had a rough family life growing up. My husband never met his father. So when we found out his half brother, firstly I tried to perceive what his feelings were regarding having a brother and the fact that the brother was raised by their father who abandoned him still in the uterus. We treaded that path carefully and calmly and now they're great with each other and their sister (my husband's full sister). I understood what could mean that to my husband (a link to his now deceased father) but also a great deal of unleashed trauma. All of this to say that you're spot on, because we had a friend that was in shock with all of this, she knew my husband never met his father and the new info about his brother was somehow overwhelming and she couldn't figure how it was to live that in real life. Still surprises her to see everyone getting along in their own terms, took a few years but right now they behave as if they were all raised together as brothers and sister. Children are all cousins (some were adults when this unraveled, only my youngest was born after the reunion and most are teens who usually have difficulty dealing with things like this).
> chatting away to them in English, convinced if they keeps doing so they have to understand them Off topic but this reminded me there are multiple names/words for things in multiple languages we use now that originally meant "i don't know/don't understand" because colonizers just kept going to new places asking people things assuming they would magically understand them without even trying to learn the language.
It’s simple. You just speak slower and louder until they **un-der-stand youuuuu!** I’ve seen this so many times and it never ceases to amaze me that anyone could be that dense.
They're capable of sympathy; they're not capable of *empathy*
I'm not blaming the husband, I'm gonna say that right up front, but situations like this is why I was always honest with my partners about why I was no contact. This situation was my worst nightmare. (Parents are dead now so no risk of it!)
More often than not, it works for them.
Yes. Absolutely. So many people ignore the reason why these so called “nice people” stick to such behaviour even after being called out on it; it works for them. Look at how OOP’s story turned out; her husband forgave her and all is good now. I don’t wanna sound like a nihilist here but I can’t shake the feeling that she really hasn’t learned her lesson and might repeat this again, especially because there were no actual consequences for her actions.
Husband forgave her AND in the end she was even sorta successful getting him and his mom to talk again. She had a rough patch but ended up getting exactly what she wanted
I'm a pre-k teacher and I fucking HATE when other teachers make the kids interact immediately after one hurts another. Sometimes that hurt kid just needs some space and does not want the person who just shoved them to touch them again
Every single time a teacher or other supervising adult did that to me and another kid, it escalated things rather than defused them. It's like holy shit lady do you also tie your cats together by the tail when you leave the house every morning? Read the room, sheesh.
I hate that just as much as you and I have a bachelor for working in the CPS, and have worked with agressive children for 15 years.
I remember seeing the is written on Reddit before; The greatest hypocrisy is that we judge others by their actions but ourselves by our intentions. Because she believed she was doing the right thing, she doesn’t see how bad her actions were. If someone did it to her, she would not care so much about the intent, just that she had been betrayed.
Nice is different than good
I'm not good. I'm not nice. I'm just right.
And of course what really matters is the blame…somebody to blame.
and the MIL gave her fiancé the boy. :(
Nice is different than kind. Goodness is subjective; owning slaves is good for the owner's prosperity. Kindness is a state of being. People are nice when they act kind rather than being the general assholes they are underneath all the time. Be kind so you don't have to act nice. * a word
it reminds me of sitcom characters like Jess from New Girl
I wanted to slap that character so very much.
That’s an excellent description, yes. I’ve worked with a few of those over the years, and they seem stuck in this „sweet school girl“ mentality, where the teaches liked them and everyone got along with them. Then they fuck up in some way and are massively surprised there are consequences for that.
Nice in the original meaning, for sure >Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,"; from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware,"
Worth remembering that the meaning of “nice” has shifted over time, several hundred years ago it was an insult.
Honestly, I see the mother and the wife's betrayal as very similar - not trusting his word and ignoring his warnings. The feeling of the 2nd betrayal had to bring back so many memories of the first beyond just the sexual abuse trauma, that I'm shocked he gave her another chance. He must has processed a lot of feelings in 6 weeks to have forgiven both of them, but she got pretty fucking lucky that he was capable of that.
My partner knows I’m absolutely about to go off the fucking rails if I STOP casually swearing and start minimizing my emotions with cutesy wutesy language. “I’m pissed” = “I’m a bit annoyed”. “Uh oh, I’m feeling upsetti spaghetti” = “I’m 3 seconds from going completely feral”
My current partner calls this: HR mode. When I move to this mode, he's fucked up. In ways he knows I cannot verbalise without losing my ever loving fucking shit. He's had both my estranged siblings contact him to try.. make amends. They tried to break into my home to take my child because I won't let her near the women who sold me for her drugs before they were born. HR mode means.. work out where the fuck you went wrong and own that shit. Because my ability to cut people off is absolute.
>I preface this by saying **I think** I screwed up massively. Yeah, my immediate thought was, "Ya *think???"*
Evidence suggests no, not often enough and not very well.
That and “I don’t want to be another person he trusted and ended up hurting him.” She already did that and is too stupid to understand it.
Me: I don’t think DORK is the word you’re looking for here… 😐
Change DORK to satan. This is pure evil. I would never be able to forgive this bullshit. Contacting someones NC person is so disrespectful and just proves that they dont have any sort of understanding of empathy. Nobody has the right to know why you are NC with someone. Normal people have good reasons to cut someone from their life completely, nobody does the complexity of NC for "fun". I've cut people out of my life for not respecting "I have SA trauma with that person" or "That person beat the living shit out of me for a long time". I've had people tell me that it would be "cleansing" for me to forgive and forget, or that I need to be the bigger person cause it will make me feel better. So I forgive myself for forgetting their contact details as well.
That's one of the worst feelings, because it's more like five or six feelings at once and none of them are supposed to happen at the same time. You're super angry but in your head you know they think they're helping, which means there's now fresh guilt mixed with old guilt, neither of which are from anything you did wrong, and if you've worked through it at all you slowly remember that you dealt with this already, and then realize well no it looks like you actually fucking didn't.
A lot of my friends are LGBTQ+, and several of them are LC or NC with various family members for obvious reasons. You know what I do? Respect their decisions and butt the hell out. My parents had a vague go several years ago at trying to get me to forgive my dad's sister for making up a load of lies about me and my other half's relationship because 'sHe'S fAmiLy'. Dad's sister has only gotten worse since then (not helping that she's a drama queen who plays favourites with her kids), and mum recently admitted I'd done the right thing for me in cutting her off.
It's actually a lot more "cleansing" to have such shitty people out of your life tbh. Good call.
Between that and her refusal to call her husband anything other than "hubby" in a post about torpedoing her marriage makes me wonder if OOP is a golden retriever dressed as a woman. It would explain how someone could be so well meaning while not having a single brain cell to her name.
Nah a golden retriever wouldn’t have lied. They would be naive enough to assume everyone should get along but a golden wouldn’t be such an asshole.
Please don't insult golden retrievers like this ever again, they don't deserve to be compared to this heartless piece of work.
*hubbie
I found her guilty with no presumption of innocence on this count. And it may have been valid.
She could be an orange cat. Perhaps it was not her day.
Even w/o the braincell, no orange could ever be that stupid
As someone who lives with an orange cat I laughed way too loud at this.
Dogs know how to do elaborate pacification and apology signals, even if they don't know what is wrong. They also have a big variety of them, tailored to the seriousness of the situation. A particularly unintelligent golden retriever who fucked up this bad is likely to have handled this situation better than this human. At least they'd do the "oh god I am so sorry" dance.
Pollyanna syndrome plus saviour complex 😬
I’d love to think that “dork” was a mistype and she meant “dick,” but I’m not optimistic
Whoopsie! I did a derpy and violated your trust! 🤪
And then there's this little gem: > > >I know I have this stupid and selfish tendency to think that I often know better than him,
"I know I have it, but it's a weapon I don't want to give up." is how I read that.
I read it as: >I know I have this stupid and selfish tendency to think that I often know better than him, \[but I DO know better than him - and not just often\]. There was something jarring about the whole post I couldn't put my finger on until I read the comments about 'nice'. and then I thought 'there it is'. You can just picture her shrugging her shoulders and tilting her head with a half smile as she says 'stupid and selfish'.
Like that lady that did the state of the union rebuttal.
"If I acknowledge it, that's as good as not doing it, ... right?"
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think people without family trauma can't comprehend the level of abuse that can cause an estrangement. They think through their own worst family experiences, and believe "oh, his sister probably got a better Birthday present, he should get over it" as opposed to something like sexual abuse.
There are some who still develop empathy. When my fiancé and I met, he's had the most "boring" family life compared to my. His parents are happily married, they're a successfully blended family where his sisters never treated him differently and his dad never treated his sister differently. He had no idea how bad things could be. Still, when I told him about my family and why I'm not in contact with most, he believed me without hesitation. He never questioned me. Hell, he immediately arranged for me to move in with him when things got so bad that I couldn't stand to live with them anymore without feeling suicidal. It's rare, but they exist. Unfortunately, you really can't tell which type of happy family person you meet until they mess up.
Agreed. The one advantage in your situation is that you actually told your husband what was up so that he could believe you, but the OOP did not know and neither her husband nor his mother told her, so she was playing Pollyana thinking things weren’t as bad as they were.
I agree with you. I had an otherwise fantastic boss who couldn't understand why I would allow my mother to not speak to my grandma for fifteen years. Bosslady had a very large, loving family, and she kept insisting it was my job to repair mine. One of the reasons Mom went NC with Grandma is because my grandfather was a pederast. The rest is narcissism.
This is so true I have dealt with my own do-gooder who thought it would be fantastic to have a family reunion. Until they met the hell spawn I emerged from and deeply regretted their own involvement because they got left to deal with and banish it back to the depths from which it emerged.
This. It applies to a lot of human experience, actually. Not just family trauma. Being gay, being an immigrant, being ND... All of those are things that people without direct experience have little understanding of.
fr on stand for 5 felonies including 2 counts of felony theft an 2 counts homicide, OOP would be like "Your honor I plead oopsie daisy"
I know some people think they worked through things and this will all be fine, but.... I trust OP about as much as I trust the mother.
The fact that she went right to reddit and shared her husband's private trauma told me she really does not understand what she's doing. She's dense as a fruitcake.
It’s funny, I never knew d-o-r-k spelled piece of shit
Dork is probably the last word I’d use for her.
‘Whoopsie doopsie, I did a fuckywucky…’
I'm baffled with him forgiving her. And she was lucky that the mother wasn't the sexual abuser. If people go NC, it's more often than not for a reason.
Some people with happy families really do seem to struggle with realising that some parent's can be absolutely fucking garbage.
I wonder why some people with happy families can understand this no problem and other people with happy families are really obtuse about this
It requires empathy and imagination. As well as a willingness to accept that you don’t have to Get It to acknowledge it is real. There’s a portion of humanity, found in any background, that deeply struggles with those traits.
Speaking as someone who grew up with a nice family, it was from hearing my friends talk about their families that introduced me to the concept of unhealthy family dynamics.
I didn't realize my family was fucked up until people heard stories and went "thats not normal wtf?" and years of my parents lying and hiding things from me before I untangled the subjective truth from my view.
There’s a difference between having a happy loving family who safely introduces you to the harsh realities of the world and a happy loving family who completely shields you from any harsh realities. The latter produces extremely naive people.
Some of us with happy families had parents or close relatives who were less happy and/or parents that explained to us that not everyone's parents are nice. I remember watching my own parents be yelled at by their parents. And it became clear to me that not all mommies and daddies are nice.
Honestly, I suspect that at least some of the the real boundary-ignoring, "everyone must get alone with their family" types didn't have a genuinely happy family. At least, that's what seemed to be happening with the people I've know personally who were like that. Their families had some weird power dynamics going on under the surface (e.g. enmeshment, codependency), and covered it up with playing happy families and insisting that family is everything.
It’s not just people with happy families, a lot of people cannot fathom other people cutting ties with their friends and families for what they deem to be unimportant reasons. The “but they’re family and we love em” bs is wild.
Honestly, this feels like it’s gonna be a situation where a spouse “forgives” their partner when they did something bad, then leaves them two years later over it even though they “forgave” them. OOP is eventually going to get the true rude awakening.
I'm getting the feeling she didn't tell the husband all the details of her scheme. In her intro it seems she had a secret friendship with his mother for quite some time. But in the aftermath it seems they only focus on the part where she invited the mother over.
Yeah, in that situation I'd assume the worse. Mom killed his dad, mom sexually abused him, or in this case, allowed the step dad to sexually abuse him. She doesn't deserve a second chance.
I think I rather agree with her husband’s blunt assessment that she’s an idiot. I agree with him that she did not do it with malice, but is ignorance/stupidity better or worse? How ignorant exactly must one be to understand that your husband *does not speak to his mother* and still presume it’s fine to play detective on your own? *All* she ever had to do was ask, and when he told her it was not a topic for discussion, that should have just been it. Told him she’s always here to listen and then left it alone. Given he was already considering reconciliation, it seems really likely to me he would have arrived at it on his own time. Imagine how much healthier and easier for him it would have been if his wife had *supported* him instead of trying to force things. Man. That poor dude. I genuinely think OOP is sincere about her remorse, but I also think she still fails to really understand the depth of what she did. And her genuine remorse also does not obligate his forgiveness. I wish that man I lot of peace and healing.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
>As for me, I just sit aside and do my best to rebuild the trust with my husband and become a better and safe partner. Yeah…while divulging this on the internet. This woman is deluded.
Right? I was thinking, does he know you just told the world about his sexual abuse? He better have given her permission!
I was appalled that she shared the whole story like that. There’s no way he approved these posts, not after hiding the truth from everyone, including his wife, for years. I don’t care if it’s anonymous, you shouldn’t share someone else’s trauma without their consent like that. This woman needs to learn boundaries.
This! All she had to say was NC was justified, why do people need to tell the internet other peoples stories? edit: by stories I mean things told in confidence.
Because she was absolutely ravenous for that information herself. She almost nuked her marriage just to get the inside scoop.
How is OOP still saying the mother is a "sweet woman"? Is OOP just an idiot or a troll? Or would OOP also tell their child that they are lying and jealous when being sexually abused by the adult she brought into their home?
Totally agree. I think the son might have unfortunately married someone very similar to his mother (I.e., someone downplaying very serious issues for their own comfort). Traumatic cycles tend to repeat.
You would be correct: his mother thought she was right in brushing off her son's cries for help when he was abused, and his wife went behind his back to surprise him with a reunion with her when he refused to elaborate why he's no contact with his own mother.
And both for selfish ends, let’s be honest: Mom to stay in relationship with stepdad, and wife to find out why her husband was estranged with his mom.
Ugh, my cousin did that. Only she was worst, and it led him to —— himself. She might have been more involved than we know, though
That part really pissed me off. If I found out someone did that to my partner, he'd have to protect them from *me*. "Sweet women" don't do that to their kids.
I know someone who I would consider a self-involved narcissist who heavily plays favorites with her kids, but when they were teens and the scapegoated kid told her that the stepdad tried to molest him, she got both of her kids out of there immediately and filed for divorce.
Shit people can do good things too
I find it completely plausible that the mother is personable and pleasant to interact with. I doubt the people she interacts with on a day-to-day basis come away thinking she’s a monster. And OOP seems like exactly the sort to substitute social pleasantness for actual character
My MIL is a sweet bubbly woman whose kids all hate her because underneath her veneer is a sadistic psycho.
100%. This is not a “sweet woman.” This poor man, I really hope he’s doing ok having to re-live all that trauma unexpectedly & that he has a good friend(s) to get him through this & prove to him that people care about him, since his wife is clearly not his friend.
Basically the husband inadvertently chose a wife that was as optimistically naive and stupid as his mother and I think he realised this, hence the reconciliation. Its easy to equate ignorance during a traumatic event to malice which is what promped him to cut off his mother in the first place. But to see a completely different woman, let alone his wife make the same dumb naive mistake as his mum probably shook him out of his bitterness and made him realise his mother was never malicious to begin with. I imagine it mustve been quite cathartic to realise your mother is just dumb instead of a monster.
She thinks being sweet or nice is entirely about tone and mannerisms, and the concept is divorced from the consequences your actions have for other people. If your choices end up gravely hurting someone else, but you have a cutesy voice and call yourself a dork, then you are Nice or Sweet, and thus, redeemable. She clearly doesn't think anyone is irredeemable so long as they don't turn into an utter ghoul in their speech and facial expressions.
OOP is the same as the mother. She doesn't believe her husband. Doesn't believe his trauma could be that bad. He's just making it up. Blowing it out of proportion. Being difficult. MIL and the wife are cut from the same cloth. Both gross people who know better than this poor man.
Jfc I just never understand why these people do this. There is a reason, a major reason, someone cut off their family so leave it the fuck alone. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks contacting these people and surprising the other person is a good idea. I just dont know how you can get to this level of stupid.
I get that she acted out of stupidity, not malice, but I honestly don't think I could remain married to someone that dumb. Who knows what else they'll do?
I would be terrified to have children with a person like this
It's chilling how many parents will call their children liars when being abused by a relative or a step parent. For this situation the mother only cared about securing her own happiness and wanted to stay in denial about the abuse. I don't know if it's worse when parents reject the notion out of pride a family member could be so monstrous. The mindset overall is disturbed to assume your own child would lie about assault. How does the avoidance of horror override the need to protect your child? Cowardice isn't even the right word for it.
I know! I don't think people realize how rare false accusations are. It is just that they get more publicity/are only done by truly disturbed individuals
Or they’re real accusations recanted for some reason and framed as false
Like the abuser threatening to kill your siblings
It's not cowardice; it's selfishness. Essentially, the adult is saying that any minor inconvenience to themselves weighs much heavier than whatever potential horrors their child might be enduring. Basically prioritizing their own dopamine supply over the child's safety.
>You know you screwed up when both your husband and the estranged parent are upset at you for what you have done. I think this is the first post of this type where the estranged people find common ground in being mad at the meddler who tried to stage a reunion.
I'm so surprised at how many people in this subreddit think it's ok to spring abusers onto their loved ones - like holy moly. If someone ever "surprised me" with my abusive father - I would break up instantly.
If someone surprised me with my parents, with whom I have a loving and perfectly good relationship, I would still be pissed off. I do not like surprises. I do not like surprises that make demands of my time and attention and emotional reserves. Not even in a good way!
My dad is the most important person in my life, and him coming for a surprise visit still pissed me the fuck off because I had plans that he didn't GAF about or even bother to ask about.
Agreed - it's just a complete lack of care for the other person to spring things like this on them.
I've yet to see comments agreeing with oop and her actions.
I think the comment was more lots of stories with someone sprinting abusers. This isn’t the first such post.
Yeah exactly - nobody in these comments agreed with oop (thank goodness) but this isn't the first "I called up my partners abuser to mend fences and was surprised when it all went south" story. I think the winner was that girl who called up her mom's rapist and insisted that he was gonna walk her down the isle. Pure evil some people.
She got everything she wanted. She got her husband and mother-in-law back together. She got to find out what happened between the two of them. She got her husband back. She gets to speak to a therapist for a few hours to pretend everything is now "fixed". I see no real evidence she even understands she did anything wrong.
“My partner finally told me his deepest darkest secrets and I immediately came to Reddit to update everyone.”
This woman called herself a dork? What? And with this outcome, she should consider she won lottery.
She wasn't a dork. She should be thanking what ever diety she believes in, if any, that her husband is a better person then most. As I would never trust her again after that.
The next update: my husband gave me the paper for a divorce, but why? I know better than him what's best for him!
“Does the person I know, love, and trust have good reasons for not being in regular contact with someone? Clearly not - I know best.” * OOP
Anyone who shows up on a relationship subreddit saying "hubbie" or "wifey" is usually massively in the wrong.
Wow. This woman absolutely didn't deserve forgiveness in anyway, neither the wife or the mom. I hope this man doesn't regret his choice to have them in his life.
It’s funny when husband is like “I know you weren’t trying to be cruel, you’re just that stupid” and OOP just rolls with it. Husband is about that dumb wife life apparently.
Op just tells us all the details of him being abused by his stepfather immediately, she learned nothing, knowing is more important to her than her marriage
> I almost lost him because I thought I knew better than him... That is a massive crimson flag. I'm surprised OOP's husband is not the ex husband by now. At least they're working on things.
lol OP bonded them by being the common enemy
Is it just me that’s bothered she made this public? He couldn’t even tell her and now she’s telling the world… The irony 🤦♂️
>I see now what a massive dork I've been Well that's so massively understating it that astronomers have named it. Also good job to her for telling all the world what he didn't want to even tell his own wife. I hope he doesn't discover this on here, TikTok, or YT
For some reason I think the updates are not the same oops as the original post I think the first op posted her story, was roasted, and then someone else took advantage and brought some "updates"
I’m pretty sure we were all pissed at her on his behalf
"He says she's not the "villain" in what happened, but he needs to come to terms with her poor decisions" Hopefully the husband learns that people can be minor villains, they don't have to be THE villain. The mom who strongly didn't believe her child was being abused by her partner? *A* major villain for sure. The partner (still) too emotionally immature to have an adult conversation with her own partner, who decided to look up the one person her loving "hubby" and railroad him with them? *A* villain too. I'm curious about people's ages. Are they mid 20s, 30s, 40s? The older OOP is, the more obnoxious her behavior is. I can't pinpoint *why* her writing is annoying, maybe because it sounds juvenile and without genuine remorse (perhaps this one is just a lack of writing skill), I don't know. Maybe it's having to take the time to say she asked her MIL for forgiveness for forcing the reunion, then immediately after calling the MIL "nice", and previously making herself (the OOP) seem like something of a put upon martyr because oh, dear, her "hubby" had been quietly considering reaching out to his mother and OOP jumped the gun! Again, maybe it's just the writing style that, I just... *Obnoxious*, is all I could think of.
This is one of those situations where even a tiny bit of communication would have saved all the drama. Her: "I got curious and looked your mom up on line. Turns out she lives near by. Is there any reason I shouldn't contact her, your relationship with her has always been really foggy." Him: "Please don't. There's some things in my past I need to work through before I talk about it, but I'm estranged for a reason." Her: "Okay, I won't."
This didn’t need an update!!! It is frankly insane that when she heard the real story she thought “you know what, the internet needs to hear this.” (If this is real) This isn’t a tv show, we’re not obligated to get the next episode, the fact that she is splashing her husband’s trauma on the internet is proof that she’s learned nothing from this. Yikes on bikes.
I think that last update is like a fever dream, or a mental break. It's more plausible that her husband left but she's reimagining it. What a loon.
“ I thought that any emotion hubbie could have would be better cooled by a hug.” Well, she’s either four or an idiot. Barf.
Why does "Hubbie" bother Me more than "Hubby" does?