Tears In A Vial posted:

We're only known each other for 4 months, dating for 2. All of it has been LDR. We have been talking on skype and texting every single day though, and we have talked for hours and hours about everything and nothing at all. Finally, after months of counting down the days, I met him for the first time in person at Dragoncon and he proposed the same day.

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My boyfriend(19 M) and I(21 F) met through Xbox almost 3 years ago. We knew we both liked each other but the distance was an issue(He lives in Florida and I live in Maryland) but somehow we made a LDR work for over a year now. We immediately started to make plans to meet in person and now after months it's gonna happen! With both of us being huge nerds, we decided to meet the weekend of an anime convention in Baltimore called Otakon and go to the con together!

Tears In A Vial posted:

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Recently the girlfriend brought up being in an open relationship. She also just moved far away to live with her grandparents and made that decision despite my pleads and everything I did to try to convince her to stay. Since we've been together we've had a fairly great sex life. She is 18 and I am 22 and we have been together about a year and a half. It has almost always been a long distance relationship till I moved back home from college for a semester to work and be with her. During this time we stopped having sex except for every once in a while and she has no enjoyment from it so when we did she half rear end'd everything and it just sucked.

One explanation which has a high probability is her BC she has been on has the effect of losing sexual arousal which she has told me I do not turn her on anymore. Now that she is in Arizona and I am still in Alaska sometimes she brings up that she's fine with me having sex with other women and wants to be in an open relationship. I absolutely do not like that idea. To me that stops being a relationship. She makes it sound like its all about me being able to be sexually satisfied and never would address when I asked her if she wanted to get with other guys.

Yesterday I bluffed and said we should do one and finally got it out of her. She just wants to be able to flirt with other guys and maybe have sex after a bunch of romance. But that just sounds way under-exaggerated. We both love each other and have had a bumpy relationship but always end up back together. We both have different views on what is okay. She is fine with me having sex, but is not fine if I say anything about if I got feelings for other women. She says she hasn't seen anyone she's been super attracted to, but is afraid of it when school starts up and after she's made friends down there. So I don't know what to do. I know I should probably break up with her with everything that has been happening, but I want to try to make it work.

TL;DR: Girlfriend lives far away and wants to do an open relationship, I don't.
It would be kind of cool to hear from someone that has done an open relationship before too. With rules it might not be such a bad thing.

EDIT: Thanks for all the open relationship advice, but I think open relationships are a little too out of comfort for me. I'll still try to get her to put her side of the story though

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As your girlfriend I feel this is very one sided...

Tears In A Vial posted:

TOP COMMENT

Tears In A Vial posted:

TOP COMMENT

Gaunab posted:

You dick; you didn't even post the title so we could see if she followed up.

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He (23M) actually bought his ticket to see me (18F)

We've been together for the past 4 years, talking for 5, and have never met.

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We've shared tears and laughter and countless youtube links and selfies throughout those 4 years. I dyed my hair pink, red, green, and now it's red again. He got a tattoo, quit his band that he's been in since freshman year of high school, and joined a brand new band. He bought a new apartment and I moved to a new state. He grew a beard and I got accepted into college.

Throughout all of these changes, we made it. Despite this, I always had a nagging feeling that we may never meet and through a twist of fate, he will run away or lose interest and I would be lost in this world wondering years into my existence if he was the man behind me in line at the supermarket or another lost soul cutting his fingers on the phonebook paper trying to find me only to get a disconnected number. Thankfully, we still love each other more than words can express.

We had our weekly Facetime date the other day. After several failed attempts to watch Zootopia online and a marathon of dog videos, he just pulled out his loving wallet and bought a ticket. I don't know what prompted this. He just did it. I stared in shock as he typed in his card number and got the ping for the email confirmation.

That same day, he also got confirmation that he's touring Europe and Japan with his band this year and next year.

After 5 years of loving him, with 4 of those being together, I'm going to actually meet him for the first time. I could not be happier or prouder of him. I just finished watching a blurry live stream of a show he played tonight and it filled me with such joy.

Here's to a hopeful eternity with him filled with more music, hair dye, beards, tattoos, dog videos, youtube links, and love. Only thing different is that he will be next to me.

Tears In A Vial posted:

Do that math yourself.

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Sidebar says this is for "anybody who wants to support love against all odds," so fingers crossed that you all want to support love against all odds.

Me: 19, college sophomore (second year).
Her: 15, high school sophomore (grade 10). And, in the classic refrain of guys dating younger girls, she's very mature. (Oh dear.)

[I turn 20 before she turns 16]

Us: met on vacation this summer, spent three weeks travelling together (as friends), developed into something else, now together almost six months, five of which are 800 miles apart. Very similar levels of experience (in relationships, sexual matters, etc.). We've seen each other twice since this summer. (Plane ticket is about $800 USD roundtrip, no other options at present.) We are startlingly compatible, of course. We trust each other absolutely, which has led to a remarkably conflict-free relationship thus far, and any conflicts have been settled quickly and amicably. Even long-distance, there's very little strain on our relationship – we miss each other terribly, but mostly we're incredibly happy to have each other.

Anyway, most people's gut assumption is that something is definitely seriously wrong here, because of the age gap. Here's a list of the things that people tend to assume are "wrong":
- "She has low self–esteem and uses seeing an older boy to feel good about herself, or to seem cool." – She has always been very popular, has dated other guys, and has no issues with self–esteem. Also, she's only told her one best friend about me. (She is, like me, a private person. Note the throwaway.)
- "You're seeing a younger girl because you're emotionally messed–up in some way." – Well, I guess I can't prove that I'm not. But most of my friends are 1-3 years older than me (always have been), and on a totally objective level, I am highly accomplished for a 19-year-old. I work at a bar (yes I'm 19 which means we aren't American) and have a large circle of friends. I'm not some sort of social pariah or anything.
- "It can't work because you have totally different expectations from a relationship." – Both of us are extremely conscious of the age difference and don't try to ignore it. But honestly, we're both at similar places in our lives right now – if anything, she has her life a lot more sorted out than I do. We're so happy together now that we've promised that if the challenges of distance become too great, we'll end it rather than strain it, and try again in two years when we can live closer to each other (after we both graduate).

With those preliminary responses out of the way, I am curious if anyone has been in a similar situation, if anyone but us thinks this might work, and if anyone has any questions or concerns, because my main interest is what's best for both of us. I am very open to genuine discussion (as opposed to knee-jerk reactions, which is what I'm accustomed to) and will gladly take criticism alongside any support you care to offer. Love this subreddit.

Tears In A Vial posted:

"I am highly accomplished... I work at a bar"

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But honestly, we're both at similar places in our lives right now – if anything, she has her life a lot more sorted out than I do.

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[18M/15F] Is my LDR healthy?

I love this girl so much, I want to marry her. I've known her for almost 2 years, and we've been going out for 2 months. A bunch of you are probably thinking she's not mature, but I honestly can't tell her maturity apart from mine. We both are moderators on very popular online games!

Tears In A Vial posted:

Tears In A Vial posted:

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but I honestly can't tell her maturity apart from mine.

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Me [30 F] with my boyfriend [25 M] of 1.5 years, I asked him to consider getting a job and now I feel like a demon

Hi guys. Would love some advice on how to handle this because I'm just at my wits end with this.

I'm currently living with my boyfriend and his dad in his dad's apartment. Long story short, had my own apartment, some coworkers convinced me to move into their house and splint rent when my lease ended, then all of a sudden they're selling the house and I have to skidaddle. So, my boyfriend and his dad are majorly helping me out by letting me stay here and I appreciate every bit of it. It's only temporary (less than 90 days) and just enough to let me save up for a few months of rents and deposit.

Anyway, I'm planning everything and looking at places and trying to do math, and it's a little bit stressful because it's just going to be the two of us surviving on my single income. I do alright for myself, $25-$30,000 flat rate and usually closer to $35-$40,000 with raises (some parts of my positions have sales-type bonus incentives that are performance-based and not guaranteed). My boyfriend has never worked, and always lived with his parents since high school.

At the moment, he stays home and smokes a large amount of weed, plays video games, and looks at hentai all day. I work full time with 9 hour days during the week and I also work 6 hours on Saturdays. He doesn't really clean or anything, so I'll usually come home from work and start dinner and clean some things before I join him for a dungeon or two in Warcraft.

Today I was really crunching some numbers at work and sent him a message asking if there's any way he'd consider working to contribute, like if there's maybe a part-time job at a pet store (he loves animals) or if I could pay to put him through some college courses to help find a career he'd enjoy. He got pretty upset that I asked, and I tried to assure him that I was sorry and just feeling a little alone in all of this. I then got a few messages from him explaining that he's offended I asked him to get a job, but he knows I didn't mean it as an insult so he's sucking it up (?) and then he proceeded to explain that he's not unemployed because he's lazy, he's unemployed because he's totally opposed to the concept on many levels, and he went on to explain that he's not mad at me though. He told me that he'd rather actually die than be employed, and he said it's due to how much of your time it takes, how it's only necessary due to the status quo of capitalism, etc.

I kind of lost my cool and asked him "isn't saying all that kind of hypocritical when you're just intending to live off of everyone else that does it?" and then he got pretty pissed. He told me that I effectively called him a hypocrite for not killing himself (I guess because it's related to the whole "he'd rather die" thing? I still can't connect that but maybe my brain is wonky)

Anyway....I guess I just realized that if I were anyone else reading this I'd have given in to the "what the gently caress are you doing, this is stupid" idea by now, so if you've made it this far I appreciate it. All aspects of the relationship are great except for this, but I guess it's a pretty large portion and it's pretty much me saying "Man, this house is fully furnished and the curtains are beautiful but the whole place is on fire so that kinda sucks".

So....I guess are there any suggestions for how to make him see that this is going to end us? Because I'm honestly feeling pretty selfish right now and in his head I think I'm attacking him, and I don't want to be.

Sorry if this is disjointed as hell, it's been a long work day.

tl;dr: My boyfriend refuses to get a job for...protest?...reasons, and I can't get him to understand I'm stressed and I need his help. How can I communicate everything to him in a way that doesn't seem like I'm attacking him?

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So, I brought up a lot of the points that you guys brought up in the last thread, including: "How would you feel if I stopped working?" and I actually threw out an ultimatum of "If you had to choose between getting a job and being with me, which would it be?"

I wish I could tell you I took the calm, rational, mature route and just walked out to a new life. I decided to have a tiny bit of fun instead.
I've got a decent amount of money saved up since his dad didn't charge me rent and that was the entire purpose of me staying here (please note: I prefer to carry my own weight and still contributed as far as preparing meals, buying food and buying drinks!). I put my notice in at my previous job without informing my boyfriend. Once the notice period was up, I started staying home. Every. Day.

Wake up in the morning and he says "...don't you have work today?" and I'd be like "Eh, I don't feel like it". The first few days he was like "Awesome!" and we sat around playing games. After the first week he starts getting a little anxious and he's like "So...what's up with work?" and I tell him "Oh, y'know, just not feeling like it". After the second week he says "What's going on?!" and I tell him that I thought a lot about what he's said, and I really agree with him. I don't feel like working and contributing to "the machine" either, so I'll just stay here with him.

He FLIPPED OUT. He started telling me how irresponsible that is, how I have to work, basically the entire diatribe that I should have been screaming at this kid the entire time we were together. Except at me. Because I didn't go to work for 2 weeks.

I kinda figured that would happen and I wanted something drastic to point out to him that, as I said before, he is a hypocrite. Because, he is! I have to admit a small part of me was kind of hoping this would be a revelation to him, and help him change. No, he just couldn't fathom how I could possibly do something so ridiculous and blah blah blah.

Anyway. What I actually did after leaving my job was find a part time job and go down to the local community college to pull the trigger on something I've wanted to do for a couple years now: enroll in a welding program. I also found a roommate in the area who's cool with my animals, and that way I can split my bills up and not be strapped for cash. Plus I sometimes drive for Uber and this is an okay market with a decent bar scene on weekends, so if I need a little extra, there's that. So I've moved out and moved on, and y'know, I'm not even that sad because I got closure out of that whole event.

I'm also pursuing the cliche of hitting the gym more/at all, and hoping to lose a little weight. Though, I did just lose 180 useless pounds, so maybe that's enough for now. :p

Anyway, I know I didn't go about it in the right way, but I thought if any of you were curious to know, here's how it went. Thanks Reddit!

tl;dr: The kid ain't alright and I GTFO'd. I am free to prey on the geeky men of Cleveland again.

Edit: Sweet Jesus, this exploded, and you are all very kind and amazing! Lots of people PMing and commenting about his actual "reaction", but to be honest...I feel like I'd have to be a trained therapist to even figure it out. After he flipped out at me and I pointed out that it was really was just a "what's good for the goose..." scenario, he got kind of quiet and said I was being mean. I told him that it had become pretty obvious that tying to talk to him about everything wasn't doing me much good, so I had decided to actively show him. He told me that it doesn't change anything about the way he feels about not working. I told him that he's got to find some way to contribute, or I walk. He told me it would be my decision. So, it was.

Basically...to this day he still believes he's "right", or at the very least he hasn't done anything wrong. There's some sort of disconnect in his brain where he can't connect the part of him that loves me and wants to take care of me, with the part of him that doesn't want to work and wants to live off his parents forever. It's pretty sad, really.

Tears In A Vial posted:

UPDATE

Troposphere posted:

lmao sounds like my last roommate

she had inheritance money and didn't seem to understand the concept of it running out(it wasn't much) and was all I don't want to get a job I hate capitalism when really she was just lazy and extremely autistic

corn on the cop posted:

this relationship was over two years ago and this dude just kept chugging along

Tears In A Vial posted:

UPDATE

Troposphere posted:

lmao sounds like my last roommate

she had inheritance money and didn't seem to understand the concept of it running out(it wasn't much) and was all I don't want to get a job I hate capitalism when really she was just lazy and extremely autistic

Tender Bender posted:

She drove drunk and wrecked another car and has no idea whether she hurt or even killed someone else. But she regrets it the next day so she's an okay person.

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My [34/M] social worker [30s/F] is always negative towards my foster daughter [16/F] and I'm debating if I should drop her.
I have a foster daughter who has been with me for four, almost five, months now. I feel like things are going well with her and we're making slow but significant process, but my social worker doesn't think so. My foster daughter has been through a lot in her life, and she has Complex PTSD. I just want to make her happy and give her a good two years. I really want to adopt her.
Her social worker really doesn't think highly of this child at all. My foster daughter has been in and out of foster homes. In the past, she has been dismissed as too needy and difficult with some people, and others continued to abuse and take advantage of her. This currently is the longest period of time that she has stayed with a foster parent. The social worker knows of my desire to eventually adopt her and has told me several times not to get my hopes up because everything is going well now but something will happen that will change my mind; she knows because she has seen this many times with this girl in the past. She really doesn't have faith in her. When I talk to her about my foster daughter, I can tell that she thinks that she's a bad kid or she puts the hardships she experiences in life on herself. My foster daughter also will do things that are considered inappropriate for her age. For example, she still sucks her thumb, she still wants to hold my hand, she still wets the bed sometimes and she cries a lot. My social worker has told me that this is a response to being abused and it's common, yet she gets really aggravated with my foster daughter when she does do these things. I remember the first time we met, the social worker told me not to let her "manipulate me" as she is very prone to do so with men. I didn't know what she meant by that, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Within the past month and a half, my foster daughter and I created this little "ritual" for her to before she goes to sleep. I make her some cocoa and I brush her hair. Then I read her a story or sing a song to her, and I stay in her room until she falls asleep. When I leave, I have to lock the door. She has problems sleeping at night because her biological father told her that he would come and kill her in her sleep. Before she started doing this, she would have horrible nightmares, wake up in the middle of the night screaming, or just not sleep at all. This has really been helping her because she will sleep at night, get the right amount of sleep, and she won't have the nightmares.

The social worker wanted to speak with me again yesterday about how my foster daughter is doing. I told her things are going well. She knew about the problems she was having at night and asked me if it was getting any better, so I explained our ritual to her. She became very frustrated and told me that I can't keep babying her like this. I tried to tell her about the improvements but she cut me off and said that this was exactly what she meant when she said that she likes to manipulate men. She went on to explain how some abused girls will exhibit sexual behaviors towards men to get attention. I asked her what was sexual about me brushing her hair and reading her a story so she wouldn't have nightmares. She said she knows where this is going and I need to stop it immediately. Then she asked me to consider whether I really want my foster daughter to stay with me or not, and not to feel pressure to put up with her behaviors.
I usually don't like talking to her because she always discredits my foster daughter in some way and never acknowledges the progress she's made. However, yesterday, I was actually angry after our conversation. There's nothing sexual about what we're doing, and it really bothers me that she's so willing to put some kind of blame on this child who has been through hell.
I don't know if I should try and get a different social worker. I don't know if I can even try that because this current one knows everything about my foster child and has been with her for a long time. I don't know if I should listen to her because of that; she always says something negative about her and yesterday was really the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm wondering if it's my place to confront her about it. I don't really have any idea where to go from here. I want to keep doing what I know is helping my foster daughter but I worry that the social worker will try to take her away because she thinks something is going on or continue to make it into ammunition against her.
I don't know what to do.

tl;dr: My social worker has been very negative towards my foster child for a while now. Yesterday I told her about a ritual we do that helps my foster daughter sleep and she told me that I'm being manipulated into doing a sexual thing and to rethink whether I want this child anymore or not; I'm angry at the social worker and don't know what I should do about her.

54 40 or gently caress posted:

Spoilering the ages, don't read them until after

54 40 or gently caress posted:

Spoilering the ages, don't read them until after

Hugoon Chavez posted:

That said, if the girl has a history of abuse and of manipulating older men... Why is she being fostered to a single man in the first place? In fact, wouldn't fostering any abused 16yo girl to a single man be a bit weird in any case?

Hugoon Chavez posted:

I don't know man, if the social worker knows her and her case she might be onto something. She's still a kid but that behavior isn't normal for her age even if you consider abuse.

That said, if the girl has a history of abuse and of manipulating older men... Why is she being fostered to a single man in the first place? In fact, wouldn't fostering any abused 16yo girl to a single man be a bit weird in any case?

Uncle Enzo posted:

I read my daughter a story, brush her teeth, then sing her exactly 3 (three) songs at bedtime. When she's old enough to brush her teeth it'll just be the stories and singing. This is normal parenting behavior. That foster kid is a bit old for that, but having a calming routine is what helps kids (and adults, actually) sleep. Especially if they never had it when they were younger.