Copa
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The executive director is actually the one who has already said “not right now.” My boss was fine with it but asked my permission to clear it with our general counsel, who knows our policies thoroughly. (We work in the legal space and I do trust our GC.) He said there was no conflict but pointed to some policies and told my boss to kick it up to the ED, which my boss did with my permission. That’s where it died. “For now.” The ED should be in my office tomorrow and it may come up. The amount I’d make freelancing isn’t worth jeopardizing my job. I do plan to keep looking as I have been. Mostly right now I feel frustrated, everything feels like a dead end. Companies that pay less than what I make now. TWO ghosting me after panel interviews in December. And I didn’t realize how shitty it’d feel to have the highest earners at work shoot me down in this way.
Quick off-topic rant. I recently applied for some freelance work. I used to freelance often and it was a pretty chill extra stream of income, but I haven’t done it since being at this job. I was invited to join the freelance team, which happens to be based out of my city and in my industry, so my org is tenuously connected to the president of the company I applied with. I went to my boss to double check about a conflict of interest before responding to the invite. Today my boss and I had a quick video call where he had to tell me no and he wanted me to understand why it is a no, which has nothing to do with a conflict of interest but essentially boils down to dated company policies and an employee classification system we no longer use but are still in our policies. Employees of a certain “rank” cannot do outside work of this nature, and had I been classified under the old system, I’d likely have fallen into the higher “rank” of employees. They said they’re going to update the policies and under new policies, it’d be fine, but until they make the updates, it’s a no. I’m doubting policy updates will happen quickly… we haven’t used these employee designations in the near seven years I’ve been here and policies have not been updated to follow suit yet. And, IDK, it’s fine in that I knew it potentially would be a no-go. What I did not expect was feeling sad/bad to be told by men who make multiple times my salary that I cannot work in my free time to earn even a little bit more for myself.
Uh. One time in my boyfriend’s family’s group chat, someone sent a reaction GIF from an SNL skit with a couple in a hot tub that has some caption alluding to what was going on beneath the water. The bf’s BIL decided to chime in that it was like me and my bf in a hot tub, which was out of context for whatever the conversation was about. I thought that was embarrassing. Like even if his mind went there, why did he have to comment on that in the family group chat? I ignored it. But it was still embarrassing and that was just a dumb group chat comment!
You should not have made that comment at breakfast. And, okay, I guess we all say stupid things sometimes, but when the boyfriend tried to laugh it off, you should’ve dropped it. But you didn’t — you essentially doubled down on calling him/them out. Are you really telling me that you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable if someone made comments like that about you and your husband while you are a guest in their home? (At 20, no less. In front of a parent.) You should’ve apologized for embarrassing them when the SIL texted you. You can still apologize.
Bio Dad’s New Girlfriend is gossipy… I’d be wary of her.
You can also spend less time with his family since you both seem to dislike them. Or you can hang back sometimes and let him socialize with his family of origin solo.
Ugh. That stinks, LW, and it’s ok if your feelings are hurt. Mine would be, too!
I was listening to a podcast this morning. The episode was a compilation of listener grudges. One of the hosts pointed out that he thinks that at younger ages, people may not really understand the impact of showing up. I had that thought reading this. Your friends may actually be clueless. Or, since it sounds like you’ve already expressed your hurt feelings, you might be friends with mean girls. If you’ve already tried talking to them, I’m not sure there’s much else you can do. You can, however, choose where your energy goes and how much of it you give to these friends. Heck, I’m in my mid-30s and still sometimes find myself reevaluating friendships if they start to feel lopsided. When someone lets me down or doesn’t reciprocate my effort, I’ll stop making the effort and will invest more of my time in other friends and making new ones.
You can still celebrate your birthday without these friends! I know it’s not what you had in mind, but fun ideas include going out for dinner or doing a game night with your family, splurging on something like a trip to the nail salon, buying yourself concert tickets, etc. I can’t recall what I did on my 18th, but I suspect I celebrated in a small way with my nuclear family.
I’m curious what’s being split here. You’re responsible for notes and she’s responsible for… what, exactly? Assuming there is some benefit in here for you (I know you mentioned slides, but IDK what that really entails), you’ll have to stop taking advantage of that when you tell her this isn’t working. Different people have different learning styles — other people’s notes never made sense to me, so I was always happy to share my notes as needed, but I had to take my own. Taking them kept me engaged and attentive during classes, reviewing them jogged my memory and helped me learn.
Tell her in a kind but straightforward manner that your arrangement isn’t working. Neither of you is learning the material or able to keep up the way you want, and you think it’s best for both of you to do your own work moving forward. You can tell her in no uncertain terms that this move is also what’s best for your friendship, which is important to you, if you feel so inclined. If she protests or makes you feel guilty, well… is she that good of a friend?
You don’t mention anything about the rest of your friendship but I’ve seen dynamics play out where one person is a giver and the other is a taker who will keep taking. Givers and takers seem to find one another. Maybe this is you, maybe it isn’t, but either way this will be a great lesson in setting appropriate boundaries.
I had a friend once tell me “I can’t be a friend about this right now” when I was telling her about some personal struggles during a high-stress period of her own life. The friendship didn’t end because she said that. She didn’t have the bandwidth, I understood and it was helpful that she was direct. That friendship did end years later, though, when it became clear that she was happy to take support when it benefitted her, but unable or unwilling to give back in what felt like equal measure. Nothing explosive or dramatic, a fade out of a friendship that wasn’t for life and that’s okay.
I agree with the consensus that the fiance doesn’t sound disrespectful, at least not from what’s written here, but it’s also fair that LW has her own ideas around what is and isn’t okay. I have a friend with a history of anorexia who has been in in-patient treatment multiple times since HS for it. I was appalled to learn that her now-husband made comments here and there while they were dating about how disgusting it is to watch her eat after a night of drinking. (Once because she ate shishito peppers with her hands.) I thought and still think that’s a deeply insensitive thing to say to someone with a history of severe ED who has and will likely forever have serious demons around food and body image. My friend thought it was NBD. Different people, different opinions. It matters less that the consensus is that this guy’s behavior doesn’t seem like anything to bat an eye at and way more that LW feels disrespected. I also wonder why she wants to marry someone she feels doesn’t respect her… it should be addressed before they legally bind themselves to one another. I also wonder where this deep insecurity(?) started… take some time to explore the wound beneath the trigger with a trained mental health professional, LW.
Soo. You blocked your mom on Facebook, but what has your real-life contact with her looked like over the years? Have you limited it/do you plan to? Yes, your mom sounds difficult, but your issue with her is in real life, not online, so I’m not sure what kind of point you’re trying to make by blocking a nonagenarian on social media. I don’t think blocking her online is making the point you think it’s making.
Additional context would help me decide if I think it is “off” that your fiance reminisced with his friends about his ex right in front of you. Like, are these group photos of the good ol’ days and she just happens to be in ’em? Because that’s different from, IDK, whipping out old honeymoon pics and saying he misses her or whatever. I’d find the latter weird, but not the former.
I keep mushy cards from past relationships. I’m sure there are old photos on the Cloud, maybe some in print somewhere. Keeping/having access to these mementos aren’t a sign I haven’t moved on from past loves, but I don’t bring them out to reminisce (alone or with others).
Anyway, respect is huge in relationships and if you sincerely feel your fiance behaves disrespectfully toward you, I’d second the suggestion to consider couples counseling before you lock it down. If you haven’t already sought therapy to process your childhood abuse, it’d benefit you. That kind of trauma is real and can be triggered by seemingly silly thing (for me anyway), but having a trained professional to listen, validate, and develop coping mechanisms for those high stress moments is very helpful.
I think speculation that he’s got hoes in other area codes is kind of beside the point here. This relationship isn’t going anywhere regardless. But yes, a VERY sizable chunk of my friends have ended up inadvertently out with men who turned out to be married or in relationships. Or have had the unpleasant experience I’ve had of discovering their SO is using dating sites to meet other people. The most egregious was a friend who dated a guy for 4-5 months who said his wife died in a boating accident. The wife turned out to be very much still alive. My friend found court records indicating they’d very recently filed for divorce, but they were definitely still married and living together while she was with him. I thought it was super creepy that he didn’t just hold himself out as single… why did he have to invent a story in which his wife died tragically? People are messy out there.
“When I talk about being an introvert, I mean that I haven’t been able to develop good communication and social skills.”
What you are describing seems to be social anxiety, awkwardness, or discomfort, not introversion. Being an introvert has nothing to do with social skills or how garrulous you are. Introverts are not inherently bad communicators or socially awkward; they find social situations more draining and recharge alone. Extroverts are recharged through socialization and are not inherently outgoing or charming.
Are you staying with this man who lives far away because maybe you believe that your lack of communication and social skills make you unloveable or undateable to local men?
In any case, communication and social skills are just that — skills! You can practice them. I used to be very shy and awkward. I’m not anymore. You can join MeetUp groups. Sign up for a class/learn a new hobby. I started taking pottery classes several months ago, it’s mostly women and there’s a lot of low stakes chatter while we throw. Groups like Toastmasters are designed to help people build confidence through public speaking. I’ll bet if you build up your confidence, losing this guy won’t seem like such a loss.
My bf likes to golf in the summers as much as he can. He typically goes with his friends in the suburbs so if it’s an early tee time, he leaves early. They’ll usually grab a bite to eat together after, he’s often not home until like 4 p.m. I’ll usually text even after he’s gone if I end up doing something. He’ll usually send a pic from the golf course and that’s when I’ll be like, “Looks like a great day! I’m doing X.” And yes, we also have to communicate around the dog’s potty schedule, so maybe I’d ask when he thinks he’ll be home if I’m deciding if I can stay out or need to head home. Neither of us needs to know specific information about the other’s whereabouts just for the sake of knowing. Checking in is normal and I’m sure all couples have their groove. Monitoring is not. Knowing the names of who your partner is out with or the bar they’re at does not mean the difference between trusting or not. Visiting someone’s home does not make them trustworthy or preclude them from being shady.
Last March I went out to brunch with my girl friends and told my boyfriend I thought I’d be home by 2 or 3. Our server brought us free shots twice. It turned into an unplanned bar crawl. I finally came home drunk at like 8. I’m sure I texted a bit throughout the day. He probably did his own thing that day, I can’t remember. He wasn’t mad that I “lied” about the original plan. He made me a chicken nugget platter and LOLed as I told him about the younger bartender who told my friend that our group of champagne-drunk-at-4 p.m. 30-somethings reminded him of his mom.
I think LW perceives being introverted as a flaw of some sort since there’s active worry that he’ll meet someone extroverted and better at talking. I agree therapy would be a good idea. There seems to be some low self-worth going into the decisions made around this relationship.
I went to dinner two Fridays ago with some girl friends. I told my bf that it was a girl’s night out and which restaurant we were going to. I didn’t share names. When I got home (or maybe the next morning, I can’t recall) he asked me how dinner was. He asked if it was “the whole group” and that’s when I was like, “Oh, no — X was out of town, Y tested positive for COVID, so it ended up being me, A, B, C, and A’s friend D.” He did not freak out. He did not accuse me of being untrustworthy or withholding information. He asked from a place of wanting to know about the night I’d had, not out of suspicion.
At the end of the day, though, someone who is going to be shady is going to be shady. The boyfriend I caught online dating? He had an entire lie planned around where he was one Saturday night — names, locations. He checked in with me throughout the night by text. He’d actually gone to a wedding with another woman and was not, in fact, with Jeff, which I learned because I happened to log into FB at just the right time to see the photos she’d uploaded on my Timeline. I’d trusted him completely, always had details of his alleged whereabouts, he always checked in even by text, my essentials were at his place. He was still shady. Your boyfriend does not trust you. That’s what matters to me here. It doesn’t matter if you’re not actually doing anything that warrants suspicion. If there’s no trust (after two years, no less) this isn’t going to work.
ETA: It also seems you do not trust him if you actively worry that he’s met someone more extroverted and have even asked him to just tell you if he has.
My god what a dramatic and guilt trip-y text just because you didn’t provide every last detail before going out before you walked out the door. Everyone else is spot on. This isn’t healthy. He’s controlling and manipulative.
But mostly wanted to comment on this:
“I’m not really sure but I thought maybe something happened in his previous relationship that made him decide to make something like this to become very important in the relationship.”
I’ve had two boyfriends cheat on me. The second boyfriend to do so, I caught him online dating a year into our relationship. To date, I’ve never known how long he was on the dating sites while we were together or how many women he messaged, took out on dates, slept with, etc. I only know that I caught on one day, we broke up, and he’s now married to the woman I caught him with. It was absolutely devastating at the time and I was not okay for awhile after. I definitely had some lingering issues (mine were not trust related) that I noticed popping up when I got back onto the dating scene. I got into therapy. I did not take it out on the people I was dating. Men are just as responsible for taking accountability for their own behavior as women. If a past relationship fucked him up a bit, I feel for him and sure, maybe it gives context to the behavior. It does not justify his behavior. You say you know you’re not responsible for his insecurities, but you’re still acting like you are. I promise, there is better out there for you.
ETA: Also, to @Kate’s point about the least trusting men often being the least trustworthy… the first boyfriend to cheat on me was like that. I swear, men tell on themselves early on all the time.
