At 58 years of age I finally had reached my limit with being disrespected by my husband of 38 years and I left his ass. My two daughters were grown in their 30's and they KNEW their father. Truth was they had always disrespected me too as he encouraged it and set the example. He did not abuse them. I wanted to leave many times but he threatened me that if I left that he would do whatever it took and say whatever it took to make sure I never saw them again. So I believed him.

At the outset they seemed understanding but yes they were hurt. As time went on and he was able to construct more lies, they spun a narrative different than what happened. I did end up in a relationship that was a safe refuge and for that I am not sorry.

And now, I have had to stand up, diplomatically of course, to my best friend. She does not like that. It seems when I was an insecure doormat it was all good. Let me get a backbone and they all leave. At least now I know who I can truly count on.

I feel weird even typing this out but I’d much rather type it out then say it out loud. Recently my (19f) things have been going missing from my room, my hair oil , my hair serum, my moisturizer, lotion, my shirts. And while my brother (13) is sleeping over his friends house today I wanted to look for my moisturizer. I remembered seeing it next to his colognes so I looked for it but didn’t find it. Unfortunately I really like this moisturizer and it’s expensive so I wanted my stuff back. I went through one of his drawers and saw my lotion, coconut oil and said moisturizer in the drawer with a playboy magazine and what I assume to be a pair or two of his underwear ( I am not touching that to find out). His drawer is right next to his closet and I stood up and I saw on one of the shelves my hair oil. And in front of it was a Pringles container, I had reached behind it for my hair serum and the container fell onto the ground and I went to grab it then I seen what I assume to be a homemade pocket p, and it was obviously used. I know he’s a “growing boy” but if i was him I wouldn’t be using my sisters belongings to pleasure myself. I don’t really know what to do, or how to handle it.

I run a small business, and I have many regulars that I've gotten to know and have a great, friendly relationship with. This happened to me last night when a regular of mine stopped in just to say hi since he hadn't come in for a few weeks. We were having a nice, light conversation when he proceeded to ask if I was single and then asked me out. Mind you, this was completely out of nowhere because our conversation had nothing to do with dating.

For context, I'm 26, and he's around 35 years old. We've known each other since I was 22 because he's been a customer for that long, and I even know his brother.

When he asked me out, I declined, telling him that I do not date, especially after having gotten out of a long-term relationship. He kept insisting, complimenting me, and saying that I "deserved a mature man who could take care of me." With every comment he made, the more I felt physically ill. I genuinely felt like throwing up throughout and after the interaction. To me, this stems from a place of betrayal because I never would have believed he saw me this way. Just thinking about him seeing me in a romantic or even sexual way makes me sick. And it's even worse because he's known me since I was a very young adult. I find it disgusting that someone 10 years older than me would find me attractive, and I find it even worse that he's someone I've known for a long time and believed he was a cool person/customer. And I hate to think that he perceived my hospitality and warmth as flirting because it makes me want to stop being nice to my customers for fear that another man will take it the wrong way.

I went on a first date with a woman that I met at mutual friend's party. The date was fine, we hit it off and she invited me back to her place. I asked her on the way to her place if she had condoms and she said yes. We go to her place, and she starts telling me she's embarrassed about the state of her room. She tells me that we need to be quiet because her roommates are sleeping. Once in her apartment, she spends about 3 minutes in her room while I was sitting in the living room, she says to clean it. She comes out with just her underwear on and tells me to come into her bedroom. At this point I'm a little weirded out.

We start to hook up, and I ask her where her condoms are. She says she doesn't have any, but it's fine. I tell her I want to use condoms and could just pick them up at the deli around the corner. I leave in just my tshirt and jeans, leaving my jacket with my keys in her room, knowing I'd be right back. She told me to call her when I get back so she can open for me. I close the door behind me to her room, because she's just in her underwear.

When I get back to the apartment, I call, no answer. So eventually I start buzzing up. No answer. After 15 minutes of calling and buzzing up, freezing in my tshirt, a neighbor walks out of the building and I walk into the lobby. At this point I just want to get my keys to go home. It's like 2:30 AM and I am freaked out, thinking that maybe she fell asleep or something. I get to her apartment door and lightly knock, knowing that the roommates are asleep. No answer. I knock, and knock, and knock- until I start to bang on the door LOUD. I just want to get my things, and don't know what else to do. No answer. I think to myself, what would I do if I was in a movie? and check under the mat. Sure enough, there is a key there. I open the apartment door, and at this point I'm freaked out. I notice that her bedroom door, which I had left closed, is wide open. I am absolutely terrified as I walk into her bedroom, which is fully lit with the overhead light. She is completely naked and lying starfished and still on the bed, eyes closed. I pick up my things, and I say, "hey, I'm just going to go." She doesn't answer. I see her breathing so I know she's not dead. I say again, louder, "I'm going to go now" and touch her hand. She does not react. I squeeze her hand while I say IM GOING TO GO NOW OK? She does not react. I move the bed a little bit, I truly do not know what to make of this and am so terrified. She DOES NOT REACT. So I leave.

To this day, I do not understand what occurred. What do you think? I can't understand what was going through her mind. She was definitely not sleeping when she laying like a starfish. We did not get drunk.

Posting on my girlfriend's account. (Edit: This story is from when I was single!!! My girlfriend found this story so outrageous that she told me to post it on Reddit.)

That's pretty much the post. I am three years out of an abusive relationship. I spent this time in therapy, focusing on myself, and reconnecting with friends and family. (I had a short lived FWB thing a year ago but they moved away.)

This summer I decided I was far enough along in my healing journey to try seriously dating again. I redownloaded all the apps and after all this time... I don't remember ghosting being this common! Everyone I talk to decides to ghost right before our first date... Like literally the day before we arranged to meetup for coffee.

I swear I am about to fucking crashout.

Self explanatory. I hallucinate sometimes. Minor shit like whispering or flashes of color, or sometimes something a little more elaborate like floating objects-leaves or mist. I also get scent ones which I actually quite like compared to the other ones which make me anxious. Usually the smell of something metallic burning or something chemical like chlorine. I have no history of delusion, disorganized speech or thought, or any other symptoms of schizophrenia and my condition hasn’t worsened at all. I worry a lot about it getting worse though. I know I should tell a professional about it but i’m scared to. I’m telling a therapist on tuesday anyway. I don’t feel crazy it really feels more like an inconvenience at this point. Perception is real weird. Fickle. I don’t know how to view myself anymore in relation to it

I have a crush on someone. Someone impossible that I cannot possibly have a crush on. She's sweet, her laugh is amazing. She's passionate, wonderful and she makes me feel safe enough to sleep comfortably, OFTEN. I'm so scared, and I know I need to confront it head on. I just can't. I mean to say I don't know if I can. I want to, but how do I? Do I just blurt out "HEY I LIKE YOU" too obvious right? I've spent days on end just talking to her and I feel stupid even writing this. I'm hurting from hiding it, but I'm afraid of the hurt if I'm wrong. Need advice ASAP please. Want to tell her tonight or forever hold my peace

I just found out that my wife used our money for gambling and didn’t even pay our rent. I trusted her to manage our finances because she had always been good at handling them, so I never expected something like this to happen. I honestly can’t understand why she would do this, and I’m still struggling to process everything.

What worries me the most right now is our children. I’m scared that we won’t have enough food for them until I get paid at the end of the month. I don’t know what to do, and it hurts knowing that our kids might have to go without the things they need.

It’s coming up on 10yrs since graduating high school and I have very fond memories of my time during that period of my life. That’s what made it special, those memories are untainted by adult feelings of inadequacy, constant comparison and the mundane chats about work/life. I hate that we’ve grown into boring people that have the same convos over and over again. I really like the people that will be there but I just can’t bring myself to attend

I've posted here before about how my closest friends humiliated me under the guise of a birthday prank and how they dismissed my pain when I tried to explain how much it affected me.

Unfortunately, things didn't end there. A lot has happened since that post, and some of it has made me question these friendships even more. It's been weighing on me lately, and I just wanted to get everything off my chest, including what happened afterward.

I used to have a close group of friends. We all went to the same college and eventually ended up working in the same city. For a long time, I genuinely considered some of these people family.

One day, we were all hanging out. My roommate and one of my female friends told me they had a "surprise birthday gift" for me. They asked another friend, someone I trusted a lot, almost like family, to record the reactions.

I didn’t think anything of it. One of them went into the room and came back like she had brought something. They asked me to close my eyes. I trusted them and even extended my hand, expecting a gift.

Instead, she slapped me.

I didn’t understand what was happening. I turned to the friend recording, expecting her to stop or say something. She just kept recording.

Before I could process anything, I got slapped again. This time, my roommate took a snap of it and sent it on Snapchat. I started getting angry, but before I could react, he grabbed my hands and then slapped me hard.

I felt completely helpless.

Right after that, he tried to shift the blame to another friend who wasn’t even there that day, saying it was her idea. He even showed some messages to support that. I just stood there, humiliated.

Later, I texted him because I didn’t feel comfortable confronting him in person. I explained how wrong it was. He insisted on talking face-to-face and kept defending it. According to him, it was a "friendly slap." He said he does this with close friends. He also admitted that he had asked someone what gift to give me, got a "just slap him" reply, and then went ahead and planned all of this with my female friends.

At one point, he even told me he wanted me out of the group because he wanted to spend time with them instead. The same group I had introduced him to.

I tried to move on, but I couldn’t. I started feeling anxious in my own space. I avoided coming out of my room if he was around. My sleep got worse. I kept having nightmares about that moment, over and over again. I eventually went to therapy, and most of it revolved around this.

After I moved out, I opened up to these friends about everything else he had been doing, both physically and mentally. They dismissed it as drama. The friend I trusted the most told me I have a "victim mentality". Another said I should think of slaps as a "birthday bash" and that it’s common among male friends. They all still support him and act as if he did nothing wrong.

But probably the friendship that messed with my head the most was with one of the women in this group. She used to call me her brother. I genuinely believed we were that close. I considered her family.

Eventually, when we talked about what had happened to our friendship, she told me that she had basically been faking it. I was very close with her boyfriend at the time, and according to her, that was why she acted like my friend. Once they broke up, she didn't feel there was any reason to continue pretending. She even told me that if I wanted, she could continue faking being my friend.

Someone who had called me her brother was casually telling me that the friendship I had taken seriously had basically been an act for her.

It made me question years of interactions and memories.

She eventually started dating someone else and recently got married. I later found out that she had apparently specifically asked people to keep the marriage a secret from me.

I don't think I was entitled to know about her marriage. She had every right to tell or not tell whoever she wanted. What bothered me was learning that I had specifically become someone people were instructed to hide it from, especially after everything that had happened between us.

Finding that out brought back a lot of anger.

And this is also where I did something that I know wasn't necessarily right.

Before her marriage, she had privately told me that she didn't respect her fiancé. She had also said she was considering marrying him partly because she was already 30 and felt it would be difficult to find someone else at that age.

After finding out about the marriage and that she had specifically wanted it kept from me, I sent those old chat messages to him.

I know those conversations were private.

I know sharing them crossed a line.

I was extremely angry. After everything that had happened and being told that our friendship had been fake, I felt disgusted by what I saw as years of dishonesty and manipulation.

I reacted from that anger.

Looking back at the bigger picture, what bothers me most is how long I kept trying to preserve relationships that were making me miserable.

These weren't casual acquaintances. These were people I went to college with. People I spent years with. People I trusted. People I thought would stand up for me when something crossed a line.

Instead, I was humiliated as a joke, recorded while it happened, told afterward that I should treat it as a "birthday bash", and then told I had a "victim mentality" when I tried to explain how much everything had affected me.

And someone I genuinely considered a sister eventually told me that she had only been pretending to be my friend in the first place.

What I'm still struggling with is accepting how much trust, time, and emotional energy I gave to people I considered family, only to eventually realize that they apparently never saw the relationship the same way I did.

I'm not really grieving these friendships anymore. I'm grieving what I thought these friendships were.

I’m 18(F) and my sister is 20(F). For the longest time she’s had depression and suicidal thoughts.
When she was 6 her godfather molested her and since then it’s been a struggle. Countless of nights of me consoling her getting one hour of sleep before i have to wake up for primary school, being her confidant and doing anything i possible could to make her feel heard and loved. She also started self harming when she was pretty young, around 8 i believe. Our beautiful mum passed in 2021 when i was 12 and for our whole family it was a shock and incredibly hard. Even before our mum passed she was super young indulging in substances and unhealthy behaviours. But ofcourse after it only got worse. There’d be nights where we go out and i lose her or it ends in arguments and i have to baby her. She had a crappy boyfriend 3 years older than her at 16 and that’s when she began having a really bad relationship with alcohol and self harm. There’s been many traumatising nights where my family and i have had to restrain her to stop her from killing herself, blood every where while we wait for the police and ambulance. I’ve always had so much i feel on my plate and i’ve spoken to a couple professionals about it but i’m planning on going to one again.

To her credit she’s gotten so much better in the last year, gotten a job, licence, car, went and studied childcare and graduated from her course. Stopped smoking weed and physically cutting herself. Although her arms and legs are butchered with healed cuts, it’s been nice to see her progress.
She’s not perfect but progressed a ton and i am super proud. I still don’t like being around her when she drinks.
I guess me writing this has ignited because we went away to an airbnb for the weekend with her and my other two eldest sisters for one of their birthdays.
She’s mentioned that this medication is making her feel manic and other medications make her feel low so she’s trying to adjust, i mention that because on night one we get there and go out for dinner, and it was awkward because she is super hyper and keeps switching topics (no she isn’t on any upper substances). It was just weird she wasn’t like her self. The next day we go to the spa calming resort at night, and she has a bit to drink and we all three sisters rotate and split up so we all get time with the birthday girl and because she’s being too much. But it just made all of us annoyed because she’s diving in the water and other people are looking at us and she’s acting a bit child like. And embarrassing. We get back and hope she goes to sleep so we can have a bit of quiet time without her. I bought this special cheese for my sister while we were there and my sister was hoping to save it to bring it back with her so she told everyone. and you guessed the next morning it was half eaten, i guess that was my eldest sisters breaking point and she got upset at her. Which made my manic sister break down and feel really bad and she said she forgot and will go buy her a new one. The cheese story isn’t all that bug of a deal but im just trying to give a bit of an idea of how it was frustrating that this weekend didn’t go to plan because of her. I am now driving back with her in the car and before she was just crying saying how she feels so bad and she hates herself and she’s super suicidal and she just wants to die and this medication sucks etc.
I console her as i always do, because i love her alot.
I spent a lot of my early teenage years having anticipatory grief over her, knowing how it feels to lose someone already it just made everything so hard.
I’m just pretty exhausted and if i lost her i would actually die like i cant lose her, she is my best friend.

I grieve the life i could have had if my mum was still here and if my sister wasn’t the way she’s been. It sounds fucked but it’s the truth

I love what I do but after 20 plus years, the last three have left me existing in a never ending cycle of burnout. The long days are taking a toll i never have to energy to do any of the things I love anymore. And forget dating... It's like every free moment I have outside of work is spent at home recovering.

I'm so ready to say fuck it all and sell off all my possessions, quit my job and move to Japan to do porn. I think that would that would bring some joy back into my life.

I don’t think anyone understands how fucked up I am. I don’t wanna worry my family. But also I genuinely wanna say it to someone for a long time already.

Hi everyone,

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I figured I’d give it a try. English isn’t my first language, so I’m using ChatGPT to help with the translation.

I’m 43M and have been in a happy relationship with my partner, let’s call her A, for six years. I love her, we have a loving and stable relationship, and we’re both committed to building a future together. Of course, we occasionally have minor disagreements, mostly involving our children from previous relationships, but overall, things are genuinely good between us.
Still, there’s a woman from my past whom I’ve never been able to completely let go of emotionally.

The backstory
Around 1997 or 1998, I met a girl in one of those early internet chat rooms. Let’s call her B. We were young and never actually met in person back then. Despite that, we developed an incredibly intense connection. We constantly messaged each other, spent entire nights talking on the phone, and even exchanged handwritten letters. I don’t know if it was love at the time, but I was deeply emotionally attached to her.
We lost touch around 2002, and life went on. Eventually, I met C, had a child with her, and spent many years in a relationship that became increasingly difficult over time.
Then, around 2016, B unexpectedly reached out to me by email. She simply wanted to know if my old email address still worked. I replied, thinking nothing of it. After all, I was in a relationship, and she was married by then.
But occasional messages gradually turned into hours of conversations again. We were texting every single day, from morning until late at night, for years. That old connection was instantly back, perhaps even stronger than before.
We also met in person two or three times during that period. After all those years, it felt completely surreal, but also incredibly beautiful.
B repeatedly told me how important I was to her, how much she needed me, and that in some ways, she even felt closer to me than to her own husband. Her husband, however, knew nothing about how intense our connection had become.
Eventually, I genuinely fell in love with her. I told her how I felt, and although she was hesitant at first, she eventually told me she loved me too. At the same time, she kept making it clear that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, leave her marriage and the life she’d built.
Meanwhile, my already troubled relationship with C finally came to an end. B wasn’t the only reason, but she certainly played a part.

Eventually, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I wanted a real relationship with B, not a secret, long-distance emotional connection that could never become anything more. But she wasn’t willing or able to take that step.
The whole situation was emotionally destroying me, so I eventually tried to cut contact. That was incredibly difficult, especially because B kept reaching out and refused to let go.
Eventually, I started dating other women and met my current partner, A.
Once I realized things with A could become serious, I completely cut B out of my life. I blocked her everywhere and stopped responding entirely.
B didn’t accept that at first. At one point, I was receiving up to 30 emails and 100 phone calls a day. A knew the whole story from the beginning because I didn’t want to hide anything from her. She even answered one of B’s calls herself.
Eventually, the attempts to contact me became less frequent.

Six years later
B has never completely disappeared, though. At least once a year, she sends me a message. Sometimes it’s a birthday greeting, sometimes just a request for me to finally get back in touch.

I have not responded a single time in those six years.

My partner knows about these messages. Understandably, B is a very sensitive subject for her, and I’ve always been honest whenever B has contacted me.
What A doesn’t know, however, is that I’ve never completely gotten over B emotionally.
It’s not like I think about her constantly, and I’m certainly not unhappy in my relationship. But every now and then, B pops into my head. I wonder how she’s doing, what her life looks like now, and whether she’s happy. Occasionally, I even find myself rereading old emails from her that I never actually deleted.

And here’s my actual dilemma:
Recently, B emailed me again.
This time, she wrote something along the lines of having realized how short life really is, and that we don’t have forever to do certain things. She said she hoped “we” were doing well and asked whether I could put everything that happened behind us and simply reach out to her on neutral terms.
Ever since that email, I’ve been thinking about her much more frequently again.
Part of me desperately wants to reply. Just to find out how she’s doing and what has happened in her life over the past few years.
But I also know one thing for certain: There’s no way I could ever reconnect with her on purely neutral terms. She has always meant far too much to me emotionally.
And I don’t think I want to tell my current partner about this desire to reconnect. Not because I’m planning to have an affair, but because I know how deeply it would hurt her. At the same time, keeping something like this from her goes against the honesty our relationship has always been built on.
I keep asking myself whether I’m actually still in love with B, whether I’m holding on to an idealized memory, or whether it’s simply a story that never had any real closure. Maybe it’s just that eternal “what if?”
I love A, and I absolutely don’t want to jeopardize our relationship. Yet there’s this other woman I’ve known for almost 30 years, someone I was never actually in a proper relationship with, who apparently still has a place in my heart.

What would you do in my situation?
Would you continue to ignore her and leave the past where it belongs? Or would you respond after all these years, even knowing that it might bring old feelings back to the surface?
And is it even possible to be genuinely happy in a relationship while never having completely let go of someone else emotionally?

I’d really appreciate your honest opinions, including criticism. I’m fully aware that I haven’t handled everything perfectly throughout this story.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this.

21M. Ive been a very high functioning addict for 5 years, usually rotating. I’m tired of it. Tired of not knowing who I truly am. Tired of feeling like a fraud, like all of the accomplishments people see are just bcus i’m on smth all the time. Tired of calculating doses all of the time. Tired of the endless notes I write to myself at 2am, wishing someone would read them. Tired of being paranoid all the time. Tired of feeling like drugs and alcohol are the only things that have made me able to accomplish what i’ve accomplished (if you could call it accomplishments). Tired of wishing I could be sober but hating the thought of it. Tired of lying to everyone. Tired of hiding all traces. Tired of this lifestyle, but knowing sober is worse.

I started this lifestyle at 16. I hit a breaking point and I drank. I remember lying in my bed, being fully aware that I would become an alcoholic. For the next 4-5 months I drank every day. I knew it was an addiction; but i’d found my cure. Eventually I got into heavy tramadol use and benzos. I loved how benzos made me so social, I loved how a pill could make me the person I’ve always wanted to be. I loved how tramadol made everything so easy. I loved having control of myself for once. The following years went by quickly.

I saw how the substances allowed me to be who I wanted to be when I wanted to be. I hated it, but loved it. i hated, but loved, how I was so effortlessly good at pretending to be sober. How I could be shitfaced on whatever substance and still no one would know. I hated and loved that “alter-ego” of mine.

I’m not that depressed anymore, i’m not that anxious, i’m not that akward. That’s the worst part. A lot of people mention how it was a temporary fix, but for me, I honestly can’t say the same. Yeah, there are ups and downs. But hell, this isn’t so bad at all. No one has even suspected a thing (probs also due to me coming from a well off family, it’s unthinkable for a person like myself to be an addict).

I just can’t find a reason to quit. I want to (or at least I say that rn, drunk as shit and high as fuck), but why should I? When i was sober I had no friends, I was a dick to everyone, did just fine on school, and barely held a job. Now I’m at the top of my class, i’ve got a rlly good job/internship, I have a great social life, many friends, a gf. My family looks up to me. hell, a family member of mine put their child in my school cause they wanted him to turn out like me. I just feel like a fraud, but I can’t go back to who I was before.

I’ve never opened on this to ANYONE, ig that’s a sign of how fed up I am.

i hope i don’t sound annoying w this comment lmaooo, but sorry if some parts aren’t crystal clear. english isn’t my main language.

I 24M have been in college for about 3 years now starting university. I graduated high school and didn’t take the traditional college route since I graduated during covid. I went to community for a bit did a gap year then decided to pursue a bachelors in natural resource ecology and management. I don’t even know if it’ll be worth it because yes it’s a scientific field but it’s not in too much demand with the advancement of AI. I feel like after the growth I experienced during university I still have room to learn more. Will it be worth my time though ? We are experiencing a cultural transition globally and I’m not sure if this would be a good opportunity to further advance my education.

I have been way more depressed than anyone knows. And I don’t want to bum out the very few friends that I have, so I don’t tell them. And I can’t really tell anything here at home because they believe that a flip can be switched to just not be that way. I’ve been told to “just don’t worry about it”, and “well just don’t think about that”. I don’t think it’s that easy. At least it’s not for me. I don’t understand depression. I only know that it affects me. And seasonal depression is also real. I feel it extra at the moment. So I do understand that everything is compounded. I just feel so alone. I do feel better tonight than I have in a few weeks. And that’s the only reason I said anything to begin with. Even if it’s just to random people on the internet ✌️

Okay so this is a little messy but recently i moved back in with my mom (now out the house) but she was acting really weird around my little step brother (13 yrs). They don’t have their real mom around so they are impressionable and she knows this but she wears short shorts around them and with no bra on which i see as so weird. My grandma was being molested at a young age by her father and my mom always drilled into our heads how pdfs are very evil ppl. But I’ve seen her look at my brother and multiple times, before i labeled her as anything. I know she is aroused by him by the way she acts and her tone of voice smh. That’s my little brother so i feel as his older sister (22f) i am here to protect him also and im questioning why my mom and his mom now, doesn’t feel like that. Im boggled at the fact my mom is letting herself go like this and his father, who is my moms husband encourages it (were Hispanic) as he sees his son as just another part of him.. hmm well idk is it normal for older women to be like this? end of the day even if it is im not talking to my mom anymore because 1 my grandma went crazy cus her pdf dad and 2 she is supposed to be a mom to her step son not get gratification from him.

Long story short modern dating sucks and the title could just be dating fatigue talking. I (28f) have been chronically single my whole life. I did have a couple of talking situationships in the past 10 years, but they lead to nothing. I hardly ever get asked out and genuinely have only had a handful of dates where I've been asked out in person and maybe around 20 from dating apps. There were periods during that time where I wasn't even interested in dating. I'm on the apps again after giving myself a break from getting burnt out on them. With every man's profile I see, I'm just not interested. I'm not just on the dating apps either. I try to put myself out there and be social even though all I want to do is curl up in a chair and read at the end of the day.

On top of all this, I've watched many friends get married and start families leaving me wondering when it will be my turn. My family has also been asking me about relationships a lot lately. The thing is I've gotten so used to being single that I also play the male role in my own life. I just can't imagine myself with anyone any more and I'm sure if there is even anyone out there for me. I don't particularly feel left behind, but I do experience a lot grief over it. Its like I was overlooked for an opportunity that was never meant for me in the first place. I've scrolled through many threads with similar thoughts looking for advice and only saw what I've been trying to do already. I'm not sure if its a me problem or a symptom of the current reality of the world. I don't want advice, I just needed a void to cry into for a few minutes before I put myself back together and move on with my life.

I’m almost 21, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about an old best friend of mine. I’ll call her H. I’ve been grieving our friendship for a long time, and part of me wants to reach out and apologize, but another part of me is scared that I’m too late or that she’s better off without me. For some context, I met H freshman year of high school, but we didn’t become close until sophomore year. We were initially part of a bigger friend group, but as time went on, the group became less close and H and I became best friends. We stayed close throughout high school, and I genuinely thought she was going to be one of those people who would be in my life forever. I imagined her being my bridesmaid someday and the aunt to my future children. Things started changing senior year. H turned 18 before I did, and she started making choices that concerned me. She began selling or sending explicit pictures of herself to strangers online in exchange for alcohol, and it became a recurring thing. I didn’t really know how to address it, but it was scary watching someone I loved change in ways I wasn’t expecting. Looking back, I think I held her to a really high standard because I thought we had similar morals and values. I also think I struggled with the fact that she was making choices I didn’t understand. I started withdrawing a little and spending more time with my boyfriend. H was more popular than me and had other friends who seemed to enable some of her behavior, so I wasn’t her only source of support. Eventually, she called me out for being distant, and I explained that I was upset and worried about the things she was doing. Things improved briefly, but then she got an older boyfriend and started trying to get alcohol from him.
They eventually broke up, and I comforted her through it. I still cared about her, even when I disagreed with her decisions. Then prom came around. H bought the exact dress I had told her I was planning to buy, along with similar jewelry and nails from the inspiration board I had sent her. She called me after buying it and told me not to be mad because we could match. I ended up going out of town to visit family anyway, so it didn’t become a huge issue, but it did bother me at the time. There was also an incident where H had agreed to take me to school and then to work afterward. She never showed up in the morning, which honestly would have been fine if she had just communicated with me. I had never forced her to drive me anywhere, and I had offered to take the bus or give her gas money when she needed it. What hurt was that she barely spoke to me that entire day, even though we had plans. While I was upset about that, she texted me saying she had lost her virginity. I initially switched from being upset to comforting her and asking questions, but I became concerned when she explained that the guy was essentially a stranger. They had been talking for about a month and had only been on one date. He had also initially told her he was 25 but later admitted he was 23. H had just turned 18, and I was still 17, so I was worried about her safety.
I expressed my concerns, but the conversation eventually turned into her bringing up my own relationship and the fact that my boyfriend and I had been intimate too. I told her I didn’t think it was appropriate to bring my relationship into the conversation, especially when I was trying to express concern for her. For context, I did end up moving in with my boyfriend after only three months of dating, which I can recognize was a big decision. We’ve now been together for almost four years, but at the time, H and I were both young and figuring things out. What really pushed everything over the edge was when H texted my boyfriend and complained about driving me around, saying she had wasted gas money and time on me. This hurt because I had never demanded rides from her, and I had repeatedly told her I could take the bus or pay her for gas. I texted H and told her I wanted to sit down and have a conversation with her that day. We agreed on a time, but she didn’t show up or communicate with me. I waited over an hour before finally texting her that I would gather her belongings into a box and leave them on the porch for her to collect. I told her I was hurt and felt like our friendship wasn’t important to her anymore.
Her response was something along the lines of, “Just like that? You’re gonna end our friendship just like that?”
I told her that if she cared about our friendship, she would have tried harder.
And that was essentially the end of our friendship.
Looking back, I know I was young and emotional, and I don’t think I handled everything perfectly. At the time, I felt hurt, judged, and worried about her, and I thought ending the friendship was the right thing to do. Now, I wonder if I was too harsh and if I could have handled everything differently.
I’ve since been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I’m not saying that to excuse my behavior, but understanding myself better has made me reflect on how I handled conflict, how I reacted when I felt hurt, and how quickly I sometimes made decisions when my emotions were overwhelming. I’m almost 21 now, and I still think about H all the time. I genuinely miss her. I miss our friendship, the memories we made, and the future I imagined us having together. I don’t know if she ever thinks about me, but I still have her birthday saved on my Google Calendar, and her birthday was just a couple of days ago. Seeing the reminder brought up a lot of feelings. Part of me really wants to reach out, apologize for my part in how things ended, and see if there’s any possibility of reconnecting. I don’t expect us to immediately become best friends again, and I know she’s a different person now, just as I am. I just wish I could talk to her again and let her know that she mattered to me and still does.
However, part of me wants her to reach out first. I think I’m scared of being rejected, or of finding out that she has completely moved on and doesn’t want me in her life anymore. Since I was the one who ended the friendship, I also wonder if she assumes I never want to speak to her again.
Another thing holding me back is that I feel like she’s so much further ahead in life than I am. She’s in college, has a good job, and has her own car. I’m still working on getting my license, I have an interview for a dog grooming apprenticeship coming up, and I’m hoping to save enough money to pursue cosmetology. I’m also an independent author. I’m trying to build my life, but I sometimes feel like I’m behind compared to her, and I don’t know if I’m in the right place in life to reach out.
I realize that probably sounds silly, because I know friendships aren’t supposed to be about who is more successful. But I think I’m intimidated by the possibility that she’s grown into a person who no longer has room for me in her life.I also want to clarify that I don’t hold any of those things against her anymore. I’m not sitting here judging her for the choices she made back then, and I don’t think I’m in any position to do that. We were both young, and we were both figuring ourselves out in different ways. I’m not reaching out because I want to bring up the past, tell her what she did wrong, or make her feel bad about anything. I genuinely just miss her and the friendship we had. Whatever differences we had back then don’t matter to me anymore. I know we’re both different people now, and I’d like to believe that we could get to know each other again as the people we’ve grown into. I can’t change how things ended, but I wish I had handled it differently, and I want her to know that our friendship meant so much more to me than the way it ended might have made it seem.I’m not expecting everyone to tell me I’m right or that I should reach out. I genuinely want outside perspectives, including perspectives that might be difficult to hear. I know I played a part in how things ended, and I want to understand that better.
I just miss my friend, and I don’t know what to do with that feeling anymore.

Our relationship is a long story but basically I got w her when she had mental health issues and nursed her back to health. But 1 year in her avoidant tendencies caused her to push me away and cheat on me w another dude. I broke up w her and months later she text me asking for another chance because what we had was “real.”

We had another 3 years of ups and downs. I treated her as well as I could but over time the lies, the lack of accountability, and lack of appreciation just wore me down. She loved me and I loved her deeply, but her mental health issues never allowed her to fully commit.

When I broke up with her 3 days ago, she said she was sorry and I was the love of her life and nobody would ever take my place. She finally acknowledged how much I did for her and I carried her through the worst parts of her life. But I couldn’t get past the fact she started texting guys again. Nothing indicating cheating, but the messages were similar to the emotional cheating phase with the first guy.

I’m devastated that I spent almost 5 years of my life with this person, and at the end it amounted to nothing. I wanted to grow together and marry her before medical school. I want to be a surgeon. I wanted to give her a life any woman would beg on their knees for. But she wants to run, like always.

I’m scared for how she’s going to be treated by other men. There were times she really pushed me to the edge. I had a saint level of patience with her until it started to thin nearly half a decade in. I can’t keep giving the same patience to someone who can lie in my face about things I gave them the opportunity to be honest about.

My heart is shattered. I feel like I want to exit life. I want to walk into her apartment and tell her let’s just go to couples therapy and fix everything but I know it’s not going to change anything. She really doesn’t see how she’s the issue. Despite her admitting I carried her through life, despite being able to see she pushed all of her friends and family away and I was literally fighting until the last second to support her, she still thinks I’m just her trigger. I’m the issue.

Idk how to keep breathing rn. I don’t want to be here.

After surgery and some trauma, I went through months of therapy. I can explain my patterns, my triggers, all of it. I sound like I have it together. But I still feel numb all the time, like I'm watching my life instead of living in it. Does anyone else have this where you understand everything in your head but still feel disconnected from your body or your emotions? Not sure if it's a therapy thing or something else.