Ab.so.lutely. It was just one time! (Specifically, the only time you found out about; they’d never admit to more than you have proof of)

OP does provide a very valid reason as to the origin of his feelings about Mother’s Day; his parents used Mother’s Day in an incredibly hurtful and cruel way. They used it as a thin excuse for not ever celebrating OP’s birthday for his entire childhood, and ‘essentially saying he didn’t deserve one.’ That would fuck anyone up!

But just because something is valid, doesn’t mean it can’t be negatively impacting your relationships or expressed in inappropriate ways. And is an avenue to explore to see if there IS a source of conflict hidden there.

Sorry your dad is a poop. It’s got to be emotionally exhausting to constantly deal with that, and it sucks to have to “be the adult” when it’s literally your parent that is acting like a child.

Source: I’m 30+ and my dad is still a poop. Parent/child role reversal is an absolutely fucked dynamic to grow up with. I hope you have reliable adults in your life to support you 💕

But he’s also been begging and crying. And did you know he’s been begging and crying?

Like you can tell that he thinks saying that line is a lever to pull and a pity party falls out. “You should be feeling so guilty and falling over yourself to comfort meeeeee! I’ve been begging and crying!”

When OP doesn’t accept the inappropriate guilt and shaming, or react the way he wants, he just keeps pulling the same lever and waiting for it to work.

…and we all know the definition of insanity 🙄

If I could afford it, I’d give you an award for this comment! OP literally said that he himself reminded his wife and both kids REPEATEDLY during the week prior. There’s no way they all “forgot.” And even if someone does just lose track of what day it is, they would typically rectify it the next day.

OP, your post is raising the “missing reasons” flag, to me at least. You haven’t given us any context at all- how do they normally treat you on your birthday or Christmas? Is this a one-off event, or part of a pattern?

You say you remember everyone’s birthdays and Mother’s Day, but what do you actually do on those days to celebrate with them? You also seem reeeeeally bitter and resentful about Mother’s Day; yes, you have a valid reason as to why. But you’ve also been married to your wife for 22 years and she’s been a mother for 21 of those years. How much of that resentment and anger towards your parents has been leaking through into all of your wive’s Mother’s Days? Whether it’s could be overt or subconsciously happening, it might be an area to investigate. What did this past Mother’s Day look like?

What responses did you get when you reminded them that Father’s Day was coming up? Positive, neutral, disinterested?

3 separate people simultaneously forgetting the day and not acknowledging it for days until you prompt them on it is not a coincidence.

Your wife says that she did remember, but didn’t say anything. Did you ask her, without accusations or anger, why she didn’t say anything?

Also…. You say they all think you are being an asshole and that you need to apologize. And you don’t give any context for that either! You didn’t even tell us what they wanted you to apologize for.

It’s not inherently wrong to feel hurt and angry at the situation. At the same time, you presented an extremely one-sided view of what happened, without any attempt at explaining the other parties stances or even a single guess about what you may have done to be an asshole beyond “I’ve been treating them the way they treated me.” With no examples or quotes? This doesn’t read like you actually came to ask for advice OR to ask if you are the asshole.

It reads like you want the instant gratification of an echo chamber telling you that you did nothing wrong and your family sucks.

That may feel vindicating in the short term, but it’s not productive and resolves nothing. Don’t fall into the trap of stewing in anger and resentment! It’s a problem that feeds itself. Clear, emotionally vulnerable communication can be really, really hard. But if you actually want to understand what happened. And you want them to understand how hurt you feel. Instead of ‘punishing’ them with the silent treatment, you need to have a sit down and calmly talk about it.

Happy Father’s Day. I hope you are able to figure this out with your family; I’m sorry things are strained. Best of luck to you.

Hey! It takes a lot of money to look that basic! <strike>/s</strike> FTFY!

JK, but seriously, I think that’s part of the appeal to disgustingly wealthy people like her.

It’s the power move of “why yes, this is the shittiest purse I own! Even my version of cheap sweats, sneakers, and plasticy grocery tote cost more than your monthly house rent! I wipe my ass with 50$ bills”😌💅

It’s one part the implication that, if this is how much they spent on bland, cheap-looking stuff? They have literally no budget. Sure, you can get an idea of how much money someone has by the cost of their most expensive, flashiest items. But it’s very possible that, like a guy I knew once who was crazy about cars, (and worked as a mechanical engineer) they afforded their fancy sports car by saving for years and permanently ratcheting down tight on their budget for <em>everything else.</em>

You can scrape and save for any luxury item if it’s within your means to save a reasonable amount of money- regardless of how long it takes to get there. But you can show that you have highly excessive wealth by not even trying to save for something nice; you have so much that on top of your high-end luxury items, and you don’t have to save a penny by buying the identical purse for, say, under 300$. Let alone 70$ or 30$ or whatever the real low end is.

OP, there was a fairly simple! miscommunication between you and your husband.

OP, communication is a two way street, there’s no need to shoulder all this guilt. Your husband only told you what he didn’t want, and you were floundering trying to make him happy. There’s no shame in that! I’m proud of you for continuing to search for a way to make your husband feel special and happy even with no guidance from him on how to do that. You literally are not a mind reader, but it sounds as though you feel guilty for not having been?

There’s something I’ve learned in family therapy, which is that if you never ask for something, you’ll never get it. And it’s not fair to feel hurt or disappointed in someone for not doing or saying xyz, when you’ve never clearly communicated what you want.

That does seem to be a communication barrier for your husband; whether it’s a difficulty in recognizing what his own needs and wants actually are, or if it’s that he doesn’t see them as being valid or important, or if he simply struggles with finding the right words to express them to you.

Speaking of, has your husband even expressed any disappointment or resentment for you ‘not getting it right’? It sounds like he’s only responded positively!! You should /talk/ to him about how you are feeling so much guilt and shame over this! It will probably be healing for both of you, and I think you need to hear from him directly that he doesn’t blame you and that he’s always appreciated your efforts.

TL;DR I have two thoughts I think are equally important:

Congratulations on your discovery, and the new level of joy you have unearthed!!

Or she’d be a terrible wife if she had just ‘taken him at face value’ from the start and just completely stopped trying to make him feel special. Like “Oh, we don’t really’do’ holidays anymore. I gave him gifts for a while, but he was always saying that he didn’t want anything. I asked him what he wanted to do for His birthday, and he said he just wanted to work on the deck, sooooo…. 🤷”

OP, even though you didn’t know the ‘right’ answer, you kept trying your best for 15! Years! That’s not terrible by a long shot!

I don’t know why Reddit has such a negative view of suggesting therapy; it’s literally just people who are trying to empathize and who genuinely want people to feel better and have happier, more fulfilling lives?

I think it’s the cultural stigma around mental health; “nobody needs a therapist unless there’s something wrong with them. Therefore, suggesting that seeing a therapist could be helpful, comes with the implied insult of ’there’s something wrong with you, and anyone like you.’

Sure, 1st commenter could have been more tactful, and came off sounding poorly.

But stuff like OP and her husband’s minor miscommunication snowballing for 15 years is exactly why I think seeing a counselor, even briefly, is beneficial now and then even when there’s literally nothing wrong. Because nobody knows what they don’t know, but a counselor would have very quickly caught the miscommunication when OP mentioned being stressed about what to get her husband for xyz holiday.

… hey, I agree that this is an entitled, lazy woman. But you may not have realized that the rest of your comment was actually very ableist? As someone suffering from severe, lifelong disability as a result of an incurable physical illness and as someone who suffers immensely under the weight of a litany of mental illnesses. Like, I’m on 17 prescription medications, I see my trauma therapist 2-3x a week, I’ve been in physical therapy for two years, I haven’t had a single pain-free day in three years…

It hurts to hear it minimized down to “you can fix” xyz (and go back to work) but you can’t fix lazy. It also sort of implies that if you have xyz ailment, and you don’t fix it, that’s not because it can’t be fixed, it’s because of laziness.

I had a career I excelled in as a professional artist, in my literal childhood dream job. I would give damn near anything to be able to do it again. Instead I can’t live independently because I physically cannot take care of myself, let alone work. OK, going to stop here before I spiral;

I know this is completely not what you intended, and that you were simply trying to emphasize the shitty, entitled behavior of OOP’s mom. I wanted to just ignore the way my stomach dropped at your comment… but I’m pushing myself to say something, because I know that the only way I can help reduce unintended ableism is just by politely pointing it out; nobody can improve on someone they aren’t aware of.

I hope you have a lovely weekend ☺️

Ha! Sending that photo really took some balls 😂

Congrats on your vasectomy!

🥺😬 that… sounds exactly as bad as I thought. It truly does not make a difference that you have very sensitive nerves. In the sense that they knew that you were experiencing serious distress, and continued to do it because they got /enjoyment/ out of causing your severe distress, both mentally and physically. That’s… that’s just abuse under the excuse of “it’s just a prank, bro,” as if that excuses the harm they caused you. And I’m sorry that your parents failed to protect you; by turning a blind eye (or minimizing their actions/being dismissive of your distress?) they enabled your siblings to continue to harm you for years.

It might be a valid excuse if, say, a new partner was unfamiliar with your difficulties with touch. And they had only had positive, happy giggling responses to tickling other people in the past. And they would, (hopefully) be apologetic and not do it again. If they saw your response and how upset it made you, and kept doing it ’on accident’, that’d be a massive red flag and a form of abuse.

The way you describe it as having gotten to the point, during childhood, where you would get an automatic adrenaline response and force yourself to ‘lock up’ muscle groups? That’s a textbook trauma response, even if you didn’t recognize it as that. It’s not just fight/flight, it’s fight/flight/freeze/fawn.

Feeling a trauma response as a physical sensation in your body is called a somatic symptom- for example, sometimes I don’t realize that something is /has been triggering me until I take stock of my crushing headache, my tense-to-the-point-of-pain muscles, and nausea. Other somatic symptoms include things like racing heart, sped up breathing, dizziness, shakiness, jitteriness, feeling weak or lightheaded. Like, I’m /not/ having a panic attack, but my body is still responding to the trigger as if it is a threat to my safety.

Sorry that your siblings were the ones to do this to you, and sorry that you’re still dealing with the aftermath. My SIL also experienced abusive tickling from her narcissistic father, it’s not as uncommon as someone might think.

I hope you are doing well, and that you don’t have to deal with that coworker anymore. If you do, consider taking it to HR; context and history aside, unwanted touching still falls firmly under sexual harassment policies and should have very immediate consequences.

That is SUCH bullshit, I’m so sorry you had to grow up in that environment.

You’re not alone, though. Dad was and is an egocentric, unempathetic, angry, and disinterested in anything-that-doesn’t-affect-me POS. I only found out about my ASD a couple months ago, but god-damn do I resent him. One of my first, strongest memories of him is when (in like 2nd grade) mom was helping me with homework and he wanted her to drop that and make him something to eat. When mom was like, no, I’m helping S with homework, he sneered down at me (laying on the floor) and just said “Pathetic.” In just this disgusted tone of voice.

Then, once I was older, he’d have his fee-fee’s hurt by me not getting him something for his birthday or making it clear that he is not welcome to socialize with me. Boo-hoo, my kid doesn’t like or respect meeee it’s so unfaaaaaaiirrrrr. Eat shit, daddy dearest.

Oof, they need to realize that, to a person becoming disconnected from the reality of your gf’s lack of interest? “It’s probably not a good idea to go to her house” reads as ENCOURAGEMENT. Because that implies there ARE good ways to pursue a relationship, and they just need keep trying hard to find them. Stalking stems from the delusion of a non-existent relationship. That delusion needs to be BROKEN, not handled with kid gloves.

Because their mind is ‘seeing’ how perfect they are for each other, and how all the evidence to the contrary is just ‘obstacles’ to be ‘overcome.’ Even if those ‘obstacles’ are things like outright rejection, or the person of obsession being in a pre-existing, happy relationship, or a restraining order. It needs to be nipped in the bud, HARD. Before it spirals past the point of no return.

shrug if you can’t imagine that as a valid opinion about anyone in the world, that’s a difference in philosophy, not something that can be changed on your side or mine through Reddit discourse.

While I am really curious to pick your brain, I just don’t have the energy rn. Hope you have a nice night 😌

My guy was a Covid denier, has and continues to create unsafe working conditions for Tesla employees on a number of levels, ignores the “rampant sexism” and “nightmarish working conditions” reported by female employees, disowned his transgender child, Tesla has faced numerous complaints and lawsuits over racial discrimination and other forms of harassment. when the Taiwanese kid’s soccer team got trapped in a flooded cave system he proposed the idea of mini submarines to get the kids out and when this idea was deemed not feasible he lashed out like a spoiled child, baselessly calling the most experienced rescue cave diver in the world a pedophile and paying private investigators 50,000 to ‘dig up dirt’ on a hero who put his own life at risk, again and again, to save the lives of 13 kids and their coach. He’s ruined the town of Boca Chica for both the residents and the protected wildlife with his SpaceX launch pad.

I used to think Elon was a visionary who wanted to make the world a better place and to reignite the space race for fun and profit.

Time has shown his true colors, as a fundamentally self serving, self aggrandizing, insecure little man. He does not care about people. He does things that look like good PR, and if it doesn’t earn him the spotlight or glory he wants, he goes out of his way to try and drag good people down with him.

There is extensive, readily available evidence that he enables and perpetuates many abuses of people, both employees and people unrelated to his company. Additionally, he is well known for promising one thing will happen, then blatantly ignoring that promise. For example, Boca Chica. Got special permission and access to build his launch pad with assurances of very limited numbers of launches per year and minimal impact on the town. Instead, launches are incredibly frequent, locals are being forced out of their homes and have constant deafening noise and debris and dust landing as far as six miles from the launch pad, as well as in protected nature habitat, pollution and contamination that they have very little regard or consequences for.

He’s just got an excellent PR team that works constantly to bury any bad press related to him, and you kind of have to have already heard about some of his dogshit actions to look them up. It’s not so easy to just stumble onto it.

My guy was a Covid denier, has and continues to create unsafe working conditions for Tesla employees on a number of levels, ignores the “rampant sexism” and “nightmarish working conditions” reported by female employees, disowned his transgender child, Tesla has faced numerous complaints and lawsuits over racial discrimination and other forms of harassment. when the Taiwanese kid’s soccer team got trapped in a flooded cave system he proposed the idea of mini submarines to get the kids out and when this idea was deemed not feasible he lashed out like a spoiled child, baselessly calling the most experienced rescue cave diver in the world a pedophile and paying private investigators 50,000 to ‘dig up dirt’ on a hero who put his own life at risk, again and again, to save the lives of 13 kids and their coach. He’s ruined the town of Boca Chica for both the residents and the protected wildlife with his SpaceX launch pad.

I used to think Elon was a visionary who wanted to make the world a better place and to reignite the space race for fun and profit.

Time has shown his true colors, as a fundamentally self serving, self aggrandizing, insecure little man. He does not care about people. He does things that look like good PR, and if it doesn’t earn him the spotlight or glory he wants, he goes out of his way to try and drag good people down with him.

There’s nothing wrong with having supported him in the past, or having had a bit of hero worship towards him (I sure did.) But there is extensive, readily available evidence that he enables and perpetuates many abuses of people, both employees and people unrelated to his company.

My problem is that they never respect your time and get impatient/irritated with all my questions. Also, acting like I’m being dumb by making them spell out 1. What led them to this diagnosis (I’m gonna ask questions and verify accuracy between their understanding and what I’m feeling, correcting discrepancies or providing further info.) 2. What causes this condition (so I can prevent worsening) 3. What are the effects and symptoms, no, really, ALL of them, don’t gloss. (I DO NOT LIKE unexplained mystery symptoms.) 4. What are the treatment options. AND, what are the pro’s and con’s. You, dear Dr, are here to help me make informed medical decisions, NOT to make them for me. 5. If medication is an option, I damn well need to know ALL of the risks and potential adverse reactions.

I have had intensely negative, painful, and lasting experiences and outcomes from just trusting that the Dr knows what they’re doing, or being cowed into not demanding more information.

Also, WTF is wrong with your attitude? Fix your face, if your fragile ego can’t handle a patient with medical trauma politely questioning your process, go into a different fucken field.

If you think that asking questions is somehow disrespectful, I sure as fuck don’t respect you now 🖕

P.S. This bravado and aggressive self advocacy is what I have sharpened my fear into. I’m still intimidated, I still have a fucken trauma response to my PTSD triggers of “figures of authority questioning me” and “I get triggered by my medical conditions IRL and by talking about the severity of them” double whammy. I’m still shaking and trying to control my breathing and hold back tears, fighting not have a meltdown or panic attack. I’m not tough, I’m terrified.

Some people act like I’m paranoid or disrespectful of doctors. I’m not- it took multiple years of medical mismanagement, discrimination, and suffering to get to this point- and I ADORE the ones who don’t hesitate to have a conversation with me or fully answer my questions.

I just demand that they treat me with respect as well; that’s my #1 red flag.

If they pressure me to “sum it up” and talk faster, then they are looking for the first, easiest diagnoses. If you’re trying to diagnose something before the patient is done listing their symptoms, you’re going to miss things.

If they act like I’m a nuisance or dumb for being visibly autistic, they’re uneducated in a critical aspect, not to mention prejudiced. People who are ableist about one condition, in my experience, are ableist as fuck about all of them. Not to mention that I specifically am looking for a deeper, more nuanced explanation; why in the fuck does this make you make you act like I’m dumb? For god’s sake, I’m asking questions using medical terminology that should indicate that I not only have an above average understanding of my anatomy and physiology, that’s the level I want my questions answered at.

Grrrr. Sorry for the rant, I just. I don’t hate “doctors” as a group of people, there’s just some real fucked up individuals who happen to be doctors.

Acknowledging the shitty state of the world we live in is NOT the same as saying “…and that’s how I like it!”

Also, they’re right, Hollywood has extremely fucked up power dynamics and mechanisms in place to PROTECT abusers. Their point is that that is why one small time actor doesn’t have the power to go and fight the whole system.

Look at the long, long record of abusers in Hollywood who where only stopped after being active for years and decades… NONE of them were stopped until there was an avalanche of victims all banded together. Each one has a detailed history of accusations of abuse, and even police reports! against them that they were unaffected by. Even convictions get buried and swept past with a slap on the wrist.

That’s not saying “and that’s why nobody should bother to do anything, it’s pointless;” they’re saying that they think Jerry tried to help, very likely didn’t know how bad it was, and that Jerry probably has a fair amount of guilt for not knowing more and being able to fully protect the kids.

And I’m saying that you have no personal experience being at odds against a massively powerful organization or system if you think that it’s that easy.

Do I sound bitter? That’s because I do have that personal experience, and yes, I’m extremely fucking bitter about how powerless I was.

Ughhhh the refusal to differentiate between “excuse” and “explanation” 🤨🙄 as if they aren’t two completely separate, definable concepts. Then they act like you’re being dumb/argumentative.

Exactly!! Also, why is the onus of the limited resources always placed framed as being caused by anyone self-diagnosing??

MAYBE we resort to self diagnoses BECAUSE of the inaccessibility of testing. MAYBE the shortage of resources is the REASON so many of us are left to struggle by ourselves, and MAYBE we’re trying to form our own ‘resources’ through connections and community online.

Also?? Maybe having a pool of research online and communication with “confirmed” autistic people to aid in self-diagnosis, empowers people to raise awareness and demand for INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES 😱😱😱

The resources are not finite! They are based on funding, awareness, and understanding the depth of challenges we face, even if we don’t “look autistic.”

For myself, I didn’t understand that there were both levels and categories of autism, I heard the term ‘spectrum’ many times but I assumed it was a sliding scale that combined both intellectual impairment and support needs. I saw the many overlaps of ADHD and autism, but I was diagnosed ADHD and thought that people just didn’t understand how bad it is or how much ADHD and Autism had in common.

And I thought I was semi-educated about autism! Took my therapist a solid year of bringing things to my attention before I started to consider autism as a possibility. Another year from there to get my diagnosis (a month ago!), by which point I was pretty convinced that I definitely had it, and, in retrospect, why tf did nobody catch it? But I guess that at that time the idea of a girl having it, or the idea that girls can have it with /differences/ from the stereotypical idea of what autism ‘looks like’ was still not even worth investigation.

Turns out, I’m level one with symptoms in the severe category. But the fact that I only found out in my early 30’s doesn’t mean I didn’t spend multiple decades undiagnosed and unaware.

If someone else figures it out way sooner, f’n good for them!

I think the culture of “don’t you dare think you might have autism without a diagnosis, or you’re a selfish asshole somehow taking something away from REAL autistic people!!” Seriously delayed me in:

1. Considering it even possible for me to be on the spectrum, because only selfish attention seekers do that, and it’s so disrespectful to “real” autistic people.

2. Getting any kind of moral support or community. See #1.

3. Talking to any of my therapists or psychiatrists about the commonalities I saw between things I struggle with and what I’ve read online about autism. See #1.

4. Actually perusing testing, even with encouragement from a mental health professional. See #1.

5. Accessing “resources??” I still don’t know how to do that or what the resources are?? I’m still just as impaired at making phone calls, opening my mail, paperwork, and talking to the government. I just know it’s an impairment now, instead of me being…. Many, many bad things I believed about myself. That I still believe, but am trying to be kinder to myself about.

You look gorgeous either way!! I like the first and last photos best, I think I would need more pictures of your dark hair to compare to the other pics of your lightened hair to have a stronger opinion. I definitely wouldn’t call lightening it a mistake though!

Update? I’m curious because I just got my diagnosis a month ago, but at the beginning I had exactly the same fears!

I “look” normal and can mask with the best of ‘em. I also have a list of other mental illnesses including severe PTSD, so I was really nervous that they would dismiss everything ‘part of’ my other diagnoses.

Turns out I’m Level 1, severe! I didn’t know you could be someone who passed as… not NT, still had ADHD. NotTistic? Into your adult life, while still being categorized as having “severe” symptoms. Which 1000% affirms how I feel inside, it’s awesome how validating it is.

Hope you had the same success!

That’s so wild how I didn’t change at all or have any negative impacts on my life when I acquired severe PTSD on top of my lifelong AuDHD!! Since they’re the same thing exactly! Indistinguishable, in fact! Really, I think my psychiatrist and my trauma therapist have been making it up for attention, everyone knows if you already have one you can’t get diagnosed with the other.

Man, I can’t wait to tell my trauma therapist that PTSD and Autism are, like, ACTUALLY the same diagnoses!

Oooh, I love how you phrased:

“My intentions were not to be condescending.

I have many contradictions in my own head as well, so I’m not speaking from a place of superiority.”

I’m going to try to remember that to use myself!