Our rec center also has family locker rooms, so those are also available for those situations. It’s just that for the other locker rooms, they have an age limit, which to me makes sense, even if I myself find 7 a little young. My 8yo has ADHD and it would take him far too long to get ready if I wasn’t on his ass to hurry up.

It was in one of the AITAH subs, maybe a week ago or within the last week.

The older I get the more I also realize how memories can feel like they fade. When I was in my teens and twenties, I had a mind like a steel trap, and in my 40s things feel much murkier (thanks perimenopause). Keeping a few objects around can really trigger recall for some memories, so I get having some.

And I think for some people it goes way beyond that, and they just haven’t been able to process the loss properly. My neighbor across the street is in her 60s, her parents died maybe a decade ago in their 80s, and she has not coped with any of that well, based on what her husband has said. Apparently they have a rec basement and other rooms full of stuff of her parents that she can’t let go of (and I pity her own kids for one day needing to deal with a double whammy of stuff).

I live overseas from my family, and my mom died several years ago. My siblings still haven’t sent me the few mementos I requested, so I’ve gotten pretty good at living with memories and not stuff, but I would have liked the few tangible reminders of my childhood with my mom.

I love fireflies. We get some in our back yard, which was a barren yet overgrown with massive shrubs mess. I’m hoping to encourage them to return by planting more natives and just anything really.

The other thing that I believe is a culprit in their decline is the fact that the eggs are laid on the leaves, and everyone obsessively gets rid of those too. But I never double checked that.

It sounds like maybe couples or individual therapy for your relationship may be worth considering, though you may hit a wall on her being receptive.

She may have very different ideas (seems very likely) on what relationship intimacy is and being able to discuss what more you and she may want out of this partnership could be helpful.

Being Dutch originally I’m familiar with no-nonsense and direct relationships and communication, so I can see where there can be jarring cultural differences (occasionally my American husband and I run into that a bit), but it doesn’t mean there can’t be a bit of bridging from both sides to meet closer to the middle and get you some more of what you obviously crave.

And a lot of European stances towards medicine, health and mental health can occasionally be a lot more “just knuckle through” than in the US. The Dutch stereotype about going to the Dr is that they basically always send you away and tell you to take some Tylenol and come back in two weeks if it persists, no matter what it is. So a lot of people kind of end up with the attitude of not going until things are really bad, when you might have actually been able to deal with it much sooner before it got this far.

That said, it sucks when someone totally dismisses you and your feelings and experiences. And that isn’t okay.

Not gonna lie, I’m profoundly relieved not to be dating in this era. And I feel bad for my teen and younger kid with what they may have to deal with.

Oh, I totally got that :)

At our rec center there are separate family changing rooms as well as two large locker rooms. I don’t know what the situation is at OP’s gym.

The woman in the original post could also have led with that response to OP’s comment.

My eldest has profound special needs and certainly there can be situations like that. Sometimes it’s also still on you to deal with that, and it isn’t okay to make it everyone else’s problem. Once my eldest son reached puberty, despite his being mentally a little kid, he still had sexual feelings and could potentially be inappropriate or make others uncomfortable. At that point, it’s on me to remove him and not make other women in a locker room uncomfortable. And sometimes there are workarounds, and sometimes there aren’t and I had to change or forfeit my plans.

Apparently me suggesting he ask is weird.

If he’s being left out, I’m guessing it may be a him problem and not her “wanting male attention” like someone suggested.

Asking will answer the unknown.

It’s all pretty overwhelming, don’t feel bad.

Also the magic words for HRT and such will be whether you’re having hot flashes and/or night sweats (vasomotor symptoms). Those seem to be the primary actionable symptoms.

And genitourinary symptoms, formerly known (delightfully) as vaginal atrophy. So, dryness, loss of tissue fullness, pain with sex, diminished sensation.

They’re there with their girlfriends?

And may OP is being excluded because nobody wants him around. Who even knows.

They also have some family changing rooms available too. So it’s basically wait for one of those or have your kid change themselves.

While I do agree that 7 might be a bit young, over the age of 10 is an age where they can do it themselves. The only reason I still take my 8yo son into the locker room with me if a family room isn’t free, is because he has ADHD and will get distracted and it will take forever.

And genitourinary syndrome, for the vaginal estrogen cream. Assuming there is dryness/pain/loss of function/etc.

Posts like these and then seeing other stories here, it no longer surprises me that a lot of women tap out on relationships in this life stage. The kind of juvenile thoughtless behavior we have to deal with from some men is just bordering on the ridiculous.

Our hormones trick us into accepting this horse shit for far too long, and then when they vanish, the house lights come on and we realize what looked like ambience was just crap disguised by poor lighting.

I don’t think I could forgive my husband saying that about my best friend. That’s the kind of comment that deserves a baseball bat to the face.

Honestly, sometimes in this and a few other subs I read shit and it depresses me that so many men are like this. It’s 2024, and it’s so stupid, they’re stupid and selfish. And sometimes I resent being attracted to them, despite being married to a fantastic one (but then my ex husband will pull some nasty shit and also remind me again that a lot of them suck.)

That might have explained me in my teens 🙈 bad hormonal acne.

When I got together with hubs number two when I was 30, we had a wild time for a long time, but it has just dropped off a cliff (mid 40s now).

I enjoy it, it’s fun, he’s great and thoughtful, and if he doesn’t initiate I’m almost relieved because the desire to want to is so low. It’s depressing and I hate it. He knows in broad strokes that my libido is at a low ebb and I’m trying to get it sorted, but I don’t tell him I couldn’t care at all if we had sex most of the time.

I’m sorry you’re going through this.

He’s been lying by omission, and something seems fishy about his wanting to keep meeting up with her, and having her want to be at the wedding. If they only ever had a class once, I don’t get the persistence about this.

It feels like one of those scenes in a movie where the crazy ex demands to go to the wedding and he agrees because he’s terrified she’ll blab about an affair or something.

I’d be interested to hear her timelines and experiences though, because it just doesn’t feel entirely right to me.

I assume with a vacuum the thought was that it would be something that helps ease a task. A great thought, and everyone should want to make tasks easier for others, but the occasion was definitely not the best time to deploy that.

I would love an updated vacuum, but receiving one on my birthday would definitely be a downer, unless I’m specifically asking for it for that occasion (and I’ve been known to ask for functional things sometimes). Last year I asked for a fancy cat tree for Mother’s Day, because I have most of the things I want and a thing for our cats was what made me happiest at the time.

And get your husband some therapy when he feels ready. That’s a lot of stuff to process, especially with a newborn around.

Why does he even want her there? Who invites some fairly random woman he dated ages ago, well supposedly anyway?

The fact she was handsy and flirty at a lunch he didn’t even tell his fiancée about. And not the first time he’d met up with her either.

This is dodgy as hell to me.

My husband would never have concealed meetings like that from me while we were established as a dating couple or engaged.

Our local rec center also has signs saying that opposite sex kids need to use the appropriate locker rooms when 7 and older.

So asking a middle schooler’s mom to leave her kid outside isn’t out of bounds IMO. He can change in the men’s room, and if he’s not changing, mom can cut the apron strings and have him wait in the lobby or common areas.

Many possible options, and he could find out and have clarity if he just asked.

Courts tend to favor split parenting time, not moms. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it isn’t a great choice.

Which is why my youngest with my ex still has to see the father who molested her, despite not wanting to and having gone through a whole separate custody modification when we found this out. The best I got out of it was that she goes under supervised visitation, and I spent close to $40k to keep her out of his grasp as much as possible.