No, that's not an irrational thought to feel how unfair it is that this jerk gets to stay in your friend group and go about doing what he typically does after he has manipulated and taken advantage of your and Kara, and perhaps more women. Unfortunately, that is part of the world we live in. The best thing you can do is rally your troops and avoid this guy. If it's hard for you to be around this guy, leave and find a different group of people.

I think now you need to come to terms with your own feelings about everything that's happened to you. It's going to take some time to grieve the loss of something that you've held in high regard about yourself and I think that's where you're at right now. Be gracious to yourself. Sometimes we go through some not so optimal experiences in our life to learn something about ourselves and about other people. You've lived and you've learned and that's also part of life.

I'm sorry you were manipulated by and taken advantage from the guy in your friend group. I'd cut contact with this guy completely.

After reading your post, the one comment that sticks out to me about how it informs your feelings over this whole situation is this:

What is this future guy going to think?

You say you feel guilty about letting the other guy take advantage and touch you, but do you feel guilty about this because a hypothetical guy that you meet in the future is going to judge you by your sexual history? Or do you feel guilty because you have broken your own code of sexual conduct?

If it were me and I met a guy and felt like I wanted to take things to a sexual level with him and he asked about my sexual history and judged me by it, I'd drop him. Why be with someone who can't completely accept you for who you are, have become?

Also- what does your gut tell you about staying in this friend group? Are you going to continue encountering the guy that took advantage of you? Do you get a sense that he'd garner more support from people in this group should all the events that took place btw you and him go public? Also, I don't like how this guy pitted you against the other woman 'Kara'. Do you think you would have her support or want to be her friend instead of this guy? It sounds like this guy, for being 40, is emotionally immature and treats people poorly.

Thanks for sharing your story. I'm glad you have a supportive family and live in a state that supports your right to unrestricted reproductive care.

As another mom who decided to have an abortion, I completely understand what you went through and I just want to say that the most important decision was made by you and not by a legislator or someone else.

Just because we already are moms and have kids, does not mean that we must be mandated to carry and birth a child that we don't have the financial, physical, emotional, and mental means to do so. I also understand how difficult the decision is made to not go through with that, but it shows you have care and love for your existing members of your family, as well as yourself.

It's been almost 3 years since I was put in a situation where I needed to make that decision. My IUD failed. I didn't expect this to ever happen to me, but I feel so grateful I live in a state that supports my healthcare decisions and received adequate, compassionate care without judgement. It was a highly emotional time for me, and yes, due to the hormone fluctuations I experienced, there were times where I felt very sad, but I did not regret my decision and I feel much relief, even to this day. My family and I were able to move into a bigger house so my kid has their own bedroom, travel internationally so my kid could meet her Dad's family in person, and for my husband and I to pay off our debts since then. If we had another kid, all of this would not have been possible for us and would have landed us more in debt with medical costs. Let's face it, health insurance in the USA is a crock. I also know I would have faltered under the mental and emotional stress of having another kid and raising another kid on a threadbare resources.

I had this happen to me a few years ago with the paragard IUD. The reason I found out that the IUD was embedded was because I became pregnant. It was one of the worst experiences of my life and happened during the middle of the pandemic. I will spare you the details, but I had an ER doctor attempt to pull out the IUD and after 3 very painful tugs, she gave up and said I needed to go back to my clinic. I gave my uterus a day to recover from that and went back to my drs clinic where I had a D&C and had the embedded IUD taken out. That was one of the most relieving, pain free experiences I had, thank goodness.

If I were you, I'd ask for pain management in the removal of your IUD. I was instructed to take ibuprophen and ativan (to help me relax) and an antibiotic before the procedure. Then the doctor numbed my cervix with an anesthetic and 10 minutes later, everything was done and I could move on.

I second this. All phases of women's repro health need to be covered in health classes.

I'm currently going through peri and I've had to learn so much about what's happening to me, on my own. I have a Boomer mom that is not open about her personal life, and I think that also contributes to the lack of preparedness I had for when I reached this stage in my life.

Also, at the time that I went through Sex Ed- it was the late 80s thru early 90s- the height of the AIDS crisis. Looking back, I feel like the emphasis on on sex education was about AIDS prevention. It was such a crazy time to grow up. It also didn't help that I lived in a conservative state- Ohio. There was so much stigma surrounding sex and sexuality. It was so toxic.

Tribu by Benetton

I got so many compliments when I wore this in the 90s and early 2000s.

I still have 2 bottles of it that I spritz on every once in a while.

Mademoiselle Coco by Chanel is the closest dupe I've found to it.

Yeah, single dad sleepover would be a no-go for our daughter. I didn't even allow my kid to go to the park alone with her boy classmate and his grandpa.

One of the podcasts I listen to from time to time is called Life After MLM by Roberta Blevins who formerly worked for LuLaRoe. Listening to the former MLM-er's stories is truly fascinating. Some of the tactics that these people would use to get others to join sounded very coercive (love-bombing) and then once you're roped in, you find yourself in a cult.

I don't have any advice on how to make friends. I'm very introverted and take a long time to warm up to people and let people in my circle. Perhaps you can ask yourself- what made you think you had a connection with these people who turned out to work from MLMs?

Also, after listening to a lot these stories and knowing friends & family in my life who have sold for some of the more famous MLMs of the past & present - Shaklee, Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, Younique, etc... it makes me mad at how exploitative they are- esp for women. Women, especially moms & caregivers who are raising kids and can't keep normal dayjobs due to scheduling, start selling for the MLMs as a way to support their families, & work more flexible hours, but it ends up burning them in the end. These women are just trying to make some money within the constrains of a system that is against us.

I agree, it does suck to feel like you are constantly meeting these people and all they want to do is take up your time and rope you into their MLM, but perhaps now that you've experienced this multiple times, you can figure out what made you connect with these people and what signs you need to watch out for to prevent this from happening in the future to you.

Couldn't be better advice these days:

This is our world. Please be safe. Please teach your children well. Please always, always be available to them and for one another in a time of need. Thank you.

I read about this first thing on my newsfeed this morning and it just gave me the shivers. The young woman who did not drink much of the smoothie and sent an emergency text to her parents is mature beyond her years. She saved the rest of the girls from a deeply troubling situation that could have turned much more troubling.

When you see stories about this- men taking advantage of much younger, innocent girls (the flight attendant that was caught taking covert/non consent pictures of young girls and women in the airplane bathroom also comes to mind in recent memory), there's no wonder that many of us have lost respect or trust in humanity. This monster has taken their joy, their innocence, their ability to live carefree, their trust in people. These girls will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. I feel like this guy got such a light sentence compared to what the girls and their families will need to deal with for the rest of their lives.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

right- like book bans turning into prison sentences for the librarians/teachers who promote what this group deems as 'pornography'

https://apnews.com/article/trump-contraception-access-gop-protections-birth-control-d376b5c489298e3035f7f433fe579b1e

As much as I'd like to take an objective view of the GOP, I just don't trust any of them. Time and time again they have shown by their actions (or lack of action) how much they don't care about the rights of women, children, and minorities, including repro rights, health and right to contraception.

Thank goodness you're moving. This man sounds like a pest and horrible human being.

I don't have any further advice as to deter this man from bothering you when he sees you. It sounds like he's not happy with his life and is looking for an outlet and has targeted you, unfortunately. It sounds like you've handled a very awkward and creepy situation the best that you can. I hope you can make it out of there without running into him before you move.

Thanks for standing up for this man's wife & for blocking him. I hope the next woman/women does/do the same.

Yeah, it's such a crock. I think that's why there is so much chaos in the world. We all have so much stress and health situations and not enough or no access to the care we need. Hang in there and I hope you can find relief from the suffering.

Yes, I really hope that with Biden's initiative to study women's health, that these issues we experience at mid-life are studied to reveal ways that we can deal with them and help our health thrive.

We take on so much of life's stress- with family, emotional and mental, our own lives and then to be suffering from health issues on top of it- I just feel it puts us in a vicious cycle. It's not fair.

I'm sorry you're experiencing this and I'm here to commiserate with you. Reading your post, sounds very similar to me. I'm mid 40s, was just diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism, have just started taking the hormone med to help get my TSH levels back to normal.

I have had a hard time losing weight. I also have done the 16:8 fasting, have majorly decreased alcohol intake (only have 1 drink per week), have gone to the gym to do strength training, etc. etc.

I'm still trying to figure out how to maintain my health. I've been doing a little research here and there on hypothyroidism and what I've learned is that decreasing your stress/cortisol levels and limiting certain foods/balancing them in your diet/preparing them + getting good sleep and decent exercise (resistance/strength training to help you burn calories) is what it takes.

I learned there's a whole group of foods called goitregens that can have a negative impact on your health due to your thyroid condition. Some of those foods include: soy, strawberries, spinach, cruciferous (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale). I did not realize this and I'd been going heavy on the soy for a while in hopes that it would balance out falling estrogen levels for me. You can still eat these foods- but you need to limit them and not over-consume. Also, don't eat them raw- cook/sautee/blance the spinach/ broccoli etc... to lessen the potent chemical compounds.

Add more iodine to your diet- seaweed. Selenium- Brazil Nuts.

Also, when eating fruits, consume them with a protein to help balance out the sugars.

drink lots of water. water hydrates and helps up your energy and helps flush out toxins in your body.

It sounds like you've really dealt with some hard core stress recently- they say moving is one of life's biggest stressors. So give yourself some grace. You've been through a lot and are still dealing with it. I just lost my brother last August to death by suicide and I was made executive admin of his estate as my elderly parents just did not have it in them to deal with that. It's been a really tough year, plus my kid just started kindergarten and I have been adjusting to all the mental/emotional changes she's going through this year.

There are a lot of books out there about hypothyroid. I've read some real quack-like science ones and then ones that have some logical sense of science and reasoning. I'm just amazed that thyroid issues don't get more attention as I feel like a lot of people suffer from this and maybe don't realize until they speak up at their dr's and get their blood tested.

Sorry for my long-winded reply, just wanted to say- I'm going through the same thing as you and you're not alone.

EDIT- wanted to add another thing- cut your coffee consumption. I was a hard core coffee drinker (I ran on it due to lack of sleep from having young child) and now I just do 1 or 2 cups a day (Had been drinking 4 cups). Also...wait to drink your coffee a little later in the morning. Not first thing as this is when your cortisol levels are the highest and adding caffeine to it wrecks your metabolism).

I heard about that, but haven't pursued watching it. Glad to hear you give it a good recommendation. Will definitely check it out.

Yes!!! Very underrated band from that same era. They remind me of the dancier version of The Slits.

Her voice also reminds me of lead singer of The Waitresses.

One of my fave Waitresses jams is 'Girls Gotta Do'....another to add to the list.

Just thought of another one.

The Boat that I Row by Lulu

an underrated '60s banger by an underrated female singer, Lulu.

I consider this my personal theme song. It's all about being independent, not going with the crowd, and not giving a damn.

I fully support your decision to do what you know is best for your body, mind, soul, and health, as well as what's best for your family. It sounds like you've figured out what you're going to do and now you need to focus on going through that process and moving on.

I also experienced a traumatic birth control failure and made a decision that was best for my body, health and family. I was wracked with emotions, but I knew deep down that was what I needed to do for me. That was a few years ago and I'm glad I followed my inner voice.

You do what you need to make sure your health and body are up to par so you can feel good & be a good mom to your little one right now.

Big hugs to you.

Yes, great song! Love to scream along with her, too ;)

Have you ever considered focusing on one of your interests- cookie decoration, drywall repair, cross-stitch and seeing if you can make a small side business right now? If you have the time right now- why not experiment a bit and see if there's a demand in your community for these skills and make a business out of it?

I'm with you- I spent a long time in corporate America and found out it is not the type of life for me. I also found out that I hate multi-tasking, I hate working in open offices with people shouting across the room to me at what I should do, etc etc.

I work part time, remotely for my company- textile industry. I started out in the office, but when the pandemic hit, it was not possible for me to work in person since I needed to provide care for my toddler at that time. I like working remotely because of the flexibility. It helps me stay in the loop creatively (I'm also an artist/ crafter), and allows me to have time to exercise (I need for my stress and hypothyroidism) and to be flexible for being there for my elementary aged kid.

I wish you the best in finding work that is fulfilling and flexible for your lifestyle.

'Rip Her to Shreds' - Blondie

'Oh Bondage Up Yours' - X-Ray Spex

'Typical Girls' - The Slits

Trauma. IUD displaced & resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Had been on the pill 20 years before that and suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst a few months after starting it. ended up in the hospital due to bleed out. almost taken to surgery, but needed blood transfusion.

Condoms/spermicide have always worked for me and will use those from now until menopause.