I had a masectomy yesterday. I've never had a major surgery before, but have been with others when they have.

I was taken to the OR and the surgeon verbally acknowledged me again. When the anesthesiologist started his part I realized without saying anything she just came over and held my hand.

She made me feel like a person. She made me feel cared for. It was a small gesture but it meant and means all the world to me.

I dont understand what more I can do.

My husband (29M) and me (28F) have been together for about 8 years now.

Things have always been amazing. Yes we have issues like every couple but we work them out. We both suffer from bad mental health. Me a little more but I am getting help.

The past maybe..year or even more our bedroom life has seemed to take a dive. I always want to try new things. I am always bringing up things to add or do. And he never wants to do anything. The most is a new position here or there that makes me get on top which isn't a favorite of mine due to self esteem issues but I know he enjoys it so i do it anyways.

We maybe do it once..every month if I am lucky. When I am on my meds my stamina is very very high. I try to be touchy with him. I try to find what I want. (I am not good with words so actions are easy) normally I am not a touchy person so when I overly touchy it normally means I am in the mood. He just shuts me down and tells me we need to sleep or something. Last few times it was before a shower and he would just tell me to go shower already.

I will even put his hands on my chest and body and i still cant even get anything. Last time I brought it up he told me he just doesnt feel "wanted" enough. And i have asked what he wants me to do. He said more touchy. Which I have tried and I still get nothing. He told me its because i am not direct. I have tried just straight up asking for it and I get a flat. No. So I stopped asking. Ive asked if its me. The way I look my body. No he claims he adores my body.

For me s\\\*x is a stress reliever and a time i can just..not focus in things. And ive told him this. It's my one time i feel good where I can turn my brain off. And I feel like I try to do everything for him but here I am. Im just losing my mind at lack of intimacy and my mind is always in the gutter. So badly its hard to have a normal day at work without wanting to die considering i work with all blue collar men who love dirty jokes and talk. Im just losing my mind.

30F here.

Last week, I found out that my ex-boyfriend got married.

I wasn’t heartbroken, but I was surprised. For a few seconds, I honestly didn’t know what to feel. My mind just went blank.

For context, we started dating in 2021. He had just graduated from college while I was already working. Since he was just starting his career, I was usually the one paying whenever we’d go out. I never saw it as a burden because I knew he was still trying to build his career.

Even after he got a job, our setup didn’t really change. I still spent more most of the time, and honestly, I didn’t mind. I loved him, so it never really bothered me.

I used to joke about getting married someday. Whenever I brought it up, he’d always say he wasn’t ready yet because he was just starting his career. Fair enough- I understood.

Eventually, things became unhealthy. There was cheating, trust was broken, and in 2024, just three hours before my birthday, he suddenly stopped replying. No explanation. He just disappeared.

A few months later, he reached out and apologized. We started talking again once in a while. We spent Christmas and New Year together, and I even went with him to buy clothes before his first business trip abroad.

While he was away, he’d send me updates about how beautiful everything was. I was genuinely happy for him because I knew that trip meant a lot to him.

When he got back, he told me he’d stop by my place because I had asked him to buy me a few things. I cleaned my place, and waited.

He never came.

That was the last time I heard from him.

About two months later, someone showed me his post with another girl. They were traveling together abroad. It hurt, but I kept reminding myself that we weren’t together anymore.

A year later, in 2026, I came across a story and saw that he had married the same girl.

My first reaction wasn’t anger.

It wasn’t even sadness.

It was more like, “Wow… life really does have its own way of working things out.”

For a moment, I wondered why he seemed ready so quickly. Then I realized maybe I was asking the wrong question.

Maybe it wasn’t about being ready.

Maybe life simply took us in different directions.

Looking back, I don’t regret loving him. I don’t regret supporting him while he was still building his career, and I don’t regret believing in the future we once talked about. Those memories were real, and they’ll always be part of my life.

I also realized that someone else’s choices don’t define my worth. Just because we didn’t end up together doesn’t mean I wasn’t enough. It just means we weren’t meant to spend the rest of our lives together.

Not every relationship is meant to last forever. Some people become part of your life to teach you something, help you grow, and then become part of your past. That doesn’t erase the good memories or make the relationship a failure.

After seeing that story, I found myself booking another trip. Not because I was heartbroken, but because I realized I had spent enough time looking back. It felt like it's the perfect time to look ahead instead. A new place, new experiences, and a fresh perspective were exactly what I needed. It reminded me that while one chapter of someone else’s life was beginning, mine was too.

I guess that was my way of reminding myself that life keeps moving.

We all have our own timeline. Some people get married earlier. Some focus on their careers. Some travel. Some are still figuring things out. None of that means anyone is ahead or behind.

To my ex and his wife, congratulations. I genuinely wish you both a happy life together.

As for me, I’m looking forward to whatever comes next. I don’t know exactly what my future looks like yet, and I’m okay with that.

Maybe that’s the biggest lesson I learned from all of this: sometimes, closure doesn’t come from a conversation. Sometimes, it comes from realizing that life has already quietly moved both of you in the direction you were meant to go.

And that’s okay.

I just wanted to get this off my chest.

My Husband and i lived in apartments for years, after a while we decided to rent a house and try to take a step forward. We lived in the house for a little over 2 years and we had a lot of issues.

The financial changes really put a strain on our relationship. We would get into explosive fights multiple times a month. Both of our mental health issues got much worse. I did end up getting specialized therapy which did help some. We also tried couples therapy for a bit.

After all of the issues and stress of the House, we decided to move into an apartment thats cheaper. I feel both embarrassed and relieved. I know our decisions dont need to make sense to everyone, but its still hard. I feel like a failure for not making the house work. I know it doesnt mean we cant have a house one day either. I also realize that a lot of people are really struggling right now.

On the bright side, we are taking this time to try to improve ourselves and work on some things individually and together. I hope it works, but i still feel badly.

Thanks for reading ❤️‍🩹

I'm not looking for advice necessarily, I just don't really know how to talk about this with anyone else so I'm just getting it off my chest here.

Something I struggle with is wanting a long term, lifelong relationship. That itself isn't the struggle, the struggle is me being scared of dating. I'm 19 and I've never been in a relationship with anyone and when I do date I don't really intend to do it casually, if I date it's because I'm looking for someone to spend my life with, and I can't help but be scared of breaking up, because if I was in a relationship with someone for let's say 3 years and we broke up, I can't help but feel like I wasted those years of my life and all of that love and effort was for nothing, and that I should have been with someone else because this relationship didn't work out, if that makes sense? If you were to ask me "If you could date someone for 5 years, and those years would be absolutely amazing, but eventually things wouldn't work out and you split off, would you take that deal?" I genuinely don't know if I would. To me, that just sounds like setting me up for heartbreak, I don't think I'd like that, even if I loved those 5 years, if the relationship doesn't work out I can't help but feel like I picked the wrong person and should have been with someone else. I can't help but feel like a relationship that doesn't work out is a waste of time that results in being heartbroken, even if I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with them, we never got married, we never got to spend our lives together, so that enjoyment led to nothing. Also, it's hard for me to understand two people growing apart. Like, you're telling me it took you 5 years of dating to find out you weren't compatible long term? I'm not saying that doesn't happen, many people talk about it, obviously it does, I just don't understand it and it's honestly terrifying and heartbreaking to me, to think that two people genuinely love each other and spend years together, just to eventually... not. That's terrible in my mind.

(Had to repost because of a verification problem)
Is it just me, or does anyone else hate when guests stay over for days or even weeks? I'm totally fine if someone stays one night, but after that I start getting really annoyed. I love my alone time, and since I'm the youngest in my family, my bedroom always becomes the guest room. I end up feeling like I don't have my own space until they leave.

I feel kind of guilty because I know they're family or family friends, and I want them to feel welcome and comfortable. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful in any way, I genuinely want them to feel comfortable and at home. The main problem is really just the room situation. Having to give up my room for days or even share it with someone starts to get to me.

Like right now, my younger cousin is staying over for a few days, and she's been really loud. I know she's not really a little kid anymore, she's more of a tween, so I'm not mad at her specifically. It just makes me realize how much I value having a quiet space to myself. Lowkey, I really like having my own space, and it also irritates me because having people stay over kind of throws off my routine especially when I have school😭. There is another room downstairs that guests can use, but she didn't want to sleep in the basement, which I understand. I didn't mind sharing a room because I thought it'd be nice to catch up with her, but when I was actually trying to go to sleep, she was on her phone talking really loudly. In general, if there are multiple guests and I have to give up my room or even share my bed with someone I'm not really comfortable sharing with, I get really irritated.

Does anyone else feel this way? I always feel bad admitting it because I don't want people to think I dislike my family. I just really miss having my own room, my privacy, and my normal routine after a couple of days.

This story is from a few years back, but I can’t stop thinking about it. At the time I was (21M) junior in college and had a situation ship (23F) senior. It started off innocent when she told me she was sick, and me being the fedora wearing self proclaimed nice guy(lol), I brought her medicine. She decided to invite me in to watch a movie and I accepted. A few days later she showed up at my dorm and tried to make a move, I denied her as I knew it was a bad idea. However, she was very… persuasive. We decided that we would not tell anyone of our relationship, for reasons I do not think add to the story, but for that reason I haven’t been able to fully talk to anyone about it.

This is why I come to you Reddit. As our relationship went on I noticed that she started to get more attached. Trying to go out in public and do PDA shit, getting pissed when I talked to other girls, and she even said I love you once, but she made it seem like it was a mistake and she didn’t mean it. At the time I didn’t think much of it.

However, this all came to a head towards the end of our finite relationship (she was about to graduate and move across the country). We were in bed watching a show when she looked up at me and said she’s pregnant. She had been missing her period for a few weeks before this so it all lined up. My heart sank, I have literally never felt a feeling like that before. All the thoughts running in my head, how will I finish college, start my career, or explain this relationship to everyone? I leaned back in bed and just covered my head in my hands as I processed all this. After about 10 minutes of laying there and her talking, she told me she was lying and wanted to see my reaction and that she had her period earlier that day. She was upset at my reaction and was hoping I would be excited. Needlessly to say I was PISSED and told her to give me space.

Here’s where the story gets good… The next day she wants to talk to me about everything. I accept and we chat. I was still pissed, but as I said she is very persuasive and I am but a man, and we ended up having sex later that day. I didn’t think anything about it, the week went by and we said our goodbyes as she left for *far way state.*

However, alone and away from her I started to think back… the sex we had the next day was NOT period sex. So now the last few years I can’t get it out of my head that she may have actually been pregnant at the time and later got an abortion. Is this a possibility? Surly there are hundreds of other explanations, but I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I was excited when she told me she was pregnant.

Anyway thanks for listening to my rant.

TLDR: Sneaky link ‘pranked?’ me into thinking she was pregnant, but I have my doubts it was a prank.

The woman showed up again with what I believe is either a freind or date. Anyway they were able to pay this time and gave me a 15 dollar tip or so. Feel very weird about this as it is almost double the stuff they actually paid for. I have no idea how to give it back. Trying so hard not to cry rn but just watching from the counter as we speak just watching this woman eat a slice without a care in the world. I do not deserve this tip and yeah. Sorry I know it short but yeah.

I’m a 31M. When I was young I was a book smart person. I got good grades and was always a perfectionist. I ended up getting a Master’s of Engineering in biomedical engineering and have worked at a medical device company for 8 years.

In my adult life I’ve had periods of time living alone and living with my parents, splitting the mortgage with them. Living alone was honestly depressing, at least living with my parents gives me everyday human interaction with people I love, even if I don’t have nearly as much personal space.

Most days my life feels monotonous at best. I wake up, eat, work all day, eat some more, take care of personal hygiene and errands, sleep, and maybe spend an hour or two with a friend here or there.

I used to think that once I got into a certain financial state I’d be happier. I have no debt and a 550k net worth now, but I still feel like I’m trapped in this cycle. I have hobbies, I like to fish and golf with friends in my free time. Some days it’s a lot of fun, but other days I just have so much on my mind and it’s hard to disconnect and live in the moment.

I’m tired of my life feeling like work, and honestly wishing my life away. I feel like a rat in a maze with all exits blocked, with the only options to burrow underneath it or jump over the walls. In a few months I’m planning to take my essentials and drive across the country and work from a totally different area to reset my mind and take in some different stimuli.

I feel the total opposite of “normal.” All my friends have girlfriends or wives, and I’m 31 and kissless. I have had no dating success. I’m very introverted and struggled on the apps. The few times I worked up the courage to ask someone out I was rejected and it made me feel undesirable and worthless in the moment. I think I need to make at least one drastic change if not more than one. Maybe quit my job and take a year to find out who I really am and what I want out of this life.

TLDR; life isn’t that fun. It just feels like survival. I want to feel excited when I wake up in the morning instead of dreading the day ahead.

That's it. That's the whole post.

I could work every day to be more flexible or physically strong. But I just don't love myself.

When I was 17 I met this girl online randomly and things progressed really fast. Previous to this, I had never dated so she became my first girlfriend. She was my first in a lot of things. I never knew how much love you can feel for someone who you didn't even know existed some months ago.

So for a while we had a long distance relationship and all was going well but she used to have an issue with testing the relationship. Like she'd post another guy to see if I'd get jealous, or tell me about her guy bsf and all that. But I have always been secure in myself and I could tell my reactions to these tests, or lack thereof, disappointed her.

The final straw came when a random girl started messaging me which I thought was weird. I'm a very introverted guy so the chances of a random girl hitting on me through texts were slim to none. I knew it was her doing and she later fessed up that she had sent her cousin to test if I'd cheat.

This really pissed me off because it felt like she thought I was dumb enough to fall for such tricks. At that stage in life I had a huge ego about my intelligence as it has always been my strongest attribute so this felt like an insult. Having two accounts on IG, one which she didn't know of, I started DMing her and even provided a picture of a friend as this new person she was chatting with.

However I took things too far and 'staged' a situation where I, now the normal me, found out about her emotional cheating which had been going on for a month. She was sorry for it and cried and begged for me to stay and I did. At the time I felt that I had done no wrong but I now know how bad of a thing it was to do to someone.

In the later stages of our relationship, guilt would consume her so badly she'd tell me I have one free pass to cheat and she'd forgive me as a way of repenting.

It came to an end one day after we had had a huge argument and she texted the other account, still me, saying she missed him. I was infuriated. That's when I told her that it had always been me. I told her we were done and as you can expect she was in agreement. However she said how manipulative I was and that it's my fault we were breaking up. At the time I did not think so.

Now, much later, I realize how much of a POS I was. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and I took things too far. This is something that still bothers me and I've come to agree that I was a horrible person to the girl who loved me.

TLDR; My gf tested me and I returned the favor in a much worse way and I forever live with that regret

I like to think I’m pretty average looking, I’m 23, and while I do love myself, like I mean I’ll ALWAYS admire myself in a mirror and remind myself how beautiful I am (like I make myself blush). I hate sometimes feeling unattractive because I don’t have that conventional body that females are supposed to have. I’m never hit on in public, sometimes at clubs but not really (or maybe because I like just staying with my girls), but sometimes it would be nice to be hit on, maybe it’s just the sense of validation I would occasionally like. I don’t have the biggest breasts, nor do I have a full behind. On top of that I’ve recently lost a lot of weight and I lost almost a cup size of my breasts which saddened me since I always said well if I can’t have a nice behind, at least I have these, but turns out it was just fat. My body is slowly morphing back to how it was in high school which isn’t terrible because my stomach is much smaller and my face is slim so I do have pros, it also helps that I’m 5’8. But sometimes I feel scared that if I want to start dating and put myself out there I’ll be rejected because I don’t have these assets. I find myself to be a good person, I have nice long hair, my face is my favorite feature, and thanks to my weight loss i have a decent average body, but nothing about me really stands out. It does feel silly though because I don’t necessarily feel insecure about myself, again, I find myself stunning, but it makes me sad that I think I’m the only one who thinks so.

And i know, i know that the man who chooses me will choose me for who i am and not my body, but it doesn’t help that i don’t feel that i’ll ever find that unless i actively work on my body. I’ve never talked to anyone about this, but just wanted to let it out i guess.

English isn't my first language so please excuse the bad wording.

I (20F) have been prone to lying as far as I can remember. I don't know when or why it begun, but I have lied about anything and everything in my life, no matter how big or small. Contrary to that, I overshare quite a lot (surprise surprise the person posting to hundreds of strangers) so often people catch some inaccuracies in my stories which makes me feel so embarrassed. I have tried to catch myself before doing it and even have said out loud "sorry, I don't know why I said this, it was actually like this or that". I think it's a self-preservation thing, but it doesn't change the fact that I do it. I don't think a lot of the people around me have noticed that I do it, but it definitely has put a strain on my social life, because I don't trust myself and believe everybody does the same, lie and deceive. I am writing this now because recently I've noticed that I have warped my own memories with my lies, I don't know what actually happened anymore because I have gaslit my own brain.

​

I just turned 22 and I don't think I know how to even start to become a person, I just feel like I'm going through the motions of existence, eating, sleeping, occasionally showering. I've never had a job necause of mental health issues, I tried to study a few years back a few times but each time I had to drop out because I couldn't handle the pressure. I don't have any friends, I used to have a couple of good ones, but I think people just get bored of me after a while and they stop replying to me. I don't have any hobbies or interests, I don't even know how people acquire them, I think I had a few as a kid but my parents never let me pursue them and I kind of gave up over time. All I do each week is go to my mental health appointments, I don't really hang out with anyone, I don't really even have anyone to hang out with. Family's not really an option for me. Yesterday one of my professionals gave me the homework of doing something outside of mental health, like just because I wanted to do it, and I kind of realised I don't know how, everything I do is for a reason, I don't even know what I'd do if I wanted to. The only person I talk to each week is my ex, and they're a good person, it's a good friendship, but they live in a different city now and they work one week on one week off so it's not even a consistent thing. I just don't even know where to start with trying to become a person, I don't know how to make friends, and I especially don't know how to keep them, I'm autistic and that probably plays atleast a part in that, but I know other autistic people that seem to have no problem being a person. I want to be a person, I really do, I want to have friends and hobbies and do things just because I want to and not because I have to, I just don't know how and I don't even know where to start. I feel like I'm too old to make new friends, the only way I've ever made friends was in school because we were kind of forced to be in the same space. It just feels really hopeless now and I don't know where to go from here. I just want to be able to be a person, I just want to be normal and not an accumulation of every diagnosis I've been given. It also just feels kind of embarrassing to be this old and never have had a job, that's like a huge part of people my ages lives and I just can't contribute to it, and people view me as lazy or useless because of it, but I would have a job if I could, I really would, I swear I would. I just can't handle the pressure and the stress from it, if I have more than one appointment in a day I freak out because it feels like too much to handle. I'm in therapy and I have been since I was 13, there's alot of talk about me going inpatient soon, and that's kind of my last hope for becoming a person, because if that doesn't work I'm kind of just out of options. I feel like I'm stuck at 16 and everyone else has moved on and grown up and I'm just not caught up to where everyone else is in life. Sorry if this is a bit out of order or rambly, I just don't know where to go from this and it feels too embarrassing to say to anyone I actually know.

37M, married with kids, okay job, a few friends. I genuinely don't know how to receive help or kindness from others without panicking.

I'm a 37-year-old male, married with two kids. I’m moderately successful with an okay job, and I have about four friends, including one really good friend. My parents have both passed away, and outside of my wife, I genuinely don’t know what to do when someone does something nice for me. I have a complete inability to ask anyone for help.

A couple of recent examples:
I was at a DIY store trying to load something into my car that wouldn’t fit. An old friend of my dad's saw me struggling and offered to drop it off at my house in his van. I thanked him, of course, but I was on the edge of a panic attack driving home in front of him the whole time because I felt like such a huge inconvenience.

The other day, I had something delivered that was way too heavy to lift on my own. I was practically in tears, wrestling it down the steps to my house inch by inch by myself, simply because asking for help didn't even feel like an option.

I don’t know how to fix this, and I don’t know how to ask for help. Has anyone else dealt with this? How do I get past it?

(I posted this 2 mins ago but had to repost after doing a verification)

I don't really know why I'm posting this. I think I just need to get it off my chest.

For the past few months I've been carrying around so much stress and shame that I honestly don't know what to do with it anymore.

A while ago I went through a difficult time in my personal life. During that period I made some bad decisions and kept telling myself I'd sort everything out later. Instead, everything just got worse.

Now I have to empty an apartment that's still in my name within the next week because of rent arrears. I'm trying to do the right thing. I spoke to the bailiff, arranged a repayment plan and I'm getting the apartment cleared out. But the costs are overwhelming.

I work full-time, so it's not like I'm sitting around waiting for someone else to fix my problems. That's actually what makes this so hard. I never thought I'd end up in a situation where I can't solve something on my own.

The part I struggle with the most is the shame. I feel embarrassed even writing this. Most people around me don't know what's going on because I keep pretending everything is okay.

I know I'll get through this somehow, but right now it just feels like everything hit me at once.

I don't really expect anything from posting this. I just needed to tell someone because keeping it all to myself has been exhausting.

I'm 19 . Lately I've been feeling mentally exhausted, lonely, and overwhelmed because of studies and some stuff at home.

Today I finally tried to tell my girlfriend that something was wrong. She asked what happened, and instead of feeling relieved, I felt - pressured.

Not because of anything she did. I just suddenly felt like I had to explain everything clearly why I feel this way, what's causing it, how long it's been going on. My mind went blank.

So I ended up making it sound like it was something small and changed the topic. Now I'm frustrated with myself.

I dk if anyone else experiences this, but I hate the pressure of having to be "clear" about my emotions. It feels like unless I can explain everything perfectly, I shouldn't say anything at all

It fucks my mind that ik everything to say , wht I'm feeling, wht r my thoughts but I just dk how to put it into words , and the fear of judgement..

Is this normal? How do you open up when you don't even know where to begin. It's so lonely...

I (26m) have a friend (28f) I was close with. She told me she met someone, that she told him about me and that she said we weren't intimate but we were close. I encouraged her to go for it. That I was happy for her, I gave my blessing.

But then total radio silence...

Idk what happened.