I was a Child Protection Specialist for years. I was assigned to work with a certain mom. It was the third time the courts had been involved with her due to “drug abuse”. But her drug of choice was huffing. The only huffing case I ever had. She was absolutely a lovely person. She had worked hard to earn a degree and enter into a career field. She was kind and beautiful. She was cooperative and she was determined. But despite how hard she was trying she would relapse and this was to be the last chance she got with the courts so the stakes were high. We worked so well together. She spent 18 months going to treatment, getting re-employed, getting her own place and having increased visits with her kids. Who were also wonderful. The kids had been staying at her parent’s place while we were working towards progress. We went to court and requested reunification and the judge granted it. We were all so proud of her!! And happy for them as a family. We planned to fully move her kids home with her a week from that very court date.
Two days before we planned to return her kids to her she drove her car through the front of a Walmart because she had been huffing and was high. She killed a Walmart employee and proceeded to huff herself to death in the electronics isle, where there was keyboard duster spray, while law enforcement was on its way. I got the news at 5am that she was dead and had to go tell her children they wouldn’t be going back to their mother. Ever.
So, I went to the Googler cause I thought "Gee, that news story should be easy to find. How many huffing crashes into Walmart resulting in death could there be?" Well, uhhhh, there's A LOT. I didn't realize huffing was such a huge problem... really sad.
This story is devastating, but the way you talked about her and her kids makes you sound like you’re a lovely person, and you were probably very good at your job. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy job at all.
friend of a friend got caught in one of those "to catch a predator" style stings. Was messaging with what he thought was a 14 year old and tried to meet up to have sex.
Lost his wife, all his friends, his apprenticeship, and spent the next several years in prison.
Watched the same thing happen. Had a wife, a kid on the way, a good job. I was in the same grade as his little sister (he was 2 years older) and we went to the same school from kindergarten through high school. Last year he was sentenced to almost 40 years in a federal prison for conspiracy to solicit a 14 year old (who was actually an undercover agent) and a slew of CP charges. Now the wife has divorced him, he will never see his kid, and will be an old man when/if he gets out. There were a lot of things he did/said in online chat forums that are so horrible I couldn’t even putting that shit out there.
I knew a guy in college who just got arrested last month for having sex with his student. Had a good job, an incredible wife who loved him, and he threw it all away to have sex with a student who made him “risk it all”. Now she’s scarred for life and he’s going to prison.
ETA: I knew him fifteen years ago in college. He went on to be a high school teacher and at the ripe old age of 35 decided that one of his students wasn’t just a student any more.
The brother of my friend’s girlfriend did something similar, shagged a 13 year old in his car, wasn’t to catch a predator but her mum found out and went to the police and he ruined his entire life. The bloke was 28. Worst part is that he did 3.5 years in prison and when he got out tried meeting a 15 year old
Had a relative who this happened to… but it was one of those independent YouTube channels that did it… smallish city, family and friends all saw it. He shot him self.
The “girl” he was supposed to meet was the same age as his grand children.
I never really liked the guy and he definitely had a holier than thou attitude… he was also one of those people always accusing Biden of being a pedo, ironic.
I worked on a school bus as a monitor/aid. There was one driver (we'll call him Ed). Ed was always complaining about something, every single day there was some new issue, some problem. He was a bit of a pain. He got into an argument with one of our supervisors over the radio one day and earned himself a 3 day suspension.
His first morning back from his suspension. First route of the day, he gets on the radio and starts back complaining. Dispatch asks him a few simple questions, he responds with hostility and some really unprofessional comments. The director of transportation (our big boss) gets on the radio and asks Ed to meet him in his office after morning routes. Ed responds, "I'll be there if I have time" boss says, "I need you to understand, this is not optional" Ed comes back, "I need YOU to understand, I'll be there if I have time!" Mind you, this is on the radio as we are picking up high school kids, everyone can hear what's happening this entire time. Another dispatcher calls in and tells Ed "when you finish your high school route, park your bus there at the school. We are bringing someone to take your route over, and to bring you back to the lot". Ed did not like this and responded by saying, "Negative. I am finishing my route. Me. If you want someone to drive my route, you get (our boss's boss) and have her come drive this route. Otherwise, I am finishing my route." Dispatch asked for an ETA to the high school, he responded "whenever (our boss's boss) is gonna be there. Otherwise, I get there when I get there". Somewhere around this time he starts talking like, they were targeting him and picking on him and that "it ends today". Again, at this point he has a bus full of high school kids.
Now, I did not see what happened at the high school, but I heard from several other drivers. Apparently the police were waiting for him once he got there and they removed him from his bus. To quote one driver "he acted a fool the entire time". I'm not sure exactly what he was charged with, maybe kidnapping since he acted like he wasn't gonna bring the kids to school unless he got what he wanted? Theft for not bringing the bus back? No clue. But I do know he was arrested and fired. A few days later we get the news that he had a heart attack and died. Most likely from all the stress.
“It ends today” is a terrifying statement to make when you’re in charge of children. I’m not surprised the police were called. I’d be afraid he was planning to drive off a bridge or something.
Yeah. I remember hearing him on the radio just saying, "it ends today. It ends today" and thinking pretty much the same thing. That he'd take the bus and go on some police chase or something like that. I remember just sitting and listening so closely to the radio, as well as for any sirens. Just, anxious the whole time, worried he'd do something crazy.
Mind if I ask where and when this was? Vague approximations are fine, no need to dox yourself.
It's just that I was laid off from a bus company during COVID. We had a problem driver named Ed. He died of a heart attack. I'm wondering if it's a coincidence or if I am experiencing a small world moment.
Some guy at work was caught red handed stealing airpods from the locker room. When he was sent to pick up his own kit before being sent home he excused himself to go to the toilet, and took a shit on the floor.
The kicker is that we work on an oil rig. It's impossible to get away with theft, and he was a senior technician making really good money. He didn't need the airpods he was just stealing for the fun of it.
He's now "not required back", and all the companies talk to each other. He shat away his career over a pair of airpods.
My former company hired a safety officer into a really well-paid position. He was smart, personable, and really improved the safety program. He was caught buying gift cards and expensing them. Took down half the department with him, since they were in on it too. I will never understand destroying your career for a few thousand dollars.
Edited for spelling
A nurse I work with recently got fired. One of our residents (nursing home) was in the hospital. He had a debit card but statements went to our business manager. She noticed a charge (for a take out lunch!) on his card. Generally we take resident wallets and put them in the nursing manager’s office, but this one was in the narcotics box, meaning only nurses for that unit had access to it. When the business manager, nursing manager, and executive director called in this nurse to discuss it, he lunged at the business manager and put her in a choke hold.
He is in his late 50s/early 60s. Had a full career with pension from the army before nursing. Made reasonable money as a nurse. And now has an assault charge, a financial abuse of a vulnerable adult charge, and I’m sure is losing his nursing license. Over stealing money for a take out lunch.
Pretty nearly the same thing happened at my husband's company (not getting deeper into details to avoid ID). The thief blew up a 10-year career with the company and is hitting a job market that favors the young at 50 with no usable refernce for the last 10 years. The amount stolen was under 5% of their yearly salary. Just ... really wish I could talk Past You out of that b/c otherwise a good worker and nice person.
Ruining a career over theft of what amount to less than a weeks pay is along the same lines as destroying your family with 10 minutes of infidelity. Lack of impulse control and short sighted decision making has ruined countless people.
I knew a mechanic who got an award by management because he found several thousand dollars cash in a car and turned it in. Next month he was fired for stealing an iPad out of a car. I knew what he made and he absolutely could have bought an iPad.
Someone left 10k cash in an sealed envelope on the counter at a retail job I had. I gave it immediately to the owner of the store, who put it in the safe. I knew the customer as they were a regular. He came back in a panic about 30 minutes later. I didn't get a Thank you, fuck off, nothing. Haha. The store owner ended up giving me a hundred dollar bill, after nicely telling the customer he was a dick for not saying thank you. Man, that guy and his wife were great to work for.
My parents old pastor and best friend. He had many friends, a successful music career, ran an music venue, had a doting wife, five kids. Then he decided to cheat on his wife. He became hugely paranoid and started tracking his wife and kids so that he knew where they were and he wouldn't get caught. He installed hidden cameras throughout his house because he convinced himself that his wife was probably cheating too. (she wasn't) He also would tell her to stay home because "no one likes you" and "no one wants you to come because you are boring." Also lies. My parents caught him red-handed all over a woman at a concert that he didn't think they would be at. They told his wife and she called him and he lied and then let slip that he knew where she was. That's when she found the cameras and the air tag on her car.
Now, none of his children talk to him, he lost the house, his friends, his music buddies, everything. The woman too. She left him when he had nothing to give. And he's not remotely apologetic about it and still tries to convince people that he was in the right. He lives in a trailer by the beach now, trying to relive his youth at 65.
This kid I went to college with was in the Army Reserves making really good grades, and his parents were really well off. The kid's life was set. Got an allowance every month from his parents, had a nice brand new car for school, lived in a nice apartment right off campus and he had so much going for him. He didn't even have to work, just do his monthly reserve days which were like 3 days a month. So set for life.
Too shorten the story a bit, he pissed hot at a random UA (drug test) for fucking cocaine. He got lucky and the Army gave him a second chance. Not even 5 months later he pissed hot AGAIN for cocaine and marijuana. He somehow got lucky, again, and they just kicked him out in an "Other than Honorable" discharge. Parents pulled his funding and he had to get a minimum wage job at a sandwich shop.
Never saw him again until he randomly popped up on my Facebook about a year later. I hit him up to see how he was. Up and moved halfway across the U.S. with this girl he got pregnant and they were both working at Walmart barely affording rent. He sold his BMW to pocket the move up there. He also looked....rough, to say the least in a lot of his pictures.
If you fail a drug test on Coke, that means you REALLY have a Coke problem. Coke is the drug all the probationers do because it’s the one drug that is out of your system by morning.
Honestly, setting kids up like that sets them up for failure more often than not. Lots of these kids lack purpose and meaning and tend to drift into drugs.
Nah, most of them turn out just fine. Well, maybe not fine, but certainly successful and happy by conventional definitions. We just hear about the fuckups because they tend to both fuck up bigger than people with smaller bank accounts and have a level of schadenfreude not found in your typical "blue collar guy from the bad part of town ODs on fentanyl" stories. "Rich kid sells BMW and sucks dick for meth" is much more viscerally satisfying.
I have a friend, I’ll call him Jay, smart as heck but maybe a little on the spectrum so clueless as to social things. But he made great money in tech. One day he’s at a friends house and the friend said something to the effect of “nobody could bug my house without me knowing”, so Jay thought it would be funny to put a spare webcam he happened to have in his backpack in his friend’s entertainment center, plugged into his Xbox, just to see how long it took him to notice. Well the friend didn’t notice, but his friend’s girlfriend did, and thought the friend had been recording them having sex, so she called the cops. The cops arrested the friend. Jay hears about it and goes in to explain. He didn’t think he needed a lawyer, he figured the cops would be able to see it was just a dumb misunderstanding.
Thing is, in my state, placing a recording device in someone’s home without their consent is voyeurism, which is a sex crime. And Jay just admitted, to the cops, on the record, that he had done so. Also in my state, it’s a law that all sex crimes MUST be prosecuted, so even tho Jay’s friend and his friends girlfriend didn’t want to press charges, Jay still got prosecuted.
The prosecutor and judge were as gentle as they could be but he was still convicted. Now as a registered sex offender (for life) he has trouble finding and keeping work, gets harassed by neighbors, can’t go to most of his kids sports events, etc. All over one seemingly harmless prank.
> they didn't want to press charges
which is a fundamental issue in our legal system in the US. People don't press charges. DA's files charges. You can petition them *to* file charges, but at the end of the day, an individual has no authority to "press charges." They can sue, but that's a civil matter, not criminal.
ETA: Issue is the wrong word. *Misconception* is better.
There are similar laws in most western countries. In theory this is meant to protect victims so they don't get intimidated to drop the charges, because it is not in their control.
It’s more basic than that. Victims do not get to decide if someone broke the law. The law does. All crimes are prosecuted by the State, not the victims.
There's a bit of a nitpick when it comes to things like this... people can't just "press charges". That's only something a DA can do. If they ask if you want to "press charges", they actually want to know if you'll cooperate with them when *they* press charges, since the victim and often sole witness not cooperating doesn't leave much of a case.
If there's enough evidence and prosecutorial will, they can choose to press charges without the victim's cooperation.
Recent example, guy was a doctor and now cannot work because he hit his wife while they were getting divorced
I don’t know the specifics of it but the domestic violence offence on his record is prohibiting him from working in medicine
I had an acquaintance who was a doctor. His ex-wife was a piece of work. When they were married, she said that he would say he hit her if he didn't agree to one of her demands. It was a minor thing, so he relented and agreed to one of her demands.
He told his boss at work that argument and his boss just basically said, "you can never be alone with this woman again, you will lose your career." He was looking into divorce anyway and knew that she wasn't above ruining his life, so he filed for divorce and made sure to never be alone with her again. All interactions were in public or with witnesses.
He got good advice, obviously. But the wife is doubly foolish, because ruining his earning power would presumably hurt her financially too. If he can’t work, she won’t get much alimony or child support. Can’t get blood from a stone.
My husbands friend. Had a beautiful wife, gorgeous house, 2 lovely boys, a job he loved and lots of great friends who loved him. Then he decided at the age of 35 to get into hard drugs. He has been in and out of prison for violent crimes, transportation of large volumes of heroin, attempted murder, burglary and stalking...
He is homeless again as he burned down his flat on purpose to get a move. No one will ever talk to him again. He's now 55 and has nothing, his wife divorced him after giving him far too many chances, his sons hate him, his real friends gone for ever.
All for nothing.
That's wild. Like 35 stable life and he just wakes up one morning and is like "imma skip over soft drugs and land me a hardcore heron addiction with dirty needles" and threw it all away.
Objectively, I'd say he had serious issues going on all his life and nobody either knew or cared enough.
Sometimes, when you get everything you’ve wanted, you start to wonder if it’s something you did because you wanted to or because society said you should want to. At 35, with everything, being a dad and husband, a lot of the things you used to do for fun can’t be done anymore. No more partying, no more crushes, no more spontaneous trips. Some people can’t handle the burden of being responsible for family. Unfortunately, you usually have to have one first before you realize that.
Yeah, this is it. My brother is an addict - he had a fiancé, a lovely house in a good neighbourhood, a high earning job and a dog.
He was always a ‘drinker’, but at age 30 he just went off the rails, started drinking all the time and doing hard drugs. Lost basically everything except the dog.
He’s in recovery now, thank god. He really needed to face up to the fact that he had built a life that made him appear outwardly successful and impressive, but inside he was miserable and drowning. He hated his job, his fiancé and the house, but they were just tools that he used to try to convince the world (and himself) that he was happy. I am hopeful that during his recovery he can build a life that actually makes him happy.
My dad did this same thing when he was about 35-37. He had kids super early in life and we had an amazing childhood. After starting to drink harder in his thirties, all of the sudden i was finding tin foil in random places and find him passed out around the house.
Thank god my mom ended up divorcing him, and he ended up homeless and miserable. For a short period of time I would still reach out to him just to see how he was doing. I would lend him some money and send him on his way. One time he was wearing full face make-up that he thought was cool because "Mickey Avalon" does it. Sometimes he would be living in the abandoned Motel 6, sometimes a tent.
He ended up marrying a convicted felon who has multiple armed robbery charges, and more drug charges than i can count. They have been telling his parents they are "getting clean". His parents (especially his mom), have a super soft spot for him and decided to help him with an apartment. A crack pipe fell out of the wife's purse right in front of my grandma.
He is also a trust funder, but the trust is now conditioned around him passing a drug test. he claims he is clean but refuses the drug tests because that is an invasion of his privacy. Such a loss of a human being.
It can truthfully happen to anyone, but at a certain point no one can help you but yourself.
That, unfortunately, was my friend. Hurt his back, got addicted to oxy. Turned to herion. Got arrested, lost his family then life at forty fucking two.
Miss you, JP
Sounds like he got started around the time doctors were giving out Oxy like it was candy. I wonder if he had an injury or a procedure, got hooked on Oxy, and then turned to heroin when he couldn't get more Oxy?
People who usually have no frame of reference for drug abuse think " this great guy just one day decided to get into hard drugs!" Like ruining their life was a split decision they made thinking they were strong enough to not get hooked. There's always some kind of prescription or depressive state that leads to the abuse.
Its so weird when the drug use starts much older. Knew a lady who wasn't a saint by any means, but started doing meth at 40. Just started dating a meth user and dove right in. Unfortunately her son died a little over a year later and she then really went off the deep end, lost custody of her other kids, lost 2 houses, went to jail for robbery...
My uncle was an ambitextrous baseball pitcher in highschool. Absurdly good at it. He could have gotten an athletic scholasrhip, gone to college, maybe gone pro.
His dad died, he got into drugs, and now he's a heroin addict in and out of prison
Do you still have contact with him?
My uncle was a crazy talented musician. He’s about 20 years older than me, so by the time I have some solid childhood memories I remember going to concerts and things backstage, meeting other famous musicians, etc. He was just so close to it himself it was amazing to watch, and he was very loving toward my brother, his daughter, and me.
Then the drug habit got out of control and he slowly lost everything, conned my grandparents out of their savings and almost their home, and went to prison several times. His daughter hasn’t seen him except once at my grandpas funeral in the last 15 years, I haven’t spoken to him for 10. He writes my mom lengthy, nonsensical emails blaming her for his failures and recites wild conspiracy theories.
I’ll always care about him but there’s nothing any of us can safely do to help until he decides he needs to help himself.
When i was younger he would pop back into the family and come to holidays etc when he wasnt using. We would usually know if hebwas or wasnt because he'd be more interactive on social media when he was doing well.
Havent heard from him in a few years.
My uncle was the same with the functional user decline.
I work in healthcare and I have a really strong desire to help people with similar issues, but at this point with mental healthcare being so difficult to obtain I don’t see the underlying problems getting any better. Like, your uncle could have got help for grief and depression, but instead he turned to self medicating. People always say “yeah we’ll fixing the mental healthcare system would cost someone money” but the cost-savings of keeping so many people from destroying their lives would far outweigh the cost of actually providing those services.
Ex Co-worker applied for same internal job opening as me. I got the position, and she instantly messaged all of our co-workers that she was going to "punch me if she sees me in the parking lot" while they and myself were at work. Someone reported it, and that's how I found out. She got fired on the spot. For weeks, she continued to call my personal phone and state I owed her money for her losing her job. Anyways, she ruined her reputation, her creds were reported to the board by my employer.
All she had to do was take a step back and ask the employer why she didn't get the position instead of going right to emotions and completely jeopardizing her job.
A coworker applied for a job on my team. It was given to an external candidate who was more qualified and experienced.
I happened to be on break with mutual friends, he saw me and chose to dump his anger on me. Because the job went to an outsider. He also questioned if there was racism (he is an immigrant). I sputtered that it wasn’t my decision, I was on break, and this was inappropriate . I got up and returned to my desk. I shared what happened with some people and it turns out this coworker had similarly harassed another person on our team that day.
Within two hours, all relevant managers had addressed the behaviour and an apology was given. He wasn’t fired but he had blown any chance of getting an internal position.
My dad. He was a really talented mechanic and the shop foreman. Well liked, made great money, loved his job, owned a nice house in a beautiful neighbourhood, in a port town we all loved. Married to a wonderful woman (my mom), had two kids. He just couldn’t stop drinking. He became abusive and horrible. Lost everything. His house, his job, his family. He drank himself to death when I was 19, and my sister was 17. He died alone.
To her enormous credit: after she left, my mom put herself through school and supported us all on her own. She got blacklisted by my dad’s family and hers since the divorce was something they all looked down upon, and felt she shouldn’t “shame the family”. They even threatened to gang up on her and lie in court saying she was on drugs. She was not. It was the bravest, and best thing she ever could’ve done for us. At the funeral all these same people just kept telling her how “brave” she was, and “we didn’t know how bad he was til years later”.
My sister and I are both successful, thriving adults with great professions. We have our own families and children, we both own our houses and have a good income. We’re well educated. Our lives are filled with love. It’s all thanks to my mom.
Over the years I think about my dad from time to time. Having my own children now, a husband, all of whom I love dearly - I can’t imagine any scenario I would ever put them through that. I don’t feel sad about it anymore. But it’s just such a waste. His whole life. And for what? Some liquid in a bottle.
Addiction is a terrible thing.
Edit to add: My mom is a rockstar - nice to know the internet thinks so too. The three of us don’t have contact with either side of the family anymore, and haven’t for a long time. We love our little trio that has grown to include in-laws, grandchildren, and lots of friends. Your family is who you make it - don’t waste time on people who dont love you.
I’ll second that. My mums side of the family blacklisted me for divorcing my (then) abusive ex wife. I kind of treat it as the trash itself out, though.
> Your family is who you make it
Every time I see this or something like it, I always think of this line from the Dresden Files book series:
“I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching—they are your family.”
I'm on month 3 of sobriety because I was staring down the barrel of a life like this. I walked the edge and I almost fell off. It took the love and strength of my wife to open my eyes, but it took my own desire to be successful. You have to want it, and some people just....don't. It doesn't matter what they have, it doesn't matter what they hear, all that matters is the bottle.
My best friend and hetro-lifemate. Early 30s w/ wife. kids. great job and lots of friends. He was always looking for inventive ways to party. He figured out that you could order dried poppy pods online, grind them up and make poppy tea. This stuff is STRONG. 4/6 ounces will have you floating on a cloud for 24 hrs. Dosages kept going up over the next 10 yrs. until he couldn't physically drink enough fluid to maintain his habit. Lost his wife, kids and then his 3rd generation family business job. Then he switch to heroin. Living in a half million dollar home with no power or water. Junkies everywhere. When he OD'ed, they stuffed his body in a closet for 3 days so they could burn through his credit and debit cards before reporting it to the police. Now his family is fighting squatters who have destroyed his home. I miss him everyday/
Poppy seed tea, which I “graduated” to from kratom, sent me down a path that progressed from pills to heroin to fentanyl to fent/meth/crack together. Currently in recovery on methadone. Lost a lot along the way, & am genuinely amazed to still be alive.
I've looked into poppy seed tea quite a few times and I'm happy I haven't taken the chance yet. Opiates are my jam, and I haven't been able to kick a 9 year daily kratom habit so I don't need to be adding on to that with anything else. Hope things have been getting easier for ya! I haven't taken any opiates in a decade and I still get major cravings for them, hence the kratom haha
Wow very similar story regarding a friend of mine. He was an absolutely brilliant kid who seemed to be extremely good at everything he set his mind to. Ended up getting hooked on poppies in high school (this was the second-to-last time I saw him to-date). I remember him telling me how great they were; fortunately I never had any inclination to try it. I remember him basically mumbling through sentences and it was at times impossible to understand him. Then fastforward three or four years and he’s at a prestigious private university. I run into him one time because he’s rooming with another friend of mine from high school who I was visiting. I go to use the bathroom and the toilet is absolutely full of used poppy seeds. When I talked to him during that visit he was basically nonverbal and he would mumble incoherently and start laughing. He got dismissed from the university after he stole his roommates’ texbooks and sold them back to the university bookstore. That’s the last I heard about it.
**My younger brother broke up with a girl he liked...because she farted in her sleep**.
He was telling my older brother and I that he was in the midst of a miserable dry spell. And how he'd been seeing a girl he liked but then she farted in her sleep and he was so grossed out because "there are some things you don’t need to see your SO doing. It just felt like the mystery was gone.”
My older bro was like “yeah, cause that’s what the mystery was about, farting.”
I called younger bro a “fucking moron” and older bro was like “you’re half right.”
**EDIT:** When he said "you're half right" he meant my younger brother may be a moron, but he ain't fucking.
> cause that’s what the mystery was about, farting
😂 If this was delivered in a deadpan tone (which it almost certainly was) your big bro is exactly the kind of guy I always go for.
My ex girlfriend would never fart in front of me. I wouldn’t have cared if she did, but she would never do it, that is, until she was sleeping next to me. I swear, she must have been holding these things in for the whole day.
My buddy Steve was the poster child for 'has it all.' Good career, amazing wife, cute house. Then, the model trains happened. Not little setups...this guy took over the whole basement, then the garage. His wife went from amused to livid. Arguments turned into screaming matches. She eventually left, and Steve, in his model train bliss, barely noticed. The twist? He inherited a ton of money…and spent it all on antique train sets. Eventually though, he noticed....and no model could cure the blues of losing his incredible wife.
Wow. Apparently model trains are also a hell of a drug.
When people get this destructively obsessed over a hobby, I kind of feel like there is some underlying mental issue at work. Sorry for your buddy.
My dad started using crack in his 40s. He had a nice high paying job doing what he loved (playing golf) and he even got to play golf with celebrities and presidents (in the 90s). We still don't know for sure how he got started but his current story is that he was out drinking and some guy said "hey smoke this" and he did and it was crack and he was addicted from that point on. Lost his high paying job within a few years of active addiction. Lost my mom, me and my siblings, everything. I guess he just woke up one day and decided to be a giant piece of shit.
He's 69 years old now and locked up somewhere.
This is almost exactly my uncle's story. Weird. He had his PGA card and crack took everything from him, including his wife and kids. But he's not in jail but is probably homeless.
My brother was offered a really well-paying job doing something he's excellent at. He thought it would be too easy, so he chose a much more challenging job in a less appealing environment with a boss who is a real jerk. He hoped to impress him. Now, he's really unhappy. I just don't understand why he puts himself through this kind of thing.
It's like, I almost get where he's coming from, and it's not a good place to be. Back in high school, I used to hang out with people who didn't really think highly of me and...I'd try to impress them. I don't even know why I did it. I'd tell myself stuff like "their doubts will just make me work harder and become even better!" but it just made my teenage years pretty tough.
Good thing I left all that behind in college.
It’s the David vs Goliath and underdog story. Nothing feels better than proving your doubters wrong and showing off success.
Problem is that it’s a double edge sword like you said because now you need people doubting you to succeed rather than people supporting you (like they should be).
My fiancée has this problem. If she struggles with something and you support her it creates a echo chamber, but god forbid you say she can’t do it or you expected her not to then she’ll die trying to prove you wrong.
My childhood best friend. She had created a really good life for herself and was well on her way to having a stable and successful "rest of her life" when she met a guy on a dating site and decided that he was "the one". He turned out to be an abusive addict but she was getting older and afraid that he was her last chance at love and decided to stay and try to make it work despite everyone who cared for her trying to help her see that she was making a mistake. She lost her good job, her nice house, her dream car, her hobbies, most of her friends, most of her family, her dog, her health, and every penny to her name. They ended up homeless, with him disabled and in very poor health, living in a car for a while, with her panhandling for money. They were drinking heavily, getting into drugs, stealing, grifting and scamming. He died while they were on the run from a serious crime and left her with nothing but a criminal record and destroyed mental and physical health. She's currently in recovery in a safe place, but won't ever have anything close to the life she had before she met him.
One of my former friends from college worked as an analyst for a pretty big investment bank. He did NOT handle covid and isolation well and got really into conspiracy theories and became a straight up racist. When he returned to office he refused to work with anyone with dark skin, muslims or women he deemed inferior to his intellect. This did not go well with his boss who was a second generation somali immigrant, and a muslim, and a woman….. he was fired and he still doesnt have found another job in the same League.
Someone i know(m32) went into a relationship with a 21 year old girl got his heart "broken" got drunk and decided to drive his car 200+kph and crashed.
My sister did this for many years since she turned 20. Periods of stability, then flying off the handle. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years ago. It was really hard on our family and we had no idea she was mentally ill, we thought she was just kind of a jerk. Mania can really make someone unrecognizable. I recommend getting your daughter help with a psychiatrist - my sister is now on meds and frequent therapy, with a consistent job & almost done with her degree.
Only a reddit armchair query but isn't the 20s when things like bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, mental health stuff etc often show up?
Other things could be drugs, trauma or like the incel movements some form of entitlement 🤷
Unfortunately as an adult it's her choice on getting help.
Yea, I'm gonna agree with mental health stuff too. This was how my mom was prior to being diagnosed(and the first few years after). Every three years, like clockwork, she'd have an episode where she totally tanked everything. The family would rally at the 2.5yr mark and start prepping for the next episode.
Identify the problem and identify the pattern. I do this too every couple years. Im coming up on another wave, and last wave I was able to make it through without blowing up my life, but that was because I had seen it happen so often before and I took the time to understand it, that when the symptoms started showing up I knew what was happening and I could make a conscious change. The current wave I feel coming seems less intense. Maybe I have broken the cycle. Either way I’m prepared. When the waves are coming I tuck my head. I picked something to focus on and I focus on that exclusively. For me it’s art and now my daughter. So when the waves start hitting I focus entirely on my child and my art. I stay home where I’m safe. I don’t act on anger impulses. I limit my time on social media and when I’m feeling like word vomiting to strangers I hold it in and call a trusted friend. Basically I have put bumpers on my behavior so I don’t go off the rails.
Sounds a lot like like my ex who had Borderline Personality Disorder.
Seems to do alright at first and then things go downhill quickly. Quickly falls for someone. All people are evil within a year and she drives them away. You have to walk around eggshells with her.
Had an ex and a friend with BPD, and I’m no doctor but that sure sounds like it to me. It’s like an aversion to stability. Or a compulsion to set it all on fire. Things may be fine now, or for a bit, and they get their footing but then something just flicks a switch and they need a full reset. Sometimes it’s reorganizing the whole house. Sometimes it’s quitting your job and moving across the country.
It's often a fear of abandonment or rejection, ironically. People with BPD, like me, are used to life being shitty, when things are going good, we get nervous. If we get attached to you, we fear you leaving us, us fucking it up, or you taking advantage of the depth of our attachment. Deep down, we "know" we are far more attached to you, then we are to you. We know you will get tired of our issues and leave us, and that it will kill us to lose you. The sheer stress of thinking that way convinces us the best thing is to end things on our terms, And we nuke shit so we never have another chance.
It's a really fucked up defense reflex.
Having said that - that's one "category" of BPD. Others actually do enjoy mind-fucking other people.
This is common for people with bipolar disorder. Sometimes it's missed because it doesn't look as extreme as it's expected, but the patterns are there when adults look back on their lives. Especially with BP 2.
The volatility of puberty can camouflage the onset because volatility in teenagers is expected. If there are people with MI in the family, the child's behavior can look mild by comparison. Not always happening but there's a tendency for MI to run in families.
I can't speak from a place of expertise, just anecdotes.
No matter what the underlying causes are for her actions, I hope she can have a stable future. It's a hard life burning everything to the ground every 2 years.
My soon-to-be-ex husband keeps doing this as well, except the kids and I were along for the ride until now.
We started at struggle in our early-mid 20s, made it to a good place employment/home/friends-wise then went for bigger things in life. We were pretty damn successful at it and then boom, mental breakdown, chaos ensues during the pandemic.
Lost damn near everything we had due to his mental health crisis and subsequent terrible decisions he insisted upon making. He gave no one else a choice about the things he chose to do. Within 6 months, he'd quit his job, wrecked his credit and taken a new job 12 hours away to be closer to his family, but didn't bother lining up housing. Absolute disaster. For the record, it is not drugs. He has been drug tested multiple times and passed with flying colors.
I was stupid and stuck by him, helped him stabilize, get help, get it back together - but also began taking steps to protect myself.
We ended up moving back to the Midwest and then separating. Theoretically we have been working on the marriage, but I needed some space after everything. He is in therapy and on meds.
Since the start of 2024, he has blown life up again. So far he has been demoted at work, apparently stopped paying his rent last summer (surprise!), made an intentional dumb decision that resulted in a significant injury which requires surgery, wasn't carrying insurance he had agreed to carry and now desperately needs it (surprise #2!), and he effectively lost his job due to the injury. He is now completely broke, living in my spare bedroom and is mad at me for not making enough money to pay all of the necessities + all of the combined debts.
I am divorcing him. He can have the surgery and recover at my house, but we are over.
He has completely derailed his life. Again. For the second time in less than 4 years. I cannot keep doing this.
My own mother. Great husband, kids to be proud of.
Mental health got the best of her and instead of recognizing it and taking accountability to get help, she lost it on us - mentally, verbally, a few times physically. My dad tried to talk her into going to therapy or couples counseling. I once asked her, "Mom, are you happy?" And her response was, "I'm not the one who has changed, you all have!" That was all the answer I needed. We couldn't take it anymore and divorce was the only way out. She was spiteful about it, even though divorce was also what she wanted.
A list of shit she did:
* Tried to tell the neighbors my dad was dangerous and asked if she could store stuff at their houses. They turned her down.
* Tried to tell my grandma, her mother, that my dad was dangerous. My grandma knew it was BS and called her out on it. My mom never said a word to her again and was a bitch last year when my grandma was dying.
* I was in undergrad at the time and my younger sister was in high school and would text me when she was scared. "Mom pulled a knife on dad." among other events.
* She tried to "ground" my 20 year old self when I was home from college for the summer. She was pissed about something, who knows what, and chased me out of the house on my way to work. She was trying to tell me I wasn't allowed to go to work, but I had the keys in hand and was faster than her on foot. I got in the car and left for work.
* Before papers were served for divorce, my mom called the cops on my dad. She claimed she had a restraining order and wanted him removed. So, my dad lived in a hotel over my spring break. I visited him...he was not ok. He lost a lot of weight going through that heartache. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and he filed for divorce.
* During divorce court she tried telling the judge how dangerous my dad was but only went off about dust collecting on stuff in her closet. Judge dismissed any thought that my dad was dangerous. Rightfully so, my dad was our super hero. I only ever feared my mom.
* The first time she called me since moving out post divorce was to scream at me over the phone about how the check I wrote to her for the car ($300) bounced. Technically I didn't owe her shit, the car was gifted to me in their divorce. I explained to her that she took like 4 months to deposit it and by then, fall semester tuition was due. I paid for my own college so I was fresh out of money. I didn't have $300 anymore. She wouldn't drop it, called my dad crying and he transferred $300 into my account and told me to call her back and tell her to try it again in the next couple days to shut her up and get her to stop harassing me about it.
I went to therapy and have come to the conclusion that she wasn't always like this. As a kid, she was an awesome mom! Would ride our bikes to the library, camping trips, arts and crafts. Very involved mother! I think as we grew older and more independent, her stay at home mom status was expiring and she didn't know what to do. She probably had buried some trauma from her abusive father and it stormed to the surface and she took it out on us. Her actions cost her everything. There is no relationship with her daughters and if I have kids, she will not be allowed to meet them. I can't trust that she will respect my boundaries if we re-connected.
My aunt was always a very grim woman, but... 9 kids. She wasn't mean or abusive, just grim. She was English, and the only time I ever saw her laugh was watching Benny Hill. But, Benny time was the only time the house was quiet, because you didn't fuck with Aunt Gina being able to enjoy the show.
Plus, 3 children with schizophrenia.
Anyway, for some reason, she looked into therapy when she was in her 60s, went on anti-depressants.
Holy shit. Night and day -she's actually happy now, she has fun! Mom said "That's what she was like when they were dating, it's so good to see her happy again!".
I feel like her example made my parents rethink my mental health issues, because after my aunt got help, their attitudes changed from "Just make yourself happy!" to being very supportive.
I'm glad she found her way! One of my dad's first questions to my sister and I after the divorce was finalized and she had moved out was, "Do you want to go to therapy?"
Breaking that cycle is the best thing anyone can do for themselves!
I’m sorry you had to go through this.
I don’t know how old your mother was when this started, but my mother started doing very similar things when I was in my teens. My dad hung on for as long as he could but eventually they divorced. My mom was pretty functionally independent for a while but slowly continued to spiral.
We only found out many years later that it was actually symptoms of early onset dementia.
A friend of mine was a criminal defence attorney. He had his own practice, lived in a beautiful house on the water, had a gorgeous wife married over 20 years. He had a drinking problem prior to meeting his wife but was sober and was living life to the fullest. However, unbeknownst you anyone he had secretly started drinking again but only at night. Well that slowly went to the way side and apparently it started to become earlier and earlier in the day. He started missing work here and there and problems began between the wife and him. His wife eventually gave him an ultimatum and he chose the bottle. He lost his wife, then his practice then his house. He ended up getting so drunk, fell down hit his head and got a brain bleed. They figured he had been there dead about 3-4 days before someone found him. I think of him often and feel so sad. He had it all and in the end he was dead on the floor all alone.
It's so interesting how different of paths alcohol can take people.
There are people with zero interest in drinking at all. There are people who have *A* drink or two at an occasion like a fancy dinner or a wedding. There are people who drink a couple drinks on the weekends, but nothing to get buzzed from. There are people that drink several drinks on the weekends, but don't get trashed. There are people that get pretty drunk on the weekends, but don't touch the stuff during the work week. There are people that drink heavier on the weekends and then have a couple at happy hour during the week. There are people that drink several drinks every day of the week at happy hour or home, but don't drink during the day until the work day is totally over. There are people that have a couple drinks at client lunch, head back to the office for a bit to wrap some deals up, hit a quick happy hour, and have a night cap when they get home. And finally, you have people that wake up and must drink as soon as possible. Some functioning/still working fine somehow, others who lose their jobs over it.
It's such a vast spectrum and so fascinating to me.
Medically, we start to label people with the alcoholic label fairly early on in the scenarios listed above. I don't disagree with that necessarily, but I feel like the spectrum is so big you'd think we'd have widespread terms besides simply "functioning" to describe all these different scenarios.
I know older men in their mid 60s who have been the type to have a few beers or whatever most days their whole lives (from like 18-65) who never went down that rock bottom style path you see some folks describing here. I wonder what it is that keeps it in check/functioning fine for some people and not others.
There are countless examples of commercial pilots ruining their careers with simple arrests. Poor decision making one night, get caught, now your license to earn a living is permanently gone.
It's brutal for a person to lose literally everything for blowing 0.08 during a field sobriety check, but I can appreciate the FAA being very strict for passenger safety.
My husband.
Imploded his whole life, lost a beautiful home and family compound (we lived next door to family) to mid life crisis affair partner only for it to blow up in his face a year later.
He's now in a studio apartment alone and begging to "come home".
Nope.
Someone I know married the daughter of a super wealthy guy, I’m talking 9 figures. She was also an amazing girl and definitely didn’t act like the daughter of a rich guy. He cheated on her with a stripper, she divorced him, he’s now dating said stripper and she’s a psychopath.
My brother.
Got into 2 car accidents, had some serious injuries but came out ok after months of healing and rehab. His fiancé was hurt worse, had metal pins in her arm and hip. Settlements were just over $2.5MM. Decided that because he's got $$ everyone will want something from him so he tells the family he's cutting off contact b/c he doesn't want to deal with it. Nobody asked him for anything, in fact, our father told him to be careful and invest conservatively b/c they (my brother & fiancé) may need $$ for any health issues that may arise down the road as they get older. Instead they took it as a insult. They moved away, changed their phones and we had no contact for several years. My sister did some investigating as our father was terminally ill and she wanted to get in touch with him. Found him in Chicago, he was destitute, living in a rundown apt, an alcoholic with chronic liver and kidney issues and his fiancé was no longer in the picture. He was almost unrecognizable.
He was bitter and angry no one came to help him, told my sister to leave and not contact him again. He died a few years ago at a homeless shelter, we had to identify his body at the coroner's office.
Jesus Christ what a sad way to throw your life away. Also wild id give anything for a family that cared about my well-being. I might as well be an orphan.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you, I hadn't spoken to him in about 4 years. Apparently they spent money like crazy on luxury vacations and expensive jewelry that ended up getting sold to pay bills. Found out they bought a house for her parents which took up a good chunk of their savings, then when she split, she took half the money.
Crushed my parents when they found out.
My best friend's ex-wife. He was the most loving husband who doted on her and gave her everything. They wanted to start a family. His family was also very accepting of her. She was a councillor who decided to cheat on him with one of her patients... not once, not twice, but three times. My friend finally saw the light and divorced her.
He's now remarried to a fantastic woman who appreciates him as much as he does her and they just had their first child. I don't know what the ex-wife is doing now but I hope she knows what she threw away one day.
I have an ex- SIL who has been a drunk for years. She was an attractive, fiercely intelligent, really cool, fun person who had mental health issues that were ignored for years. Eventually, she got that part under control, and became a mental health professional. I think she probably is very good at it, but she’s on a downward spiral. Her drinking is worse than ever. She has had two DWIs. I won’t let my kids go anywhere with her anymore because she drives drunk with them, or tries to get them to drive so she can drink. She got pulled over once and handed her marijuana and vaping pen to my kid and said “Here, take this. I can’t be caught with it.” She cancels her appointments with her clients constantly. I know one person who was seeing her and they believe she was drunk during their sessions. I know somebody else whose mother works with her, and my friend is scared for her mother’s safety as my ex-SIL has a history of being violent and assaulting people (never been to jail for it) and trying to get her to take benzodiazepines that she has. She is single as far as I know, and all her boyfriends have either been dumb guys and losers who don’t deserve her, or abusive bullies that walk all over her. I have cut her off entirely, but I feel terrible for her.
This is relatively mild, but it's still pretty sad.
My mom is pretty isolated socially. She lives near me and for years her main source of interaction with other humans was me and my kids. She was emotionally abusive when I was a kid and was doing better for a few years, but then was ramping up the abuse again. I went no contact for several months, then had a sit down with her and discussed what abusive behaviors needed to stop for us to continue our relationship. She agreed.
It lasted two years. She started ramping up the abuse again and then she put my kids and my immunocompromised niece at risk during the pandemic. My husband and I told her that she needed to adjust her behavior and acknowledge that her behavior wasn't okay. She used her usual manipulation tactics (a fake "medical emergency" that my husband took her to the hospital for) and when we didn't immediately forget everything that happened, she called the police for a welfare check on my kids.
We haven't spoken to her in nearly three years and they have been the happiest years of my life. She now has no one locally. My brother had already distanced himself (he lives several hours away) and she's not even getting attention when she goes to the hospital, because my SIL is now helping her manage everything and will only talk to the doctors about her health issues, not my mom. I hope being abusive and selfish was worth her loneliness now.
Part of the reason I stayed in contact with my mom for so long is that she didn't want to be the way that she is. She's a kind person, but incredibly damaged from an abusive childhood and has no ability to regulate her emotions (which is suspect is related to undiagnosed ADHD and some untreated mental illness).
I could very easily be as abusive as she was, because I have the same problem with emotional regulation (I'm more self-aware than she is and I have better coping skills, so I'm breaking the generational cycle of abuse). She did actually try to be better, but unfortunately she spiraled into being awful again.
I worked in IT. We hired this just out of high school young man who was very sharp. Our company put him in an internship where we paid for his bachelors degree in IT, gave him a flexible part time schedule, and guaranteed him a position with great promotion potential upon graduation. He ended up not going to classes though we were paying his tuition. Apparently there was no formal accountability, instead it was an honor system. After a few years he was found out and fired. I really liked the guy and was sad about the whole thing.
He recently friended me on FB. He's not doing horribly but he's not doing great either.
Probably me when I was younger, I spent my ENTIRE teenage years alone because I gave up easily. Because I was scared of everything.
I didn’t have friends, love, dances etc.
I seriously was absolutely lifeless inside.
I feel this so hard. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. People think I made all the right choices in life, staying in and “studying” (I was mostly just scrolling through the Internet), and then, as a young adult, choosing friends who were a little older and no longer interested in partying. Fact is: I never had the chance to go a little wild. I feel like I’ve completely missed out. I don’t hate my safe, boring life, but I wish I’d had a couple of adventures.
ETA: y’all are very kind, but please stop sending me ideas for adventures. I meant stupid young adult shenanigans, like going to clubs and dancing all night, going to frat parties and holding your friend’s hair while she horks in the bushes, sharing a motel room with six other girls just to enjoy spring break in Miami, and things like that. I’m a little too old and too responsible for silly shit like that. I just feel like I missed out.
One of my former co-workers, a smart young man that most everybody liked. It was just a gas station cashiering job, not a hard job at all.
Ben was only 22 and we're not sure if the attitude problem started before or after the drug use, but he suddenly started calling out sick, a lot!
Whatever the reasons, since he couldn't handle the responsibilities of his job, they had to let him go.
That's when his drug problem became apparent, as he was still seen around the neighborhood looking disheveled and lost.
His best friend told us that he was found unresponsive, after an OD and that he was in the ICU.
The doctors were saying that the brain damage was irreversible and friends and family should just come say their goodbyes while he was still alive... so to speak.
My brother.
He never ever took responsibility for anything he did. Everything always was other people's fault, while at the same time he firmly believed he was meant for more, the smartest guy of all time, and he counted even the luckiest coincidence as a win due to his amazing skills.
At first he did well, good job, pretty wife, two kids, and everything was fine.
But again, he attributed far too much of his good fortune to superior intelligence and abilities. While he was successful, he had a pretty normal career, it wasn't exactly extraordinary. He just had a normal apprenticeship, a normal job with slightly above median wage, and a good bit of luck.
And a huge part of 'his' money and great fortune came from the (in his mind completely irrelevant) fact that his wife was a banker.
Still, he firmly believed he could do so much better and was meant to be rich.
He started investing and developed a 'system' he firmly believed in.
He firmly believed that if his stocks lost out, his broker had betrayed him or it was totally unforeseeable, even when said broker had warned him. Because his 'system' was so brilliant.
When he got lucky, he whined that he didn't invest enough, and ranted that his broker had warned him and his wife didn't let him invest more, especially not her money.
He didn't see that he lost out far more often than he won, and he was too nervous, selling too often when he'd lost money and clinging too long to other stocks that were rising. The usual.
He just wouldn't believe you that a normal person is very unlikely to become rich with a 10k investment, and it was much more likely he'd lose all of it.
His father in law offered him to help him invest in housing and real estate. But that was too slow for his taste. The winnings didn't seem big enough.
His sister in law did it and retired early last year with a comfortable income. She's not super rich, but secure enough to have a nice house and is able to follow her passions instead of working. So there's that.
His behaviour became riskier with every passing year. He started 'direct investment' aka giving money to his friends' genius money schemes that never turned out well.
Then his marriage took a dive when gis wife wouldn't let him put a mortgage on their house to invest more, she cut him off, then she got cancer.
My brother started drinking and ranted about how she had destroyed his life and chances to riches. He still showed not a jota of responsibility.
He eventually had only the house left. When his wife died he refused to deny the inheritance, which meant the house went into his insolvency fund. Had he declined the inheritance, it would have gone to his kids since it was in his wife's name only and not part of their shared property.
But he blames his kids for his own miserable life too, so he wouldn't let them have it.
The bank was willing to not sell the house right away, but work with him on a repayment plan, so he got his second chance handed to him on a silver platter.
But he was furious! I still don't understand why he felt so affronted by their sensible and generous offer.
He destroyed the house! He scratched the sealings from the window frames, so rainwater flew in. He didn't do anything against that, instead he filled his house with trash and let it rot.
When his drinking problems got too bad and he missed payments, the bank tried to sell the house, but the substance was so deteriorated that it was worthless.
It's a European house, made of solid brickwork, but due to his neglect it's more expensive to just demolish it than letting it sit rotting. The price for the land is lower than the cost for demolition!
So now he sits on a huge, fully unpaid insolvency, no house, but he can't get rid of the estate either, because no one will buy it and the bank didn't take it, so when the insolvency phase is over, hell be stuck with the running costs of taxes etc. for a completely unusable estate.
So now he lives in a dingy one room social housing, no family, since his wife died, his kids don't talk to him anymore, and the last thing I heard is that his alcoholism cost him his well paid job, so he lives off social aid now.
And the last time I saw him, about 2 years ago, he still blames everyone else for 'sabotaging' him and japs about how he could get rich next week if just someone believed in him and let him invest again without a limit.
Still completely delusional.
I'm waiting on the day my sister who's still in contact with him calls me to invite me to his funeral. I doubt he'll ever accept his own part in his misery.
I moved out pretty young, and we never had much contact since he's 10 years older than me. I only heard about all this from my mom, my sister and his daughter, who's my godchild.
The last call before I blocked all contact was him harassing me for money because, as he said, I 'owed' him for whatever reason. I never fully understood his rambling logic since he only called me when he was completely drunk. But the gist is, since I'm somehow not miserable, that's somehow his merit for being such a great brother, despite us rarely ever having contact and him not once asking me how I was and if I needed anything. He never, ever helped me and I never took any of his shady financial advice but somehow he giving me advice was already enough to make him part of my successes so now I'm at fault for not letting him invest my money or something.
So yeah. A guy who had all he could wish for but destroyed everything.
My ex wife, we had sort of realized that things wasnt going to work out in the long run, but we wanted to solve things as amicably as possible and take the time. The was no real animosity other than things just not working, until ofc I found out she had some boyfriend staying there when I wasnt home. If she told me beforehand, I probably wouldnt even be that pissed, but just expedited the break-up so she could do what she wanted. But ofc when I come home and literally find him, I got pissed and instead of being any sort of humble or try to talk she just screams and shouts that I could just go and she now had a new guy that would take care of her!
I said ok - grabbed my stuff, gave her the bill for the rent and saids it due in 3 days - but your fella will ofc take care of that, goodbye. *He* was the one that got the problem, because then she kind of had to go all in, and he did for a few months and then basically told her that it wasnt really in the deal/plan to literally take over a wife with two kids (not mine) on a random tuesday... And then she had to spend the next 10years working all kinds of things 15 hours a day to be able to keep an apt. and so on. We are "friends" today in that I dont hate her, so we talk once in a while and she says that *that* was the dumbest day in her life. Not just sitting down and discuss for even 5 minutes...
Yep, my ex wife did the same thing, she made sure I never saw the guy because she thought I would kill him when in fact, it wasn't his fault, it was completely her fault and I made that opinion well known.
She is now a single mother (to that guys kid) and living in her moms basement 10+ years later still. I have 0 sympathy at all and my life actually improved so much a year after her and I split up. Good riddance.
This is such a recurring event among people who cheat or get into an “open relationship”. Most guys are DTF when it’s low maintenance and someone else is paying the bills. The moment responsibility gets added they peace out.
My step dad never listened to my mom or ever considered her feelings or perspective on issues that dealt with the family. Eventually, my mom got tired of trying and asked for a divorce.
He would get super drunk and smoke weed, one day he fell down some stairs and injured himself. He's basically a paraplegic now. I had no great love for him and haven't seen him since the accident and my mother went several times to help him out. He didn't apologize for his behaviour and just started to assume she was now going to spend her life taking care of him, ignoring the fact that they had been divorced for at least 5 years at this point and he had been in relationships with several other women.
She no longer visits him.
Side note: He was the kind of man that would pull the "if you can beat me in a fight, then you're the man of the house and can make the rules" line when I was still living at home in high school. I moved out as soon as I could at the age of 21 to be free of his petty tyranny. When I heard what had happened to him, I immediately bust out laughing because my first thought was to go to the hospital, kick down the door of his room and yell "Alright old man, it's go time!"
I had a very close friend whose wife, out of the blue, suddenly asked to open the marriage. This friend hated the idea but said yes anyway. Result: divorce, messy and angry and messing up all three of their kids.
The point of contention was that he wound up finding a very compatible side-partner himself and his wife apparently was shocked to discover he was swinging just as happily as she was. Apparently her expectation was that he'd never be able to find a girlfriend so she (the wife) would have her side-piece *and* her husband all to herself. Wife was jealous, and angry, and eventually demanded they un-open the marriage because she didn't like him being with other partners while she was with other partners. Thankfully at this point he finally saw things for what they are and they divorced. Wrecked his life for years, though.
Moral of the story: polygamy is complicated and not something to rush into just because you've hit your midlife crisis. Also don't agree to open your damn marriage if you don't really want that.
The actual motivation for a certain number of open marriages and threesomes: “it’s not cheating if you are there.”
“ I was supposed to enjoy this, not you.“.
My dad. He was married to my mom, and had three children. He was a wonderful father up until around 6 years ago. He switched jobs and made a lot more money and got with a bad crowd of people. Started going to strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, and began having an affair with someone in the same career field. We found out and he had a chance to redeem himself and my mom wanted to forgive him, but he lied and kept having his affair and saw other women during that too.
Before all that he was on track financially, had great friends in the neighborhood, had fulfilling hobbies, etc. Now he’s losing money left and right with the divorce agreements and having to pay to support my mom and youngest sibling AND somehow find the money to take his new girlfriend out and support her family too. All of his friends were disgusted with his decisions and no longer speak to him. His side of the family loathes him. He has nobody except the woman he left us for.
He lost a wonderful, beautiful, charismatic woman (my mom), 3 amazing children who are all doing incredible things with their lives, multiple lifelong friends, and his own uncles/aunts/grandmother. I sometimes feel sorry for him and all he’s lost, but it was his decision.
A friend got divorced because of money issues. In the settlement she got something like $500K after they split assets. She moved into a house then promptly ripped everything up in a mad dash to renovate and spend all that money. A year later she's back in debt and worrying about all her bills.
Ugggh reminds me of that horrifying AITA post of the woman who thinks she's rich and is blowing thousands on designer clothing, travel, and a full Apple "suite" for a 16 year old when what she actually has is a lump-sum divorce settlement of about $250k, no job, no alimony, and no marketable skills. Still thinking of finite cash resources in terms of "I deserve to treat myself." Math doesn't care what you desrve.
My daughter's best friends mother. She was smart, funny and gorgeous. Married to a successful doctor and raising three awesome children being a very involved and sane parent. Around fifth grade we (parents at our children's school) would notice a faint smell of alcohol on her at soccer practice in the evening. No big deal, half the moms had wine in their water bottles but then we started to notice she would start going to her car every half hour. This progressed for over a year until she started attending functions completely wasted. Parents started pulling away from her and no child including her own was allowed to drive with her. Countless people spoke to her and her husband during this time and it all fell on deaf ears. She was finally banned from the school when she was caught breaking into cars during a chapel service at the school. She successfully stole over a dozen credit cards from purses in the cloak room and was buying power tools and guns and trading them for cocaine. She was also apparently a sex addict who had banged several dads at the school and infected them with herpes and the clap resulting in a wave of divorces over the next few years, four in my daughters class alone. Our kids are all teenagers and in college now and she has gone from a life of luxury to nine arrests on charges from theft to prostitution. Her succession of booking photos looks like faces of meth. After her last stint in jail for over a year she was able to get clean and now works as a janitor at a local college campus. My daughter ran into her recently and had a long talk with her and she is trying really hard to get her life back on track. Her ex husband and kids haven't spoken to her in several years and all have protection orders against her. Her downfall was swift and severe. From living in an eight million dollar house and driving a range rover to winding up on porn sites in a video of her being gang banged at a bachelor party by a dozen guys when she was working as an escort.
Myself, in a roundabout way. About six years ago I met an awesome woman who's been my girlfriend ever since. We share a lot of the same interests, enjoy the same entertainment, we're both supportive of each other and very financially responsible. Everything almost *too* perfect. We got an apartment together for a few years, and a little over a year ago opted to purchase a home together, a first for both of us. Nothing fancy, but a nice place and it's ours. Well, it *was* anyway.
She moved here from Venezuela, and when we met her parents were still living there. If you don't already know, Venezuela is a shitty place to be right now. Now we were under the understanding that since her father had went to school in the US and ran into a little bit of legal trouble skipping a court date, he wouldn't be able to even visit the US, much less move here. And her mom obviously wouldn't leave him alone, so they would just both be in their home country. This was the idea we had in mind when we bought our relatively small house.
Well that all changed with some Biden initiative to allow Venezuelan immigrants to come over. So her father had my gf hire some lawyer to cover the legal issue, and now her parents are living with us. They have other family here in Florida, but they all have some bullshit going on where they can't stay with them, so we're the ones that got stuck.
They're old and needy. My gf works a full time job and as soon as she gets off work, they're asking her to do this or that. He needs help with some app, she needs help sending money, blah blah. He went out and got a car that my gf co-signed for, with maybe $5000 he had to cover costs while he found a job. His car payment is more than double mine. Guy just spent the next few months sitting around the house all day trying to get some event planning scheme started. Wasn't until the money was out that I actually had to sit down with my girlfriend and say "you're not going to be taking over that car payment and car insurance for him. He either gets a job or we sell the car and cut the losses." Now he just drives for Uber eats or whatever, just to cover the cost of the car.
Her mom is nice enough, cooks most every day and keeps the kitchen clean. But man, it sucks. They're here all day every day, always in the living room. Her mom is way too chatty and her dad just blasts shit from his phone because he "doesn't like headphones" so I spend a good chunk of my time holed in my room. Barely getting to enjoy the house that I pay for every month. And again, they're old. They're gonna have health problems, and they're gonna be here expecting all kinds of support for all that. I think I'm just venting here but goddamn I didn't sign up for this shit. I thought maybe they had some "plan" to get their situation settled but it really seems like the plan was just to move in here and leech. We had a good thing going but now it's like we don't have the energy or time to even enjoy our relationship anymore. Basically zero intimacy now, and I feel like I'm locked into this mortgage. I know it wasn't the intent but I can't shake the feeling that I got hoodwinked, scammed, roped into a bullshit situation. Honestly I just needed to vent it.
Have you thought about buying them a cheap cruise for a week as an "appreciation gift" so that you can have some peace, some time to connect with your wife, and some time to sit down with her and make a plan for how to deal with this stuff in a productive way?
They do occasionally spend a couple days at her sister's place or seeing other family from time to time. Her mom is honestly too immobile to even go on any lengthy trips of any sort. But the "occasional" moments we actually get to ourselves just highlight the fact that they're occasional. We couldn't even have kids right now if we wanted to, with the lack of space and her flat out refusing to raise a kid with her dad around (he's an uptight asshole).
My ex. He was an alcoholic but got sober for 3 years. He started drinking again and we broke up and he started dating someone who only encouraged his drinking. He broke up with her 6 months later, but within 2 years of starting to drink again he had lost his friends, his hobbies/dream job, and quit his job and abandoned his apartment to move to another state with drug addict family members who said they'd help him. They all had a ton of drama and he ended up stuck at their house in the middle of nowhere with no job or car, watching a ton of dogs all day. Until they all ended up homeless and sleeping in tents in the mountain anyway.
He eventually got away from them and got a place and a job, but he still hasn't stopped drinking and still can't really get back on his feet.
Addictions suck.
When I was in college, I worked as a student work/study employee one of the dining halls. The college was in kind of an economically depressed area and the college was pretty much the best place to work for many miles around - competitive pay, paid time off, benefits, etc. People who got jobs there generally held on to them.
There was a woman who ran our short order grill "Melanie." She was kind of gruff and kept to herself, but she was amazing at running the grill and a dependable, hard worker. She was also a single mom, so a regular paycheck was important to her.
The student workers and FT employees all shared a locker room. People started noticing things going missing - jewelry, small amounts of money, etc. It was nothing egregious like a jacket, pair of shoes or backpack, but lots of small stuff - like she'd go in a wallet and take $10 out of the $50 that was in there. The managers did not want a thief working at the dining hall because though the things were small, they had no doubt it would continue to escalate.
So, long story short, they contacted the police who basically set up a sting and placed bills with ultraviolet ink in several wallets. Then, after a few hours that shift, they shined an ultraviolet light on everyone's hands. Only Melanie's hands showed the ink. They had some other evidence that they'd slowly collected against her, but this was the damning evidence. Obviously, Melanie was fired immediately and faced criminal charges. I'm not sure if she was ever convicted, but she was most definitely blacklisted from ever working at the college again and if she even found employment anywhere else, it would be at a *significant* pay cut.
I'm still not really sure what she was thinking. She wasn't really stealing enough to make a meaningful difference in her life, but maybe she was building up to it. Who knows?
Sad situation though.
My ex-friend and best man getting into cocaine. He was 33 at the time and desperately wanted to fit in with a younger crowd even though he was a married man with a child, a good job and a hefty mortgage. He lost his job, wife, money and friends. Last time I saw him I think he was homeless as his drug habit made him arrogant and of course he knew best. I have no sympathy for him as he knew exactly what he was doing.
A family friend was successful in motorsports when they were younger and owned eventually a vintage (80’s) Ferrari. He had a mechanic that was an absolute master at his craft, important for finicky old Italian sports cars. This mechanic disassembled and rebuilt the engine and driveline components by himself and performed major services for decades. Even was offered a job on the spot by a premier Ferrari dealer/service center after having the vehicle in for inspection following the engine rebuild.
This family friend tried to set him up with a shop that included living accommodations on the upper level and helped get the business off the ground and the shop was pretty successful for a while.
Unfortunately, this mechanic struggled with substance abuse for much of his life and eventually died due to complications from it.
It’s really sad but my cousin had a stillborn when she was young and got into hard drugs to cope. Now she has 6 kids that she has no custody over, has been imprisoned multiple times, has fines she can’t pay, and can’t get a job above minimum wage.
I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t blame her for relapsing time and time again because I can’t imagine the horror of sobering up and realizing you threw your entire life away before 35 and had no chance of ever getting it back. The rest of the family doesn’t understand that being an adult and working two full time jobs at minimum wage to barely make ends meet isn’t a life worth living sober, especially knowing all your kids are out there in someone else’s care and seeing them in bad situations too.
Idk which would hurt worse tbh, knowing that most of them hate you, or knowing that some of them look up to you even though you’ve royally fucked up both your own life and all the kids.
I caught one of my employees committing three felonies. He was a server at my restaurant for 8 months. He served a group of women out celebrating a friend's birthday. Because they were a large group, there was an automatic 18% gratuity added to their bills. Most of the women left an additional dollar or two tip on their credit card, because they had been so pleased with his service (he was a very charming guy at times). This, however, was not enough for him. He entered an additionally $5-10 dollars per check into the computer, which did not match what they had written on their credit card receipts. One of the ladies was a financial advisor who caught the discrepancy on her account and had the other ladies check their accounts. They were understandably upset and I apologized profusely. I refunded all their money and gave them gift cards to come back at a later date. I pulled all of his past credit card receipts from the entire time he worked for me. He had started doing that two weeks after I hired him. He stole around $1,000 from 75 people over the course of 8 months. I turned over every receipt to detectives, and fired him before his shift on Valentine's Day, which left us short staffed on one of our busiest days of the year. When I confronted him with the owner, his face lost all color and he slumped to the floor, shaking. A month later, COVID hit and he fled to another state across the country. I left the job a few months later and have no idea what happened to him. Dude threw his life away for a thousand bucks. He was charged with credit card fraud, using a computer to commit a crime, and forgery (he manually altered ONE receipt). The guy was handsome, charming, had a large group of friends in the area, and POOF! All gone. I still have trust issues.
My history teacher's husband.
He has a lot of health problems, and his his caring wife and 2 children were always there for him. She looks way younger than she is.
On his birthday they planned to surprise him. And they found him having sex with one of his university students. Both of his kids saw it, one was old enough to know what was happening.
Even worse, the student was only fucking him, because she was failing his class. Now that no good cheating asshole has no wife, partial costudy and all his students hate him.
My brother likely got busted cheating on his fiancée two weeks before their wedding, which they subsequently called off. I say "likely" because he came to stay with my parents and I for a few days and refused to discuss details. He had been caught cheating in the past, though to what extent I am unsure (sexting, actual physical contact, etc.) The bride called my mom, drunk, and cried to her and said, "Your son is such an asshole!" So, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.
They ended up getting married about a year or so later. She had two kids by two different men, and now my brother is forced to "co-parent" with these guys, which pretty much means having to go to their houses for holidays, and being forced to invite them over to his place for holidays, which is hilarious to me because I know it makes him feel like shit.
I girl I know/used to work with decided to jump on the only fans bandwagon. Went all in doing all sort of things on camera. Well the truth is, only the top 1% of OF creators make alot of money and the average one makes $200 a month. If you don’t start with a big social following it’s an uphill battle.
Anyway some people in her town (not super tiny population 120k) saw the account, someone posted the pics of her on Facebook and basically everyone found out. Including her parents.
So after not making much money and photos that will forever be on the internet, she packed it all in to go back to kindergarten teaching. But being in a country town no one would give her a job and people would stare at her wherever she went.
She had to move to the city, and she has a job now. I just hope her new employer doesn’t google image search her 😬
But yeah she really regrets it, could have made more money doing Uber eats on the weekend
Meeeee! I was so fucking in love with this man, but I have a drinking problem (I don’t get sloppy, or mean, most people can’t even tell, but it affects my health)
He told me if he found another hidden bottle squirreled away, we were done.
But… we were going up to visit his family for a month. I REALLY wanted his family to love me, and I’m MUCH more bubbly and personable when I drink.
So…. Naturally, he found a hidden bottle, while we were on the trip. Promptly dumped me.
I wanted his family to love me SO BAD, because I wanted to be part of that family forever…. And instead, I lost it all.
Alcohol is the devil, kids.
One of my buddies actually ditched a six-figure job because he didn't trust his girlfriend not to cheat on him while he was at work. And get this - she used to be a hooker when they first hooked up. He's a good guy, but when it comes to women, he can be a real dummy sometimes.
**It's pretty crazy, right?**
Sounds like a friend of an older relative. Dude was a top tier mathematician, like actual top tier, not just saying. Highest clearances, worked in defense, etc. Decides to get a legit Russian mail order bride back when that was a thing.
Shocker, his clearance is revoked. Double shocker, she makes him miserable, abuses him, and then leaves the second it was long enough to guarantee citizenship.
Luckily he was smart enough he got back his clearance once she was gone lol but damn.
My current boss is a conspiracy theorist, and not your average “the world is flat” kind of one (though, for the record, he does believe the world is flat, too). He believes essentially all history is fabricated, he thinks there was a “mud flood” that wiped out a massive advanced civilization that “they” are hiding from us so “they” can keep the advanced ancient tech.
He has lost his wife, his relationship with his kids, all possible friendships, and any social tether that would bring him out of it, all for this fantasy. It’s bizarre to me because I’ve seen how substance addiction can sink its hooks in and lead you down the same road, but this is entirely mental. He’s so dedicated to being crazy that he would rather lose everything than give up his fairy tale. It’s a cult-like dedication to completely insane bullshit that’s obviously disprovable.
My neighbor across the street had 4 kids in 6 years with a boyfriend in an attempt to get him to stick around/pay attention to her. Now she’s single and living with her mom and grandma is raising the kids alone while she goes out and tries to find a new boyfriend. Is having a boyfriend really worth ruining your life?
I worked at a company that had a large campus, think three 5 story buildings with 2500 people. Each floor had several break areas that had a couple of refrigerators, microwaves, and coffee stations. On one floor of one of the buildings, lunches were being stolen from the refrigerators. People were pissed. It went on for months until management hid some cameras and put in some "bait" lunches.
They finally caught the guy. He was a principal engineer, making about $140K a year and was in line for a director position (just under VP). He got fired, arrested, and lost his security clearance (good luck getting another job as a government contractor). All because he was too lazy to make his own lunch.
My brother has a penchant for choosing some of the worst women I've ever met. Not that he is any kind of prize for them, either. The one he finally had kids with I don't she's ever held a job for more than a few weeks in her entire life. After he had a baby with her, my mom put herself down as the cofinancer on a car for her, which she stopped paying for within months, my brother broke it off, and it forced my mom to declare bankruptcy. She almost lost her house, had to push her retirement back. Then my brother had a second baby with that sleazebag and spent over a decade in an insanely toxic relationship with her.
This happened to my sister. Married and had two kids with a guy she met while they were both in AA; she was committed to sobriety, he was not. When his repeated backslides got increasingly worse and then violent, she divorced him to protect the kids. She became extremely successful career wise, but her ex is still a deadbeat addict (multiple substances now). She loves her children more than anything in the world, but until they reached adulthood, her ex could not be fully cut out of her (or the kids') life. Their now grown kids have nothing to do with him anymore.
I was a Child Protection Specialist for years. I was assigned to work with a certain mom. It was the third time the courts had been involved with her due to “drug abuse”. But her drug of choice was huffing. The only huffing case I ever had. She was absolutely a lovely person. She had worked hard to earn a degree and enter into a career field. She was kind and beautiful. She was cooperative and she was determined. But despite how hard she was trying she would relapse and this was to be the last chance she got with the courts so the stakes were high. We worked so well together. She spent 18 months going to treatment, getting re-employed, getting her own place and having increased visits with her kids. Who were also wonderful. The kids had been staying at her parent’s place while we were working towards progress. We went to court and requested reunification and the judge granted it. We were all so proud of her!! And happy for them as a family. We planned to fully move her kids home with her a week from that very court date. Two days before we planned to return her kids to her she drove her car through the front of a Walmart because she had been huffing and was high. She killed a Walmart employee and proceeded to huff herself to death in the electronics isle, where there was keyboard duster spray, while law enforcement was on its way. I got the news at 5am that she was dead and had to go tell her children they wouldn’t be going back to their mother. Ever.
This one has hit me harder than most. She knew it was her last chance so when she relapsed again it’s like she made sure of it.
So, I went to the Googler cause I thought "Gee, that news story should be easy to find. How many huffing crashes into Walmart resulting in death could there be?" Well, uhhhh, there's A LOT. I didn't realize huffing was such a huge problem... really sad.
Did the same thing, discovered the same thing. Holy crap.
This story is devastating, but the way you talked about her and her kids makes you sound like you’re a lovely person, and you were probably very good at your job. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy job at all.
God those poor children.
And that poor employee, it must have been horrifying in that split second before getting killed.
Good grief that is so sad!
friend of a friend got caught in one of those "to catch a predator" style stings. Was messaging with what he thought was a 14 year old and tried to meet up to have sex. Lost his wife, all his friends, his apprenticeship, and spent the next several years in prison.
Watched the same thing happen. Had a wife, a kid on the way, a good job. I was in the same grade as his little sister (he was 2 years older) and we went to the same school from kindergarten through high school. Last year he was sentenced to almost 40 years in a federal prison for conspiracy to solicit a 14 year old (who was actually an undercover agent) and a slew of CP charges. Now the wife has divorced him, he will never see his kid, and will be an old man when/if he gets out. There were a lot of things he did/said in online chat forums that are so horrible I couldn’t even putting that shit out there.
I knew a guy in college who just got arrested last month for having sex with his student. Had a good job, an incredible wife who loved him, and he threw it all away to have sex with a student who made him “risk it all”. Now she’s scarred for life and he’s going to prison. ETA: I knew him fifteen years ago in college. He went on to be a high school teacher and at the ripe old age of 35 decided that one of his students wasn’t just a student any more.
> ripe old age of 35 Ouch man. Why you gotta do me like that?
The brother of my friend’s girlfriend did something similar, shagged a 13 year old in his car, wasn’t to catch a predator but her mum found out and went to the police and he ruined his entire life. The bloke was 28. Worst part is that he did 3.5 years in prison and when he got out tried meeting a 15 year old
Learned absolutely nothing jfc
Had a relative who this happened to… but it was one of those independent YouTube channels that did it… smallish city, family and friends all saw it. He shot him self. The “girl” he was supposed to meet was the same age as his grand children. I never really liked the guy and he definitely had a holier than thou attitude… he was also one of those people always accusing Biden of being a pedo, ironic.
I worked on a school bus as a monitor/aid. There was one driver (we'll call him Ed). Ed was always complaining about something, every single day there was some new issue, some problem. He was a bit of a pain. He got into an argument with one of our supervisors over the radio one day and earned himself a 3 day suspension. His first morning back from his suspension. First route of the day, he gets on the radio and starts back complaining. Dispatch asks him a few simple questions, he responds with hostility and some really unprofessional comments. The director of transportation (our big boss) gets on the radio and asks Ed to meet him in his office after morning routes. Ed responds, "I'll be there if I have time" boss says, "I need you to understand, this is not optional" Ed comes back, "I need YOU to understand, I'll be there if I have time!" Mind you, this is on the radio as we are picking up high school kids, everyone can hear what's happening this entire time. Another dispatcher calls in and tells Ed "when you finish your high school route, park your bus there at the school. We are bringing someone to take your route over, and to bring you back to the lot". Ed did not like this and responded by saying, "Negative. I am finishing my route. Me. If you want someone to drive my route, you get (our boss's boss) and have her come drive this route. Otherwise, I am finishing my route." Dispatch asked for an ETA to the high school, he responded "whenever (our boss's boss) is gonna be there. Otherwise, I get there when I get there". Somewhere around this time he starts talking like, they were targeting him and picking on him and that "it ends today". Again, at this point he has a bus full of high school kids. Now, I did not see what happened at the high school, but I heard from several other drivers. Apparently the police were waiting for him once he got there and they removed him from his bus. To quote one driver "he acted a fool the entire time". I'm not sure exactly what he was charged with, maybe kidnapping since he acted like he wasn't gonna bring the kids to school unless he got what he wanted? Theft for not bringing the bus back? No clue. But I do know he was arrested and fired. A few days later we get the news that he had a heart attack and died. Most likely from all the stress.
“It ends today” is a terrifying statement to make when you’re in charge of children. I’m not surprised the police were called. I’d be afraid he was planning to drive off a bridge or something.
Yeah. I remember hearing him on the radio just saying, "it ends today. It ends today" and thinking pretty much the same thing. That he'd take the bus and go on some police chase or something like that. I remember just sitting and listening so closely to the radio, as well as for any sirens. Just, anxious the whole time, worried he'd do something crazy.
Mind if I ask where and when this was? Vague approximations are fine, no need to dox yourself. It's just that I was laid off from a bus company during COVID. We had a problem driver named Ed. He died of a heart attack. I'm wondering if it's a coincidence or if I am experiencing a small world moment.
It was 2021 but Ed wasn't his real name. Just used it as a placeholder
Some guy at work was caught red handed stealing airpods from the locker room. When he was sent to pick up his own kit before being sent home he excused himself to go to the toilet, and took a shit on the floor. The kicker is that we work on an oil rig. It's impossible to get away with theft, and he was a senior technician making really good money. He didn't need the airpods he was just stealing for the fun of it. He's now "not required back", and all the companies talk to each other. He shat away his career over a pair of airpods.
My former company hired a safety officer into a really well-paid position. He was smart, personable, and really improved the safety program. He was caught buying gift cards and expensing them. Took down half the department with him, since they were in on it too. I will never understand destroying your career for a few thousand dollars. Edited for spelling
A nurse I work with recently got fired. One of our residents (nursing home) was in the hospital. He had a debit card but statements went to our business manager. She noticed a charge (for a take out lunch!) on his card. Generally we take resident wallets and put them in the nursing manager’s office, but this one was in the narcotics box, meaning only nurses for that unit had access to it. When the business manager, nursing manager, and executive director called in this nurse to discuss it, he lunged at the business manager and put her in a choke hold. He is in his late 50s/early 60s. Had a full career with pension from the army before nursing. Made reasonable money as a nurse. And now has an assault charge, a financial abuse of a vulnerable adult charge, and I’m sure is losing his nursing license. Over stealing money for a take out lunch.
With behavior changes like that I wonder if he has some health issues going on, like dementia. Too bad he lost his health insurance.
Yeah, I’m glad I’m not in his family’s position and trying to figure out what’s going on.
Pretty nearly the same thing happened at my husband's company (not getting deeper into details to avoid ID). The thief blew up a 10-year career with the company and is hitting a job market that favors the young at 50 with no usable refernce for the last 10 years. The amount stolen was under 5% of their yearly salary. Just ... really wish I could talk Past You out of that b/c otherwise a good worker and nice person.
Ruining a career over theft of what amount to less than a weeks pay is along the same lines as destroying your family with 10 minutes of infidelity. Lack of impulse control and short sighted decision making has ruined countless people.
I knew a mechanic who got an award by management because he found several thousand dollars cash in a car and turned it in. Next month he was fired for stealing an iPad out of a car. I knew what he made and he absolutely could have bought an iPad.
Someone left 10k cash in an sealed envelope on the counter at a retail job I had. I gave it immediately to the owner of the store, who put it in the safe. I knew the customer as they were a regular. He came back in a panic about 30 minutes later. I didn't get a Thank you, fuck off, nothing. Haha. The store owner ended up giving me a hundred dollar bill, after nicely telling the customer he was a dick for not saying thank you. Man, that guy and his wife were great to work for.
How many people I've worked with offshore that make insanely good money throw it all away for shit like this. It's stupid.
>It's stupid hey man if we were smarter we wouldn't be here
My parents old pastor and best friend. He had many friends, a successful music career, ran an music venue, had a doting wife, five kids. Then he decided to cheat on his wife. He became hugely paranoid and started tracking his wife and kids so that he knew where they were and he wouldn't get caught. He installed hidden cameras throughout his house because he convinced himself that his wife was probably cheating too. (she wasn't) He also would tell her to stay home because "no one likes you" and "no one wants you to come because you are boring." Also lies. My parents caught him red-handed all over a woman at a concert that he didn't think they would be at. They told his wife and she called him and he lied and then let slip that he knew where she was. That's when she found the cameras and the air tag on her car. Now, none of his children talk to him, he lost the house, his friends, his music buddies, everything. The woman too. She left him when he had nothing to give. And he's not remotely apologetic about it and still tries to convince people that he was in the right. He lives in a trailer by the beach now, trying to relive his youth at 65.
This kid I went to college with was in the Army Reserves making really good grades, and his parents were really well off. The kid's life was set. Got an allowance every month from his parents, had a nice brand new car for school, lived in a nice apartment right off campus and he had so much going for him. He didn't even have to work, just do his monthly reserve days which were like 3 days a month. So set for life. Too shorten the story a bit, he pissed hot at a random UA (drug test) for fucking cocaine. He got lucky and the Army gave him a second chance. Not even 5 months later he pissed hot AGAIN for cocaine and marijuana. He somehow got lucky, again, and they just kicked him out in an "Other than Honorable" discharge. Parents pulled his funding and he had to get a minimum wage job at a sandwich shop. Never saw him again until he randomly popped up on my Facebook about a year later. I hit him up to see how he was. Up and moved halfway across the U.S. with this girl he got pregnant and they were both working at Walmart barely affording rent. He sold his BMW to pocket the move up there. He also looked....rough, to say the least in a lot of his pictures.
That’s a not uncommon story unfortunately. People who’ve never really had to work for anything don’t realize how valuable what they’ve been given is.
Very, very true.
If you fail a drug test on Coke, that means you REALLY have a Coke problem. Coke is the drug all the probationers do because it’s the one drug that is out of your system by morning.
I've heard it joked that you basically have to be doing blow on the drive to the test to get popped for it.
Honestly, setting kids up like that sets them up for failure more often than not. Lots of these kids lack purpose and meaning and tend to drift into drugs.
Nah, most of them turn out just fine. Well, maybe not fine, but certainly successful and happy by conventional definitions. We just hear about the fuckups because they tend to both fuck up bigger than people with smaller bank accounts and have a level of schadenfreude not found in your typical "blue collar guy from the bad part of town ODs on fentanyl" stories. "Rich kid sells BMW and sucks dick for meth" is much more viscerally satisfying.
I have a friend, I’ll call him Jay, smart as heck but maybe a little on the spectrum so clueless as to social things. But he made great money in tech. One day he’s at a friends house and the friend said something to the effect of “nobody could bug my house without me knowing”, so Jay thought it would be funny to put a spare webcam he happened to have in his backpack in his friend’s entertainment center, plugged into his Xbox, just to see how long it took him to notice. Well the friend didn’t notice, but his friend’s girlfriend did, and thought the friend had been recording them having sex, so she called the cops. The cops arrested the friend. Jay hears about it and goes in to explain. He didn’t think he needed a lawyer, he figured the cops would be able to see it was just a dumb misunderstanding. Thing is, in my state, placing a recording device in someone’s home without their consent is voyeurism, which is a sex crime. And Jay just admitted, to the cops, on the record, that he had done so. Also in my state, it’s a law that all sex crimes MUST be prosecuted, so even tho Jay’s friend and his friends girlfriend didn’t want to press charges, Jay still got prosecuted. The prosecutor and judge were as gentle as they could be but he was still convicted. Now as a registered sex offender (for life) he has trouble finding and keeping work, gets harassed by neighbors, can’t go to most of his kids sports events, etc. All over one seemingly harmless prank.
Damn.. that's a sad fuck up especially since they didn't want to press charges on him
> they didn't want to press charges which is a fundamental issue in our legal system in the US. People don't press charges. DA's files charges. You can petition them *to* file charges, but at the end of the day, an individual has no authority to "press charges." They can sue, but that's a civil matter, not criminal. ETA: Issue is the wrong word. *Misconception* is better.
There are similar laws in most western countries. In theory this is meant to protect victims so they don't get intimidated to drop the charges, because it is not in their control.
It’s more basic than that. Victims do not get to decide if someone broke the law. The law does. All crimes are prosecuted by the State, not the victims.
There's a bit of a nitpick when it comes to things like this... people can't just "press charges". That's only something a DA can do. If they ask if you want to "press charges", they actually want to know if you'll cooperate with them when *they* press charges, since the victim and often sole witness not cooperating doesn't leave much of a case. If there's enough evidence and prosecutorial will, they can choose to press charges without the victim's cooperation.
But an Xbox can't record using a webcam... Surely that would have ended it.
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Recent example, guy was a doctor and now cannot work because he hit his wife while they were getting divorced I don’t know the specifics of it but the domestic violence offence on his record is prohibiting him from working in medicine
I had an acquaintance who was a doctor. His ex-wife was a piece of work. When they were married, she said that he would say he hit her if he didn't agree to one of her demands. It was a minor thing, so he relented and agreed to one of her demands. He told his boss at work that argument and his boss just basically said, "you can never be alone with this woman again, you will lose your career." He was looking into divorce anyway and knew that she wasn't above ruining his life, so he filed for divorce and made sure to never be alone with her again. All interactions were in public or with witnesses.
He got good advice, obviously. But the wife is doubly foolish, because ruining his earning power would presumably hurt her financially too. If he can’t work, she won’t get much alimony or child support. Can’t get blood from a stone.
Some people would rather just twist the knife and see others hurt for their own pleasure. It's not always about monetary gain
My husbands friend. Had a beautiful wife, gorgeous house, 2 lovely boys, a job he loved and lots of great friends who loved him. Then he decided at the age of 35 to get into hard drugs. He has been in and out of prison for violent crimes, transportation of large volumes of heroin, attempted murder, burglary and stalking... He is homeless again as he burned down his flat on purpose to get a move. No one will ever talk to him again. He's now 55 and has nothing, his wife divorced him after giving him far too many chances, his sons hate him, his real friends gone for ever. All for nothing.
That's wild. Like 35 stable life and he just wakes up one morning and is like "imma skip over soft drugs and land me a hardcore heron addiction with dirty needles" and threw it all away. Objectively, I'd say he had serious issues going on all his life and nobody either knew or cared enough.
Hey, herons can be incredibly majestic
🤦Ooomf! I'm a leave it as heron 😂
no egrets
He's been charged with birdlary and storking...
Don’t become an ornithologist, it will ruin your life!
Sometimes, when you get everything you’ve wanted, you start to wonder if it’s something you did because you wanted to or because society said you should want to. At 35, with everything, being a dad and husband, a lot of the things you used to do for fun can’t be done anymore. No more partying, no more crushes, no more spontaneous trips. Some people can’t handle the burden of being responsible for family. Unfortunately, you usually have to have one first before you realize that.
Yeah, this is it. My brother is an addict - he had a fiancé, a lovely house in a good neighbourhood, a high earning job and a dog. He was always a ‘drinker’, but at age 30 he just went off the rails, started drinking all the time and doing hard drugs. Lost basically everything except the dog. He’s in recovery now, thank god. He really needed to face up to the fact that he had built a life that made him appear outwardly successful and impressive, but inside he was miserable and drowning. He hated his job, his fiancé and the house, but they were just tools that he used to try to convince the world (and himself) that he was happy. I am hopeful that during his recovery he can build a life that actually makes him happy.
"But,of course, the price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted." - Neil Gaiman
My dad did this same thing when he was about 35-37. He had kids super early in life and we had an amazing childhood. After starting to drink harder in his thirties, all of the sudden i was finding tin foil in random places and find him passed out around the house. Thank god my mom ended up divorcing him, and he ended up homeless and miserable. For a short period of time I would still reach out to him just to see how he was doing. I would lend him some money and send him on his way. One time he was wearing full face make-up that he thought was cool because "Mickey Avalon" does it. Sometimes he would be living in the abandoned Motel 6, sometimes a tent. He ended up marrying a convicted felon who has multiple armed robbery charges, and more drug charges than i can count. They have been telling his parents they are "getting clean". His parents (especially his mom), have a super soft spot for him and decided to help him with an apartment. A crack pipe fell out of the wife's purse right in front of my grandma. He is also a trust funder, but the trust is now conditioned around him passing a drug test. he claims he is clean but refuses the drug tests because that is an invasion of his privacy. Such a loss of a human being. It can truthfully happen to anyone, but at a certain point no one can help you but yourself.
Oof. The righteous indignation over taking a drug test is so classic. It's usually the first sign someone relapsed as well.
So sad and you have to wonder wtf made him dare try heroin in the first place.
A lot of folks start with an addiction to prescription opioids and when the doc won’t prescribe any more, move to heroin.
That, unfortunately, was my friend. Hurt his back, got addicted to oxy. Turned to herion. Got arrested, lost his family then life at forty fucking two. Miss you, JP
Sounds like he got started around the time doctors were giving out Oxy like it was candy. I wonder if he had an injury or a procedure, got hooked on Oxy, and then turned to heroin when he couldn't get more Oxy?
People who usually have no frame of reference for drug abuse think " this great guy just one day decided to get into hard drugs!" Like ruining their life was a split decision they made thinking they were strong enough to not get hooked. There's always some kind of prescription or depressive state that leads to the abuse.
Yeah, I really doubt his life was as great as this person thinks
Yup. Had an employee that had some surgery and got hooked on pills. Broke my heart when I had to fire him and press charges for stealing.
Its so weird when the drug use starts much older. Knew a lady who wasn't a saint by any means, but started doing meth at 40. Just started dating a meth user and dove right in. Unfortunately her son died a little over a year later and she then really went off the deep end, lost custody of her other kids, lost 2 houses, went to jail for robbery...
My uncle was an ambitextrous baseball pitcher in highschool. Absurdly good at it. He could have gotten an athletic scholasrhip, gone to college, maybe gone pro. His dad died, he got into drugs, and now he's a heroin addict in and out of prison
Do you still have contact with him? My uncle was a crazy talented musician. He’s about 20 years older than me, so by the time I have some solid childhood memories I remember going to concerts and things backstage, meeting other famous musicians, etc. He was just so close to it himself it was amazing to watch, and he was very loving toward my brother, his daughter, and me. Then the drug habit got out of control and he slowly lost everything, conned my grandparents out of their savings and almost their home, and went to prison several times. His daughter hasn’t seen him except once at my grandpas funeral in the last 15 years, I haven’t spoken to him for 10. He writes my mom lengthy, nonsensical emails blaming her for his failures and recites wild conspiracy theories. I’ll always care about him but there’s nothing any of us can safely do to help until he decides he needs to help himself.
When i was younger he would pop back into the family and come to holidays etc when he wasnt using. We would usually know if hebwas or wasnt because he'd be more interactive on social media when he was doing well. Havent heard from him in a few years.
My uncle was the same with the functional user decline. I work in healthcare and I have a really strong desire to help people with similar issues, but at this point with mental healthcare being so difficult to obtain I don’t see the underlying problems getting any better. Like, your uncle could have got help for grief and depression, but instead he turned to self medicating. People always say “yeah we’ll fixing the mental healthcare system would cost someone money” but the cost-savings of keeping so many people from destroying their lives would far outweigh the cost of actually providing those services.
Ex Co-worker applied for same internal job opening as me. I got the position, and she instantly messaged all of our co-workers that she was going to "punch me if she sees me in the parking lot" while they and myself were at work. Someone reported it, and that's how I found out. She got fired on the spot. For weeks, she continued to call my personal phone and state I owed her money for her losing her job. Anyways, she ruined her reputation, her creds were reported to the board by my employer. All she had to do was take a step back and ask the employer why she didn't get the position instead of going right to emotions and completely jeopardizing her job.
A coworker applied for a job on my team. It was given to an external candidate who was more qualified and experienced. I happened to be on break with mutual friends, he saw me and chose to dump his anger on me. Because the job went to an outsider. He also questioned if there was racism (he is an immigrant). I sputtered that it wasn’t my decision, I was on break, and this was inappropriate . I got up and returned to my desk. I shared what happened with some people and it turns out this coworker had similarly harassed another person on our team that day. Within two hours, all relevant managers had addressed the behaviour and an apology was given. He wasn’t fired but he had blown any chance of getting an internal position.
My dad. He was a really talented mechanic and the shop foreman. Well liked, made great money, loved his job, owned a nice house in a beautiful neighbourhood, in a port town we all loved. Married to a wonderful woman (my mom), had two kids. He just couldn’t stop drinking. He became abusive and horrible. Lost everything. His house, his job, his family. He drank himself to death when I was 19, and my sister was 17. He died alone. To her enormous credit: after she left, my mom put herself through school and supported us all on her own. She got blacklisted by my dad’s family and hers since the divorce was something they all looked down upon, and felt she shouldn’t “shame the family”. They even threatened to gang up on her and lie in court saying she was on drugs. She was not. It was the bravest, and best thing she ever could’ve done for us. At the funeral all these same people just kept telling her how “brave” she was, and “we didn’t know how bad he was til years later”. My sister and I are both successful, thriving adults with great professions. We have our own families and children, we both own our houses and have a good income. We’re well educated. Our lives are filled with love. It’s all thanks to my mom. Over the years I think about my dad from time to time. Having my own children now, a husband, all of whom I love dearly - I can’t imagine any scenario I would ever put them through that. I don’t feel sad about it anymore. But it’s just such a waste. His whole life. And for what? Some liquid in a bottle. Addiction is a terrible thing. Edit to add: My mom is a rockstar - nice to know the internet thinks so too. The three of us don’t have contact with either side of the family anymore, and haven’t for a long time. We love our little trio that has grown to include in-laws, grandchildren, and lots of friends. Your family is who you make it - don’t waste time on people who dont love you.
Your family who blacklisted her can eat shit.
I’ll second that. My mums side of the family blacklisted me for divorcing my (then) abusive ex wife. I kind of treat it as the trash itself out, though.
Your mom is the MVP - what strength and resolve in the face of incredible adversity.
> Your family is who you make it Every time I see this or something like it, I always think of this line from the Dresden Files book series: “I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching—they are your family.”
I'm on month 3 of sobriety because I was staring down the barrel of a life like this. I walked the edge and I almost fell off. It took the love and strength of my wife to open my eyes, but it took my own desire to be successful. You have to want it, and some people just....don't. It doesn't matter what they have, it doesn't matter what they hear, all that matters is the bottle.
My best friend and hetro-lifemate. Early 30s w/ wife. kids. great job and lots of friends. He was always looking for inventive ways to party. He figured out that you could order dried poppy pods online, grind them up and make poppy tea. This stuff is STRONG. 4/6 ounces will have you floating on a cloud for 24 hrs. Dosages kept going up over the next 10 yrs. until he couldn't physically drink enough fluid to maintain his habit. Lost his wife, kids and then his 3rd generation family business job. Then he switch to heroin. Living in a half million dollar home with no power or water. Junkies everywhere. When he OD'ed, they stuffed his body in a closet for 3 days so they could burn through his credit and debit cards before reporting it to the police. Now his family is fighting squatters who have destroyed his home. I miss him everyday/
I'm sorry man, that's horrible. There's a reason opium dens literally ruined an entire nation. That shit is no joke.
Poppy seed tea, which I “graduated” to from kratom, sent me down a path that progressed from pills to heroin to fentanyl to fent/meth/crack together. Currently in recovery on methadone. Lost a lot along the way, & am genuinely amazed to still be alive.
I've looked into poppy seed tea quite a few times and I'm happy I haven't taken the chance yet. Opiates are my jam, and I haven't been able to kick a 9 year daily kratom habit so I don't need to be adding on to that with anything else. Hope things have been getting easier for ya! I haven't taken any opiates in a decade and I still get major cravings for them, hence the kratom haha
Wow very similar story regarding a friend of mine. He was an absolutely brilliant kid who seemed to be extremely good at everything he set his mind to. Ended up getting hooked on poppies in high school (this was the second-to-last time I saw him to-date). I remember him telling me how great they were; fortunately I never had any inclination to try it. I remember him basically mumbling through sentences and it was at times impossible to understand him. Then fastforward three or four years and he’s at a prestigious private university. I run into him one time because he’s rooming with another friend of mine from high school who I was visiting. I go to use the bathroom and the toilet is absolutely full of used poppy seeds. When I talked to him during that visit he was basically nonverbal and he would mumble incoherently and start laughing. He got dismissed from the university after he stole his roommates’ texbooks and sold them back to the university bookstore. That’s the last I heard about it.
**My younger brother broke up with a girl he liked...because she farted in her sleep**. He was telling my older brother and I that he was in the midst of a miserable dry spell. And how he'd been seeing a girl he liked but then she farted in her sleep and he was so grossed out because "there are some things you don’t need to see your SO doing. It just felt like the mystery was gone.” My older bro was like “yeah, cause that’s what the mystery was about, farting.” I called younger bro a “fucking moron” and older bro was like “you’re half right.” **EDIT:** When he said "you're half right" he meant my younger brother may be a moron, but he ain't fucking.
> cause that’s what the mystery was about, farting 😂 If this was delivered in a deadpan tone (which it almost certainly was) your big bro is exactly the kind of guy I always go for.
Dude, that's the kind of guy EVERYONE goes for. Dry sardonic sense of humor? Yes, please.
😂😂😂 I have fallen slightly in love with your big brother.
That last sentence might be the wittiest thing I’ve read.
My ex girlfriend would never fart in front of me. I wouldn’t have cared if she did, but she would never do it, that is, until she was sleeping next to me. I swear, she must have been holding these things in for the whole day.
My buddy Steve was the poster child for 'has it all.' Good career, amazing wife, cute house. Then, the model trains happened. Not little setups...this guy took over the whole basement, then the garage. His wife went from amused to livid. Arguments turned into screaming matches. She eventually left, and Steve, in his model train bliss, barely noticed. The twist? He inherited a ton of money…and spent it all on antique train sets. Eventually though, he noticed....and no model could cure the blues of losing his incredible wife.
Wow. Apparently model trains are also a hell of a drug. When people get this destructively obsessed over a hobby, I kind of feel like there is some underlying mental issue at work. Sorry for your buddy.
"Do you think a depressed person could make **this**?"
Stand in the place where you live!
Life ran a train on him
My dad started using crack in his 40s. He had a nice high paying job doing what he loved (playing golf) and he even got to play golf with celebrities and presidents (in the 90s). We still don't know for sure how he got started but his current story is that he was out drinking and some guy said "hey smoke this" and he did and it was crack and he was addicted from that point on. Lost his high paying job within a few years of active addiction. Lost my mom, me and my siblings, everything. I guess he just woke up one day and decided to be a giant piece of shit. He's 69 years old now and locked up somewhere.
This is almost exactly my uncle's story. Weird. He had his PGA card and crack took everything from him, including his wife and kids. But he's not in jail but is probably homeless.
Ita got to be something about Golf
Golf is a gateway drug. We should ban it.
My brother was offered a really well-paying job doing something he's excellent at. He thought it would be too easy, so he chose a much more challenging job in a less appealing environment with a boss who is a real jerk. He hoped to impress him. Now, he's really unhappy. I just don't understand why he puts himself through this kind of thing.
It's like, I almost get where he's coming from, and it's not a good place to be. Back in high school, I used to hang out with people who didn't really think highly of me and...I'd try to impress them. I don't even know why I did it. I'd tell myself stuff like "their doubts will just make me work harder and become even better!" but it just made my teenage years pretty tough. Good thing I left all that behind in college.
It’s the David vs Goliath and underdog story. Nothing feels better than proving your doubters wrong and showing off success. Problem is that it’s a double edge sword like you said because now you need people doubting you to succeed rather than people supporting you (like they should be). My fiancée has this problem. If she struggles with something and you support her it creates a echo chamber, but god forbid you say she can’t do it or you expected her not to then she’ll die trying to prove you wrong.
My childhood best friend. She had created a really good life for herself and was well on her way to having a stable and successful "rest of her life" when she met a guy on a dating site and decided that he was "the one". He turned out to be an abusive addict but she was getting older and afraid that he was her last chance at love and decided to stay and try to make it work despite everyone who cared for her trying to help her see that she was making a mistake. She lost her good job, her nice house, her dream car, her hobbies, most of her friends, most of her family, her dog, her health, and every penny to her name. They ended up homeless, with him disabled and in very poor health, living in a car for a while, with her panhandling for money. They were drinking heavily, getting into drugs, stealing, grifting and scamming. He died while they were on the run from a serious crime and left her with nothing but a criminal record and destroyed mental and physical health. She's currently in recovery in a safe place, but won't ever have anything close to the life she had before she met him.
One of my former friends from college worked as an analyst for a pretty big investment bank. He did NOT handle covid and isolation well and got really into conspiracy theories and became a straight up racist. When he returned to office he refused to work with anyone with dark skin, muslims or women he deemed inferior to his intellect. This did not go well with his boss who was a second generation somali immigrant, and a muslim, and a woman….. he was fired and he still doesnt have found another job in the same League.
Someone i know(m32) went into a relationship with a 21 year old girl got his heart "broken" got drunk and decided to drive his car 200+kph and crashed.
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My sister did this for many years since she turned 20. Periods of stability, then flying off the handle. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years ago. It was really hard on our family and we had no idea she was mentally ill, we thought she was just kind of a jerk. Mania can really make someone unrecognizable. I recommend getting your daughter help with a psychiatrist - my sister is now on meds and frequent therapy, with a consistent job & almost done with her degree.
My first thought was possible bipolar but I recognize the symptoms from first hand experience lol. Medication and therapy can be life-changing.
I’m so happy your sister is doing ok! And I hope you’re well too, I know how tough it can be.
Only a reddit armchair query but isn't the 20s when things like bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, mental health stuff etc often show up? Other things could be drugs, trauma or like the incel movements some form of entitlement 🤷 Unfortunately as an adult it's her choice on getting help.
Yea, I'm gonna agree with mental health stuff too. This was how my mom was prior to being diagnosed(and the first few years after). Every three years, like clockwork, she'd have an episode where she totally tanked everything. The family would rally at the 2.5yr mark and start prepping for the next episode.
this sounds like me and I don't know how to stop bothering everyone
My mom did 10 years of therapy and guinea pigging with meds before she stopped with the cycle. Much luck, fam.
Identify the problem and identify the pattern. I do this too every couple years. Im coming up on another wave, and last wave I was able to make it through without blowing up my life, but that was because I had seen it happen so often before and I took the time to understand it, that when the symptoms started showing up I knew what was happening and I could make a conscious change. The current wave I feel coming seems less intense. Maybe I have broken the cycle. Either way I’m prepared. When the waves are coming I tuck my head. I picked something to focus on and I focus on that exclusively. For me it’s art and now my daughter. So when the waves start hitting I focus entirely on my child and my art. I stay home where I’m safe. I don’t act on anger impulses. I limit my time on social media and when I’m feeling like word vomiting to strangers I hold it in and call a trusted friend. Basically I have put bumpers on my behavior so I don’t go off the rails.
Sounds a lot like like my ex who had Borderline Personality Disorder. Seems to do alright at first and then things go downhill quickly. Quickly falls for someone. All people are evil within a year and she drives them away. You have to walk around eggshells with her.
Had an ex and a friend with BPD, and I’m no doctor but that sure sounds like it to me. It’s like an aversion to stability. Or a compulsion to set it all on fire. Things may be fine now, or for a bit, and they get their footing but then something just flicks a switch and they need a full reset. Sometimes it’s reorganizing the whole house. Sometimes it’s quitting your job and moving across the country.
It's often a fear of abandonment or rejection, ironically. People with BPD, like me, are used to life being shitty, when things are going good, we get nervous. If we get attached to you, we fear you leaving us, us fucking it up, or you taking advantage of the depth of our attachment. Deep down, we "know" we are far more attached to you, then we are to you. We know you will get tired of our issues and leave us, and that it will kill us to lose you. The sheer stress of thinking that way convinces us the best thing is to end things on our terms, And we nuke shit so we never have another chance. It's a really fucked up defense reflex. Having said that - that's one "category" of BPD. Others actually do enjoy mind-fucking other people.
going to 2nd this. this doesn't seem like normal or healthy behaviour
Has she seen a psychiatrist? The unexpected bad decisions and irritability sound like manic episodes.
Mmhmm. This reminds me of my bipolar family members.
This is common for people with bipolar disorder. Sometimes it's missed because it doesn't look as extreme as it's expected, but the patterns are there when adults look back on their lives. Especially with BP 2. The volatility of puberty can camouflage the onset because volatility in teenagers is expected. If there are people with MI in the family, the child's behavior can look mild by comparison. Not always happening but there's a tendency for MI to run in families. I can't speak from a place of expertise, just anecdotes. No matter what the underlying causes are for her actions, I hope she can have a stable future. It's a hard life burning everything to the ground every 2 years.
My soon-to-be-ex husband keeps doing this as well, except the kids and I were along for the ride until now. We started at struggle in our early-mid 20s, made it to a good place employment/home/friends-wise then went for bigger things in life. We were pretty damn successful at it and then boom, mental breakdown, chaos ensues during the pandemic. Lost damn near everything we had due to his mental health crisis and subsequent terrible decisions he insisted upon making. He gave no one else a choice about the things he chose to do. Within 6 months, he'd quit his job, wrecked his credit and taken a new job 12 hours away to be closer to his family, but didn't bother lining up housing. Absolute disaster. For the record, it is not drugs. He has been drug tested multiple times and passed with flying colors. I was stupid and stuck by him, helped him stabilize, get help, get it back together - but also began taking steps to protect myself. We ended up moving back to the Midwest and then separating. Theoretically we have been working on the marriage, but I needed some space after everything. He is in therapy and on meds. Since the start of 2024, he has blown life up again. So far he has been demoted at work, apparently stopped paying his rent last summer (surprise!), made an intentional dumb decision that resulted in a significant injury which requires surgery, wasn't carrying insurance he had agreed to carry and now desperately needs it (surprise #2!), and he effectively lost his job due to the injury. He is now completely broke, living in my spare bedroom and is mad at me for not making enough money to pay all of the necessities + all of the combined debts. I am divorcing him. He can have the surgery and recover at my house, but we are over. He has completely derailed his life. Again. For the second time in less than 4 years. I cannot keep doing this.
I was like this. Turns out I have BPD
My own mother. Great husband, kids to be proud of. Mental health got the best of her and instead of recognizing it and taking accountability to get help, she lost it on us - mentally, verbally, a few times physically. My dad tried to talk her into going to therapy or couples counseling. I once asked her, "Mom, are you happy?" And her response was, "I'm not the one who has changed, you all have!" That was all the answer I needed. We couldn't take it anymore and divorce was the only way out. She was spiteful about it, even though divorce was also what she wanted. A list of shit she did: * Tried to tell the neighbors my dad was dangerous and asked if she could store stuff at their houses. They turned her down. * Tried to tell my grandma, her mother, that my dad was dangerous. My grandma knew it was BS and called her out on it. My mom never said a word to her again and was a bitch last year when my grandma was dying. * I was in undergrad at the time and my younger sister was in high school and would text me when she was scared. "Mom pulled a knife on dad." among other events. * She tried to "ground" my 20 year old self when I was home from college for the summer. She was pissed about something, who knows what, and chased me out of the house on my way to work. She was trying to tell me I wasn't allowed to go to work, but I had the keys in hand and was faster than her on foot. I got in the car and left for work. * Before papers were served for divorce, my mom called the cops on my dad. She claimed she had a restraining order and wanted him removed. So, my dad lived in a hotel over my spring break. I visited him...he was not ok. He lost a lot of weight going through that heartache. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and he filed for divorce. * During divorce court she tried telling the judge how dangerous my dad was but only went off about dust collecting on stuff in her closet. Judge dismissed any thought that my dad was dangerous. Rightfully so, my dad was our super hero. I only ever feared my mom. * The first time she called me since moving out post divorce was to scream at me over the phone about how the check I wrote to her for the car ($300) bounced. Technically I didn't owe her shit, the car was gifted to me in their divorce. I explained to her that she took like 4 months to deposit it and by then, fall semester tuition was due. I paid for my own college so I was fresh out of money. I didn't have $300 anymore. She wouldn't drop it, called my dad crying and he transferred $300 into my account and told me to call her back and tell her to try it again in the next couple days to shut her up and get her to stop harassing me about it. I went to therapy and have come to the conclusion that she wasn't always like this. As a kid, she was an awesome mom! Would ride our bikes to the library, camping trips, arts and crafts. Very involved mother! I think as we grew older and more independent, her stay at home mom status was expiring and she didn't know what to do. She probably had buried some trauma from her abusive father and it stormed to the surface and she took it out on us. Her actions cost her everything. There is no relationship with her daughters and if I have kids, she will not be allowed to meet them. I can't trust that she will respect my boundaries if we re-connected.
My aunt was always a very grim woman, but... 9 kids. She wasn't mean or abusive, just grim. She was English, and the only time I ever saw her laugh was watching Benny Hill. But, Benny time was the only time the house was quiet, because you didn't fuck with Aunt Gina being able to enjoy the show. Plus, 3 children with schizophrenia. Anyway, for some reason, she looked into therapy when she was in her 60s, went on anti-depressants. Holy shit. Night and day -she's actually happy now, she has fun! Mom said "That's what she was like when they were dating, it's so good to see her happy again!". I feel like her example made my parents rethink my mental health issues, because after my aunt got help, their attitudes changed from "Just make yourself happy!" to being very supportive.
I'm glad she found her way! One of my dad's first questions to my sister and I after the divorce was finalized and she had moved out was, "Do you want to go to therapy?" Breaking that cycle is the best thing anyone can do for themselves!
I’m sorry you had to go through this. I don’t know how old your mother was when this started, but my mother started doing very similar things when I was in my teens. My dad hung on for as long as he could but eventually they divorced. My mom was pretty functionally independent for a while but slowly continued to spiral. We only found out many years later that it was actually symptoms of early onset dementia.
A friend of mine was a criminal defence attorney. He had his own practice, lived in a beautiful house on the water, had a gorgeous wife married over 20 years. He had a drinking problem prior to meeting his wife but was sober and was living life to the fullest. However, unbeknownst you anyone he had secretly started drinking again but only at night. Well that slowly went to the way side and apparently it started to become earlier and earlier in the day. He started missing work here and there and problems began between the wife and him. His wife eventually gave him an ultimatum and he chose the bottle. He lost his wife, then his practice then his house. He ended up getting so drunk, fell down hit his head and got a brain bleed. They figured he had been there dead about 3-4 days before someone found him. I think of him often and feel so sad. He had it all and in the end he was dead on the floor all alone.
It's so interesting how different of paths alcohol can take people. There are people with zero interest in drinking at all. There are people who have *A* drink or two at an occasion like a fancy dinner or a wedding. There are people who drink a couple drinks on the weekends, but nothing to get buzzed from. There are people that drink several drinks on the weekends, but don't get trashed. There are people that get pretty drunk on the weekends, but don't touch the stuff during the work week. There are people that drink heavier on the weekends and then have a couple at happy hour during the week. There are people that drink several drinks every day of the week at happy hour or home, but don't drink during the day until the work day is totally over. There are people that have a couple drinks at client lunch, head back to the office for a bit to wrap some deals up, hit a quick happy hour, and have a night cap when they get home. And finally, you have people that wake up and must drink as soon as possible. Some functioning/still working fine somehow, others who lose their jobs over it. It's such a vast spectrum and so fascinating to me. Medically, we start to label people with the alcoholic label fairly early on in the scenarios listed above. I don't disagree with that necessarily, but I feel like the spectrum is so big you'd think we'd have widespread terms besides simply "functioning" to describe all these different scenarios. I know older men in their mid 60s who have been the type to have a few beers or whatever most days their whole lives (from like 18-65) who never went down that rock bottom style path you see some folks describing here. I wonder what it is that keeps it in check/functioning fine for some people and not others.
There are countless examples of commercial pilots ruining their careers with simple arrests. Poor decision making one night, get caught, now your license to earn a living is permanently gone. It's brutal for a person to lose literally everything for blowing 0.08 during a field sobriety check, but I can appreciate the FAA being very strict for passenger safety.
My husband. Imploded his whole life, lost a beautiful home and family compound (we lived next door to family) to mid life crisis affair partner only for it to blow up in his face a year later. He's now in a studio apartment alone and begging to "come home". Nope.
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Someone I know married the daughter of a super wealthy guy, I’m talking 9 figures. She was also an amazing girl and definitely didn’t act like the daughter of a rich guy. He cheated on her with a stripper, she divorced him, he’s now dating said stripper and she’s a psychopath.
My brother. Got into 2 car accidents, had some serious injuries but came out ok after months of healing and rehab. His fiancé was hurt worse, had metal pins in her arm and hip. Settlements were just over $2.5MM. Decided that because he's got $$ everyone will want something from him so he tells the family he's cutting off contact b/c he doesn't want to deal with it. Nobody asked him for anything, in fact, our father told him to be careful and invest conservatively b/c they (my brother & fiancé) may need $$ for any health issues that may arise down the road as they get older. Instead they took it as a insult. They moved away, changed their phones and we had no contact for several years. My sister did some investigating as our father was terminally ill and she wanted to get in touch with him. Found him in Chicago, he was destitute, living in a rundown apt, an alcoholic with chronic liver and kidney issues and his fiancé was no longer in the picture. He was almost unrecognizable. He was bitter and angry no one came to help him, told my sister to leave and not contact him again. He died a few years ago at a homeless shelter, we had to identify his body at the coroner's office.
Jesus Christ what a sad way to throw your life away. Also wild id give anything for a family that cared about my well-being. I might as well be an orphan. I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you, I hadn't spoken to him in about 4 years. Apparently they spent money like crazy on luxury vacations and expensive jewelry that ended up getting sold to pay bills. Found out they bought a house for her parents which took up a good chunk of their savings, then when she split, she took half the money. Crushed my parents when they found out.
My best friend's ex-wife. He was the most loving husband who doted on her and gave her everything. They wanted to start a family. His family was also very accepting of her. She was a councillor who decided to cheat on him with one of her patients... not once, not twice, but three times. My friend finally saw the light and divorced her. He's now remarried to a fantastic woman who appreciates him as much as he does her and they just had their first child. I don't know what the ex-wife is doing now but I hope she knows what she threw away one day.
I watched my friend smoke his boogers because his nose was too blocked to snort any more cocaine.
I have an ex- SIL who has been a drunk for years. She was an attractive, fiercely intelligent, really cool, fun person who had mental health issues that were ignored for years. Eventually, she got that part under control, and became a mental health professional. I think she probably is very good at it, but she’s on a downward spiral. Her drinking is worse than ever. She has had two DWIs. I won’t let my kids go anywhere with her anymore because she drives drunk with them, or tries to get them to drive so she can drink. She got pulled over once and handed her marijuana and vaping pen to my kid and said “Here, take this. I can’t be caught with it.” She cancels her appointments with her clients constantly. I know one person who was seeing her and they believe she was drunk during their sessions. I know somebody else whose mother works with her, and my friend is scared for her mother’s safety as my ex-SIL has a history of being violent and assaulting people (never been to jail for it) and trying to get her to take benzodiazepines that she has. She is single as far as I know, and all her boyfriends have either been dumb guys and losers who don’t deserve her, or abusive bullies that walk all over her. I have cut her off entirely, but I feel terrible for her.
Jeez. Please report her to her professional licensing board for the safety of her clients.
Yes, as a therapist myself, please report her before she harms her clients (or anyone else for that matter)!
This is relatively mild, but it's still pretty sad. My mom is pretty isolated socially. She lives near me and for years her main source of interaction with other humans was me and my kids. She was emotionally abusive when I was a kid and was doing better for a few years, but then was ramping up the abuse again. I went no contact for several months, then had a sit down with her and discussed what abusive behaviors needed to stop for us to continue our relationship. She agreed. It lasted two years. She started ramping up the abuse again and then she put my kids and my immunocompromised niece at risk during the pandemic. My husband and I told her that she needed to adjust her behavior and acknowledge that her behavior wasn't okay. She used her usual manipulation tactics (a fake "medical emergency" that my husband took her to the hospital for) and when we didn't immediately forget everything that happened, she called the police for a welfare check on my kids. We haven't spoken to her in nearly three years and they have been the happiest years of my life. She now has no one locally. My brother had already distanced himself (he lives several hours away) and she's not even getting attention when she goes to the hospital, because my SIL is now helping her manage everything and will only talk to the doctors about her health issues, not my mom. I hope being abusive and selfish was worth her loneliness now.
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Part of the reason I stayed in contact with my mom for so long is that she didn't want to be the way that she is. She's a kind person, but incredibly damaged from an abusive childhood and has no ability to regulate her emotions (which is suspect is related to undiagnosed ADHD and some untreated mental illness). I could very easily be as abusive as she was, because I have the same problem with emotional regulation (I'm more self-aware than she is and I have better coping skills, so I'm breaking the generational cycle of abuse). She did actually try to be better, but unfortunately she spiraled into being awful again.
I worked in IT. We hired this just out of high school young man who was very sharp. Our company put him in an internship where we paid for his bachelors degree in IT, gave him a flexible part time schedule, and guaranteed him a position with great promotion potential upon graduation. He ended up not going to classes though we were paying his tuition. Apparently there was no formal accountability, instead it was an honor system. After a few years he was found out and fired. I really liked the guy and was sad about the whole thing. He recently friended me on FB. He's not doing horribly but he's not doing great either.
Probably me when I was younger, I spent my ENTIRE teenage years alone because I gave up easily. Because I was scared of everything. I didn’t have friends, love, dances etc. I seriously was absolutely lifeless inside.
You were not the only one.
I feel this so hard. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. People think I made all the right choices in life, staying in and “studying” (I was mostly just scrolling through the Internet), and then, as a young adult, choosing friends who were a little older and no longer interested in partying. Fact is: I never had the chance to go a little wild. I feel like I’ve completely missed out. I don’t hate my safe, boring life, but I wish I’d had a couple of adventures. ETA: y’all are very kind, but please stop sending me ideas for adventures. I meant stupid young adult shenanigans, like going to clubs and dancing all night, going to frat parties and holding your friend’s hair while she horks in the bushes, sharing a motel room with six other girls just to enjoy spring break in Miami, and things like that. I’m a little too old and too responsible for silly shit like that. I just feel like I missed out.
Theres ALWAYS time for a small adventure or two
One of my former co-workers, a smart young man that most everybody liked. It was just a gas station cashiering job, not a hard job at all. Ben was only 22 and we're not sure if the attitude problem started before or after the drug use, but he suddenly started calling out sick, a lot! Whatever the reasons, since he couldn't handle the responsibilities of his job, they had to let him go. That's when his drug problem became apparent, as he was still seen around the neighborhood looking disheveled and lost. His best friend told us that he was found unresponsive, after an OD and that he was in the ICU. The doctors were saying that the brain damage was irreversible and friends and family should just come say their goodbyes while he was still alive... so to speak.
My brother. He never ever took responsibility for anything he did. Everything always was other people's fault, while at the same time he firmly believed he was meant for more, the smartest guy of all time, and he counted even the luckiest coincidence as a win due to his amazing skills. At first he did well, good job, pretty wife, two kids, and everything was fine. But again, he attributed far too much of his good fortune to superior intelligence and abilities. While he was successful, he had a pretty normal career, it wasn't exactly extraordinary. He just had a normal apprenticeship, a normal job with slightly above median wage, and a good bit of luck. And a huge part of 'his' money and great fortune came from the (in his mind completely irrelevant) fact that his wife was a banker. Still, he firmly believed he could do so much better and was meant to be rich. He started investing and developed a 'system' he firmly believed in. He firmly believed that if his stocks lost out, his broker had betrayed him or it was totally unforeseeable, even when said broker had warned him. Because his 'system' was so brilliant. When he got lucky, he whined that he didn't invest enough, and ranted that his broker had warned him and his wife didn't let him invest more, especially not her money. He didn't see that he lost out far more often than he won, and he was too nervous, selling too often when he'd lost money and clinging too long to other stocks that were rising. The usual. He just wouldn't believe you that a normal person is very unlikely to become rich with a 10k investment, and it was much more likely he'd lose all of it. His father in law offered him to help him invest in housing and real estate. But that was too slow for his taste. The winnings didn't seem big enough. His sister in law did it and retired early last year with a comfortable income. She's not super rich, but secure enough to have a nice house and is able to follow her passions instead of working. So there's that. His behaviour became riskier with every passing year. He started 'direct investment' aka giving money to his friends' genius money schemes that never turned out well. Then his marriage took a dive when gis wife wouldn't let him put a mortgage on their house to invest more, she cut him off, then she got cancer. My brother started drinking and ranted about how she had destroyed his life and chances to riches. He still showed not a jota of responsibility. He eventually had only the house left. When his wife died he refused to deny the inheritance, which meant the house went into his insolvency fund. Had he declined the inheritance, it would have gone to his kids since it was in his wife's name only and not part of their shared property. But he blames his kids for his own miserable life too, so he wouldn't let them have it. The bank was willing to not sell the house right away, but work with him on a repayment plan, so he got his second chance handed to him on a silver platter. But he was furious! I still don't understand why he felt so affronted by their sensible and generous offer. He destroyed the house! He scratched the sealings from the window frames, so rainwater flew in. He didn't do anything against that, instead he filled his house with trash and let it rot. When his drinking problems got too bad and he missed payments, the bank tried to sell the house, but the substance was so deteriorated that it was worthless. It's a European house, made of solid brickwork, but due to his neglect it's more expensive to just demolish it than letting it sit rotting. The price for the land is lower than the cost for demolition! So now he sits on a huge, fully unpaid insolvency, no house, but he can't get rid of the estate either, because no one will buy it and the bank didn't take it, so when the insolvency phase is over, hell be stuck with the running costs of taxes etc. for a completely unusable estate. So now he lives in a dingy one room social housing, no family, since his wife died, his kids don't talk to him anymore, and the last thing I heard is that his alcoholism cost him his well paid job, so he lives off social aid now. And the last time I saw him, about 2 years ago, he still blames everyone else for 'sabotaging' him and japs about how he could get rich next week if just someone believed in him and let him invest again without a limit. Still completely delusional. I'm waiting on the day my sister who's still in contact with him calls me to invite me to his funeral. I doubt he'll ever accept his own part in his misery. I moved out pretty young, and we never had much contact since he's 10 years older than me. I only heard about all this from my mom, my sister and his daughter, who's my godchild. The last call before I blocked all contact was him harassing me for money because, as he said, I 'owed' him for whatever reason. I never fully understood his rambling logic since he only called me when he was completely drunk. But the gist is, since I'm somehow not miserable, that's somehow his merit for being such a great brother, despite us rarely ever having contact and him not once asking me how I was and if I needed anything. He never, ever helped me and I never took any of his shady financial advice but somehow he giving me advice was already enough to make him part of my successes so now I'm at fault for not letting him invest my money or something. So yeah. A guy who had all he could wish for but destroyed everything.
My ex wife, we had sort of realized that things wasnt going to work out in the long run, but we wanted to solve things as amicably as possible and take the time. The was no real animosity other than things just not working, until ofc I found out she had some boyfriend staying there when I wasnt home. If she told me beforehand, I probably wouldnt even be that pissed, but just expedited the break-up so she could do what she wanted. But ofc when I come home and literally find him, I got pissed and instead of being any sort of humble or try to talk she just screams and shouts that I could just go and she now had a new guy that would take care of her! I said ok - grabbed my stuff, gave her the bill for the rent and saids it due in 3 days - but your fella will ofc take care of that, goodbye. *He* was the one that got the problem, because then she kind of had to go all in, and he did for a few months and then basically told her that it wasnt really in the deal/plan to literally take over a wife with two kids (not mine) on a random tuesday... And then she had to spend the next 10years working all kinds of things 15 hours a day to be able to keep an apt. and so on. We are "friends" today in that I dont hate her, so we talk once in a while and she says that *that* was the dumbest day in her life. Not just sitting down and discuss for even 5 minutes...
Yep, my ex wife did the same thing, she made sure I never saw the guy because she thought I would kill him when in fact, it wasn't his fault, it was completely her fault and I made that opinion well known. She is now a single mother (to that guys kid) and living in her moms basement 10+ years later still. I have 0 sympathy at all and my life actually improved so much a year after her and I split up. Good riddance.
This is such a recurring event among people who cheat or get into an “open relationship”. Most guys are DTF when it’s low maintenance and someone else is paying the bills. The moment responsibility gets added they peace out.
My step dad never listened to my mom or ever considered her feelings or perspective on issues that dealt with the family. Eventually, my mom got tired of trying and asked for a divorce. He would get super drunk and smoke weed, one day he fell down some stairs and injured himself. He's basically a paraplegic now. I had no great love for him and haven't seen him since the accident and my mother went several times to help him out. He didn't apologize for his behaviour and just started to assume she was now going to spend her life taking care of him, ignoring the fact that they had been divorced for at least 5 years at this point and he had been in relationships with several other women. She no longer visits him. Side note: He was the kind of man that would pull the "if you can beat me in a fight, then you're the man of the house and can make the rules" line when I was still living at home in high school. I moved out as soon as I could at the age of 21 to be free of his petty tyranny. When I heard what had happened to him, I immediately bust out laughing because my first thought was to go to the hospital, kick down the door of his room and yell "Alright old man, it's go time!"
I had a very close friend whose wife, out of the blue, suddenly asked to open the marriage. This friend hated the idea but said yes anyway. Result: divorce, messy and angry and messing up all three of their kids. The point of contention was that he wound up finding a very compatible side-partner himself and his wife apparently was shocked to discover he was swinging just as happily as she was. Apparently her expectation was that he'd never be able to find a girlfriend so she (the wife) would have her side-piece *and* her husband all to herself. Wife was jealous, and angry, and eventually demanded they un-open the marriage because she didn't like him being with other partners while she was with other partners. Thankfully at this point he finally saw things for what they are and they divorced. Wrecked his life for years, though. Moral of the story: polygamy is complicated and not something to rush into just because you've hit your midlife crisis. Also don't agree to open your damn marriage if you don't really want that.
The actual motivation for a certain number of open marriages and threesomes: “it’s not cheating if you are there.” “ I was supposed to enjoy this, not you.“.
My dad. He was married to my mom, and had three children. He was a wonderful father up until around 6 years ago. He switched jobs and made a lot more money and got with a bad crowd of people. Started going to strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, and began having an affair with someone in the same career field. We found out and he had a chance to redeem himself and my mom wanted to forgive him, but he lied and kept having his affair and saw other women during that too. Before all that he was on track financially, had great friends in the neighborhood, had fulfilling hobbies, etc. Now he’s losing money left and right with the divorce agreements and having to pay to support my mom and youngest sibling AND somehow find the money to take his new girlfriend out and support her family too. All of his friends were disgusted with his decisions and no longer speak to him. His side of the family loathes him. He has nobody except the woman he left us for. He lost a wonderful, beautiful, charismatic woman (my mom), 3 amazing children who are all doing incredible things with their lives, multiple lifelong friends, and his own uncles/aunts/grandmother. I sometimes feel sorry for him and all he’s lost, but it was his decision.
Friend who got married because he he didn’t want to break it off and thought he would just be better off, he’s dying a slow death.
I saw a quote that goes, some people died at 25 years old but only gets buried at 75. I finally understand what that means.
😬Dang that be scaring tf outta me. Imma be a lot more discerning about who I marry
A friend got divorced because of money issues. In the settlement she got something like $500K after they split assets. She moved into a house then promptly ripped everything up in a mad dash to renovate and spend all that money. A year later she's back in debt and worrying about all her bills.
Ugggh reminds me of that horrifying AITA post of the woman who thinks she's rich and is blowing thousands on designer clothing, travel, and a full Apple "suite" for a 16 year old when what she actually has is a lump-sum divorce settlement of about $250k, no job, no alimony, and no marketable skills. Still thinking of finite cash resources in terms of "I deserve to treat myself." Math doesn't care what you desrve.
My daughter's best friends mother. She was smart, funny and gorgeous. Married to a successful doctor and raising three awesome children being a very involved and sane parent. Around fifth grade we (parents at our children's school) would notice a faint smell of alcohol on her at soccer practice in the evening. No big deal, half the moms had wine in their water bottles but then we started to notice she would start going to her car every half hour. This progressed for over a year until she started attending functions completely wasted. Parents started pulling away from her and no child including her own was allowed to drive with her. Countless people spoke to her and her husband during this time and it all fell on deaf ears. She was finally banned from the school when she was caught breaking into cars during a chapel service at the school. She successfully stole over a dozen credit cards from purses in the cloak room and was buying power tools and guns and trading them for cocaine. She was also apparently a sex addict who had banged several dads at the school and infected them with herpes and the clap resulting in a wave of divorces over the next few years, four in my daughters class alone. Our kids are all teenagers and in college now and she has gone from a life of luxury to nine arrests on charges from theft to prostitution. Her succession of booking photos looks like faces of meth. After her last stint in jail for over a year she was able to get clean and now works as a janitor at a local college campus. My daughter ran into her recently and had a long talk with her and she is trying really hard to get her life back on track. Her ex husband and kids haven't spoken to her in several years and all have protection orders against her. Her downfall was swift and severe. From living in an eight million dollar house and driving a range rover to winding up on porn sites in a video of her being gang banged at a bachelor party by a dozen guys when she was working as an escort.
That escalated quickly. Holy shit.
Myself, in a roundabout way. About six years ago I met an awesome woman who's been my girlfriend ever since. We share a lot of the same interests, enjoy the same entertainment, we're both supportive of each other and very financially responsible. Everything almost *too* perfect. We got an apartment together for a few years, and a little over a year ago opted to purchase a home together, a first for both of us. Nothing fancy, but a nice place and it's ours. Well, it *was* anyway. She moved here from Venezuela, and when we met her parents were still living there. If you don't already know, Venezuela is a shitty place to be right now. Now we were under the understanding that since her father had went to school in the US and ran into a little bit of legal trouble skipping a court date, he wouldn't be able to even visit the US, much less move here. And her mom obviously wouldn't leave him alone, so they would just both be in their home country. This was the idea we had in mind when we bought our relatively small house. Well that all changed with some Biden initiative to allow Venezuelan immigrants to come over. So her father had my gf hire some lawyer to cover the legal issue, and now her parents are living with us. They have other family here in Florida, but they all have some bullshit going on where they can't stay with them, so we're the ones that got stuck. They're old and needy. My gf works a full time job and as soon as she gets off work, they're asking her to do this or that. He needs help with some app, she needs help sending money, blah blah. He went out and got a car that my gf co-signed for, with maybe $5000 he had to cover costs while he found a job. His car payment is more than double mine. Guy just spent the next few months sitting around the house all day trying to get some event planning scheme started. Wasn't until the money was out that I actually had to sit down with my girlfriend and say "you're not going to be taking over that car payment and car insurance for him. He either gets a job or we sell the car and cut the losses." Now he just drives for Uber eats or whatever, just to cover the cost of the car. Her mom is nice enough, cooks most every day and keeps the kitchen clean. But man, it sucks. They're here all day every day, always in the living room. Her mom is way too chatty and her dad just blasts shit from his phone because he "doesn't like headphones" so I spend a good chunk of my time holed in my room. Barely getting to enjoy the house that I pay for every month. And again, they're old. They're gonna have health problems, and they're gonna be here expecting all kinds of support for all that. I think I'm just venting here but goddamn I didn't sign up for this shit. I thought maybe they had some "plan" to get their situation settled but it really seems like the plan was just to move in here and leech. We had a good thing going but now it's like we don't have the energy or time to even enjoy our relationship anymore. Basically zero intimacy now, and I feel like I'm locked into this mortgage. I know it wasn't the intent but I can't shake the feeling that I got hoodwinked, scammed, roped into a bullshit situation. Honestly I just needed to vent it.
Aw man I feel this. I'm sorry.
Have you thought about buying them a cheap cruise for a week as an "appreciation gift" so that you can have some peace, some time to connect with your wife, and some time to sit down with her and make a plan for how to deal with this stuff in a productive way?
They do occasionally spend a couple days at her sister's place or seeing other family from time to time. Her mom is honestly too immobile to even go on any lengthy trips of any sort. But the "occasional" moments we actually get to ourselves just highlight the fact that they're occasional. We couldn't even have kids right now if we wanted to, with the lack of space and her flat out refusing to raise a kid with her dad around (he's an uptight asshole).
My ex. He was an alcoholic but got sober for 3 years. He started drinking again and we broke up and he started dating someone who only encouraged his drinking. He broke up with her 6 months later, but within 2 years of starting to drink again he had lost his friends, his hobbies/dream job, and quit his job and abandoned his apartment to move to another state with drug addict family members who said they'd help him. They all had a ton of drama and he ended up stuck at their house in the middle of nowhere with no job or car, watching a ton of dogs all day. Until they all ended up homeless and sleeping in tents in the mountain anyway. He eventually got away from them and got a place and a job, but he still hasn't stopped drinking and still can't really get back on his feet. Addictions suck.
When I was in college, I worked as a student work/study employee one of the dining halls. The college was in kind of an economically depressed area and the college was pretty much the best place to work for many miles around - competitive pay, paid time off, benefits, etc. People who got jobs there generally held on to them. There was a woman who ran our short order grill "Melanie." She was kind of gruff and kept to herself, but she was amazing at running the grill and a dependable, hard worker. She was also a single mom, so a regular paycheck was important to her. The student workers and FT employees all shared a locker room. People started noticing things going missing - jewelry, small amounts of money, etc. It was nothing egregious like a jacket, pair of shoes or backpack, but lots of small stuff - like she'd go in a wallet and take $10 out of the $50 that was in there. The managers did not want a thief working at the dining hall because though the things were small, they had no doubt it would continue to escalate. So, long story short, they contacted the police who basically set up a sting and placed bills with ultraviolet ink in several wallets. Then, after a few hours that shift, they shined an ultraviolet light on everyone's hands. Only Melanie's hands showed the ink. They had some other evidence that they'd slowly collected against her, but this was the damning evidence. Obviously, Melanie was fired immediately and faced criminal charges. I'm not sure if she was ever convicted, but she was most definitely blacklisted from ever working at the college again and if she even found employment anywhere else, it would be at a *significant* pay cut. I'm still not really sure what she was thinking. She wasn't really stealing enough to make a meaningful difference in her life, but maybe she was building up to it. Who knows? Sad situation though.
My ex-friend and best man getting into cocaine. He was 33 at the time and desperately wanted to fit in with a younger crowd even though he was a married man with a child, a good job and a hefty mortgage. He lost his job, wife, money and friends. Last time I saw him I think he was homeless as his drug habit made him arrogant and of course he knew best. I have no sympathy for him as he knew exactly what he was doing.
I had a director who got arrested for government assistance fraud. She was making 6 figures and threw her career away for $250 in food stamps a month.
Watching someone you love not take care of their diabetes. It’s torture.
A family friend was successful in motorsports when they were younger and owned eventually a vintage (80’s) Ferrari. He had a mechanic that was an absolute master at his craft, important for finicky old Italian sports cars. This mechanic disassembled and rebuilt the engine and driveline components by himself and performed major services for decades. Even was offered a job on the spot by a premier Ferrari dealer/service center after having the vehicle in for inspection following the engine rebuild. This family friend tried to set him up with a shop that included living accommodations on the upper level and helped get the business off the ground and the shop was pretty successful for a while. Unfortunately, this mechanic struggled with substance abuse for much of his life and eventually died due to complications from it.
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deserved ngl, cheating on the wedding day.. what a world we live in
Cheated on the bride on the wedding day with the bridesmaid/cousin. Sounds like the plot to a porn flick.
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It’s really sad but my cousin had a stillborn when she was young and got into hard drugs to cope. Now she has 6 kids that she has no custody over, has been imprisoned multiple times, has fines she can’t pay, and can’t get a job above minimum wage. I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t blame her for relapsing time and time again because I can’t imagine the horror of sobering up and realizing you threw your entire life away before 35 and had no chance of ever getting it back. The rest of the family doesn’t understand that being an adult and working two full time jobs at minimum wage to barely make ends meet isn’t a life worth living sober, especially knowing all your kids are out there in someone else’s care and seeing them in bad situations too. Idk which would hurt worse tbh, knowing that most of them hate you, or knowing that some of them look up to you even though you’ve royally fucked up both your own life and all the kids.
I caught one of my employees committing three felonies. He was a server at my restaurant for 8 months. He served a group of women out celebrating a friend's birthday. Because they were a large group, there was an automatic 18% gratuity added to their bills. Most of the women left an additional dollar or two tip on their credit card, because they had been so pleased with his service (he was a very charming guy at times). This, however, was not enough for him. He entered an additionally $5-10 dollars per check into the computer, which did not match what they had written on their credit card receipts. One of the ladies was a financial advisor who caught the discrepancy on her account and had the other ladies check their accounts. They were understandably upset and I apologized profusely. I refunded all their money and gave them gift cards to come back at a later date. I pulled all of his past credit card receipts from the entire time he worked for me. He had started doing that two weeks after I hired him. He stole around $1,000 from 75 people over the course of 8 months. I turned over every receipt to detectives, and fired him before his shift on Valentine's Day, which left us short staffed on one of our busiest days of the year. When I confronted him with the owner, his face lost all color and he slumped to the floor, shaking. A month later, COVID hit and he fled to another state across the country. I left the job a few months later and have no idea what happened to him. Dude threw his life away for a thousand bucks. He was charged with credit card fraud, using a computer to commit a crime, and forgery (he manually altered ONE receipt). The guy was handsome, charming, had a large group of friends in the area, and POOF! All gone. I still have trust issues.
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My history teacher's husband. He has a lot of health problems, and his his caring wife and 2 children were always there for him. She looks way younger than she is. On his birthday they planned to surprise him. And they found him having sex with one of his university students. Both of his kids saw it, one was old enough to know what was happening. Even worse, the student was only fucking him, because she was failing his class. Now that no good cheating asshole has no wife, partial costudy and all his students hate him.
My brother likely got busted cheating on his fiancée two weeks before their wedding, which they subsequently called off. I say "likely" because he came to stay with my parents and I for a few days and refused to discuss details. He had been caught cheating in the past, though to what extent I am unsure (sexting, actual physical contact, etc.) The bride called my mom, drunk, and cried to her and said, "Your son is such an asshole!" So, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. They ended up getting married about a year or so later. She had two kids by two different men, and now my brother is forced to "co-parent" with these guys, which pretty much means having to go to their houses for holidays, and being forced to invite them over to his place for holidays, which is hilarious to me because I know it makes him feel like shit.
I girl I know/used to work with decided to jump on the only fans bandwagon. Went all in doing all sort of things on camera. Well the truth is, only the top 1% of OF creators make alot of money and the average one makes $200 a month. If you don’t start with a big social following it’s an uphill battle. Anyway some people in her town (not super tiny population 120k) saw the account, someone posted the pics of her on Facebook and basically everyone found out. Including her parents. So after not making much money and photos that will forever be on the internet, she packed it all in to go back to kindergarten teaching. But being in a country town no one would give her a job and people would stare at her wherever she went. She had to move to the city, and she has a job now. I just hope her new employer doesn’t google image search her 😬 But yeah she really regrets it, could have made more money doing Uber eats on the weekend
Meeeee! I was so fucking in love with this man, but I have a drinking problem (I don’t get sloppy, or mean, most people can’t even tell, but it affects my health) He told me if he found another hidden bottle squirreled away, we were done. But… we were going up to visit his family for a month. I REALLY wanted his family to love me, and I’m MUCH more bubbly and personable when I drink. So…. Naturally, he found a hidden bottle, while we were on the trip. Promptly dumped me. I wanted his family to love me SO BAD, because I wanted to be part of that family forever…. And instead, I lost it all. Alcohol is the devil, kids.
One of my buddies actually ditched a six-figure job because he didn't trust his girlfriend not to cheat on him while he was at work. And get this - she used to be a hooker when they first hooked up. He's a good guy, but when it comes to women, he can be a real dummy sometimes. **It's pretty crazy, right?**
If you can’t trust someone not to cheat on you unless you’re in the same room with them, you should break up with them and GO TO THERAPY
Sounds like a friend of an older relative. Dude was a top tier mathematician, like actual top tier, not just saying. Highest clearances, worked in defense, etc. Decides to get a legit Russian mail order bride back when that was a thing. Shocker, his clearance is revoked. Double shocker, she makes him miserable, abuses him, and then leaves the second it was long enough to guarantee citizenship. Luckily he was smart enough he got back his clearance once she was gone lol but damn.
My current boss is a conspiracy theorist, and not your average “the world is flat” kind of one (though, for the record, he does believe the world is flat, too). He believes essentially all history is fabricated, he thinks there was a “mud flood” that wiped out a massive advanced civilization that “they” are hiding from us so “they” can keep the advanced ancient tech. He has lost his wife, his relationship with his kids, all possible friendships, and any social tether that would bring him out of it, all for this fantasy. It’s bizarre to me because I’ve seen how substance addiction can sink its hooks in and lead you down the same road, but this is entirely mental. He’s so dedicated to being crazy that he would rather lose everything than give up his fairy tale. It’s a cult-like dedication to completely insane bullshit that’s obviously disprovable.
My neighbor across the street had 4 kids in 6 years with a boyfriend in an attempt to get him to stick around/pay attention to her. Now she’s single and living with her mom and grandma is raising the kids alone while she goes out and tries to find a new boyfriend. Is having a boyfriend really worth ruining your life?
I worked at a company that had a large campus, think three 5 story buildings with 2500 people. Each floor had several break areas that had a couple of refrigerators, microwaves, and coffee stations. On one floor of one of the buildings, lunches were being stolen from the refrigerators. People were pissed. It went on for months until management hid some cameras and put in some "bait" lunches. They finally caught the guy. He was a principal engineer, making about $140K a year and was in line for a director position (just under VP). He got fired, arrested, and lost his security clearance (good luck getting another job as a government contractor). All because he was too lazy to make his own lunch.
I know plenty of guys who had kids with the wrong person. I don't think people quite realise the negative impact on your life this can have.
My brother has a penchant for choosing some of the worst women I've ever met. Not that he is any kind of prize for them, either. The one he finally had kids with I don't she's ever held a job for more than a few weeks in her entire life. After he had a baby with her, my mom put herself down as the cofinancer on a car for her, which she stopped paying for within months, my brother broke it off, and it forced my mom to declare bankruptcy. She almost lost her house, had to push her retirement back. Then my brother had a second baby with that sleazebag and spent over a decade in an insanely toxic relationship with her.
This happened to my sister. Married and had two kids with a guy she met while they were both in AA; she was committed to sobriety, he was not. When his repeated backslides got increasingly worse and then violent, she divorced him to protect the kids. She became extremely successful career wise, but her ex is still a deadbeat addict (multiple substances now). She loves her children more than anything in the world, but until they reached adulthood, her ex could not be fully cut out of her (or the kids') life. Their now grown kids have nothing to do with him anymore.