I've never had difficulty assembling IKEA furniture, but I take my time. I take 1-2 hours to assemble a simple bookcase. I double check everything I do.
Yeah, if you just read the instructions, IKEA furniture is actually really intuitive to assemble. I think the whole notion that IKEA furniture is difficult to assemble is really overblown.
Omg- me and my SO trying to assemble my daughters toddler bed (not from ikea) way more stressful than it needed to be đđI eventually was like "ok you need to go somewhere else, I'll figure it out"
> The trust was gone. The camaraderie was gone. The love was still there, but so was resentment. He said it felt like his best friend had died.
đ„ș Once trust is broken itâs never the same.
I expect Mike knew he was just going to shit all over this girl and dump her anyway, (which he obviously did if he's now with you), which probably contributed to mikes decision to sleep with her. (if he claimed to be in love with her and knew what your BF was like, he probably though BF wouldn't really care about it).
Thatâs not a real solution. Â No one is going to go to their best friend and say âyou done bro?â Â Only solution for him was to accept the fact that he has a crush on someone he canât have because that is a worthy sacrifice for a true friend.
> No one is going to go to their best friend and say âyou done bro?â
In all seriousness, why? If you know heâs not that into her why not just be honest?
>he probably though BF wouldn't really care about it
It's not the sex OP's bf cares about, it's the fact that it was *behind his back.* If they're in a monogamous relationship that is a betrayal, regardless how the bf felt about the girl.
Mike is an untrustworthy idiot.
Mike saw his best mate for what he truly is - a giant man whore who ploughs through women week after week. He knew it would never last so thought, 'what the hell'. Not saying this is right, but you can sort of see what his thought process probably was
This sounds like an excuse, and a shoddy one.
If Mike knew his friend didn't care about this girl, all he had to do was TELL HIM how he felt so he could break up with her.
But sleeping with her in secret while she was in an exclusive relationship with his friend?
That's a betrayal. There was literally no reason not to have a discussion with his friend before getting with the girl.
>**There was literally no reason not to have a discussion with his friend before getting with the girl.**
This right here. I wonder if Mike was jealous/resentful of his friend on some level, and this was his way of getting back at him.
I mean...he was "in love" with the girl his friend was fucking so I'd say there's a good chance he was both jealous and resentful. Obviously his love wasn't reciprocated, since he didn't get with the girl post-breakup, and as soon as this girl saw her ex/OP's bf again she was offering him sex AND ratting Mike out.
You've already got a lot of comments so I don't know if you'll see this. But it's strange how your boyfriend "deserved to know" *after* he rejected her offer of hooking up, and not, you know, at the time while she was cheating or any time since then.
My wife had an emergency ceaserean for our second. It was horrific hearing her screaming in pain before they made the decision. Seeing her cut open was surprisingly calm. Very fast and super efficient.
Same here, she pushed for an hour before they made the call to go to surgery. 3 minutes later she was down the hall in the OR, and 3 more minutes later, I was holding my son. Obviously being an emergency situation, I knew they'd work fast but damn they really weren't messing around.
On behalf of any women whose partners were not present, supportive, or were emotionally abusive during their childâs birth, I thank you for acknowledging your wifeâs amazing strength. I live vicariously through unconditional love like this đ«¶đœ
Well here's another one for ya if you'd like :)
I had to give birth to our first baby with no medication, the pain was immense, like I was throwing up nothing and my body spazzing, my husband held my hands the entire time, trying to comfort me, crying with me, talking constantly, it really was distracting but in a good way.
The nurse told us that he was the most attentive husband she'd ever seen and thanked him.
I didn't even change ONE diaper until a week or so later because he did it all, wanting me to rest.
Oh, dude. Where I am, they very forcefully guide the partner AWAY from even being able to glance at that. The nurse told me, "We're already busy, we don't want to have to pick dad/partner/support person up off the floor, too."
They asked me "hey we're about to pop them out, you wanna see?" Me not really thinking said sure and immediately regretted it lol. With #2 I said nah I'm good.
Oh man. Watching my SO in labour for like a day and a half, neither of us sleeping or eating... damn. The moment they gave her an epidural and her pain visibly disappeared, my whole body went weak and I had to grab the side of the hospital bed to keep from collapsing.
Everyone, including my SO, looked at me in alarm and asked: "Are you okay?"
I was okay, but the strain of watching someone you love go through the agony (and mental stress) of a difficult childbirth really depletes you. It wasn't until her pain was gone that my whole body was like, "Okay, now we can collapse."
I'm with you brother. My wife was only 53 and still in her prime, when she was diagnosed with cancer and given a 2% 5-year survival rate. She fought it like a tiger and died the day after her 56th birthday. Watching the love of my life suffering while fighting a losing battle was heartbreaking.
Watching my love screaming in pain because of the pain in his head. Then the scared look on his face when he was told he needed brain surgery, then the resigned almost calm/far away look on his face the last time I saw him. That's when I got scared.
Watching my partner deal with the loss of a close family member was undoubtedly the hardest thing I've ever experienced alongside them. The grief was overwhelming, and there were moments when I felt completely helpless, unsure of how to provide the support they needed. Seeing them go through the stages of mourning, from disbelief to anger to profound sadness, was heartbreaking. We navigated through the funeral, the empty house, and the echoes of memories together. Despite the difficulty, it brought us closer, teaching us the importance of being there for each other in times of deep sorrow.
Seeing her degenerate from a chronic illness. Slowly being able to only walk a few thousand steps a day. Then 500 steps a day. Some days, she cannot walk at all. Some days she has to be on painkillers to get through the day.
Dealing with family members or friends who cannot understand why some days I have to do all the running round, insisting that she's just lazy.
Dealing with people who think she's faking it for attention or a disabled badge.
I just want to say thank you, as a wife of a husband that has seen me through a mental break in 2018, and then the mutual heartbreak of burying 13 people the summer of 2021, followed by me waking up blind 9 months later. My husband is my best friend and has always been my staunchest advocate, and after the last life-changing event, I cannot even put it into proper words just how much I love him. He was there for me when I stayed drunk and in the bed for the first 3 months of the blindness, and then when I decided to quit drinking and learn to live with it, he supported me through that, too. He was doing all the housework until I relearned to do it, he was handling the kids, doing all the shopping, and running all the errands until we could find a house that wasn't 30 miles into the backwoods. Now we're in the village and I can walk to 90% of the places I have to go to shop and pay the bills. The move has been a balm on both our concerns and worries regarding my blindness.
Anyways, thank you for being there, and for having her back against the assholes of the world.
My wife was SA'd by a family member as a child, so she was very standoffish to intimate physical contact when we dated and even after we married was resistant to intercourse. It took several years of intimacy to free her from that past knowing she was now in a trusting and loving relationship
When his mother was hit by a car in 2019.
It was the first time in 10 years when I saw him crying and he passed out in the hospital room when we went to see her.
He is not afraid to be vulnerable, but this was another level for sure. It broke my heart seeing him like that.
Luckily she is well now, just some scars from the accident.
The most challenging thing I've witnessed my partner deal with was the loss of a close friend. Seeing them navigate through grief and sorrow was heartbreaking.
My SO for having to carry our dead unborn for a couple of days after the bad news before initiating birth, never seen her in such pain, which still affects her to this day
The mental abuse coming from her mother. Her mother is 77 years old and for the last 15 years or so has lived in an apartment that's built in to our house. She is obese and can barely walk, her hobby is going to doctor's appointments, which my wife has to take her to most of the time, her sister helps on occasion. My wife takes meals to her daily, cleans-up her mess when she shits and pisses all over the place (daily) but the mental abuse is probably the worse part. She gets in these moods where she acts like we keep her locked away," nobody loves me", "you feed me like a dog", etc, and she gets jealous when she finds out my wife spent time with our granddaughters but didn't stop by to visit her. She says that we have turned our kids against her, but the reality is that she has done that herself because when they do stop by, she dumps her problems on them and cries and shit, she has been doing this since they were little. Some days she's fine, happy and seemingly normal, but the next day she's back to doom and gloom. She's diabetic and doesn't listen to any of her doctor's or nutritionists advice, she's constantly self-diagnosing and trying snake oil she's found on youtube. I could go on and on, I'm just ready for this shit to end.
I feel for you. This really sounds like my grandma. These kinds of people are the worst. They're always so ungrateful and, at the same time, 100% dependent on other people. Which put you in a horrible position. I'm so sorry you are in this position đ
Similarly this was the hardest thing for me to watch for my partner as well. Her dad passed away when she was really young and she was raised by her abusive mom and her moms string of abusive boyfriends. Learning all of the stuff she went through and trying to be there as she went through therapy to pick up the pieces of herself and rebuild herself was so hard as there wasn't a lot that I could do for her besides being supportive.
She finally cut her mother off a few years ago and the pain from that was so bad she almost took her own life. Then 6 months after that her sisters reached out to tell her that their mom had terminal lung cancer and wouldn't live more than a few more months.
After having finally gotten through the worst of it she had to endure another 6 months of guilt thrown her way because she would not forgive her mother for all of the pain she caused her over the years.
The day we finally received the call that she had passed away was the worst of them all. To watch this amazingly strong person reduced to a crying pile on the ground just wanting to see her mom one more time even knowing everything she put her through is the most heart wrenching thing I have ever experienced.
We are now just over a year since that day and she is better than ever.
My husband had to sit back and watch me almost die from leukemia, only to have his mother, who he had gotten even closer with during my cancer, die from lung cancer. Its all still recent, he is still raw from it. He's dealing with it better each day, but grief is a hell of a monster.
An ex of mine experienced relationship trauma before dating me and would sometimes disassociate and stare into space when I would try to have conversations about us. This didn't happen until maybe 5 or 6 months in, and became a stressor for me because I was constantly scared of saying the wrong thing and began monitoring the words that I'd say.Â
One night near the end of our relationship, I mentioned how I wanted to find something that he was comfortable with that would help me to get my needs met (I was craving physical affection, like snuggling and holding hands, but he's very averse to that) and he just kind of snapped. Got up, left the room to get water, and expressed things such as "I can never do anything right, please tell me exactly what I need to do and I will learn to do it."
I have experienced those phrases in abusive relationships, but this wasn't that. This was him reliving the feeling of "not being enough" after having a previous partner tell him he wasn't a good boyfriend or manly enough and he was reliving those feelings of inadequacy.Â
I know first hand what that can feel like, and it was so heartbreaking to watch him think there was something wrong with him. I still think about that night a lot.Â
We broke up somewhere around a month later, him saying things like "I don't think I'm fit for relationships" and things along those lines. I don't know what he's up to now, but I do hope that he's found a better place to be in mentally because it absolutely breaks my heart to know he's struggled(ing) with those feelings. The next few months after the breakup were really hard for me and it sent me spiraling because I felt like a failure not being able to help him move on from that.Â
Therapy has been really helpful for me. I do a lot of the talking and reasoning, but it's been validating to hear from her that it wasn't my job to fix his feelings and that I did the best that I could when it came to giving him a safe space.
My husband went overseas to his homeland to see his mum as she was very ill and expected to pass away but instead whilst he was there his seemingly healthy brother died of a heart attack at age 55. It was torture not being able to hug and comfort him when he phoned to tell me
The suicide of his mother in the family home. She was severely mentally ill but no one in the family would listen to me. She just had to get back to normal so his dad would be happy. It was gross. She knew her eldest son was on drugs and she was so worried he would die before her that her twisted mind figured she should kill herself first. Her husband was supposed to be watching her when she was released from the hospital from a suicide attempt using pills. He couldn't be bothered. He always had coffee at his sister's house in the morning and wasn't gonna change that for his damn wife! She used this time to go buy a shotgun. Then pick up shotgun when it was delivered to store. He never had a clue she left the house, cause really he was just mad at her for ruining him doing what he wanted. God I hate him so much. Next morning he left for coffee and she went and got the gun, took it to laundry room in basement and blew her head off. Her asshole husband comes home to find this. And I'm glad because it was on HIS WATCH. It hadn't even been two weeks since her first attempt so it's not like he was exhausted from keeping her safe. Plus all of us pitched in to stay with her. But he just couldn't be bothered. It broke my ex husband. He was a momma's boy. He never recovered. He began drinking hard to cope and an underlying mental issue of his reared it's ugly head. I tried for 8 years to get him healthy but he was just too broken. He is now a meth head wandering the streets and im slowly building mine and our son's life back. Destroyed my life.
I'm tempted to say the time that she had surgery to remove a large fibroid from her uterus. It was about the size of a cantaloupe, and the resulting surgery was more or less a cesarean, which means she was opened at the lower abdomen from hip to hip. A wild mixup meant that the only pain management she had access to afterward was Tylenol and Ginger Tea for the first four days. Still, she'd doggedly get up when prescribed to walk around, showered, and generally got on with the business of living.
While I'm quite certain this sucked to an *unbelievable* degree, it was also a case of Type 2 fun. That is to say something that wasn't fun when it happened, but became fun later once the pain lost its edges in memory. Whenever she says something to the effect of "I think you have a higher pain tolerance than I do," I can point out that she fell asleep for a knife fight and then took some tylenol about it like it was no big deal. (I, meanwhile, will probably complain quite a lot about the aches and pains associated with walking up a sufficiently tall hill.)
The real answer, though, was her mother dying. She's far enough past it that it isn't an open wound, but it will long remain a reason why we'll need to find something to distract her with on a few important anniversaries. There are many things I can help her with. When she loses a knife fight I can be her hands and feet. When she's stumbled into one of those things that terrifies her, I can be the anchor she clings to. When work sucks and people are bastards, I can listen to her vent. I can't bring her mother back, though. I can just be there, and that never feels like enough.
I'd say it's a three way tossup between helping her recover from a severe TBI, watching her go through a mystery illness a few years later that had her in quarantined ICU for a week at one point, and the death of her twin sister from a form of brain cancer that pretty much never happens in middle-aged Caucasian women.
My bf woke me up at 3am in the bathroom crying and disoriented from pain. After some debate we decided I'd drive him to the ER with my mom for support, as he didn't want to pay for an ambulance. That drive was absolutely horrible. He cried the whole way in pain and every bump or turn made it worse. Luckily it was only about a 15 minute drive. I tried my hardest not to cry or anything but on the inside I really started to feel like he was going to die or was seriously hurt.
At the hospital, we waited for 45 minutes in the lobby, he got two shots of morphine over his stay in that ER, they did a scan and said that everything was fine and it was all in his head. When I asked what he should do for pain, the doctor shrugged and said "tylenol, fluids". We went home.
Long story short (very long), sometime over the next two days his appendix burst. He came home at one point with a drain, showed signs of worsening infection so he went back, had 2 more drains put in to get rid of the gunk, was in the hospital for another week or so. He lost about 30 pounds, and had two or three surgeries out of it.
The surgeon who took care of him said that if he had been transferred when he first went to the ER, he could have taken out the appendix before it burst and he'd have been home in less than a day. He also saw the scan taken at the previous ER and said he could tell it needed removed even from that scan.
It's absolutely amazing he's back to normal now, less than a year later. The whole situation was hell to watch and experience, but the car ride sticks out as just horrific to sit through. Neither of us knew what was happening, I was driving in the dark, certain that the love of my life was gonna die next to me while I was helpless to do anything. I wish more than anything I had been more insistent when we went to the first ER, or asked to have him transferred, but I just try to remember that he's alright now and it worked out
An undiagnosed herniated disc, it flared up over the years but one year, the pain just wouldnât stop. My husband couldnât walk, sit or stand for more than few minutes without agonizing pain. At my insistence, we went to urgent care and that the ball rolling on what was really going on. Five years, two cortisone shots, one distectomy and a diabetes diagnosis later, we got it under control. I was 8 months pregnant when he finally got care so all the heavy lifting was on me, and Iâm glad I was able to do it. No resentment or bad feelings, I was just relieved my Love was getting the care he needed. 20 years together makes you wanna go that extra mile
Having his big sister tragically rear ended and killed my the police. We were there when she took her last breath that morning (she was brain dead). First time I've ever seen him cry.
Watching my partner go through the loss of their father was the hardest thing I've ever witnessed. The grief and sadness in their eyes were heartbreaking, and all I could do was be there, offering support nd love. It was a painful, emotional journey but we faced it together.
My fiance has PTSD. She also started suffering from seizures as well as having what the doctors believe is Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. The doctors are starting to believe that there is some interconnection between the three.
It's really tough watching her go thru a seizure. And because she doesn't know that she just had a seizure that's a scary thing for her when she's able to process that information because it's scary and the last thing I want for her is to feel embarrassed by it. It's just horrific coming home and seeing her on the floor unconscious and not knowing what he may have fallen on.
I get night terrors myself, but one time she was really struggling with the PTSD and the vomiting and was just getting no sleep and very little to eat for about 3 weeks. Then she had the mother of all night terrors in front of me. She had never had a night terror in front of me before, but I know what they look like. And that was her repeatedly screaming at the top of her lungs for her life and then getting up out of bed and going to the corner of the room continuing to scream for her life. The torture she has gone thru with that PTSD was on full display and there was nothing I could do but watch and hope she would wake up.
Watching my husband continue to struggle with the sudden loss of his very best friend of 40 years. He hasnât dealt with it very well. He stuffs it down. But he stopped doing a lot of things he loved, he doesnât seem to like to be alone with his thoughts at all. Five months after his best friend suddenly died, his dad passed away. Itâs been difficult. I plan trips and things to do to help him, but he really needs to do this work for himself. I donât think he open to therapy or grief counseling. Itâs still really tough, everyday. I do all I can to be here for him, encouraging him to talk and express his feelings. But heâs really been difficult to open up.
The day after our wedding, my husband's mother went into the hospital due to complications of cancer and died the very next day. We had to cancel our honeymoon and go to Texas from Maryland last minute for a boatload of money, but we made it on time, and he was able to say goodbye to her before she passed away. He was very stoic and brave about it, but I know it was very hard on him.
Her sister being an absolute fuckup and using her as a safety net, repeatedly. She let a chronically unemployed 28-year-old white aspiring rapper with 5 felony convictions get her pregnant twice, then she started dating a new unemployed guy and moved 3 hours away with her kid after like 2 weeks, and just left all her stuff at her old place. Then when that blew up a month later (turns out the guy was a heroin addict) she showed up at our door, pregnant and needing a place for her and her kid to stay. Then she made no effort to get her shit together and trashed our house for 6 months.
Ye I come from a family where everyone shouts when they are upset or angry but my partner doesn't they go quiet and want their own space which was a massive curve for me to learn
Dealing with his abusive and maniuplative ex-wife. She is not happy unless everyone else is miserable and/or doing what she wants/thinks is best. Harped so much on her daughter that she developed an eating disorder. Had a hand in the breakup of her son's relationship with his longtime girlfriend. Tried (semi-successfully at the time) to drive a wedge between him and both kids, but in the end it didn't work. Blamed me for the breakup of their marriage... even though I wasn't in the picture until they had already been separated for a year. The list goes on and on.
her mother. I didn't see it at the time. She would tell me these things and I was just like we are talking about two different people. she went on trips with us and she was super helpful. What I was not seeing was the other side of the coin, the little comments the jabs(they speak Spanish and i understand but im not native speaker so if im really no paying attention i dont understand) or complaints and narcissistic behavior.
Watching my boyfriend's entire life ripped away as a result of a major cardiac arrest at 33. He had just graduated flight school, had an interview for internship at Sky West, then that night had a cardiac arrest that put him in ICU and came home with a shiny new Pacemaker/ICD
No more being a pilot, no more flying, and roughly $100k in debt (private college) with no way to pay it back except working one or two days a week part time while he was studying.
Watching the fallout from that event 2.5 years ago still has effects today, and it absolutely broke my heart to see him struggling with something he worked so hard for being taken away before it ever got a chance to see the light of day.
Oh ye I deal with anxiety and watching my partner learn strategies to help calm me was one of the most loving gestures ever but they seem to think it is normal behaviour
My FIL decided to end his life last month. My poor boo. Just aweful the shit show that is unpacking in his absence. She is doing great trying to clean up the mess, while grieving. I could not be more proud of her. Here's hoping that karma swings back around and gives her a break. She deserves it.
Been together since we are 15 just over 7 years now , spending the first 3 years as normal teens and when we hit our 20s he started taking seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy something neither of us were prepared for . It has been the scariest , strangest and most overwhelming experience Iâve ever went through in my life .
My ex was in a car accident when she was a little girl. Every now and then she would get these back problems. The worse was when she was having period cramps and her back problems at the same time. She would just be laying on the couch twitching in constant pain.
She'd snap at me then apologize right away.
I'd walk on eggshells around her trying to comfort her and not be too annoying. Eventually she would send me to the store for booze so she could get drunk enough to sleep. Motrin wasn't enough.
Losing his mom. That really took a part of him away that he wonât ever get back. He broke down in front of me and I just held him and cried with him, it was really hard. This was also just a few months after I was assaulted in the military so we were really dealing with a lot. Weâre finally getting back to normal life again
Her father passing suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack. It was rough on us both, as he was more of a father figure to me than either my bio- or step- dad, but it wrecked her for a good while.
Depression and Self-esteem issues. During one of these sessions, she told me that she didnât feel worthy of my love and she told me she couldn't understand why I love her or why anyone does.Â
 That hurts even today as I type this because I couldn't and canât fathom why she would ever feel that way, when one of the largest reasons why I love her is because she loved me, and was patient with me and saw the potential in me noone else did while I was objectively by any standards, truly largely unloveable and during the lowest, darkest points in my life. Â
Even to this day, for those that knew me during that time in my life, I carry the âblack markâ. They are nice to my face because of who I am now but I can sense their aversion to me deep down. Â
 She's the only person who saw who I am now, back then when things weren't good and loved me anyways even while I was still that person. She truly saved my life. I was not worthy of her.Â
 Seeing her hurt like that and think less of herself hurts me in a way that's hard to explain because she was and is so impactful and important to me and I hold her in such a high regard and everyone around her is so positively impacted by her, even the shitty people in our lives who are unable to see what her presence is and she isnât even aware of it or she doesn't believe it.Â
When the doctor told her that our unborn baby no longer had a heartbeat was hard and then watching her have to miscarry that baby later that night in the bathroom was even harder. She did not want to let go of it. But watching my wife go through that pain for weeks/months afterward was maybe the toughest. That was years ago and we have had 2 children since then.
My husband sobbing over his best friend of 7 years (we were in our early 20's at this point) choosing to ghost him because we didn't approve of his abusive girlfriend
My bf has some trust issues (not with me, just in general) due to some trauma in his past, so while he has a hard time letting people get close to him -- he absolutely adores animals. When we started dating he has just taken in his brother's older Lab, as his brother was just going to get rid of her after having her for 7 or so years. My bf loved this dog more than almost anything, she helped his mental health a lot.
One night she had a seizure, I met him at the emergency vet, got her looked after, etc. we brought her home the next day. A couple hours after she came home, she had another seizure. A violent one that we weren't sure she would come out of. I NEVER want to see my bf in that kind of pain again, just helpless, in hysterics, having to watch his best friend suffer like that. It absolutely tore my heart out. Unfortunately he had to make the decision to have her euthinized that night. Again, it was just horrible. Grief is awful at the best of times.
Her dad died during our first year together. I met him, and then a few months later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Then a few months later he was dead.
I don't think she ever fully processed it or came to terms with it while we were together. I would imagine she's still struggling with it. I can't imagine what it must have felt like. But I could visually see how it affected her, and it wasn't pretty.
Really made me fear for my parents.
After our third miscarriage my wife was having a very hard time, and she opened up about struggling with suicidal ideation and feeling like a failure of a wife. I told her up and down that her fertility struggles had nothing to do with my love for her and my belief that she is the best wife I could have ever asked for, but in end I couldn't do a single thing to take her pain away. It was hard seeing the woman I love talking about not wanting to live anymore, despite all the wonderful things she does in the lives of everyone she knows.
When my husband was 28 his mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimerâs two months after his dad was diagnosed with ALS. Heâs an only child of only children and had to essentially face it alone. I met him a year after his dad died, and never understood how he was able to move on.
His mom finally passed away this year. It was tough watching him try to work through those feelings of being alone in the world. Luckily he now has me and our two kids and a horde of âfound familyâ.
My boyfriendâs dad passed away four years ago, we had started dating when it was almost the three years anniversary. I wasnât there when it happened, or to see the initial healing process. But i had to watch the chain of events that followed. Their step mom moved back to Japan to be with her direct family shortly after the dad passed away. His oldest sister lived a state away and has a good job there and never planned to move back or anything like that. He was left in charge of the household and it didnât take too long for me to see how much they took advantage of his extreme kind nature. I could tell he had a lot of love for his siblings. Seeing him be the role of the head of the house and always stressing about how his youngest sister doesnât pay her share of the bills and always behind on payments was hard to see. The youngest sister also seemed very attached to him, freaked out whenever he wasnât home often, would blow up his phone when he spent too much time at my house. figured this probably had to do with trauma. He was trying his best to please everyone in the house, always fixing their cars, paying the bills and waiting to get their part venmoed to him, repairing the house and doing maintenance all by himself, mowing the lawn, pulling the weeds, and he always did this quietly. never complained about how nobody helped him. the worst part was watching him getting yelled at all the time by his siblings. if he left his dishes in the sink, if he didnât help sweep the house one morning, if he forgot about an event, if he hung out too much at my house. It was hard watching a then 22 year old juggle so much. I never got too close with the siblings as I saw this might end a bit ugly one day with the constant nagging of how much money he spent on me or time he spent on me. They ended up falling out and we moved to the town I was going to university at. Even watching them fallout was hard to watch, heâs doing amazing now. So much less pressure on him. But it still is sad to see.
Death of her parents. She looked after them as they grew older and had to move to care homes. This was during Covid and there were not enough care people. She would come home every night and cry. This went on for 5 years and though it strained our relationship, after they were gone, we slowly went back to our life.
Watching my wife go through countless medical issues over the last 2 years with little to no help or answers from any of her doctors. It's absolutely brutal as a husband not being able to do anything to help her. I just have to watch her suffer while we cycle through new doctors trying to find answers.
Her absolute dumpster fire of an extended family any time there is a death. These people circle like vultures and pick the financial corpse clean, while trying to bully the remainder of her family into silence.
My husband had to watch me grieve my dad abandoning me for another family when I was a teenager, now over 5 years later Iâm watching him grieve his mother doing the same to him
a couple things: he owned a business with his âfriendâ. they got a lot of work, they were great at what they did. his friend was a shitty co-owner. he would use the company card to go out to eat every night, buy useless stuff, etc. I was given access to their quickbooks account so I made a spreadsheet and totaled all the transactions up into separate columns based on how many times he had been to a restaurant and other categories where the spending wasnât as often. he spent around $3,000 at one restaurant in the span of 5 months, itâs not even an expensive restaurant either but he would buy drinks for whoever he was out with at that time. this co-owner would rarely pay him and when he did it would be like $500. anyway, the shop they were working out of had been rented by someone else a few days beforehand meaning they had two days to get all their stuff out which went well I guess. after that, radio silence from this âfriendâ of his. once everything was out that was it, my boyfriend hasnât heard a single word from him since then.
second thing: he called me crying a couple weeks ago, said he thinks he just saw his uncle dead. he had arrived at his grandmothers to an ambulance and paramedics inside. he saw the paramedics in his uncles room, they had him rolled on his side while knuckle rubbing his back (which usually can mean choking on your own vomit and whatnot) and foam coming out of his mouth. he saw them load him up on a stretcher and said his uncle looked like a wet noodle, completely limp. they never announced a pulse and he didnât see them doing cpr which really freaked him out. his grandmother (uncles mom) found him passed out on his bed and didnât know how long he had been like that either so it was extra worrisome. they have a really great relationship, almost two peas in a pod. he suffered from a seizure at home, three more at the hospital, and then was life flighted to a better equipped hospital. thankfully heâs okay now but hearing him say âI think I just saw joeâ dead was a lot. he said he was fine but I know thatâs a lot for someone to witness. thinking you saw someone dead can be traumatizing to some.
My ex lost her brother and mother in the same year. She's 34 but has pretty much been living life as if it's over ever since, and hasn't gone to therapy.
We were expecting a son a few years ago but it ended in a stillbirth. They broke the news during an ultrasound.
The worst part was watching her deliver a baby who wasnât alive. I guess she forgot what was happening because of the drugs they gave her but once he was out, she kept saying he had my chin and nose, she had the biggest smile.
Overall, it was a terrible part of our lives but that delivery was particularly dreadful. Watching her be super happy, while she slowly remembered what was actually happening. Itâs like it happened to her twice.
His mother. She was physically and emotionally abusive to him as a child. Then, when she needed taking care of full time, he came to her rescue. Only for her to go right back into manipulation and abuse. I never want to change him. He can make his own decisions, and I can tell him my opinion and he'll genuinely listen. But that's still his mom, and he's still that sweet little boy inside.
Her father's death. She held his hand all night. She said he was in and out of consciousness and trying to talk, but not to her. It was like he was talking to different people throughout his long life. She also "felt" like other people were in the room. She cried so much.Â
She explained.. I was not ready I guess because it was quite quick. But more so the fact he is no longer around for her to turn to. The guy was a master joiner and very very good at DIY. He helped us/taught me a lot..Â
My own regret is not asking more about his time way way back. The time beyond my reach.
My wife with PTSD from combat tours. She has nightmares and trouble sleeping and there's not much I can do about it. I'm beginning to understand how to help I'm social situations, at least.
Recovering from surgery to correct her scoliosis. Had an incision running the length of her spine and had metal rods attached to the length of her spine to keep it straightÂ
Watching my partner deal with undiagnosed and untreated bipolar. It was rough on everyone around her, and when we attempted to approach the topic there was hysterics regarding her being "an awful person."
One of his troops unalived himself. It hit the whole detachment so hard but it took awhile for my SO to stop questioning what he could have done differently
Hardest in the past, was when our cat died (me too). She was just broken for weeks.
Hardest now, watching her struggle to breathe with COPD. Nothing I can do to help.
Adapting to western culture.
She's from Africa, moved to Canada to be with me.
I've had to tell her to use seat belts repeatedly, don't wash power outlets because they always have electricity going through them, sound goes through walls when she watches TV, there's only 50k people in our city, not 4 million like where she's from.
It's not all fun like watching the trees turn for the seasons.
Watching my fiance struggle with alcoholism has been difficult. He's done the 12 steps, goes to AA meetings, has people in his life who hold him accountable, but it's still an uphill battle. Alcoholism is a sick disease I wouldn't wish on anyone. Luckily he isn't in a bad place right now, and I'll be there for him if he ever gets to that tipping point again.
48 hours of complication filled labor resulting in an emergency C section for our child we had wanted for years. She is the strongest woman I know and I have never seen her in so much pain that I could not shoulder with her. I did my best to do everything I could to support her but I've never felt so utterly helpless.
I've watched her support me emotionally during the darkest years of my life. Now I'm on the mend and she's burnt-out and depressed, and I can't help her any more than she could help me.
Had to watch my very stoic husband deal with feelings of guilt over his mom's cat getting hit by a car the night he had been asked to stop over to feed and water it. It was an indoor only cat, but it escaped when he tried to leave. Couldn't find it, gave up around 3 am. When his parents got home the next day, they said they'd found the cat having already passed away on the nearby highway. His mom was devastated. And my husband felt awful for weeks afterward.
Watching my partner try to assemble IKEA furniture without reading the instructions.
I've never had difficulty assembling IKEA furniture, but I take my time. I take 1-2 hours to assemble a simple bookcase. I double check everything I do.
Measure twice, cut once! The same goes for Nazgul blades!
Yeah, if you just read the instructions, IKEA furniture is actually really intuitive to assemble. I think the whole notion that IKEA furniture is difficult to assemble is really overblown.
Omg- me and my SO trying to assemble my daughters toddler bed (not from ikea) way more stressful than it needed to be đđI eventually was like "ok you need to go somewhere else, I'll figure it out"
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> The trust was gone. The camaraderie was gone. The love was still there, but so was resentment. He said it felt like his best friend had died. đ„ș Once trust is broken itâs never the same.
You can crumple paper but you can't uncrumple it.
I expect Mike knew he was just going to shit all over this girl and dump her anyway, (which he obviously did if he's now with you), which probably contributed to mikes decision to sleep with her. (if he claimed to be in love with her and knew what your BF was like, he probably though BF wouldn't really care about it).
So why not be honest and just ask the boyfriend to end it, instead of sneaking around? Also, breaking up with someone â âshitting all over herâ
Thatâs not a real solution. Â No one is going to go to their best friend and say âyou done bro?â Â Only solution for him was to accept the fact that he has a crush on someone he canât have because that is a worthy sacrifice for a true friend.
I disagree. He knew his friend wasnât serious about her. I see nothing wrong with Mike confessing his feelings and asking his friend to step aside.
> No one is going to go to their best friend and say âyou done bro?â In all seriousness, why? If you know heâs not that into her why not just be honest?
>he probably though BF wouldn't really care about it It's not the sex OP's bf cares about, it's the fact that it was *behind his back.* If they're in a monogamous relationship that is a betrayal, regardless how the bf felt about the girl. Mike is an untrustworthy idiot.
Mike saw his best mate for what he truly is - a giant man whore who ploughs through women week after week. He knew it would never last so thought, 'what the hell'. Not saying this is right, but you can sort of see what his thought process probably was
This sounds like an excuse, and a shoddy one. If Mike knew his friend didn't care about this girl, all he had to do was TELL HIM how he felt so he could break up with her. But sleeping with her in secret while she was in an exclusive relationship with his friend? That's a betrayal. There was literally no reason not to have a discussion with his friend before getting with the girl.
>**There was literally no reason not to have a discussion with his friend before getting with the girl.** This right here. I wonder if Mike was jealous/resentful of his friend on some level, and this was his way of getting back at him.
I mean...he was "in love" with the girl his friend was fucking so I'd say there's a good chance he was both jealous and resentful. Obviously his love wasn't reciprocated, since he didn't get with the girl post-breakup, and as soon as this girl saw her ex/OP's bf again she was offering him sex AND ratting Mike out.
You've already got a lot of comments so I don't know if you'll see this. But it's strange how your boyfriend "deserved to know" *after* he rejected her offer of hooking up, and not, you know, at the time while she was cheating or any time since then.
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My wife had an emergency ceaserean for our second. It was horrific hearing her screaming in pain before they made the decision. Seeing her cut open was surprisingly calm. Very fast and super efficient.
Same here, she pushed for an hour before they made the call to go to surgery. 3 minutes later she was down the hall in the OR, and 3 more minutes later, I was holding my son. Obviously being an emergency situation, I knew they'd work fast but damn they really weren't messing around.
On behalf of any women whose partners were not present, supportive, or were emotionally abusive during their childâs birth, I thank you for acknowledging your wifeâs amazing strength. I live vicariously through unconditional love like this đ«¶đœ
Well here's another one for ya if you'd like :) I had to give birth to our first baby with no medication, the pain was immense, like I was throwing up nothing and my body spazzing, my husband held my hands the entire time, trying to comfort me, crying with me, talking constantly, it really was distracting but in a good way. The nurse told us that he was the most attentive husband she'd ever seen and thanked him. I didn't even change ONE diaper until a week or so later because he did it all, wanting me to rest.
I peeked over the curtain when my wife was having a c-section. I was mortified and knew then she's stronger person than I'll ever be.
Oh, dude. Where I am, they very forcefully guide the partner AWAY from even being able to glance at that. The nurse told me, "We're already busy, we don't want to have to pick dad/partner/support person up off the floor, too."
They asked me "hey we're about to pop them out, you wanna see?" Me not really thinking said sure and immediately regretted it lol. With #2 I said nah I'm good.
Lol. I hope you tell your kids these stories.
There's a reason they put that little curtain up lol
Oh man. Watching my SO in labour for like a day and a half, neither of us sleeping or eating... damn. The moment they gave her an epidural and her pain visibly disappeared, my whole body went weak and I had to grab the side of the hospital bed to keep from collapsing. Everyone, including my SO, looked at me in alarm and asked: "Are you okay?" I was okay, but the strain of watching someone you love go through the agony (and mental stress) of a difficult childbirth really depletes you. It wasn't until her pain was gone that my whole body was like, "Okay, now we can collapse."
That is adorable, I hope you tell her that often
Cancer, my wife was diagnosed on her 40th birthday. She didnât make it to 44 Just the worst thing to ever witness
I'm so sorry.
I'm with you brother. My wife was only 53 and still in her prime, when she was diagnosed with cancer and given a 2% 5-year survival rate. She fought it like a tiger and died the day after her 56th birthday. Watching the love of my life suffering while fighting a losing battle was heartbreaking.
Mine was 48.
Coping with our 13 year old daughterâs suicide
I am so sorry for your loss.
The guilt never ends, does it? Itâs 19 years long for me so I expect it will be forever. Grief is love with nowhere to go.
Feel hugged (if you want too)
Watching my love screaming in pain because of the pain in his head. Then the scared look on his face when he was told he needed brain surgery, then the resigned almost calm/far away look on his face the last time I saw him. That's when I got scared.
Is he okay now? Hope everything is going great with you.
No. He didn't make it.
I am so fucking sorry, dude. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Two miscarriages in a row within the same year
I'm so sorry yall went through that. We lost 2 in 11 weeks, and it was probably some of the rawest grief we've ever felt.
Watching my partner deal with the loss of a close family member was undoubtedly the hardest thing I've ever experienced alongside them. The grief was overwhelming, and there were moments when I felt completely helpless, unsure of how to provide the support they needed. Seeing them go through the stages of mourning, from disbelief to anger to profound sadness, was heartbreaking. We navigated through the funeral, the empty house, and the echoes of memories together. Despite the difficulty, it brought us closer, teaching us the importance of being there for each other in times of deep sorrow.
Yip there is something about sadness that shows peoples true colours
Seeing her degenerate from a chronic illness. Slowly being able to only walk a few thousand steps a day. Then 500 steps a day. Some days, she cannot walk at all. Some days she has to be on painkillers to get through the day. Dealing with family members or friends who cannot understand why some days I have to do all the running round, insisting that she's just lazy. Dealing with people who think she's faking it for attention or a disabled badge.
I just want to say thank you, as a wife of a husband that has seen me through a mental break in 2018, and then the mutual heartbreak of burying 13 people the summer of 2021, followed by me waking up blind 9 months later. My husband is my best friend and has always been my staunchest advocate, and after the last life-changing event, I cannot even put it into proper words just how much I love him. He was there for me when I stayed drunk and in the bed for the first 3 months of the blindness, and then when I decided to quit drinking and learn to live with it, he supported me through that, too. He was doing all the housework until I relearned to do it, he was handling the kids, doing all the shopping, and running all the errands until we could find a house that wasn't 30 miles into the backwoods. Now we're in the village and I can walk to 90% of the places I have to go to shop and pay the bills. The move has been a balm on both our concerns and worries regarding my blindness. Anyways, thank you for being there, and for having her back against the assholes of the world.
Crippling depression. You know nothing you can say will make any difference and you pray to whatever you believe in that they'll hang on
My wife was SA'd by a family member as a child, so she was very standoffish to intimate physical contact when we dated and even after we married was resistant to intercourse. It took several years of intimacy to free her from that past knowing she was now in a trusting and loving relationship
youre a good spouse
Not many people have level of patience. You deserve each other
Respect đ«Ą
When his mother was hit by a car in 2019. It was the first time in 10 years when I saw him crying and he passed out in the hospital room when we went to see her. He is not afraid to be vulnerable, but this was another level for sure. It broke my heart seeing him like that. Luckily she is well now, just some scars from the accident.
Thank God that she is okay đđŸâïžâ€ïž
The most challenging thing I've witnessed my partner deal with was the loss of a close friend. Seeing them navigate through grief and sorrow was heartbreaking.
Lost her baby brother to skin cancer. She was an adult, but it tore her up.
That is horrific. Something about older family members burying younger ones just isn't right
Dying from a cardiac arrest, getting resuscitated, and then recovering in a hospital for three weeks
My SO for having to carry our dead unborn for a couple of days after the bad news before initiating birth, never seen her in such pain, which still affects her to this day
Been through this myself on the same side, worst thing in the world. My condolences to you for your loss.
The mental abuse coming from her mother. Her mother is 77 years old and for the last 15 years or so has lived in an apartment that's built in to our house. She is obese and can barely walk, her hobby is going to doctor's appointments, which my wife has to take her to most of the time, her sister helps on occasion. My wife takes meals to her daily, cleans-up her mess when she shits and pisses all over the place (daily) but the mental abuse is probably the worse part. She gets in these moods where she acts like we keep her locked away," nobody loves me", "you feed me like a dog", etc, and she gets jealous when she finds out my wife spent time with our granddaughters but didn't stop by to visit her. She says that we have turned our kids against her, but the reality is that she has done that herself because when they do stop by, she dumps her problems on them and cries and shit, she has been doing this since they were little. Some days she's fine, happy and seemingly normal, but the next day she's back to doom and gloom. She's diabetic and doesn't listen to any of her doctor's or nutritionists advice, she's constantly self-diagnosing and trying snake oil she's found on youtube. I could go on and on, I'm just ready for this shit to end.
I feel for you. This really sounds like my grandma. These kinds of people are the worst. They're always so ungrateful and, at the same time, 100% dependent on other people. Which put you in a horrible position. I'm so sorry you are in this position đ
Similarly this was the hardest thing for me to watch for my partner as well. Her dad passed away when she was really young and she was raised by her abusive mom and her moms string of abusive boyfriends. Learning all of the stuff she went through and trying to be there as she went through therapy to pick up the pieces of herself and rebuild herself was so hard as there wasn't a lot that I could do for her besides being supportive. She finally cut her mother off a few years ago and the pain from that was so bad she almost took her own life. Then 6 months after that her sisters reached out to tell her that their mom had terminal lung cancer and wouldn't live more than a few more months. After having finally gotten through the worst of it she had to endure another 6 months of guilt thrown her way because she would not forgive her mother for all of the pain she caused her over the years. The day we finally received the call that she had passed away was the worst of them all. To watch this amazingly strong person reduced to a crying pile on the ground just wanting to see her mom one more time even knowing everything she put her through is the most heart wrenching thing I have ever experienced. We are now just over a year since that day and she is better than ever.
My husband had to sit back and watch me almost die from leukemia, only to have his mother, who he had gotten even closer with during my cancer, die from lung cancer. Its all still recent, he is still raw from it. He's dealing with it better each day, but grief is a hell of a monster.
An ex of mine experienced relationship trauma before dating me and would sometimes disassociate and stare into space when I would try to have conversations about us. This didn't happen until maybe 5 or 6 months in, and became a stressor for me because I was constantly scared of saying the wrong thing and began monitoring the words that I'd say. One night near the end of our relationship, I mentioned how I wanted to find something that he was comfortable with that would help me to get my needs met (I was craving physical affection, like snuggling and holding hands, but he's very averse to that) and he just kind of snapped. Got up, left the room to get water, and expressed things such as "I can never do anything right, please tell me exactly what I need to do and I will learn to do it." I have experienced those phrases in abusive relationships, but this wasn't that. This was him reliving the feeling of "not being enough" after having a previous partner tell him he wasn't a good boyfriend or manly enough and he was reliving those feelings of inadequacy. I know first hand what that can feel like, and it was so heartbreaking to watch him think there was something wrong with him. I still think about that night a lot. We broke up somewhere around a month later, him saying things like "I don't think I'm fit for relationships" and things along those lines. I don't know what he's up to now, but I do hope that he's found a better place to be in mentally because it absolutely breaks my heart to know he's struggled(ing) with those feelings. The next few months after the breakup were really hard for me and it sent me spiraling because I felt like a failure not being able to help him move on from that. Therapy has been really helpful for me. I do a lot of the talking and reasoning, but it's been validating to hear from her that it wasn't my job to fix his feelings and that I did the best that I could when it came to giving him a safe space.
Watching him battles with his anxiety and depression is so hurtful to me, all I can do is be there for him and assures him I'll be right here with him
My husband went overseas to his homeland to see his mum as she was very ill and expected to pass away but instead whilst he was there his seemingly healthy brother died of a heart attack at age 55. It was torture not being able to hug and comfort him when he phoned to tell me
Loss of their mom
I know it happens to everyone at some point but it doesn't make it easier to deal with
The suicide of his mother in the family home. She was severely mentally ill but no one in the family would listen to me. She just had to get back to normal so his dad would be happy. It was gross. She knew her eldest son was on drugs and she was so worried he would die before her that her twisted mind figured she should kill herself first. Her husband was supposed to be watching her when she was released from the hospital from a suicide attempt using pills. He couldn't be bothered. He always had coffee at his sister's house in the morning and wasn't gonna change that for his damn wife! She used this time to go buy a shotgun. Then pick up shotgun when it was delivered to store. He never had a clue she left the house, cause really he was just mad at her for ruining him doing what he wanted. God I hate him so much. Next morning he left for coffee and she went and got the gun, took it to laundry room in basement and blew her head off. Her asshole husband comes home to find this. And I'm glad because it was on HIS WATCH. It hadn't even been two weeks since her first attempt so it's not like he was exhausted from keeping her safe. Plus all of us pitched in to stay with her. But he just couldn't be bothered. It broke my ex husband. He was a momma's boy. He never recovered. He began drinking hard to cope and an underlying mental issue of his reared it's ugly head. I tried for 8 years to get him healthy but he was just too broken. He is now a meth head wandering the streets and im slowly building mine and our son's life back. Destroyed my life.
Biggest hugs to you and your son x
I'm tempted to say the time that she had surgery to remove a large fibroid from her uterus. It was about the size of a cantaloupe, and the resulting surgery was more or less a cesarean, which means she was opened at the lower abdomen from hip to hip. A wild mixup meant that the only pain management she had access to afterward was Tylenol and Ginger Tea for the first four days. Still, she'd doggedly get up when prescribed to walk around, showered, and generally got on with the business of living. While I'm quite certain this sucked to an *unbelievable* degree, it was also a case of Type 2 fun. That is to say something that wasn't fun when it happened, but became fun later once the pain lost its edges in memory. Whenever she says something to the effect of "I think you have a higher pain tolerance than I do," I can point out that she fell asleep for a knife fight and then took some tylenol about it like it was no big deal. (I, meanwhile, will probably complain quite a lot about the aches and pains associated with walking up a sufficiently tall hill.) The real answer, though, was her mother dying. She's far enough past it that it isn't an open wound, but it will long remain a reason why we'll need to find something to distract her with on a few important anniversaries. There are many things I can help her with. When she loses a knife fight I can be her hands and feet. When she's stumbled into one of those things that terrifies her, I can be the anchor she clings to. When work sucks and people are bastards, I can listen to her vent. I can't bring her mother back, though. I can just be there, and that never feels like enough.
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I'm sorry for your loss
Realisation one of their parents didn't love them. It was a hard time.
I'd say it's a three way tossup between helping her recover from a severe TBI, watching her go through a mystery illness a few years later that had her in quarantined ICU for a week at one point, and the death of her twin sister from a form of brain cancer that pretty much never happens in middle-aged Caucasian women.
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Addiction. He passed away and is no longer struggling
My bf woke me up at 3am in the bathroom crying and disoriented from pain. After some debate we decided I'd drive him to the ER with my mom for support, as he didn't want to pay for an ambulance. That drive was absolutely horrible. He cried the whole way in pain and every bump or turn made it worse. Luckily it was only about a 15 minute drive. I tried my hardest not to cry or anything but on the inside I really started to feel like he was going to die or was seriously hurt. At the hospital, we waited for 45 minutes in the lobby, he got two shots of morphine over his stay in that ER, they did a scan and said that everything was fine and it was all in his head. When I asked what he should do for pain, the doctor shrugged and said "tylenol, fluids". We went home. Long story short (very long), sometime over the next two days his appendix burst. He came home at one point with a drain, showed signs of worsening infection so he went back, had 2 more drains put in to get rid of the gunk, was in the hospital for another week or so. He lost about 30 pounds, and had two or three surgeries out of it. The surgeon who took care of him said that if he had been transferred when he first went to the ER, he could have taken out the appendix before it burst and he'd have been home in less than a day. He also saw the scan taken at the previous ER and said he could tell it needed removed even from that scan. It's absolutely amazing he's back to normal now, less than a year later. The whole situation was hell to watch and experience, but the car ride sticks out as just horrific to sit through. Neither of us knew what was happening, I was driving in the dark, certain that the love of my life was gonna die next to me while I was helpless to do anything. I wish more than anything I had been more insistent when we went to the first ER, or asked to have him transferred, but I just try to remember that he's alright now and it worked out
An undiagnosed herniated disc, it flared up over the years but one year, the pain just wouldnât stop. My husband couldnât walk, sit or stand for more than few minutes without agonizing pain. At my insistence, we went to urgent care and that the ball rolling on what was really going on. Five years, two cortisone shots, one distectomy and a diabetes diagnosis later, we got it under control. I was 8 months pregnant when he finally got care so all the heavy lifting was on me, and Iâm glad I was able to do it. No resentment or bad feelings, I was just relieved my Love was getting the care he needed. 20 years together makes you wanna go that extra mile
Having his big sister tragically rear ended and killed my the police. We were there when she took her last breath that morning (she was brain dead). First time I've ever seen him cry.
Lagging issues on Destiny.Â
Watching my partner go through the loss of their father was the hardest thing I've ever witnessed. The grief and sadness in their eyes were heartbreaking, and all I could do was be there, offering support nd love. It was a painful, emotional journey but we faced it together.
Alcoholism. Iâm so proud of her for kicking her demons ass.
My fiance has PTSD. She also started suffering from seizures as well as having what the doctors believe is Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. The doctors are starting to believe that there is some interconnection between the three. It's really tough watching her go thru a seizure. And because she doesn't know that she just had a seizure that's a scary thing for her when she's able to process that information because it's scary and the last thing I want for her is to feel embarrassed by it. It's just horrific coming home and seeing her on the floor unconscious and not knowing what he may have fallen on. I get night terrors myself, but one time she was really struggling with the PTSD and the vomiting and was just getting no sleep and very little to eat for about 3 weeks. Then she had the mother of all night terrors in front of me. She had never had a night terror in front of me before, but I know what they look like. And that was her repeatedly screaming at the top of her lungs for her life and then getting up out of bed and going to the corner of the room continuing to scream for her life. The torture she has gone thru with that PTSD was on full display and there was nothing I could do but watch and hope she would wake up.
Watching my husband continue to struggle with the sudden loss of his very best friend of 40 years. He hasnât dealt with it very well. He stuffs it down. But he stopped doing a lot of things he loved, he doesnât seem to like to be alone with his thoughts at all. Five months after his best friend suddenly died, his dad passed away. Itâs been difficult. I plan trips and things to do to help him, but he really needs to do this work for himself. I donât think he open to therapy or grief counseling. Itâs still really tough, everyday. I do all I can to be here for him, encouraging him to talk and express his feelings. But heâs really been difficult to open up.
Her mother and father dying
The day after our wedding, my husband's mother went into the hospital due to complications of cancer and died the very next day. We had to cancel our honeymoon and go to Texas from Maryland last minute for a boatload of money, but we made it on time, and he was able to say goodbye to her before she passed away. He was very stoic and brave about it, but I know it was very hard on him.
Her sister being an absolute fuckup and using her as a safety net, repeatedly. She let a chronically unemployed 28-year-old white aspiring rapper with 5 felony convictions get her pregnant twice, then she started dating a new unemployed guy and moved 3 hours away with her kid after like 2 weeks, and just left all her stuff at her old place. Then when that blew up a month later (turns out the guy was a heroin addict) she showed up at our door, pregnant and needing a place for her and her kid to stay. Then she made no effort to get her shit together and trashed our house for 6 months.
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Ye I come from a family where everyone shouts when they are upset or angry but my partner doesn't they go quiet and want their own space which was a massive curve for me to learn
Parents that don't support him and are overly critical and overly demanding.
Depression.
Dealing with his abusive and maniuplative ex-wife. She is not happy unless everyone else is miserable and/or doing what she wants/thinks is best. Harped so much on her daughter that she developed an eating disorder. Had a hand in the breakup of her son's relationship with his longtime girlfriend. Tried (semi-successfully at the time) to drive a wedge between him and both kids, but in the end it didn't work. Blamed me for the breakup of their marriage... even though I wasn't in the picture until they had already been separated for a year. The list goes on and on.
Her decline from alcoholism.
her mother. I didn't see it at the time. She would tell me these things and I was just like we are talking about two different people. she went on trips with us and she was super helpful. What I was not seeing was the other side of the coin, the little comments the jabs(they speak Spanish and i understand but im not native speaker so if im really no paying attention i dont understand) or complaints and narcissistic behavior.
My first long-term partner had to deal with her mom committing suicide.
Law school/the bar exam. The poor guy was absolutely miserable, but he fucking SLAMMED that shit and is doing incredible as an attorney now.
Watching my boyfriend's entire life ripped away as a result of a major cardiac arrest at 33. He had just graduated flight school, had an interview for internship at Sky West, then that night had a cardiac arrest that put him in ICU and came home with a shiny new Pacemaker/ICD No more being a pilot, no more flying, and roughly $100k in debt (private college) with no way to pay it back except working one or two days a week part time while he was studying. Watching the fallout from that event 2.5 years ago still has effects today, and it absolutely broke my heart to see him struggling with something he worked so hard for being taken away before it ever got a chance to see the light of day.
Dying. While I'm trying to save him. Our 6yo daughter listening and I'm pregnant with our second baby. The. Fucking. Worst.
Getting tortured by kidney stones. I never felt worse for anyone ;(
Agree! My partner could barely walk when he had them.
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Oh ye I deal with anxiety and watching my partner learn strategies to help calm me was one of the most loving gestures ever but they seem to think it is normal behaviour
Being unable to travel to their home country for their dying dad
She'd been sick a long time and wouldn't go to the doctor, ended up having to go to the ER, and I never saw her again.
My FIL decided to end his life last month. My poor boo. Just aweful the shit show that is unpacking in his absence. She is doing great trying to clean up the mess, while grieving. I could not be more proud of her. Here's hoping that karma swings back around and gives her a break. She deserves it.
Watching him slowly fade away with psychosis and refusing help. It feels like he died.
The grief from losing 4 close family members within 2 years, with a massive heart attack and following heart failure sprinkled in đ
Been together since we are 15 just over 7 years now , spending the first 3 years as normal teens and when we hit our 20s he started taking seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy something neither of us were prepared for . It has been the scariest , strangest and most overwhelming experience Iâve ever went through in my life .
The death of his father and of his only sibling (older brother).
Constantly having to bail her financially unstable father out of debt
My ex was in a car accident when she was a little girl. Every now and then she would get these back problems. The worse was when she was having period cramps and her back problems at the same time. She would just be laying on the couch twitching in constant pain. She'd snap at me then apologize right away. I'd walk on eggshells around her trying to comfort her and not be too annoying. Eventually she would send me to the store for booze so she could get drunk enough to sleep. Motrin wasn't enough.
Anal fistula, two surgeries to correct it, and the recovery process.
Losing his mom. That really took a part of him away that he wonât ever get back. He broke down in front of me and I just held him and cried with him, it was really hard. This was also just a few months after I was assaulted in the military so we were really dealing with a lot. Weâre finally getting back to normal life again
Struggle with his mental health. Itâs heart breaking and wish I could make it better for him.
Her father passing suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack. It was rough on us both, as he was more of a father figure to me than either my bio- or step- dad, but it wrecked her for a good while.
Depression and Self-esteem issues. During one of these sessions, she told me that she didnât feel worthy of my love and she told me she couldn't understand why I love her or why anyone does.  That hurts even today as I type this because I couldn't and canât fathom why she would ever feel that way, when one of the largest reasons why I love her is because she loved me, and was patient with me and saw the potential in me noone else did while I was objectively by any standards, truly largely unloveable and during the lowest, darkest points in my life.  Even to this day, for those that knew me during that time in my life, I carry the âblack markâ. They are nice to my face because of who I am now but I can sense their aversion to me deep down.   She's the only person who saw who I am now, back then when things weren't good and loved me anyways even while I was still that person. She truly saved my life. I was not worthy of her.  Seeing her hurt like that and think less of herself hurts me in a way that's hard to explain because she was and is so impactful and important to me and I hold her in such a high regard and everyone around her is so positively impacted by her, even the shitty people in our lives who are unable to see what her presence is and she isnât even aware of it or she doesn't believe it.Â
The death of our 2 month old daughter and his grandfather's death 4 days later....
When the doctor told her that our unborn baby no longer had a heartbeat was hard and then watching her have to miscarry that baby later that night in the bathroom was even harder. She did not want to let go of it. But watching my wife go through that pain for weeks/months afterward was maybe the toughest. That was years ago and we have had 2 children since then.
My husband sobbing over his best friend of 7 years (we were in our early 20's at this point) choosing to ghost him because we didn't approve of his abusive girlfriend
My bf has some trust issues (not with me, just in general) due to some trauma in his past, so while he has a hard time letting people get close to him -- he absolutely adores animals. When we started dating he has just taken in his brother's older Lab, as his brother was just going to get rid of her after having her for 7 or so years. My bf loved this dog more than almost anything, she helped his mental health a lot. One night she had a seizure, I met him at the emergency vet, got her looked after, etc. we brought her home the next day. A couple hours after she came home, she had another seizure. A violent one that we weren't sure she would come out of. I NEVER want to see my bf in that kind of pain again, just helpless, in hysterics, having to watch his best friend suffer like that. It absolutely tore my heart out. Unfortunately he had to make the decision to have her euthinized that night. Again, it was just horrible. Grief is awful at the best of times.
Her dad died during our first year together. I met him, and then a few months later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Then a few months later he was dead. I don't think she ever fully processed it or came to terms with it while we were together. I would imagine she's still struggling with it. I can't imagine what it must have felt like. But I could visually see how it affected her, and it wasn't pretty. Really made me fear for my parents.
After our third miscarriage my wife was having a very hard time, and she opened up about struggling with suicidal ideation and feeling like a failure of a wife. I told her up and down that her fertility struggles had nothing to do with my love for her and my belief that she is the best wife I could have ever asked for, but in end I couldn't do a single thing to take her pain away. It was hard seeing the woman I love talking about not wanting to live anymore, despite all the wonderful things she does in the lives of everyone she knows.
When my husband was 28 his mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimerâs two months after his dad was diagnosed with ALS. Heâs an only child of only children and had to essentially face it alone. I met him a year after his dad died, and never understood how he was able to move on. His mom finally passed away this year. It was tough watching him try to work through those feelings of being alone in the world. Luckily he now has me and our two kids and a horde of âfound familyâ.
My boyfriendâs dad passed away four years ago, we had started dating when it was almost the three years anniversary. I wasnât there when it happened, or to see the initial healing process. But i had to watch the chain of events that followed. Their step mom moved back to Japan to be with her direct family shortly after the dad passed away. His oldest sister lived a state away and has a good job there and never planned to move back or anything like that. He was left in charge of the household and it didnât take too long for me to see how much they took advantage of his extreme kind nature. I could tell he had a lot of love for his siblings. Seeing him be the role of the head of the house and always stressing about how his youngest sister doesnât pay her share of the bills and always behind on payments was hard to see. The youngest sister also seemed very attached to him, freaked out whenever he wasnât home often, would blow up his phone when he spent too much time at my house. figured this probably had to do with trauma. He was trying his best to please everyone in the house, always fixing their cars, paying the bills and waiting to get their part venmoed to him, repairing the house and doing maintenance all by himself, mowing the lawn, pulling the weeds, and he always did this quietly. never complained about how nobody helped him. the worst part was watching him getting yelled at all the time by his siblings. if he left his dishes in the sink, if he didnât help sweep the house one morning, if he forgot about an event, if he hung out too much at my house. It was hard watching a then 22 year old juggle so much. I never got too close with the siblings as I saw this might end a bit ugly one day with the constant nagging of how much money he spent on me or time he spent on me. They ended up falling out and we moved to the town I was going to university at. Even watching them fallout was hard to watch, heâs doing amazing now. So much less pressure on him. But it still is sad to see.
Death of her parents. She looked after them as they grew older and had to move to care homes. This was during Covid and there were not enough care people. She would come home every night and cry. This went on for 5 years and though it strained our relationship, after they were gone, we slowly went back to our life.
Struggling to free himself from addiction
Did he manage?
He did, it was a long and hard road but he managed it.
Peyronieâs disease ⊠he kept saying he wasnât crooked, but all evidence to the contrary
Losing a parent.
Watching my wife do full time work and school. Sheâs so stressed all the time and it hurts to see that.
A divorce. From a pathetic narcissistic jerk. For the last 4 years. Kids involved. He's a lawyer prick.
Watching my wife go through countless medical issues over the last 2 years with little to no help or answers from any of her doctors. It's absolutely brutal as a husband not being able to do anything to help her. I just have to watch her suffer while we cycle through new doctors trying to find answers.
Her absolute dumpster fire of an extended family any time there is a death. These people circle like vultures and pick the financial corpse clean, while trying to bully the remainder of her family into silence.
My husband had to watch me grieve my dad abandoning me for another family when I was a teenager, now over 5 years later Iâm watching him grieve his mother doing the same to him
a couple things: he owned a business with his âfriendâ. they got a lot of work, they were great at what they did. his friend was a shitty co-owner. he would use the company card to go out to eat every night, buy useless stuff, etc. I was given access to their quickbooks account so I made a spreadsheet and totaled all the transactions up into separate columns based on how many times he had been to a restaurant and other categories where the spending wasnât as often. he spent around $3,000 at one restaurant in the span of 5 months, itâs not even an expensive restaurant either but he would buy drinks for whoever he was out with at that time. this co-owner would rarely pay him and when he did it would be like $500. anyway, the shop they were working out of had been rented by someone else a few days beforehand meaning they had two days to get all their stuff out which went well I guess. after that, radio silence from this âfriendâ of his. once everything was out that was it, my boyfriend hasnât heard a single word from him since then. second thing: he called me crying a couple weeks ago, said he thinks he just saw his uncle dead. he had arrived at his grandmothers to an ambulance and paramedics inside. he saw the paramedics in his uncles room, they had him rolled on his side while knuckle rubbing his back (which usually can mean choking on your own vomit and whatnot) and foam coming out of his mouth. he saw them load him up on a stretcher and said his uncle looked like a wet noodle, completely limp. they never announced a pulse and he didnât see them doing cpr which really freaked him out. his grandmother (uncles mom) found him passed out on his bed and didnât know how long he had been like that either so it was extra worrisome. they have a really great relationship, almost two peas in a pod. he suffered from a seizure at home, three more at the hospital, and then was life flighted to a better equipped hospital. thankfully heâs okay now but hearing him say âI think I just saw joeâ dead was a lot. he said he was fine but I know thatâs a lot for someone to witness. thinking you saw someone dead can be traumatizing to some.
close people in his life committing suicide
Losing a best friend is as hard as losing a romantic partner. đ
Heroin addiction
My ex lost her brother and mother in the same year. She's 34 but has pretty much been living life as if it's over ever since, and hasn't gone to therapy.
Self image issues. It's hard hearing her agonize over thinking people don't like her đ
Dealing with me going through addiction.
My close friend is struggling with DID. They think they have a demon inside of them. It's really sad to see.
Cancer
We were expecting a son a few years ago but it ended in a stillbirth. They broke the news during an ultrasound. The worst part was watching her deliver a baby who wasnât alive. I guess she forgot what was happening because of the drugs they gave her but once he was out, she kept saying he had my chin and nose, she had the biggest smile. Overall, it was a terrible part of our lives but that delivery was particularly dreadful. Watching her be super happy, while she slowly remembered what was actually happening. Itâs like it happened to her twice.
A child exiting her vagina
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Dealing with a partner's addiction to drugs, alcohol, or other substances.
Me
Seeing them suffer from severe health anxiety, which can borderline on complete nervous breakdowns.
Law school.
Me
His undiagnosed mental illness. I had to leave him because of it. The last time I saw him he looked soulless. Like a zombie. It was scary.Â
His mother. She was physically and emotionally abusive to him as a child. Then, when she needed taking care of full time, he came to her rescue. Only for her to go right back into manipulation and abuse. I never want to change him. He can make his own decisions, and I can tell him my opinion and he'll genuinely listen. But that's still his mom, and he's still that sweet little boy inside.
Becoming disabled due to severe spinal arthritis
Her father's death. She held his hand all night. She said he was in and out of consciousness and trying to talk, but not to her. It was like he was talking to different people throughout his long life. She also "felt" like other people were in the room. She cried so much. She explained.. I was not ready I guess because it was quite quick. But more so the fact he is no longer around for her to turn to. The guy was a master joiner and very very good at DIY. He helped us/taught me a lot.. My own regret is not asking more about his time way way back. The time beyond my reach.
Partner's mental health deteriorate resulting in hospitalization and eventual diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. Dark days.
When my ex girlfriendâs mother died
Our breakup, it was sad to see her like that but it was her fault so I wasn't going to help her anymore.
not being able to get pregnant. period.
His mother.
My wife with PTSD from combat tours. She has nightmares and trouble sleeping and there's not much I can do about it. I'm beginning to understand how to help I'm social situations, at least.
Recovering from surgery to correct her scoliosis. Had an incision running the length of her spine and had metal rods attached to the length of her spine to keep it straightÂ
Having tough days where heâs missed his mom a little more than usual. She passed away a few years ago.
me no one deserves that
if true, i hope you've set them free
Watching them go through the loss of a loved one. Feeling helpless and just trying to be there for support was incredibly tough.
Parental alienation from his ex wife.
When they found her motherâs body. And because she had been disowned, the way her family just assumed she wasnât emotionally effected by the loss.
Watching my partner deal with undiagnosed and untreated bipolar. It was rough on everyone around her, and when we attempted to approach the topic there was hysterics regarding her being "an awful person."
Depression and suicidal ideation after being raped.
Her parents and 2/4 siblings dying in a car accident.
Pediatric residency and then fellowship in a for-profit medical system. It has really opened my eyes.
One of my fiancĂ©âs best childhood friend went from studying to be a doctor to feeling she *had* to kill herself to committing suicide within a few months. Weâre still not sure exactly what it was (schizophrenia or some other psychotic break?) but it happened so fast, and the poor girl was adamant something was wrong with her and she simply had to die. She unfortunately made it happen at a care facility she was in.
One of his troops unalived himself. It hit the whole detachment so hard but it took awhile for my SO to stop questioning what he could have done differently
Hardest in the past, was when our cat died (me too). She was just broken for weeks. Hardest now, watching her struggle to breathe with COPD. Nothing I can do to help.
Adapting to western culture. She's from Africa, moved to Canada to be with me. I've had to tell her to use seat belts repeatedly, don't wash power outlets because they always have electricity going through them, sound goes through walls when she watches TV, there's only 50k people in our city, not 4 million like where she's from. It's not all fun like watching the trees turn for the seasons.
Last year, my fmil passed away from cancer. She was a kind, compassionate, and loving woman who deserved better than what life gave her. Watching my fiancée have to go through all that hurt while her mom was dying was so hard. I wish cancer would go away forever.
Watching my fiance struggle with alcoholism has been difficult. He's done the 12 steps, goes to AA meetings, has people in his life who hold him accountable, but it's still an uphill battle. Alcoholism is a sick disease I wouldn't wish on anyone. Luckily he isn't in a bad place right now, and I'll be there for him if he ever gets to that tipping point again.
48 hours of complication filled labor resulting in an emergency C section for our child we had wanted for years. She is the strongest woman I know and I have never seen her in so much pain that I could not shoulder with her. I did my best to do everything I could to support her but I've never felt so utterly helpless.
I've watched her support me emotionally during the darkest years of my life. Now I'm on the mend and she's burnt-out and depressed, and I can't help her any more than she could help me.
Had to watch my very stoic husband deal with feelings of guilt over his mom's cat getting hit by a car the night he had been asked to stop over to feed and water it. It was an indoor only cat, but it escaped when he tried to leave. Couldn't find it, gave up around 3 am. When his parents got home the next day, they said they'd found the cat having already passed away on the nearby highway. His mom was devastated. And my husband felt awful for weeks afterward.
not being confident enough and overthinking toooo much
the never ending mirror patrol and father time taking over and her just not coping (over 50 )
Hepatitis C before there was cure so sad to watch someone you care for get slowly sick đ€ą and pass awayÂ