catfeeder

Why? All this EX wants to do is meet the person who will be a mother figure to her kid. No lawyers required. If an ex puts conditions on child visitation to which the other does not agree, then obtaining legal advice for handling this is a valid suggestion. None of us can speak to his ex's motivations or intentions. He knows her far better than we do--we're strangers on the Internet.

It's never a good idea to try to keep someone in a relationship who is raising doubts. They're raising them because they want you to do the dirty work of respecting yourself enough to walk away. Head high.

That'll do it. When is the last time you had a confrontation with one of your parents about your sex life? It can certainly throw a wet blanket on things. You get to decide whether this woman matters to you enough to stop pressuring her. Her parent's home no longer feels like a safe place for her to have sex.

Good. It doesn't make sense to get involved in the middle of anyone else's breakup, whether married or not. That's not a moral finder wag, it's just practical self-protection. Feeling any need to spy on another's conversation positions you badly, because it's your signal that you're not in the right match. Head high, and while I'm sorry you needed to suffer this lesson the hard way, you did well.

In your shoes, I'd be asking a lawyer or legal aid, not us.

The woman doesn't even know how to apply for the job, much less pass all the levels of screenings and testing and internship hours. Really, it's not like she'd just need to pee in a cup, then she'd be handed a badge and gun. I wouldn't worry about this. Head high, and best of luck moving yourself forward.

The guy gave you a front row preview of his disloyal, untrustworthy nature, and you loved it? Good luck with that.

Okay, great. That's a few weeks away, and your hobby, while engrossing, is solitary. Consider this social circle you'll see at the party, and reach out to some of those friends to hang one-on-one, or tend to family, or a neighbor, or whoever can use your help with something. The point is to be 'externally' busy and to cultivate your bonds with others instead of strengthening a reclusive tendency. This works best when you are motivated to move out of your own way. Not only is this a great healing technique, it can move you beyond reclusive tendencies, which tend to solidify as we age. When that happens, it's more and more difficult to reverse.

Yeah, he's disloyal. Not friendship material. I'd stop replying to him, and I'd avoid close dancing with him. If he asks you anything about not texting, I'd just be honest with him, "I'd heard that you didn't want your GF knowing about the women you text, and I'm not down with that." Boom, done. But I wouldn't allow his presence to stop me from enjoying the rest of the group. Think of it as navigating your way through a wedding reception. There's sometimes somebody who has a rep for groping or whatever, and you'd have no trouble avoiding him. Also, as is common safety practice today, be careful with your drink. Not only should you never leave it unattended, but even while standing with it, there are cocktail fitting lids for women that allow just the straw to poke through. But I'd still watch it, because the straw itself can get spiked.

If you want to defend son's position on this, that's not against the law. It just won't buy you anything. I'm with grandma. None of us are 'entitled' to assume the degree of our imposition on another. Son gets to live with himself for doing that, and if he wants to offend and disown his own grandmother over such a small thing, then he gets to live with that, too. He won't be able to make things right with her after she's gone. If you ever decide that he's making a mistake, then hopefully you're close enough with him to communicate that with him. Best wishes.

I can't speak to normal. However, since you've preferred porn over the inconvenience or whatever of pursuing real women, then I agree that it might be a smart idea to forego the porn if you intend to get sexual with a real woman. I don't personally consider it a matter of respect, as I believe in bodily autonomy and your right to do whatever you please with your own body in private, but I do believe that an excessive reliance on self sex can possibly impact your enjoyment or performance with a real woman. I wouldn't argue if you believe that I'm wrong about that--to each his own.

He's a grown man. Either he's capable of negotiating with his employer the time he needs to secure services for his home, or he's not. If not, then why didn't he have an emergency lineup for a case like this? That's part of Life Management 101. Son could have left the cats 12 hours worth of food, and you could have been there in 4 hours the next day. If that wasn't convenient for you, then why should it have been convenient for anyone else? Again, grandma didn't ask for this. It's not her responsibility. Son is miffed because she wouldn't allow him to impose upon her this way. If you and he both want to agree that this must make grandma a villain, then here you are. And son has learned his entitlement well from you.

Because driving an hour each day didn't work for this woman. It's that simple, and it's that valid. This is what I mean by "assigning." You and son are both assigning this woman a villain status because she didn't perform as expected. That's trumped up. She didn't ask for this. Couldn't YOU have gone to stay at son's place for those days as son's first choice, or otherwise help him find a professional service to do this instead of assigning expectations to this woman? I'm not making you out to be 'wrong' if you didn't do that, but just as you had your reasons for not being son's first choice of reliance, so did grandma. When I travel, I never ask family to drive out to look after my place. I hire someone or bargain with a close neighbor. That's just part of adult living--tending to our own business. So the premise that son is rightfully disowning his grandmother over this ridiculously small perceived slight is the stuff of unfortunate Thanksgiving dinners. If you want to support son's perceptions of being wronged by his own grandmother, so be it. Enjoy the righteousness, and consider what you're modeling for your son. I'd have stuck up for grandma. Period.

I think assigning roles to family members can be a boomerang of disappointment. So then we hurt our own feelings when they fail to live up to the image we've assigned to them. For instances, there are grandma's who try to live up to Hallmark-style behaviors, while others are more relaxed, like the 'Auntie Name' character and don't even especially like babies or kids. Most people, realistically, fall somewhere in between. So son, a grown man, believed that he was entitled to assign grandma to drive a half hour each way (a full hour of driving!) to feed a pet, when there are local services for that. Or friends who live closer, or whatever. That doesn't sound reasonable to me. However, we can't 'make' a grown adult repair their relationships. I would use my best influence to soften son's edges a bit on his expectations, but if he's hard core and doubling down, I'd leave it alone.

How long has this friend been living in town? Have you seen or heard from her since her move there? I wouldn't do myself the disservice of attempting to characterize her intentions. People go through their own stuff, and we can't always fathom what that is. I'd make room for a mystery as I pull back and let her be. This in no way invalidates your feelings. It's natural to feel hurt. I just wouldn't make that more painful for myself by projecting motives onto her. I might be your grandmother's age, and I can tell you from experience that people have surprised me over the years by cycling back into my life of their own volition. I later learn that they were going through a thing, like drugs or drinking or mental or physical illness. I was often told that I was the one person who they didn't want to harm with their foray into their dark side. I was glad that I had not mischaracterized their reasons, which could have embittered me.