Speaker 1: Episode with two stories. First part, I.
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoy this story. Spouse received a significant advancement
Speaker 2: at work and began arriving home later. Eventually I discovered
Speaker 2: a five thousand dollar receipt for accessories pictures with a
Speaker 2: different lady, and he allowed her to collect our children
Speaker 2: from school without telling me. Obligatory throwaway account. Because my
Speaker 2: friends and family use read it. All names have been
Speaker 2: changed and some minor details altered for privacy. I honestly
Speaker 2: never thought i'd be posting here, but I really need
Speaker 2: advice and maybe just to get this off my chest.
Speaker 2: I thirty four f have been married to my husband,
Speaker 2: Mark thirty five m four ten years. We have two kids,
Speaker 2: a daughter eight and a son five. Up until six
Speaker 2: months ago, I thought we had the perfect life, good jobs,
Speaker 2: a nice house in the suburbs, family vacations. Now I'm
Speaker 2: watching my marriage implode and trying to understand how my
Speaker 2: husband and went from being an amazing father and partner
Speaker 2: to someone I honestly don't even recognize any more. Let
Speaker 2: me start from the beginning. Mark and I met in
Speaker 2: our mid twenties through mutual friends at a housewarming party.
Speaker 2: He was everything I was looking for. Charismatic, ambitious, and
Speaker 2: seemingly genuine in his desire to build a future together.
Speaker 2: We dated for two years, during which he showed me
Speaker 2: nothing but love, respect and dedication. When he proposed during
Speaker 2: a quiet evening at home, because he knew I hated
Speaker 2: public proposals, I thought I had found my forever person.
Speaker 2: We got married in a small ceremony, surrounded by family
Speaker 2: and friends. The early years were wonderful. We both had
Speaker 2: promising careers, supported each other's dreams, and worked together to
Speaker 2: build our life. We bought our dream house in the suburbs,
Speaker 2: a beautiful colonial with a big back yard where we
Speaker 2: planned to raise our family. When our daughter, Emma arrived
Speaker 2: three years into our marriage, Mark was the perfect father,
Speaker 2: taking paternity leave and handling midnight feedings like a champion.
Speaker 2: Lucas followed three years later, and our family felt complete.
Speaker 2: Mark worked in corporate sales while I managed accounts at
Speaker 2: a marketing firm. We both earned good money, but Mark's
Speaker 2: career really took off about five years into our marriage.
Speaker 2: He climbed the corporate ladder steadily, and I was genuinely
Speaker 2: proud of his success. We had a comfortable life, took
Speaker 2: nice vacations and were able to start college funds for
Speaker 2: both kids. More importantly, we seemed happy. Sure we had
Speaker 2: normal married couple disagreements, but we always worked through them together.
Speaker 2: Everything started changing about eight months ago when Mark got
Speaker 2: promoted to regional director at his company. The position came
Speaker 2: with a significant pay raise and more responsibilities, which we
Speaker 2: both knew would mean some adjustments to our family life.
Speaker 2: At first, the changes were subtle and completely understandable. The
Speaker 2: late nights at work became more frequent, which made sense
Speaker 2: given his new role overseeing teams across multiple states. He'd
Speaker 2: miss dinner with us maybe once or twice a week,
Speaker 2: but he always texted ahead to let me know and
Speaker 2: would try to make it up by spending extra time
Speaker 2: with the kids on weekends. I was supportive of his
Speaker 2: career growth and tried to manage things at home to
Speaker 2: make his transition easier. I took on more of the
Speaker 2: child care responsibilities, handled all the household chores, and tried
Speaker 2: to be understanding when he seemed stressed or distant. The
Speaker 2: dynamic shifted gradually, but unmistakably. The mist dinners turned into
Speaker 2: mist weekends. His texts became shorter, more impersonal, often just
Speaker 2: working late or don't wait up. He started coming home
Speaker 2: late smelling of unfamiliar cologne, claiming he'd borrowed it from
Speaker 2: a colleague after going to the gym. When I tried
Speaker 2: to talk to him about the changes in our relationship,
Speaker 2: he'd get defensive and accuse me of not supporting his
Speaker 2: career advancement. He'd remind me that his new position was
Speaker 2: benefiting our whole family, and that I was being selfish
Speaker 2: for complaining about his long hours. The first real red
Speaker 2: flag came when I noticed changes in our final answs.
Speaker 2: Mark and I had always maintained a joint account for
Speaker 2: household expenses and savings while keeping separate accounts for our
Speaker 2: personal spending, an arrangement that had worked well for our
Speaker 2: entire marriage. One day, while logging in to pay our
Speaker 2: monthly bills, I noticed several large transfers from our joint
Speaker 2: account to an account I didn't recognize. These weren't small amounts.
Speaker 2: We're talking thousands of dollars at a time. When I
Speaker 2: brought it up that evening, Mark brushed it off as
Speaker 2: business expenses that would be reimbursed soon. He explained that
Speaker 2: sometimes he needed to front money for client entertainment and
Speaker 2: corporate events, and the reimbursement process could take a few weeks.
Speaker 2: It sounded plausible enough, especially given his new position, but
Speaker 2: something about his explanation felt rehearsed. I might have believed
Speaker 2: him if it weren't for what happened next. While doing
Speaker 2: laundry one weekend, I found a receipt in his pocket
Speaker 2: from a high end jewelry store for a five thousand
Speaker 2: dollar bracelet purchased two weeks before. My birthday had passed
Speaker 2: months ago, and our anniverse wasn't for another six months.
Speaker 2: The kids were too young for such an expensive gift,
Speaker 2: and none of our close relatives had birthdays coming up.
Speaker 2: When I confronted him about it, Mark's reaction was explosive.
Speaker 2: He accused me of spying on him and invading his privacy,
Speaker 2: saying he was allowed to spend his own money however
Speaker 2: he wanted. He stormed out and didn't come home that night,
Speaker 2: claiming he needed to cool off at a friend's house.
Speaker 2: That's when I started paying closer attention to everything. Mark
Speaker 2: had changed all his passwords on his devices and accounts,
Speaker 2: but he'd forgotten about our shared cloud storage, where our
Speaker 2: family photos were automatically backed up. New photos had started appearing,
Speaker 2: Pictures of him with a woman I'd never seen before
Speaker 2: at restaurants and hotels I knew we'd never visited together.
Speaker 2: They looked intimate, comfortable with each other in a way
Speaker 2: that made my stomach churn. In some photos, they were
Speaker 2: dressed up for what looked like business events. In others,
Speaker 2: they were clearly on personal outings, holding hands or sharing
Speaker 2: private moments. I was still trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: to handle this discovery when Mark said he needed to
Speaker 2: go on a two week business trip to Europe. He
Speaker 2: claimed it was a last minute requirement from corporate, but
Speaker 2: I had never known his company to arrange international trips
Speaker 2: without weeks of advance planning. I decided to do some
Speaker 2: serious digging while he was away. As it turned out,
Speaker 2: the Europe trip wasn't entirely a lie. He did have
Speaker 2: some business meetings there, but expense reports showed he'd extended
Speaker 2: the trip by a week, and Sarah had joined him
Speaker 2: for part of it, all charged to our joint account.
Speaker 2: Those two weeks gave me the time and space I
Speaker 2: needed to compile everything I discovered through our joint account records.
Speaker 2: I found recurring payments for an apartment lease. The lease
Speaker 2: had started three months after his promotion. There were also
Speaker 2: numerous charges from upscale restaurants, hotels, and shopping destinations, all
Speaker 2: on dates when he claimed to be working late or
Speaker 2: traveling for business. The amounts were staggering, especially considering these
Speaker 2: were clearly personal expenses being paid from our joint account.
Speaker 2: But the final straw came when Emma innocently mentioned that
Speaker 2: Daddy's friend Sarah had picked her up from school one
Speaker 2: day when I was stuck in a meeting. I had
Speaker 2: never authorized any one named Sarah to pick up my children,
Speaker 2: and Mark had never mentioned this person to me. When
Speaker 2: I checked with the school, they confirmed that Mark had
Speaker 2: added this woman to the approved pick up list months ago,
Speaker 2: listing her as a family friend. The thought of this stranger,
Speaker 2: who I now suspected was the woman from the photos,
Speaker 2: having access to my children made me feel physically ill.
Speaker 2: That's when I knew I needed professional help. I contacted
Speaker 2: a lawyer and began methodically documenting everything. My lawyer advised
Speaker 2: me to keep things as normal as possible while we
Speaker 2: built our case, which was honestly one of the hardest
Speaker 2: things I've ever had to do. For six excruciating weeks,
Speaker 2: I maintained the facade of a normal marriage. While gathering evidence.
Speaker 2: I discovered he'd been systematically moving money not just from
Speaker 2: our joint accounts into private accounts, but also making withdrawal
Speaker 2: from our investment accounts. He was clearly preparing for a future.
Speaker 2: I wasn't meant to be part of living this double life,
Speaker 2: being both the supportive wife and the betrayed spous Gathering
Speaker 2: evidence took a tremendous toll on me. I lost weight,
Speaker 2: couldn't sleep, and found myself jumping every time my phone
Speaker 2: buzzed with a notification. My close friends noticed the change
Speaker 2: in me, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them
Speaker 2: what was happening. I felt ashamed, as if somehow Mark's
Speaker 2: betrayal was a reflection on me. But last week, Mark
Speaker 2: came home earlier than usual and announced he needed to talk.
Speaker 2: He sat me down at our kitchen table and told
Speaker 2: me he thought we should separate. He claimed we'd grown
Speaker 2: apart and that he needed space to figure things out.
Speaker 2: He had already found an apartment, he said, and thought
Speaker 2: it would be best if he moved out immediately. What
Speaker 2: he didn't know was that I was prepared for this conversation.
Speaker 2: When he finished his speech, I calmly placed a folder
Speaker 2: on the table between us. Inside was everything I'd discovered.
Speaker 2: His face went pale as he realized what he was
Speaker 2: looking at. That's when everything spilled out. Sarah wasn't just
Speaker 2: a colleague. She was someone he'd met at a conference
Speaker 2: last year, and they'd been seeing each other for months.
Speaker 2: The apartment wasn't new, it was where they'd been meeting
Speaker 2: all along. The money he'd been moving wasn't for business expenses.
Speaker 2: It was his escape fund for a new life with her.
Speaker 2: He'd been planning to leave for months, carefully orchestrating his
Speaker 2: exit while keeping up appearances. I let him talk, let
Speaker 2: him try to justify his actions. He claimed he hadn't
Speaker 2: meant for it to happen, that it had started as
Speaker 2: just friendship and evolved into something more. He said he'd
Speaker 2: tried to fight his feelings for her, but couldn't. He
Speaker 2: even had the audacity to suggest that our marriage had
Speaker 2: been struggling for years, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 2: When he finished, I simply handed him another document, the
Speaker 2: divorce papers my lawyer had prepared. His expression shifted from
Speaker 2: shock to anger to resignation, and the span of seconds
Speaker 2: he took the papers without a word and left the house.
Speaker 2: That was three days ago. I'm still processing everything that's happened,
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to move forward. The kids
Speaker 2: are staying with my sister this weekend while I sort
Speaker 2: things out. My lawyer assures me we have a strong
Speaker 2: case for a favorable divorce settlement given the evidence we've gathered,
Speaker 2: especially regarding his financial deceptions and unauthorized use of our
Speaker 2: joint funds. But that's small comfort when I think about
Speaker 2: how our family has been torn apart. I would appreciate
Speaker 2: any advice from others who have been through something similar.
Speaker 2: How did you explain it to your kids? How did
Speaker 2: you move forward? How long did it take before things
Speaker 2: started feeling normal again? Edit? Thank you for all the
Speaker 2: supportive comments and messages. To address some common questions, my
Speaker 2: lawyer and I have been thorough with protecting ourselves legally
Speaker 2: and financially. I've made copies of all financial records, text messages, photos,
Speaker 2: and other evidence, storing them in multiple locations, cloud storage,
Speaker 2: USB drives at my sister's house, and hard copies. With
Speaker 2: my lawyer. We've documented all bank statements, credit card bills,
Speaker 2: and investment account records from the past eighteen months, along
Speaker 2: with photos and screenshots of everything suspicious, including that jewelry
Speaker 2: receipt and apartment lease. My lawyer keeps reminding me to
Speaker 2: record any new developments as they happen. As for the
Speaker 2: kid's situation at school, we're trying to maintain some stability
Speaker 2: by keeping them at their current school for now. The
Speaker 2: administration and their teachers are aware of what's happening, and
Speaker 2: the guidance counselor is keeping an extra eye on them.
Speaker 2: We immediately revoked Mark's girlfriends pick up authorization after everything
Speaker 2: came to light. Since their current school is closer to
Speaker 2: Mark's place. I'm looking into other options for next semester,
Speaker 2: specifically focusing on schools in my area that have good
Speaker 2: counseling services. I've taken several steps to secure our finances.
Speaker 2: All three joint credit cards are frozen, and I've opened
Speaker 2: a new personal account at a different bank from my paychecks.
Speaker 2: Every password has been changed, email, social media, banking, phone, everything.
Speaker 2: I set up credit monitoring to catch any new accounts
Speaker 2: he might try to open. I've documented all the money
Speaker 2: he's moved or withdrawn recently and created a detailed spreadsheet
Speaker 2: of our assets and debts. I'm also putting aside whatever
Speaker 2: I can in a separate account for legal fees. The
Speaker 2: current custody and living situation is temporary but stable. I
Speaker 2: have primary custody with marketting every other weekend supervised. For now,
Speaker 2: he has to give twenty four hour notice before contacting
Speaker 2: the kids. I'm staying in the house with them and
Speaker 2: I've changed all the locks and security system codes. I
Speaker 2: also installed security cameras around the house. Maybe paranoid, but
Speaker 2: better safe than sorry. I'm keeping a detailed log of
Speaker 2: all his visits and interactions with the kids. Update number one.
Speaker 2: It's been three weeks since my last post, and I
Speaker 2: want to thank everyone who commented with support and advice.
Speaker 2: Your stories and suggestions have been incredibly helpful during this
Speaker 2: difficult time. A lot has happened and I need to
Speaker 2: share the updates. The divorce proceedings are under way and
Speaker 2: it's been interesting, to say the least. Mark initially tried
Speaker 2: to claim that he should get fifty percent custody of
Speaker 2: the kids, despite having spent minimal time with them over
Speaker 2: the past year. When my lawyer presented evidence of his absences,
Speaker 2: including detailed records of missed events and the unauthorized school
Speaker 2: pick up situation with Sarah. The tone of those discussions
Speaker 2: quickly changed. His lawyer has since suggested a more realistic
Speaker 2: custody arrangement. The financial aspect has been more complicated than
Speaker 2: we initially thought. We discovered that Mark had been moving
Speaker 2: more money than I initially realized, not just from our
Speaker 2: joint accounts and investment portfolios, but from our children's college
Speaker 2: funds as well. When confronted about this in mediation, he
Speaker 2: claimed he was protecting the money, but couldn't explain why
Speaker 2: he needed to protect it from me. Their mother, the mediator,
Speaker 2: and his own lawyer seemed unimpressed with this explanation. We
Speaker 2: also uncovered that he had opened several credit cards in
Speaker 2: his name alone and charged significant amounts to them, presumably
Speaker 2: for his life with Sarah. While these aren't technically joint debts,
Speaker 2: the fact that he used our shared resources to make
Speaker 2: payments on them is becoming a major point of contention
Speaker 2: in the divorce negotiations. The kids are struggling, but we're
Speaker 2: getting professional help. I found a wonderful child therapist who
Speaker 2: specializes in divorce cases, and both Emma and Lucas have
Speaker 2: started seeing her weekly. Emma's having a harder time than
Speaker 2: her brother. She's old enough to understand more of what's happening,
Speaker 2: and she's angry with her father. She refuses to talk
Speaker 2: to him during his scheduled phone calls and had a
Speaker 2: melt down when he tried to take her to dinner
Speaker 2: last week. Lucas just seems confused and keeps asking when
Speaker 2: Daddy's coming home. The therapist says these are normal reactions
Speaker 2: and we need to give them time to process everything.
Speaker 2: Mark's attempts to maintain his image in our social circle
Speaker 2: have been almost comical. He's been telling every one who'll
Speaker 2: listened that our marriage had been failing for years and
Speaker 2: that he only stayed for the kids. Our mutual friends
Speaker 2: know better. They've seen how he changed over the past
Speaker 2: year and how happy we were before that. Several have
Speaker 2: shown me messages from him, trying to convince them to
Speaker 2: take his side, but they've been surprisingly supportive of me. Sarah,
Speaker 2: his girl friend, finally reached out to me last week.
Speaker 2: Apparently she had no idea Mark was still living with
Speaker 2: me and the kids. He told her we'd been separated
Speaker 2: for over a year and were just keeping up appearances
Speaker 2: for family reasons. When she discovered the truth through mutual acquaintances,
Speaker 2: she ended things with him. Now he's angry at both
Speaker 2: of us, as if were somehow responsible for the consequences
Speaker 2: of his actions. She apologized profusely and offered to provide
Speaker 2: a statement for my lawyer about when their relationship started
Speaker 2: and what Mark had told her about our marriage. I'm
Speaker 2: focusing on rebuilding my life one day at a time.
Speaker 2: I've started therapy for myself, return to my yoga practice,
Speaker 2: and am spending more quality time with the kids. I've
Speaker 2: also started looking into going back to work full time.
Speaker 2: I had scaled back to part time when Lucas was born,
Speaker 2: but now I need to think about supporting my family
Speaker 2: on my own. The lawyer fees are substantial, but every
Speaker 2: one assures me it's worth it to have proper representation
Speaker 2: given the complexity of our situation. Mark's behavior continues to
Speaker 2: be erratic. Some days he's apologetic and wants to talk
Speaker 2: about reconciliation now that Sarah is gone. Other days he's
Speaker 2: angry and threatening. My lawyer has advised me to document
Speaker 2: all communication and only interact with him through official channels
Speaker 2: or in the presence of witnesses. Update number two final.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Sorry for taking so long to update. Life
Speaker 2: has been absolutely crazy with the divorce proceedings, work, the kids,
Speaker 2: and everything else. I know some of you have been
Speaker 2: messaging me asking for updates. Thank you for your support,
Speaker 2: and I've finally have time to sit down and write this.
Speaker 2: Eight months have passed since my last update, and after
Speaker 2: what feels like endless court appearances, mediation sessions, and legal
Speaker 2: back and forth, We've finally reached a resolution. The divorce
Speaker 2: was finalized last week after nearly a year of proceedings,
Speaker 2: and the terms are better than I expected, largely thanks
Speaker 2: to the evidence we gathered and marks increasingly erratic behavior
Speaker 2: during the proceedings. The turning point in the legal negotiations
Speaker 2: came about six months into the proceedings when Mark tried
Speaker 2: to claim our house as his primary residence despite having
Speaker 2: lived in his apartment alone from months after Sarah left him,
Speaker 2: in an attempt to force its sale. To everyone's surprise,
Speaker 2: he managed to convince Sarah to come to a mediation
Speaker 2: session as his character witness. I guess he thought she'd
Speaker 2: help his case since they'd been together. That backfired spectacularly
Speaker 2: when she instead told the truth about their relationship timeline
Speaker 2: and his lies, directly contradicting statements he'd made under oath
Speaker 2: about when their relationship began. I later found out he'd
Speaker 2: promised to make things right with her if she helped him,
Speaker 2: but she chose to be honest instead. His attempt to
Speaker 2: control the narrative completely fell apart after that. The mediator's
Speaker 2: report was scathing, noting Mark's pattern of deception and financial impropriety.
Speaker 2: In the end, I'm keeping the house and primary custody
Speaker 2: of the kids. Mark got his precious apartment in his
Speaker 2: car plus visitation, writes that he'll probably barely use judging
Speaker 2: by his recent behavior. He's been ordered to pay back
Speaker 2: the money he took from the children's college funds, plus
Speaker 2: child support and a portion of my legal fees. The
Speaker 2: financial settlement was more favorable than we initially hoped. The
Speaker 2: judge was particularly unimpressed with Mark's unauthorized use of our
Speaker 2: joint funds and his attempts to hide assets. He's required
Speaker 2: to repay every penny he took from the kid's college
Speaker 2: funds plus interest, and the division of assets took into
Speaker 2: account his previous spending on Sarah. His company's HR department
Speaker 2: also got involved after discovering he'd been falsifying expense reports
Speaker 2: to cover some of his personals spending, which led to
Speaker 2: him being placed on probation at work. We've had to
Speaker 2: make some adjustments to the custody schedule. Mark's visits are
Speaker 2: now strictly supervised after he tried to introduce the kids
Speaker 2: to a new girlfriend without consulting me or their therapist. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's already dating someone new. The supervision requirement will be
Speaker 2: reviewed in six months, depending on his behavior and the
Speaker 2: children's progress in therapy. For now, it's working well. The
Speaker 2: kids feel safer and there's less drama during handoffs. As
Speaker 2: for me, I'm starting to feel like myself again. I've
Speaker 2: reconnected with old friends, started a small side business doing
Speaker 2: freelance marketing work from home, and am even thinking about
Speaker 2: dating again, though that's way in the future. To everyone
Speaker 2: going through something similar, it gets better. Focus on yourself
Speaker 2: and your kids, document everything, and don't be afraid to
Speaker 2: ask for help. There's life after betrayal, and sometimes it's
Speaker 2: better than you could have imagined.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the first story. Let's begin the
Speaker 1: second one. I hope you enjoy this story. Selfish relatives
Speaker 1: claim I coerced my father in law into providing us
Speaker 1: with additional inheritance funds. I understand their perspective, but allow
Speaker 1: me to explain. My spouse and I previously had a
Speaker 1: strong bond with him, her parents, and Sill. A few
Speaker 1: weeks ago was my sister's birthday, so we did a barbecue.
Speaker 1: The two sides of the family don't mix. My sis
Speaker 1: has never met Syl, so it's not weird we didn't
Speaker 1: invite them. My wife mentioned the barbecue to Syll, who
Speaker 1: said how much they always enjoy leftovers from our b q's.
Speaker 1: So my wife offered her a box. She said yes,
Speaker 1: and we left it at the in laws for her.
Speaker 1: Since then, every time we've gone to the in laws,
Speaker 1: my Sill slash Bill's cars have been in the lay
Speaker 1: by outside. We asked Phil. He says, Bill parks each night,
Speaker 1: walks home, fetches Sill's car, and drives back, then walks
Speaker 1: home again. He does this in reverse each morning. He
Speaker 1: told Phil there's parking issues at home. Locked down is relaxed,
Speaker 1: So yesterday we saw everybody all at once in my
Speaker 1: in law's garden again. Both cars were parked in the
Speaker 1: lay by outside, so I asked how come they took
Speaker 1: two cars. My bill said parking is really difficult where
Speaker 1: they live. Not true, and he just prefers to park
Speaker 1: where he knows there will be a space. He had
Speaker 1: walked there, taken a car home, then driven everyone back.
Speaker 1: My wife said, could he try and squeeze up because
Speaker 1: parking there makes it so much easier with baby and
Speaker 1: toddler compared to crossing the road. But he said no,
Speaker 1: you can't get three cars on there. You can. My
Speaker 1: sill said, not nice when something's used up before you
Speaker 1: get yours, is it. We didn't ask what she meant.
Speaker 1: Last night my wife texted her sister apparently we have
Speaker 1: upset them badly and the car thing is payment. We
Speaker 1: had no idea, but it starts from when my wife's
Speaker 1: grandma died a year ago for what was very outdated,
Speaker 1: and paid for my wife and sill to get driving lessons.
Speaker 1: They both already drive, so her dad just split the
Speaker 1: money down the middle between them. It was about ten
Speaker 1: thousand pounds, a god sent for us. We had a
Speaker 1: fairly new car so traded up to a proper dad wagon.
Speaker 1: We had one thousand, eight hundred pounds left, which we
Speaker 1: gave back. We didn't know, but this was then given
Speaker 1: to Syll. This started problems because Syll slash Bill worked
Speaker 1: out that we got eighteen thousand pounds for a car
Speaker 1: trade and plus eight k from Grandma, and they only
Speaker 1: got twelve thousand pounds. They think all the money should
Speaker 1: have gone to one pool then split in half. Instead
Speaker 1: they got our leftovers. They have been looking at everything
Speaker 1: we do as an insult, and the barbecue we sent
Speaker 1: was the last straw. My sill referred to it as
Speaker 1: table scraps and said it was insulting. This morning we
Speaker 1: went to the in laws to talk about it, and
Speaker 1: I said to my wife, if they ask why you're asking,
Speaker 1: are you going to explain that Syll is being a
Speaker 1: big old greedy twat. And it turns out my sill
Speaker 1: was in the garden. She shouted, what did you OFFANGI
Speaker 1: call me and now I'm obviously in trouble. She kept yelling,
Speaker 1: so I took the dog and walked home. My wife
Speaker 1: sent me a message. Do you want me to tell her?
Speaker 1: You said so? And I said, ha hano and she responded,
Speaker 1: not helping. I am pretty certain I was not the
Speaker 1: asshole here originally, but I'd appreciate an outside perspective. Now
Speaker 1: my big mouth has upset my wife's slash in laws,
Speaker 1: which does make me in the wrong for sure on
Speaker 1: that side. More info. So, first of all, I'm in
Speaker 1: the UK, and I was definitely trying to use the
Speaker 1: term lightly. My mill referred to the postman as a
Speaker 1: cheeky towa just yesterday for taking a short cut across
Speaker 1: her lawn, so it's in pretty common use in the family.
Speaker 1: Screaming FK in front of children isn't, though, and I
Speaker 1: am probably getting the blame for that. Someone else just
Speaker 1: said to me, well, you didn't build the bonfire alone,
Speaker 1: but you definitely through the match, which I think sums
Speaker 1: it up pretty well. My wife says she's on my side,
Speaker 1: but before I opened my mouth big and wide like always,
Speaker 1: there weren't any sides, just a misunderstanding. Now, let me
Speaker 1: give a detailed explanation of the grandma's inheritance to backle. So,
Speaker 1: my wife's grandma died without a proper will and everything
Speaker 1: went to my fill. Her grandma was ninety four when
Speaker 1: she died and it always said since she was seventy
Speaker 1: that she never wanted to go into an old folks home.
Speaker 1: Two allow that to happen. My Phil drove up there
Speaker 1: two three times a week for at least the last
Speaker 1: ten years. That's a one hundred ten mile round trip
Speaker 1: each time, and in the last few months before she died,
Speaker 1: it was every day except when my work travel let
Speaker 1: me call in so he could have a day off. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Amongst her things, my Phil found a notebook like a
Speaker 1: half will and half diary, and spent months and months
Speaker 1: trying to work out what his mother would have wanted
Speaker 1: for everyone, and then took to sharing out his money accordingly.
Speaker 1: This is how he split that. He gave both families
Speaker 1: eight k. Initially this was from Grandma's estate. Phil reached
Speaker 1: out to every family member he could and gave every
Speaker 1: one two k each. Our youngest wasn't born yet, but
Speaker 1: he insisted on including her. This caused one of the problems.
Speaker 1: My Phil and Bill think we pressured Phil into this.
Speaker 1: His mother was always worried about anyone feeling left out,
Speaker 1: and this is one hundred percent what she would have wanted.
Speaker 1: Although many of us tried to persuade him to keep
Speaker 1: more for himself. He then spent about six months working
Speaker 1: out his mum's finances. She had little bits of money
Speaker 1: all over, literally dozens of accounts, and the car money
Speaker 1: came out of that an investment account with about twenty
Speaker 1: k in it. She had written that she had specifically
Speaker 1: opened this account for driving lessons slash cars for my
Speaker 1: wife and her sister. So we spent what we got
Speaker 1: on a car upgrade and returned the rest. We felt
Speaker 1: this honored her wishes, but didn't want to take advantage
Speaker 1: of Phil when he is retired and were not and
Speaker 1: it was his money. He also sold her bungalow and
Speaker 1: we had to stop him from trying to give all
Speaker 1: that away too. Definitely, none of us have the right
Speaker 1: to feel hard done by. We also got to go
Speaker 1: on holiday with the family because grandma had left several
Speaker 1: thousand pounds in an account specifically for that. It was
Speaker 1: three weeks in Italy and the best holiday I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Sill and her family didn't come because Bill had just
Speaker 1: started his own business and couldn't come away. I've now
Speaker 1: found out they wanted to go, but had to ask
Speaker 1: Phil for their share in cash because they were really
Speaker 1: struggling with money, so when we sent them postcards and
Speaker 1: took them gifts, it was like rubbing Saul into the wound,
Speaker 1: but we honestly didn't realize and we were really sorry
Speaker 1: my niece and nephew couldn't come. In summary, our family
Speaker 1: and Sill's family both got eight k, initially split two
Speaker 1: k each for two parents and two kids in each family,
Speaker 1: then ten k more each a few months later, and
Speaker 1: the holiday, meaning each family got a total of eighteen
Speaker 1: K from our share, we returned one point eight k. Anyway,
Speaker 1: with this whole drama, it would have probably been better
Speaker 1: if we had not returned the money. My wife says
Speaker 1: there is more stuff and she will talk to me
Speaker 1: about it later. I will wait and see what she says,
Speaker 1: but I am starting to think I am definitely in
Speaker 1: the wrong here. Update. I have talked to my wife.
Speaker 1: She has been talking to her sister all afternoon and
Speaker 1: she is probably going to stay at her mom's to
Speaker 1: night to talk more. From what has been said today,
Speaker 1: it looks like an honest misunderstanding has got out of hand,
Speaker 1: and my Sill and Bill have taken a lot of
Speaker 1: things badly that I really didn't t mean I am
Speaker 1: very thick skinned and always think, ah, they probably didn't
Speaker 1: t mean it like that to anything offensive, and it
Speaker 1: has caused problems in the past when I forget not
Speaker 1: everyone thinks this way. My big mouth has got me
Speaker 1: in trouble a lot in the past. My Sill was
Speaker 1: uncomfortable raising this, and Bill started parking the cars in
Speaker 1: that way so that my wife would notice and they
Speaker 1: could talk it through. Unfortunately, we have not really paid attention,
Speaker 1: and they thought we were deliberately refusing to mention it.
Speaker 1: I have listed some things below that my wife has
Speaker 1: talked about to day, and I one hundred percent see
Speaker 1: where everyone is coming from. But I genuinely didn't know
Speaker 1: most of this was going on and didn't mean to
Speaker 1: upset anyone. Dash My pill included our unborn daughter in
Speaker 1: the inheritance from his mom. Sill and Bill are convinced
Speaker 1: I pressured him into this. When she was born. He
Speaker 1: gave her a check for one thousand pounds. He has
Speaker 1: done this for all his grandkids and I said something like, Wow,
Speaker 1: the richest baby in all the land. And they both
Speaker 1: took this badly, like I had won the argument and
Speaker 1: was gloating. They have it in their heads that I
Speaker 1: think I am entitled to inheritance because I used to
Speaker 1: visit their grandma, But it was only because my work
Speaker 1: took me close and their dad was driving over one
Speaker 1: hundred miles every day to look after her. Phil had
Speaker 1: settled this, but when I said that, it just confirmed
Speaker 1: their suspicions. Dash. The first time we saw them after
Speaker 1: Corona started being a thing, my Bill told me he
Speaker 1: quit his job in February to start his own business.
Speaker 1: I said, you bad timing, meaning that with c V
Speaker 1: nineteen it is an awful time to try and get
Speaker 1: a business going. Both Bill and Syll took this very
Speaker 1: badly and believed I was criticizing his business idea. I
Speaker 1: definitely am not. It is not an area I know
Speaker 1: anything about. But I didn't notice how upset they were. Dash.
Speaker 1: The thing with the car I have already explained, but
Speaker 1: this is where the whole leftover's thing comes from. When
Speaker 1: her dad gave them the extra money, he said it
Speaker 1: was our leftovers as a joke. I never used this phrase,
Speaker 1: and I did not know he had given this money
Speaker 1: to them. She told my wife that they have to
Speaker 1: have two cars and could not afford what we got
Speaker 1: a Kia Sportage, and when I took it round to
Speaker 1: show them, I was really rubbing it in her husband's face.
Speaker 1: This I feel really awful about because I did ring
Speaker 1: him on my way home, and I did want to
Speaker 1: show off. I have never had a car that knew before.
Speaker 1: I genuinely didn't know they had money problems Dash. In
Speaker 1: the past few months, I have said a lot of
Speaker 1: things that looking back, really does look like I was
Speaker 1: trying to get at them when lockdown started. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a PC, so I got them our laptop and
Speaker 1: printer so the kids could do their school work. Bill
Speaker 1: got some games for it, but they wouldn't run. It's
Speaker 1: not a gaming p C, so he wasted his money there,
Speaker 1: which caused a big fight. Still asked me by text
Speaker 1: how old the laptop was, and I replied to know
Speaker 1: a couple of years, which she took again as leftovers.
Speaker 1: When I got her text, I did not realize an
Speaker 1: argument was going on at home DASH. When I got
Speaker 1: the laptop, I saw our old Xbox three sixty and
Speaker 1: we in the cupboard and said we might as well
Speaker 1: pass them on. We're never going to use them again.
Speaker 1: They are not a tech heavy family and have never
Speaker 1: had a console to my knowledge, so my nephew and
Speaker 1: niece were real happy. But Bill knows that as some
Speaker 1: old tech and was not impressed. Again, I didn't tea
Speaker 1: know this. On a family zoom call, I asked my
Speaker 1: nephew if he played Skyrim, and when he said no,
Speaker 1: I made a big show of saying I only gave
Speaker 1: him the Xbox so we could talk about Skyrim for
Speaker 1: hours and he should play it well. After the call,
Speaker 1: he told syl slash Bill that I said I had
Speaker 1: given the Xbox to him, not the family, and he
Speaker 1: should be allowed to play it. I don't think I
Speaker 1: am to blame for this argument, but it is definitely
Speaker 1: my words that have led to it. Dash the barbecue thing.
Speaker 1: I love cooking, and whenever I do barbecue, I keep
Speaker 1: going for several hours to do barbecue boxes for various
Speaker 1: family and friends. I believe they are quite generous. For example,
Speaker 1: the ones after my sister's birthday each had half a
Speaker 1: chicken and along with some ribs, sausages and a steak skewer.
Speaker 1: I always always call these boxes leftovers, so no one
Speaker 1: feels awkward taking it. It is not meant to indicate
Speaker 1: that it isn't good food or anything. When I took
Speaker 1: them to my in laws, no one was in and
Speaker 1: the boxes were not the same, no spicy coating. So
Speaker 1: I wrote Sill's Lovely Leftovers and mark her pen on
Speaker 1: her box and put them both in the fridge. After
Speaker 1: the thing with the car, the laptop, the Xbox and everything,
Speaker 1: it really really looked like I was just trying to
Speaker 1: rub it in that we have more money than them
Speaker 1: and make her as angry as possible. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: have not been trying to upset anyone, but with my
Speaker 1: big mouth, I can see from their point of view,
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent the asshole. Each individual thing
Speaker 1: I can kind of explain, but when you take it
Speaker 1: all together, it's pretty awful. I know people are saying
Speaker 1: I'm not at fault, and I appreciate that it is
Speaker 1: helping me feel better about things, But sil slash Bill
Speaker 1: have been arguing a lot over the last few months,
Speaker 1: and every single argument they can trace back to something
Speaker 1: I've said or done which kicked it off in one
Speaker 1: way or another. A lot of the time they thought
Speaker 1: I knew about an argument they had or liked the
Speaker 1: money thing with my fill, but I honestly didn't know
Speaker 1: and didn't realize my comments were upsetting them. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to start to wear thin when you hear the
Speaker 1: tenth different way you caused a screaming match. I can
Speaker 1: remember my own granddad saying to me after I dropped
Speaker 1: something on his head, just because it was an accident
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it didn't hurt, and I need to respect
Speaker 1: that I have caused a lot of pain that hurts
Speaker 1: just the same, regardless of how it was meant at
Speaker 1: the time. And b t W. My wife didn't even
Speaker 1: mention the name calling from this morning when she came
Speaker 1: home