• 10 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • I don’t have kids, but I’ve dated a few people with kids and my ex-husband had a child. From that perspective, my question is always are you willing to be a step parent? If yes, go for it. If not, stay away. Even if you think it’ll be something casual, there’s always the possibility feelings will develop beyond that, and having to break up with someone you really love because you don’t want to be a parent sucks a lot more than just saying no on the first place.

    The other thing to consider is whether the other parent is still around. My ex’s first wife suuuucked. They co-parented relatively well considering how their marriage ended, but she was also a hypocritical bigot (born-again christian, shocker), which caused some friction when my stepkid was being taught things like, “we hate this person because they’re gay.” But like it or not, she was going to be around, so I had to account for that in my decision to get serious with him.





  • My coworker had a full hysterectomy in her late 30s for the same reason and she’s described it as basically a living hell for about a year. Just a complete nightmare where she felt like her body completely turned on her and she had no control over anything it was doing - hearing about it made my attitude about keeping my ovaries much more enthusiastic. BUT she was pretty much fully through menopause after that year, so the good news is that your wife’s situation is likely pretty temporary. The bad news is that a year can feel like much longer when things aren’t going well, and I’m guessing she can’t do any hormone replacement to ease her symptoms because of the cancer risk. I did keep my ovaries and I’m still having some hormonal nonsense (pseudo hot flashes are not making me real optimistic about the real thing, let me tell you), so I can only imagine how much that sucks.

    The thing is, you’re probably not actually doing anything wrong, it’s just a total tsunami of fuckery in her body atm that’s making her feel that way. I would suggest marriage counseling, because it’s possible that a neutral third party can help your wife see that, even though she’s not totally in control of her body or feelings right now, she still doesn’t get to make you feel like shit and she might end up destroying a relationship she still wants once she’s past this stage. There’s no easy solution, though, it’s just everyone putting their heads down and pushing through it, unfortunately.











  • Oh yeah this one. Plus, wear a hat. My hairstylist found skin cancer on my scalp a year or two ago and now I have a bald spot where they removed it because scalp skin doesn’t have a whole lot of excess to close a wound. So cute. Thankfully, I can hide it, but it pretty much requires me to wear my hair up every day.

    Eta: I feel like it should go without saying, but maybe doesn’t, that I was incredibly lucky that it was basal cell, not melanoma. A big scar is one of the best outcomes I could’ve had.




  • I work with local-level politicians and we constantly complain about the ones that don’t do the reading. At our level, they nearly all have other jobs, so I get it, but we LOVE when they actually read what we give them and can ask relevant questions. It’s a thousand times better than the ones that just sit there and embarrass themselves every time they open their mouths.