(There’s also some Ask a Manager content, it’s UPDATE SEASON!!!)
Your husband is correct (it always pains me to say this!), you need to pump your brakes on this:
Now my husband and I have been having issues in our marriage and while we are currently separated we have been going to couples counseling and seem to be on our way to reconciling. This has happened a year and a half ago only last time I initiated the separation, this time he did.
At the time of our separation we had been trying to conceive for about a year. This was after YEARS of me saying I did not want children but over time, especially after watching the kids at the studio grow up, I decided I was ready. Man, they do not joke around when they say your biological clock kicks in! Problem is I have been having a hard time conceiving naturally so I have (willingly) submitted myself to many many tests, dr appointments, endless amounts of tracking, peeing on sticks, crying in subs like r/TryingForABaby and r/infertility, the works.
When my husband initiated the separation he said he did not want children with me. We both have anger issues and I smoke more weed than I would like. These are things I’m actively changing and am going to individual therapy to address.
Yesterday in couples counseling he says he would like to wait for about 6 months to a year before trying to conceive again. Yes I know that in a perfect world that would make sense. I am 28 yrs old. That means I could be 29 by the time we start trying. Who knows how long we would have to try for? How old will I be? My uterine lining will only get worse. I have also wanted to look into adoption but that process also takes about 2 years and so we would have to get started NOW. I don’t want to be in my mid to late thirties with a toddler. I want to have the energy to do this stuff now.
I would like to start trying to conceive as soon as my husband moves back in which will be in a couple of weeks. I think we could do counseling and therapy IN PARALLEL to trying to make a baby.
This woman absolutely needs to be fired, but I’m sad to hear the LW talk about the fact her employee is in an abusive relationship as a character flaw or a marker of immaturity:
I’ve been keeping a log since the beginning of August of her scheduled hours and what has actually happened. Last week, I finally sat down and tabulated her attendance rate, and it turns out that in that period of time, there was a 1 in 5 chance that she would not come in, arrive late, or end up leaving early. Additionally, of the days that she was late or didn’t come, I received either no notice or less than an hour’s notice no less than 45% of the time. There have been zero instances where she made up the hours later, which would have helped mitigate my own stress.
I got all the data ready, wrote up a PIP, and prepared to demote her…and then guess what?
She got sick and was out most of the week. Because of course.
I am preparing to sit down with her and fill her in on the hard numbers, but it hasn’t happened yet. The game plan is to let her know what her numbers are, explain that this isn’t acceptable, and let her know that I can’t keep calling her an assistant manager, as she’s not acting like one. We’re going to start looking for an actual assistant manager shortly after that.
It appears that right now she’s living with the boyfriend again. She’s made comments about how it’s not a good situation, but at this point, there’s really nothing more I can do for her. I have two small children and my own personal dramas to contend with; if she can be at work, on time, and accept a demotion, then we can get along. If she can’t take the job under those terms, I suppose I’ll have to cut her loose. I want to be compassionate, but I also can’t hold the hand of a woman in her forties who won’t improve her own life.
this update to “my co-worker plays Christian rock all day long” is a million times better than I thought it would be:
So, I actually chickened out of talking to her about it for awhile after receiving that advice – sometimes I’m fine with confrontation, but other times I’m a total wuss, and this was one of the latter. In fact, getting your email asking about an update was what nudged me into finally speaking up, so that I’d actually have an update to give – thank you for that! I’m happy to report that Operation This Is An Office, Not A Church was a complete success.
This morning Lily had a particularly gospel-y playlist running, and it was early enough in the day that only she and I were around, so I realized I wasn’t going to get a better opening than this – with the behavior in question actively occurring at the time, and semi-privacy for a conversation if we needed one. I was nervous, so I literally had the post on AAM open on my computer and used pretty much the exact phrasing you suggested (I didn’t quite read it off the screen at her, but almost). Lily seemed a little surprised, but not as defensive as I’d worried about. She actually proposed to switch to headphones instead – which I’m even happier about, to be honest – though she doesn’t have them in her purse today, so for now we’ve switched to a different playlist. So I got pretty much the best possible outcome: not only am I free from the religious music that was putting my shoulders up around my ears, I get to reclaim the peace and quiet I was used to when I had my own office!
I live with my boyfriend and our pets, sometimes I get home and I really dont want to cook and sometimes I'm not even that hungry. Ive been cooking predominantly for about a year and although he does help and cooks every so often, the problem is if I decide not to cook one day he wont make himself food and just become upset and fall asleep upset and hungry. I feel guilty about this and sometimes just give in and make food.
It's just that sometimes I just really really dont want to cook or eat and if he's in the house all day when I get from work he will often tell me he hasnt eaten anything all day so now I either cook or feel like an absolute asshole. Its not like theres no food, theres just no quick snacks most of the time.
HARD NO FROM ME, DAWG:
So my friend I have known since kindergarten ( I’m almost 40) married my wife’s sister. Over the past year he has developed what we perceive as an infatuation with my daughter. She is 3. Examples: calls her “my Betsy”, refers to himself as your uncle all creepily, a picture of her on his dash board, his phone screen saver is her, coming over just to see her and basically ignoring all the adults, trying to face time just to see her everyday, seriously every day. The way he just focused solely on her creeped me out.We have slowly been distancing ourselves from him. Well this weekend my wife and I had to leave town for the day and we found out he made plans with my mother in law to come over after we left to spend time with my daughter(MIL was baby sitting). I only found out because I heard him call and ask MIL if we were still there, we left late.. So he’s basically going behind our backs to see her. Also over the past year his hygiene has gotten awful. He smells so bad he literally ruined my couch and when he would hug my daughter it would leave his BO smell on her. It’s just fucking strange. So I called him out for his creepy behavior and going behind our backs to see my daughter and he got immediately got defensive and went to the extreme of saying I was accusing him of being a child molester. Sister in law freaked out and says she won’t talk to us anymore. My wife is pretty upset because she might lose her sister over this. I confided in one friend that’s known him just as long about his behavior and he agreed it was not appropriate. Well AITA? Should I have kept my mouth shut?
you need to chill the fuck OUT and also ask for a copy of the curriculum, which I strongly suspect will allay a lot of your concerns:
My daughter’s 5th grade class is having a sex education week this week and yesterday she came home and I asked her what she learned.
She told me basically what I’m shocked to think they’re teaching children that age and then she showed me a condom that was given to her.
This morning I walked right into the principals office and demanded to know why they were giving my daughter condoms in sex Ed (as well as why they’re teaching her about oral and anal sex other more advanced topics that are age inappropriate).
The principal insisted that I leave immediately and to instead send a letter if I feel so strongly against “proper sex education”. She threatened to have the school resource officer remove me.
On the way out, I actually asked to talk to him and he told me that if it was him he would be pissed and in fact he said he would have made a huge scene and he commended me for my peacefulness.
Guys it is just me or is it NOT cool to be giving condoms to 5th graders and teaching them about oral/anal sex? 5th grade in the USA is about age 10-11 btw.
you do not owe them a dime, make your own bank account immediately:
Before starting college, I was going to take out loans, but my parents wouldn't let me. I was seventeen and couldn't get a private loan on my own and my parents' income was too high for me to get enough financial aid to cover my tuition. My parents said they would "take care of it" and told me not to worry about it. Two years later I got a full tuition scholarship and worked almost full time to support myself completely because I didn't want my parents to pay for me. Fast-forward to a few weeks before graduation. I had a good job offer in hand and suddenly they decide to say they want to set up a repayment plan. No real terms we're agreed upon. Nothing was signed. I was told I owe them a ballpark estimate of 50,000 which is about 10k more than what they actually paid for. They said I could pay them a variable amount each month and so I've been paying them 250/month for the last few months. Did I screw myself by starting to pay them back? My dad was the one who went into my account and set up the monthly direct deposit, but I did give him permission to do so.
I'm at a point where if I have to cut all ties with them completely I will. Had I known they were going to pull this, I would have fought harder to take out loans. It was not worth all of the stress they caused me to end up being told I have to pay them back anyway.
your mom sucks! this is a real issue:
Hello, this is very embarrassing for me and Im not very sure how to start. First of all Im still a minor and Ive been sexually harrassed by my teacher at high school for quite some time now. Its the sort of “tame” stuff so far like groping and flirtation from his part but it makes me very uncomfortable. Having my butt slapped or being lustfully watched during p.e. certainly isnt very pleasing...Im not sure about what should I do. I told my mother, however she said it is my own fault and I should deal with it myself. I dont think telling the principal would work either because he is a very good friend of the teacher thats harrassing me. Thanks for your help, I will be grateful for every response.
such a stellar update:
First and foremost, I'm alive! I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. You guys really helped me see just how cruel and unreasonable he was being.
It took four months but I finally worked up the courage to break it off. He has moved out and my children and I are moving on with our lives.
Again, thank you all so much for opening my eyes.
TL;DR - My ex-fiance treated me cruelly when I had pneumonia. Turned to r/relationships for advice. Got great advice. Broke it off. Feeling better about life. :)
My husband just asked me for advice on an issue he encountered today. He is a small business owner who employs around 50 employees. This morning, he received an email from the spouse of one of them. It’s quite lengthy – around 500 words (yes, I actually checked, LOL). In it she expounds on what a committed and loyal employee her husband is. She mentions that our holiday party is coming up and she knows we are making decisions regarding bonuses. She doesn’t come out and mention “bonuses,” rather she uses the word “recognition.” At the end of the email, she requests that we keep the email a secret from her husband.
I love when we get closure on r/UnsolvedMysteries:
Robert "Steve" Steven WRIGHT of North Bay Ontario was arrested yesterday for the 1998 murder of Renee SWEENEY that took place in Sudbury, Ontario. She was a 23 year old Laurentian University student at the time and was killed while on shift at an adult video store.
What a crummy situation to be in:
I have a question about how to bring up sexual harassment at work. It’s a bit more complicated than most situations, because we’re both gay women who are closeted at work. It started out with coming out to each other when we were working alone together for the first time. We had a laugh and bonded over being in two minorities at work: women in a heavily male-dominated blue collar job, and being gay on top of that. We had fun, all was well.
But then it escalated badly. She started talking in detail about her sex life, about how much she likes younger women (context: she’s 55, I’m 25), how many significantly younger sexual partners she’s had, and — well, VERY crude comments, gestures, and “jokes” about lesbian sex and female bodies that I’m not comfortable repeating. She also suggested that I come over to her place some time so we could “cook dinner and stuff.” It all made me incredibly uncomfortable. I don’t think she intended to make me uncomfortable, and she’s got juuust enough plausible deniability to make me doubt whether I’m imagining things, but it honestly did feel vaguely predatory, and was definitely beyond inappropriate workplace behavior regardless of her intent toward me personally. If it had been a man, I would have immediately told him to stop, and reported him to both our manager and HR without second thought.
The crux of the issue: She is not out at work, and made it very clear that she told me her orientation in strict confidence. I can’t ask any of my coworkers that I’m closer to for any kind of advice, because it would out her no matter how discreet I tried to be. Same thing with talking to our manager: it would out her no matter what. And, not gonna lie – I really don’t want to report a lesbian for sexual harassment of a young woman, because our field is already very misogynistic and homophobic as a rule. So my only option is to talk to directly to her, and her alone. I have to continue working one-on-one with her, so our working relationship has to be preserved, and she’s shown no indication of toning down her sex talk no matter how much my only reactions are an awkward laugh/hum and silence or a subject change. Do you have any advice for this very, very awkward and sensitive discussion I’m going to have to have with her?
Have a lovely day, all!
xoxoxo
n