Getting right into it - my husband, an accountant, was let go from the company he was working for due to downsizing back in mid-February. However, he wasn’t really let go? His employer told him they would keep him on the payroll until he found another job, so that the company would not have to pay him unemployment. He was making ~$750/week. For the first week or so that he was job searching, they continued to pay that wage. Then they cut it to $300 because, well you’re not actually working here anymore, you know. My husband saw this cut in pay and also found out that unemployment would pay $380/mo. He would be eligible to collect unemployment for 6mos. He told his boss to please just actually let him go so he could get $380 in unemployment v.s. $300 from the company. His boss said, “we’ll work it out”. The following week, his pay was bumped up to $380 from the company.
This week, they paid him only $140. My husband called his old boss last night and talked with him. He explained that he has been searching nonstop these last two months for a job. He has applied to countless places and had several interviews. He has some tomorrow, even. Nothing has come from it yet but he is really trying – he isn’t just sitting on his ass. His old boss maintained “well you’re not working anymore, I can’t afford to pay you if you’re not working”. My husband asked him again to please just actually fire him, then, to which his old boss said “I don’t want to pay unemployment, that will cost the company more.” Again he insisted that they’ll “work something out”. My husband has texts from his old boss in which he states that he is trying to avoid paying unemployment. I have never heard of a company doing this do an employee they’ve “fired” before. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know, is this not a weird situation?
At this point, my husband just wants to go on unemployment. He wants to know that he will be getting a consistent wage that will keep us afloat until he can secure a job. He doesn’t want to worry about maybe taking another random pay cut and not being able to pay bills. His old boss just does not seem to want to really let him go. He explicitly stated that he does not want to pay unemployment and is instead holding him in some weird fired-but-not-really wage limbo. We are from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we’re at a loss of what we can do. Is there anything we can do? Is his old boss/company breaking any laws, or is this just unethical? We want to know if there is any way we can get his boss to actually fire him for real and just stop all of this. Can a lawyer help, should we look into filing some kind of wage complaint? We have no idea where to even start with this.
He has said a lot of strange things that make me feel like he thinks I'm unattractive. I ask him point blank, and he'll say he does find me attractive. But he says:
- I dress like a lesbian (I don't even know what this means because I just dress like everyone else.....often wearing jeans, a shirt that shows some cleavage).
- He always comments on any shoes/boots I wear negatively (clunky, "comfortable", ugly). I don't have a clue what he even means. I'm wearing normal running shoes, or typical black boots (dressy) or in the summer I wear sandals.
- He says that my nose is wide. He isn't necessarily saying it in a mean way. Just pointing it out. But until I met him, I didn't even think of my nose as "wide". I also don't understand why he comments on it. He must have said it about 8 times since we've been together.
- He will sometimes look at me strange and ask "what did you do to your hair?". I didn't do anything different to my hair. It's just long straight hair. And when I go look in a mirror, it looks completely normal.
- He twice (!) asked me if I ever wanted breast implants. No, I never have. I also don't know why he'd think I would want that. I already have fairly large breasts.
- He has twice commented that my teeth are crooked. Yeah, I'm aware that my bottom teeth are slightly crooked (nothing horrible).
- Lots of other weird comments, like asking me why I'm wearing so much makeup when I literally only have on mascara and lipgloss; telling me my nails look stubby (I keep them short with clear polish and they've always been this way); telling me he doesn't "love" my glasses, etc.
- He'll elbow me jokingly if we walk by a plus-size store and ask if I want to go shopping. I'm a size 14. I've always been a size 14 since he's known me.
TLDR: is my fiance controlling, or am I just reading into it too much?
I am worried that I may have ignored some red flags. I have never experienced this type of behavior from partners in past relationships, and I am afraid that it is not normal.
We have been together for about a year and a half. I have known my s/o since high school. When we first started talking (before we were in a relationship) he would get mad if I wasn't available 24/7. One instance that I remember clearly is when I was spending time with my mom, walking a local trail to get some exercise and just catching up because I had recently moved back home from across the country. He was at the gym and was upset that I didn't invite him to come along. He drove to the trail, parked next to my mom's car, and started running on the trail to try and find us. When we were nearing the end of the trail, he sent me a text asking where I was bc he was on the trail. He told me that he left his keys on top of his tire and that he wanted me to leave with him instead of my mom. I thought that was kind of weird, but I decided to wait and leave with him.
I used to work at our local pizza hut as a delivery drier, and he would get pissed off if I couldn't text him back right away all day long. He would get super mad and start arguments with me if I couldn't leave exactly when I was scheduled to. I ended up having to quit bc I didn't want to deal with the added stress. He doesn't want me to work and wants to be the sole provider and take care of me. I am not allowed to have male friends and I don't have any friends of my own, only our mutual friends.
A few days ago, I was doing some work for my grandpa and was there for about 4 hours. He had texted me at around 6:30 and told me that dinner was ready. I told him okay, I would be home shortly. I left at about 7:20, and as soon as I was pulling out of my grandparents driveway he texted me and told me that I didn't have to worry about coming home. That I could do whatever I wanted bc that's all I care about. I didn't understand what he was talking about so I called him bc I don't text and drive. He told me that "shorly" means 10-15 minutes, and that was an hour ago. He ended up hanging up on me, so I turned around and went back to my grandparents house. He finally apologised to me at about 10:00, so I went home. He ended up keeping me up until about 2:30 arguing and making me feel like I did something wrong and started going through my phone when he thought I had finally fallen asleep. The next day he apologised about everything and acted completely different.
I really need some advice on what I should do in a situation like this.
As a marginal parker at best, this video is deeply inspiring to me.
This sub has really changed my life. I don't know how to express my gratitude, but hopefully this update will let you all know what you do here really matters.
When I started seeing M, I became obsessed with this subreddit. I would read it several times a day. Part of me knew what was happening wasn't right, but I felt like I needed outside perspective.
My mother told me growing up to never speak ill of your partner. So I lied to my friends and even my therapist about what was happening. I thought it was wrong to say anything bad about M. I only posted anonymously here.
I needed to read a lot of stories and hear a lot of comments before I understood relationships aren't supposed to be like what I had with M. I would read a story and see dozens of commenters call a relationship abusive when that hadn't been my takeaway. It made me realize I might not recognize what abuse is.
I started researching abuse and learned that name calling, threatening suicide, isolation from friends and family, and telling you no one else will ever love you are abusive behaviors. I know some people will say that's obvious, but it was so much less abusive than what I saw growing up that I thought it was fine.
I opened up to my therapist and she confirmed that all of these behaviors I thought were acceptable were abuse. I broke up with M.
It was terrifying to learn that I have literally no clue what a healthy relationship is. But it probably saved my life. I was with a man who CHOKED ME IN PUBLIC and I thought the problem was me. I can't imagine what might have happened if I'd stayed.
My therapist and I are working on medicating my PTSD and exploring what healthy romantic relationships look like. I'm having a hard time unpacking the abuse because I'm still learning what abuse is, but I'm talking openly and honestly.
Thank you, Reddit.
Dude, not cool (this is an Ask a Manager cameo appearance):
My office, which has about 25 people, has biweekly staff meetings which take place in a central, convertible space.As such, the majority of the seating options are folding chairs, usually arranged in rows for the staff meeting. I have a medical condition that can be triggered by sitting in certain kinds of seating for long periods of time, so I will usually retrieve one of the full-backed chairs from a conference table at the back of the room to use instead. I’m an otherwise young, healthy, and physically active woman, and my health issues aren’t visibly noticeable. There are a few other people who also pull up the more comfortable chairs, usually about five or six of us in total.
My supervisor, however, has started making disparaging comments about this, saying things like “it won’t kill you to sit in a folding chair for an hour!” when I pulled up my chair and “I left the back row empty for those of you who are special” when it was her turn to set up for the meeting. These comments have left me feeling embarrassed since others overheard them and, frankly, a little angry. I’ve tried sitting in a folding chair for a staff meeting once, and it triggered a multi-day, painful flare of my condition, so I’m not doing this just because folding chairs are uncomfortable. No one else in the office, including our executive directors, have said anything negative about the few of us pulling up more comfortable chairs.
The strange thing is that my supervisor is usually very vocal about supporting individuals with disabilities — including spearheading related projects and sending articles on improving accessibility to our office email list — so I’m really not sure how to address this with her. And it isn’t like she isn’t aware of my condition — I informed her when I was diagnosed because I wanted to be clear about any accommodations I might need moving forward. Do you have any suggestions on how to bring this up without offending her or impacting our work relationship? She can sometimes be very defensive when criticized, and has a forceful personality, to say the least.
My(37f) boyfriend(39m) always asks me to do his housework because “he’s busy”
EDIT: I just wanted to let you all know, I didn’t do the laundry today, or anything else. I sat on his couch and wrote a Reddit post about him and then I went home to manage all of my own stuff.
(TLDR:He has his own house and asks me to do his laundry because he allegedly doesn’t have time. I’m busier than he is. Am I wrong?)
For a little context, he has what, at certain times of the year, amounts to two full-time jobs. He puts in a lot of hours both at work, and after work.
He claims he doesn’t have time to do his laundry, clean his house, go buy toilet pay, or shaving cream, or really do anything other than work and sleep.
Now I know this is not true. He controls his entire schedule after his day job. He has time to stop at the parts store next to Walmart after work, but not time to run in next door and get necessities for himself? Ok.
Before I go any further, let me clarify, we do not live together, and we’ve been dating for 2 years.
I have two children (ages 8 and 12)and I am a full-time nursing student. I also have a part-time job.
On days I have class, I drive through the town he lives in on my way home from school, and I will often stop in at his to pick up something I forgot.
If I speak to him during the day, and he knows I will be at his house, he always asks me to do something for him. “Hey, would you do me a favor and throw a load of clothes in, and I’ll put them in the dryer when I get home?”
This annoys me for two reasons:
I am busier than he is.
If I do it, the clothes make it into the dryer, and then they sit in a pile on the couch for two weeks, until either I fold them and put them away for him, or he gets one of my kids to do it. OR his mom folds all the clothes when she’s stopped in for some reason. So I’m really just making work for myself, or someone else. Because he never does it.
Today he asked me to put laundry in for him, and I said I would only do it if he folded them tonight when they were done and didn’t leave them on the couch for two weeks. He whined that he’s busy.
I’ve been keeping track since I noticed this trend, and it’s really starting to grind my gears.
Am I being a hag because I don’t want to do his laundry? Because I think as a grown adult with a mortgage he should wash his own underpants and put them away when they’re still warm?
I would NEVER ask him to do anything like that at my house, because it’s my place and my responsibility.
When he’s there, he’s treated more-so as a guest, because he doesn’t live there. Like I wouldn’t ask him to scrub toilets or mop the kitchen. Or throw in a random load of laundry when he was popping in to pick up a phone charger.
Look, it’s not like the laundry even needs to be done. He has more socks and underwear than he knows what to do with. Srsly, if I was the poop sock girl, he’d never even notice.
I am just super annoyed that he always does this. I’m busy too. And it’s not like he’s offering to help me out at my house, or feed and entertain my kids of an evening so I can study.