my bf [M26] and I [F24] moved in together but wants me to only “see” him on weekends..

Some backstory: My boyfriend is an extreme introvert and I try to be mindful of this.

When we moved in together we made sure he has his own room so that he has a space of his own, and he hangs out in there 95% of the time.

I understand that people generally are a drain on him emotionally and I have zero issues with giving him space!

But this is getting out of hand..

It became don’t come in when the door is closed. He said “if the door is closed pretend I’m not home”

Ok weird, but whatever. Except he never comes out. Right now he is unemployed and I am working so I’m barely home anyways.

After falling asleep alone last night again, this morning I asked him if we can do something fun once I get home (he likes it when I give him “warning”)

he begins to melt down saying it’s normal for couples to not talk for days at a time and since we spend weekends together I am being too much.

it’s just hard for me to keep feelings when he shuts me out.

This is insane right? I don’t think I’m asking for too much. I am content in my own company but I feel lonely after 2 months of this.

He wants me to “compromise” but his compromise is him getting his way. I just want my partner to be there for me sometimes.

He says I should be happy with him greeting me when I get home and then weekend interaction

Writing all this out feels insane. I feel like I’m being gaslit, please help.

Got married about a year ago. I understand why now our birth rate is so low. Singapore is already one of the most stressed countries in the world.

Coupled with long working hours (again a country with one of the longest working hours), cost of living etc etc. Why is everything here so rigid and conventional?

Work end 6pm but if you leave on the dot, people look at you one kind. Hybrid Work was a norm and now companies are reverting back. Many developed countries had such hybrid Work even before covid while SG had it bcse it had no choice during covid and now they are just reversing it back. Like why can’t we have a breather or some flexibility in this country? Everywhere is rush, everything is serious.

Sch is so competitive and kids as young as 3-4yo are starting with enrichment classes. The cost is insane. How do we young couples even think of having a child? Even a graduate salary (lower tier) for myself and my wife is so hard to sustain. People will say don’t like then migrate.

Why shud I? I was born here and so were my parents. It just feels like a top down cultural/traditional mindset that isn’t changing.

Here are what netizens think:

• Excuses. I have 3 kids. The only thing we gave up was alone time. But it’s up to us to make it work. Sneak in a few dates when they go tuition. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. The rest of the spending all depends on ur own wants. All children want to play and not go for courses and tuition. It’s always the parents.

• Try and pull down the expectations a little – kids are only expensive if you insist they go Mindchamps instead of PAP. Go kids clinic instead of polyclinic. Instead of focusing on WHY your world sucks, focus on HOW you can make your world better. Not saying it’s easy, but sometimes you gotta stop following the system and create your own path. (Started my own biz, because I couldn’t tahan corporate world. Not easy in early years, but now found back my time) As someone wise once told me… “if you can’t find a solution, you aren’t being creative enough.” So stop looking at Facebook and see your Friends post only the “good side” of their lives. Set realistic expectations, don’t have to benchmark against your ex-classmates, live your own life. I wish you happiness.

• Must go enrichment classes meh? I’m a tutor myself, but I can tell you for sure, many kids don’t NEED extra classes, it’s a WANT. I need food, I pay $4 for a meal. I want wagyu beef, I pay $40 for a slice.

• Life is what u make out to be. Your environment can either be a bonus or a curse. To be born in SG, where you can get anything you want within reach, for me is a bonus. But that comes with a price, your effort. Don’t expect good things without effort. You want a good life, you need to put in the time and effort. If you are complaining about why life is so tough at the age of 20+….I just have to say you have no idea what truly tough life is. At the end of the day, no matter where u live, effort will determine where you are in life

Eh bro, you ever feel like you working every single day… but still cannot breathe? This uncle at kopitiam near my block just now, wah, suddenly pour heart out until I also emo sia.

He say he 39 this year. Work IT one, salary not bad, got about $6K per month. But hor, the stress? Through the roof. Every day wake up, not because he want to, but because he have to.

“Bro, sometimes I sit at my desk and think — I working just for my HDB and my children leh. My own life? Long ago disappear already.”

The speed of money

He say when young still single, work is tiring lah, but at least still got time go out, chill, spend a bit. Now got kids? Different story liao. Every dollar come in, go out faster than ERP gantry. Diaper, milk powder, CC fees, enrichment class — all like subscription one, but no cancel button sia.

And the HDB? Wah. He say just paying off the loan every month already feel like working for a landlord. “Not even condo hor, just 4-room BTO, but every month $1.2K vanish from CPF like magic.” But what about other expenses.

He sigh again, this time deeper than the kopi O he just drank. “Some days, I don’t even know who I am anymore. I work, I come home, I see my kids, I smile. But inside, tired sia. Like my life is just this loop.”

I ask him, “Then what you want to do?” He shake head. “No choice. For the kids lah. I love them, but sometimes I wish I got time to love myself also.”

Wah, this kind of real talk ah, really hit different. Singapore life really not easy. Everything we do — buy house, raise kids, go work — supposed to be for better life. But sometimes hor, the better life like always one step ahead. Always chasing.

Moral of the story? If you got a friend, father, mother, anyone who look strong but quiet… maybe ask them how they really doing. Cos sometimes ah, even the strongest one breaking inside.

I met this girl in a club and started dating her. We cohabit for a few years in my parent’s house. Then one day she started asking about marriage and also started arranging for BTO matters.

She even plan on what job to find after she retire as stewardess assumingly she got pregnant. I did not want to marry her due to her special background. Before I met her, she works in the club and let any guy took advantage of her. She told me she had 3 abortion before so she is always feeling tired and weak.

She’s dirty and doesn’t cherish herself working in this kind of places until when we dated then she switch job. I am unable to overcome the barrier that she was being USED by many guys. I wonder how come girls like her can even think that they can find decent husband and happily married? Isn’t it naive? She likes giving her hard earn money to her mother which I did not approve.

Her mom knew she was working in club and did not object at all, since she was making money to support her. What kind of parents is this?! In fact I’ve no respect for her mother. How can she witness her daughter earning fast money and still spending her money happily.

When she finally got the BTO flat she wanted and in high floor, she told me to put in deposit together. But I didn’t want the flat, the BTO is what she wanted.

She should put the deposit since she is the one that wanted a BTO. She was so upset and left me. What right does she even have to be angry and leave me when I picked her up from her bad situation and told her to find better job. Her family couldn’t even be bothered. What I wanted was to live with her without marriage or children. But our relationship went downhill when she became naive.

What do you think I should do? Should I ask for my money spend on her back?

I have a confession. I am a big man with a small manhood. It might sound stupid, but this is something that makes me embarrassed and unconfident.

To be specific, I am 1.86m tall. People who have seen me might get the impression that down there is big, hard and rock solid. Truth is, it is barely 8cm when fully erect. When it is flacid, it can’t even be seen. This is why I shave, so that it can at least be seen. This is real cringe. When I last celebrated my birthday, I wished for my p*nis to grow bigger.

Both my 2 ex-girlfriends have showed astonishment at its size. I have no idea. I don’t compare sizes with other people, or even talk about it. But they mentioned that I am way below the average size, and that it was much smaller than they have expected. I felt so lousy about myself. Now that I think about it, how would they know what is average? Have they seen enough penises to make a fair judgement?

There was an incident in which my last girlfriend asked “Is it in?” Things were actually going well, but once I heard that, I became anxious and my whole body just shut down. I could not even perform the deed, and that was the last time I ever got intimate with someone. She broke up with me soon after.

That was 2 years ago. I now have a new gf, the 3rd one. We haven’t slept together yet, I would always give the excuse to wait until we graduate, so that it can be extra special. I told her that this is the responsible thing to do. Of course, I did not mean it. Truth is, I am very afraid that the same thing might happen again. Lucky for me, she did not take it negatively but instead expressed that it was sweet of me to think of it this way. Because of this, she feels doubly assured that I love her for who she is, rather than just wanting her physically. Well, she has no clue of what really is going on.

Next academic year will be our final one, and I only have a short time to get my shit together. I am now saving up money to possibly go for treatments to increase its size. But I am worried for my finances too. Such procedures will definitely cost a lot. And business school fresh grads usually don’t get very high starting pay. I have very little knowledge in this area, and I don’t know how much exactly it will cost and how long it will take. Can someone give advice on this, either in a reply or in a separate whisper?

And guys, if you don’t sharing in the comments, can I know 3 things?

1) What is the length of your thing when it is at rest?

2) What is the length when it is at full stretch?

3) How tall are you?

My wife said I kept looking at my friend last night.

My wife and I went out to eat at a restaurant last night. My friend works there, and recommended it because she says the food is good here and the price is worth it.

My wife and I got dressed up to come here. We saw my friend here, and she said hi to the both of us and continued working (she’s a waitress.)

Once we got home, my wife said I kept looking over at my friend. That definitely wasn’t the case. She also said I ruined the night by doing so.

She went to bed upset at me, and I’m guessing she still will be once she wakes up today. I don’t want us to argue over this, so what can I do to remedy this situation?

Netizens’ comments

There’s something else that is the issue. Ask your wife what makes her think you were staring at her?
If your wife got dressed up, did you not say anything positive about how she looks? Did you do something to make her feel insecure? You don’t want to argue-but do you genuinely want to resolve this with your wife because you care about her feelings? You know the saying- happy wife happy life. However, if you are attracted to your friend, then what is there to remedy?

A woman recently shared on Facebook how her past plastic surgery has ruined her family life. It all started when she underwent plastic surgery in Korea before she met her current husband. Things went from bad to worse after the birth of her child as the child did not resemble her husband at all.

Here is her full story.

I’m in a lot of pain right now. Not because of what I did to my face several years ago, but because my husband is questioning if our daughter is really his. He thinks she does not look like both of us. But how can I tell him that Sarah (using another name to protect my daughter) actually looks a lot like me before my makeover?

Blame it on my beauty obsession. When I was 23, I went to Korea for a series of procedures. I was really happy with the rhinoplasty, but not so much with the facelift and eyebag removal. But overall, I was happy with a better me, and it increased my self confidence. If not because I had wiped out my savings and my parents had threatened to disown me, I would’ve gone for bust enhancement too. I had wanted to go from a B-cup to a C.

I met Tim (again another name) at a friend’s party in Sentosa. He had just returned from the States, doing chemicals research.

We hit it off almost straight away. Despite the nerdy nature of his job, he was quite a biker, and I always remember our rides around Singapore in the silence of the night, esp on weekends. It was a whirlwind romance, and I did not hesitate when he proposed 1 year later, at Changi beach park as we were gazing at the stars. I did not tell him about my makeover. Why was it impt? He had fallen in love with the new me, and that’s all it mattered. Many of my friends also had secrets or history which they hid from their other halves.

We registered our marriage in Singapore, and flew to the States for a simple banquet with his dad, step mom, sister and several close friends. Over here, my parents organized a small reception for close relatives, as they were too scared that people will notice my new looks. I could tell at the reception that my grandmum and some other female relatives were shocked/puzzled to see the new me, but chose to respect the occasion and did not ask anything. In private, I was sure they would ask my parents this and that. It did not matter to me. I had found the new me, and through it, had found the love of my life. An exciting new chapter of my life was beginning.

We settled down in Singapore and rented an apartment. In terms of having a baby, we let nature take its course, but were still surprised when I got pregnant. Sarah was born in Nov 2016, just 2 days before my birthday. As my relationship with my parents has been strained ever since my makeover, I quit my job to care for Sarah full time. It helped that Tim’s step mom flew down for a period to help with Sarah (thanksie step mom! How many step moms would actually do that?).

We finally got our own apartment and slowly, I settled in to my role as a full time mother. Tim is a believer in home schooling, and we agreed that we would only send Sarah to preschool when she’s 4 or 5 years old.

Things were chiming along pretty well. We would head to the States every 6 months or so to visit Tim’s family and for vacation. Sarah was growing up into an adorable sweetie pixie, who likes to pull at my hair (luckily not my nose!). My scars had healed pretty well, but I take care to avoid knocks or any form of trauma to my face. As Sarah grew up, I realize she started to look like the old me, esp the roundish facial contours and slightly V-chin. And for the first time, I felt a pang of guilt for having the makeover. Guilt that while heaven had blessed Sarah with such a beautiful face, she could not look like her mother. And for the first time, I started to understand why my parents had objected so strongly to my makeover. I don’t think Tim notice anything amiss. He was still the doting, hardworking dad and husband.

That was, until Sarah’s 3rd birthday last year. We had brought her out to pororo park to celebrate. That night, after we had put her to bed, and I was doing my manicure, he suddenly looked up from his laptop and said: “You know, I think that she doesn’t look like you or me at all.” I was so taken aback that I dropped my brush. I guessed my reaction only made things worse. Tim has always been an emotional person, but he’s not the expressive type and generally manages his feelings well. However, at that instant, I thought I could see some doubt or hurt in his eyes. He had caught me off guard, and my head was in a spin, trying to second guess his reason for saying this and figure out a reply at the same time. “love, lotsa kids don’t look like their mums and dads” was all I could say.

But the semi-desperation of my voice and the unconvinced and hurt look on his face told me this was not going to go away easily. “are you hiding anything from me?” was all he said next. “Why are you asking this out of nowhere?”, at the risk of waking Sarah up, I tried to sound angry, to hide my panic. Equally, I was hurt that he didn’t trust me. But I didn’t really blame him. Turned out some of his friends and colleagues had commented that Sarah did not resemble either of us, and some geneticist friend of his in the States had told him that paternal genes are stronger than maternal genes, and first-born daughters usually look like the father more. Sarah does not look like either him or me, and this caused doubts in him on whether he was really her father. That night, for the first time in our marriage, we slept in separate rooms. And tried as I could to hide it, I’m not sure whether he heard my sobs.

Things are not the same now. He started to drown himself in work to avoid me and Sarah, even going back to the office on weekends. I have to think of all sorts of reasons to explain to Sarah why daddy cannot join our weekend outings for the time being. It hurts me so much to see him like this, and even more so that Sarah has become collateral damage. To prove that Sarah is his flesh and blood, I suggested a DNA test, but he has so far refused. I know what he’s thinking. He’s feeling conflicted and guilty that on one hand while he has damaged the trust between us, on the other hand he wants to repair that trust, and did not want to damage it further by doing a DNA test which will show that he could not trust me w/o it.

I know what a lot of you must be thinking. Why don’t I just confess to him about my makeover? What will he think of me if I tell him now? Can he accept that the new me is actually not the real me, and that I’ve been hiding this from him all these yrs? This will be as big a blow to him as if Sarah is really not his daughter, I’m sure. Right now I’m torn, and I really don’t know what to do. There’s no one to tell, and Sarah is my only comfort now. Seeing her now and how she looks like the old me, my guilt has only gotten worse. I thought I had started the perfect next chapter of my life, but my past has caught up with me. I often find myself thinking, if I had not gone for the makeover, would I still have gotten together with Tim? Is it worth it now?

Im a 27 years old with only Olevel cert trying to start over

Im a 27 years old single and nothing to show for it. After graduating with o level, i did get myself into a diploma course in Poly.

Turned out it was not the course that i wanted and i naively dropped out from it.. At that time my mental health took for the worst.

At that time too, i know i do not have any mental capacity to continue study so i start working in retail.. i jumped from retail to retail shop for years.

After tht i have to stop working to be the caretaker for my grandparents who were bedbound and navigating my father who is also recently half blind.

Skiped to 2 years. Since i stop being the caretaker. I want to start anew. I want to start thinking for myself and my future.

My plan is to start going back to the workforce to earn money for myself. Also i know i have a lack of education and there is small scope of job that i can get into.

My plan is to work and enroll myself to a part time diploma in poly if i am eligible(i regret not starting earlier).

Is there any advice or a way that i can continue studying and still earning income? Any advice for me when starting over? I really do need to start over.

Netizens’ comments

1. You can sign up for a free 1 to 1 consultation with SkillsFuture – they will advise you on upskilling, what courses you’re suitable for and the available grants and subsidies etc.
   You already have experience in retail and home caregiving for the elderly, so those are things you can offer in addition to your O level cert. If you don’t mind a career related to either of those areas, enrol in a certificate or diploma to layer more up-to-date knowledge and skills on top of your existing experience. The elder care industry will only be expanding in coming years, given our aging population.
2. You have something to show for it. You showed that you are able to have the patience, strength (physical) and likability to have 2 very old people and 1 disabled person trust you to let you take care of them. You obviously don’t shy away from bodily fluids or showering them.
   It looks like retail is not for you if you are hopping from place to place. I wouldn’t suggest sales either because of your mental health. income is great if you can take serious pressure and not crack.
   Why not consider palliative care or Senior care industries (not just in nursing). These people are usually highly sought after and paid quite well, not just in Singapore but anywhere in the world. These companies sometimes offer further education to you so you don’t pay anything.
3. friend. you have working experience now and you can directly enroll yourself into a part time diploma with kaplan, which will allow you direct entry into their affiliated universities degree programs(which you can also do part time)
   without any financial support from anyone, its quite important that you got a day job to finance your tuition bank loan, which is why doing both your diploma and then degree part time is a good solution
   what do you like to do? finance? HR? business management?cybersecurity?