My EX-SO owes me a 5-figure debt and is now ghosting me, what can I do to recoup my money?

I am 25M and just broke up with my 20F. We had been together for ~2 years. When we were together, she was still a student, and as a working adult, I was there to support her (dates were mostly paid for by me).

Now that she had graduated and transitioned to adult life, she found a job in the design industry. Things were difficult as they work on a comms basis and do not have a fixed salary. Dates were mostly paid for by me until recently she started to fork out some of her own share.

During the first week of work, she needed a laptop, so I bought a MacBook for her (initially was mentioned to be paid on an instalment basis but I guess she took it as a graduation gift and I as a supportive BF left it as it is).

She also needed a car to meet clients so she used her family car for work, however whenever she needed money to pump petrol/season parking, she would ask money from me, and I would pay for her. When she decided to lead a healthy and fit lifestyle and wanted to sign up for a gym and asked me to help pay for it, to encourage her, I did.

However, the money I am writing today is not about the money that I have paid for during our time together, but the money she had borrowed for her own needs (e.g., paying off outside debts, and fixing her car, etc).

Recently we had an argument in which I told her that I felt neglected by her since we only met once every few weeks. After that argument, she basically shut off from me and ghosted me for 2 weeks and I had no choice but to initiate the breakup because we were supposed to go on a family trip together (which I had paid for), but things were so dire that I just wanted a clean break. But when I mentioned the money that she owed, she left me on single tick and did not answer my messages at all.

Now I just want my money back. I do not care for the money we had spent together during our time; I just want those that she legitimately borrowed from me.

To be honest, all the money that I have spent on her amounts to much more than this (birthday trips, my dinners, luxury gifts), but I just want those that she had borrowed because it is still not a small amount…

Please help and give any advice, TIA.

I am 29F I grew up in a divided family, my parents hated each other forever. My dad has businesses and we weren’t close to being poor but he was cheap and never gave my mom any gifts or money.

Culturally, we don’t move out of our family’s house until marriage. But I got a good reason to get out of this house which is studying abroad. Now I work and live abroad alone, no friends and no family around. I worked so hard to get my masters abroad (my tuition was paid by scholarship) and got a job after that. Sometimes I get depressed and feel lonely then I call my mom she would just complain about my dad all the call and wouldn’t care about me at all.

Today she was complaining that dad doesn’t give her money and asked me to pay her bills there, she said that my brother 38M (he lives with her and doesn’t pay much) and only pays for the water and food and I need to help them. I told her that I pay my rent, and all bills, and I’m trying to save up to buy a car and paying for my driving lessons because I could not afford to learn it in SG.

I never ask them for money why would she ask me to pay their bills too especially since I don’t live with them?

She doesn’t listen to me when I say that, she ignores me and says that my brother pays some of the bills and I gotta pay part of it. I got really angry and told her that I won’t pay a single cent and I don’t owe her money and she hung the phone up on my face.

Am I an wrong for not wanting to send her money and being angry at her?

Here are what netizens think:

you don’t live there, you’re an adult with your own bills and rent to pay. She should be charging her son rent if money is an issue, not begging it off the child who is living independently

Supporting your family is always a choice that you make yourself. You’re not obligated to fund your family in any way.

if she doesn’t have enough money she needs to get a job/look for a higher paid job and ask the son who’s still home to contribute more. Just because something is cultural to your family doesn’t mean your obligated to do it.

Hello everyone, I need help to understand emotions.

For a start, I think I’m born with an “emotionless” brain. I don’t feel any sort of what you call “happy”, “sad”, “angry”, etc. I just don’t have any capacity to “feel” any emotions. To make you understand, I suppose you can look at me as if I’m a robot that’s just programmed to do specific task and that’s it.

When my parents passed away, while everyone in my family and friends cried, I didn’t. I don’t feel anything and I don’t understand what it means to “feel”. The only thing that I was thinking was that I need to follow the procedure of the funeral and get it over with. The next day I simply just continue with my work. My boss told me that he’s letting me stay at home to “grieve” but, I don’t understand what is that, as I never felt any form of sadness. I came to work to finish my tasks anyways.

When my classmate earned her PhD, I noticed how everyone did this thing called “cheering” and “smiling”. All I did was following the social protocol and tell her “congratulations”. Everyone said I need to at least smile. But, I don’t understand why people smile. I tried once and it’s tiring and strain my facial muscles.

I also never understood music. Seems like everywhere, people enjoy listening to music to the point it makes their bodies move. I have tried listening to music, but, it’s basically just vibration of sound. It’s no different than the sound of people drilling on the wall. But yet, that makes people, what you call “angry” or “annoyed”, which I too, don’t understand. But it’s interesting to see that the vibration of sound makes people “feel” things.

Also, I rarely have any opinion on anything. Almost everything is objective to me and what you people metaphorically call “black and white”. When I do have opinions, it’s always based on logic, science, cultural history etc. For example, my PhD classmate asked me if the theme for her party should be blue or yellow. According to general cultural literature, yellow tend to signify “cheerfulness”, and seems like that’s what everyone does in a setting called “birthday party”, thus, I say yellow. I don’t even understand what it means to be “cheerful”.

The same PhD classmate said that although I’m different, she finds me “funny” and “liked” me. I don’t feel any sort of what you people would call “romantic attraction” to anyone. Apparently, she felt that towards me and said that I’m one of her reasons behind her success in her PhD, and she apparently “fell in love” with my personality. She said that she knows that I wouldn’t understand this but she said she hopes that I will think about being together with her. I’m guessing this is as equivalent to a mating call for humans? I’m not sure myself. I’m not accepting nor rejecting this idea of being her spouse. But, in my understanding, marriage will have lots of this “feelings” involved, which I’m lacking.

But now, I think I need help. Is there something wrong with me? Why do I not “feel” any emotions? How do I “feel” it? Is it natural? Or we have to work on it?

I expect to receive some help reading the comments here if this is ever posted. Or at least, that’s what my PhD classmate is suggesting it to me.

Thank you for reading all the way. Just following social protocol.

Sometimes i feel that my bf is very ungrateful towards his parents. Do some guys not realize that its a huge turnoff when they say or do things that show how unfilial they are?

His family is an average singaporean family and he was provided with every basic needs a kid should have. He is the only son in the family and his parents have been working from early morning for years to provide for the family.

From what i see personally and from what he tells me, there was no ill-treatment, both physically or verbally that took place. So i can’t understand his ungratefulness toward his parents.

He would always complain about them to me and say harsh things. Even ridiculous things he will also complain.

He will say things like how his parents don’t care about his feelings and condition of the day when he is tired from work yet they ask for help when they need technological help for their phone etc.

Complained about how he could have better grades in school if his parents were smarter and tutored him. He will scold his mum behind her back for being stupid for not knowing certain things.

It is so ridiculous, i told him off and etc but he doesn’t seem to care much. With a full time job and a pretty decent salary, he told me that it is a waste to give his salary to his parents so he doesn’t want to.

When i had dinner with his parents, his mum hinted that he should give at least 10% of his salary to them. Isn’t that the basic filial piety that one can give to their parents? But he just ignored what his mum said as he claims that it was just a ‘joke’.

When i ask him to at least bring them out for dinner, he just claim they prefer homecooked food. I even told him since he hates them so much, why not just move out and live by himself.

To my surprise he said if he moves out, no one will cook for him and wash his clothes. He also does not want to ‘spend unnecessary money on housing expenses’. So he is just living off his parents while complaining about them 24/7…

Casually over dinner, i discussed this with my parents to see how they feel about this. They couldn’t believe how he refused to give part of his salary to his parents. My mum said that if he don’t even want to support his parents when he is capable now, how will he even support a family next time? She threw the bomb and told me to break up with him. What is the right thing to do in this situation?

You know what I noticed? I am on the second level of the attractiveness scale.

It’s like I’m in limbo, not quite hot enough to be the hot girls’ first choice, but hot enough to be their rebound when they get dumped by their first choice. Now every time a hot girl is interested in me, I have to figure out what her problem is.

For instance, there was once a gorgeous girl with long smooth hair, sharp features and a fit and slender body that was shapely in the right areas. We hit it off pretty quick. In fact, she was the one who started talking to me, asked for my number and even paid for our first dinner! Unfortunately, it soon became apparent how such a perfect creature could even be single in the first place. When she got mad about something, oh boy were you in for a ride. Her outbursts were fiery and completely disproportional. It was hard to fathom how one person could be two people so diametrically opposed to each other. And so with a heavy heart, I had to move on. I could not imagine myself being long-term with a girl of such temperament, handsome though she may have been, and I can imagine the guys before me reasoned as much.

And then there was another girl. Beautiful by any conventional standards, cute and fit with glowing hair and zero entitlement. How rare is it to find a drop dead gorgeous cutie who doesn’t demand anything? In fact, she was more willing to give me stuff – gifts, food, time etc. – than she was to take from me. We did lots of things together, she was respectful and helpful and we shared our thoughts and desires and everything. Oh, the way people stared at us in the streets. But alas, I discovered that I was the rebound after her breakup of a long-term relationship. She was biding her time and eventually got back with the dude. Oh well.

With other girls though, I’ve had somewhat of a different experience. But maybe that’s a story for another time…

Disclaimer: Just sharing my two cents here, no offense to anyone.

So, let’s dive into the wild world of hookup culture, which seems to be all the rage these days. I’ve been in the education biz for a good five years, and lately, I’ve been overhearing some young bucks talking about their ‘body count.’ One time, I strolled past a group, and this gal in her early 20s was proudly declaring that her body count (approx 10?) was higher than the number of people she’s actually dated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be all judgmental, but it got me thinking – is that something to be proud of?

Yeah, I’m no spring chicken, but if I ever have a daughter, you better believe I’ll be drilling some good ol’ values into her. But here’s the real question: Why do folks feel the need to flaunt their body counts? Is it a self-esteem thing, like they want to appear ‘more wanted? I’m just curious, would love to hear what y’all think about this.” ????????????

Here are what netizens think:

• Not much different from social media posts flouting their best lives. GenZ are more interested in what random people think of them than what really matters. Being humble and modest are not in their vocabulary.

• is she an israeli sniper on the west bank?

• Their mothers are prolly on their knees serving men too so I guess they birthed more meat for men.

found out that my bf secretly finds me fat and constantly compares me to slimmer girls

I feel like I kinda messed up on this one. I looked through his messages with this girl he’s friends with. she is his ex, so I was anxious and wanted to know what they were talking about.

my gut was telling me something was off. I’m not trying to justify the snooping though, I get that it was wrong for me to invade his privacy.

call it karma but I literally walked into this myself. I saw him telling her that he’s “confused about his feelings at times” and that when he sees other slimmer girls, he wished I looked like them. I can’t even face him anymore, because I know what he’s thinking about my body size.

for the record, I’m not very fat or obese. just a little plump, on the chubbier end. plus I’ve been struggling mentally for a long time, hence the weight gain. I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been, but not obese. I already hate my body so much.

he mentioned in the text messages that he would feel guilty for thinking about me in that manner. but I guess what really messed with my mind was that he said he’s not sure if he can accept it if I gained even more weight.

now I’m not sure what to do. I really screwed up big time by looking through his messages and it’s messing me up on the inside so badly.

for reference I’m 161cm and 68kg.

I Like To Pretend Sleep So I Can Hear The Sweet Things My Boyfriend Says About Me

Whenever I’m asleep and he’s still awake, my boyfriend will hold me in his arms and whisper the cutest things to me.

He tells me how much he loves me, how lucky he is to have met me, how he can’t believe he met a girl so perfect.

He does this every night that I sleep at his house and he even does it on the occasions that I fall asleep on a call with him.

Sometimes I pretend asleep to hear all of the cute things he says when I’m passed out.

It’s not that he doesn’t say them when I’m awake, he absolutely does – I just love that he tells me even in my sleep that he appreciates me.

Netizens’ comments

• I think he knows and I think its awesome

• Such a rare thing you have in this day and age! Hold on to him support him make sure to end fights fast and with love in your voice and the love you share will only get stronger and better

• This post single-handedly restored my faith in humanity, there really are precious people like your bf out there <33

• I’m not jealous… I’m not jealous… I’m not jealous… I’m not jealous…