Haiz. Really feel so fed up with a marriage where my MIL does not respect boundaries.

My MIL, for one, is nice. But she does not respect boundaries. She will feed baby (LO) anything & say is cause don’t want LO to be picky about food. Things like McD, my baby has tried. But LO is only 8mths old! ???? Told her not to feed, but she still feeds

Milk, she insists on using formula because “convenient”, but LO is used to & prefers to look for me for feeds

She fed my LO water before 6mths old. Even though we told her not to.

She fed my 2yo nephew coffee saying that there’s no cream or sugar. Just pure coffee. I don’t understand. Do kids drink coffee nowadays?

I’m so stressed out. My husband kept siding with his mum. He says that since we have brought it to her attention, she won’t feed anymore. He says that she fed nephew coffee cause his parents fed him a little at times (a sip once in awhile).

Problem is, multiple times I have let her know of our discomfort & decision not to introduce certain food to LO. Some are unhealthy, some are choking hazards. But she repeatedly ignored what I have said & feed LO.

Not just that. Today she gave 2 of my clothes to my SIL ???? I am currently staying with her so I brought some clothes over to wear. I don’t have a lot of clothes at my in-laws place. But she gave my clothes to my SIL cause she says that I’m not wearing them ???? But those are my favourite clothes. I can’t bear to wear them. Now they are given to someone else to wear. I’m heartbroken ????

What do you guys do to a MIL who does not respect boundaries & a husband that does not understand his mum & no matter what, sides with her more? ????

Husband acts like he prefers my daughter over me

I got married & gave birth when i was 18.

The marriage eventually ended & i remarried, bringing my daughter along when she was a teenager.

Now my daughter has grown up and married. However, my husband’s behaviour seems weird recently.

He will want to include my daughter in every outing or meal. I can’t go “paktor” with him anymore without him asking me to call my daughter to come along.

Once during dinner with friends, he chose to sit beside her instead of me, taking up the seat meant for her husband. When i asked him to move over & sit with me, he just said he prefers to sit there with his girlfriend.

I trust my daughter not to have anything of that kind with my husband, but i don’t trust my husband anymore. He would rather go to her for opinions and help everytime when he has a wife just beside him. I tried to talk to him about it but he always changes the subject.

Do i have the right to suspect him?

Neighbour Dilemma

Hi, I’m not sure what to do here.

My neighbour upstairs seems to have an ADHD kid who throw tantrums and cries often. But rather than dealing with it peacefully, I can always hear the parents shouting and screaming loudly back at the kid in a military tone, asking him shut up, saying he is stupid etc.. thereby causing further stress to the kid.

Being a parent myself, I can understand that the parents are also stressed up and probably tried to deal with his tantrums until their patience runs out. But I cannot see how the adults screaming and shouting back is going to improve the situation! And coming from a broken/ abusive family myself, hearing these scoldings is very traumatising for me. Even without the presence of physical abuse, I believe the kid is going to be emotionally scarred for life.

Every time when I hear the kid’s crying, I had to shuffle between the thoughts of calling on the police or the anti-abuse hotline (which btw is a joke as they only operate during office hours) and even tried to intervene myself by confronting the neighbour, but I think due to that they seem to be more cautious/ avoiding towards me.

What should I do to best help the poor kid and my neighbour’s family? Or am I too sensitive and should I just stay out of it? Help!!!

Here are what netizens think:

• I saw a lady do that to her son in the lift many years back in Singapore. But I can’t remember which place it was exactly (moved around alot). She was basically pinching him and the boy was asking her to stop but she wouldn’t stop and kept hitting him. I told her “You can’t do that to a child. That’s abuse”. Then I think she got scared and let go of his hand. I called after her “Mam mam’ but she didn’t respond. So I took note of which floor she got off at and snapped a picture from the side. You can’t leave a child like this if someone is being abused. You need to get the authorities involved. All I knew was the police number so my room mates helped me to file the report and even went down to check on the boy. He was literally bleeding. How can they do that to a child … disgusting. Imagine being beaten up like that in public

• I think what you need to do is try to talk to other neighbours and let them know about this. Long ago in my area, same case as yours, I told other neighbours and all of us kept watching and gather proofs over weeks. We sent to the authorities and the abusive mother got arrested. The kid returned to his good father. So yeah, try to find out if any neighbours have the same concern.

• At the very least: Call the police. Having the police show up may help the parents realise that the situation they have at home is not normal. At the very least, they’ll know that their neighbours can hear what’s going on really well. It may not help at all, of course. But there’s at least a chance that it jolts them into having some awareness.

To local women, I’d really like to know how in today’s culture, women are disadvantaged in SG? Cause to me, it seems that being a girl is more advantageous in SG than being a guy. Let’s list a few examples ya.

NS – the BIG one. For all the talk about gender equality by feminists, this is an area that most local women would be happy not being equal in. Meanwhile, guys have to sacrifice 2 years of their prime and the opportunity cost is immense with regards to potential income earned, career progression, relationships, etc. I completely disagree with what Ng Eng Hen said recently in Parliament about compulsory enlistment for women.

Dating – Once again, women talk about equal rights but a lot of them (I didn’t say ‘all’) would happily let the guy pay for all their dates (even if they are earning a similar amount or higher), plan everything for vday and anniversary, be the one to propose, etc while not putting in as much effort. I mean think abt it, if not for the women who want a picture perfect vday celebration of a rose bouquet and candle-lit dinner, most men wouldn’t even care to rmb 14 Feb.

Counter argument to this is that perhaps women need to put in more effort after marriage, especially when children come into the picture. But even then, it’s no denying that women aren’t exactly helping themselves because a lot of local women still adhere to traditional views of gender.

Workplace – the gender pay gap is bull pls.. Justifiably, if you’re the same level as a male colleague doing the same job but getting paid a bit lesser, pls note my 1st point abt local guys having to sacrifice 2 years of their life to NS, whether willingly or otherwise…

And for those who say that not enough females are represented in STEM jobs, erm… maybe do consider that perhaps in the 1st place not as many women are entering these fields compared to men?

A trend I notice at the workplace is how for the sake of diversity, a woman is selected for a managerial position even though there is a more qualified man for the role. I won’t have an issue with this if both the man and woman are similarly qualified, but if the man happens to be more qualified, shouldn’t merit/expertise for the job take priority compared to trying to score diversity points in your annual report?

You may call me bitter (and yes I do admit partly that I’m bitter abt this) but at the end of the day, some of the stuff I say do have grains of truth in them. Some of you may like to bring up how the majority of sexual assault and domestic violence cases are women, but I’d argue that these are not exactly things happening at a systematic level compared to the stuff I’ve mentioned.

Getting drunk while drinking with colleagues.

Hi, I’m not sure whether how embarrassing so far and whether if I actually spoil the mood and atmosphere while I drink with my colleagues for the first time.

So for the first time in my working life, I had decided to go for drink with my colleagues and would said that we are not too close since I work in different level and the others work in same level. But nevertheless they invited me and I agreed.

I had drank four medium cups of soju or wine(I’m not sure) and realized that my tolerance level is so low. I finished my fourth cup and realized that I am getting uncomfortable and start to vomit in toilet.

This happens until so many times and one of my colleague had to hold me to the toilet to.vomit. I vomited many times till they had finished all their drinks and getting back home.

Though I still can remember what I am doing, but sort of getting high and unable to control myself walking around, which means I am fully drunk.

I think my colleagues seen that I am really drunk and they discussed and decided that they are not comfortable for me going home myself so they book a grab and one of my female colleague who stayed nearer to me(she stayed bishan) decided to send me(stay toa payoh) and accompany to my house to make sure I am safe and reach home safety.

Quite thankful that they are willing to book a grab and ensure that I reach home safety and my colleague who accompany until I reach my house.

If not for them, I don’t think I can reach home by myself since I had been vomiting non-stop until I reach home and I am still vomiting in my house.

Only regret is that I should not have drank so much and caused this embarrassment and since this is my first time getting real drunk, this would be my first and last time drinking since I am not a drinker at all.

Don’t know whether I spoil the mood since my colleagues had to take care of me but I thought of treating everyone for the drinks and also pay the grab ride for my colleague who accompany to my house, or maybe a meal and treat them since they didn’t left me alone after I am drunk?

I am a guy anyway if anyone is interested but with this drunk experience, I don’t want to try again anymore.

I swear my GF is always checking out my brother when we are all together.

So I (18M) and my girlfriend (18F) still live at home and so does my brother (20M).

Whenever we are out together or at the dinner table I’ve noticed over my girlfriend and I’s one year relationship that she is always turning away from me the minute my brother starts talking but barely even looks at me when I am, regardless of how long.

On top of this when conversation has stopped she is continually looking at his features like, vascular hands and other features.

One time my brother and I were having a gym session and I looked back after I had finished my squats to my girlfriend staring at my brothers arms as he was doing bent over dumbbell rows.

Please let me know if this is probably me overthinking something here or I should be feeling a little frustrated or something about this stuff and how to go about it?

Netizens’ comments

The options I see are:

1. Suffer in silence
2. Talk to her about it
3. Break up