I’m a 45 yr old male, and I have two sons my biological son Adam 21 and my stepson John 18.

When Adam’s mother died 5 years ago. He entered into depression we both went to therapy and we both started communicating better. I ended up buying him a car as I thought he’ll need it,it’ll cheer him up, and I had enough savings at the time.

I met my new wife Jade 40 yr old, 3 years ago. We got married one year after dating.

Now, Jade wants me to buy John a new car. I told her that I don’t really see why he needs a car and that cars are waaaaayyyy too expensive this year thanks to the certificate of entitlement. Jane is mad at me. She asked me if I actually liked her son. I told ger that I see him as my own. She denied that saying that if that’s true I would’ve bought him a new car just like I bought Adam’s.

I’m not sure how to approach her. I see that the situation is very different now. Jade is a housewife. She can drive John to his school and the area has improved a lot we have a good public transport system.

Jade doesn’t want to engage with me until I buy John a new car. I’m not sure what to do. I have enough money for a car but it’ll leave us in a hard financial situation for quite some time.

The worse part, she is not working and has no savings.

I can tell she is trying very hard to make sure her stepson likes her but it does not mean I have to burn more money and make myself bankrupt. I might have the money to buy a car for Adam then, but it does not mean I have the money now.

Here are what netizens think:

• Honestly, after reading your post and comments, your wife sounds like a pretty poor partner. As others have said, I don’t see what you’re getting out of this relationship. Were you just really lonely? Her reaction is terrible, her refusal to work is unacceptable, and frankly, I think you’re screwed. I wouldn’t personally want to stay married to someone like that.

• Sounds like they moved extremely fast. Got married after only a year, it sounds like he doesn’t really know who she is. Now she’s showing her true colors. I hope OP wises up and divorces this woman because this is a HUGE red flag.

• o how was your wife supporting herself and her son before she married your wallet?

• This makes me uncomfortable. They don’t seem like their in a financial place to be a one-income family and yet she’s making this kind of demand. Where is the stepson’s bio? Does he pay child support? And stepson is a teenager, so it’s not like she’s home taking care of a baby all day (although I’m sure she has work to do in the home).

I just pooped my pants and could not change for 20 minutes.

I was just now cramping from my period and decided to turn back from walking to the store ( luckily I can’t imagine if this happened in the store) and started walking back.

I walked back for a while and felt the need to go to the bathroom. I held it for a couple more steps and then I needed to go so bad it started to hurt.

I got half a block away and could not hold it in anymore and thought maybe it might just be a little and it leaked through my underwear down my leg.

I had to walk 4-5 more blocks like this. I passed multiple people smelling like poop. The smell is terrible.

Then I finally got home and had to walk up the stairs to my home and felt it squishing onto my leg each step.

I am traumatised and will definitely be throwing this pair of pants away.

Netizens comments

I’m sorry friend. I have had such an event myself. I reckon we all have. Shower, cry, clean the mess. But life shall continue

Hi, just want to seek advice:

My supervisor forces students to work for very long hours and even on weekends/public holidays.

Sure he would not leave any evidence like “you must come on PH/weekends” in order to prevent student reporting to department, but he always says abusive words like “your work is useless and you are not in a proper state/manner of research” without giving any academic advice. He sends messeges at even 3AM as well. In order to MAKE us “voluntarily” work for long hours, he has a series of PUA discourse: 1) you dont have a proper attitude of research 2) I dont know how can you push this kinda useless data in your work 3) I want to help you graduate so must do the work I assign to you 4) I’m treating you with the lowest requirement, but if you still cannot get a positive result then I have no way but let you master out. etc etc. He communicate with us in mandarin for most time. He never holds a group meeting. I cannot learn anything from him. What I learn by myself is useless to him. He somtimes sleeps in his office during office time.

Dont say this is NORMAL for a graduate study, and I have spend almost 3 years in this group. There is no way to change to another group or master out, because I performed quite well in QE. I know I am not the most hard-working student/smart guy, but I really feel low-self esteem after changing 6 projects and being scolded “useless”, “bad data”, “having no proper attitude” for these years, even though I have several sets of good data.

I am considering reporting this supervisor after graduation, especially to focus on his destroy of student’s mental health and self-esteem.

So sorry that I feel very overwhelmed and annoyed. I should’ve focus on my project and graduation requirements, but I just feel so destroyed.

You were born.

You study.

You serve ns and are put under a 10 years reservist and ippt cycle that can stretch into your 40s while you have to juggle family and work commitments at the same time.

After ns you come out to work and fall in love, married and start up a family. Nov the nightmare and maths truly begin.

A wedding costs a lot so most Singaporeans married in their late 20s, mid-30s or even later.

Now we come to the house. Upon successfully balloting for the house one need to wait at least 3 years for It or you can buy from open market or private developers where price will be even much higher.

Once you get your keys your entire cpf oa will be depleted totally and the rest of the mortgage balance will be paid by your monthly cpf every month for a maximum of up to over a decade or 25 years max.

During this time every month of your cpf will not be able to save and accumulate cpf interests because you need to use it to settle house loan.

So 25 years finally finish and your house is fully paid up but by then you will be 55 or into your 60s already.

You want to rest and retire but you can’t because your cpf oa account Is empty and cpf minimum sum of 161k is set in place to prevent you from cashing out your CPF in full to use to finance your retirement.

So in your 50s or 60s you still need to work until you die or at least for another 10 to 20 years in order to build up your cpf oa account.

By the time you can really rest you will be in your 70s or 80s already.

Most will have met their maker by that age already. Lot How to look forward to retirement bliss?

Also their health could be failing or no one is willing to employ the elderly Singaporeans and what are they going to survive on?

In the end, their cpf medisave accounts got wiped out and they either rent their flats out to sustain themselves or sell back their flats and lease to downgrade in order to survive in their dying years.

This is basically the life story of a common Singaporean.

And don’t forget in the middle of all these one still need to raise up kids and take care of sickly ageing parents and in laws too.

My retired uncle have been caught thrice for shoplifting in 2 years but since he is an elder, the police decided to just let him go with a warning.

On his third time he was arrested, he called my dad to bail him out instead. His family is sick of him repeating the mistake is had clearly state they won’t bail him for a third time. And they didn’t show up at all even after my dad called them. My dad made him promise not to shoplift again or he also won’t bail him out.

Fast forward, a year, nothing happened and we thought he is finally over the bad habit. But we are so wrong, the other day, we went out with my uncle and cousin for dinner. Before dinner, we did some grocery shopping when I saw he had hid a bar of soap in his pocket. I went over and gently remind him that there are cameras around and that someone was caught shoplifting a week ago (I made it up). I also make it clear that he can get anything and I’ll pay, since it a value shop.

I then walked away and do my own shopping. When we’re paying, I realized he didn’t have the soap in his basket. I assumed that he had put it back. But I was surprised when I saw him sneaked the bar of soap into his bag after we walked out of the shop.

When we’re done with dinner, I managed to find a time and speak with him, one on one. I told him I saw the bar of soap which he didn’t pay for. It’s not on the receipt. He admitted to ‘accidentally dropped’ it in his pocket which I told him that’s impossible. I reminded him that if he continues, the police will eventually charge him one day, it’ll be his 4th times already. He calimed that the police told him that they hate merchants who make a report over small things like these (because he usually steal small and cheap items like candies, soap, spoons, pens.. which can easily go into his pocket), so they won’t charge him. I don’t feel he wants to stop!

I know it might be a psychology thingy but is there a way to help him stop? What happen if no one bails him out? What is the punishment for repeated shoplifting?

I’m 35(f) and my younger brother is 29. He has severe mental health problems, starting with Non verbal autism, anger issues and complete inability to look after himself. My parents looked after him since the day he was born due to all these issues.

I have tried to love him, but as the ages gone past I have resented him. He has always been big and tall and since very young age he has tried to hurt me. I was always covered in bruises while living with my parents. When he got older he would try to kill me. He would try to drown me, choke me, threaten me with a knife and make holes in me, and I’m not mentioning the amount of times he has tried to set the house on fire. I ended up hating him and barely had contact with my parents as they always find an excuse for his behavior.

They are getting old and have recently contacted me asking for help to look after my brother. I laughed. I told them if I could I would happily put him out of his misery. But because I couldn’t I have told them if they force me to look after him I will either make an anonymous call for him to be taken to a place where qualified people can look after him or just abandon him by one and make sure I will never see or hear about him again.

I don’t want to be related to him. He is the reason why I will never be able to have kids of my own. He is the reason of many ugly scars left on my body and face. And I will happily get rid of him the chance I have or get him locked up for good.

I do not blame what he did on his autism. He needed treatment from a very young age which was not provided to him by my parents which has caused this violence and anger issues. Autism might just make them a bit stronger but I don’t believe it is a cause as he also has a bunch of other mental illnesses he was diagnosed with.

However people who say he didn’t choose it and he can not understand what he does and try to either make it seem like I’m blaming his autism for it or who are blaming autism for it themselves seem ignorant. He enjoys causing harm to me, to my parents or any pets we owned (my brother would “dispose” of any pets we owned from fish to dogs/cats). When he was younger it was hurting everyone, once he grew up it was aiming for a kill. There’s no outbursts or anything, it’s just him trying to actively get rid of me or any pets as he wants to be their top priority. When he is not my parents get hurt by him. He previously made attempts to burn me alive where I woke up covered in fuel while he was watching me while playing with lighter. I am not going to list everything he did, but its something I do not wish upon anyone.

My parents and my brother do not know where I live and I haven’t visited them in years due to my brother, especially after he tried to “dispose” of my girlfriend. We are currently looking to move to a different country across the world and change names if we can, so there will be no way for my parents or the government to look after my brother or pay for him to be in an institution as these are expensive.

Supervisor is gossiping about me at work because I choose not to eat lunch with her

My supervisor at my office job often invites two of my other colleagues to have lunch with her, so she has someone to talk to after her good friend left. My supervisor once shared an office space with her good friend, but now she’s alone. She’s been at this job for 30+ years and is much older than me.

My colleagues do oblige her and eat with her, but I always have to decline her few invitations. For one, because she asks me if I want to eat lunch with her, and I say, ‘No, I’m good,’ or ‘I’m not hungry right now,’ or ‘I’m using my lunch break for other stuff.’

She basically gives me the option to eat with her and doesn’t make it mandatory, so I decline until it’s made mandatory. I prefer to eat alone because I hate eating on someone else’s schedule, and I like my alone time with my food. That’s it.

But apparently, my colleague told me that my supervisor feels some type of way and said she’s going to continue asking me until I say yes.

What boundary can I set so that my supervisor knows my answer is no indefinitely unless it’s mandatory?

Netizens’ comments

1. I would just say that you take care of personal business during your lunch break and can’t sacrifice that time due to personal/family obligations but you appreciate the offer and will keep it in mind if you ever get some time.
2. I appreciate the offer, however I prefer to separate business and personal time. Lunch is my personal time.
3. Anyone who has been at a job for 30+ years knows some introverts just like to eat alone at work. If a supervisor that old is taking it personally, that’s a petty ego trip.
   Speaking as someone who’s been in the work force for 25 years myself, it’s not like people wanting to take lunch alone to recharge batteries is uncommon.