This story took place in my household when my daughter was about four or five years of age, and it is a true story.

I used to put my daughter to bed by reading her a story and sitting in her room until she went to sleep, this allowed me to spend much-needed quality time with her after very long day’s on the job.

We started to notice that when we woke her up in the mornings to go to daycare she always complained of being tired. After a few weeks of her complaining to be tired and not wanting to get up for school, we started to question her. I knew for a fact that she was going to sleep because many of nights I had fallen asleep on her floor and upon wakening to take myself to bed; I would notice that she was sound asleep.

After some prompting and questioning her, this is the story that she told us. It seems that very late in the evening after we were all in bed asleep, she would be awakened by an old lady with a very colorful long dress that would tickle her feet and wake her up at night. My daughter exclaimed the lady never spoke just smiled, gave her a couple of tickles on her feet and just sat and watched over her until she fell back asleep.

This occurrence happened for over a month, and although I made it a point to spend the night in her room a couple of times just to confirm or debunk her claims, this apparition still came in the quite of the night after I was asleep and continued the ritual, despite the fact my large butt was laying on the floor. I never heard my daughter stir and never caught a glimpse of the old lady.

At one point my daughter happened to see a photo of a person wearing a colorful kimono, at which point she exclaimed that the lady that had been visiting her wore a colorful dress just like that, not the same one in the picture but similar. Now my daughter is half Japanese and at that point in her life she had never worn or seen anyone in a kimono, but she was dead set that this was similar dress to what the old lady wore upon entering her room and interacting with her.

After many discussions with my wife, we chalked it up to my wife’s Grandmother who may have been doing the visitations. My wife had been close to her Grandmother and was the first one at a very young age to find her grandmother deceased in the bathtub. Needless to say it was a traumatic experience for my wife who again was so very close to her grandmother. Prompting more of a description of the kindly old lady from my daughter as to what the lady looked like it was confirmed that it was my wife’s Grandmother visiting the grandchild she never got to see. We were overjoyed by this and yet broken up and wished we had the chance or ability to see her and express our love and thanks for looking over our daughter.

However as the month passed with my daughter being awaken every night and tired in the morning, with a heavy heart I went into my daughter’s room while everyone was out of the house and with the utmost respect and reverence asked Grandmother not to wake the baby anymore, she needed her rest for school and that we loved her and were happy she wanted to visit and see her Grandchild, but she could no longer wake her up or let her see her…truly it was one of the hardest and heartfelt things that I have done, but I knew it was right. The next evening my daughter had a sound sleep, when asked she told us the old lady had come to say good-bye and never showed herself again.

As I write this I am so thankful that from beyond the grave Grandmother wanted to see and meet her Granddaughter, and although we have never had another encounter with the Grandmother in the Kimono I know that she is still out there watching over our family.

I live about 15min from my parents. One sister lives 15 minutes from both of us and my other sister lives with my parents. My aunt lives with my parents, too.

Siblings went to university here and we’ve all stayed very close. We’d have dinner at least once a week. We’d drop kids off to each other regularly.

A few years ago, my mom was diagnosed with CLL. Long story short, she’s immunocompromised and her lungs are the most vulnerable part of her. CLL and age puts her in the “if you get Covid you’ll die” camp.

So when Covid came around, we agreed to quarantine.

My wife and I can’t avoid other people in our jobs. We’re effectively not in any “bubble”. Our kids are in school and at school. My sister and her husband work from home and the kids aren’t school age yet. My other sister works from home at my parents’ and my aunt doesn’t work. Both my parents work from home.

In other words, they can all be a bubble. My wife and our kids cannot.

It’s been like this since last March. Even after everyone got vaxxed, they cancelled having us come on Christmas because my mom got spooked due to Omicron. I get it. She’s playing the odds with her life.

None of the logic is bad. None of the logic makes me feel any better. I’ve gone from seeing them 100 times a year to maybe a FaceTime call every 1-3 weeks.

I’m so sad. I’m just so sad.

They’re all missing my kids growing up. My kids don’t get the benefit of being around these great people.

Work is starting to feel pointless. I have pretty bad anxiety. I’m on meds and seeing a psychologist (didn’t match with a few counselors). It’s not helping and the fact that it’s not helping makes me feel even more like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m not mad at anti-vaxxers, exactly, because being mad at the world feels like a waste of effort. So my anger has no target. I’d never let myself direct at people who aren’t deserving so it just fizzles out. It just turns into sadness and despair.

I think the toughest part is that I have no one to share this with and I have to hide it. I don’t want my kids to see dad being mopey. My wife just sees the logic and I get that. My therapist sees the logic and tells me thanks me for sharing my feelings. I don’t have anyone to really share this with.

I don’t have anything else to say. I’m sad and don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m in the dark and I don’t see a way out. That’s it.

Hi. I am a 35 years old man and my partner is a 41 yr old woman. We have a 4 yr old son and have been together for 5 years. She keeps telling me she cannot stay with me and needs to be in a relationship with a woman. Back in 2015 when we first met she hinted that she liked women, too.

Based on solid evidence she has a trait of dishonesty in the past with me but, regardless, I had told her that I want a committed monogamous relationship and she said she was ok with it.

Despite, our relationship not working, she has lied to me on multiple occasions, and that she is saying she is gender fluid and cannot be with me, I cannot live without my son for an extended period of time on a regular basis and I do not want my 4-year-old to be hurt.

I really wish that my life can be normal, I don’t mind getting hurt. But my child is the one I worried about.

What should I do?

Here are what netizens think:

• You know it will never work like that. Coming from a broken home myself trust me when I tell you you’re better of separate. For both you and your child.

• “What can I do to minimise if not avoid my child being hurt by his mom wanting to be with a woman?” Uh, you sure this is about your son?

• Your son will get older and realise the situation and end up hating both of you for living a lie they were made to believe.
• Sometimes people don’t realise what is precious until its gone, start dating again
• This is going to be messy during the divorce

We have been together for 4 months and my boyfriend (25M) has never made any indication that he isn’t attracted to me (24F) but we are sort of opposite. He is in pretty good shape and works out every day. Meanwhile, I have a chronic health condition that causes exercise intolerance. I have always been on the bigger side but in the last 6 months have gained around 15kg which officially put me from the upper end of the “healthy” BMI spectrum to “overweight.”

I work full time in an industry that is very seasonal and gets slower during the winter months. As such, I’ve recently had a lot of downtime while working from home. I recently downloaded an exercise app that helps with low-impact 5-10 minute workouts I can do in my free time. When I mentioned this to him, he seemed really excited and started suggesting more things I can do, talking about physical activities we can do together on dates, etc. He then started talking about how hot I was going to start looking and what a great looking couple we would be.

Granted, I was hoping that doing small exercises throughout the day might help me lose some of this extra weight, but the main reason is that a family member with unhealthy habits is suffering from Long COVID. Seeing how much more transmissible it seems to be, I figure that I’ll end up getting COVID at some point and want to reduce the chance of complications.

Anyway, it’s been over a week now and we haven’t been intimate. I just can’t help but feeling like he doesn’t find me attractive and wishes I looked more like his exes (all petite athletic blonde girls). I know that I’m generally an insecure over-thinker, but am I overreacting? We’ve never argued before and I don’t want to start a fight over what was intended to be supportive.