my mom wants me to choose a present for my birthday and i don’t want to

my birthday is in July so she asked me now to have enough time to buy a present. i don’t want anything but she says i absolutely must choose something.

she doesn’t take no as an answer. i hate my birthday and thinking about it makes me sad so i don’t want to celebrate at all

my biggest wish is that someone would watch me while i play videogames and comment. but no one in my family cares what i do and i’ve been playing alone for years, even though everyone is in the same room. i cannot ask them to watch because they will laugh

at my last birthday my grandma’s friend and her little daughter suddenly visited our house. i didn’t care about the cake they brought at all.

her daughter spent the whole day near me and enjoyed watching me walking around town and talking to people. thanks to her this birthday was the best

i just don’t want to be alone… i don’t need any presents…

My parents hit me as a way of discipline and I didn’t turn out fine.

Now I’m an emotionally, socially stunted adult who cries when people get slightly upset with her. Cool.

I appreciate everyone who has expressed their support and shared their stories. I’m sorry so many of us went through similar experiences.

To those who think that we’re being dramatic or that we’re weak, we’re not. It’s crazy to support putting your hands on a defenseless being because you can’t communicate effectively.

To hurt inflict physical pain to someone smaller than you, relies on you and looks up to you is wrong. It is a powerplay and it’s not right.

To put it simply, physical violence against children is 100% excessive.

I have 3 well-behaved cousins who have never been hit, spanked, or yelled at They excel in everything they do.

They’re kind. They’re thriving because they are not threatened or humiliated. Their parents do not use any type of violence against them because it is not as effective as their parents thought it was. They receive proper discipline. They know they are loved.

I (24F) met my husband (23M) met when we were 15 and 16 in secondary school. We found out I was pregnant shortly after we started dating and I gave birth to our son at 17. Since then our relationship was on a fast track and we got married at 21 after finishing school.

We wanted to bought a flat last year and my in-laws have not been super supportive of our decisions. They made constant jokes about selling their house to move in with us and bringing my husband’s 2 siblings(both adults) with them since they lived with them full time.

But it all changed when they tried to push us to buy a bigger and more expensive house (five-room) then we wanted so that we had room for the family to come to visit and stay. My MIL kept showing husband houses she liked and when he told her we were looking for something different she told him we had to “compromise for the family”.

They finally lost it on us when we told them we put an offer to a flat that is at the West side (They stayed at the East) (which was in an area we planned to move to all along we just never told them) and they didn’t handle that well. Telling me I’m taking their son and grandchild away from them. The offer went through and we moved in as soon as possible but had to deal with in-laws constantly coming to visit uninvited.

My MIL and SIL were showing up every weekend for months without calling in advance. Husband and I both tried to explain that we are constantly having to cancel weekend plans for their visits and canceling other friends and family visits because of them but they do not care. Making my home their second home, not listening to our rules, and constantly undermining me in my own home. Finally we told them if they didn’t call and ask in advance they would be turned away at the door and they stopped showing up.

2 weeks ago husband got a call from FIL saying that his job had laid him off and he would be short on expenses this month. That’s when MIL took the phone and suggested this be the perfect time for them to come move closer to us. They were already looking to sell their home and they could all come stay with us until FIL found a new job.

We told them our home couldn’t accommodate 4 more people nor could we financially support them. FIL insisted it wouldn’t be for long but he is very frugal and does not like to spend money unnecessarily and I feel like this is just an excuse to cut back on living expenses for them. I also want my son to have room to grow and have room for a second child sometime in the next year or so.

My husband is in the middle and understands why I don’t want them moving in but at the same time thinks we shouldn’t turn our backs on his family. I am torn because I think I have solid arguments for why they shouldn’t but it’s my husband’s house too and I don’t want to upset him.

How to settle?

I know it seems like a dumb thing to end my marriage over. But after dealing with this for so long I’m finally done.

My wife and I are both in our 30s. We have a daughter. My wife has always been pretty into appearances but it was never that bad. She just wanted things to look nice when people came over.

Then she started a Instagram page for moms and got a massive amount of followers, about 400 thousand since our daughter was born.

Ever since then I feel like I don’t live in a house I live in an Instagram photo shoot.

There can’t be any proof we actually live here. My wife stresses so much about things looking good that she doesn’t actually enjoy the moment. She started a fight with me right after our daughter took her first steps because I had put my drink down on the table behind her and it’s “all she could see” and how she’d need to edit it out of the video. She called me a selfish prick for putting my drink down on a coffee table to watch my daughter take her first steps.

Our daughters bedroom is just a mass of beige and cream, there’s barely any toys in it which was fine while our daughter was small but now she’s getting older. My wife refuses to buy her any toys that don’t match her “aesthetic” My mother took my daughter to the store and let her pick out a toy, she picked out this doll house from this show she watches, she got all of the dolls and furniture, and my wife told her she had to keep it at my mothers house because there was “no place for it at home” (she absolutely had room for it).

My wife is convinced I’m leaving for another woman, I’m having an affair, etc, but I’m not. I just can’t keep feeling like I live in a museum where I can’t touch or move anything, I can’t even build a blanket fort with my kid without my wife flipping out that they’re “decorative blankets” that she had folded a special way. I’m not going to force my daughter to live in an “aesthetic”.