People Reveal The Moment The Realized Their Relatives Were Living A Double Life
People Reveal The Moment The Realized Their Relatives Were Living A Double Life
[rebelmouse-image 18350220 is_animated_gif=How would you react? What would you do? Would you stay married or would you make the hard choice to say goodbye?
u/Berns_whenIP wanted some stories from Reddit:
People who discovered their partner was living a double life or keeping a significant magnitude secret, in retrospect what signs did you perhaps miss or what events now make more sense?
Here were some of the answers.
The Signs
[rebelmouse-image 18350489 is_animated_gif=The fact that these insane arguments would spark from nothing and he would end up stripping naked randomly and/or punching things.
Drugs. I was that oblivious.
Fake-TSD
[rebelmouse-image 18349253 is_animated_gif=He pretended to have combat-induced PTSD, that he used as an excuse for his behavior. Turned out he was never in combat, but he talked about it every day, all the time to everyone.
It's usually just when the lies don't add up, dates and names change and there are obvious things that you choose to ignore (he told me he talked to his dad about it all the time, but when I went to meet his parents he said that they don't know anything about it so don't bring it up).
Ya Got Caught
[rebelmouse-image 18355108 is_animated_gif=I was seeing this girl. We met at work, and hit it off pretty quickly. Things were pretty normal. We'd go out, come back to my place, do our thing and then sometimes she'd stay or other times she'd head home. This went on for about a year.
So when things started to get weird was when we went out to a bar, both got sh-tfaced, and I said well your place is like a few miles down the road, let's just crash there. She was adamant about getting a cab back to my place. Seemed a little weird but whatever, yay drunk sex. So this happened a few more times, she'd always have excuses, her place was a mess. She was painting. Etc. At this point it's not adding up.
So one night I decide to surprise her at home, figuring she would be happy to split a pizza and a 6 pack. She's not home. But her fiancée is. Turns out he's a pretty cool guy, has suspected something is going on with her, says she's been staying late at work a lot lately, including tonight. No she isn't.
So we decide to split the pizza, watch the baseball game and wait for her. I will never forget the look of oh I'm screwed on her face when she strolled through the door and saw her fiancée and her boyfriend sitting on the couch eating pizza and drinking beer.
Things Keep Spiraling
[rebelmouse-image 18346341 is_animated_gif=My dude had to go home and help with his ailing stepdad on the weekends. Initially, I was apprehensive because they had a rocky past, but was convinced because family is family, right? So it must be true.
He'd leave the city Fri afternoon, return Monday night - it was a three hour drive out to the middle of the nowhere and was almost a decade ago when cell service wasn't that great, and I worked overnights at a hospital; it worked out.
This went on for a year and a half before I broke up with him. You see, things weren't adding up, I wasn't allowed to talk to his Mom or sis anymore, we were growing distant, he'd get very agitated with me. Also, I was never invited to go with him, I mean I could have asked for time off ... Therefore, I hired a PI.
Turned out he'd hop a ferry to Canada and visit some other woman ... I wound up contacting the other woman after I kicked him out. She and I exchanged some info, filling in a lot of the missing pieces for both of us; she was pissed she was bamboozled and broke up with him too.
Through some friends, I received news a year later that his stepfather died, but this guy never visited and had actually become estranged from the family, and they didn't know where he even was. About a year later he contacted me and told me he had lung cancer and wanted to be my friend again. This wasn't reciprocated, partially because his lung cancer info never added up (I'm in the medical field, you can't fool me man), but mostly because I didn't trust him, so why bother? I told him to pound sand. This escalated his illness AND said he had now suffered a concussion due to a bicycle accident. Keep in mind this was all via text and a few phone calls, we did not live around one another. When I still would not spend time with him (he wanted to watch Netflix over Skype or play video games), he said a former lover proposed marriage and he was leaving the country to be with/marry her. It's been over a year since I've heard from him, but fully expect something in a few months because he does this cyclical pattern when he contacts me.
Okay guy.
A Little Black Book
[rebelmouse-image 18353308 is_animated_gif=Not my partner, but my boss (married mother of two) was always taking long lunches, forgetting things, dressing particularly nicely for normal days, seeming a little tipsy after lunch. Once, a friend mentioned the neighborhood she'd moved into appeared to have a big swingers vibe, and my boss laughed out loud but went back to her work, saying nothing.
We'd make jokes she was having an affair but I don't think anyone believed it. She was a proper southern lady, dedicated to her family, or so we thought.
After she passed away (RIP) they found a highly detailed sex log that specified huge numbers of guys and a liaison almost every day except the week she and her family took their annual vacation.
Tripsy-Daisy
[rebelmouse-image 18351945 is_animated_gif=I caught my boss cheating on his wife. We ran a really small screen printing operation and it all started with these "business trips". The first few times it was just a week or two, then over the span of a year the trips would become longer and longer and more frequent. I ran the business when he left. He wouldn't answer customer calls while he was there and never brought back any new clients, so I started to get suspicious.
One day he slipped up and sent an email to our work inbox that i used daily to correspond with customers. It was a receipt for a flight to new York for him and another woman... On his wedding anniversary... He never even called his wife that day. Now at this point I was not interested in outing him or meddling but I was the only one that talked to him daily. I loved his wife and when she came to me asking if I heard from him because he didn't call her on their 23rd wedding anniversary and didn't know where he was, i may have mentioned that he was in New York and maybe that was why he didn't call. She asked how I knew that and I told her there was an email in our work inbox.
I absolutely do feel guilty about being the one to lead her to finding out the truth but it ended up being what he wanted anyway. He didn't have the balls to tell her what was going on and wanted to get caught. They split and he now lives with the other woman. His ex wife is happier than she has ever been considering the wake of bullsh-t he left her to deal with.
A New World
[rebelmouse-image 18351937 is_animated_gif=Not me, but my ex girlfriend in highschool. Her father was a businessman who would travel back to their home country a lot for work. Apparently around the start of highschool he'd started travelling back home for work a lot more for longer durations.
Around the time we were in senior year, it came out that he had a secret family back home (wife and two kids, oldest one was maybe 3 or 4 which sparked the move I think) and he was planning to move back their home country to live with them instead.
I remember it all because she called me the night this all happened, about two years after we broke up (still friends) and she was pretty devastated.
They noticed the following suspicious things:
- His trips were less well-planned, and seemed spur of the moment
- Despite travelling for much longer he was still packing light
- He would call back home a lot less when he was travelling
Heroin(e)
[rebelmouse-image 18348549 is_animated_gif=I found the hidden heroin habit when I found him not breathing in the bathroom and the paramedics that came asked me if he's taken anything... I didn't know heroin enemas existed.
Paramedics unable to revive him and every year I think about what could have been...
A "Friend"
[rebelmouse-image 18351941 is_animated_gif=I was with a guy for about 6 months who would get really awkward when this one friend of his would call. He'd clench up when I'd ask about her and we'd always end up in a fight. Obviously, he turned it around and said I was insecure and jealous. He broke up with me pretty abruptly and didn't give me much of a reason. Turns out I was the mistress and she was the girlfriend. They're getting married this year.
Brother, Brother
[rebelmouse-image 18355109 is_animated_gif=So my dad's best friend lives in a city a few states over and they call each other pretty regularly (they've been friends since the 80s). One day his friend calls him kinda annoyed and says he saw a guy that looked just like him the other day in the city, and if my dad was visiting, why not come over and say hi? My dad says no, I was never in that city, I'm sat at home right now in Nowhere (my glorious hometown). His friend says huh, well this guy looked just like you, he could have been your brother.
Fast forward a few years and my dad is chatting with his dad (my grandpa) who is a WW2 vet and generally a pretty "keeps to himself" kinda guy. They were talking about how growing up, they didn't have two beans to rub together and my dad was always admiring his friends' fancy houses when he went there after school. As an adult he realised something literally didn't add up because my grandpa had a very well paid job as an executive and made a decent salary. So out of the blue his dad sits him down and says son, there's something you should know. The reason we were so poor when you were growing up was because before the war, I married in a bit of a rush to a lady in the city because she was expecting, and we had 3 kids, and when I got back from the war things didn't work out and we got a divorce. In those days a divorce was pretty unusual and seen as shameful, so it was a totally clean break, and he had no contact with the family ever again except for paying regular child support for each of his three kids. Meanwhile he met my grandma and had 3 kids with her, and hence, the lack of beans. Suddenly my dad realises that this doesn't just explain why they were so poor, it also explains the weird phone call from his friend. The guy his friend saw probably was his actual brother. My grandpa kept quiet about this for almost 40 years, not a word to anyone.
Pure Evil
[rebelmouse-image 18350214 is_animated_gif=I dated a guy in University who told me pretty much right away that he had terminal cancer and had about a year to live. I really liked him so I decided that I would stay with him and support him through it. He never wanted to talk about it and when I'd try to check in with him he'd go quiet and change the subject. He told me that I was the only person who knew about it and that I wasn't allowed to talk about it with anyone else. Well we ended up dating for three years, and I never once witnessed a doctor's appointment or any type of symptom (and I was still the only person who apparently "knew"). He became incredibly emotionally manipulative and abusive, tried to isolate me from friends and family, and eventually became physically abusive. Of course, whenever I would try to leave he'd use his "condition" to play on my emotions (and naivete) to get me to stay. He'd also physically block the door, pin me down, and do whatever he could to prevent me from physically leaving.
I'll never forget the day I told him that he was such a good person with a good heart (something to do with how he was handling an issue with his alcoholic mother), and he mumbled "No, I'm really not". I thought then that he was being humble, but looking back on it, it was probably guilt.
I've built a happy and successful life for myself now and have a wonderfully loving and supportive partner, but it still makes me full body cringe to think of how I spent so much time with what I consider to be pure evil.
Yikes
[rebelmouse-image 18351947 is_animated_gif=My wife went through a heroin addiction for a good chunk of time. When she finally came clean to me I was blown away. I had been spending so much time at work I guess I was never around to catch how off she would have been behaving. I felt like such a POS for not noticing. It was one of those things were I was only seeing her for a few hours before bed each night.
I looked back and realized that there were signs and that I had just been too stupid to think much of them. She was shaking when she went to bed. She would say her allergies were making her body itchy. She was also taking out a lot of cash from our account. At the time I figured she just liked spending in cash. She was picking at her face a lot leaving behind little marks all over. I just thought she was having a bad time dealing with acne. Those are just a few examples. I guess I should have also known it was weird that she would meet up with a "friend" every other night for about an hour.
Unfaithful
[rebelmouse-image 18351934 is_animated_gif=A very good friend of mine. She dated a guy who claimed to work in quality control for a nation-wide bakery chain. So traveling a lot was reasonable. They were together for 3 years (living together for one) and she knew he had an ex-wife with two children in another city, so he had to pay for them. She became pregnant, and shortly before birth she discovered the ex-wife was pregnant too. But she lived in the same city, and they were not separated at all obviously. He also had a completely different job, in town, without traveling.
Cheat?
[rebelmouse-image 18351929 is_animated_gif=Constantly accused me of cheating or wanting to cheat or trying to cheat.
If I went to the bathroom and didn't answer the phone I was cheating.
If I crossed the street to check out a store when I told him I was only going out for groceries I was cheating.
When I had a conversation with a mutual friend in front of him we were secretly with each other.
When I was pregnant with his child I was going to cheat.
The doctor who delivered my baby had to be a woman because a man would be looking at my vagina and I would probably cheat. I am not exaggerating or joking in this last one or any of the previous ones.
I stayed with him because I didn't know what normal was. My mom's a narcissist and my childhood was emotional hell. Family is everything and all that crap.
I just didn't know to run. Fast and far away a long time ago.
We split. Of course he himself was a cheater.
Racism Rebounded
[rebelmouse-image 18348506 is_animated_gif=Growing up we thought my dad had 4 kids (us, with our mom). Turns out he had families/mistresses on the side and had 13 kids total. Biggest giveaway was that there was a 30 year age difference between my mom and dad and he swooped in and married her on her 18th birthday soon after she got out of Catholic school. I'm almost 50 now with 2 kids and I'm still younger than he was when he married my then 18yo mom. He was almost 60 when I was born. With us he acted extremely prejudiced against a particular race, yet he had several children of that race. We found out late in life, when they came on a lifelong quest to meet their bio dad.
Being True To Herself
[rebelmouse-image 18355110 is_animated_gif=She slowly and then completely stopped being social or doing anything outside of the house that she usually enjoyed. It always seemed like she really wanted to go meet people, hang out, but then didn't feel up for it, or had work to do etc. I thought perhaps she was starting to get depressed. I would ask and keep an eye out but she seemed fine otherwise.
I honestly stumbled across browser history of gay male porn, and though "Huh...that's a little strange but I guess a lot of guys enjoy watching lesbian porn" Never thought of it again.
A few months after that I get a series of cryptic text messages while I am at the airport travelling for work. I am confused and am not sure what is going on, but once on the plane and a couple of hours into my airplane mode flight I start to realize......
Wait.....Is my wife of 6 years transgender?
Yes. After my work trip I came home to a husband.....
In hindsight the sudden reclusiveness was because they didn't want to meet new people as they were then. She wanted to meet new people as a man, not a woman.
Paper Heart
[rebelmouse-image 18355111 is_animated_gif=A friend found out that his dad was in the special forces after years believing he sold paper products abroad. He eventually discovered the truth after seeing his dad on a liveleak video receiving a blood transfusion after being shot. When he confronted him, his dad had said "Oh yea, that. The paper industry can be very competitive"
The Little Things
[rebelmouse-image 18347304 is_animated_gif=Husband was cheating. I knew something was wrong, but I never imagined that. He always had his phone, it was never out of his sight. When he came home from work he would be sitting in the driveway on his cell phone for awhile before coming in. Sex started getting sparse.... So many little things that I never even worried about, because I thought hey were normal marriage ups n downs, became huge "AHA" moments after I connected all the dots.
I still hate to see anyone who can't let their cell phone out of their sight or gets mad if their SO picks it up. It makes me immediately suspicious.
Good luck, I'm sure you're asking for a reason. :(
Health Updates?
[rebelmouse-image 18355113 is_animated_gif=Not a partner, but my husband's mom has been lying to us for years. She's had been having some financial troubles & moving a lot and made it seem like bad luck. Turns out she just doesn't pay her bills and has been evicted from everywhere that's she's lived in the last few years. In the last couple of year she has been pretending to have cancer. I'm a critical care nurse and it took me until I went to a class to get certified in chemo administration to wake up and realize she was lying about having cancer.
The signs we missed- She was moving all of the time for really silly reasons like her landlord sprung a rent increase on her or she wanted more animals than her current lease allowed. Bad things were always happening to her that impacted her ability to pay her bills like her boss screwing her over, getting robbed, and getting cancer. All of her health scares correlate with some big event in her children's lives like our engagement, her daughter moving across the country, her son getting married, etc. She texts us instead of calling to update us on big news related to her health.
It's a teacher's job to leave a lasting impression and set a good example for their students.
With this in mind, particularly in this age of viral videos and social media, teachers have to be very careful of what they say during class hours.
Even so, there are very few teachers who haven't said something they've regretted when teaching a class.
Sometimes to control unruly students, other times when they've simply had enough.
Then too, sometimes teachers leave their students baffled and perplexed by what they say in their classroom, well aware of what they were saying.
Always making for a memorable story.
"What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever heard teacher say in class?"
And Anyone With Such Closed Minded Views Shouldn't Be Teaching...
"Had the Head of the Department in college claim in class that anyone who actually needs accommodations for mental health issues should not be in college to begin with."
"This was while we were discussing 'Death of a Salesman' and the discussion had veered over to unhealthy pressure and social standards for success."- RavensQueen502
Wait what?!
"My very well-respected Biology teacher in college spent almost an entire lecture telling us that Jamie Lee Curtis was a hermaphrodite."
"It seemed oddly personal to him."- Urbane_Cowboy
Sad On So Many Levels
"Not heard but my freshmen year high school teacher once pulled a bottle of Jack out of his desk and took a shot during class."
"He was dying so towards the end I think he just stopped caring."- Mangothefello
Can't Take The Heat, Then Stay Out Of The Classroom...
"High school science teacher told my class that a kilometre was longer than a mile."
"Refused to budge when refuted and kicked out several students for doing so."- SupersonicDebris13
"5th grade teacher: 'Mount Whitney in California is the tallest mountain in the world'."
"5th grade me blurts out: 'No it isn't, Mount Everest is."
"Whitney is not even the tallest mountain in the USA, which is Mount McKinley in Alaska'."
"I got in trouble for 'contradicting the teacher'."- gtmattz
get out GIFGiphyIt's Not Just Students Who Are Bullies...
"I had a teacher ridicule a fat kid about his lunch choices in front of the whole class."
"He ran out crying as she was making fat guy blimp gestures and telling him he was going to be huge as an adult."- SnooOwls5859
Some Dramatic License It Seems...
"I had a literature teacher who told the class that he didn't believe in dinosaurs, because the universe is only a couple thousand years old."
"The bones were put there by Satan."
"Thank f*ck he wasn't a science or history teacher."- AllBadAnswers
of montreal dancing GIF by Polyvinyl RecordsGiphyEveryone Deserves Nice Acomodations...
"My English teacher told us that he genuinely believes that the Rothchilds own a hotel for aliens in the Bermuda triangle."- TroyLear77
Well, Then...
"We had this kid in our 6th-grade class."
"Very dark skinned kid from Africa."
"His name was Tajak."
"Every now and then when we'd line up to go to another class or lunch and the lights would go out some of his friends would go 'where Tajak at?'"
"Anyway one day we had a sub and we we're lining up for lunch, the lights went out and there went the 'where Tajak at?' and the SUBSTITUTE TEACHER who was also black went 'Boy you darker than night'."
"6th grade was f*cking wild."- 11221mikew
Sad Premonitions
"Psych teacher in high school told us that 1 in 10 of the people were friends with in high school would be dead within 5 years of graduating."
"At the time I thought it was hyperbole, but it turns out he was being conservative."
"3 of the people in my high school friend group were dead by the time I was 22."- Reddit
Do They Really Need A Reason?
"'Now girls, don't you let them boys touch your breasts'."
"'It'll give you cancer'."- jondru
Maybe Should Have Checked With The Geography Teacher?
"A teacher in Elementary school claimed during history class that the Colosseum was in Greece, as an Italian kid I was very confused, this was in Mexico."- Spascucci
So Much For Instilling Hope...
"Didn't hear this personally, but read in a book about a guy who recalled his teacher skipping chapters in a textbook and saying 'You will not need to know this when you are down in the mines'."- futanari_kaisa
The mark of a good teacher is that students will take everything they hear from them with them for the rest of their lives.
Though, the less-than-wonderful teachers may also say things their students will never forget.
People Who've Had A Serious Illness Describe The Exact Moment They Knew Something Was Really Wrong
As a kid, I never raised alarm bells even when I started to feel sick. My mom got stressed easily and was busy taking care of my younger brother, so I never wanted to be a burden by making her take me to the doctor only to find out nothing was wrong.
However, in fifth grade, my ears started to hurt and I knew something was wrong. I told my mom, she took me to the doctor, and I found out I had an ear infection.
Now, an ear infection isn't serious at all, and it was easily treatable. Still, I learned something from that experience: no one knows your body better than you. You know if and when you're sick and how serious it is, even if you don't now exactly what is wrong.
Redditors can corroborate this. Many of them have experienced symptoms that told them they were sick in some way -- usually with a very serious illness -- and are ready to share those experiences.
It all started when Redditor thelearner18 asked:
"People who have had a serious disease (cancer, MS, organ failure, etc) when did you realize something was really wrong?"
A Lesson Learned
"Hust found out i have rectal cancer. 42 yrs old. multiple stools per day, not fully emptying, thin poop. so got a colonoscopy. bam! cancer. starting chemo next week. lesson learned for everyone....if your stools or stool schedule changes, go see a doctor"
– shawngee03
A Lucky Break
"I had been having a lot of pain in my midsection, and all around my torso for several weeks. I went to the doctor and it was dismissed as gynecological cramping (menopausal?). It remained. After several weeks (6-8) I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to emergency in the middle of the night. I got a CT scan that showed a large kidney stone. They also found a mass on my ovary. The kidney stone lead them to finding a rare ovarian cancer. If not for that stone, I wouldn’t have known about the cancer and might not have caught it in time. I have been in remission since September 2021."
– peachsqueeze66
Cause For Concern
"My kid, who was 14 at the time, kept throwing up in the morning and having weird headaches. Her doctor thought it was migraines. She went back a couple of times, but the doctor was not concerned. Then one day she complained of a whooshing noise in her ear. Went to the children’s hospital and found out it was a brain tumor near her cerabellum. She was in ICU for a month, but turned out it was non cancerous and it never grew back. She is doing great now."
– Evilelfqueen
"I heard a whooshing noise in my ear a few years ago I only really heard it at night when it was quiet it would sometimes switch ears now I basically never hear it. I'm pretty sure it was just pulsatile tinnitus but still scary."
– fallen-summer
It Was The Salt
"I have Cystic Fibrosis (terminal lung disease) and it was found out when I didn't sh*t for 3 days after I was born and then my mother gave me a kiss and said I tasted REALLY salty."
"Now I'm on a gene modification drug called Trikafta and this is some serious witch craft a** sh*t because I no longer feel sick to death and I basically feel like a normal person. It's f*cking wild!
"Went from 19% lung function to 87% in 3 months. I no longer cough my a** off or feel like I'm suffocating from mucus. Go science!"
– Sudden_Blueberry_477
A Funky Optic Nerve
"I was diagnosed with MS when I was 22 after having blurred vision in one eye after a ski trip. I went to the optometrist and they said I had a dry eye probably from not wearing goggles while snow boarding. So they gave me steroid drops. After a week it kept getting worse, so I went back and they told me my eye looked much better so they did a field of view test, which showed I couldn’t see anything out of the lower half of one eye. They sent me straight to the emergency room since nothing was wrong physically wrong with my eye. They did some tests and I was diagnosed with MS and ended up going completely blind in one eye. My vision eventually came back and I got on medication within a month so haven’t really had any symptoms or issues since thankfully. I’m only 29 now though."
– johnjohn9312
Caught It In Time
"This isn't me, but this happened to my best friend VERY recently. Like in the last couple of months."
"Was perfectly fine and healthy one day. Then the next he started feeling a little bit of pain in his kidney. He'd had kidney stones before, so he figured it was that again. Then he started peeing blood. He thought it was still part of the kidney stone thing so let it go for a couple days, but he was still peeing blood and the pain was getting worse."
"That's when he decided to go to the doctor. They did an X-ray and found a mass in his kidney and told him that based on where it was located they can't remove the mass, and they can't do a partial kidney removal, and it's about a 90% chance it's cancerous, but they wouldn't be able to do a biopsy without removing the kidney first. They did the whole insurance dance, but it went fast and within two weeks he was in surgery having his kidney removed."
"He's still recovering at home right now, but they got the biopsy results last week. It was indeed cancerous, but they caught it before it spread."
– SweetCosmicPope
Happily Ever After
"I couldn’t walk anymore with my crutch I had been using to get by. Had Been on Percocet for 8 months because of the extreme pain. Nobody was finding answers to my pain but I knew something was wrong, badly. After finally having an ultra sound on my hips at the age of 26 I found out I had to undergo a double hip replacement to walk again due to a serious rare disease. I was stage 4 Avascular Nercrosis. Took a year to recover from both. But Happier ending, I’m doing good now. However it was very very upsetting news to get over a phone call at 26."
– heartpathetic
It Really Sneaks Around
"My wife started getting numbness in her right arm. The breast cancer had spread to her right shoulder and the tumor was crushing the nerves. She has stage four breast cancer in her bones."
– zenos_dog
A Turn For The Worse
"For me, it started May 14, 2014. I went to work and was having a good morning. Then, at about 9:00 in the morning or so, I started to feel some lower abdominal pain. Not to be crude, but it felt like that cramp you get when you really need to go to the bathroom. I did so, but the pain didn't go away. It got worse. I started to feel chills, was sweating, and felt nauseated. My employer has a clinic on site, so I went there. After some poking and prodding, the nurse asked me if I wanted to go home or if I wanted to go to the emergency room. I decided to go home, and if the pain didn't subside, then I'd go to the emergency room. As I was saying that, though, I noticed that my pain had gotten a LOT worse. They always make you rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt. When I went into the clinic, I was mostly uncomfortable, maybe a high 2 going into a 3. On that very subjective scale, I was now a 6 or a 7."
"I changed my mind and decided to go straight to the nearest emergency room. My boss drove me, and by the time we got there about 15 minutes later, I was now a 10. This was the worst pain I'd ever felt. My previous definition of the worst pain I'd ever felt was when I broke 7 bones in my wrist, it was misdiagnosed as a sprain, and I had to have them rebroken 2 weeks later. The pain in my abdomen was now worse than that. The emergency room admitted me and put me in a wheelchair. They wheeled me to a room, I curled up on the bed they put me in, and passed out."
"At some point, a nurse came in and gave me some morphine. Great stuff. No pain at all anymore. A doctor came in and told me they suspected a kidney stone. He wanted me to get a CT scan to confirm it, and I agreed. An orderly wheeled me off to imaging. I got scanned without contrast and was wheeled back to the room. My wife had arrived while I was getting scanned. Shortly later, the doctor who told me he thought it was a kidney stone came into the room. With another doctor. And two nurses. They all crowd around me with solemn looks on their faces."
"The first doctor told me it was a kidney stone. A 2 to 3 mm kidney stone had been lodged in the ureter of my left kidney. That's the tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder. It passed into my bladder when they gave me the morphine, but they could see evidence of it on the CT scan. Then the other doctor said they were more concerned about the 6 cm mass they found on my right kidney. They had my attention."
"They did another CT scan, with contrast this time, and it was impossible to see anything but a tumor in the pictures they showed me. They made an appointment for me with a urologist for the next day, as well as an appointment in a few days time to get it biopsied. It was an after-hours appointment for the urologist, but he was nice enough to stay late to see me. He looked at the CT Scans and cancelled my appointment to get it biopsied. He said there was nothing else it could be but cancer, and the kidney would have to go."
"Two months later, I had the kidney and the tumor removed laparoscopically. I was incredibly lucky. They caught it in stage 1. The doctor said there were signs it was going to start moving soon. I have no idea how doctors can look at a softball sized lump of cancer and tell anything other than 'gross', but that's why they're the doctors and I'm not."
"My recovery was smooth, and I've been cancer-free for 9 years. I was incredibly blessed. I didn't have to deal with chemo, or radiation. While those can save your life, they are also horrible experiences with nasty side effects. I didn't have to deal with any of them. I was bracing myself to have to. They said it was a possibility. But I didn't. I have every respect for those not as fortunate as me, and wish them all the best in recovery."
– mnementh9999
Reason #5,622 To Start Exercising
"I started jogging again to try and get back into running shape. I kept noticing that just after a mile or so, I'd stop and get REALLY lightheaded. Kept thinking, "oh, I'm really out of shape" and kept going. Went in a few weeks later for my annual physical and doctor said "you ever been told you have a heart murmur?", no. Two months later I spent Christmas of 2017 in the ICU after having a section of my aorta cut out and a new valve put in. Surgeon said it was bad. Said it wouldn't have made it too much longer."
"Edit: for clarification, it was an aortic dissection."
– Itsawlinthereflexes
Slow And Steady
"My dad's friend went on a hike with a doctor who knew him and he was winded not far from the car. The doctor clocked it right away and told him to get his heart checked. He had 98% blockage in his heart arteries."
"He tells my dad so my dad gets the test to see how his arteries are doing and they found a massive aneurism on his aorta. He is getting it removed tomorrow. He had no symptoms but the doctors said if he had overdone it he would be dead before anyone would even know what was going on. Crazy how a random friend's hike may have saved his life."
– Pencilowner
It Takes A Village
"I never did, my teacher and parents did."
"I was seven, usually an active kid and my first grade teacher noticed that rather than running around at recess I sat down and took a nap. It happened a couple more times and after I fell asleep in class (totally out of character), she gave my parents a call, we had been visiting the doc fairly regularly cause I was also complaining of joint pain and frequent ear infections combined with the new symptoms and a new doc at the practice I was finally diagnosed with leukemia."
– greenmachine11235
Thank goodness for that teacher (and of course, the parents)!
When in the beginning stages of dating, it's important to know as much as humanly possible.
The element of surprise is no longer a fun aspect of romance.
Ask the small questions. Ask the hard questions.
Interrogate. Grill. Investigate.
Of course, you should do it with a subtle hand instead of an interrogation lamp.
The truth is all we have.
Ask everything.
Redditor RedditPenguin02 wanted to make a list of the best inquiries to make when starting a relationship, so they asked:
"What is a good question to ask before you start dating someone?"
From what I've learned in my past, always ask... "Are you into Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The TV show."
If it's a no, then it's a dealbreaker.
I Do
Shocked Schitts Creek GIF by CBCGiphy"Are you married?"
wrenchmonkey135
"I would ask that. If they said no, the next question was 'Would your wife agree?'"
"If they laughed, they were telling the truth. If they got indignant and pissed off that I thought they were lying…they were married."
"Worked every time."
Squibit314
We Lived!
"Do you clap when the plane lands?"
dont_u_know
"I swear people used to do this all the time when I was a kid (early 2000’s), and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do it in 5+ years. I guess 9/11 really made people afraid of flying for about 10 years and then most folks decided they didn’t need to applaud when the plane landed safely?"
jmims98
Family Planning
"Do you want kids in the future? If one person wants kids and the other wants to stay child-free, then they are not compatible. And it is better to try dating someone else."
GoodAlicia
"It confuses me whenever some couples who disagree on this end up in a conundrum because one expected the other to change their mind. This is something I bring up early cause I see no future with someone who wants kids when I do not."
GoodAlicia
"You should always put childfree on your dating profile. It's not a small thing. Either you agree on it or not. If I had to date, I would put childfree on my profile too."
GoodAlicia
Carb it on...
"Do you like bread? That is the extent of my flirting skills."
HumpieDouglas
"Being German, bread is like a frickin' cultural phenomenon here, we have around 300 kinds of bread, there's a bread museum, every time I go on vacation I'm like yeah it's nice here but the bread ain't it yall, never as good as home lol. So yeah, valid question and the only answer to this is an enthusiastic yes."
Nayeliq1
Room Temperature
Frosty The Snowman Winter GIF by filmeditorGiphy"What temperature do you set the thermostat to throughout the year?"
OneFingerIn
"Haha this one always gets me as someone who needs low temps - you can always put on more clothes, I can't peel my skin off to get cooler."
djdante
The thermostat is a dealbreaker for me.
It's gonna be 60. Love it or move on.
Discovery
Blown Away Wow GIF by AminéGiphy"When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
"Opens a window to how they think."
youcantkillanidea
"If that was really early on in the dating I’d think it was a bit of a head-f**k question. I’d probably find that question a red flag, tone dependent, although I agree with the sentiment."
LivestockMarc
Personal Time
"Aside from major differences about finances, kids, politics, or religion, a big one is; What are your hobbies? If they don’t really have any, you may be the next hobby, which isn’t going to work unless you’ve got that kind of time. If the hobbies are time-consuming ones generally done with a SO."
"But you have no interest in them, that could be an issue as well. If only one of you likes camping, wanted to spend vacation lounging instead of exploring, didn’t like sports, etc either that partner is annoyed or the other feels like they don’t get to enjoy what they love."
Githard
Past Issues
"Ask them about their exes. If they think every single one of them is an a**hole... they are likely the real a**hole."
CantTakeMeSeriously
"I have mixed feelings about that - I've been in three previous relationships and all three were emotionally abusive towards me (one wasn't nearly as bad as the other two, though) in various ways. I know this is a common sentiment and it always makes me afraid that people won't believe me or something.
"I mean, I realize in your comment you said 'likely' and not '100% sure' and there's plenty of room for nuance."
phiore
Values
"I would try to take care of any dealbreakers. If I find out that she has different political values than I do, it's not going to work out in the long run, so I wouldn't bother. Same thing with other factors (religion, financial values, etc.). I would also ask how much cuddling she likes to engage in, as I prefer a lot."
SkullKrusher9000
Essentials
Tell Me More To Do List GIF by Disney ChannelGiphy"When I was dating my three essential questions were always kids, sex, and money. If you're not on the same wavelength for any of those three things, just don't even try."
KhaosElement
TRUTH PLEASE!!
"So, how much personal debt do you have?"
"Source: the guy who dated a woman with huge debts and was asked to pay for everything and then some".
"After that, I'd go with, 'Have you ever been diagnosed with borderline, narcissistic, or histrionic personality disorders?"
extracensorypower
The questions are basic.
Just ask for the truth.
Do you have any good Qs to add to the queue? Let us know in the comments below.
As much as we always hop for our dating efforts to be worth it and for every relationship to work out, we all know that some relationships are not destined to work out.
But sometimes relationships end for totally valid reasons, and sometimes the reasons are painful, if not devastating.
Redditor overIorded asked:
"What went wrong with your last partner?"
History Repeating Itself
"He cheated on me. And I was glad because that was finally reason enough to allow myself to leave."
"Now I know somebody who's in the same situation. They're trapped. And she's such a gentle and fun person who's afraid to leave him because 'well, it's always been like this, I'm used to it,' and 'I deserve it.'"
"She wants to leave him, she knows she should leave him, but it's so hard to do it, and I know that feeling."
"I'm thinking I should give her my phone number like when the day comes you've had enough, I'll gladly come to help you move out from that s**thole."
- NmlsFool
Mental Health Struggles
"I'm lost in my own trauma and mental illness and he deserves better than anything I have to offer right now."
- Last-Celery7146
"I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and mildly said, it absolutely ruined me. Her trauma and mental problems were BAD, but I still wanted to be with them. So if you ask me, as long as they can give you the space and support you need, and want to be with you, let them make the decision."
- emilersen
"It's also fair and mature to care very much about someone but realize that you only have the emotional bandwidth to take care of yourself right now."
"I'm sure it was very hard for both of you to come to terms with that decision. I don't think it's that he deserves better, I think it's that your attention needs to be on guiding yourself through this thicket of trauma and mental illness before you can be someone else's partner. You can love each other very much but also acknowledge that you don't have the tools to spare for a relationship right now."
"I'm proud of you for focusing on your own mental health and someday, when you have more emotional stability and energy, I hope you find a wonderful partner."
- SpoonAtKnifeFight
Relationship Styles
"We disagreed on how many women he was allowed to date. I’m very strong on monogamy and have no interest in someone (in a supposedly committed relationship) that isn’t."
- Altrano
At Least There's That
"Her psychotic brother tried to kill me. Thankfully he has a Stormtrooper's aim..."
- Active-Plate7939
"Hate the attempted murder, love the 'Star Wars' reference."
- letmetellyousom
Childfree Living
"He wanted a big family, like, six kids, all-natural. Obviously, he wouldn't be birthing them. This was very important to him while I was pretty ambivalent about kids, and the further into my adulthood I've gotten, the more I've realized I just don't want to be pregnant."
"I broke it off so we could both get the lives we wanted. He was also quite a bit more conservative than me, and at the time closeted pansexual person, and some stuff he believed just didn't line up with what I believed. It hurt, but it was amicable."
"Now he has a wife and kids like he wanted, and I am happily partnered and childfree. It worked out for the best."
- Free-Government5162
Family Ties
"She hated that I had a healthy relationship with my family and was trying to find ways to sabotage it."
- Cobra-Serpentress
"Similar aspect to mine, she hated my sister and mother because she had a bad relationship with her sister and mother. She would get mad at me whenever I brought my family up."
- letmetellyousom
Quality Time
"My last boyfriend dumped me because I got mad that he was coming to Dallas after I hadn't seen him for two months, but didn't want to see me."
"He was going to meet up with some friends of his he hadn't seen in a few months. I told him that was fine with me, but I felt he should make time to see me too since we hadn't seen each other in two months and we were supposed to be a couple."
"He responded to my anger by ghosting me. That was two years ago."
- dallasmysterylover
Distracted with a Punch
"A girl contacted me about him talking to her. I asked him what was going on, and he sucker-punched me in the face."
- Brilliant-Victory128
Projecting Insecurities
"He cheated on me for all six years we were together and then accused me of cheating on him, even though I wasn't allowed to leave the house."
"I'm also pretty sure he slept with my sister-in-law when my brother and I went to pick up dinner."
- Affectionate_Egg1252
Children Come First
"He was and still is no father to his kids, has anger issues, and probably has other mental health issues. I tried for years to help him and help the relationship, but he wasn't having it. After seeing how my oldest suffered under him, I had to leave."
- rintan13
Poor Communication
"I communicated how I felt about many things in the relationship. He never communicated about anything."
- aj_oof0323
"Oh look, it's the last 14 years of my life..."
- empathetic111
"I'm guilty of this, and boy, do I regret not being able to open up about my feelings. It cost me my marriage. But now I'm trying to be more open and share my thoughts and feelings. Just wished I could've done this earlier than later."
Deserving Better
"I started drinking again and became a miserable a**hole due to my own depression and my s**tty job. As such, she didn't get the attention she deserved, and had to put up with my s**tty mood all the time... so she left. I don't blame her."
"So, it was me. I don't know if I trust myself with a relationship again, but aside from the shame of knowing I hurt someone who I loved, and loved me back, but I was too self-absorbed and selfish, I am trying to be a better human to everyone."
"And to my ex: You'll find someone again... someone better."
- cracksintheegg
Big Moves
"He wanted to move to Alaska to be with some girl he was 'friends' with before me."
- dont_be_trash
Alzheimer's Disease
"My ex's early-onset Alzheimers (at the age of 50) and the resulting violence, paranoia, and irrational thinking. I tried to honor my vows, but he was so far out there, I feared for my life."
- No_Transportation258
Different Definitions of Marriage
"She cheated on me after five years total together, the last one of which was while we were engaged. She cheated on me for months, all while I was planning the wedding, working part-time, and going to graduate school so I can support us comfortably in the future."
"I planned on giving her everything I could and sharing the rest of my life with her, and apparently she didn’t care."
- Mountaingoat1001
This conversation just goes to show that relationships can end for all kinds of reasons. Even in relationships where there is still a lot of love and committment, the relationship can still end, just like how the relationship can end suddenly because of a surprising and devastating realization.