My ex used to accuse me of cheating on him anytime I’d hang out with any male family member alone. My brother, my step dad, my BIO DAD… turns out he was the one cheating and doing stuff with his family. Pure projection. Not saying that’s what’s going on with OPs ex, just my personal experience with that situation.

Cole is by far fhe worst person here.

He not only enjoyed fostering the first ex's delusions, he also enjoyed torturing the OP by proxy through encouraging her stalker, knowing she was terrified. You can't "cure" a sociopath.

The very second my partner accuses me of wanting to F my brother just because he and I have a healthy sibling relationship, they’re out on their ass.

Also, I’ve gone out for dinner at places with a dance floor before and done both Latin dancing and swing dancing with my MOM. Because she and I took a couple classes together that she got on Groupon several years back. It just means that we have a good mother-daughter relationship lmao. That’s all it means.

Don’t apologize for talking about yourself! We are here for the reddit yeah, but also for you my guy! Love the channel❤

I'm so happy to have come across your channel. You have a very nice cadence to your voice that is easy to listen to and I appreciate your personal experiences in the stories.

Keep up the good work Ross!

Thank you for sharing that intimate story about you and your mum
It warmed my heart hearing a mum give physical affection to her baby :) even if he is grown
You were so brave to ask i dont think I could ask that of my mum

The twin story i would simply tell him, grow up
you are disgusting
and I won't be with someone who thinks that, and then, i would simply break up with him and leave
Its that simple

Finally, Now I can start working. My boss will thank you.

Story 3: To be perfectly honest… him losing that friend and processing the grief of it while also having his attachment to her cost him his girlfriend is probably the best chance this guy has to realize just how toxic that friend was, since she’s no longer present in his life and he might be able to see clearly for the first time in a while. It’s too bad he doesn’t have good friends who understand what’s happening, here, and could potentially wake him up to issues he’s clearly having with attachment or some form of trauma or whatever that’s making him actually have a dilemma about choosing his gf over… his friend who… won’t date him, but also doesn’t want him giving attention to any other girl more than her? Yeesh…

Clearly the friend is someone who gets an ego boost from the bf’s attention and is jealous when it’s given to someone else, but doesn’t actually like or care about him enough to be involved with him romantically in any way. In order words, she’s manipulating his desire for her to give herself an ego boost so she feels good. She does not care about this guy at all, even in a platonic sense. What a toxic woman who clearly has deep issues of her own. Getting her out of his life is the best thing that could happen to him, even if he doesn’t see it that way, because she’s stringing him along and playing with his heart just to get herself off, so to speak. That is not someone you want in your life at all.

And the fact that he is struggling to choose between this person who gives him nothing and who he can’t recognize is selfish and only wants him around for her own benefit and someone who actually cares about him, but he would have to give up on the other person is just… crazy. I honestly feel bad for the guy. At first I put a little pin in the whole “grand gestures” thing as that could have been classic love bombing… I was worried something nefarious was happening. But it honestly kind of sounds like this guy just… doesn’t respect or even love himself. He doesn’t see his worth, he stays in relationships where people completely use and abuse him, and he’s having a crisis over leaving. It sounds like his sense of worth is entirely external, which is very dangerous because you’re not leading with your own internal compass and values. You’re strung along and hypnotized by anyone or anything that gives you something small to fill that void inside of you that you cannot fill yourself. That will lead you into deeply compromising situations. He could potentially be manipulated into doing something really, really wrong if the right person asked. He’s literally willing to give his everything to someone who won’t give him anything, because he idolizes them and whatever crumbs they’re willing to throw his way. This is not to shame him at all; I don’t look down on this guy. He just really needs help. He’s in a bad place, and he really needs something to help him take some of his agency back and to build some form of self-esteem that comes from within. Not from other people’s approval, not from what he does or accomplishes; just that sense of “I am enough and valid simply because I exist. I am worth as much as anyone else, because I am.” That is so important, and it sounds like he really lacked that growing up. He’s a slave to his need for validation from other people.

I sincerely hope he gets some help… it’s not OP’s job to fix him; it’s no one’s. But he needs guidance and help from someone who he’s not already attaching his self worth to, to realize that he has a problem that needs fixing so he can be okay. He deserves to be okay… it’s just too bad his friends suck. :/


Edit: Well that escalated quickly… good lord. I admit, I completely forgot what the title was. I was confused when the first story was told, but then I just sort of forgot about it. And now here we are.😅

I don’t know how to feel about this anymore… lol It kind of sounds like OP maybe has some issues of her own (not meaning that in an accusatory way), because she keeps picking guys who won’t protect her and who don’t seem to have a spine or proper boundaries. There could be something subconsciously informing her selection, like maybe people who do grand romantic gestures make her feel like she’s loved, but often the people who will do that right off the bat are people who feel like they need to earn love and won’t have the boundaries or self-esteem to stand up, defend, get angry, know their worth, etc. Could be that she lacked certain forms of affection growing up, or doesn’t know how to sense someone is genuinely into her unless they do something huge, or maybe all those romcoms we grew up watching are what informed her idea of what romance should be. Again, not targeting her or looking down on her at all. I just think in this situation, it might be really helpful for her to take a step back from relationships and figure out maybe what she’s actually looking for, and how to spot it. Or why she keeps ending up with guys who don’t protect her (like maybe she grew up with a lot of gifts but no one actually protecting her or being there for her emotionally; I don’t know).

I know my rhetoric always goes back to the childhood experience, but we really underestimate the fact that when we’re babies, WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING. Therefore, everything we learn in our formative years, the ways we’re treated and such, are what guides us later in life to make certain choices and decisions, even if we don’t even know it. Because you can’t make a good, safe, securely attached choice when you don’t even feel or know how to recognize what safety is. It will simply elude your notice when it pops up, and you’ll just gravitate to what is known. Knowing how we grew up is one of the single greatest things we can do to understand ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in. It’s just the truth.


Edit 2: And this is why we don’t make comments before listening to the whole story. Lmao I usually don’t, but I got a little trigger happy on this one. I still stand by what I said in my first edit about OP needing to do some self-examination for her own protection, because there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with the guys she’s dated in this story. This is CRAZY behaviour.

I guess the verdict that no one needs to ask for is… NTA.😅

15:45 this is another thing, as somebody who has been in a physically abusive relationship at one point in my life… What she’s describing as far as “intentionally riling him up“ just makes me think that he is abusive in other ways. This may sound insane to people who have never been hit, but sometimes you get this feeling that it’s coming, and you just wanna get it over with. Like, most partners who abuse you also engage in love bombing/aftercare where you are the soul focus of their attention and they take care of you and all of that after injuring you, and sometimes you just wanna get to that point. That is very much how I read this, like he does shit like this and she just wanted to get past the fight to the aftercare.

I dated a guy when I was a senior in high school who broke up with me when someone ran to him and went “oh she’s always with this other guy!” It was one of my cousins. I graduated high school with a first cousin, a second cousin, and like 10 third cousins. I was the only girl! We’d figured out the whole bunch of us in elementary school and we all thought how weird it was that I ended up being the only girl. Then we looked at the wider family and again, more boys than girls. Anytime a guy brought up being uncomfortable with all the guy names I’ll mention (sometimes I admit I’d forget to say it’s a cousin but I’d say it once I realized) I’d be like “bye we don’t need to continue this”.

My partner now hears me say a guy name and he’s assumed some that are just friends are cousins and doesn’t care. He’s like “your family is ridiculous and I know you wouldn’t do that so as far as I’m concerned it’s all cousins”

When I was 9 or 10, my stepdad would wake me and my brother up (we slept in different rooms) and “inspect” us, accusing us of sneaking into one another’s room to do inappropriate things. It was shocking, gross, and hard to understand when I was little.
Years later, it turns out, his niece and nephew were caught secretly having sexual encounters with one another.

The call typically comes from inside the house.

48:21 Cole! He sounds like a full blown psychopath xD James sounds like someone who could be helped with some therapy.

Last story: idk if he was crazier, but Cole was definitely more evil. He manipulated someone for months knowing his actions caused his girlfriend distress all because he got off on the fact that another guy was so desperate to win over “his girl”

My family was never affectionate, if anything, all I got was constant criticism into my 30’s. My mother suddenly started occasionally saying “I love you” when I was nearly 40 and I still don’t know how to respond since it seems insincere. That being said, I was always aware that others have affectionate families and parents who do more than “tough love” and I kind of live vicariously through their joy. This guy sounds like he is simply avoiding facing the reality that he didn’t grow up in a emotionally healthy environment and others were luckier than him in that department. He might be so jealous of her family’s relationship and afraid he will never truly belong amongst them that he is trying to drive a wedge between the siblings - who would stick around if they really thought they were 1ncestuous? He would rather rob her of something special and “teach” her to live deprived of affection instead of working on himself. I bet that he is only “affectionate” when he’s trying to get some and doesn’t do hugs and cuddles just for the sake of emotional connection

I had an ex that was 100% sure that you CANNOT love friends and family and that is just for partners sooo yeaaah it reminds me of that on second story idk

Ross, i just have to say, your scottish accent and cozy vibes really makes your videos 100% more enjoyable than any other reddit story accounts i watch. for someone like me, who's first language isn't english, it's just so refreshing listening to an actual accent, not the classic amercian tiktok english accent kind of thing

For the Lannister story, she was in the wrong to provoke. She should have just left him tbh, either way he should have never laid hands on her.

Thank you for making these videos, I have insomnia and your channel genuinely helps me sleep! Love from finland 🇫🇮

I think the whole lack of showing affection in families thing is a Scottish thing as well, and especially a Glasgow thing. We're a very emotionally stunted people, unfortunately. I kinda wish I had that growing up as well, but my parents are from the East End so that's not happening haha.