Story 1: if the friends wants to charge you for being your "grief councilor " you can accuse her of practicing without a license.

i know op from the first story didnt actually pay the friend for grief counseling but it would be funny if she did, then proceeded to report her to her country/state/province's board of psychiatry for unlicensed counseling

Yeah, that's not how it works (Story 1)! You don't get to go back after the fact to decide someone owes you for a bunch of stuff you did during the course of a friendship. The wedding, however, was a clear contract.

31:44 It was disrespectful of the amount of time she put in to it. She does that normally, he absolutely phoned it in.

She gained a husband and lost a crappy friend. Good for her

Story 1 has an update 😭 Apparently, the reason why Gemma didn’t attend OP’s wedding after going to Bali was because she was cheating on her husband 😭 She actually took her side piece to Bali.( OP found out when she was reviewing her sailing pictures at Bali and saw Gemma kissing another man in the background)
OP eventually took her to court and won, and when Gemma went online to rant, as usual, OP replied with the image of Gemma kissing another man and tagged Gemma’s husband.
What a lore!

Why would you go somewhere for a wedding of a person you know and pretend it was your own honeymoon?

Just by him wanting credit for taking care of his own kids is enough for me to believe that he's weaponizing his incompetence. Funny how those same dudes are also stellar employees who never have to be handheld.

In terms of the husband watching the kids story, the glaring red flag to me is that the husband lied by omission. He was clearly dishonest and let OP come to the conclusion they’d been eating the food she’d prepared, and to me it looked like he was going to continue withholding the truth, which is an insult to OP’s intelligence, as he’d either assumed or hoped that she wouldn’t be able to tell there was way too much food leftover.

Anyone saying that the op in the first story doesn't have a claim because it would be considered a gift that could be the more possible outcome if there were not exchanges in text that honeymoon taker knowingly accepted the money as part of being at the wedding but it was the spouse that stated they did not want to attend because it would kill the illusion. That is an expression of knowing guilt. By saying yes I know that you expected me to be there and that is why we are even here in the first place but it was the decision of someone in my party that kept me from that.. making me liable for the wasted money.

So therefore, very winnable case.

Last story: He was a bad father imo and the OP is justified in saying that (depending on her reasoning but yea):

1) He is teaching kids its okay to disregard and disrespect another person's (in this case their mother's) time and effort
2) He is teaching it's okay to lie to mom. He lied by omission because he didnt tell her straight up they didn't eat the prepped food
+ Depending on the place, situation and relationship dynamic not being honest and clear with your spouse about your finances can range from not a big deal to actually illegal and he didn't offer up the information about spending more money on lunches and dinners
3) He is teaching his kids hes "the fun one" and mom's "no-fun police" which is actually really bad, that kind of behavior can teach the kids that mom is too strict/uptight and encourage them to go behind her back or to undermine her rules in the future. This can also teach kids to lie to mom because they expect her to "destroy the fun" (kinda something my parents unintentionally taught me and my younger sibling)
4) He is not enforcing a good relationship with food that his wife worked VERY HARD (while having a whole ass job in a medical field!!) to nurture. Kids' relationship with food is so important and you might not even understand, especially if any of the kids are daughters, how easily you can teach a kid a bad lesson about food. AND the dad didn't do it just 1 day out of that whole week she was gone. He did it everyday after they ran out of HIS FAVORITE FOOD???  AND the whole "its too much work" thing?? That sounds like he did not want to reheat ANY of the food but just did because he liked that one dish and he might as well reheat kids' meals too if he's at it. I would understand if out of that week she was gone he ordered takeout/took the kids out 1 or 2 times but this sounds like he fully disregarded all the prepared meals after his favorite ran out just because he didn't feel like having something else his wife thoughtfully made

PS: I might not have any authority here, I am not a parent. I'm just a 21yo trying to heal myself and my relationship with food after being raised in a somewhat similar way to what is described in that last story. I just hope they talked that sh*t out and didn't stop at her saying one sentence in the heat of the moment

The story where the wife had prepared all of the food for them and still found a way to blame herself for the husband being a lazy pos is really sad.

Timestamps for the stories:)

00:10 Story one

08:41 Story two

13:43 Story three

19:47 Story four

26:21 Story five

28:41 Story six

18:05 i heard a song recently with lyrics that said "self aware enough to hate myself but not enough to change" and that really hits home with this kind of person

People asking why the the mom isnt teaching a 10 and 12 year old to cook, WHEN THERES A WHOLE OTHER GROWN ASS ADULT who apparently can't cook or even reheat the food his wife made sure to prep or make his children school lunch. Yes that makes him a bad father, and if you can't provide proper meals to your children i too would doubt your ability to watch the kids in the future

17:30 I had an alcoholic roommate once. I was a borderline alcoholic at the time and decided I needed to be completely sober. When he heard I wasn’t drinking anymore he turned into a complete asshole over it. And he was generally a nice guy. He was so negative and would talk about how long I would “make it” before I caved and had a drink again.

I have no idea how he’s doing now, because he moved out shortly after that, but I’m six years sober this winter and have never felt better.

0:40 my mom said we can if its okay with your mom

OK, if John didn't want to go the wedding, then Gemma should have gone anyway and left John in the hotel room. And $300 for an extra a week is a CHEAP honeymoon. And NO, do not grovel and apologize to youe ex-friend next door neighbor for something SHE did. Why would he want to be friends with her?

I feel bad for last OP. It definitely was weaponized incompetence. Dad totally disrespected her and couldn’t be trusted with the kids. He opted to just do it the easy way instead of actually parenting. It’s literally just reheating

nah, dentist mom was right not to trust takeout dad alone with the kids. 'trust' means more things than she thinks he's going to kill them. he lied and did a shit job. i wouldn't trust a shitty worker on any job.