It's literally in every oath of office as the central tenet. I swore to uphold the constitution way back as a 17 year old soldier. It is my fundamental expectation of every single person working for the government.

This shouldn't need to be said!

It's not bad. Realistically you are likely in different stages of life (her graduating high school and you in college or establishing a career) and that can make things tricky. People shouldn't be making future decisions for themselves based on an expectation that this will be forever.

I don't think it's creepy, assuming you both have similar relationship experience, just make sure you each prioritize yourselves over the relationship.

I wouldn't have anything to do with such a person. They aren't worth hanging onto the stress and resentment over. Your uncle and brother both did you wrong my making secret deal's and deliberately excluding you, knowing what the result would be. They put their own financial interests over the family, so you know exactly how important you are to them.

Inheritance really brings out the absolute worst in people. I've seen it over and over again in my own family. Just get everyone in the same room before the person dies so everyone can talk about what the deceased wants to see happen when they pass. It doesn't fix everything but it helps.

I'm not offended. At all. I understand, this is a trigger point for you. You can't look past your own experience and that's unfortunate. You also confuse your experience with authority. In fact, being a self-important authoritarian is about the most American thing you could do right now. (I have no idea what you were trying to say there? That exclusively Americans can use humor on serious subjects?)

I'm going to do us both a favor and ensure we don't have this conversation again. Have a good day. Congratulations on sobriety. That's a huge accomplishment and I don't have to like you to respect that.

The big difference is I am 50 years old and have dealt with this shit my entire life.

Me, too. And I feel like you think I'm not allowed the same authenticity in how I deal with that subject, but I disagree. A very serious lecture is fine but it isn't the only way to communicate a point.

To me, even joking about self medicating with booze when someone is reaching out for help is exceptionally offensive.

You are certainly allowed to be offended but I rather think you are missing the point.

I can appreciate your point if view but I would really ask you to consider the seriousness of things as opposed to the levity of them when it comes to another human's well being.

Whoever said jokes aren't serious? You're old enough to appreciate Carlin, Pryor. They made careers joking about serious things. I joke about serious things all the time. It lightens the tension and makes serious subjects a little more palatable. It feels less like a lecture and more like friendly advice. Advice that was very clearly and openly stated not to turn to alcohol to the point that I thought it might be rather tedious to belabor such an obvious point.

I'm very sorry that my manner offends you, and that should preclude reasonable conversation on a subject about which we both agree. However, I completely disagree that your emotional reaction must dictate the one true way to talk about this subject. By all means, share your advice and experience, but kindly leave me out of it.

You saw where I said it was a bad idea and not to take it seriously right? It's just a fact that this WAS the solution for too many people for too many years. And super unhealthy as it was, it's how people coped until their either died or fell apart.

I get you don't see the humor in it, and that's okay. I even called it alcoholism which anyone can recognize is a bad thing, right? I didn't suggest having a little alcohol to loosen up or to numb those feelings, I went straight to you can always just fucking make things even worse.

But also, in the past people drank heavily as a coping mechanism for all kinds of physical and mental pain. It was a BAD mechanism, but it's how people hid their pain without dealing with it. It's why people think their parents were so good at dealing with difficult times. They weren't, they were just covering it up with alcohol and they got lucky through selection bias.

Is that sufficiently direct? Sorry to ruffle your feathers, mate. My father and son are both in recovery. Dark humor is how I deal sometimes.

That's so awful for them. That they voted for exactly this, I mean—that was just an awful, short-sighted decision. Oh well.

No

I love him, but we have three other kids (one of whom is autistic with severe anxiety) and jobs and parents and siblings. And he just wants to talk about how hopeless everything is or how his anxiety attacks are actually heart issues that no one is willing to take seriously to detect the problem, or he literally won't talk at all and just wants someone on the phone in case he suddenly dies. (He's had physical workups several times and nothing is found, but the reality is everyone has to go sometime and sometimes it's a freak thing. That's just life.)

It's fucking exhausting and there just isn't enough to give no matter how hard we try. Even when we are literally killing ourselves or getting reamed by bosses because of the constant calls at work or having to go get our 15 year old out of school at least one a week, it's not enough.

I'm going to be honest, I'm only fifty and I'm not afraid of death because it will be a fucking relief some day, and everyone can just find a way to fucking deal without us.

Anyway that's my rant. I'm sorry about your brother. One thing I can see with my own eyes is that sometimes it's hardest on the person who can keep their shit together and has to because it's always chaos and there just isn't room for anyone else to fall apart EVER. So mate, I hope that isn't you. And if it is I hope you recognize that you need help too and that's okay. No one gets a free ride in life. We all have shit to deal with, however well we keep it together for others. Good luck!

If you need to unload deep emotional shit, that's for a therapist. They have clear boundaries and can be detached from the situation. As a parent of a 26 year old man who can't function without calling his mom multiple times a day to complain about fucking everything—don't use people close to you for that. Or if you have to, don't do it often.

They don't really know how to help you in most cases, but it puts your burdens them. The phrase our son's therapist uses is to be your own tape and glue.

That said, you also probably need just mundane social interaction, too. Friends. Best bet for that is get involved with something people do together. Karaoke night, classes, biking, activism, church if religion is your thing.

If none of that works for you, try functional alcoholism. I'm not saying it's a good idea but people have relied on that for thousands of years, and when/if it causes enduring to crash down, you'll have court mandated sobriety groups. I hope this is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but the serious answer here is when you look around and wonder how everyone else is holding their shit together and you're struggling, the answer is they aren't, they are just hiding it for the most part, and until quite recently, heavy drinking was a socially acceptable form of self-medication.

TLDR: Find a hobby to distract yourself. Give yourself something to focus on that isn't whatever is bubbling beneath the surface that you have no outlet for. Get some therapy so that you do have an outlet for that stuff because it's not kind to lay heavy stuff at others' feet.

I was just explaining to my 13 year old daughter daughter today why we never get gas at BP stations. And I know the station owners have no culpability, but I wouldn't get gas at a place that flies a Nazi or confederate flag, either. Fuck them. They know whose name is on the sign.

I also never stop at Exxon over the Valdez and that was 35 years ago. Fuck these companies. I may only be one person, but I have a long memory.

Negative. I am a meat popsicle.

They might not be wrong. That's what happens when zuck pushes random bullshit into your feed. I left FB years ago because there was more random shit pushed into my feed than content from people I actually cared about.

Eh.... I'm 51. Been using AI for about 5 years now. Not only don't I fall for the pictures, but I can also identify when my prompts are poisoning my responses (a great skill for Google, too). My wife has used it. Her boss is at least aware of it. I'm strongly encouraged to use it at work.

I might be a bit of an outlier, but plenty of us olds know all about AI from the pixels and having seen quite a few prompts in our day.

It does, but you grow and learn a little each time. It always hurts and it always feels like this one was perfect in ways the others weren't. But eventually it happens.

There will be others. I went through a whole failed marriage before finding the right person for me at about 33. You have time. You'll find your person and I promise they will be even better. Hugs.

That can be really tricky. The only time my wife was flirting with another guy with the intent of it going somewhere (with my permission but that's all a long story)... it was exciting to me but it also made me jealous. And I didn't want to be jealous, I was excited for her, but it made me feel those things anyway.

I know it's not at all the same situation, but I think from his perspective it's not so different. He was agreeing to other men having access to you knowing they wanted to get something in turn for paying for that access.

So I'm not surprised his feelings about that were complex and fraught. Especially at that age. I struggled at 45, I can't imagine trying to navigate those feelings at 25.

Just talk about it. But also it sounds like you have some emotional things to work out for yourself and it's possible you're just not ready for a serious relationship no matter how bad you want it (not for me to say or judge, but don't be afraid to discover who you are and what makes you happy without a partner because that will make you a better partner IMO).

I needed to start a whole new response for this section:

He’s like the only good thing in my life.

This is a problem, whether one of perception or depression, but this sentence here is a recipe for codependency.

I asked him what made him finally think of this decision and he said when I was singing along to my music that he didn’t feel or react the same as he used to before. That shattered me.

Your reactions to each other will change over time. The sexual intensity you feel now will fade as it becomes more routine. The way you think each other is fucking amazing will become tempered with reality over time. Neither of you are as awesome as the other thinks and so much of each other is still made up of your fantasies of who the other is to fill in gaps on knowledge, you know? That doesn't make either of you bad people, just human.

I told him how does he feel that’s different but us having sex and cuddling all night was okay?

Sexual contact always releases some powerful hormones for feeling good.

We both care and like each other a lot and we agreed to being friends and not getting rid of each other from our lives. He says he knows I made a mistake and stuff but idk how to live with this guilt.

I want to know what kind of mistake he thinks you made vs what you think you made. You were talking to guys for money. You're going to get dick pics. You're going to get guys who don't read or respect the boundary. That's facts. So maybe that was a mistake? But I can't tell if you are even both on the same page here.

I don’t want to lose him, I want to prove to him that I will never hurt him again.

You will. He will hurt you. You will disappoint him. That's life, my friend. My wife and I don't get along all the time. She does shout that annoys the fucks out of me, Andee sometimes I can be a real asshole.

We hurt one another sometimes. If you love someone, you will hurt and you will be hurt because that's life. The goal isn't to promise perfection you'll never be able to deliver. The goal is to work together, to mutually respect one another, and talk through problems to see how to work through them together. That's it.

Good luck.

ER is for treating emergencies. If they look into an symptom and it's not something life threatening or similarly serious, they are just going to tell you to follow up with your primary care physician. Do that. Just because it's a serious issue for you doesn't make it a medical emergency, right?

Like if you get cancer, the ER isn't going to do an emergency operation, they are going to tell you to get an oncologist and even though that's life threatening for you, you aren't going to die tomorrow or in the next week so that's a problem for a specialist not an ER.

You have to work the system. Good luck, fren.

Probably, but that shit isn't even written in English. It's written in lawyer.

Have you noticed that with enough money you can't just commit a crime? Trump could pop in the Epstein video of him on every display in Times Square and the response would be "the alarming possibility that Trump engaged in potentially illegal acts."

The law has become so inscrutable that you literally can't know whether a crime has been committed until you have a jury trial. How is a soldier supposed to disobey illegal orders when he can't possibly know whether orders are legal or not?

I remember I wasn't too long out of the army when the stuff about waterboarding and abu graib came out. I would've refused orders to torture people had I been there. And I'd have probably gone to Leavenworth for years for disobeying orders.

It's time to just burn the whole system down.