He didn’t necessarily have an easier job than her, just one that pays less (I don’t think she mentioned the field he works in?). I work an office job, I’m paid much more than my friend that’s a mechanic and I know for a fact that his job is much harder.
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I think your hearts in the right place with this comment. But i want to respond to it because it does bring up a common sentiment that bugs the hell out of me.
I don't really buy the provider part of this sentiment and even if instinct played a role here, it doesn't excuse ape-like behavior. You might be wired to notice wide hips and smooth skin, but continuing to stare at or lust after a girl after you realize she's 16 years old still makes you a creep.
We are men, not ignorant monkeys controlled by our instincts and I find it insulting when someone tries to excuse ape behavior with this kind of reasoning. We're still 100% accountable for our actions.
Glad I’m not the only one that was thinking along those lines while reading this. She’ll be just fine in France where this mentality is long dead (France has other problems though).
Here’s the update that is linked at the end of the OP:
Met my biological dad for the first time ever and I’m very happy about it (update)
Lots of you asked to let you know how it goes meeting my biological dad and to say it was emotional….is an understatement. I’ve been feeling so many things since this all happened. We met a few days ago. Was originally supposed to be almost 2 weeks ago but shit kept coming up. Work and then I got sick (not covid) for days. But we made it happen. Tbh this was more nervous for me because I didn’t know anything about him. With my bio mom it was different because I watched her from far and got to know her a little before it came out. I asked my bio mom if she could be there too just because she knows him better so it was the 2 of us waiting for him at this park.
He was already crying before we even got to him. This guy is strong too so he pulled me in for the biggest bear hug and crying 😅🥲
He told me he wants me to know that they loved me so much and he loves me. I lost count how many times he’d come back in for one more hug. This definitely got to him. And he kept saying thank you God a few times. Looking at my face. The feelings man, the feelings… We had so many of them. Hearing him tell me how much they love me even back then. It meant so much for me to hear that and ngl that had me holding him tight too.
I’m sure to everyone at the park it was weird seeing 3 crying people lol. My bio dad said he cried so many times just driving over here he didn’t think he had anymore tears until he saw us. When we were all sitting down it hit me that my bio mom was NOT lying when she said we look alike 😂 obviously he’s older but still holy shit the similarities.
He brought gifts too which was a surprise. It was really nice he told me I don’t have to keep them if I don’t want it but he felt weird not coming with anything and he’s wanted to give this to me for a long time.
One was a teddy bear holding a picture frame of him at the hospital holding me (he was 15 years old, it’s still crazy to realize that ). And then the other thing was a journal. The journal thing was stuff he said he started writing to me years after I was adopted. He was in therapy and that that helped him to cope thinking he would give them to me one day. His way of still feeling connected to me. I haven’t read everything yet but some of the pages were his thoughts and like if he’s talking to me. How he felt when they found out she was pregnant, then the adoption, everything going on in his mind when he first got to hold me as a baby. I didn’t even know he was at the hospital too.
It was not what I was expecting… it really got me. I read some more of what he wrote last night that really got me crying. I’m sad to think how much this affected them emotionally for years. Also think it’s pretty sweet he wanted to write this for me. We talked about his own life which was pretty hard. His struggles with home life and the feelings he had about giving me up. Then he wanted to know everything about me. Basically with the same questions my bio mom had. I made sure they knew they made the right decision. Because my life was pretty great.
He looked like he wanted to cry when he knew that because that’s all they hoped for and it was something he always wondered about for years. My bio mom left a bit after we were more comfortable so we could talk more in private once it didn’t feel too awkward between us. From there he told me stories about how he met my bio mom. Sometimes he’d point out stuff he notice about me that reminds him of her or me and him having similar likes.
Example: I love eating mangos. I can eat them all day and that’s what I bought when we bought snacks at the park. He told me my bio mom was obsessed with mangos seven before she got pregnant, while pregnant she craved it even more.
Just cool info to know even if it’s random stuff lol. It’s still stuff we have in common and we both have lots. Both like hiking, playing pool, he was a swimmer in college and I was on a swim team in highschool, both love rock music. Especially 90’s. My bio dad was really open about sharing everything. Like he really was getting ready for this meeting. He hoped it would happen and he prayed everyday to see me again because he had so many things he wanted to tell me. Overall really good first meeting. I’m glad how it went. He’s open to the idea of meeting my parents. After I told them about all this because they definitely want to meet my bio parents again if I’m comfortable with that, obviously if my bio parents are too. Let’s see when that happens. Idk how it’s gonna feel for me. They’ve met eachother before I was even born but I never had them at the same place so that’ll be interesting lol.
Me and my parents met up yesterday to have breakfast so I could tell them everything. My mom was so happy how it went. She actually cried too whne i was telling them about both their reactions. My dad was proud because he knew how hard it was the months after finding my bio mom and not really wanting to make contact yet. I’m really happy to have their support because it’s hard not to feel guilty about wanting to know more my bio parents. They gave me a really good life so for a while it’s felt like maybe to them I’m showing them that wasn’t good enough for me and I’d rather have my bio parents. But they told me many times they want me to do this for me and the know how much I love them. And I really do.
Finding them and meeting them was hard. But it was so worth it to me. And seeing their reactions made it feel even more worth it. Still can’t believe it sometimes.
I’m just realizing this has turned into a long post, my bad haha. Writing this has been therapeutic tbh. Kind of thinking back to everything that’s happened. Feeling really grateful. Again wanna say thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with me. Everyone who sent me their own stories, their love, their encouragement. You guys have beautiful hearts and I’m happy I had somewhere to talk about all this and receive so much love back! Just wanna say to all the adopted kids out there, i wish you guys luck and that you find what you’re looking for. It’s not easy at all. I feel fortunate that things didn’t go badly or that my bio parents aren’t bad people. And to all the birth parents out there who made this sacrifice, thank you 🙏🏻 🙏🏻🙏🏻It’s because of you there are kids out there like me who got to have a great life with loving parents ❤️
I just can’t understand how parents can treat their kids that way. And worse, refuse to be in their grandkids lives!
My “mum” has always been a spiteful, hate filled birch. We haven’t had the best relationship and as a kid I used to get the utter shit beat out of me when I did anything wrong. So I’d act up all the time. Get told I was just like my “piece of shit” biological father, who tried to kill me and had never been part of my life.
Despite all this and despite a lifetime of being out down by her, I remained in contact. Big mistake. It all came to a head in January of this year. I’m 7 months no contact with her - I don’t have her bringing me down, deadnaming my kids and generally being a horrid bastard. So much better!
Same. Although it’s heartbreaking when the boy reaches the posting cap and I’m left on a cliffhanger. I’d rather not give Reddit the traffic if I can help it.
Across the board, I feel like there’s more bots, more spam, and more creative writing trying to pass for real stories. It was always there, but the mods and the tools in my app helped hide it from me and made the experience better. Now, those are more or less gone.
What the hell is wrong with some people. So sorry you had to go through that. As a man myself I never thought one way or the other about who makes more in the relationship. My wife and I have traded that honor and it doesn’t matter because it all goes into the same pot - our future.
Not being able to be “the provider” is such a cop out way to think. Who cares who makes more if you want to be together. My wife is a ton smarter than me I expect her to eventually make more. That doesn’t make me any less in the relationship.
I'm all about true crime podcasts, and you're not wrong.
However, the giveaway here is "they had to cut the brace off," especially with "they got out quickly" following quickly behind.
If such a thing required cutting off - a process that would be much more dangerous to the child than disassembling it - it would have had to be designed to be permanently installed without cutting. That means welded or padlocked as opposed to bolted or latched. Besides which, building such a thing in that way requires a serious amount of effort and planning. Not to mention this is right on the heels of having had repercussions for doing that exact thing. The steel and fabric one would have had to be designed and built before normal visitation was resumed.
All that indicates an incredibly sick perpetrator, who also lied to a judge when he said he'd learned his lesson - because the thought and design and construction of the second one had to have already been going on. I find it unlikely that, in 2016, in Florida, someone who so grossly abuses a nine year old, and who is found out by their neighbor, a police officer, when said nine year old shows up at the door with the thing needing to be cut off, would be quickly released on bail.
Edit: @Speculater rightly points out that a brace, worn for such a short amount of time, could not dislocate a shoulder.
Rage-inducing stories on reddit are famously fake, and this is one of them.
Also if they had alternating custody what was the plan exactly when custody switched? Especially given that they already got prosecuted for the first time they did it....
Like it required planning and not planning at the same time
It is amazingly uncommon for custody to be shared in that way. Moving house every week, back and forth, is incredibly stressful and disruptive for a child.
And then in the update, it's referring to how that "visitation" schedule was reinstated after the first incident. One, that's not visitation, that's true joint custody - a thing which is also rare in custody cases. Normally, you have one parent who has custody, and the other has visitation. Visitation usually means something like "every other weekend," so the non-custodial parent gets the child two days out of every fourteen. If it was true joint custody, the switchovers would be more like "every other weekend, and all summer," especially with an elementary school aged child.
That's not even addressing the fact that, in the story, the court just went back to that ridiculous arrangement after one parent was shown to have abused the child.
I agree with this take. 99% of those top ranking AITA or RelationshipAdvice posts were fake if you knew what to look for. This has all the rage bait marks.
That is a very detailed explanation. Of course, I hope it is not true and you made it seem plausible that it is not true (which is more difficult than proving that it is). So, that is a good thing.
I think I was responding a bit to the tone in which it was said that it was imaginary. I guess it seemed it was mocking the person who made the comment it replied to. So, I was trying to soften that, I guess.
@holycrap - I absolutely apologize; I intended no mockery of you personally, but I can totally see how my response could have been received that way. It's all too easy to forget that I'm interacting with real human people sometimes, even if I try really hard to remember.
Thank you, @Shelena, for bringing this to my attention. Your responses have been necessarily corrective and gently condsiderate at the same time.
Thanks for your response. I think it shows you have great character. I think it is easy to forget you are interacting with humans. I think we all do it sometimes.
I should have been more directly why I was responding to you in that way. However, it was sort of automatic and I only thought about why I did it later. That would have made an easier discussion.
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