1. I poked a hole in a condom and purposefully got a girl pregnant to prove I wasn’t gay
This was the late 80s and I was 14/15 and things weren’t a great time to be a gay teenager not that it excuses what I did. I was so afraid of being outed that I started a relationship with my then bestfriend’s sister. My friends were constantly messing with me about not having slept with her and calling me gay. They were just joking but I took it so seriously that I convinced her sex and I poked a hole in the condom hoping to get her pregnant so that I’d have proof…
She did end up pregnant and when I found out the reality of what I did really hit me.. She just thought the condom didn’t work and I never told her I did it on purpose… She was forced to go to an alternative school and eventually dropped out to have the baby. Her and her family moved away with the baby and I never kept in contact with them… I’ve always felt like a pos for ruining her life and abandoning my kid.
2. I don’t love my wife, and I resent that I have to care for her, but I will probably never leave her.
She was my high school sweetheart. The love of my life. My soulmate. When she suffered a brain injury and fell into a coma, I had no idea whether she would ever wake up again. When she did, she was severely disabled, and she was a different person.
I hoped her old personality would come back with time and therapy, but it’s been 5 years since she woke up, and I think this is just what she’s like now. She’s not a bad person, she’s just not the woman I fell in love with. I’m expected to be grateful that I got my wife back, but the truth is my wife died the day she was injured.
I hoped I would be able to fall in love with this new person, but you can’t just force yourself to fall in love with someone. So I resent her. I know it isn’t her fault, it’s not fair that I feel this way towards her, but I resent this new woman for taking my wife away, and for the fact that I have to take care of her.
I can’t leave her. She has no one else to care for her. And she still has my wife’s voice, her laugh, her smile. I couldn’t bear to lose those, they’re all I have left of the woman I love. So I pretend. I pretend I don’t notice that she’s a completely new person, I pretend I still love her, I pretend I don’t resent her. I care for her. I’ve accepted that this is my life now.
3. Six years ago, i swapped my then-girlfriend now-wife’s cat with a more well-behaved lookalike.
She had an all black cat that was extremely aggressive. It scratched everyone, hissed at everyone, and didn’t use its litterbox half the time. My wife insisted she could get it to behave better. One week she went out of town to visit her family and I was supposed to go to her apartment and feed it.
The first night I went over, it scratched the shit out of my arm. I joked to the cat that it’s not special and I’ll replace it if it scratches again. The joke stuck with me until I had thought about it enough that it wasn’t a joke. The next morning I went to the local animal shelter. Found an identical cat who was already litterbox trained and acclimated to people, but was a little skiddish (it’s old owner died of a heart attack and the animal shelter people said they think that’s why it was skiddish). But overall, it was a lot friendlier and better behaved, and the skiddishness would help it resemble the original cat.
So I adopted it, took it to my wife’s apartment, settled it in, then drove her original cat to an animal shelter a town over (I was paranoid my wife would find out if I took it to a local one).
It’s been 6 years since then. We got married 4 years ago. We still have the swapped cat. It answers to the original cat’s name. My wife knows nothing. She loves this cat and brags about how much better behaved it is. Everytime I see it, I feel like a total piece of shit.
4. I know my 7yo son is not my biological child
My ex wife and I were having a rough time when our youngest was 6. We separated for a few months and then reconciled. A few months later she announced she was pregnant. We ended up divorcing three years later. Our sons are 7 and 13. My 13yo is a clone of me. My 7yo looks nothing like me, my other son or even his mom. He looks just like the guy my ex was fucking when we separated. For example, my ex and I have blue eyes and my 7yo has big brown eyes.
She thinks I’m a fucking fool and that I believe he’s mine but I’ve known for a few years now. It doesn’t really bother me. I love that boy more than life itself but I get a kick out of watching her having to live with a lie that eats her alive because she’s fearful it would destroy her family. She’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.
5. I ended my friendship with my BFF because her kid is ugly.
My bff of 3 years is a single mom. We would text every day and she would send me 15-20 pictures a day of her four year old son. I’ve seen photos of this childs EVERY move. I’d wake up to pics of him on my phone. I’d see them again on social media. Sometimes she would even send pics in the mail.
The thing is that the kids ugly and seeing his face that many times a day made me angry. There’s no nice way to put it.
If I was honest and asked her to stop sending me pictures it would crush her. In hopes that she would catch onto my energy I stopped replying to the pics calling him cute & saying aww. Instead I’d react to the pictures with a thumbs up or id comment on something in the background that was totally irrelevant.
Eventually it irked me so much that I stopped communicating entirely. We have spoke a few times and I apologized saying I’ve been busy with life.
Honestly I don’t miss the friendship. In fact, i’m relieved that I don’t have to be blown up with pictures of her ugly kid 24/7
6. My son has significant disabilities, and I hate that this is my life
Before I begin you should know that I love my child unconditionally. He is so smart in his own way, and has a generous heart. I know this.
But I also, sometimes… okay, a lot of the time, hate that this is my life.
I hate the looks we get. When someone asks him a question then awkwardly realizes he can’t respond. When he has a major, hysterical meltdown in a store and I have to sing and rock him on the floor until he calms down. When other kids realize he isn’t as “normal” as he looks…
I hate that he will probably never have a real friend. That I will have to fight for him to be included in everything. That his birthday parties will likely be adults/family only.
I hate not being able to go to church without making sure they have an adult with training to be with him. I hate how hard it is to find adults to be with him. And that I have to be the one to train them.
I hate that he will be my only child. I don’t know that I can handle a second child with disabilities… and it’s not fair to him if we bring a neurotypical child into the mix. It’s not fair to the other child either.
I hate that he has to be watched 24/7. I never get anything done because I am exhausted from keeping him safe while trying to give him room to grow and learn.
I hate the appointments, the juggling of specialists and primary care doctors and trying to remember who needs to be told what. I hate having to sign a kajillion disclosures to share information, and I hate that even my husband has to ask me what all kiddo has going on.
I hate that he hurts me. Yes, I understand the reasons: trauma and development and delayed attachment and frustration. But I hate that my baby boy, my darling child, regularly kicks and hits and bites and scratches me.
I hate saying, “Kind hands, please.”
I hate how much I rely on his tablet to occupy him.
I hate when people say it’s just a phase. Or all boys/kids do that. It’s not true, and they know it. But no one is comfortable enough to say, “that sounds like it sucks.” Which is what I really want.
I hate that being away from him takes so much planning and money. That we can’t hire just anyone to watch him. It has to be an adult with training, or a respite provider (which is impossible to get), or a rare, understanding friend. Or my husband.
Most of all, I hate that I hate any part of being his mommy. Because I always wanted to be a mom. And when we found out we couldn’t have biological children, I was so happy my husband agreed to adopt. I knew it would be hard. I knew it meant raising a child with disabilities and trauma. And I worked my ass off to prepare for it.
But here I am. On Reddit, telling however many strangers that I hate being a mom to a child with disabilities. Because there is nowhere else I can go and be this raw and open about it.
And I hate that our society is the kind of place where parents like me can’t be raw and open. Because I already know some of you are judging me, or calling me a snowflake, or passing by this post because this sliver of my reality is too much for you to bear on top of your own stuff.
But I had to say it. Had to let it out because it’s too hard to carry around on top of all the other shit I have to carry every single day.
