Mine is that there is no North/South divide.

Listen. The Midlands exists. We are here. I’m not from Birmingham, but it’s the second largest city population wise and I feel like that alone gives incentive to the Midlands having its own category, no? There are plenty of cities in the Midlands that aren’t suitable to be either Northern or Southern territory.

So that’s mine. There’s the North, the Midlands, and the South. Where those lines actually split is a different conversation altogether but if anyone’s interested I can try and explain where I think they do.

EDIT: People have pointed out that I said British and then exclusively gave an English example. That’s my bad! I know that Britain isn’t just England but it’s a force of habit to say. Please excuse me!

I cheated on my wife last summer. I was spiraling in depression for years and towards the end I started blaming everything on my loved ones including my wife. My colleague was there, she was understanding and warm. She cared. The guilt was crippling and I told my wife. I think she was in shock at first but when it was over she told me it was over between is. She never shed a single tear or yelled or begged. We have two daughters together. My colleague, like everyone but me could see lost all her interest in me gradually and about 2 weeks ago when she broke things off.

I dropped my girls off at their mothers on Sunday, it was the first time I don't celebrate Christmas with them. My wife looked happy and content. I just realized that she was the bright light in my depression and always been and yet I blamed her for feeling shit because I liked the attention of someone else. My wife asked me how I was because I looked depressed. I couldn't tell her anything just that I was fine but that if felt weird that this was the first Christmas I was spending alone. I told her that my "relationship" was over. Her expression didn't change. She didn't even look like she was gloating. She just simply said, well you could always tell her that we are back together if you want a relationship with her. I was taken aback by how calm and sure se sounded.

When I got home, I tried it. Not because I wanted anything to do with my colleague. I was just curious why my wife would believe that. Since then, she has been sending me tens of texts. Warm and flirtatious. Asking me if I missed her and if I had the time to meet.

I threw my life for this

Throw away account as my son knows my real one, and I want some advice.

I (34M) got a 16 year old son with my ex (34F). We had our son way too early in life; we lived on the same street growing up, and knew eachother from school. We fooled around sometimes and the rest is history.

I'm ashamed to say but both our parents have been exceptionally controlling in both our lives up until the divorce, and both my ex and me were too much of a pushover to do anything about it. When they learned she was pregnant, they forced us to get married. They told me they want her as a SAHM and me to work.

My ex and I, we hated eachother for our stolen lives. We were never cruel to one another, and have never displayed any hatred in our house for our son's sake. But we slept in different bedrooms, and avoided eachother as much as we could. We split up after I caught her "cheating" which finally made us both able to break off the chains of control both our parents had over us and get divorced 2 years ago. Now everything is very good between us and I even consider her a friend, now that she's no longer my wife.

And, credit where credit is due, she was however, a remarkable homemaker and an amazing mother.

When we divorced, I had to learn all of this on my own. It was the first time I realised how much work goes into maintaining a house, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I had to look up YouTube tutorials on how to clean and cook.

A few weeks ago, I was ironing me and my sons clothes and told him that I want to teach him how to do this, as I don't want him falling into the same mistake I did and never learning this on my own. He said he doesn't want to and I just said he'll have to learn to do this at some point.

He then said "only failed men do stuff like this and I won't be one of them."

I stopped and looked up a bit bewildered and asked him to clarify.

He said that it is his belief that this is a woman's job to do and that only simps do simple household chores.

I tried to keep my composure as much as I could but asked if he saw me as a simp and he just shrugged.

I told him that now he will have to choose his next words very carefully but I said that he will learn household work weather he likes it or not.

He again reiterate what he said and I said well, if you think this is a woman's job, it's time for you to live with a woman and to pack his bag and to go to his mom's house, as I will not have any of that Andrew Tate bullshit in my house.

My son lives with me during the week as his school is only 5 minutes away and his mom nearly 2 hours. He refused to make his bag so I made it for him, he started seeing the gravity of my seriousness and tried to backtrack on his words but I wasn't having any of it.

He must've called his mom in the time I was packing as she called me as well. She asked me what's going on and I told her what happened. Surprisingly she's on my side and has just asked me to drop him off at hers and she'll help teaching him a lesson.

It's been about 2 weeks now that he lives with his mom, and she has been reinforcing the household chores on him. He's called me multiple times to apologise and asking me to come back, his mom and I agreed he's going to stick this up for a week or 2 after the holidays, and make him commute to school and do lesser household chores; and them let him come back to me to reinforce the consequence of his "belief"

My friends that I spend Christmas with yesterday said I was rather hard and it was a dick move to uproot his life like this and it was an AH thing to do. So now I am questioning myself, was I the AH here?

I come from poverty. It is what it is, I had a VERY rich childhood in all the ways except financially. Christmas was saved for year round, and we got one thing to wear, one book, and one fun thing. My husband comes from a family that grossed $300k a year and Christmas was always a massive show off. Each kid had $2000+ under the tree, easy.

My husband and I started dating five years ago and have been married for 2.5. We’ve clawed our way up in life (he was not given financial help as an adult) and this year is the first time we can spend some decent money on Christmas.

He has been wanting a guitar for some time. He has never played and has expressed interest so many times, but we couldn’t do it financially. I did lots of research and from what I saw, beginners guitars were $150ish and went from there, up to your $5k+ for really nice ones. I AGONIZED over what I was going to choose, and ended up telling him to cut the budget for me so that I could surprise him with a really nice gift (so I thought). My original budget was $500 but I really wanted to go big or go home. It ended up being around $900 CAD, plus $200 for accessories or so. Being able to spend that amount is just… unfathomable for a former poor kid. But I did it because he deserves it, we finally have the means, and I was BEYOND excited to see his face light up!

Christmas morning comes and the tree gifts wait until his family arrives. I am basically giddy at this point with excitement. Our turn comes for couple gifts and I bring the guitar case out from its hiding place. He’s SO excited and opens the case, revealing the guitar. And then…

“Oh, thanks babe. Never heard of this brand.” Not the overwhelming joy I was hoping for, but it’s not about me, right?

His brother says, “Awe, it’s nice. A decent cheapy one to start out with.”

His dad chimes in, having played in his 20’s, and says it’s known for its lower end models, and they’d be happy to chip in for a “nice” one next year if he sticks with it.

I have never felt such a punch to the gut. I assume I’m overthinking as per usual, but I am still so devastated from this ten seconds of today and I can’t even really verbalize why. It felt like I was 9 years old again, trying to be excited about my new Aeropostale hoodie with my friend that got a MacBook and a Disney trip for Christmas. I think those comments affected how my husband viewed it too, because he hasn’t touched it since, despite wanting it so badly for years.

I guess I’m just venting. I feel so small and I just had to get it out ☹️

First Wave Millennials born between 1981-1991 (or so-called Elder/Older or 80s Millennials) do you miss the good old days? by the good old days, I mean a time before pre-internet, social media, and smartphones. since we were kind of the last group of the Millennials (born between 1981-1996) who didn't grow up with those things until they were adolescents or adults.