Hello Reddit! Forgive me as I am new to the online community. Just wanted to tell my story and maybe get some input. I [37F] accidentally found out last month my husband [38M] was using 'work trips' as an excuse to sleep with his also married coworker who lives across the country. When I say accidentally; he sent me a screen shot of Amazon purchases for our children and included at the bottom of the photo was a delivery to this woman. So yes, the worried wife in me checked his search history and email. It was all right there! I learned his November trip was a romantic getaway but this current one is luxurious! A spa resort complete with couples massages, couples cooking classes and monogramed bathrobes from etsy. He mailed her a box of gifts a few days ago for Christmas (how sweet), he purchases sexy lingerie, sent her money on venmo and even started planning a January trip to Las Vegas. I was furious when I learn all this but I kept my composure.
My plan: He left this morning for his 'work trip' but before he left I gathered all evidence of his affair. I spent 4 weeks collecting emails, credit card statements, reservations and confirmations. I wrote him a 10 page letter, put it in an envelope and taped it inside the lining of his suitcase. I plan on sending a group text to him and his mistress right after check in telling them to enjoy their trip. I will also inform them that a letter is in his suitcase and that I want a divorce. I wrote a special section just for her and I want to make sure she sees it so I will be emailing her the letter as well.
He is currently in the air. My group text goes out this evening. Stay tuned...
UPDATE!
His flight landed 1 1/2 hours ago. He told me he would text me when he landed and he has yet to do so. I have text him twice, they were delivered but not read. I checked our phone records and he text both me and her during his lay over. His email shows no Uber receipt from his final destination airport to his hotel. She must have picked him up. Something I probably should have clarified in my OP. She lives in the state he is visiting. So he flew alone.
I will be sending a group text to both him and his mistress in 2 hours as that will be 4pm their time and check in.
UPDATE #2
Sent pictures of our children and he did not respond. FYI he is in the middle of the desert.
My texts are going through green which puts a monkey wrench in my plan for a group text to him and his mistress. Need suggestions. Should I call the hotel? Connect right to their room. I worked so hard for this, it has to be tonight. HELP!
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UPDATE #3
Thank you to everyone standing by and waiting. My best friend has come to my house to help me through this. It seems my texts are going through green (undelivered) but when my friend tried it is blue and delivered.
HE HAS BLOCKED ME! I guess that helps his guilt.
The plan now is to call the hotel. Will wait a few minutes after check in to make the call. Very soon. Please stand by.
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UPDATE #4
Like most of you predicted he does not care, He had zero answers for my questions. That was. the mot hurtful part. But guess what, I have all the emotional support and economic support so i'm not mad. Every question I asked he had no response because his mistress was sitting there. I suspect when he is home alone with me, his answers will be different. I have made sure that he will not emotionally and financially fuck me because I have secured support from family and friends. He can go FUCK himself!!!!!!
UPDATE #5
Called his hotel room. Talked to his mistress and finally lost my shit. He ended up calling me a few minutes later and had zero empathy. I'm shocked, but I'm not. He said a divorce was in order and fought me on nothing. I expected him to be sad, he was not, but thats ok. I started packing up his shit, I have some great friend who helped me put everything in the garage. Good riddance? I guess so...
The Morning After
I wake this morning broken. My house is in shambles as I went on a rampage yesterday ripping photos off the wall, throwing his stuff in piles on the floor and breaking random objects in anger. Now that I've had a nights sleep I feel that I am a bit clearer in my thinking as I analyze the 'conversation' we had yesterday. He was different on the phone. That was not the man I know, but who was the man I've known? Because everything was a lie. The only thing he cared about on the phone was getting the kids. Which is perfectly ok, he should want to see his kids. But he refused to answer any question I had or admit to anything. I personally feel his lack of remorse was because he was sitting in front of his mistress. If I confronted him at home this would not have been his reaction. When he comes home Monday night I expect to see a different man. Also, in my conversation with the mistress I learned she is recently separated.
I called my mom. That was hard. While she and my dad have always been loving and supporting it was hard to make that phone call. I felt like a failure. I know it wasn't my doing but to admit that I made a poor choice in a spouse was difficult. Was this all because of a mistake I made 13 years ago? Honestly it doesn't matter. I have 2 days to empty my house of his things.
Who do I tell? Do I call his dad? Do I tell his mother? Best friend? Work buddies? I wish there was a manual on how to do this because I'm lost. Even with all my preparation I'm still humiliated.
Luckily he did not take his house keys when he left. So no need to change the locks, I'll be removing his keys and sending him on his way. I don't plan on seeing him when he gets home Monday night. Doors are locked, everything you own is in the garage, have your people talk to my people and I'll see you never.
Preparing for the Return
My friends and family have been wonderful. I am so fortunate to have such great people in my life. Yesterday they came to help me move all of his clothing to the garage. His collectibles were all packed up and sitting here, waiting to be appraised. It took a very long time and I was exhausted afterwards; but it was necessary. I honestly don't think he expects me to have gone to such great lengths to remove him from my life. Because I was so emotional when I confronted him there is a chance that he thinks I will want to reconcile. Fat chance, buddy. His flights lands a little before 10pm tonight. When he Ubers back home the doors will be locked. He told me on the phone he was just getting his car and leaving. I will be holding him to that. Something I should have mentioned earlier, the house is in my name only. He had no credit when we first started looking so everything is in my maiden name and purchased by me. Health insurance, car insurance, cell phones, utilities are all in my name. The only thing his name is on is his car. I think he realizes now that could all come back to bite him. I don't want a messy divorce, I'm willing to listen to his demands and try and meet in the middle on as many things as possible. He obviously doesn't care anymore so I'm going to do my best to not care and treat this like a business deal.
Update late tonight on his return. Thank you to everyone following and showing support. You are appreciated.
The Dust has Settled
It's been a few days since his return. For a man who so diligently planned a secret retreat with his mistress he took no time to plan for his return 'home.' He has been living in the basement since Monday. I allowed him to watch the children open gifts on Christmas but he has since returned to the basement. We have contacted 3 mediators and have appointments next week to start the mediation process. It's obviously over. We had a conversation/argument upon his return and he actually asked about reconciliation. I laughed. I laughed uncontrollably. Of course he pushed blame stating that our marriage has been over for a long time. Well, that's news to me. His actions of an affair were selfish and avoidant. He didn't want to have that hard conversation with me about counseling or divorcing and this route was easier and a lot more fun. Let's face it, he likes the attention of 2 women loving and pining over him. Well, I'm not longer playing that game. She wins, and oh what a prize he is! I have been amicable about talking about the terms of our separation. My biggest hang up is her. He may continue seeing her and I have questions about her character. What kind of woman/mother cheats with a man she knows is married and knows has children? When I confronted her on the phone last Saturday and asked her that question she was silent. I asked if she was 'sorry' and it was as if the line went dead. That kind of person I do not want around my children. People who show no remorse, especially when they are in the wrong, are not kind people.
I have found solace in friends and family and thank you to everyone's recommendation of ChumpLady. I'm half way through the book, read through the website and find it so helpful. Thank you again to everyone. I can't believe the outpouring of support. To the trolls, sorry you think I'm an unfit and inattentive wife, but cheaters cheat because they want to. Thank you again to all, not sure if you want a mediation update or if my story is over. Either way, I'm happy to have 'met' you all.
Where is the 'fault'?
If you listen to the books and advice always given about cheaters it all says the same thing: It's not you, they made a choice. MY STBX insists things were bad. While I don't think we were Pam and Jim or Lucy and Ricky, I think things were good. This process has made me review who I am, who I've been and who I want to be. Could I have made changes? Yes. Was I perfect? Absolutely not. But my decisions and actions were never detrimental to our marriage. They were more like sacrifices. And now I'm having those sacrifices thrown at me and I'm being called neglectful. Is all this about attention? A narcissistic need to be the apple of someone's eye? Him and the AP are now blissfully in the honeymoon stage. Vacations, late night phone calls like teenagers, present buying, etc. But what happens when the other shoe drops? What happens when she sees that he has very little patience with children? That he will walk past a a sink full of dishes completely blind to them? When he doesn't pay the phone bill for 2 months because he is spending money on silly gadgets? What then? While it's not my problem, I'm sure his AP will take issue with these things. Perhaps then she will be put in the situation I've been in for a decade. Should she be the glue and hold it all together or should she neglect responsibilities for his neediness? I've been told by him ( someone who is having a relationship and spending large sums of money on someone else) that I'm at fault. Perhaps, but what about the decades of cleaning up your messes? Maybe if I would have had 2 hour conversations with him every night things would be different, but to be honest, I'm happy I'm here. Now reflecting back I see how under appreciated I was. How neglected I was. All these year I thought I was helping but I was really being taken advantage of and this affair is no different.
Just a word of advice to all the mess cleaners, excuse makers, and spouse sheltering people reading this. Stop. Stop now. I've learned that all the 'helping' is simply them learning how to manipulate you. Draw that line in the sand. Prepare for an uncomfortable situation when they start to stumble under the pressures of real life. But don't lose yourself. I lost myself years ago and it's not a place you want to be.
Mediation & The Move.
We had our first mediation appointment via Zoom yesterday. It was very amicable, but only because I don't want to fight and I just want this to be over. He apparently wants nothing. Not the house, not the furniture, not what he's entitled to of my pension; he just wants to be done as well. As I've been packing up things in the house to declutter I've been offering him things, but he wants nothing. I suspect the moment our marriage is dissolved he will be packing up his collectables and clothing and driving across the country to live with her. I guess I should be ok with this as I don't want to be married to him anymore. It just kills me that he will be moving in with her and helping her raise her 2 children while mine are fatherless. It makes me so angry. Seething. The man who was abandoned by his father is now doing the same thing. Something he said would never ever happened because of the mental issues it has given him today. Well, it looks like that, as well as mostly everything else, was a lie. Again, I take solace in the fact that their honeymoon phase will be short lived. Reality will smack them both in the face and she will realize that he can be more hurt than help.
While I wish him well and hope the best, our kids deserve more than a Christmas/Easteone week in the summer father. No dad at basketball games, cub scouts, birthday parties and school plays. Meanwhile AP will have him and her children's biological father. I guess nothing in life is fair and my boys will have to learn that lesson early than I had hoped.
He's Gone.
My STBX left yesterday morning to visit her. I told him to go. I didn't want to spend NYE with him and our COVID circle friends who we celebrate with have zero interest in seeing him either. He booked a flight 30 minutes after I told him to go. My only stipulation was that he is back for this weekend as it's my birthday and I really need a day to myself. I've watched the kids for 3 weekends now while he went to see his mistress, I thought I at least deserved my birthday to relax. He text me while he was boarding that he won't be home for my birthday. Well then... He claims when he booked this he booked a return for the evening of my birthday. When he tried to change it he was put on standby, it would cost $1000 to change, it was a red eye etc. The excuses kept coming. He apparently does not realize I have access to the internet as well and flights are less than $300 with the airline he flew. I told him this and he said those flights weren't there when he booked (lies) and he will take care of it. I just want him to be honest. If you don't want to be here for my birthday, just say it. If you don't want to spend the day with your children, just tell me. I can't force you to be a parent. I told him the flights were available and affordable, it's his choice to rebook. Ball is in your court. That's all I can do, right? Stay tuned for an update on his return this weekend..
NYE Nightmare.
It was 12:40am on NYE and there was still no call from him. I was angry for no other reason than I explained to the kids that even though daddy wasn't with us he would call at midnight to talk to them and wish them a Happy New Year. I was made to be a liar. So, I text my STBX and his excuse was, 'they are with their friends, I didn't want to bother them'. Excuse me? Bother them? You mean you didn't want your kids to bother you is what you are really saying. If I was across the country on NYE without my kids I would have called and done the countdown with them via facetime. I think most parents would. But not him. He said, "If you would have told me that you told the kids I'd call then I would have." He tried to spin this on me, that I created this mess. Why do I have to tell you that you need to call your children at midnight? This small act said a lot to me. Our children are not a priority. I guess he didn't want to ruin his perfect vacation at his new girlfriend's house with her children. He has a nice new family now. Today is my birthday and he returns this evening. I told him in my NYE text that I will speak to him on the 12th, our next mediation meeting because I'm done. I tried to be civil for the kids but he is not putting forth the effort for them.
Liar Liar, Pants on Fire.
The past few days have been strange. We rarely talk (a decision on both our parts) and when we do it's about mediation, plans moving forward, or the kids. We have been civil and communicating well about those items. We are also friendly in front of the children as not to upset them. The situation is strange because we are getting along, there is no arguing, it's a shared focus to just get through mediation and divorce. That's fine by me. Last night while I was cleaning the kitchen I heard him on the phone in the basement. I guess he didn't realize the door was left open by one of the children. Not wanting to be a part of the drama anymore I went to close the door. At that point I heard him tell her how 'crazy' I have been acting. Excuse me? We don't speak and when we do it's very civil. How is that crazy? Well, he proceeded to tell her about a conversation we had and he lied about everything. While the conversation part was true he told her I exploded, I was in a rage, I was crying etc. None of that was true. He explained how he laughed in my face at my rage, also not true because there was no rage. I had told him awhile back before the NYE debacle that I would start dating eventually and he proceeded to tell her that I was bragging about guys I'm meeting. So far from the truth. I slammed the basement door. I'm sure he knows I heard. So I ask, 'Why the need to lie and make me a villain?' We aren't staying together, I have no reason to fight with you anymore, that's why we are paying a mediator. Why start lying to your new girlfriend that you love? How is that a good way to start a relationship? I don't know what is happening here...
This is my concern: This woman and him are in love and want to start a life together. Ok, thats fine, God bless and congrats. But, this woman only knows me by the stories (which I'm assuming are all lies) he has told her about me. If he does move across the country to be with her, how can I trust a woman who hates me because of misinformation to treat my children properly? I don't care if she hates me personally, I'll still sleep fine at night, but now I'm worried about sending my kids in the summer to stay with them. I want to confront him about this but I know I can't. Maybe it's not that I can't, but I don't know how. Also, he has told no one we are separated and definitely has not told people why. How come? You initiated this, you cheated, you are happy now, so why can't you tell people? He told his father that he was bringing the kids alone to visit him because he and I 'weren't seeing eye to eye at the moment.' What?! I would assume he's afraid to face the music or is just finding comfort in the little love bubble he has created. He chooses to not face reality. He has yet to look for an apartment for when the divorce is finalized but has booked another fight out to see her for Valentine's Day. He is refusing to face reality and it's so frustrating.
We have mediation on 1/12 to discuss custody and hope that we can settle everything and get the paperwork moving. I'm having a scheduled phone conversation with a lawyer today to discuss what I should ask for in terms of physical and legal custody when he moves. Update you all (if you want it of course) on mediation after the 12th.
Mediation and Empty Promises
Yesterday was our second mediation appointment. While it was amicable, there was some obvious tension. The tension was not on my end but more on his. Let me explain... During our first mediation we brought up the topic that he might move out of state. At yesterdays meeting I asked what we would do about custody if he moves to this particular state. When I mentioned the state by name the mediator was confused. This prompted her to ask him why this state that is so far away. His answer? "Well......." Then silence. He couldn't put into words the fact that he was leaving to be with his girlfriend. I had to finally chime in realizing we are paying by the hour that he was moving to be with his girlfriend. I realized later that was the first time he had semi-confessed to having an affair and a girlfriend to anyone. If you love this person so much why can't you just say it out loud? That whole situation confuses me.
Anyway, when it comes to dollars and cents I will be fine. He will also be fine. He will have enough to do what he needs and so will I. We have agreed to a physical custody scenario that allows him weekend and dinner visits. Fine by me, I want my boys to have their father. But, the situation becomes a bit more difficult when he moves. While he said yesterday he plans to stay here at least a year, I doubt that will actually happen. When he does move across the country he wishes to return for one weekend of every month to see the boys. Again, I'm fine with this scenario but where will he stay that weekend? He has no family. Will he just be taking the boys to a hotel? Again, I don't think he actually thought this through. This is a problem I/we will tackle when he does decide to move.
Lastly, the mediator said it could take about 2 months to finalize everything. He and I spoke after the session to go over some facts and figures and I brought up the tentative finalization date of our marriage. I told him how 2 months is a good amount of time to save some money and find an apartment to which he agreed. I also reminded him about his promise to not return to visit her until our divorce is finalized or he has a place to live. He quickly became frustrated telling me that he knew and tried to shut down the conversation. I told him I'm happy that we are on the same page but I'm not budging. If you leave while you still live here you can not come back, that is something we both agreed to.
Now the big question remains; Who does he break a promise with? Obviously it's a win win for me, stay home and help me with the kids while you save $500+ and move out quickly or leave to visit her and I get you out of the house sooner. I'm happy with either decision. I just want to move on with my life and enjoy my moments with my children.
Out For A Swim
When I took this dive into the Reddit community I had no idea where I would land. I thought my feet would hit shallow ground and I would be ankle deep on the banks in an uncomfortable swimsuit all alone. But to my surprise this deep ocean of Reddit readers have engulfed me into their warm waters and I am surrounded by a sea of support. For this I am thankful. I am also so touched by the droves of people who have reached out for advice or offered their own experiences as lessons to be learned. To the ones seeking advice I tell them, I am not an expert swimmer. I am merely doggy paddling through this sea of hurt and confusion. Please don't use me as a sign of strength. Because the truth is, I am not strong, I am you. I am the woman who reads because they are suspicious of late night phones call her husband takes. I am the spouse who has shouldered the entire family and is in desperate need of support. I am the woman who misses affection from her husband who is next to her in bed every night. I. Am. You. To those people who have yet to catch their partner cheating but are suspicious, trust your gut. Cheating is a coward's choice so be braver than them and face the truth. To the spouse who is 'the fixer' and takes on every challenge, take a step back. When you help (even with good intention) you are actually just hurting yourself. To the spouse who has tried everything to receive physical attention from their partner but to no avail, their affection is probably going somewhere else. These are lesson I wish I could have told myself months, if not years ago. Listen to me. Or just listen to you.
To the sharks in water who call me a 'bad mom', 'a crazy bitch', 'fake' or even just think I'm out of my mind, you will find no blood in this water. So it's best you move on and find a thread where the OP will chum the water for you. It's so very easy to read and judge, this I understand. I just hope that if this ever happens to you that you will be as brave, logical and composed as you expect others to be. If not, you will find sharks circling you as well. So I hope you are as strong of a swimmer as you claim to be.
If you are still reading, my saga/survival continues. Our final mediation papers will arrive this week. We were able to settle everything at the last meeting on 1/12 and the documents just need our signature. After that, the divorce papers need to be served and filed with the county. Then we await our court date which will be done via Zoom. Yes, a bit anticlimactic, but it will still serve its purpose of divorcing. He has started (finally) to look for an apartment but nothing is to his satisfaction. Maybe he is being picky or maybe he is comfortable living in the basement. Either way, once the divorce papers are stamped he needs to be gone. He has started making phone calls to her during the day and I can hear him giggling downstairs. I'm happy he is happy, I really am. That isn't passive aggressive. I know I will be happy one day too, he just got there first and that's ok. I feel like my life is in limbo right now. I can't move forward because I'm chained to the past. I'm hoping his move will be soon. I suspect he wants out for February 1st so he can go visit her for Valentines Day. I hope for his sake (and mine) that he makes his deadline. I will update again after I receive the mediation paperwork and divorce papers are served. I'm sure that will stir up a lot of thought and emotion so I'm certain it will be a doozy. Till then, I'll keep doggy paddling.
Souvenirs
If you have been following along then you know that there was a chance he would leave for Valentine's Day to go visit her. Well, he left this morning. He told the kids, "I'm going" as he walked out the door leaving me to explain a few hours later that he had to leave to 'work' when they started asking for him. I have learned that I can't have expectations. Just because I would try to be more honest with the kids doesn't mean he would. I was really proud of the fact that I didn't even engage him in the discussion/debate/argument of going. Yes, I had loudly vocalized some feelings a week ago when he told me he was going but I have not engaged him about it since. All I asked was for his flight info so that I would know when to expect him back. He did not provide this information; maybe he thinks I'm not entitled to it. Either way, he left and I was fine. While we had the conversation multiple times (in which he agreed) that he would not visit her again till he had an apartment he has reneged on that agreement. Shocker. He claims that he has every right to be here (which he does legally) and he can do as he pleases. He put a down payment on an apartment a few days ago but says he doesn't know when he is moving. What? The bills he pays in the house are less than the child support he will have to pay, so I think his decision to stay longer might be a financial one. I've offered him any piece of furniture he wants in the house. I even offered to pay for 1/2 of the cost of bunk beds for the boys. I just need him to leave. I have no idea why he is dragging his feet.
BUT, I learned through a mutual friend and former work colleague of theirs that she recently had COVID. When I say recently, I mean the board of health from her state said she could stop quarantining 3 days ago! But what about her kids that are in the home? Where they living there during her quarantine? Are they positive? Perhaps they are asymptomatic? Will my STBX be bringing me and our children home a COVID souvenir?
I'm LIVID.

2 weeks ago my wife’s parents passed away in a car accident. Her father was 65 and her mother was 63.
My wife has been completely devastated since. She is an only child and was extremely close to her parents. They were wonderful people and I also grieve their loss.
The issue of this post stems from our son. Our son is 15 and has been pretty unempathetic to his mother. He is fairly introverted and started pulling away from his grandparents and us at 13 and now spends most of his time playing video games.
He didn’t react much to the news of their death. I have tried talking to him about it a few times but he has told me that he didn’t feel that close to them.
I still have to go into work while my wife is on bereavement leave. Our son is doing 100% online learning and is also home all day.
Since the accident, my wife and son have had several bad interactions. Examples: Wife was crying in the bedroom and Son barges in and asks when dinner is. Wife asks him to make himself something, he rolls his eyes and walks away.
Wife set up online zoom funeral with her aunt and cousins (her only remaining family) and asks Son to attend. He gets on the call from his room but was on his phone the entire time and didn’t wear a shirt.
Wife asks if son would like anything from his grandparent’s house as a memory. He loudly replies “Nope” and walks away.
The big incident came 2 days ago. I was at work when my wife called me sobbing. What happened is that she was in the living room playing some old videos with her parents when son comes in. He asks to use the TV to play a video game and she says to give her an hour. She then asks him to join her.
His reply was “Mom I honestly don’t give a shit. They were old and gonna die anyways can you just get over it already?”
She sent him to his room and called me. I talked to him about it when I got home and made him apologize but it clearly wasn’t sincere. It upset my wife even more and she asked to speak with me that night.
She told me that she is having a hard time grieving with them constantly sharing the same space and him being rude and dismissive of her. She proposed that he spend 2 weeks with my sister since they have a similarly aged son he is good friends with. She wants the 2 weeks to go through everything from their house, deal with the legal stuff, and really process her grief.
I do understand where she is coming from but I shut her down. I told her that it is unfair to send him away and that if she needs some time apart from him, she needs to be the one who goes. She argued that she needed my support through this and if she goes, she has no one. I told her I loved her but our son comes first.
She slept in the guest bedroom that night and hasn’t spoken to me since. I feel horrible and am second guessing my decision.
Was I the asshole here?
TLDR: Wifes parents died and son has been unsympathetic and rude. She wants to send him away and I said no.
Edit: I apologized to my wife and called my sister. My son is going there for the 2 weeks, leaving tomorrow.
Id appreciate if you all stop calling him such horrible names based on this one post. I recognize that this behavior clearly isnt as normal as I thought it was. I was really similar as a kid and just ended up getting over myself as an adult.
Im looking into some child physiologists for my son and some couples therapy for my wife and I. She hasnt forgiven me yet but no, she isnt divorcing me.
Thank you for your comments

So I have been playing d&d for about a year now, and I've ran a few one-shots and they all went really well! I've stuck with the same group for the whole time I have been playing and they are fantastic. My group only likes doing one campaign at a time, to keep everyone's focus on that one campaign. Which we are all fine with. But I was looking to further my DMing career with my first campaign. for a few months, I began writing my own world based around Norse Mythology because I am a nerd for that stuff. While I was writing the campaign I started University and met these 2 guys that seemed pretty cool. While in a class I brought up the topic of d&d and they both told me that they were in multiple campaigns that were always abandoned by the DM. I felt bad for them and wanted to give them the proper D&D experience. So I asked if they wanted to do a campaign with me, they were immediately in. Fantastic!
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A month later I had everything set up, I invited one of my really good friends (who we'll call Dave) from my other d&d group and the guys that I had asked to join (we'll call them John and Gary) invited 2 other people, who aren't that important to the story (but they were great players and fantastic roleplayers). So considering all the players were pretty new to it I decided to do a session zero to help them make their characters, I asked them to make some backstories, look through the races and classes to see what they liked, but I advised against magic users for their first characters as sometimes it can be confusing for a newcomer (In hindsight this wasn't a good decision on my part). Gary said he was going to play a dark elf rogue, and John said he wanted to play a high elf monk. Gary was playing a very stereotypical edgelord but I've read about my fair share of edgelords on here so I thought i'd be able to handle it. John had to keep asking me for help with the backstory, which initially was fine, but he couldn't think of anything on his own for his backstory. I essentially had to lay it out for him. Again I didn't mind this too much as he was new to the game.
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So Session one begins and it starts in a tavern. (I know, I know Taverns are the most uninspired starting point but I was still relatively new to DMing.) I asked Dave if he could start as his character already in the tavern as he was more comfortable with the game and good at roleplay. to my surprise, everyone meshed really well, everyone sat down at the table together and hit it off straight away talking to Dave and my NPC who would act as a guide for their first small quest. Then Gary walked in Gary immediately goes to the corner, which is full of Vikings. He says "Give me your table." and stabs his knife down in the table, I'm thinking to myself, you're in a tavern, full of mead fueled Vikings. But I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt because he was new and asked him to roll an intimidation check. Nat 20. Thank god. The Vikings get up and move to another table. The rest of the party notices him do this, and they all join him at the table as a bit of comedic relief, and the dynamic was actually really funny. everyone was very upbeat and happy, and Gary was always angry which made for some fun dialogue.
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So after some dialogue they are given their first quest, to investigate an abandoned mine to see what was lurking in there, this would act as a way to introduce the party to combat and some basic rules of D&D. While walking to the mine, Gary started arguing with one of the other players in character, and tried to stab them in the shoulder, he got a nat 1, so I made him stumble and fall over. Which the party found quite funny, except for Gary, he wasn't very impressed at all. The party gets to the mine and completes their first combat encounter, it was a little bit easy as I didn't balance it very well but it got the point across for the tutorial. Gary asks if he can search the room for a book, I was a bit confused but said sure, he rolled and found nothing, he then asked me out of character if I put his book in the game. I said, "What book?" He said that his character was searching for a book with a text to help him find a sorcerer, but it was a very specific book that he knew about. I said that he hadn't told me about this beforehand and he insisted he did. So I gave in said he found a book but the language was indecipherable. (Bad decision on my part but the mindset was ill add a character in that can decipher it later.).
​
That was a bumpy start I thought, but it went relatively well. My friend Dave said that he was seeing red flags with Gary, I said just to give him time and he'll get less edgy. Oh boy...
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So session 2 starts and we continue from where we left off, which was them being tasked by a Norse god to complete a quest for him. They were all excited about it, and they set off on their adventure. So after about an hour of the session, I usually run sessions for about 4 hours, with a break in between. I notice John and Gary are getting bored, they aren't engaging with the rest of the team. I forgot to mention earlier we were doing this game online through discord and roll20. with roll20 you can draw on the map which can be a great feature! Unfortunately this time it didn't go that way. I had planned for a mini-boss halfway through the session who guards a bridge, which was a large troll that would regenerate health every turn, but it wouldn't if it was set on fire. interesting concept and a fun little puzzle/fight for the team, While I'm setting the battle up and getting all the sheets ready and my notes all good to go for the puzzle, I had roll20 minimized, and when I came back John and Gary had scribbled all over the map with the marker tool which they had just discovered. This didn't bother me much as the group was waiting for me with my notes. Then when the battle with the troll started I had zoomed in the map to the part where the players and the troll were, while in the battle, John and Gary were giggling to each other and not paying attention when I asked them what their next move was. When I zoomed out of the combat area i realized why they were giggling, They had scribbled all over the map with comedy on par with a 6-year-old drawing on a colouring book. I asked them nicely if they could stop doing that and pay attention to the game. They apologized and said they wouldn't do it again. So I went back to the combat of the game, and then 5 minutes later, more giggling. they did the exact same thing again. I'm a bit annoyed at this point. I asked them again nicely. "Guys could you stop doing that please, It ruins the immersion a bit and is a bit childish.". I decided to end the session there because the rest of the party seemed a bit fed up as well, so they had defeated the troll and then I'd pick it up again from there.
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Session 3 is where I gave up. Everyone seemed ready to go again, I had the players meet some NPCS at a camp after the fight so they could have some roleplay as the last session was very combated heavy. All of the party is doing great, discussing their backstories, why they're there, what they want to do, it was a fun roleplay moment, but then there was Gary. He was looting the tents looking for another book, which he hadn't told me about doing beforehand for his backstory. So i put my foot down and said: "Sorry man, you have to consult me about backstory stuff beforehand so I can introduce it into the campaign." He seemed a bit disappointed but he was understanding. While talking John and Gary again, decided to draw and giggle, but this time I could see them actively doing it. I said, "Guys, don't do this again please, I've told you twice, come on." They were laughing about it and said okay, it sorta broke everyone else's immersion for a few minutes. During combat, John and Gary kept drawing, so I just kept deleting them and gave up on asking them because I just wanted to keep the game moving. I could tell that everyone else was getting annoyed, especially Dave, who had told me before he didn't like them much. So the climax of the session comes. The big reveal, that the god they had the quest from lied and used them as bait, and suddenly a huge serpent comes out of the water, the world serpent, this was supposed to be a moment of intensity and awe, that they were all about to die from this huge beast, but while I was reading out my notes on the serpent, John and Gary drew stupid faces on the serpent, I was infuriated at this point. but took a deep breath and asked them to stop. not quite as nice this time. it went something like "Guys, knock it off, it's not funny" and after a few seconds, began reading the description again, the party was saved by an unknown force which was another Norse god but the party didn't see the NPC who was with them for the last 3 sessions, the serpent had reduced him to a bloody puddle, but while I'm doing this John and Gary scribble all over the scene. I had enough, I ended the session early and said I was done because University work was too much for me to handle along with d&d. Everyone was understandably disappointed but understood, I felt bad for the rest of the party that were fantastic roleplayers and did nothing wrong. Everyone moved on but the whole game left me burnt out on d&d for a few months. recently during a lesson, my tutor was discussing d&d and how well its worldbuilding is done. I said something about that a class I liked playing. John said and I quote "All the games I've been in end up with the DM dropping the group." I almost exploded at him, I haven't talked to John in a few months because he made me uncomfortable to be around (but that's a personal issue that's unrelated to the story, just know we don't talk at all anymore). He essentially blamed me for the session stopped. which technically is right but the fact that he had no self-awareness for why I stopped it was unbelievable

UPDATE* Thank you so much for all your kind responses! This wasn't a first instance of anything like this happening.

• He has constantly asked me to repeate what I say, to say it how he wants, I cant call or text anymore, I cant see friends and it was turning into family too. A lot of shit.
  
• Couldn't eat what I wanted, drive how I wanted, hold my damn phone in my lap.
  
• My son was being treated HORRIBLY to say the least.
  

Anyway I LEFT! I called my brother, parents, best friend. Told them what's been going on past 2 years. and got the fuck out, took half the savings, packed my things, retained the best damn family law attorney in the state, and am staying safely with family. (My husband was also talking to a 15yo girl online last year and I've NEVER let it go. I can't.)
Thank you all for your opinions. It really helped my see that I'm NOT crazy and my kids deserve better, and should never be subjected to it. It wasn't a healthy marrige or parenting situation.
I'm more relieved that I could EVER be and my kids keep saying they are as well, we can finally go to church again, eat what we want, talk how we want, see friends/family, use my phone (I got a new one)
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So my friend "sara" and I have had this pla. For weeks, to get together at her house after the kids are in bed. My husband knew the whole time.
Friday when I kept reminding him I was going to her house, he kept asking what we were going to do. I told him talk and drink wine... he asked why I couldn't do that over the phone. Then he stared dropping hints he wanted to play a board game, I kept saying I'm not sure how late I'll be out. I havent seen her, who is also my best friend here, since march 202o.
He gave me the cold shoulder the rest of the night, even at my older kids swim team parent meeting... he walked off with the other kids... I asked him before I left if he was okay with me seeing sarah and he said " do whatever you want, I dont control you".
Anyway I said I'd text him when I got there and when I left. So I spent the whole time talking, drinking (3 glasses) of wine over a span of several hours. We realized it was 230 am, so I left but didnt call somce it was so late.
I get into bed at 3am,.he gets up and leaves.Nothing. to go sleep on the couch. He wouldn't say anything to me.
The next morning. Nothing. All he says is he doesnt know what to think when I'm out until 3am.
So we have a 4 hour drive that morning, so finally 50 miles in he let's it all out in front of the kids.
These were the points he said - I'm supposed to make him feel "special and loved" and by not texting him while I was at Sarah's house, I did not make him feel special and loved

• He was worried bc he didnt hear from me for so long, I asked why he didnt call me if he was so worried. He said he was "testing me" to see if I'd bother to call him.
  
• I went out on a Friday, not a weeknight and this took away from his weekend time with me. On top of this I call my parents and his parents on the weekends to catch up and zoom with kids, and this takes away from his time with his family. I need to do this while hes at work because he doesnt always want to talk to his parents or my parents. And because hes in a PhD he doesnt get every weekend off and we should respect this.
  
• I text my friends and family while hes home after work and read the notifications on my watch (I dont often, I put my phone in the bedroom at 7 because he always asks me to put down my phone). Andyqay if I can text katie when he's home, why couldn't I have texted him.
  
• this happens "all the time"- I can count on one hand how many times I've been out with friends since weve been married in the past 5 years. I go out. He gets upset because I dont text him and "I'm not home on time". Wven though I tell him. When im with him spending time- im not on my ohone. And when I'm with friends- I'm not on my phone. I'm also an adult and I dont need a curfew. I always drive and am responsible with money and alcohol.
  
• I should have Sara at our house so he can join and I dont leave him out. Why cant I just have friends come.to our house? Why do i always have to go out?
  
• he doesnt spend time with friends because he wants to spend all his time with me and hes hurt I dont feel the same.
  
• he was hoping I'd be home by 9 so he set up the game he wanted to play with me and waited alone at the table until 1am.
  
• what did we talk about for 8 hours? And wanted me to repeat all our conversations.
  
• He works all week and works on his phd (which he didnt ask me my thoughts on) and he's tired during the week while I "work" and "play with the kids"- I work a flex schedule but make almost as much money as him. Financially we are at $180k a year. And I dont spend money on anything. I broke.my phone and need it for work and he wont let me get a new one..... even though our savings is cushy as hell because we paid off our debt and put everything into savings.
  
• and it's very hurtful that I can stay up with Sara until 3am talking but dont do that with him. (I get this, I really do do. But it's also different to an extent, we do stay up and do things but we also see each other every day)
  
• he said I'm not trying to in our marrige to make him feel special
  

Anyway all this in front of my kids. So I'm apologizing like crazy so he'll stop, we are also driving 80mph down the freeway. So I dont want to provoke an argument.
Then the rest of the day when we get to our destination, hes saying he didnt want to upset me. Being super loving. Asking if I want a massage and he just wants to be with me and hes so sorry I upset him. Asking me if he makes me happy and if I still love hin... saying he never wants to lose me.
This cant be normal? Yes I should have let him know, but I also said I didnt know how late I'd be. And we were going to catch up. I should have texted him before leaving but it was 230 am and I KNEW his watch would buzz and wake him up....

Throwaway for obvious reasons...
So I will start this story by saying that I don't think I am a good person, and a story with some collateral damage. But this is a story about one bad person getting revenge on another bad person.
Backstory: I[34m, now] was raised by a single mom because dad passed away when I was younger, but I had many male role models in older brothers and he left behind a generous life insurance policy, so I largely had a good upbringing. However, I was not ever very social and from my early teens I spent a lot of time in front of my computer. This habit got worse as I went to college and it resulted in me spending 80% of my time gaming, working, reading, or whatever on a screen. As a result, I was not very attractive and quite obese at the age of 20. For these reasons, I never really dated and did not even lose my virginity until I met my exfiance. On top of this, I was raised very religious because my mom became really religious after the death of my father so I always thought it was a bad idea to "play the field". The only thing I had going for me was that I had become somewhat proficient in several coding languages and expanded on these in college. I would not say that I am a good IT person or coder, but with a little bit of coding knowledge and a lot of creativity you can create residual income streams and I had a decent job in IT where I could work from home 3 days a week. At the age of 24, I was still overweight and a social reject, but through my mom I met a woman from her "bible study" that would eventually become ex-fiance[36f, now]. We hit off and started dating. She had a 2 year old son at the time and they became the only thing in my world that I cared about. It did not take me long to get physical (LOL) all those years of pretending I was "saving myself" went out the window when I finally had the chance to lose it. To be honest, she really broke me out of the shell I had become more sociable within a couple months of meeting her. I even took on a fatherly role for her son and within 6 months of dating she got pregnant. Being the religious person I was, I immediately proposed and wanted to marry before the birth of the baby. Then she dropped a bombshell on me.... she was still legally married.... to a guy in prison. This did not bother me too much as she had always talked about her troubled past and I thought I would be the one to save her from it anyways so I just took this as it came with the territory. She began the divorce proceedings shortly and we planned to get married as soon as those were finished. I was riding high after the baby was born and I thought I had really carved a place for myself in the world. I even started losing weight and spent less time online than ever. She was always kind to me and I thought we let each other know everything we were thinking... boy was I wrong.
There were a few red flags that I was too love struck to see. 1.) She told me early on that the only reason she got involved with my church was that she was on probation and had pending court cases and thought it would help her case. 2.) Despite me earning a comfortable 6 figure income with side projects and my main IT job, she insisted that she keep her part time job and my mom had to help me take care of the kids to deal with it. 3.) She knew WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE - like what suburban mom with a secretarial job has 200 contacts in her phone? 4.) We kept delaying our marriage due to sick relatives or other issues (although she did go through with the divorce to the prison guy)
Then something happened that shook me out of her spell. She got pregnant for a second time and this time with twins. We had only been with eachother for ~4 years and we were about to have 4 kids. 2 more than I thought I would ever have. She claimed she was on birth control at the time, so we were not using condoms. Anyways, after the twins were born I started seeing my doctor about a vasectomy and my exfiance encouraged it. I wanted to get some swimmers frozen before the the operation because we could completely change our minds in 5 years. So I go in for the visit and the doctor comes out to tell me that my sperm count was low and they were mostly immobile, but this problem might be temporary and I should try to eat a healthier diet and stuff for a few weeks and come back. When I came to the second appointment and the same problem arose, the doc started doing some investigating, but you know where this is going. SO... the doctor says that its likely that I am infertile (this turned out to not be completely true, as I now have a child that I KNOW is biologically mine, but it still propelled the following events.) I mentioned that I had 3 biological children and the doctor looked anxious and started talking, but I was in shell shock and did not really know what he was saying. I think I left the doctors office before they were even done with me. I did not even get in my car, I just walked until it started to get dark and eventually called an Uber to get home. My fiance was worried and already asleep inside and I just lied to her and told her my car broke down, phone died, and I was at the mechanic late and forgot to let her know. I fell asleep and woke up the next day and immediately got on the computer to research similar stories and started to give myself false hope. The first post I read was about how fertility assessments are not true and I should 100% get a test. I thought for sure this would show the doctor was wrong, but I got the test back and within a week I knew the kids were not mine.
The first person I told was my mom, I went to her house and cried for the first time in my adult life. She consoled me and then told me a story that I was never meant to hear. Essentially, I am the product of an affair myself and that dad actually died from an overdose on pain meds after he found out. Well, I don't know why the f#$% my mom thought this would comfort me, but in reality it just gave me an unhealthy view of women for a while. After the story and calming down, she insisted that I "man up" and honor my commitment to these kids because "I am the only father those kids had ever known". Up to this point I had always been a pushover, and I really considered her words to me for about 24-hours before I completely snapped. I called my fiancé and told her I had to stay the night at my moms house because of a family issue and she offered to make us dinner which I declined. At this point, the twins are about 6 months, the boys are 2.5 years and ~5 years old. I won't lie and say that I felt nothing for these kids, but it was hard to look them in the face and I knew I was done being their father. I knew this would tear them up and damage them, but I couldn't stand to hear them say "dadda" to me because every time it was like a knife in my heart. I kept my cool and did not expose anything and my mom did not say anything I assume because she thought I was "manning up". I spoke to an attorney, because I wanted to get myself off the birth certificates of these children and I thought I could seamlessly slip out of this situation because we were not married. Unfortunately, after going through the paperwork and financials, since I had tangled much of our finances and I "took on a fatherly role" I would be responsible for at least the boys child support and she would get equity in the house and my side businesses. Basically, the lawyers said that I would likely be on the hook for something like 25% of my income for many years to come. I pretty much ghosted my lawyers after paying them their initial fee, because I did not like the idea of state-enforced cucking.
The revenge starts here. I started to make a plan to disappear and leave them all with as little as possible. The start of this was destroying all of my passive income streams and getting myself fired. Getting myself fired was easy, but it got a bit cringe, basically did some of the stuff from office space, smashed an office printer in the courtyard, didn't do anything while working from home except send memes to coworkers, but I did not do anything to clients because my boss was actually a friend of mine, but my office mates had a good time watching this. After this, I did not even try to file for unemployment and began living off our savings. My exfiance let me handle all the financials despite both of our names being on everything, so she did not notice our accounts slowly draining of money and the financials going to chaos because I left her checking account filled with a few thousand (credit card debt skyrocketed because I stopped paying our cards LOL). I sat there for months wondering if I should end it and follow in the footsteps of my would-be father, but ultimately decided against it. I got ancestory test kits for the kids in an effort to find who their actual father was, because I was hoping to get them away from my ex, but this resulted in even weirder findings. Essentially the oldest child was a cousin/half-brother to his siblings and so the prison guy's brother must have gotten her pregnant, also I did not see any family members from the test that I thought would be a good fit. So that was the end of that investigation. I also tried to distance myself from my mom, as I had become disgusted by what she did to my dad and her newfound cheater allegiance with my ex. I formulated a plan to get away, FAR AWAY, from everything by just vanishing on a "hiking trip". I really hyped up this hiking trip and claimed I would be in the (insert location here) for a week alone with my thoughts in the trails. Before the trip I took the then ~6 year old out for ice cream and cried for the second time in my adult life. The 6 year old was obviously distraught over seeing his "dad" cry and started trying to calm me down. I guess I was crying that I had to leave him, and I told him I was sorry dozens of times but I think he was just confused about the situation. I was more concerned about losing him, because I knew he was not my child and I was able to form a bond anyways.
I left that afternoon and actually made my way to the lodge and checked in. Now the next part I will mostly skip because I am not sure if it was legal or illegal or whatever but cut to 6 months later and I have a new name and live in a new city where I was able to restart my IT career and was slowly working toward my old income status again. I started stalking my ex on facebook and other social-media. I won't lie, it was cathartic to say the least. The chaos of them trying to get into accounts must have been hell and she figured out that our comfortable finances were not so comfortable after all. Begging for money on facebook is sooooo trashy. Once again I won't mention the legal stuff, but a lot of people went looking for me and I considered phoning the police to let them know that I was okay, but decided against it (eventually had to pay a hefty fine for this, but it was well worth it). I worked on myself for a long time and got into great shape. Lost my religion and descended into a hedonistic lifestyle. I became unrecognizable. I continued stalking this woman for about a year when I heard she was dating a new guy and got pregnant almost immediately. Of course, my mom was still in her life taking care of my "supposed children" while she was doing god knows what. Then on the one year anniversary of me leaving she posted a memorial page... for me. This made me decide that my revenge was not quite done and I decided to call up my brother and let him know I was alive. My brother and I had drifted over the past 10 years, but he was blood and was always there when I was younger. I told him why I did what I did and we caught up and I asked him not to tell anyone yet and he agreed. But then he told me about my mom and my ex-fiance suing my insurance company to honor my life insurance. Somehow, she had managed to keep up this policy going despite its hefty cost. The payout would be substantial (7 figures) and she would be awarded the premiums that she had paid since my alleged death if she won.
Well I am not the kind of uncivilized person that would defraud an insurance company so I started my plans! I drove the 1000mile journey to my old city when I heard she had an upcoming hearing and listened to "highway to hell" half the way down.
I went to the court early and sat down. Now at this time I had grown a beard, lost 60 pounds and generally looked good. I looked so different that my fiance and mother passed right by me in the court without giving me a second look. I thought they would be meeting in a big court room and I was already planning to barge in and yell something about objecting and being a cringelord like usual. But they ended up going to a small room with some lawyers from the insurance company. I decided frick it and knocked on the door several times until they opened it. They were all confused to see this scraggly dressed man with a beard and I simply said "I believe you are trying to settle the issue of whether I am dead". My exfiance realized it was me almost immediately and let out a gasp or something. But the lawyers were just confused. Everyone ended up stepping outside the room and a whirlwind erupted and the bailiffs were called over. MY ex screamed and slapped me and they had to actually put handcuffs on her! This was a big deal for the insurance company I guess and the lawyer's boss/client actually showed up and asked for statements and everything. Even a detective showed up and I started to regret coming but I gave my statement and did not really lie about anything, but I was vague about where I was currently living. I ended up staying in town for almost a month, and it was a crazy month in a cheap motel. I showed evidence of my ex's cheating to anyone who cared and I tried to meet with the kids, but the youngest did not know me and the then 7 year old told me to "fuck myself", which is fair I guess. The police were pissed off and started civil litigation for the costs of searching for me, a detective or soemthing actually flew in from another state to question me. Luckily this whole time I did not get arrested for anything as I did not want my fingerprints being linked to my new name an such. Essentially I had to pay a large fine and immediately paid the fine in cash to the surprise of the police. As far as I was concerned I was done with this town. My ex-fiance served me a civil lawsuit for multiple different things and my mom helped, but I was a leaf in the wind long before anything came of it. I am back in my new city and never plan to go back. I stopped spying on them after a few months of ruining her insurance plans and moved on with my life. This happened some years ago and I am much better off now, but I am tired now and need to go to sleep. If there is interest I will let you know what happened with me after all this.
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UPDATE:
Hello everyone, thank you for taking interest in my life. I only want to do 1 update and lay it all out. Mostly I just wanted to let people know where I went with my life, because a lot of people seem interested. I might answer a few questions in the comments if someone has a burning question.
I am not going to say anything about how to disappear because we can't discuss potential crimes on this board, but look up the case of how **Jack Barsky a former KGB spy entered the US and obtained credentials. Literally millions of undocumented immgrants do this to be able to work for companies in the US as well. Uncle Sam just wants those taxes paid. I'm not sure about the details of the insurance investigation and how they were looking for me, but I never got so much as a phone call from them before I met them in person.
I have no intention to try to seek revenge anymore, because I believe "violent delights have violent ends" now. As far as I am concerned, my ex-fiance's life is hard enough and anything else I did would just hurt the kids. After everything blew up with my ex, I left the town and did not reach out to my brother anymore and even stopped checking up on the situation with my Ex. Having no family and friends and starting over in the world is lonely and terrifying, but equally exciting and hopeful.
So how did I reset my life upon reaching a new city? Well I had a lot of money in cash that I used to stay in a motel for a few months while I got all my documents in order and looked for work. Because I thought that my home computer would be searched when I went missing, I could not really plan much of this stuff beforehand. I realized that without a college degree linked to your name, it was difficult to find a job with my skillset. So I decided to just make my own company and post advertisements about setting up custom dispatch software, editing videos and presentations, among other tasks. I only received a few different jobs doing this and it did not even pay my living expenses. After I did a few jobs for the same company, I made friends with a project manager and got hired at a reasonable salary. To this day, my finances are only about 70% of what I was making before, but I am happy with what I have.
I spent a lot of time finding people with similar stories on the internet and eventually got involved with a Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) group. We basically just talked shit about women all the time and the positive feedback loop made me a pretty resentful/misogynistic person. I went so far as making fake accounts to harrass women online, so I don't want to go into anymore details because I am a bit embarrassed and remorseful now. I got on Tinder and started hooking up with women to make up for lost time. Throwing money around and lying to them became a way of life for me and I would cheat on basically every woman I got with because I thought they were all doing it too. I got caught and I would pretend like I didn't understand why they were mad with me until they left or tried to forgive me just for me to do it again. Not proud of this either.
A couple of years ago one of the women that I was sleeping with regularly got pregnant and came to me all excited with the news. Now I immediately accused her of cheating and threw her out of my apartment and there was just a look of shock on her face. Remember, I thought I was infertile so in my mind I just put another THOT in her place. I continued to mock her for a bit and even messaged my MGTOW buddies about what I did. I openly confessed to cheating on her and showed her proof. I agreed to a paternity test while she was still pregnant just because I didn't want her to get the courts involved and I was shocked with the result. I cried and tried to hug her and she screamed threw some papers at me and told me she never wanted to see me again. I went home and drank, happy that I was going to be a dad(for real this time) but sad who I had become. Like I said, I don't want you to root for me because I am not a good person.
For the remainder of the pregnancy, she would not even speak to me long enough for me to explain my actions, but I totally understood why. When the baby was born(a girl), I showed up to the hospital to sign the birth certificate and at the same time met with her lawyer (which turned out to be her sister) to go over child support stuff that we had already spoke about. I went for a "hail marry" and offered to sign any paper they wanted if she would just have coffee with me for 30 minutes to explain things (She wanted full custody and generous payments). I never got a lawyer because I just wanted to make amends and I thought a lawyer would throw up obstacles to try to protect me or my finances.
I met with her for coffee and to my surprise she let me speak uninterrupted for almost 20 minutes. I did not completely tell her the truth about my past, but she understood why I wanted a paternity test, but did not excuse my behavior in mocking her, throwing her out, and cheating. I signed the papers, but begged her to let me see my daughter and be part of her life. She said that I was unstable and that I needed intensive therapy before that would ever happen. Of course I obliged to the therapy.
I learned a lot in therapy and did a lot of research about the fallout of cheating and whatnot. Turns out there are a lot of women who had been hurt by cheaters and homewreckers too(duh) and that my view of women was toxic to say the least. I cut it off with my MGTOW buddies because I thought that atmosphere would be a detriment to my progress. I don't want to attack that group, because I think there are some good people in that group that are just broken and looking for answers. I think having a baby girl was a real punch in the gut to stop treating women so poorly.
I was finally able to see my daughter when she was 7 months old and began supervised visits every other weekend. I had dutifully paid the child support and made every attempt to talk to her mother and try to make amends. One night after our daughter we got drunk and started kissing which turned into sex. When we woke up the next morning she was emberassed and just asked me to leave, but she made it seem like she kind of wanted to make things work. It took a long time but we moved in together after she lost her job to Covid19 and are currently living together. Her family hates me and this has held us back from marriage talk or anything. Hell, I skipped our daughter's 2nd birthday celebration because her lawyer-sister didn't want to see me. I hope this turns out well for me, and I know I already have better than I deserve. For now, the pandemic has me working from home and my girl takes care of our daughter and makes me food and such. She is still suspicious of me and comes into my office to see what I am doing regularly, but I don't mind. For now, I'm just going to try to be there for my daughter and try to make it up to her mom. I'm still trying to think of things I can do or say but for now I am still in zoom therapy and just doing my best. I don't think I can ever really tell anyone everything, which is why I decided to tell the strangers of reddit. I am sorry for those people that thought I was a hero in my initial post.
Please don't let your hatred boil inside you friends, I almost missed out on something great and I may still miss out if I am not careful. This is going to be the only update, unless I come back years from now to tell you all what happened. Best of luck to everyone.
Small edit: Someone corrected me that the spy I was thinking of was Jack Barsky not Yuri Besmenov!
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Edited to remove the tables because when I obsessively checked this post on my phone I couldn't read them?? Also I tried to, but was prevented from, editing the title. I know it looks sanctimonious but that's just one small part of my personality I swear. D:
❤️ Section 1: Assets and Debt
Total Net Worth: $30,875 - all equity.
Retirement Balance: $0 for me; $20,500 for my husband in the state pension program for teachers. (My partner, L, has been paying into the state teachers' pension system for 5 years. For most of my 20s, I either worked at very low-paying jobs, or supported myself and others on a teacher’s salary, so no retirement for me. My current job does not have a retirement program, but one of my goals for this year is to either start a Roth IRA or get a new job with a 401k match… or maybe both?)
Savings Account Balance: $23,733 We’re moving this summer to a city closer to our families, and are saving all we can for a down payment on a dreamy spot. After we move, some amount of what’s left over will go into a retirement fund, and the rest will stay in this HYSA as our emergency fund. For us, three months of expenses, including childcare, is about $18,000.
Checking Account Balance: $455
Credit Card Debt: n/a, pay off each month
Student Loan Debt: $80,000 for L’s undergrad and MAT. $18,000 for my undergrad and (unfinished) MAT. (My undergrad degrees were mostly covered by the Pell Grant, scholarships, and a $10,000 529 from my parents. L was a nontraditional student - didn’t start undergrad until he was 24 - so none of his was covered. Most of my debt is for a MAT program I dropped out of after one year. I was trying to find any way out of teaching at the time (it is demanding, all-consuming, and carceral at once) and thought a PhD would be my only route. When I got my current job I promptly left the program and any dreams of a PhD behind.)
Equity: $83,875 (This number is from an online equity calculator, and is for our house in a very popular neighborhood in a very popular city. Our outstanding debt on the house is $295,000. We put our whole savings down in 2019, which was $9,000 at the time.)
❤️ Section 2: Income
Monthly Take Home: My base pay is $65,000, and L’s is $45,000. I worked a side gig last year that totaled about $10k in additional compensation; all of it went to savings so we don't budget for it. My take home is $4096/month for my full time job, and my current side gig income (grant writing) is variable, between $300 and $600 a month. L’s take home is $2262/month. My health insurance is paid in full by work. L’s insurance and B’s come out of L’s paycheck, as does L’s retirement contribution.
Income Progression: I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, moved out for college at 18, and paid my own bills starting that year. I won’t include that money here though (it was like $12,000 a year as a college student, for reference). Income below starts when I graduated with two BAs that had nothing to do with teaching.
Year 1: $15,600 (part time ABA therapist, full time baby anarchist)
Year 2: $32,000 (year 1 teacher salary: I accepted a spot in Teach for America for this giant salary even though I thought it was an obnoxious neoliberal org. Yes, I was also obnoxious at the time.)
Year 3: $33,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 4: $34,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 5: $35,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 6: $15,000 (community organizer; at the time this felt like a dream job)
Year 7: $20,000 (community organizer & cafe worker)
Year 8: $40,000 (back to teaching, felt rich; this includes a side hustle writing grants on the side for $50 an hour)
Year 9: $45,000 (left teaching for my current job, quit the grants side hustle)
Year 10: $55,000 (got a raise, got pregnant)
Year 11: $65,000 (got a raise and promotion, had a baby)
Year 12: $75,000 (was promoted again in January but waiting on the pay increase to hit, hopefully with backdating. This money diary doesn’t reflect this salary as it hasn’t been reflected in my check yet)
❤️ Section 3: Expenses
Mortgage/PMI/Insurance: $2,110
Retirement Contribution: n/a (L’s retirement is pulled out of his check before he receives it: it’s $169 a month. Right now, I don’t have a retirement contribution)
Savings Contribution: $1000 to main savings, $400 to sinking fund (This is a super aggressive goal for us and is only possible because our childcare costs are covered by work)
Debt Payments: n/a right now (We have student loans to the tune of $100k but haven’t been paying a dime since they were paused due to COVID. But then the other day I checked and saw they've gained interest? Should we be paying them then? WWJD? I legit don’t know.)
Electric: $130
Internet: $100
Cellphone: $65 (For L & I both. We are on a bigass family plan with 40 gajillion other people.)
Subscriptions: $45 ($10 Spotify; $10 Youtube music; $2.99 Apple data (Why?!); $22 NYT (for newspaper and cooking app); also have a split subscription to the New Yorker with bestie F but we paid for a yearly deal.)
Car Payment and Insurance: $150 for a car payment; $202 for insurance (Insurance covers both of our used cars and my dad’s used handicap van. Our car payment is for our used Honda. We only owe $6,850 on the car and I’m back and forth on whether to pay it off with savings)
Medical/Therapy: $0 (My therapist is $140 a session, and I just started seeing her again once a month, but this is reimbursed by work. I also get an inhaler at least twice a month - that’s reimbursed too, costs $60 total.)
Misfits Market: $120 (For a weekly box, which really helps us cut down on overall grocery cost)
Gym membership: $30 (For my intense local yoga studio’s app which is so great in the winter. We also run and bike a lot, as long as it’s warm enough)
Donations: $100 (We give monthly to our local Democratic Socialists of America; the Working Families Party; and a small, local org. I’m also on an organizing committee for that org. We’ll give them one big gift of at least $250 this year, probably in May. I support a couple organizations with grant writing and grant-finding support as much as I can, which usually amounts to a few hours a month.)
Childcare: $0 B goes to a very precious Montessori preschool, and we can walk him there. It’s pricey af ($1300/month). The other $200 is to account for some babysitting from my little sister when L or I have to work weird hours. For now, work reimburses this full amount as a COVID perk; if that changes, we will have to cut costs significantly.
House cleaner: $160 (They come twice a month and charge $80 each time.)
❤️ Section 4: Money Diary
NOTE: We are masked and afraid everywhere we go.
✨DAY 1: THURSDAY✨
4:20 am: Good morning world! I shuffle into the kitchen in my panties and my slippers to fill up the gooseneck kettle. I recently got into pour over coffee even though it’s quite a commitment. With a toddler, a full-time job, and a Libra sun, I don’t really have time for meditative morning routines. This lengthy, half-naked coffee regimen is my closest attempt. As soon as I get the coffee brewing, our 18 month old, B, starts making noise. I open the door and see he’s got his pacifier in his mouth and his pillow in his arms. He wants to lay with Dada. I help him get in the bed with my husband, L, as quietly as possible. Last week L was super sick and we thought for sure he had picked up COVID. Blessedly all of our tests came back negative, but on the heels of that, he started having major tooth pain and had to have an emergency tooth extraction, AND he got an ear infection as he was coming down from whatever virus he had. I hate it :(
I get dressed and do some chores while they snooze to ease L's morning. I start the diaper laundry (usually his job - we use cloth), put away the dishes, start the Eufy vacuum, and get B and L’s breakfasts together: sunbutter and a little bit of syrup on some banana pancakes I prepped earlier this week.
6:30 am: B and L are up! The hour before we take B to preschool is kind of a marathon. L eats with B (and supervises his syrup consumption) as I clean out some more dirty diapers, brush my teeth, make another cup of coffee, strip our sheets, spray my hair with water to refresh the curl, return a few group texts, and wash some breakfast dishes. Somewhere in here I also eat two boiled eggs with Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and a bunch of grapes.
I help L get B loaded up in the car, and just as they pull off, my parents Facetime me. They’re calling to see B but are polite enough to talk to me for a few minutes. They live a few hours away, and are divorced, but cohabitating. The full story is long and spiritual for me so I’ll spare you. Anyway, my mom and I talk for a while about this couch she thinks I should buy from one of her friends, but it’s two hours away and we’d have to rent a U-Haul, so I think we’ll pass. I do hate our current couch though. Please drop comfy toddler- and dog-friendly recommendations in the comments!
8:15 am: I set out to walk the dog and listen to the Daily’s recent update on the coronavirus. Donald G. McNeill, Jr., says we’re in this through the summer, which is a bummer on the personal and global front, but I suppose it could be worse??? Maybe?? As soon as they finish talking I switch over to You’re Wrong About. I’m deep in the Jessica Simpson series and highly recommend this pod for any other nerdy, lefty, kinda burnt out millennials, especially those of you that are queer or queer-adjacent. Once home, I take my whole operation onto the front porch to work, since the cleaner will be here soon and I don’t want to crowd her in this time of COVID. I LOVE a clean house and I love paying someone else to do the big stuff, which is a recent luxury for us.
11:00 am: I’ve been working steadily in my email and google docs for a couple hours now, and it’s COLD out here. The cleaner leaves and I am grateful to go back into the heat. I Venmo her $80 for the cleaning (included in monthly expenses). I take a break from work and check out the job boards. My current job is the best, and highest-paying, gig I’ve ever had, but I’m planning to leave some time this year for several reasons. The premier reason: I recently learned that I’m qualified for several positions that pay over $100k at similar organizations. With that kind of money we could pay off our student loans, help our families out more, make sizable donations, and L could explore a career outside of teaching without freaking about a slight cut in his pay for a few years as he finds his niche. Or - maybe he’ll get into Edtech somehow and we’ll join Resource Generation. Who knows.
12:30 pm: I have a quick break and pull together lunch: half a cheese quesadilla, a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s roasted tomato soup, and a LimonCello LaCroix. L is on his planning period and asks me to edit his most recent job application, and I oblige. Since we’re both job hunting, I ask him if I can buy a resume template and guide on Etsy. I have sworn off online shopping for the year to curb my impulse spending, but he says we’ll just count this one as his purchase. Great news because I hate the formatting of my resume from 2016 and don’t want to fix it myself! $9.95
3:30 pm: My Zooms are over, my inbox is at 0, and I put up my out of office message because I’m taking the day off tomorrow to work on my resume and do some things to prep our house for sale. My high-functioning anxiety created an ambitious backwards timeline for this process back in December, and that timeline currently runs my life. I work for a few more minutes to tie up loose ends, and then walk O to a nearby shop to buy my favorite candle, curbside-style. When I get there the owner gives me some percentage off because it’s slightly discolored from the sun. Huzzah! $27.25, marked down from $40
4:45 pm: My angel of a baby sister, J, who lives just a few blocks away and is in a pod with us, comes to hang out with B for an hour so L can rest. I head to my good friend D’s place for my investment overalls appointment. She's going to alter their awkward wide leg into more of a tapered, mom jean shape. I have a capsule wardrobe which means I’ll wear these babies at least once a week, and plus I get to pay my friend, so I’m fine with the extra expense. When I arrive, she and her partner have the fire pit going, and we drink a couple glasses of wine together, yet more than 6 feet apart. I learn they are planning to move to the same new city as us in the next couple of years and legit cry happy tears.
Afterwards, I head out to pick up dinner for tonight. We are getting burgers from L’s favorite place as a treat. On my way, the WOLF MOON appears over the water and my stomach does triple flips. Then I pick up our dinner: a veggie burger with eggplant jam and kale for me; a real-meat burger with mushrooms, bacon, swiss, carmelized onion, and horseradish mayo for L; and an appetizer plate with pretzels, pimento cheese, onion jam, pickles, and chips for B. Delicious and unhealthy. The total is $34.54.
6:30: Home and eating dinner. B loves his meal, especially the “chokes.” He calls pretzels “chokes” because when L first started feeding them to him, I worried aloud that he would choke every time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how a pretzel almost took out George W. Bush. Turns out our toddler is better at chewing than George W. Bush.
After dinner, L gives B a bubble bath while I do my own, very minimal, bedtime routine. Then L and I lay down with B to put him to sleep. He has a floor bed, which is a Montessori thing I learned about on mom blogs. L is a very hot and talented woodworker, so he took my floor bed dream to the next level by building a lovely house-shaped frame. The top beam is wrapped in twinkle lights and fake ivy. It’s a nice place to sleep, and we pass out here all the time.
10:30 pm: L wakes me up and we wander to our own bed.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 71.74
✨ DAY 2: FRIDAY✨
4:15 am: Wake up and go look at the clock. Decide this is a silly time to get up on a day off, drink some water, and go lay back down. But once in bed all I can think about is how much I want to read the news, organize my resume, and update this money diary. This is the problem with falling asleep at toddler time. So I get up again at 4:45, make my coffee, read a New Yorker article about Biden’s pandemic response on my phone, and sit down to work on this diary.
6:00 am: L wakes up! He works on breakfast for himself and B and I start meal planning for the month. This is one of my best and most recent life hacks. I found that if I chart out our cooking, weekly takeout, and leftovers at the start of the month, we save lots of money and are so much less stressed about the labor that goes into feeding ourselves. I pull out Smitten Kitchen Every Day and use it to inspire the month’s meals. So quaint to cook from an actual BOOK.
6:45 am: B walks out of our room and announces that he drank my water off the side table. He’s so proud! And so ready to eat. While he eats breakfast, I snack on some grapes and, at B’s request, blast 7 Days A Week by They Might Be Giants. This is the consummate children’s song for any household that dreams of a self-determined world. Over the next hour I take B to school; make myself a real breakfast (a soy chorizo and egg taco); and browse TikTok. Eventually I find a series about this Gamestop situation by a smart Irish woman and L and I watch it together. When it’s over we feel like shrewd stock brokers ready to win money, and L gets to work teaching virtually.
I spend the morning painting our front door and our kitchen wall to prep our house to sell, and talking to my (other) little sister on the phone. She’s an HR person with a job that’s taken her far away from our family, and we don’t talk that often. It is so good to catch up on her life. After that I have a fun, day-off Zoom call with longtime bestie and coworker K. We drink coffee and talk about The Future.
12:30 pm: I make lunch (tomato soup with goat cheese on top, and a savory scone on the side) and get a text from another bestie, M, who offers me a little grant writing contract work this week. Yay! I love them and love working with them. Next, I order our groceries for the week. I get baking powder, eggs, cremini mushrooms, vegan sausage patties, oat milk, ginger root, shredded cheddar cheese, plantains, black beans, doggy bags, broccoli, vegan chicken strips, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, ciabatta bread, grits, bananas, avocados, greek yogurt, and on impulse, a pineapple on sale (?!). Maybe B will love it. The total comes to $94.08.
1:15 pm: I do a brief power vinyasa class in B’s room and take a shower. It takes me approximately two Drake songs to shower and dry off, as I don’t have to wash my hair today and I never shave. I work on my resume until L and I leave to pick up B. On the way home we stop at the park to play, and then we all get in the car to pick up groceries.
6:30 pm: We get home later than planned and eat together: leftover tofu ramen for us and veggie lasagna for B, who is so sleepy that he hardly touches his lasagna. L gets him in the bath around 7:15 and I run through my evening routine. There’s a lot going on in the house - preschool lunch and clothes to put up, a mountain of laundry in our room, all of the groceries for the week waiting to be put away, and dinner dishes are languishing in the sink. L starts on chores while I get B dressed.
As I’m dressing B, my mom Facetimes and B shows her several of his board books. While we’re talking my dad texts me a heart emoji - he overheard B and my mom talking from his room. He lives with a disability and a painful illness, so he goes to bed very early. We hang up with my mom and record a video of B making “P” sounds and saying “I love you” to my dad, and send it over. This is the first time B’s ever said “I love you!” Huge news. We read books and fall asleep next to B.
9 pm: I wake up and nudge L but he wants to keep sleeping. I go clean the dinner dishes, put away the food and reorganize the cabinets and fridge, and mop the kitchen floor while I listen to The Daily’s latest reporting on QAnon believers who are at once totally bananagrams and also remind me very much of my aunt. L wakes up at 9:30 because he and Y, my sister’s boyfriend, are gonna game. Cute! He finishes the laundry and I fold a few diapers to help out. Then we lay in bed together until game time, when I fall asleep.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 94.08
✨DAY 3: SATURDAY✨
5:40 am: Wake up at a ~*~weekend hour~*~!! Start my kettle, clean and moisturize my face, pull out the ingredients for waffles, and pick up around the house while I wait for it to boil. I try to read some, but get bored a few pages in. I’m currently reading How to Do Nothing and it’s good enough, but I think I need to chill on the nonfiction and read, like, saucy romance novels with hot bisexual leads. Send me your recs please!
Waffle time! This recipe is my go-to. I recommend whipping the egg whites first. B wakes up around 7:15 and helps me cook which is cute and very messy. He eats his waffle with honey, peanut butter, and grapes. L wakes up after him - he had a late night gaming!
8 am: I open yesterday’s mail and find an anti-abortion DVD from L’s grandma. It’s Abby Johnson’s “memoir.” Abby Johnson is an opportunistic right winger and documented liar who once moonlighted as a Planned Parenthood clinic manager. L is a preacher’s kid, so we’re not surprised to receive this from his grandma. For example: 10 years ago, when L and I were a couple years into our relationship, her Christmas gift to me was a book about how one can recover from being a slut by getting married and finding Jesus. This particular package really sends me over the edge, though. I decide to write them a short note later that states my own experience with abortion and sets a clear boundary on this kind of propaganda, and includes an article about Abby Johnson’s bullshit life. It’s unlikely this will change their minds - they are septuagenarian Southern Baptists, after all - but at least I’ll be in my integrity.
In the meantime, I group text L’s siblings, and they commiserate with us. His one sibling who is transitioning shares that grandma recently sent them a book about how to tell your gay friends they’re sinning. We agree that’s hilariously dense (and fucking rude) of her, and talk about how everyone under forty is a gay slut living their best life, so really it’s grandma’s loss. During this time I clean the kitchen, finish the waffles, and freeze them for B’s weekday breakfasts.
9:30 am: B asks to use the potty and does a great job peeing on his own! He’s geeked about it and is especially excited to have my parents on Facetime cheering him on. After that we head out on our morning walk. L takes B to the playground and I take O to the dog park nearby. She gets tired pretty quick and we all head to the thrift store. We need chairs for our hand-me-down kitchen table. The ones that came with it are awkwardly wide. L spots two sturdy ones that are just $5 each. Score! $10
11:30 am: B and L are both wiped out once we get home. They eat lunch and go to sleep. I clean up the kitchen, repot one of my plants, water our porch plants, and eat some leftover ramen for lunch. The Marie Antoinette episode of You’re Wrong About keeps me company all the while. 10/10 would recommend.
2 pm: B wakes up and eats some lunch. We watercolor together for a while (he on his big paper, I in my bullet journal), then walk down the street to the local high school while L preps potatoes for our fondue. The high school grounds are open on the weekends, and there’s an amphitheatre on site. B loves the echo in there.
4:30 pm: L joins us in the amphitheatre and together we drag B two blocks back home. I prep the fondue: brie, gouda, and more gouda with white wine. It ends up being a little clumpy but so delicious. My sister, J, and her boyfriend, Y arrive while I’m cooking. Y brings yummy baguettes from his bakery job for the dipping and we prep broccoli, green beans, and tempeh too. We sit down in our new chairs to eat and for the zillionth time I am so thankful we’ve been able to make a pod together this year. Fondue would be a terrifying proposition with anyone else, really.
While we eat, Y tells us he put in his two weeks at the bakery because their COVID protocols aren’t so tight and his coworkers are continuing to go to bars and out to eat. His plan for now is to get back on unemployment and find a virtual job sometime soon. Both he and my sister have worked food service their whole adult lives so the pandemic has been tough on them. Besides the fact that they’re delightful and perfect, this is one key reason we’re planning to move with them to our new city this summer: L and I will be able to easily afford the majority of the rent, deposits, and utilities on a pretty big, and centrally located, house. Living together will allow us to grow our savings and take our time looking for a Forever Home, and will allow J and Y to pay really low rent as my sister goes back to school full time and Y looks for a full-time job. I’m really looking forward to living with them and know it’ll be good for B, too. They leave around 7 pm and we put B to bed, this time without falling asleep ourselves!
8:30 pm: Turn on How I Met Your Mother in bed and the episodes are baaaaad bad. One entire episode casts sex workers as a punch line. Ick. L and I agree to find a new show, and fall asleep around 10.
11 pm - 2 am: B is up and between our two beds. Wahhhh.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 10
✨DAY 4: SUNDAY✨
6 am: Up and at ‘em! Discover I’m out of my fancy coffee and don’t want to emphasize the flavor of our grocery store beans with a slow pour, so make a french press instead. B wakes up too early so we watch toddlers together on TikTok while I drink my coffee, then read books while L makes us all eggs for breakfast. We head out for our morning walk around 9 am and stop at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I pick up Counter Culture’s Iridescent beans, buy an espresso brownie on a whim, and tip the cashier because she’s so sweet and tipping is good. The total is 23.03. L takes B to the playground and I drop my purchases and O back at the house before I head out for a run.
9:45 am: It’s 65 degrees and my run is glorious. I run to the water and pause Lil Yachty for a minute to take it all in. Once home I shower and put on a black LA Apparel catsuit and a marled black and white cocoon sweater from AA of the past (I like what I like!). We feed B lunch and then L puts him down while I clean up.
Around 11:30, J comes over after to watch B while we remove the storm windows from our whole house and clean the windows underneath as part of our work to prep the house for sale. We’re a solid team: L removes the storm windows and caulks all the gaps in the wood while I follow behind him and wash the windows inside and out. Our sweet neighbor catches us cleaning and offers to let us use her power washer for free next weekend to clean up the front of the house. I resolve to bake them some cookies.
2:30 pm: We are done with the window operation and it’s time for me to water all 57 plants in the house. Along the way, discover that I overwatered B’s hoya last week and it’s rotting. Noooo! I unpot it on the porch to dry the roots, but it’s raining so this might not work. There’s only one surefire solution: buy a replacement plant! I try to convince L we should go to the nursery, but he’s not so into it. I walk around dejectedly with a towel to clean up all the water I spilled, and Zelle J $70 for babysitting even though she insists she would do it for free. Next B, L, and I share a snack: crackers with goat cheese and harissa. Mmm. B skips the harissa but loves the goat cheese. Meanwhile I begin to stress about making dinner. We’d planned goddess bowls but L and I just aren’t feeling it after our marathon of house work. L requests Chinese and is suddenly more amenable to visiting the nursery, which is near our favorite Chinese takeout spot. Score!
5:00 pm: We leave the plant shop with a heartleaf philodendron for B’s room and a giant, lovely, perfect monstera deliciosa just because. The total comes to $53.24. Then we pick up our food: $33.08 including the tip. L ordered a large veggie lo mein to share with B and General Tso’s chicken, and I got family style tofu and vegetables. We start B’s bedtime routine at 6:30 and he’s out by 7:00 - early for him!
After he’s down, L preps his breakfast sandwiches for the week and I do some dishes. Then we take mutual advantage of the extra hour we have together. Even after 12 years it’s always so good with L. I fall asleep around 10 pm feeling blessed.
🌿 Daily total: 179.32
✨DAY 5: MONDAY✨
5 am: I make my pour over and get started on work first thing. I have a couple of deadlines this week and the side gig to balance so I’m already feeling pressed for time! I wrap up an entire grant report before 6 am and feel very accomplished. Then I pause work to start our breakfast, which is all pre-prepped, hallelujah. While L and B eat breakfast, I get dressed in a black turtleneck minidress, busted old tights, black ankle socks, and my Doc Martens.
I help L load up the car with B and all his gear, and tell L to be careful. Today is L’s first day back teaching in person since December, and we’re both nervous since COVID is still running wild in our red state. On the way to work he fills up his car for $18.33.
2:30 pm: After another grant report, seventy gajillion emails, forty Slack messages, and several hours of Zoom calls, I’m ready for a break. I finish eating the quinoa salad I prepped during Zoom call #2 and then eat a pear too. I see our Misfits box has been delivered. It’s $30 a week, and is included in our monthly expenses. I unpack it, clean the counters, wipe down the bathroom sinks, take O for a walk, and sit down to work on my side gig grant report, which is due Wednesday. I set a 30 minute timer because I don’t want to be too late picking up B.
4:25 pm: Worked longer than I meant to! Pack some snacks and pick up B. On the way home we get a giant bag of potting soil so I can repot those plants. It’s $18.52. Come home and engage in B’s favorite winter activity: pressing all the buttons in the turned-off car. Meanwhile, in another car across town, L picks up a big bag of Purina One, butter, maple syrup, and applesauce. That total is $28.64.
5:30 pm: The whole family is home and we kick it inside until it starts to get dark. L and I gather all the things and take the creatures out for a walk even though there’s a light, but very cold, rain happening. B is cranky and so are we, so the walk is quick.
We eat leftover Chinese food around 7 and start B’s bedtime routine. B falls asleep at 8 and I update this diary for a while, then go watch Ted Lasso in bed with L til about 9:30. It’s much better than How I Met Your Mother, for the record.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 65.51
✨Day 6: TUESDAY✨
3 am: B wakes up and needs a diaper change. I have the hardest time falling back asleep after: I can’t stop thinking about how I left B’s hoya out in the cold with its roots exposed most of the day yesterday and into tonight. But it’s too cold for me to get up again and pull it inside! So instead I toss and turn and hope it’s not dead yet.
6 am: L’s alarm wakes me up! No early morning reading and writing time for me. I get right up, make a giant pour over, and get breakfast together while L wakes up B. Then I actually sit down with them to eat: B and I both eat boiled eggs with everything but the bagel seasoning and some coconut milk yogurt, and L sips his coffee while his breakfast sandwich heats in the oven. I get dressed in my workout gear and walk the dog while L gets B ready for school. They leave, and I finally bring the hoya in, and start work, around 7:30. L buys coffee and snacks from the gas station on his way to work: $6.88.
9:30 am: I grab some crackers and peanut butter from the kitchen and notice a DMV bill on the fridge I’ve been meaning to pay, but don’t totally understand. I call them up and respond to emails while I sit on hold. Turns out I owe the DMV $10 for paying my Dad’s van insurance late. With the “processing fee” it comes to $11.17.
1:30 pm: Been on Zoom calls all morning, and decide to switch over to the side gig work for a bit. Meanwhile I eat that quinoa salad I prepped yesterday. At 2 pm, my longtime bestie and neighbor F comes over and we take O for a walk in the park together and have such a good conversation. While the context is (very) different, I’m reminded of the Toni Morrison quote when I think of F: “She’s a friend of my mind.” Such a gem, and such a smartie. At 3:30 I start a HIIT yoga class and it kicks my butt even though it’s only 20 minutes long. Afterwards, I shower and pick up B.
5:00 pm: L arrives home while B and I are playing, and we get in the car once more to check out a cute couch L scoped out on Facebook marketplace. It’s a sweet vintage brown velvet actually-for-real midcentury situation. Unfortunately we discover it’s also small and very uncomfortable. $200 not spent. Once home, my family goes for a walk and I make dinner - this grits and beans recipe from NYT cooking. It’s blessedly quick to pull together. Meanwhile D texts me and says my overalls are ready! YAY! She’s gonna drop them off in a couple of days. She says the total is $30. I include a tip and Venmo her $40.
7:00 pm: At bedtime, B cannot get enough of his books and we read All The World several times. He finally falls asleep around 8:20 and L and I eat dinner on the couch, with Ted Lasso. I drink a glass of red wine, which is a mistake: my anxiety spikes right after, my stomach hurts, and I can’t sleep. This is very upsetting as I want very much to be a wine mom. Does this happen to anyone else?
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 58.05
✨DAY 7: WEDNESDAY✨
5:45 am: Wake up with B cuddled into my back - L moved him to our bed in the middle of the night after his second wake up. Get my coffee and breakfast together and sit down at my computer to work on the side gig grant while everyone's asleep. Then L and I manage the morning rush together. I eat sourdough toast, two scrambled eggs, and some pineapple along the way.
7:30 am: Take O out for a walk and on a whim decide to listen to one of my favorite easy-listening pods: A Beautiful Mess. Normally the two sisters and co-hosts, Elsie and Emma, chat about things like home decor or craft making or how to balance kids and work. This episode is about the host’s evangelical upbringing, though, and is a real raw and honest tear jerker. Pair it with this, one of my top reads of 2020: “What Does the White Evangelical Want?” It gets me thinking about L’s upbringing in the church. He and all his siblings are all agnostic now.
Finally sit down at my desk and debate taking Adderall. I used it regularly in college and for a few years after in order to Do All The Things. I try to stay away from it now - I’m not trying to live an impossible life any more - but I also really want to pick B up earlier than normal today, and that means I need to meet all my deadlines and make it through two Zoom calls with my direct reports by 3 pm. I decide to take 4 mg. Right after I take it, three different friends text me at once and then, suddenly, I’ve spent an hour catching up via text. Get to work for real around 9 am.
3:00 pm: Wrapped all my calls, answered all my emails, washed all the dishes, ate some lunch, and finished the side gig work! OK Adderall, you beautiful bitch. Spend a few more minutes tying up loose ends and then gather my things to pick B up from school. The plan today is to go “play basketball” in the park near his school because he is OBSESSED with balls, and I’m trying to do more magical things every day with him. It’s cold but I’m ready to brave it on his precious, curly-headed behalf.
At 4 pm J calls and asks to go pick him up with me. Hooray, things just got even more magical! We head to a different-than-usual park together and run around until B sits in, and then drinks from, a puddle. We panic and J googles “What happens if my baby drinks from a puddle?” The search returns lots of stories of babies eating muddy rocks and surviving, so we decide it’s ok.
5:00 pm Head home and L is back from work! We take the smols on a walk and I tell L that I think nighttime screentime is making me anxious. I’m a sensitive creature and I really don’t want to blame the wine. He’s very perfect so he helps me think through an alternate plan for this evening: hot tea and book reading in bed, and maybe sex, too! Fun.
Next, I head home with O to pot the plants we bought the other day, and L takes B to the playground. They get back around 6:30 and I am very excited to reveal my new plant placements. Everyone feigns interest except O. Then we eat leftovers together and B gets in bed around 7:30. L and I promptly fall asleep next to him and don’t wake up again til 11 pm. Guess our new nighttime routine will have to wait til tomorrow!
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 0
❤️ Section 5: TOTALS
Total Expenses: $478.71
Food & Drink: $220.25
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $109.01
Clothes & Beauty: $40
Transport: $29.50
Other: $79.95
❤️ Section 6: REFLECTION
This week reflects a new normal for us, I think! We just set the goal of saving up for another down payment in December, and that’s when I swore off online shopping both to save money and to stop lining the pockets of evil billionaires like Bezos (no shade to anyone who uses Amazon, this is purely a personal goal & I’m not sure I can meet it). This self-imposed rule is helping me reign in my discretionary spending overall. L and I have only been living a two-income, middle class life for a few years, and my lifestyle creep was a little out of control in 2020. That said, I can and do still regularly justify spending money on things that make life more luxurious and beautiful - like a $40 candle or a totally unnecessary but very lovely plant.
There are a couple of things not reflected in this diary that we regularly spend on: gifts (my achilles heel - for example, we spent three! thousand! dollars! on Christmas gifts in December), and medical bills. Both B and I had to visit the emergency room in 2020 and we are still getting random bills in the mail as our insurance company and the hospital duke it out. As I was editing this diary on Thursday, I received one for $787. Wahhhh. I think I’m gonna get on a payment plan, but even so that it will be over $200 a month.
Last thought: this process got me thinking in some detail about the contradiction of organizing for the fall of capitalism (and the rise of a more gentle and just economic system), yet believing everyone - including ourselves and our own families - deserve to live full and abundant lives. This means I compromise my own anti-capitalist values and beliefs every day, in big and small ways. Discuss?

Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.