I’ve started looking for a wedding dress - not booked yet but very, very low key next year - 2nd marriage for us both and likely a family meal and night in a hotel for us.

I’m 45, 5ft6, hourglass size 14, grey hair and olive skin/brown eyes. Suit bodycon (appreciate not in fashion rn!), midi or maxi length and like structured, modern looks. Ideally sleeves or shoulders covered, though could add a caplet or similar if sleeveless.

I found this Roland Mouret which is a bargain, and assume I would need to size up to a 16?

Or if anyone has other dresses/designers to suggest -
My budget is around 1k (my dream would be this 5k Vivienne Westwood or this). The only other I have liked online is this (bit ott)

What were they?
i have two girls, and I’m a fan in different names - but not made up names, IYKWIM.

when I was pregnant with my first I watched Moulin Rouge, and for quite a while I was convinced that Satine would be the perfect name, but my partner said no.
my second I was desperate for Vivienne, which in in itself is a gorgeous name, but combined with Satine seemed to follow a trend of ‘ladies of the night’ (pretty women) so my partner said no again.

whats the most out there names you considered for your children?

my top boys name was Moss. Not sure I’d have gone through with it.

I bought a tiramisu from a supermarket yesterday. It was maybe 10 cm squared.

DH doesn’t usually buy desserts, he prefers to make them fresh. So I buy for myself and offer him some and sometimes he says yes. I think of them as mine though I’m usually happy to share. We don’t have a dessert every night.

I ate about 20% of it yesterday - it was delicious but it’s pretty rich and few spoonfuls are enough. I cut another 20% today after dinner for myself. I reminded DH we had tiramisu if he wanted some.

Baby was crying so I rushed through the tiramisu and went to settle them. I came back to find the rest of the tiramisu had gone! DH said I had eaten “half” (!) (Tbf he probably didn’t know I had some yesterday) so he had the other “half”. I’d been thinking I was going to save some for tomorrow. I’ve just looked at the box and it says it is 4 portions.

Is it fair to think of the desserts as mine? (DH is very generous with his baking but he’d definitely comment if I scoffed down most of his biscuits or whatever.)

Was it fair for DH to eat the rest of what I thought was my dessert?

Would it have been fair for me to have three portions (one yesterday, one today, one tomorrow) while DH has just one?

Semi-lighthearted. I’ll provide a bit more context later.

I will start by saying dc was quite nervous during his first years at primary and he only had two children he ever played with. He is now more relaxed and plays with everyone but considers two of the boys his friends and the rest just schoolmates. He has been overlooked for many parties because of not being very sociable and we have always explained it away with ‘it’s limited numbers and they are only having their best friends’ etc.

For the first time, one of the two boys he is closest to is having a party (9th birthday). The second boy in the group has talked about having received an invitation for the party. The birthday boy said they are both invited. We thought we might have been genuinely missed out (apparently it’s just in the park, not a venue) so I’ve told my ds to say we did not receive an invitation (text message) and can b-day boy make sure his mum knows. Birthday boy has reassured him my son is invited. He definitely is, apparently. This happened about a month ago. I don’t know when the party is - he’s august born- nor if we can even make it.
I’m sure the mum has my number and I do see her occasionally during the school run. We used to greet each other but I’ve noticed now she’s avoiding me/ blanking me.

Not sure if relevant, but when we invited this boy to my DC’s birthday he didn’t bring a card or anything. I didn’t make much of it at the time, but now I’m starting to think the mum just doesn’t want them to be friends. They are both lovely, quiet boys. They’ve never fallen apart. We are a nice family…

Just wondering would you just do nothing, let it play out however and hope dc doesn’t feel left out closer to time and it’s confirmed he’s not going… Or would you message the mum with something direct like ‘it’s ok if we’re not invited, but as your son has been saying we are, I wanted to double-check’..?

I would like to take my daughter to Africa on holiday. For context, I am Black British and my husband is white. He does not like long-haul flights and is refusing to agree to the trip. His view is that because I visited South Africa four years ago, there is no need for us to travel to Africa again, and that we should choose a closer destination such as Europe instead.
My daughter, who is of mixed African heritage, has never been to Africa and is devastated that she is not being allowed to go.

My husband is threatening to divorce me, should I go ahead and book the holiday?

I genuinely did not understand before how much mental energy it can take. You spend years being told to “eat healthy”, “move more”, “it’s just calories in versus calories out”, and then suddenly your body seems to change the rules without informing you. You can eat what feels like practically nothing and still gain weight from one takeaway, one dessert, one slightly normal weekend. Meanwhile people around you are saying “just be in a calorie deficit” as if you have not already reduced everything enjoyable.

It is not even vanity for many women. It is the exhausting feeling that maintaining your weight now requires permanent restriction and hypervigilance. You start mentally calculating every handful of nuts, every spoon of oil, every piece of bread, because the margin for error feels tiny.

What makes it worse is how invisible it is. Menopause is discussed in terms of hot flushes and periods stopping, but less about the sheer frustration of feeling your metabolism and body composition shift while being expected to behave as though nothing has changed.

Yes I exercise and I do weight training as well.

I know weight gain is not the worst thing in the world, but the constant mental negotiation around food can become draining. Sometimes it feels like menopause means your body now demands lifelong restraint just to stay the same size.

I know it is not like this for ALL women.

My sister, aged 70 just recently returned from a holiday nr Blackpool.
She told me of a chap staying at the hotel, who was stood outside hotel one morning smoking a cigarette and dressed in a kaftan.
I've always secretly wanted one (I'm 56). Yesterday I bought one it's gorgeous.
This is just a what do you think thread, what vibes do you think a kaftan gives off.
To me when I was younger it would have been associated with drugs and free sex. But I still want one to float around the garden supping a coffee.
Any thoughts?

We've had a new mattress, so decided to clear everything off our ottoman. Our bed & Ottoman very rarely looks this tidy. Does this look dated?

Link to spreadsheet of Labour MPS calling for resignation - https://x.com/GuidoFawkes/status/2053925699824574889

Streeting has to make his move now, Starmer will never be this weak and he has the chance to go now.

Burnham might be more likely to win, but he is not in, and where exactly is a safe seat by election they could parachute him in for? (nowhere)

So - Streeting will never have a better chance of being PM, he pulls the trigger NOW or he never pulls it at all.

I did say on Thursday that I thought it would be Friday or Monday.... Tuesday is a pretty good guess.

This is a quiet Bat People moment... That Speech... not worth remembering...

Buying a new house and after years of a white living room (to prepare for selling) I’d like a coloured front room!
The only thing is there’s a conservatory attached so I don’t want it to seem to dark.

So I thought the power of mumsnet could suggest colours or advice which won’t darken the room.

I’m married and have two school age dc. Dh works full time and I work part time 2.5 days a week.

This works quite well for our family, but it seems to attract a lot of judgement and unwanted opinions from other people.

Dhs job is very well paid but not very flexible. He has to just go where the work is, so this often means very early starts, getting back very late, working away at short notice, loads of travelling. We have zero family help and we both agreed that we didn’t want the dc in wrap around care full time. It’s also expensive besides anything.

There are always loads of things to cover like sickness, school events, school holidays, after school hobbies, so being part time means I can do a lot of these things without us having to use our annual leave.

It suits dh having me working part time because he would have to make massive changes to his work and lose money.

Anyway, I get pissed off because I’ve had various comments from people almost implying that I’m using dh and that he’s doing me a huge favour.

Yes I’m lucky to be able to work part time but surely he’s also lucky to have all childcare covered without having to even think about it, to 9 times out of 10 not have to worry about shopping, meal planning, cleaning and all the rest of it.

context: DD22 is an amazing, lovely person but it has always seemed like at home everything is 10x worse. I’ve became a single parent when she was 8 and chose to remain single until she was 18, when she’d be off to uni. I thought this was the right/safe way of doing things, but now I’m not so sure. She seems to think everything is hers with no consideration for others.

Uni in the traditional sense never came and I’ve never managed to get her to do things around the house, I’ve been consistently unsuccessful. Finishing college was a battle, then a gap year, then after much back and forth she agreed to apply to uni (my terms were either uni or a FT, but a PT while doing nothing else was unacceptable) only for her to decide to do it online at last minute. By this point I was worried for her because it felt like there was some sort of avoidance of responsibilities/new steps, but agreed to it because I thought hey, at least she’s studying. She’s almost done and recently got a FT job along with studying, which I’m really happy about and proud of her.

Due to a recent change in circumstances, the person I’ve been with for 4 years has moved in with us. She’s angry, rude, somehow does even less to help at home and announced she doesn’t need to buy anything anymore because I don’t need financial help now (she’s meant to buy her own skin care/fancier toiletries). I’ve been treading eggshells trying to keep everyone somewhat happy. DP called me out saying I’m scared of telling her anything, which is… true? Today after another (small!) issue she’s announced that she’s moving out and accused me of never wanting her here, that my goal was to push her out, etc etc.

I’m heartbroken. I don’t want her to move out in anger, all I want in for her to try and be a bit tidy and not smoke in the house. That’s it. I feel like if I let her move out angry it will ruin our relationship, but if I ask DP to move out it will ruin that relationship too and after 4 years I am very happy to live with him.

Any advice? I’ve been crying my eyes out all morning.

I would appreciate your opinions and will try to make it brief.
I am in early fifties, a solo parent of three. Kids are 21,18,16.
I have been single for years after divorce so I could concentrate on parenting and myself after the whole sorry affair.

As a family, we were left blindsided and devastated after the shock departure of my husband due to his affairs.
we are doing really well now.

I met a really good man, it seems.
only a few months in but we live an hour away from each other so see each other once per week with an overnight every fortnight.

my kids are used to me being around all the time apart from work.They collectively are not happy that I am not around as much, cooking dinner and generally being there as well as giving lifts to work for them etc.
my eldest is 21. She is home from college and said that I haven't cooked in weeks, I’m’ never here’ and am so busy and go to bed too early.
my middle child doesn’t care either way but is anxious due to exams lately.
My youngest who is 16 resents me not being around as much. He says I’m ‘never here’ and misses me.
He has recently secured a Saturday job but is upset I cannot drop or collect him. The walk is a mile each way.
My youngest and I always spent the weekends together .. walking the dog, going for breakfast, shopping etc. He will not socialise with other boys and has confidence issues. I believe that his summer job will help him immensely socially.
He has been seen by go/ psychology for attachment issues. He has improved so much but they each and all recommend that I stay living my
own life as Im
really only enabling his anxiety and attachment. His attachment ramped up when my husband left. It’s been seven years.He has friends at school and is popular in school. He doesn’t play sports or belong in clubs. He simply refuses to.

I feel awful about them saying I’m never here . I work hard at two jobs and am a solo parent as I said. I’m exhausted and medicated for high blood pressure due to pure stress.
I really like this man and it’s totally mutual. He puts no pressure on me nor me him. It’s just a lovely escape of pure joy and simplicity right now .

I am around at least one full day each weekend and a half day also but I want to continue this relationship . My children will all be gone to uni in three years
So it will be me on my own , at least five days per week.
can you please advise ?

My best friends are mother hens who don’t have any social/ hobby life outside of parenting and also have involved husbands and fathers so I won’t get an objective opinion from them plus, they don’t live my life or understand it really.

I'm looking for a beach compatible tote bag for my 15 year old DD, for summer holiday, sturdy enough for heavier things like books and big water bottle. Budget only about £30 as it's a birthday present idea for someone else to give her, but they want a steer on style. Anyone's daughter got anything suitable you could share? I'm thinking something more canvas / sturdy but a bag not a basket style. This is ok but might be too 'floppy' https://www.fatface.com/style/su850912/w79571

I suffer from constipation. Am trying my best to change up my diet to include more fibre. But im wondering is there any supplement that people have found works that I could take daily?
I do take laxido every so often but don’t want to rely on it

Hi all. I've got an 18mo DD who is just, a firecracker. She's always called a happy baby by everyone, and she is, but she's also absolutely savage and insane. Everything is a delight and a game and a reason to get overexcited.

Sometimes she gets handsy, other times she throws toys or pulls hair. With us, we don't mind so much but nursery have now put her on a behaviour plan! I never heard of such a thing.

When she started to be like this around 12-14mo we used to firmly tell her not to, remove her from the situation or toy or person, but not over labour the point so as not to give her attention over it. She loves the attention. We also got given a sticker chart and a set of laminated cards with red stop signs or happy or sad faces etc to help her identify her feelings or to know when to stop.

I know all toddlers can get this way but my older DD who's now 6 was never this bad. She's now on a behaviour plan where the nursery tries to track any triggers or particular people but they're not spotting any pattern. They ring us almost daily now with something she's done, and mostly she's not hurting other kids though there have been a couple of occasions of pushing or pulling. She knows how to say sorry and does it well, so understands the concepts of no or kind hands. But the thing is, for her, it's never a tantrum or upset or malicious behaviour it's the opposite- she's just happy and overexcited and misplaces the energy. She doesn't realise when she could hurt someone, she just has this thrilled look in her eye like it's all play.

At this point I genuinely feel like my little happy girl might be the first ever baby to get expelled from a nursery! I half feel indignant because, why are the nursery staff ringing me to check if I've been using the sticker chart properly when I'm at work... she's literally a 1 year old baby who can't speak yet. She's just about starting to pick up single words now. On the other hand, I know she's more demanding than my first and handsy and I'm starting to feel like a bad mum. But I literally don't know what else I can do? If I tell her off even more she just wiggles away or gets happier from the attention and eye contact. She's kind of feral but we love it and think it's just her baby nature and will grow out of it. But is there something I'm missing? Could we be trying something else? Any advice much appreciated! At this daily rate I'm sure they're going to tell us they can't handle her and we need to leave soon!

Hi everyone,

Posting on AIBU for traffic.

I’m trying to make sense of my DD’s profile and would really appreciate balanced perspectives, especially from parents of neurodivergent children or people who know this area well.

My DD has just turned 5 and is in Reception. Overall she is doing well. School are happy with her progress, she is developing well academically and teachers say she is on track. She also does well in structured activities such as tennis, ballet and singing. Teachers/coaches generally give positive feedback. She has a lot of energy, but can also concentrate.

What makes me wonder about neurodivergence:

• She is very emotionally intense and can get very upset over things that may seem small.
• She finds losing, being second, or another child being “first” very hard. For example, if another child overtakes her on a bike or runs ahead of her, she can become very upset and say she doesn’t want to be friends with that child anymore, although this does not last.
• She can take refusal very personally. If another child doesn’t want to play her game or do something together, she can experience it almost as rejection of the whole friendship.
• She can be quite controlling in play. She loves children and wants to play, but sometimes wants very intense, close interaction and struggles when the other child wants space or wants to do things differently.
• She has some sensory sensitivities: hair brushing, hair washing, nail cutting. We have to put a cartoon on while doing all these things.
• She can be perfectionistic. She has said things like “I am not good enough” and can become very upset if her writing or numbers don’t look right.
• She is very sensitive to criticism or correction and can become upset if we point out mistakes.
• She can resist everyday demands such as dressing, handwashing and stopping play. We often have to make these tasks playful or interesting for her.
• She can be very shy around other people at first, especially adults.

What makes me less sure it is neurodivergence:

• She is very socially motivated and has always loved being around children.
• She has rich imaginative play and creates lots of different scenarios and games.
• Her play is flexible in the sense that she invents new games all the time, rather than repeating one rigid script.
• She generally does well at school and in structured classes.
• She can follow instructions and wait her turn in after-school clubs.
• She has good language and can often explain her feelings afterwards. For example, after one big upset with friends and craft materials, she later told me she was scared the other children would take her things without asking.
• She usually recovers after meltdowns and can go back to playing happily.
• She seems very empathic and relationship-focused, sometimes almost too much so.

I suppose what confuses me is that she is not withdrawn or socially uninterested at all. If anything, she is intensely social, very imaginative, bright, energetic and sensitive. But she struggles a lot with rejection, losing, sharing control, and feeling that her things or her place in the group are at risk.

Does this sound more like possible neurodivergence, or more like a highly sensitive / intense / strong-willed child who needs support with emotional regulation and social flexibility?

My husband has been acting strange/secretive with his phone for a couple of weeks now so I took it on myself to look at his phone. Yes I know it’s morally dodgy but we have each others log ins and I looked at it whilst he was feeding DS dinner (it was charging upstairs).

There is a woman who is obviously a co-worker. I only had time to look at messages from the past two days. He was in the office today. He messaged her to say please walk past my desk again so I can look at your arse. She said she’d be back up in an hour and she will walk slowly this time. He then messaged again (after about an hour) to say that was the highlight of his afternoon to which she replied she knew her trousers would get attention today and sent a peach symbol. That was the last message.

I confronted him straight away and he stormed off and hasn’t come home yet. Said how dare I look at his phone. I have tried to call him and he just declined the call. He sent a text to say I’ve betrayed his trust and he can’t believe I did that instead of speaking to him.

Am I wrong to have done this, I think that if you know something is up then it’s within your right to investigate?

I am desperate to find a pinky nude matte-ish lipstick similar to the ones Lucy Punch wears in Amandaland. I’m quite pale and find Pillow Talk comes out REALLY orange on me.

Does anyone have any ideas?

If you had an elective C-section, when was it booked? I'm 33 weeks and if I understood correctly it will only be scheduled after my 36 week growth scan as depending on how well baby's growing it can be either at 37 weeks or 39 weeks. Just wondering about other people's experiences.

She’s always been ‘normal’ weight, typical 5ft 5 size 10-12. She’s been happily married for over 30 years and has had 3 children, just for context.

We used to have normal conversations about a range of interesting stuff. She’s always been a bit rigid and moralistic about things, but it’s just her personality.

Over the past 2 years or so though she’s become obsessed with her weight and being slim. Most conversations will include comments about how X or Y food isn’t good for you or how she eats 30 different grains a day or whatever. She’s not bothered about her ‘looks’ per se, she never wears makeup and doesn’t spend much on clothes, but she’s now a very slim size 8. She tries to persuade me that if we have a ‘big breakfast’ (by which she means several slices of toast and a piece of fruit) then we won’t ‘need’ lunch. If we go out for a meal she will have a salad without fail and she runs 5k every morning. She says this is all about being healthy, but she is always weighing herself on the fat / bmi machines in Boots. Her bmi is now about 18.5 so verging on underweight.

She casts judgement on others and seems to be using this as a way of making herself feel good in comparison. She’ll tell me that a certain celebrity now looks “awful” and when I google them they actually look fine, they just got older and put on some weight. Or comment to me about how a certain friend “eats doughnuts” as though it’s something she expects me to be aghast about.

Anyway I’m not sure what I’m asking here: I’m a bit nonplussed because I recognise some this attitude from my teens in the early 00s when sneering at ‘fat people’ was unfortunately more of a mainstream attitude and being double size zero was held up as a virtue.

But she’s 55 years old! This seems to have come from nowhere as she had a normal attitude about weight until now (or so I assume). She grew up in the 80s which I know were an unhealthy era for body image, but that was a long time ago now and there is more body size acceptance today than ever before!

I suppose I’m asking anyone if they recognise this pattern of behaviour? Could it be menopause related? She’s also just taken early retirement (at the same time as her husband, who is 60), is she having an identity crisis?!

(I do know the obvious answer is to speak to her, but I don’t see her that often, we are not v close in age and live some distance apart, in the meantime I’m just interested to know what you think and whether you’ve known this happen to anyone in your lives?)

WTF if going on with jeans?

Why are they all messing with my lady parts? Like literally squishing and smooshing them in not a pleasant way. My poor parts feel a little bruised and chaffed.

1. I’m not wearing small knickers
2. sizing up or down makes no difference
3. this is from m and s pricing upwards (via John Lewis to Me +Em)

Has the COL shortened gussets?
have my perimeno labia grown to ridiculous sizes?
is it just me?

Am I really asking for the moon on a stick??

I'm apple shaped and V neck tees suit me. However, all I'm seeing right now are crew necks. They look fine when I'm wearing an open jacket over them, but otherwise I just look ... square.

To make matters more difficult, I'm very long waisted and many tops out there right now only come to my belly button. Not a good look.

About 3 or 4 years ago, m&s were selling exactly what I was looking for - v neck tees in long length (but not long on me) in a cotton / viscose (I think) mix that draped really nicely. They washed really well and are only now starting to look a bit faded.

But I can't find anything similar. So - can anyone help?? Slightly longer than standard V neck tees - good basics that go with anything. Thank you!!

Have googled but can't seem to find it. Anyone? It was bomber style, gold with floral details.

Deleted for breaking the talk guidelines - but how?
I rather enjoyed it.