I am completely shell-shocked and running on no sleep. I've been with a man (44) for 5 years. I thought he was a divorced single dad living with his parents due to debt. The reality has just exploded and it is a total horror show.

• He met me on a dating app claiming he was single/divorced. He has kept me completely isolated from his home, parents, and workplace for 5 years. I never even had his physical address, and after he kept cancelling and postponing my meeting his parents these past few months - he’s finally admitted last week they have no idea I exist.
• He also admitted he lied about where his parents actually live in Cheshire just to make them sound wealthier than they are.
• He completely hid the fact that he has a second son (9 years old) from me for 5 whole years, and only just dropped that bombshell. I was only aware he had a 14 year old son.
• He claims his wife (ex wife as he told me) tragically died of terminal illness (breast cancer) in May. He flashed a quick snippet photo of a death certificate to me where I only saw the date, no name last week when it all came to a complete head.
• He is now spinning a tragic story about becoming a "widowed dad" to care for his two sons, but now wants to start afresh and wants me to stage a fake "accidental park meeting" to introduce our kids and lie to them about our 5-year timeline.
• He let slip his debts were caused by a gambling addiction, and the police were called to his house last October because debt collectors were pounding on the door. He claims his late wife cut him out of the will and put the house in a trust for the kids because her mother hated him.

I've worked in schools for a long time. The challenging schools used open evening to try and persuade families they wanted their DC to attend - empty places cost money and add even more challenge to the school.

However, in every one of the "good", oversubscribed schools the HT used them to put off families they didn't like the look/feel of.

E.g. in a small infant school the HT insisted on doing all the tours herself. Then at any mention of SEND would be most unethusiastic about how the school might be able to meet the child's needs, even suggesting other schools locally who might be better placed to do it.

A Grammar school made a big deal of all the expensive trips and extra curricular activities, you may think to show depth in their offer, but the strategy was to put off less afuulent families.

The one doing the rounds currently is behaviour. The school's (often Trust's) behaviour policy is designed to create a positive learning environment, but the school won't suit pupils or families who will challenge that....

Sensible management or wholly unethical?

Hello, new poster to this. Background is...

Partner and I both work. I pay bills, house, cars, heat, light, taxes. I then pay most food and days out as family and most kids clubs. I don't pay for kids clothes/presents/holiday and partner travel to work.

Things being getting more expensive now so I have given up some hobbies as couldn't afford. Partner hasn't, and has quite an expensive creative hobby thats also good for mental health.

Partner was giving me £100 per month to help with bills, but has said can't anymore as has 35k of debt spent on some holiday but alot of creative stuff and we went through a period where we would see around 10-15 parcels from online auction sites a day.

Partner spends alot of time at creative hobby or researching it, I do most of domestic stuff now and get up early at weekend to make headway on that as work gets in way in week.

Friends say they have always paid a share of income as a rough percentage towards bills, not just one person getting, that's before sharing holiday expense.

Is this normal? Feel kinda trapped, nothing to show for 35k debt and everything gone up so much of late feels like I am cutting back but everything the same for partner.

Suddenly needed to use the toilet (ibs) in M&S, a lady walked in and kept saying. "Oh god it stinks in here!" Over and over again to everyone in the queue.
aibu or is that a bit mean!? It's a toilet after all. I ended up having to stay in the cubicle for ages because then i was too embarrassed to walk out after she'd been telling everyone over and over again that it stinks.
i did flush multiple times to try and avoid too much smell but I'm not sure what else I could have done.

still discussing the delightful escapades of our favourite twosome!

DH has 2 previous children from ex wife, i have my own ds and we share a child together. my husband bought our house, put in his own deposit and his name only on mortgage as i had bad credit and currently in a debt management plan trying to get debt free.
i do pay towards house household and bills etc
topic came up if were to pass away before me, he said the house would be paid off and could remain living there. but when and if house was sold his assets and property would be split 4 ways 25% each to his 2 dc our child and me. nothing to my own child who is his stepdaughter. what are people’s thoughts on this ? i feel i suppose its fair as its all his money and not mine.
i will one day inherit from my parents and i would split that between my own 2 children so i suppose its fair. my step children will also inherit a large amount from their own mother. ak

i’m honestly exhausted and don’t really know what i’m expecting people to say. ds is 3 and 8 months and he left his old nursery in July to start school nursery in September and since then everything seems to be getting worse. He’s hitting, pushing, scratching, throwing things, running away when he’s told no, taking his nappy off and coming out with things that make me just stare at him because i have no idea where he’s got them from. I’m dealing with it all day and by the evening i’m just completely done.

Before July he was difficult but difficult in a normal 3 year old way. He had tantrums, shouted, didn’t like sharing and could push if he was cross but he was also affectionate and funny and could play nicely. This has really only been like this since July so i don’t think it’s SEN because surely if it was something like that he would have always been like this? It feels like something has changed rather than this being how he’s always been. His old nursery never raised anything like this with me and he was there until July, so i keep thinking something must have changed.

He’s still in nappies. I tried potty training in August and it was a complete failure so i stopped because i couldn’t cope with another battle. Since July he’s started taking his nappy off constantly. He’ll pull it off and throw it across his bedroom, wee on the floor and then laugh when i ask him why he’s done it. He sometimes takes all his clothes off as well and runs around naked refusing to get dressed. At school nursery he’s pulled his trousers and nappy down during free play and apparently tried to get another child to take theirs off too. He thinks it’s hilarious when i tell him to stop and doesn’t seem embarrassed at all.

The things he says are getting worse too. He says “i’m gonna kill you”, “i hate you”, “you’re dead”, “shut up you stupid bitch”, “fuck off you idiot” and “you fucking bastard”. He’ll say “you’re a fucking dickhead” if i take something away and “what the fuck are you doing” if i tell him to stop something. He doesn’t even say them properly sometimes, it’s more like he’s repeating phrases he’s heard without knowing what half of them mean. I don’t use this language at all, let alone around him. I don’t swear at him or talk about adult things around him so i genuinely don’t know where he’s getting it from.

Sometimes he’ll just repeat a phrase over and over even though he clearly doesn’t understand it. I’ve asked him what “i’m gonna kill you” means and he just says “kill you” back and laughs. He has apparently said to a nursery child “fuck off you little shit” because they wouldn’t give him a toy. Another time he told a member of staff “i’m going to fucking smash your face in”. I honestly don’t know where a 3 year old even learns to put words together like that. If i ask him where he heard something he either says “nursery” or starts laughing and changes the subject.

His behaviour generally is awful at the moment. He’ll throw his food on the floor, tip drinks over deliberately, spit, scream, kick doors, throw toys at the wall and hit me when i try to stop him. He has started biting himself when he’s angry and banging his head against the sofa. If i tell him no he’ll sometimes run into another room and start pulling things off shelves. He can be playing perfectly happily and then suddenly hit dd because she touched something he wanted. He doesn’t seem to think about what he’s doing at all until afterwards and sometimes he just laughs when i’ve told him someone is hurt. He’ll also deliberately do things i’ve just told him not to do and then watch my face to see what i do.

dd is 1 and 2 months and i’m finding that the hardest part. He can be lovely with her and then suddenly push her over, grab her arm, pull toys away from her or shout right in her face. Once he pushed her backwards and she hit her head on the floor and another time he put a cushion over her while she was lying down. I pulled it away straight away and she was fine but it scared me. He has also thrown toys at her, kicked her toys into her and once squeezed her face when she was crying. I don’t think he was trying to seriously hurt her but i can’t take the risk so i don’t leave them alone together anymore. I’m constantly watching him when he’s near her and it’s exhausting.

Nursery are seeing the same sort of thing. He’s hitting and pushing other children, scratching, grabbing toys, throwing toys at people and running away from staff. He’s apparently knocked a child over deliberately and scratched another child. He refuses to sit down when asked, shouts over adults, climbs on furniture, empties boxes of toys onto the floor and sometimes just runs around the room screaming. They’ve told me he’s had to be taken away from other children because he was trying to hit them. He’s also apparently told another child “i’m going to fucking kill you” which obviously made me feel even worse. They’ve now asked me to come in and talk about it because they’re concerned about how much it’s happening.

I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like i’m saying “don’t hit”, “don’t throw”, “get dressed”, “leave her alone”, “use nice words”, “don’t take your nappy off” about a hundred times a day and none of it is sinking in. I’m not saying he’s a horrible child because he isn’t. He’s my little boy and i love him, but i’m finding his behaviour really difficult to cope with now and i’m worried about what happens if he carries on like this at nursery.

I haven’t spoken to the GP yet because i don’t even know what i’d say without sounding ridiculous. I keep thinking maybe i’m making a big thing out of normal toddler behaviour but then nursery tell me he’s hurt another child and i think no, this isn’t normal for him. It’s only really been this way since July, when he left his old nursery, and that’s why i don’t think it’s something he’s always had. I just don’t know what i’m supposed to do with him.

Nursery want to meet me tomorrow and i’m dreading it because i don’t know what they’re going to say or what i’m supposed to ask them for. Do i ask for an urgent referral somewhere? I don’t even know where i’d be referred to or whether they’d just laugh at me because he’s three. Do i ask the GP, nursery SENCO or someone else? I don’t want him being labelled as the naughty child when he’s only just started but i also can’t keep pretending everything is fine when he’s hurting dd, hurting other children and saying things like “i’m gonna fucking kill you” all day. Has anyone had a child suddenly change like this around 3/4? I’m so tired and honestly don’t know what to do next and I’m worried they’ll refer to social services if this carries on because it is concerning

How long did it take you to recover from emotional/flirting betrayal? If you chose to stay and work on your relationship.

I only found out a few days ago and I feel like I won’t ever be okay again. It is a very complicated situation with deep wounds.

This eBay seller is having a laugh, surely?

As the title says, I hope I am not alone in living in dread of Christmas. This rising sense of panic starts about now and ends when I load them all on the train back to London on the 27th.
I have adult children, all in their 40s. They are well off (more than I could have ever dreamed of) and have very busy jobs.
Because the DH and I are retired, it's " Oh, good news. We are coming to you this Christmas".
Now, while most parents would be overjoyed, I struggle...the reason: VEGANS.

Not just your easygoing (is there such a thing) vegan, but no onions. Garlic, chives, nightshades (whatever the hell that is), no alcohol (including in the pudding), no nuts, no flour, no dairy.
I know you will think... well, make them bring their own food, but two travel by train from London and so can't really drag everything with them.
Last Christmas I really tried; I cooked beforehand, got the local bakery to make special mince pies, the local vegan cafe did some great salads and soup.

My son sniffed at the food and said, "I can smell garlic." - I felt my heart sink as I scraped £80 worth of salads into the bin.

I realise, as friends and my DH have said, ask them what they want to eat, buy it and tell them to cook it. But it's more than that - my husband is an absolute darling of a man and loves cooking and a traditional Christmas, but he is older now and a bit precious around his kitchen. So now the kitchen will be reduced to my daughter-in-law (who I love more than my next 3 minutes of oxygen) peeling endless potatoes and getting underfoot.

My biggest problem is that I am trying so hard to make Christmas joyous, and this requires me to keep the peace all the time. My daughter-in-law is incredibly brilliant but autistic, so she has no filter and just argues with everything she does not agree with. We do not share the same political ideas but hell's teeth she will not shut up. So certain subjects such as politics, religion, food and certain jokes are off the table. My son is incredibly docile and lets her have her way. Last year my DH said that he has never felt so insulted in his own home in his life....with the picking at the food and my son spending most of the lunchtime meal on the phone to his father back home.

Thank goodness my daughter, also a vegan but much easier to please, is coming - she helps me drink a lot more than I should, so things go a bit easier. My son-in-law is a carnivore like us and super easy to please.

I know what I have to do but I'm really on here to say.....anyone feel the same or am I making a massive pain in the arse for myself.

As in actually watched it and didn’t just doom scroll the commentary? It was bold and honest and pragmatic and actually made me hopeful that we have someone at the helm with a vision for a better tomorrow who has Britain’s best interests at heart.

The National Care Service is a masterstroke, paid for out of scrapping the triple lock and the very real savings of reducing NHS bills on A&E and hospital beds for elderly who should be in care but have nowhere to go.

Scrapping right to buy and increasing council control of housing, boosting the technical education track for young people, pushing renewables, nuclear and energy sovereignty, public control of key utilities for water to get bills down and reduce pollution, investing in people & getting them back to work, leasehold reform by Christmas and everyone’s energy bill will be reduced by fast tracking decoupling energy prices from global gas pricing and by having no VAT on energy bills by TOMORROW!

You can watch the whole thing here and be directly informed instead of getting your perspective filtered through all the bots and misinformation peddlers online m.youtube.com/watch?v=jyjTT_55Gi0

Hi. Due to having body dysmophier, I can't face getting my hair dyed at a salon. I need to dye it as I have some full grown grey hairs now. I need to find a shop brought box dye that really is the colour on the box. They all come out so dark. I will attach a photo of my current colour if anyone can help at all? Thanks

We are on a household income of 45k a year. I work term time on a support staff salary, and partner is full time on a basic salary. After all out bills have been delegated this month (inc all bills and food etc) we are left with £150 to play with. This is for days out, treats and bits and bobs for the kids. I am grateful we do have some left as I know some don’t , but how are people affording nice things like holidays? It honestly baffles me that on minimum wages people can’t love comfortable anymore.

Can I have opinions on these trousers please 🙏. I’ve ordered them and they fit beautifully. Couldn’t be better. I’m just not 100% sure about them, probably because I rarely pay full price for anything.

My dad is widowed and in his 80s. I asked him a year ago if he could loan my niece, his grand daughter (to my estranged brother) £1000 as she was literally on the brink of being evicted. He has the money but refused as 'I might not get it back'.
Fair enough, but she's in his will and I tried to reason that this could be part of her inheritance. He then said he was broke, he's not. I loaned her the money and she repaid me in installments.
Fast forward to now and I find that he's paid for my younger sister and her friend to go on a14 day med cruise.
I'm livid, not because I didn't get to go, but that he wouldn't loan my niece some money.
I get he can spend his money how he likes but AIBU to be annoyed?

Friend/old colleague. I last saw her in early July, I asked if she fancied having a coffee (and I'll happily travel to her, she lives about 8 miles from me).
She said 'we'll plan it when my daughter is settled in her new year'. Her daughter is going into year 9 I believe.

That was about 3 weeks ago, I just asked her to let me know what date was best then, no point chasing it. I just think, I'm asking you to meet for an hour for a coffee, not a 2-week holiday or something, and I'm travelling to you.

I'll probably be told I 'don't get it' because I don't have children but it just sounds a bit ott, will she not associate with anyone else until she deems her child settled in? Yes it sounds harsh, then people say 'just go and find new friends' but most people my age are the same sadly so it's not easy.

To me this is actually not a hugely left wing proposal as middle classes with occupational and private pensions will not notice the reduced increases in state pension significantly.

However poorer pensioners with little other pension provision may be impacted a lot to essentially fund a care service that will be disprotioanrly help the middle classes as their life expectancy is greater.

Is it fair that our poorest pensioners get less to support a care service which would mean a millionaire pensioner would not nèed to sell their assets to access it?

A very fancy and couturey fashiony party; guests will be wearing CHANEL but my speed (and budget) is a lot more like Boden. What would you do? I wonder if there is something chic I should target on Vinted or Vestaire (or somewhere else?)? Rixo maybe?

And absolutely I could just wear something in my wardrobe but it would be great to hear any inspiration!

How would you style this dress?

Bare legs and shiny black high heels is my thought?

It's for a party night in November.

Looking for advice/guidance — keeping my baby as a single mum
I’m 37 and have recently found out I’m pregnant. I’m only around 5 weeks, so I have a lot to think about and I’m feeling incredibly anxious about whether I can realistically make this work.
The baby’s dad and I are no longer together. The relationship wasn’t healthy and we’ve decided to separate. He has said he wants to support me and the baby, but he doesn’t earn a huge amount himself, so realistically I don’t think I can rely on him financially to make everything work.
My financial situation is a bit complicated. I currently have around £97,000 in savings, but my income is relatively low. I’m a casual support worker and usually earn around £1,200 a month, sometimes a little more depending on how many shifts I get.
I’m also currently living with my mum, who is unwell, and I know I need to find somewhere else to live regardless. If I continue with the pregnancy, I’d need to get a home for myself and the baby. I could potentially look at shared ownership as a way of getting a roof over our heads without using all of my savings, but I’m worried about what help I would actually be entitled to because I have substantial savings.
I know I have savings, but I’m worried about the fact that my monthly income is so low and whether I could actually afford the mortgage/rent, bills, childcare and everything else that comes with raising a baby alone.
I’m trying to work out whether there is a realistic way of making this work rather than making a decision based purely on panic.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar position — particularly single mums who had low income but savings, or anyone who understands what financial support is available in the UK when you have savings.
I’m not looking for judgement about the situation or my relationship with the dad. I’m just feeling overwhelmed and would really appreciate some practical experiences and guidance about whether this is financially manageable and what options I should be looking into.

So many people saying ‘no spoilers please’ when talking about films or shows that are years old. It’s infuriating. So here goes ….

The titanic sank
Bruce Willis is dead
Rhett Butler left and didn’t give a damn
Kat is her mum
Rachel was hit by a car
he was always on earth, they blew it up
he dug a tunnel over 30 years

Hear me out, I have the uniqlo bags and wear them daily for the school run but I feel like they look really unflattering on me. I want to look more stylish but my bags just end up rolling off my shoulders! Any thoughts? What bags do you carry for the school run, which look stylish

A few years ago I had a dishonest and bullying boss. In summary, they exploited me when I was in an incredibly vulnerable position and couldn't leave. (I did leave thankfully)

Now, despite having them blocked for years, their new-ish local business has turned up in my social media feed.
They are calling themselves a counsellor, look to be doing really well & are enjoying success. Lots of selfies and satisfied customer reviews, lots of traffic.

I'm floored about the counselling aspect. Now nobody would ever believe me if I told them about how badly this person behaved.

I've been trying very hard to live well, as an 'eff-you' to that awful time. The truth is I've actually been struggling lately.
Seeing this feels like a final straw.

Have you experienced anything like this? How did you cope?
I've got a phonecall with my GP soon.
But feel very lonely with this sort of experience.

I would love to hear from others if you've ever been in a similar position?

I like making homemade soups. Like parsnip and apple soup
Beetroot soup

There are so many soups.

I usually use a saucepan and boil everything and then blend with a handheld blender.

I am considering getting a soup maker. I think it would be good to put it into the one container and blend it there too.

Anyone here have a soup maker and would you recommend one?

Can someone explain to me what is going on in Northern Ireland? As Simply as possible.