PARTNER IGNORED a traffic signal and I SUFFERED a head injury in the

An IUP grad school fits into my life, so I can keep working while I build my career.

And you can too!

They have everything from MBAs to doctoral degrees to specialized certificates, all taught

by nationally recognized professors.

With 60 grad programs, I found one that fits my schedule.

So find yours, either online, on campus, or a blend of both.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania opens doors.

Learn more at IUP.edu

I hope you enjoy this story.

Partner ignored a traffic signal and I suffered a head injury in the front seat, but they declined

to admit fault and requested that I refrain from submitting an insurance claim.

Greetings, all.

My 26F, sister Kayla, 24F, and I are very close.

My boyfriend Tim, 25M, and I have been dating for almost three years.

In March 2023, Tim and I were high together and then my sister called me.

We spoke on speakerphone.

She was talking about her job at the Plasma Donation Center and she was venting about how

disappointed she was that this is what her degree, biology, amounted to, earning $18 an hour.

Tim overheard this, and interpreted that she was making a dig-slash throwing shade at

him, a pharmaceutical tech.

I tried telling him over and over that we weren't talking about him, that she's allowed

to be disappointed in her job.

He dropped it, though it wasn't the most harmonious resolution.

That August, Tim and I as well as my brother and sister were all attending a local concert.

We weren't all going together, Tim and I had seats together as did my siblings, but since

we were all headed to the same place, I suggested we could get together beforehand for lunch

so he could properly meet my siblings.

Tim seemed hesitant, but he agreed.

Though the four of us meet for lunch and it was rough, Tim, who is normally very extroverted

and personable with strangers like the Uber driver and cashier, was completely silent

during the lunch.

My siblings, who are introverted like me, tried their best to make small talk but it was

extremely awkward at best.

We all went to the concert together and we came back together.

Afterwards, Tim said my brother is cool but he was on yellow light with my sister.

I asked why, and he said that she said shady comments during the lunch like which one

of y'all have the tickets.

And where will you be sitting during the concert?

I immediately shut down.

Later on, we got in a heated discussion in which I basically accused him of bringing his

feelings from the March phone call into how he approached the lunch, mentally and literally.

He denied this, and basically said his feelings are his own and I essentially can't tell him

how to feel about Kayla if he felt her behavior was untoward.

So we dropped it and I guess left it at yellow light.

Then in December 2023, my sister and I were playing a game and she won.

I was happy for her, she never wins, so I texted Tim about it and his first response

was did you let her win?

I said no, don't do her like that.

He then said I wouldn't defend him like I defend her.

And that led to a huge spat over text in which it was revealed that he lied in August

when I asked him if he still felt away about the phone call.

He said that he didn't tell me because he wanted to observe my siblings and I and see

for himself how they would interact with him slash each other.

I told him that that wasn't his place, it was mine to set up or call off the lunch and

I should have had that information before I set it up.

Eventually, and I forget how, we resolved the talk and essentially agreed that at some

point, no timeline was given, he was going to chat with Kayla and sort it out.

So that brings us to now.

Yesterday Tim said he'd like to speak with Kayla.

I'm just a little concerned though that it will once again go left.

My sister is a black woman and in the last year she was fired from her job, not the plasma

center, for essentially not being nice or a team player or whatever BS they gave her.

The truth is, and this is something I'm not debating on, people, especially in professional

settings have a tendency to assume the worst of black women.

And so the situation with Tim and her job has made her very self conscious about herself,

but she says and her facial expressions.

When I spoke to Kayla yesterday to gauge her feelings on the potential meeting, she expressed

this essentially, she doesn't understand what she did wrong to Tim, but she said it could

be an intention versus impact thing.

She said she's concerned about meeting with him because one wrong expression could have

him thinking negatively of her.

I told her that if she is who I think she is, and he is who I think he is, it'll be fine.

Kayla called me back in tears, saying that by me saying I think I was implying that what

Tim and her previous employer were saying could be valid, and I shouldn't be doing that

as one of her closest friends.

I apologized, and that's where the entire situation is now.

Now I'm concerned that their potential sit down won't be great for her or him.

Tim has been quick while venting to me to call Lady co-workers he's irritated with BS,

and that's something I'd like to call him out on.

I say that to say that on some level he does have biases.

I'd like him to check his biases, but it's sensitive.

I haven't told Tim that Kayla lost her job, or why?

I haven't told him how she feels generally about being misconstrued, because I feel like

if I tell him he will think I'm trying to shrink his feelings.

And to be clear, I don't want to shrink his feelings.

I'm unsure of what to do.

It just seems like a precarious situation, and it seems like every time I try to fix it

it gets worse.

I don't feel it should be this stressful reconciling them, and I don't even need them to

be friends.

But it's been stressful for me.

In the lead up to their conversation, what should I convey to each person, if anything?

Update, well, I want to thank everyone who contributed their thoughts to my initial thread.

Tough words, but I needed to read them, lots of wisdom that I recognized as such at the

time but did not fully accept.

I told Tim about my concerns with my sister.

It did not go well, we ended up arguing for at least eight hours.

This culminated in him finally speaking over phone with my sister, and I was present,

suffice to say, that conversation, and the hour long follow up the next day, also did

not go well.

I mean, my sister explained she meant nothing wrong, apologized, and heard all of the words

salad he had to say.

But she came away with the marked impression of if you like it, I love it with my boyfriend

and she asked me not to call her for any more resolution talks with him.

She felt he was condescending in tone, long-winded, and using a lot of therapy speak while

ultimately saying nothing, undermined his own apologies with more confusing sentiments,

somehow talked around what offended him, and thus seemed to want her to figure out the

problem and the solution.

I, having heard everything he said, agreed to her request.

If you'd like more details on that I can share in the comments.

Even if that was a stressful ass situation two years in the making, apologies were made

by both parties, as well as for me to each of them.

Eventually, and there were a lot more heated discussions.

Tim and I got back on the same page as well.

A few weeks ago, I was a passenger in the car with Tim.

He had the stop sign and proceeded onto the main road, and then we got T-bone on my side,

I got the worst of it, a mild concussion and a few scrapes.

During this, Tim could not wrap his head around the fact that he was at fault.

He wouldn't even say it, and he was shocked as the police charged him with failure to yield

and his insurance found him 100% liable.

In his mind, the other driver was speeding and she should have yielded to him.

She was uninsured, which didn't help that mental process.

As he was liable, I was entitled to file a medical claim with his insurance.

Tim asked me not to do this, ultimately out of consideration of his insurance premiums,

and he offered to pay my expenses out of pocket.

This stressed me out for a couple of weeks, I couldn't pinpoint why, but ultimately I realized

it was unfair of Tim to ask that of me, especially when he was responsible.

It's not that I don't trust that he wouldn't pay, but it's not personal.

When things like this happen, we go to insurance.

If your rates go up, they go up.

Just the deal we make when we go behind the wheel.

I expressed my feelings to Tim, even ultimately agreeing with his out of pocket my health

cares handling the bulk of expenses anyway.

Tim first apologized.

Then we didn't speak again until the next afternoon, where Tim tried to flip it on me.

He said he was being accountable, he's contesting the charge in court, I wasn't being collaborative

in this process and I wasn't being considered of all of his stresses.

I ended that conversation, as I felt it wasn't productive.

Then I followed up and said sure he was being financially responsible, it's more so the

emotional responsibility I'm seeking.

I haven't got anything more than I'm sorry the accident happened.

Tim didn't respond to that, he just said my feelings are valid, he understands, and

thanks for sharing.

After that, our texts became a lot colder and more distant.

We live 90 minutes apart so we primarily communicate through text.

Essentially Tim either gave me the silent treatment or decided I was one of the stresses.

Having my very reasonable feelings be flipped on me was genuinely one of the most jarring

things ever.

Here I was arguing for an hour about my feelings, and then he'll say he'll never tell me

how to feel.

This is also the same guy who always urges me to be vulnerable with him.

It was another week of reflection for me.

Tim sucks.

True, I already knew that.

But he really sucks.

He can never be held accountable.

He is always the victim.

And I just had to tell myself over and over that this was not what I wanted my life to be

and I deserve better.

Not even just romantically.

I just deserve peace.

I need that.

After a week of silent low contact, Tim said he wanted to talk.

I thought he was going to break up with me, and I was well and ready for it.

Then he got on the phone and actually he just wanted to argue about my feelings some

more, this time for two hours.

I realized afterwards that I was arguing to convince him, and he was arguing to avoid accountability.

He told me at the end of that convo that every relationship has conflict, but I realized

that this isn't healthy.

I gave him one more chance slash week to say the words I wanted to hear.

They never came, so I broke up with him.

And then we argued about my feelings a little more.

He was extremely frustrated, and in some ways, I'm frustrated for him.

I think he just doesn't get it, or doesn't want to.

So that's it.

That was my first relationship, first love.

And for somebody who already had low self esteem, this is probably going to be a doozy

to reflect on.

Shout out to the commenter who suggested therapy.

I hear you.

I feel sad about it.

I'll look back fondly on some moments.

But I have so many journal entries and reddit posts like these and conversations with my

sister that will not allow me to romanticize this relationship.

I recognize that even if there were good moments, maybe even mostly good moments, the bad

moments were terrible and just not worth it.

So many red flags to recall.

I just didn't want to believe that he was who he was.

I wish I'd put my foot down earlier.

One of my lessons is to trust my instincts and act on them, and my intuition is better

than I give myself credit for.

I spend a lot of time during this relationship wondering if I was crazy.

And finally, I'm thankful to be alive.

I could be dead in the grave right now and Tim would be telling my family incessantly

while she was speeding.

I'm here, I'm alive, I just have a few healing scrapes and headaches that are getting

less intense every day.

I get to move forward and meet new people, have new experiences, learn new lessons.

I'm living, next story, wife accused me of cheating because I woke up in the middle

of the night while camping and found myself touching my female friend and she kissing my

neck.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I am having sex with my wife.

I don't remember the foreplay, I don't remember getting hard, I don't remember getting

on top of her, but I wake up and I'm mid thrust inside her.

She tells me that I am the one that initiates it and that I get super sensual with my touching

but I have no memory of it ever happening until I wake up and I'm inside her.

Cut to this weekend, I'm on a camping trip with some friends, two guys and a girl.

My wife does not like camping so she did not go.

The girl is a platonic friend, I can't stress that enough, I have zero attraction to her.

We all shared a tent because that's what you do when you camp and the sleeping arrangement

was friend one, friend two, me and Taylor will call her.

I have camped with them all on numerous occasions in the same sleeping arrangement and nothing

has ever happened before.

We all had been drinking around the campfire and eventually went to bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night with my sleeping bag unzipped, her hand on my crotch

and mine on her ass as she was kissing my neck.

I was instantly awake and recoiled, got out of the tent and sat by the fire for the rest

of the night.

The two guys were passed out drunk, they had more than Taylor and I so they had no idea

what had happened.

Taylor came out and tried to talk to me.

I was terrified and in shock.

She told me that I had been rubbing up on her and making her feel good and then she turned

around and tried to reciprocate.

I asked her why and she said she thought that's what I wanted.

I didn't sleep that night and went home the next day and told my wife what happened.

She blew up, accused me of cheating on her and that she was leaving me.

I tried calling her the past few days and she won't answer, she is staying with her sister,

we haven't spoken since Saturday.

She won't give me the time to explain what happened.

What do I do?

Edit for clarity that we had been drinking, I was by no means drunk.

This isn't AI blacked out and then came to a while I was on top of her kind of thing.

It was not a means to cheat on my wife with Taylor.

I do not find Taylor attractive at all.

At all.

We have camped together 20 plus times and this has never happened before.

I honestly had no idea what was happening until I woke up.

Update, hey, guys.

Before I get into the update there are some things I want to say.

For those of you who accused me of cheating on my wife deliberately and attempting to rape

Taylor, you guys are just dicks.

I did not grow up Taylor on purpose and I did not know that it would happen.

I was not aware of what was going on and I had no control over what I was doing at that

point in time.

I would never grow up or touch anyone without their consent.

I don't think you understand how terrifying it is to wake up with someone who isn't your

wife grabbing your crotch and having no idea what is going on.

Couple that fear and confusion with the immense guilt I had because I was the one who apparently

initiated it.

It made me want a fucking die.

So thanks for that people, I really appreciate it.

To those who actually had helpful advice and actually tried to put themselves in my shoes.

Thank you very much.

Here's the update, I spoke with my doctor and he says it sounds like I do have sexomnia,

but he is not too familiar with it.

As far as he knows there's no real cure and there isn't really a treatment for it, but

he said he was going to refer me to a psychiatrist slash psychologist and they would help me.

He told me they might try me on some antidepressants to attempt to curb it from happening again.

I found a blog about sexomnia and that actually really helped me better understand what I have

and how to deal with it.

The guy does a really good job of explaining the guilt and all the emotions I felt after

all of this happened.

I managed to talk to my wife and things are good now.

She wasn't contacting me because she needed time to herself in space to sort it all out

in her head.

She didn't want to say anything else that she would regret later and she felt bad for

her initial reaction.

She knows me, she trusts me, and we have a great relationship.

This is the first hiccup I can ever remember us having in the 9 plus years we have been

together.

After I told her what happened she went to the darkest possible timeline and thought

the worst.

I can't blame her for her initial reaction because one of the biggest dealbreakers for

either of us is infidelity.

She came home the night I posted the original thread and I apologized up and down about

putting myself in that spot to begin with, but she actually put me at ease and said she

didn't blame me for it because she too never thought that my sleep-sexing would be an

issue.

She read up on Sexamia while at her sisters and realized I wasn't trying to cheat on

her, I was not in control of my body at the time, I stopped the moment I became lucid,

and I immediately let her know what happened.

The biggest problem from this whole thing was the fact that we never took my Sexamia

as something that was serious.

And it would happen, we just assumed it was because of a sexy dream I was having and

thought of the whole thing as something quirky that I did every once in a while, not an

actual sleep disorder that could have serious risks associated with it.

So for those who said I was a known sleep fucker well know, it wasn't known, we just thought

it was something weird I did every once in a while.

Tell me I'm making excuses all you want, tell me I'm a piece of shit for putting people

at risk, tell me that I'm deflecting blame, I really don't care.

It's like having diabetes without knowing it and then getting sick when you eat a candy

bar.

Yeah, hindsight shows that there was an issue when you were peeing all the time, you were

losing weight and you were constantly tired, but if you aren't aware of diabetes you

don't actively think you have diabetes.

My wife and I were both ignorant of the entire condition.

The idea that I could do it to someone other than my wife had never crossed either of our

minds because it happened so rarely and we didn't know it was anything legitimate.

If either one of us believed that it was an actual risk I would not have been in a tent

with anyone.

Now we obviously know better, live and learn.

One of the biggest reasons I got shit in the last thread was because I had the audacity

to sleep in a tent with a woman.

My wife knew of the sleeping arrangements and was completely fine with it.

Like I said in the last thread, we had camped that way many times and it had never been

an issue before this past weekend.

However, there was a separate incident on another camping trip that I was not previously

aware of.

It turns out that I had apparently started caressing one of my buddies on an earlier

camping trip and he didn't tell me.

He told me that when I did it he elbowed me in the gut and I then rolled over and went

to sleep.

I had no idea that it happened and he never mentioned it before because he thought I was

just trying to fuck with him.

So it seems like my sex on Mia doesn't discriminate.

For those who said I was stupid for sleeping next to a woman, that is not the case.

I was stupid for sleeping next to anyone who is not my wife.

I will never put myself in that situation again.

As for Taylor, I got a conversation going with her on Facebook.

In it, I apologized for the incident and I went into some detail about why what happened,

happened.

She said that she was already aware of the fact that I do stuff in my sleep because

my wife had made jokes about it in the past.

While I did apologize, I still told her that the way she handled it was inappropriate and

that I will not be camping with her or associating with her any longer.

I asked her if she had feelings for me and she said that she didn't think so but she got

lost in the moment.

She took responsibility for her actions and admitted what she did was wrong.

She was very understanding of the whole thing was very remorseful and agreed it was best

to stay away.

As far as friend breakups go, it was very mutual and mature.

We both owned up to our mistakes and we are no longer associating with each other.

It's for the best.

My wife eventually read the conversation and it reinforced my version of the story in

the series of events that I described to her so that made her happy and reinforced that

I wasn't lying.

It sucks because she was one of our best friends but anyone who is willing to cheat with

me does not need to be in our lives.

Some might say that that's not fair to her and that if I hadn't attempted to sleep

sexier than everything would be fine.

I disagree.

She was willing to go through with it when I was willing to go through with it.

She obviously was feeling something I was not and I don't need to associate with that.

If I have learned anything from this incident, it's that I can't be surprised if a bomb

goes off while I'm holding a flame to a fuse.

Removing myself from her life is the best course of action for all parties involved.

Other isn't my wife so she is not my priority.

So all in all, things are alright.

I am trying to move forward, as is my wife.

Things are looking up.

We haven't scheduled couples counseling or anything yet but I have suggested it and

I'm a willing participant if my wife wants to consider it down the road.

She seems to already be pretty forgiving so I think that we're good.

I am seeing the psychiatrist slash psychologist next week.

So for those who actually helped and gave me constructive advice instead of attacking

me, thank you.