Caveman Circus

I’m 28 and we’ve been dating about a year and a half. He lives at home with his parents and a few younger brothers, which already feels odd—especially since he’s not caring for them and has a stable job. What bothers me more is that he can’t cook or do laundry, and it seems like his mom handles everything for him. He’s also pretty stubborn and immature in arguments, and he often rushes home early for no real reason, like he’s worried about what his family will think.

He talks like he’s above needing goals or excitement, which comes off arrogant rather than confident. I can’t tell if I’m overthinking this, but his lack of independence and reluctance to grow up is starting to feel like a real turnoff. Is this as strange as it feels?

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We were together for about nine months, and up until a month ago, I genuinely thought things were going well. Then, out of nowhere, she told me we needed to break up. I was blindsided. When I asked why, she said I wasn’t attentive enough and that she deserved better.

I felt confused, angry, and hurt all at once. I thought I was giving her the right amount of attention. Clearly, she didn’t see it that way. I would have fought for the relationship. I would have tried harder. But when she said she could “do better,” something in me shut down.

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Several months ago, my wife (35F) and I (30F) agreed to try opening our relationship. We had a few solo and shared experiences, and pretty quickly it became clear we weren’t on the same page. She didn’t like me forming connections with other people, but she didn’t want to “force” me to stop. I, on the other hand, enjoyed exploring other relationships and wanted to keep that door open.

Over time, I developed a separate relationship with one of our shared partners. My wife knew about it, though she was uneasy from the start. We struggled to figure out how much detail she wanted and what boundaries felt safe. This was all new territory, so I tried to tell her as much as she asked for while keeping things from feeling intrusive. At one point, she even reached out to my partner to smooth things over between us because she knew how happy that relationship made me.

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I’m 25, my fiancée is 29, and we have a one-year-old son. My brother is 30 and his husband is 31. I work on a farm and make $58,000 a year.

About 18 months ago, we renovated our house and I borrowed $25,000 from my brother. We agreed I’d pay him back with no set timeline. I even wrote a simple contract saying, “I will pay you back,” but it didn’t include dates or amounts.

Since then, we’ve had our son and have been living paycheck to paycheck. We haven’t been able to start paying him back yet, and he knew our situation and never pushed for money.

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My wife and I have a six-month-old daughter. She’s mostly a stay-at-home mom, working two half days a week while her sister watches the baby. I work full time and attend school one day a week. From the beginning, we’ve had a setup we’re both happy with: she handles most of the household duties—cooking, cleaning, and baby care—and I support us financially. Honestly, we’re living a life we both wanted, and my wife does an incredible job taking care of our daughter and our home.

On weekends, we usually split baby duties and try to make sure we each get some personal time. Lately, though, our baby has hit a sleep regression and is waking every couple of hours. Since my wife breastfeeds, she handles all nighttime wake-ups. She’s a light sleeper and struggles with insomnia, while I’m a deep sleeper and wouldn’t wake to the baby anyway.

Recently, my wife has asked me to wake up with the baby both weekend mornings so she can get an extra hour of sleep. The baby wakes around 7 a.m., and during that time I get her dressed and take over. I understand why she needs it—but sometimes I want to be the one who sleeps in. I brought this up, and she said she really needs that hour because she can’t nap during the day the way I can.

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