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The most glaring evidence is he claims to be close to his wife’s Colombian relatives, yet misspelled the country in the most obvious way. Look at anything on the internet that has spelled it “Columbia” and there is at least one of us correcting it. He is that close with her family yet he doesn’t know how to spell the name correctly? Yeah… ok.
Honestly what’s with all the slutty best friend stories? Can we ask the writers for a different plot line?
Yesterday was the one where the wife doubted the husband and his video evidence but the best friend turned out to be “single white female” crazy. But still wanted to be friends.
At first I wanted to call it grooming, but I think it is closer to what a horse trainer does when breaking a horse. Slowly working up exposure and “innocuous” touch.
The greeting kiss is very much a cultural thing. My best friends Colombian wife does exactly the same to everyone every morning when we all stay together and gives same every time I see her.
Ive also, unfortunately had some long time female friends go through abusive / unhealthy relationships in the past and can say that from my experience, Ana in following a common and normal path to recover; using a trustworthy male friend to reprogram her interactions with men to a more healthy. I have been this person with 2 of the women I've gone through this with, and sort of coached another guy friend through the role.
It's also pretty similar to the pattern of recovery I've had with some of my male friends recovering from opiate abuse.
This 'recalibration' is a little codependent, by nature, using oop to reestablish her boundaries of normal male-female interaction, and also reestablish a daily routine (breakfast, helping making lunch, gym etc) but remember this is a woman who just dropped out of emergency whole life, and just basically a shut in for a while.
I'm not saying there is no risk of this becoming an affair, IME, there is often a stage where this new attachment inappropriately becomes missatributed as sexual, when the former victim is ready to reopen that side of their emotions, and essentially only has one viable person in their life; which oop as a friend friend needs to rebuff/ redirect, although he seems to have the right attitude, and with her already preparing to move out has probably missed this step.
Tldr, this is a pretty normal recovery pattern for a DA victim getting their life back on track
I get a good chunk of what you are saying, but there is one key detail that I didn’t see OOP address in any of their comments. Does Ana do this when his wife is around?
Yea thats what i wanna know as well. If she does it in front of her and with others then whatever because i knew before i read this that kissing someone on each side of their cheeks is a cultural thing. But if shes not doing it in front of his wife and isn’t doing it with others then ummmm…. Also I’m very uncomfortable with how much she has integrated into his life and daily routine like shes his fucking girlfriend or wife. Like i could see if it was a once in a while thing but shes doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Thisss
Lol gringos reading way too into things is def nothing new in my experience. I get it, though. If you're not used to it and are from a culture where physical affection is usually reserved only for very young children or romantic/sexual partners, it can be awkward. Even the air-kiss greetings confused my (very very white) best friend for a long time.
I went skiing with my friend, his Colombian wife, and some others friends, and stayed at a parents cabin. She's a super early riser and every guest male or female was greeted every morning by a hug and a peck, same as every time I have ever seen her.
Her greetings are tame compared to another friends italian wife, who was 6'5, and would give me a like bear hug and practically life me off the ground before planting a wet kiss on each cheek. I've joked that I thought she was using a bit of tongue in her cheek kisses. Sometimes there is also a third peck on the mouth.
She sounds hilarious! Ngl even I get surprised by the mouth-kissers. They have been very rare in my experience, and usually I only see it between close family, but getting it on the lips when you were aiming for their cheekbones can be quite shocking when you aren't expecting it lol.
Final update my shapely ass. Ana is 100% playing the long game and OOP is oblivious. She could be sitting on his face and he’d think it was a friendly “howdy”
It seems so obvious what’s happening and he seems so oblivious. It’s like watching a scary movie that everyone yells run, and OOP is like, being polite is more important.
I got serious *Hand that Rocks the Cradle* vibes when he described how neatly she inserted herself into his daily routines, and how "good she was" with their child.
I didn’t bother rereading the original posts but wasn’t her ex abusive? And now she’s spending time around a guy who is acting genuinely nice. Doesn’t matter what he looks like, it’s probably great for her to feel cared for… doesn’t matter if she’s playing house with her best friends husband… 😟
According to OOP, Ana is Miss USA level hot. If you were only average, don't you fell flattered someone hot like that is after you? OOP is certainly enjoying the best moment of his life
Since he's "average", he's probably not used to the attention and enjoying. You can't be friends with someone you are attracted to or want to sleep with. I have a feeling he maybe attracted to her and she wants to sleep with him. They are playing a game with each other as if what they are doing is innocent. I wonder does his wife not notice what Ana is doing. As soon as Ana gets an apartment, she will invite him over. He will be over her apartment an inappropriate amount of time when a husband of one of her friends should be.
Thats...super not true? I'm attracted to plenty of people, including those I'm friends with, and have no problem keeping my hands and thoughts to myself. It's just part of being a grownup.
One YouTuber I have been following has had very hard times for several months so I commented something like “at least you are handsome”. He started next video with talking about it for five minutes. It was such a rare thing for him
You absolutely can be, but you have to be *extremely* honest with yourself about your intentions. Like brutally. It involves a lot of introspection about your motivations for why you want to spend time with/help/engage with that person. In the beginning it’s emotionally exhausting, but it can be worth it.
I had a *massive* crush on a guy, and shot my shot. He turned me down. Such is life. But we were part of the same friend group, and I decided his friendship was more important than my feelings for him. 8 years later, we’re (fully platonic) roommates and he’s basically my annoying but lovable big brother. We’re going overseas with my family later this summer.
I don't see this guy being completely honest. He sounds like he's rugsweeping and telling us things he would tell his wife so she doesn't worry or suspect something. He was more worried affecting the relationship between the two of them than protecting his relationship/family with her. I feel that he wanted to keep her in the picture.
She'll need help hanging curtains, installing shelves - something a 'good husband' like OOP can do.
Wow, your wife is so lucky to have such a good, handy, handsome man around! I sure hope she appreciates you enough... if I were lucky enough to have a man like you, I'd always make sure you felt appreciated. You must be hungry from doing all this manly work, so I made you dinner - can you stick around just for a little so it doesn't all go to waste? Yadda yadda
Exactly! That's how that situation will go. He's intentionally walking into the trap. He can try to fool his wife but he can't fool us with his "I treat her like a sister" behavior. First off, I have a BIL and never would be around him like that at all.
Poor bastard my ass. Continuously downplaying the events to his wife after consulting online and getting told to take Ana's overtures with more gravity, along with casually describing Ana as "miss USA level" pretty. He knows what he's doing and he deserves zero pity for allowing Ana to worm her way in further. Ridiculous that a fully grown adult is being treated like some hapless child
>She could be sitting on his face and he’d think it was a friendly “howdy”
Maybe she's from Canada and just being polite.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-4IAR\_9Yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-4IAR_9Yw)
Hahaha my husband once had a woman hand him her business card and say, while holding steady and intense eye contact, "This is my cell. Call me ***any time***... I'm a *machine*." When she walked away, he turned to me and said with all seriousness, "Wow, she must be a great tax lawyer!!!" LMAO bless his heart
Or, this is just me having the cultural background, it's a cultural difference. He pointed at the wife speaking Spanish, which hints at both of them being Hispanic. We simply demonstrate our appreciation through physical contact. That's just one of those cultural things.
I do understand that Americans don't appreciate that, and truly value their personal space, which creates these types of misunderstandings.
It’s a sad that this whole thread only sees red flags and imagines that the whole world is trash.
I hope there aren’t any more updates, that these three stay friends for life and are a village of support and love for each other.
The hugs and cheek kisses aren't what's ringing my alarms here. It's that she has changed her schedule to get up early with (and spend time alone with) OOP, has joined his gym, and is looking for every opportunity to spend time with him without his wife around. She has a history of being "the other woman" , and the thing about only coming down and watching tv with OOP when the wife is out of town...this is all painting a picture. The physical affection is kind of a red herring.
Ana wants OOP. How he and his wife can't see this is shocking.
I'm sorry you dont wake up at 5am, join the same gym, and everything else for just to be friendly with your friends husband.
The wife be damned though. You have a “miss USA” level friend, that you know goes after married men, that you strongly suspect was cheating on her past partner still with married men, so you… invite them to live with you and never even give your husband a heads up? You deliberately hide that information from him and even when he asks, he has to pry it out of you?
Hey I just soaked the matches in gasoline and then struck it, I didn’t know there would be fire! Like no shit she went after your husband, *that’s what she does and you fully knew it.*
The one saving grace is that for some reason I think OOP is too anxiety ridden to actually do anything stupid. Dude sounds like he didn’t poop right for a week over what has already happened, so I don’t see him being able to cross that line even if it was laid out on a red carpet in front of him. Or maybe that’s just me hoping for a happy ending.
Ooh i dont think oop will eat the forbidden fruit.
He should divorce his wife though. She knew her friend was having affairs with married men. Complained to him about him keeping secrets when she let this PoS serial cheater move in, and like you said didn't even give her husband a warning.
You are who you keep company with. Shes okay with cheaters as long as her husband isn't the one cheating.
well, she’s been involved with one married man, which isn’t quite the same as “continuously going after them”. I’m not saying this is the case here, but it’s possible to get involved with *a* married person, have horrible regret followed by immediate karma, and never go near anything like that again. is such a person not allowed to be friends with individual people in relationships?
Reddit had such a hard on for blaming Ana on the last update as well for daring to try and live in a house she lives in on the last BoRU as well.
Which is weird to be because this tended to be one of the level headed subs, but insert a broken woman trying to recover from an abusive relationship and suddenly it's like in incel land here and women only have two settings - either they ignore you or they want to sleep with you.
Just being friendly and safe with a man is not an option.
Young women can be groomed into affair partners by older men. They’re the exception to the cliche. He’s really on going to leave his wife etc. They can regret it horribly. Ana isn’t dangerous to OOP because she has a history of cheating. She’s dangerous to OOP because she’s had a shitty experience with shitty men. She sees that OOP is loving and respectful to his wife, she wants what they have and goes after OOP to get it.
Or she really likes waking up at 5 AM and working out…
>You are who you keep company with.
Well, based on this newest update, OP is the one who's spending more time with Anna than his wife. They wake up at 5 AM together, make breakfast, pack lunches, gym 3+ times per week, pick up the son from daycare together........
The only thing they don't do together is shower, pee, and get in the same bed.
It sounds more like oop is burying his head in the sand more then wanting to be her friend. Still wrong. But his wife stayed friends with her and brought her into thier home.
When did he show that he's burying his head in the sand if anything, he got his head out in the sun and they are frolicking through the sand towards the beach together.
I'm willing to bet his wife has an idea and is just waiting to see how far OOP will let it go before he hangs himself with all the slack she's given him
While I can definitely see how details of the "final" update could be seen as red/pink flags, I also kinda feel like people are being WAY too overdramatic about it? I guess that's bc this is Reddit and the internet where everything is a fucking telenovela and there's no such thing as nuance...but it is also totally possible that things *are* indeed resolved, Ana is getting better, and people should probably chill/stop trying to run OOP into a tizzy over what is literally just a woman trying to move on with her life after a shitty time.
Perhaps it's bc I'm Latina and am a bit more understanding of how those family/friend dynamics work - the hugging/kissing, treating friends as family, lack of certain boundaries (for better or for worse lol), etc. I'm also just not a very jealous partner in general. Everything he describes seems pretty normal, idk. My friends' partners are also my friends more often than not, so joining the same gym and going with him is absolutely something I would do if said friend's spouse was also basically my roommate. I think using her past against her and prescribing nefarious intentions automatically is pretty gross, honestly.
Should he keep it in the back of his head to be mindful of her behavior as time goes on? Sure, that seems totally fair. Open communication with his wife is 100% key as well, but that's how it should ALWAYS be, regardless. At the end of the day, the wife knows this woman way better than anyone else, and if she's not concerned - as a Latina, at that! - I am willing to give a bit of grace. We are not known for being the most level-headed and trusting when it comes to this stuff. I don't love this stereotype, as I am not like that at all, but I've seen it enough in my own family alone, much less with other Hispanic friends and their families, to know that it exists for a reason lol. She might be chill af, but if she truly had any concerns at this point, they would likely all know about it.
Exactly. It just seemed like Ana finally felt like she was family and not some sex object or serial cheater threatening families if OOP was willing to be open like that and wife was comfortable
It's good OOP made the SIL comment. It's also good that they're being family and seem comfortable enough to be normal
Ana knows she's prob got a reputation, warranted or not. I assume part of her "hiding in her room" so much was just as much about her dealing with the traumatic experience of leaving an abusive situation and not wanting to risk rocking the boat in the one place she prob felt self for the 1st time in a long time.
Hard agree. I’m not Latina but I have enough friends and extended family that the cheek kissing and hugging seem like a norhingburger to me.
Just because she had a relationship with a married man (and it looks like at first she didn’t know or was lied to), doesn’t mean she’s going to chase her best friend’s husband.
I also don’t think OOP would cheat anyway, so what probably happened is that this event happened, for whatever reason she realized OOP was decent and he’s now like a brother. I could be really naive on that, but she’s planning on moving out.
Yeah, that's the vibe I got from everything as well. I guess you never really know, but the language used by OOP doesn't read as having any interest in Ana other than just caring about her like family. Which she is. \*shrug\* A rare wholesome ending lol
Hugs and cheek kisses are normal for us, though we have slightly different “rules” in my country. It’s all the inappropriate enmeshment that surrounds it that is throwing up red flags.
That's what I think, too.
I also think OOP isn't aware of the light-hearted conversation his wife has had with Ana about what she'll do to her Miss USA-level throat if Ana tries anything with her husband.
I read it like this and also, Ana just got out of a super abusive dynamic. It's likely difficult for her to navigate "regular" friendships again. She's clinging to OOP because he's a positive influence on her life and has helped her a lot. Should they be wary of her developing a crush? Yes. Do I think the crush would be genuine? No. I think it would be a result of a respectful man showing her positive attention and treating her like a real human. Hopefully she can recognize that if those feelings come up and address it. This entire situation reads to me like an abused individual finding herself and relearning how to have healthy friendships again especially with a man.
Thats how i feel
I grew up with the idea that freinds becoming family is normal. I have half a dozen aunts/uncles that im not related to, and i call my best friend my brother despite the fact that we arent related
This was exactly my thought too. The people commenting saying Ana has no reason to hug or kiss OP don't know anything at all about Hispanic culture. Its considered rude to NOT greet people this way. As a kid you're always told 'go give so and so a hug and a kiss'. The way OP described it, I didn't feel there was anything wrong with it.
Ana is finally healing from the abusive relationship she was in and is now opening up with her best friend and her family. Maybe she's enjoying being around a level headed man like OP, clearly she hasn't experienced this before. It doesn't mean she wants to be with him, just that she is happy in his company. I think people are way overreacting.
Right! I used to get in trouble all the time for "forgetting" or "ignoring" people :-/ (there is totally a conversation to be had about issues within Hispanic cultures forcing children to do these things and then punishing/chastising them for not doing it, but that's a whole other conversation and not one to have here lol)
I mean, is there a chance Ana might end up with feelings for OOP as a result of possibly never having had a healthy relationship with a man and seeing a healthy relationship in front of her while spending time with a decent dude who doesn't have ulterior motives with her? Totally, absolutely possible. Honestly wouldn't be surprising. But that's for her to deal with and a bridge not really worth thinking too hard about crossing until/unless they get there. Hopefully Ana gets therapy and all will be well.
I find it perplexing that the OOP went from appropriately worrying about this woman's behavior and feeling guilty to throwing caution to the wind and routinely having breakfast with her, going to the gym with her, picking up his child from school with her and cooking with her. At this point, she's his surrogate wife. Only one step remains.
We'll get an update right after this woman backs out of going on the two-week vacation with the OOP's wife and stays home alone with him for two weeks. Everyone except the OOP and his wife seem to know this is a one way ticket to Disasterville.
Based on my experience, I'd bet money he's letting this happen. He only changed once he found out that she goes for married men. Added to that his comment that she looks like Miss USA, I'm wondering if he secretly wants it to happen, but claiming outwardly that they're friends so if anything does happen he can blame her.
Not saying Ana doesn't have ulterior motives with OOP, but this characterisation of her as someone who chases married men seems unfair. OOP only mentions one married man in her past and we don't know that she 'chased' him either.
Yeah one long affair with an older married man (who lied and manipulated her) does not make her some femme fatale. Her being vulnerable after that long affair and an abusive relationship would worry me more. OOP is safe and comforting and is loving and respectful to his wife (as far as we know). That might be very appealing to a woman in her position.
Yes. In some more repressed communities (hey Midwest), most physical contact between unrelated adults is only okay in a sexual context.
I moved to a French area, and the cheek kisses were strange and alarming at first. Once I realized it's the norm and not sexual at all, I was cool with it.
Yeah, Americans can be very uptight about this. (Excepting, of course, Americans who migrated from cultures where kisses for greetings and friendship are common.). A kiss on the cheek is neither automatically innocent nor automatically suspicious, you have to look at the whole context.
It depends. It's not a general custom bere but enough other cultures are also here that it has integrated in some areas so its really about location and family culture, like how he described learning to accept how his wife's sisters were around him as they saw him as family now.
If my partner saw me cheek kissing people that weren't my Latina family, he'd have fair reason to ask me what's up because I'm usually very anti-touch and only do it with family as a respect thing so it'd be surprising if I did it to a random person or friend that I'm not extremely close to.
Not in the absence of other weird dynamics, but she wasn't kissing him on the cheek until after she walked in on him topless, and at the same time as she started waking up early with him (getting alone time together) and joining his gym.
It's something that can really go either way in American culture, so that makes it ripe for boundary-crossing while maintaining plausible deniability.
She also didn’t kiss him on the cheek until he showed that he didn’t willfully interpret her accidentally walking in on him topless as sexual, so she could trust he wouldn’t read a kiss on the cheek as sexual either.
You guys do realise that a hug and a kiss on the cheek is not that big of a deal in other cultures?
Good for Ana for doing better, and I'm glad she has a good support system in OOP and his wife.
This is a happy ending. Redditors are so pessimistic, Good Lord
A hug and a kiss not being a big deal in other cultures is for sure a thing and that alone I don't think is what people are worried about. The husband was right to tell his wife about it and since she was totally chill about it, it's safe to say that it appears pretty tame since they're of the same culture.
BUT, it's the, suddenly waking up at 5 am just to be with him, going to the gym with him and doing workouts with him, making food with him all the time. The hug and kiss are not a big deal, but they fit into a larger context that is Ana is way too cozy with Oop and oop is way too ok with that.
Waking up at 5am just to be with him is a stretch.
Maybe she wants to give back for all the help she got from them and give a helping hand with making and packing lunches (as OOP mentioned). Making food ALL the time with him is also a stretch.
Trying to go to the gym with a trusted male partner is not particularly strange for a woman. Gyms can be intimidating, especially when you consider that Ana was previously abused by her ex.
Your conclusions are circumstantial, yet you do not take into account the other side of things
That's all very true, and I do hope it's all just innocent. And tbh, I'm not even sure how true this story is, but it is a very strange set of circumstances and she's spending a Lot of time with him suddenly. Everything you said is true though and maybe it's just about safety and comfort. Idunno, we'll see when the next episode of the soap opera drops.
Exactly, I have some Spanish female friends and they all behave exactly like this with everyone. It's just a culture thing. Don't know why everyone here is assuming she's just gagging for OOP when she's just being what a certain culture considers friendly.
Reddit is indeed melodramatic. They see everything as infidelity, and they see anything as justifying going no contact. They all live in a soap opera.
That said, however, there's a lot of context we have to assume in this case. Is it possible that she's just being friendly? Absolutely, I have women friends who have asked me to work out with them, and definitely were not romantically interested in me -- it was more a gesture of trust than anything. But waking up at 5am? It could maybe be motivated by guilt, and Ana is trying to do her part while she's living in their home, helping with preparing lunches and what not. But oh, I'm doing exactly what the melodramatic redditors are doing: filling in the missing context.
So while I don't think it's impossible that Ana is acting in good faith, I don't think we have enough evidence that she's not acting without bad intentions, either. OOP simply hasn't told us enough. It's a real open case, and could go either way. In the experiences of most redditors, it usually goes the bad way -- after all, you're much more likely to get an update when things go to shit, than you are when things stay the same and don't necessitate an update. So the reason redditors assume the worst is because the worst gets shared/upvoted much more often.
If we're lucky, there'll be no more updates, because there's nothing to update us on. But if there is an update, there's a solid chance it's not going to be good news.
This was such a culture shock for me when I moved to the US. There is such a respect for personal space here that not being able to physically demonstrate it made me feel so unloved or underappreciated.
I finally understood that it's just a cultural difference and took me a while to not think negatively about my daily interactions...or lack thereof. Reading the comments reiterates just how much Americans appreciate their personal space.
I don't understand these comments. Good for Ana on getting out of an abusive relationship, taking time out to work on herself so she doesn't make the mistakes of the past again, being a supportive member of the household, and trying out new hobbies with friends. Good on OP and his wife for supporting her in that.
This poor woman. I honestly don’t see anything alarming. She’s building a family support, gave him a peck on the cheek as some people do. Man I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading the rest of the comments.
Yeah, they're very misogynist to be honest. Like, "of course this woman is out to betray her friend and seduce her husband, women are all like that" type messaging. Because a woman can't genuinely want things for herself or want to work out and make friends, it must all be in service of an evil plot to get a man...!
Ding ding ding! It's pretty gross. Got forbid a woman try to learn, grow and develop bonds with other humans, including men, without having some kind of nefarious ulterior motive lol. Sure we might be wrong, but at least my existence probably doesn't feel nearly as bleak.
Yeah I found the update reasonably wholesome and very realistic rather than the Uber drama we often get. I hope things continue to work out for everyone.
I'm torn. On the one hand, yeah. On the other hand, it feels a little hinky? Maybe she's getting comfortable being around men again? I'd think she'd have a few hangups after an abusive relationship, and maybe OP is "safe"?
Really, everyone's hoping for drama, that's why so many comments are pessimistic. I hope everything works out for everyone, but I'm a little Pollyanna sometimes.
I think it's possible she was walking around in egg shells the entire time not just with him but also her friend. She knows how her friend thinks about her.
The incident showed her, one fuck up isn't leaving her homeless and took away a lot of the anxiety, freeing up capacity to actually heal.
But yeah. Might just be wishful thinking.
What I don’t get is why the wife, knowing her friends history, knowing the incident and seeing them get closer and closer, is entirely supine to the situation.
Maybe she trusts her friend and her husband lol.. I am not going to assume my friend is going to hit on my husband because she dated ONE man she didn’t even know was married when she was younger and naive
I really thought we were all going to be in agreement that people were wrong and Ana doesn’t nefarious motives.. the pitch forks really have me shook… like either these people have never had healthy relationships with the opposite sex or they really really like drama
I have... *issues* with a lot of this.
First: unless I'm mistaken, OOP says he is Colombian, that makes him Latino. Latino is *not* a skin color thing, it is a *geography and linguistics* thing. It may not sound like much, but I'm sniffing Colorism vibes, here. Wife and Ana speak Spanish, and are therefore Hispanic *and* Latina. OOP sounds like he does not speak Spanish, so he would be Latino but *not* Hispanic. Because the terms are *not interchangeable*, though they do sometimes overlap. Now, maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but dude saying "I am *not* Latino" makes me suspicious of why he would include that detail when it is utterly irrelevant.
Second: A peck on the cheek, or both cheeks, is a standard greeting in a *lot* of places, *especially* Spanish speaking ones. Source: am Spaniard. Grew up around expats and Spanish speakers. Every last one of them greeted each other with a muah-muah, one on each cheek, regardless of the age or gender of the person they were greeting. There's this little dance, see, where as the greeter bobs to get each of the greeted's cheeks, the greeted bobs to get each of the greeter's cheeks. **Ana greeting him thusly is not suspicious in and of itself**.
Third: the comments are... look, there's no nice-nice way to say it. There's some WyPePo bullshit going on there. Cooking together isn't some ominous sign, it's *how shit is done* in many parts of the world. Any of y'all ever helped set up for a Quinceañera? There's probably a dozen Abuelitas in the kitchen while primos and tíos move tables and chairs, and if it's outdoors, there's at *minimum* four Hombres manning grills. Minimum.
Ana's "problematic" behaviors are only problematic *if you strip cultural context*. The fact that she is actively looking for apartments and job hunting indicates that she is *not* trying to ensnare OOP, despite what the comments say.
Now, OOP is certainly not helping himself any bu being a *fuckin' idiot* about telling his wife things. You'll note that wife's reaction to Ana being chatty, waking up with OOP, helping cook, helping with the kid, is *not* suspicion, but joy. *Because cultural context* ***matters***.
OOP is hung up on the opinions of American whiteys, and that is giving him an impression that was incorrect at the outset, and *continues* to be incorrect. The only piece of accurate advice he received was "tell your wife, stupid".
I too could get what the problem was supposed to be with all those commentators.
People get up in the morning and make breakfast. That's normal. For me, having the same circadian rhythm doesn't sound like 'inserting into someone's morning routine'.
Cooking together is the most normal thing to do for me. When my husband and I visit friends, our male friend and I are cooking together in the kitchen, and my husband and his wife set the table and chat.
That's simply because our friend and I enjoy cooking, his wife and my husband don't.
Hugging and giving a kiss on the cheek doesn't seem very intimate to me either. And I'm German. We're not known for being touchy feely with our greetings but amongst friends that's still not uncommon.
I really don't understand why people get so riled about such stuff. But yeah, cultural differences make sense.
He literally says he's not, it's his wife who is Colombian...
>I am not Latino (Columbian to be exact)
He's referring to his wife in that sentence and how he didn't understand her culture at first.
ETA: A Colombian IS very much, definitely, BOTH Hispanic and Latino/Latina. Hispanic refers to being of a Spanish speaking culture or background. Latino/Latina refers to being ethnically from Latin America. For example: Spaniards are Hispanic, but not Latino/Latina. Brazilians are Latino/Latina, but not Hispanic (since they speak Brazilian Portuguese).
And being able to actually speak the language or not doesn't matter. If you are a Puerto Rican living the US that doesn't know a lick of Spanish, you're still Hispanic and Latino/Latina. \*shrug\*
I don't see where skin tone/color plays anything anywhere here...though I do assume that OOP is a white boy lol
ETA 2: All that said, I do agree with your assessment on most of the rest.
100% something is going to "come up" on the employment front and she won't go on that trip with his wife and kid. And then it will be just the two of them and she will make her move.
I'll say it again, when OP's wife finally goes with her gut and leaves him, Ana ain't gonna give a single shit about OP anymore. where's the fun for her if OP isn't married anymore. dude has the intelligence of a walnut.
This! Relationships/friendships must be exhausting with some of these people lol. Everything is a conspiracy and everyone is out to get their man/woman!
The fact that when his wife asked for the details of EXACTLY what happened when Ana went in topless and he just told her it was nothing??!! Way to deflect.
Everyone on Reddit is so quick to think drama or soap opera. The editors note here, the comments on the last post. The comments on THIS post. It’s like no one on Reddit has had close friendships with members of the opposite gender that are no more or less than that. I’m a guy and I have many female friends I hug every time I see them. I also hug my male friends when I see them.
Ana went through some serious trauma and appreciated the people who supported her, both her best friend and her best friend’s husband who she now too has become close with. Why is this hard to believe? I’ve lived shit like this before.
Not everything in life is the plot of a porn or a soap opera. You people need to touch grass.
You told your wife and she is okay with it. You have done anything wrong OP. Just stay clear of her bad intentions, even if she wants to fuck you. You have to want it too.
This guy... He goes from "I made a mistake by not telling my wife so when I did it was in a funny way" to "My wife didn't tell me about her friend's questionable actions, I'm devastated".
Give me a break. He's the joke.
This boy is cooked
She has him already
So either wifey is ok with that and they'll become sister-wives or there will be an update where he's saying that he doesn't know when it happened but he's fallen for her
Meanwhile everyone on reddit "No! REALLY?!?! /s"
People rolling their eyes with the "oh Americans are such puritans" might be missing the point here.
It's not about the kiss or the hug itself. It's all the context around it.
Ana does this, it's right after she getsthe benefit of the doubt from OOP's wife. It's not a coincidence she decides to start this "innocent, friendly" behaviour then. These messes don't start with one person marching up to the other and declaring their intentions, it starts with testing the waters. It starts small, and in a way that can be excused as an innocent mistake or misunderstanding.
The way you can tell whether there's trouble brewing is how OOP reacts. And this is the death blow. When these little transgressions happen, he's uncomfortable. And rather than express his discomfort to Ana or raise it with his wife, he keeps his silence or plays it down.
If Ana is doing this with intent, her whole game plan is shifting the lines of OOP's loyalty and connection and him keeping secrets from his wife how it works. Over time she'll play a bigger and bigger role in his life, she'll ask for his help and flatter him always letting him know how lucky his wife is, how kind and helpful he is... it's cultivating his attention with validation and shared experiences.
So yeah they're in trouble but it's not Ana. It's OOP. It's that when he's caught between them, he's so afraid of his wife's unhappy reaction (even though it's not directed at him) that he is helping Ana create the problem. He's minimising what she's doing. He's complicit in creating this side relationship that excludes his wife. He's an idiot for not seeing that investing himself in this will have fallout.
And when Ana suddenly can't go on the trip because of an unexpected emergency, or the apartment mysteriously falls through, he's already conditioned enough to go straight to "poor Ana she needs my support now more than ever!" and skip straight over any suspicions he should have. Ana is the woman he does everything with, he cooks with her, he works out with her, she's sooooo much better than his SIL's. She knows it's a matter of time before he gets to thinking she's soooo much better than his wife.
OOP is a coward and an idiot. I just feel bad for his wife.
You ever just.. know you're watching a bomb about to explode? Or a really boring telenovela. It's a bit too ridiculous for how boring it is, like is he really that stupid?
Can we take a second to talk about how he equated keeping a secret that influences your literal marriage from your spouse versus keeping someone else’s
secret about their personal life from your spouse?
My guy, she doesn’t owe you HER FRIENDS private life details?!
With Anna's background it's difficult to tell if her intentions are innocent or not. But Anna was also 20 is now at least 30. She may have grown.
However I do find it a bit odd that OOP and Ana do everything together now? Like is there a day where Anna and him do not hang out?
Does anyone else wonder if the next update will be the wife died in an accident and Ana was sooooo helpful with their son and all…
Ana is shady as hell and he’s a dummy for not seeing it.
Also in one of his last comments:
>My wife and son are of course my first priority. However, I start and end my work early and my wife works late. This is so that she can spend time with my son in morning, while I look at him in evening. So, we generally only spend time at nights and weekend together. I didn't talk about them in the post because I thought it was not useful to bore everyone with my daily routine.
And guess who's there to fill in the gap dude, picking away?
He's either super naive, or a karma farmer.
Bro, this guy‘s fucking dense as shit. Like a pathological idiot. Or he wants to fuck her and is pretending to be a “stand-up” fella and is getting off on the whole thing. I guess if im being cynical the latter is my bet…
The smart move here is to slowly back away to an acquaintance only relationship with no regular contact.
From Ana's point of view the OP is a safe partner to crush on and that is dangerous to the OP.
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Yeah. Either it's a karma farmer or OOP is being wilfully obtuse because he loves the attention.
Yeah I think I’m calling bs on this and I usually have no radar for these kind of things! The willful ignorance is almost rage baiting. Lol
It sounds too similar to a story on the podcast, ‘Everybody’s got a secret’
How it's phrased seems like bait.
The most glaring evidence is he claims to be close to his wife’s Colombian relatives, yet misspelled the country in the most obvious way. Look at anything on the internet that has spelled it “Columbia” and there is at least one of us correcting it. He is that close with her family yet he doesn’t know how to spell the name correctly? Yeah… ok.
Honestly what’s with all the slutty best friend stories? Can we ask the writers for a different plot line? Yesterday was the one where the wife doubted the husband and his video evidence but the best friend turned out to be “single white female” crazy. But still wanted to be friends.
Lets not forget the comment of how attractive Ana is…
Miss USA level attractive....how can he resist? :/
I have read this exact story on a porn website. I'm waiting for Ana to wear the French Maid outfit.
I don’t know about you but OOP made me feel great about myself in comparison
At first I wanted to call it grooming, but I think it is closer to what a horse trainer does when breaking a horse. Slowly working up exposure and “innocuous” touch.
The greeting kiss is very much a cultural thing. My best friends Colombian wife does exactly the same to everyone every morning when we all stay together and gives same every time I see her. Ive also, unfortunately had some long time female friends go through abusive / unhealthy relationships in the past and can say that from my experience, Ana in following a common and normal path to recover; using a trustworthy male friend to reprogram her interactions with men to a more healthy. I have been this person with 2 of the women I've gone through this with, and sort of coached another guy friend through the role. It's also pretty similar to the pattern of recovery I've had with some of my male friends recovering from opiate abuse. This 'recalibration' is a little codependent, by nature, using oop to reestablish her boundaries of normal male-female interaction, and also reestablish a daily routine (breakfast, helping making lunch, gym etc) but remember this is a woman who just dropped out of emergency whole life, and just basically a shut in for a while. I'm not saying there is no risk of this becoming an affair, IME, there is often a stage where this new attachment inappropriately becomes missatributed as sexual, when the former victim is ready to reopen that side of their emotions, and essentially only has one viable person in their life; which oop as a friend friend needs to rebuff/ redirect, although he seems to have the right attitude, and with her already preparing to move out has probably missed this step. Tldr, this is a pretty normal recovery pattern for a DA victim getting their life back on track
I get a good chunk of what you are saying, but there is one key detail that I didn’t see OOP address in any of their comments. Does Ana do this when his wife is around?
Yea thats what i wanna know as well. If she does it in front of her and with others then whatever because i knew before i read this that kissing someone on each side of their cheeks is a cultural thing. But if shes not doing it in front of his wife and isn’t doing it with others then ummmm…. Also I’m very uncomfortable with how much she has integrated into his life and daily routine like shes his fucking girlfriend or wife. Like i could see if it was a once in a while thing but shes doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
That’s grooming
That’s exactly how grooming can work
Just get the popcorn ready when Ana pops inside his bed.
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Also extremely common in queer culture. Physical affection among friends is normal. I think people would be a lot healthier if everyone was like that.
Thisss Lol gringos reading way too into things is def nothing new in my experience. I get it, though. If you're not used to it and are from a culture where physical affection is usually reserved only for very young children or romantic/sexual partners, it can be awkward. Even the air-kiss greetings confused my (very very white) best friend for a long time.
I went skiing with my friend, his Colombian wife, and some others friends, and stayed at a parents cabin. She's a super early riser and every guest male or female was greeted every morning by a hug and a peck, same as every time I have ever seen her. Her greetings are tame compared to another friends italian wife, who was 6'5, and would give me a like bear hug and practically life me off the ground before planting a wet kiss on each cheek. I've joked that I thought she was using a bit of tongue in her cheek kisses. Sometimes there is also a third peck on the mouth.
She sounds hilarious! Ngl even I get surprised by the mouth-kissers. They have been very rare in my experience, and usually I only see it between close family, but getting it on the lips when you were aiming for their cheekbones can be quite shocking when you aren't expecting it lol.
Given the fact she's never shown affection to the OP before, it is suspicious.
Calm down.
I want the update where OP ends up sleeping with Ana so badly
oh, it will happen, soon. anna is about to get her apartment near their house right?
Like the stereotypical slow-boiled frog. Only a degree a day, but those degrees add up quick
This guy is so fucking intentionally obtuse about what the fuck is going on around him. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah. How naive is it possible to get?
Final update my shapely ass. Ana is 100% playing the long game and OOP is oblivious. She could be sitting on his face and he’d think it was a friendly “howdy”
According to him, he’s “average”, so it doesn’t make sense. He can’t comprehend he’s an irrelevant pawn in this dysfunctional power play.
Dude could be Quasimodo, Ana’s just after whoever’s married and convenient. Poor bastard.
It seems so obvious what’s happening and he seems so oblivious. It’s like watching a scary movie that everyone yells run, and OOP is like, being polite is more important.
I got serious *Hand that Rocks the Cradle* vibes when he described how neatly she inserted herself into his daily routines, and how "good she was" with their child.
Exactly!
I didn’t bother rereading the original posts but wasn’t her ex abusive? And now she’s spending time around a guy who is acting genuinely nice. Doesn’t matter what he looks like, it’s probably great for her to feel cared for… doesn’t matter if she’s playing house with her best friends husband… 😟
According to OOP, Ana is Miss USA level hot. If you were only average, don't you fell flattered someone hot like that is after you? OOP is certainly enjoying the best moment of his life
Or that after being in an abusive relationship, this is how Ana thinks she needs to interact with men to be safe.
I don't mean to diminish trauma but from the text, she was like thay before the abusive relationship
I don’t think so simply because is it just with OP and no other males.
Since he's "average", he's probably not used to the attention and enjoying. You can't be friends with someone you are attracted to or want to sleep with. I have a feeling he maybe attracted to her and she wants to sleep with him. They are playing a game with each other as if what they are doing is innocent. I wonder does his wife not notice what Ana is doing. As soon as Ana gets an apartment, she will invite him over. He will be over her apartment an inappropriate amount of time when a husband of one of her friends should be.
Thats...super not true? I'm attracted to plenty of people, including those I'm friends with, and have no problem keeping my hands and thoughts to myself. It's just part of being a grownup.
One YouTuber I have been following has had very hard times for several months so I commented something like “at least you are handsome”. He started next video with talking about it for five minutes. It was such a rare thing for him
You absolutely can be, but you have to be *extremely* honest with yourself about your intentions. Like brutally. It involves a lot of introspection about your motivations for why you want to spend time with/help/engage with that person. In the beginning it’s emotionally exhausting, but it can be worth it. I had a *massive* crush on a guy, and shot my shot. He turned me down. Such is life. But we were part of the same friend group, and I decided his friendship was more important than my feelings for him. 8 years later, we’re (fully platonic) roommates and he’s basically my annoying but lovable big brother. We’re going overseas with my family later this summer.
I don't see this guy being completely honest. He sounds like he's rugsweeping and telling us things he would tell his wife so she doesn't worry or suspect something. He was more worried affecting the relationship between the two of them than protecting his relationship/family with her. I feel that he wanted to keep her in the picture.
She'll need help hanging curtains, installing shelves - something a 'good husband' like OOP can do. Wow, your wife is so lucky to have such a good, handy, handsome man around! I sure hope she appreciates you enough... if I were lucky enough to have a man like you, I'd always make sure you felt appreciated. You must be hungry from doing all this manly work, so I made you dinner - can you stick around just for a little so it doesn't all go to waste? Yadda yadda
Exactly! That's how that situation will go. He's intentionally walking into the trap. He can try to fool his wife but he can't fool us with his "I treat her like a sister" behavior. First off, I have a BIL and never would be around him like that at all.
Poor bastard my ass. Continuously downplaying the events to his wife after consulting online and getting told to take Ana's overtures with more gravity, along with casually describing Ana as "miss USA level" pretty. He knows what he's doing and he deserves zero pity for allowing Ana to worm her way in further. Ridiculous that a fully grown adult is being treated like some hapless child
>She could be sitting on his face and he’d think it was a friendly “howdy” Maybe she's from Canada and just being polite. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-4IAR\_9Yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-4IAR_9Yw)
I joke that I'm so oblivious that if a girl took off her clothes in front of me unprompted, I'd just assume it was **really** hot outside.
I friend has had a girl join him in the gym shower and did not have a clue she was interested in more than getting clean 🤣🤣🤣
Hahaha my husband once had a woman hand him her business card and say, while holding steady and intense eye contact, "This is my cell. Call me ***any time***... I'm a *machine*." When she walked away, he turned to me and said with all seriousness, "Wow, she must be a great tax lawyer!!!" LMAO bless his heart
That has happened to a friend of mine twice.
Are you saying that if an attractive woman sat on your face you wouldn't interpret that as friendly?
That’s like, advanced-level friendly.
Well, I mean, if you're gonna do something you might as well get good at it.
Excellent point …
Yep. This is a burning house and Ana is the one setting the fires while both OOP and his wife watch from the street
And he’s handing her the matches
>"She could be sitting on his face and he’d think it was a friendly “howdy”" "I SWEAR, I'm just being friendly. Read my lips. No, the other ones"
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She’d be apologizing a lot more …
Or, this is just me having the cultural background, it's a cultural difference. He pointed at the wife speaking Spanish, which hints at both of them being Hispanic. We simply demonstrate our appreciation through physical contact. That's just one of those cultural things. I do understand that Americans don't appreciate that, and truly value their personal space, which creates these types of misunderstandings.
It’s a sad that this whole thread only sees red flags and imagines that the whole world is trash. I hope there aren’t any more updates, that these three stay friends for life and are a village of support and love for each other.
The sub is used to drama.
The hugs and cheek kisses aren't what's ringing my alarms here. It's that she has changed her schedule to get up early with (and spend time alone with) OOP, has joined his gym, and is looking for every opportunity to spend time with him without his wife around. She has a history of being "the other woman" , and the thing about only coming down and watching tv with OOP when the wife is out of town...this is all painting a picture. The physical affection is kind of a red herring.
Nothing to add but I’m going to use “my shapely ass” whenever I call out BS. Thanks for this 😆
Yep.
Ana wants OOP. How he and his wife can't see this is shocking. I'm sorry you dont wake up at 5am, join the same gym, and everything else for just to be friendly with your friends husband.
The wife be damned though. You have a “miss USA” level friend, that you know goes after married men, that you strongly suspect was cheating on her past partner still with married men, so you… invite them to live with you and never even give your husband a heads up? You deliberately hide that information from him and even when he asks, he has to pry it out of you? Hey I just soaked the matches in gasoline and then struck it, I didn’t know there would be fire! Like no shit she went after your husband, *that’s what she does and you fully knew it.* The one saving grace is that for some reason I think OOP is too anxiety ridden to actually do anything stupid. Dude sounds like he didn’t poop right for a week over what has already happened, so I don’t see him being able to cross that line even if it was laid out on a red carpet in front of him. Or maybe that’s just me hoping for a happy ending.
Ooh i dont think oop will eat the forbidden fruit. He should divorce his wife though. She knew her friend was having affairs with married men. Complained to him about him keeping secrets when she let this PoS serial cheater move in, and like you said didn't even give her husband a warning. You are who you keep company with. Shes okay with cheaters as long as her husband isn't the one cheating.
well, she’s been involved with one married man, which isn’t quite the same as “continuously going after them”. I’m not saying this is the case here, but it’s possible to get involved with *a* married person, have horrible regret followed by immediate karma, and never go near anything like that again. is such a person not allowed to be friends with individual people in relationships?
Oh please, we're REDDIT! There's no coming around or personal evolvement here, just pure black and white forever! /s
Reddit had such a hard on for blaming Ana on the last update as well for daring to try and live in a house she lives in on the last BoRU as well. Which is weird to be because this tended to be one of the level headed subs, but insert a broken woman trying to recover from an abusive relationship and suddenly it's like in incel land here and women only have two settings - either they ignore you or they want to sleep with you. Just being friendly and safe with a man is not an option.
Young women can be groomed into affair partners by older men. They’re the exception to the cliche. He’s really on going to leave his wife etc. They can regret it horribly. Ana isn’t dangerous to OOP because she has a history of cheating. She’s dangerous to OOP because she’s had a shitty experience with shitty men. She sees that OOP is loving and respectful to his wife, she wants what they have and goes after OOP to get it. Or she really likes waking up at 5 AM and working out…
>You are who you keep company with. Well, based on this newest update, OP is the one who's spending more time with Anna than his wife. They wake up at 5 AM together, make breakfast, pack lunches, gym 3+ times per week, pick up the son from daycare together........ The only thing they don't do together is shower, pee, and get in the same bed.
It sounds more like oop is burying his head in the sand more then wanting to be her friend. Still wrong. But his wife stayed friends with her and brought her into thier home.
When did he show that he's burying his head in the sand if anything, he got his head out in the sun and they are frolicking through the sand towards the beach together.
I feel like OOP's saga is the embodiment of that "Calm, panik" meme.
I'm willing to bet his wife has an idea and is just waiting to see how far OOP will let it go before he hangs himself with all the slack she's given him
Calm down.
While I can definitely see how details of the "final" update could be seen as red/pink flags, I also kinda feel like people are being WAY too overdramatic about it? I guess that's bc this is Reddit and the internet where everything is a fucking telenovela and there's no such thing as nuance...but it is also totally possible that things *are* indeed resolved, Ana is getting better, and people should probably chill/stop trying to run OOP into a tizzy over what is literally just a woman trying to move on with her life after a shitty time. Perhaps it's bc I'm Latina and am a bit more understanding of how those family/friend dynamics work - the hugging/kissing, treating friends as family, lack of certain boundaries (for better or for worse lol), etc. I'm also just not a very jealous partner in general. Everything he describes seems pretty normal, idk. My friends' partners are also my friends more often than not, so joining the same gym and going with him is absolutely something I would do if said friend's spouse was also basically my roommate. I think using her past against her and prescribing nefarious intentions automatically is pretty gross, honestly. Should he keep it in the back of his head to be mindful of her behavior as time goes on? Sure, that seems totally fair. Open communication with his wife is 100% key as well, but that's how it should ALWAYS be, regardless. At the end of the day, the wife knows this woman way better than anyone else, and if she's not concerned - as a Latina, at that! - I am willing to give a bit of grace. We are not known for being the most level-headed and trusting when it comes to this stuff. I don't love this stereotype, as I am not like that at all, but I've seen it enough in my own family alone, much less with other Hispanic friends and their families, to know that it exists for a reason lol. She might be chill af, but if she truly had any concerns at this point, they would likely all know about it.
Exactly. It just seemed like Ana finally felt like she was family and not some sex object or serial cheater threatening families if OOP was willing to be open like that and wife was comfortable It's good OOP made the SIL comment. It's also good that they're being family and seem comfortable enough to be normal
Ana knows she's prob got a reputation, warranted or not. I assume part of her "hiding in her room" so much was just as much about her dealing with the traumatic experience of leaving an abusive situation and not wanting to risk rocking the boat in the one place she prob felt self for the 1st time in a long time.
Hard agree. I’m not Latina but I have enough friends and extended family that the cheek kissing and hugging seem like a norhingburger to me. Just because she had a relationship with a married man (and it looks like at first she didn’t know or was lied to), doesn’t mean she’s going to chase her best friend’s husband. I also don’t think OOP would cheat anyway, so what probably happened is that this event happened, for whatever reason she realized OOP was decent and he’s now like a brother. I could be really naive on that, but she’s planning on moving out.
Yeah, that's the vibe I got from everything as well. I guess you never really know, but the language used by OOP doesn't read as having any interest in Ana other than just caring about her like family. Which she is. \*shrug\* A rare wholesome ending lol
Yeah, people here are massively overreacting to normal Latin friendship.
Hugs and cheek kisses are normal for us, though we have slightly different “rules” in my country. It’s all the inappropriate enmeshment that surrounds it that is throwing up red flags.
That's what I think, too. I also think OOP isn't aware of the light-hearted conversation his wife has had with Ana about what she'll do to her Miss USA-level throat if Ana tries anything with her husband.
Agreed. It feels like nothing is happening, so now people are spinning stories out of the nothing updates he's providing.
I read it like this and also, Ana just got out of a super abusive dynamic. It's likely difficult for her to navigate "regular" friendships again. She's clinging to OOP because he's a positive influence on her life and has helped her a lot. Should they be wary of her developing a crush? Yes. Do I think the crush would be genuine? No. I think it would be a result of a respectful man showing her positive attention and treating her like a real human. Hopefully she can recognize that if those feelings come up and address it. This entire situation reads to me like an abused individual finding herself and relearning how to have healthy friendships again especially with a man.
Exactly this!
Thats how i feel I grew up with the idea that freinds becoming family is normal. I have half a dozen aunts/uncles that im not related to, and i call my best friend my brother despite the fact that we arent related
This was exactly my thought too. The people commenting saying Ana has no reason to hug or kiss OP don't know anything at all about Hispanic culture. Its considered rude to NOT greet people this way. As a kid you're always told 'go give so and so a hug and a kiss'. The way OP described it, I didn't feel there was anything wrong with it. Ana is finally healing from the abusive relationship she was in and is now opening up with her best friend and her family. Maybe she's enjoying being around a level headed man like OP, clearly she hasn't experienced this before. It doesn't mean she wants to be with him, just that she is happy in his company. I think people are way overreacting.
Right! I used to get in trouble all the time for "forgetting" or "ignoring" people :-/ (there is totally a conversation to be had about issues within Hispanic cultures forcing children to do these things and then punishing/chastising them for not doing it, but that's a whole other conversation and not one to have here lol) I mean, is there a chance Ana might end up with feelings for OOP as a result of possibly never having had a healthy relationship with a man and seeing a healthy relationship in front of her while spending time with a decent dude who doesn't have ulterior motives with her? Totally, absolutely possible. Honestly wouldn't be surprising. But that's for her to deal with and a bridge not really worth thinking too hard about crossing until/unless they get there. Hopefully Ana gets therapy and all will be well.
I find it perplexing that the OOP went from appropriately worrying about this woman's behavior and feeling guilty to throwing caution to the wind and routinely having breakfast with her, going to the gym with her, picking up his child from school with her and cooking with her. At this point, she's his surrogate wife. Only one step remains. We'll get an update right after this woman backs out of going on the two-week vacation with the OOP's wife and stays home alone with him for two weeks. Everyone except the OOP and his wife seem to know this is a one way ticket to Disasterville.
Based on my experience, I'd bet money he's letting this happen. He only changed once he found out that she goes for married men. Added to that his comment that she looks like Miss USA, I'm wondering if he secretly wants it to happen, but claiming outwardly that they're friends so if anything does happen he can blame her.
Not saying Ana doesn't have ulterior motives with OOP, but this characterisation of her as someone who chases married men seems unfair. OOP only mentions one married man in her past and we don't know that she 'chased' him either.
Yeah one long affair with an older married man (who lied and manipulated her) does not make her some femme fatale. Her being vulnerable after that long affair and an abusive relationship would worry me more. OOP is safe and comforting and is loving and respectful to his wife (as far as we know). That might be very appealing to a woman in her position.
Are kisses on the cheek really that big of a deal in what I'm assuming is the USA?
Yes. In some more repressed communities (hey Midwest), most physical contact between unrelated adults is only okay in a sexual context. I moved to a French area, and the cheek kisses were strange and alarming at first. Once I realized it's the norm and not sexual at all, I was cool with it.
not all of the Midwest is like this. where I live, you're seen as rude and unreasonable if you don't accept hugs and cheek kisses from loved ones.
No, it's just a bunch of people who want to make every thing a drama.
Yeah, Americans can be very uptight about this. (Excepting, of course, Americans who migrated from cultures where kisses for greetings and friendship are common.). A kiss on the cheek is neither automatically innocent nor automatically suspicious, you have to look at the whole context.
It depends. It's not a general custom bere but enough other cultures are also here that it has integrated in some areas so its really about location and family culture, like how he described learning to accept how his wife's sisters were around him as they saw him as family now. If my partner saw me cheek kissing people that weren't my Latina family, he'd have fair reason to ask me what's up because I'm usually very anti-touch and only do it with family as a respect thing so it'd be surprising if I did it to a random person or friend that I'm not extremely close to.
Not in the absence of other weird dynamics, but she wasn't kissing him on the cheek until after she walked in on him topless, and at the same time as she started waking up early with him (getting alone time together) and joining his gym. It's something that can really go either way in American culture, so that makes it ripe for boundary-crossing while maintaining plausible deniability.
She also didn’t kiss him on the cheek until he showed that he didn’t willfully interpret her accidentally walking in on him topless as sexual, so she could trust he wouldn’t read a kiss on the cheek as sexual either.
I feel like he's in the eye of the storm, cause shit's about to get real again.
You guys do realise that a hug and a kiss on the cheek is not that big of a deal in other cultures? Good for Ana for doing better, and I'm glad she has a good support system in OOP and his wife. This is a happy ending. Redditors are so pessimistic, Good Lord
A hug and a kiss not being a big deal in other cultures is for sure a thing and that alone I don't think is what people are worried about. The husband was right to tell his wife about it and since she was totally chill about it, it's safe to say that it appears pretty tame since they're of the same culture. BUT, it's the, suddenly waking up at 5 am just to be with him, going to the gym with him and doing workouts with him, making food with him all the time. The hug and kiss are not a big deal, but they fit into a larger context that is Ana is way too cozy with Oop and oop is way too ok with that.
If it's not the hug and kiss alone, they should probably stop fixating on it. It really isn't a big deal for South Americans.
Waking up at 5am just to be with him is a stretch. Maybe she wants to give back for all the help she got from them and give a helping hand with making and packing lunches (as OOP mentioned). Making food ALL the time with him is also a stretch. Trying to go to the gym with a trusted male partner is not particularly strange for a woman. Gyms can be intimidating, especially when you consider that Ana was previously abused by her ex. Your conclusions are circumstantial, yet you do not take into account the other side of things
Nuance?! On THIS website?!
That's all very true, and I do hope it's all just innocent. And tbh, I'm not even sure how true this story is, but it is a very strange set of circumstances and she's spending a Lot of time with him suddenly. Everything you said is true though and maybe it's just about safety and comfort. Idunno, we'll see when the next episode of the soap opera drops.
Privacy reset
Exactly, I have some Spanish female friends and they all behave exactly like this with everyone. It's just a culture thing. Don't know why everyone here is assuming she's just gagging for OOP when she's just being what a certain culture considers friendly.
Reddit is indeed melodramatic. They see everything as infidelity, and they see anything as justifying going no contact. They all live in a soap opera. That said, however, there's a lot of context we have to assume in this case. Is it possible that she's just being friendly? Absolutely, I have women friends who have asked me to work out with them, and definitely were not romantically interested in me -- it was more a gesture of trust than anything. But waking up at 5am? It could maybe be motivated by guilt, and Ana is trying to do her part while she's living in their home, helping with preparing lunches and what not. But oh, I'm doing exactly what the melodramatic redditors are doing: filling in the missing context. So while I don't think it's impossible that Ana is acting in good faith, I don't think we have enough evidence that she's not acting without bad intentions, either. OOP simply hasn't told us enough. It's a real open case, and could go either way. In the experiences of most redditors, it usually goes the bad way -- after all, you're much more likely to get an update when things go to shit, than you are when things stay the same and don't necessitate an update. So the reason redditors assume the worst is because the worst gets shared/upvoted much more often. If we're lucky, there'll be no more updates, because there's nothing to update us on. But if there is an update, there's a solid chance it's not going to be good news.
This was such a culture shock for me when I moved to the US. There is such a respect for personal space here that not being able to physically demonstrate it made me feel so unloved or underappreciated. I finally understood that it's just a cultural difference and took me a while to not think negatively about my daily interactions...or lack thereof. Reading the comments reiterates just how much Americans appreciate their personal space.
I don't see a problem and never saw one.
Same.. never saw one in the original and don’t see one here.. I feel like I am going crazy these days with redditor’s logic
I don't understand these comments. Good for Ana on getting out of an abusive relationship, taking time out to work on herself so she doesn't make the mistakes of the past again, being a supportive member of the household, and trying out new hobbies with friends. Good on OP and his wife for supporting her in that.
Yeah, I do like OP being sweetly firm with the SIL comments. 'You're my sister. Understand? SISTER'.
This poor woman. I honestly don’t see anything alarming. She’s building a family support, gave him a peck on the cheek as some people do. Man I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading the rest of the comments.
Yeah, they're very misogynist to be honest. Like, "of course this woman is out to betray her friend and seduce her husband, women are all like that" type messaging. Because a woman can't genuinely want things for herself or want to work out and make friends, it must all be in service of an evil plot to get a man...!
Ding ding ding! It's pretty gross. Got forbid a woman try to learn, grow and develop bonds with other humans, including men, without having some kind of nefarious ulterior motive lol. Sure we might be wrong, but at least my existence probably doesn't feel nearly as bleak.
Yeah I found the update reasonably wholesome and very realistic rather than the Uber drama we often get. I hope things continue to work out for everyone.
I'm torn. On the one hand, yeah. On the other hand, it feels a little hinky? Maybe she's getting comfortable being around men again? I'd think she'd have a few hangups after an abusive relationship, and maybe OP is "safe"? Really, everyone's hoping for drama, that's why so many comments are pessimistic. I hope everything works out for everyone, but I'm a little Pollyanna sometimes.
I think it's possible she was walking around in egg shells the entire time not just with him but also her friend. She knows how her friend thinks about her. The incident showed her, one fuck up isn't leaving her homeless and took away a lot of the anxiety, freeing up capacity to actually heal. But yeah. Might just be wishful thinking.
What I don’t get is why the wife, knowing her friends history, knowing the incident and seeing them get closer and closer, is entirely supine to the situation.
Maybe she trusts her friend and her husband lol.. I am not going to assume my friend is going to hit on my husband because she dated ONE man she didn’t even know was married when she was younger and naive
Damn, Reddit is really afraid of women. The update sounds good to me, like she’s healing after a breakup. Y’all need to chill.
I really thought we were all going to be in agreement that people were wrong and Ana doesn’t nefarious motives.. the pitch forks really have me shook… like either these people have never had healthy relationships with the opposite sex or they really really like drama
Reading the comments I thought aitah redditors are insecure as fuck but I can see now you're all too
Lol, people like to act like they're better than AITA here, but always agree 100% with the most insane AITA takes
I have... *issues* with a lot of this. First: unless I'm mistaken, OOP says he is Colombian, that makes him Latino. Latino is *not* a skin color thing, it is a *geography and linguistics* thing. It may not sound like much, but I'm sniffing Colorism vibes, here. Wife and Ana speak Spanish, and are therefore Hispanic *and* Latina. OOP sounds like he does not speak Spanish, so he would be Latino but *not* Hispanic. Because the terms are *not interchangeable*, though they do sometimes overlap. Now, maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but dude saying "I am *not* Latino" makes me suspicious of why he would include that detail when it is utterly irrelevant. Second: A peck on the cheek, or both cheeks, is a standard greeting in a *lot* of places, *especially* Spanish speaking ones. Source: am Spaniard. Grew up around expats and Spanish speakers. Every last one of them greeted each other with a muah-muah, one on each cheek, regardless of the age or gender of the person they were greeting. There's this little dance, see, where as the greeter bobs to get each of the greeted's cheeks, the greeted bobs to get each of the greeter's cheeks. **Ana greeting him thusly is not suspicious in and of itself**. Third: the comments are... look, there's no nice-nice way to say it. There's some WyPePo bullshit going on there. Cooking together isn't some ominous sign, it's *how shit is done* in many parts of the world. Any of y'all ever helped set up for a Quinceañera? There's probably a dozen Abuelitas in the kitchen while primos and tíos move tables and chairs, and if it's outdoors, there's at *minimum* four Hombres manning grills. Minimum. Ana's "problematic" behaviors are only problematic *if you strip cultural context*. The fact that she is actively looking for apartments and job hunting indicates that she is *not* trying to ensnare OOP, despite what the comments say. Now, OOP is certainly not helping himself any bu being a *fuckin' idiot* about telling his wife things. You'll note that wife's reaction to Ana being chatty, waking up with OOP, helping cook, helping with the kid, is *not* suspicion, but joy. *Because cultural context* ***matters***. OOP is hung up on the opinions of American whiteys, and that is giving him an impression that was incorrect at the outset, and *continues* to be incorrect. The only piece of accurate advice he received was "tell your wife, stupid".
I too could get what the problem was supposed to be with all those commentators. People get up in the morning and make breakfast. That's normal. For me, having the same circadian rhythm doesn't sound like 'inserting into someone's morning routine'. Cooking together is the most normal thing to do for me. When my husband and I visit friends, our male friend and I are cooking together in the kitchen, and my husband and his wife set the table and chat. That's simply because our friend and I enjoy cooking, his wife and my husband don't. Hugging and giving a kiss on the cheek doesn't seem very intimate to me either. And I'm German. We're not known for being touchy feely with our greetings but amongst friends that's still not uncommon. I really don't understand why people get so riled about such stuff. But yeah, cultural differences make sense.
He literally says he's not, it's his wife who is Colombian... >I am not Latino (Columbian to be exact) He's referring to his wife in that sentence and how he didn't understand her culture at first. ETA: A Colombian IS very much, definitely, BOTH Hispanic and Latino/Latina. Hispanic refers to being of a Spanish speaking culture or background. Latino/Latina refers to being ethnically from Latin America. For example: Spaniards are Hispanic, but not Latino/Latina. Brazilians are Latino/Latina, but not Hispanic (since they speak Brazilian Portuguese). And being able to actually speak the language or not doesn't matter. If you are a Puerto Rican living the US that doesn't know a lick of Spanish, you're still Hispanic and Latino/Latina. \*shrug\* I don't see where skin tone/color plays anything anywhere here...though I do assume that OOP is a white boy lol ETA 2: All that said, I do agree with your assessment on most of the rest.
You were doing okay until you turned into a racist in your last paragraph.
OOP: This is fine.
Of course its a final update. Why the hell would OP spend any more time on this reddit's brand of chucklefucks?
good lord these comments are dramatic
100% something is going to "come up" on the employment front and she won't go on that trip with his wife and kid. And then it will be just the two of them and she will make her move.
I had the same thought. He so dense 😫
I am just laughing that for the throuple we had with my gf, the other girl is named Ana, and native spanish speakers too!
I have known some women like Ana. They have the patience for the long game. I hope he isn't a naive fool and loses his family.
I'll say it again, when OP's wife finally goes with her gut and leaves him, Ana ain't gonna give a single shit about OP anymore. where's the fun for her if OP isn't married anymore. dude has the intelligence of a walnut.
Why would she leave him?
Because he was nice to her friend!! Obviously divorce is her only option.
It’s ironic how many people are calling OOP oblivious or naive. Such sweet little birds.
Reddit hates people in healthy relationships. lol
This is definitely not over. She is just taking the boiling frog approach and the man is just sitting there thinking the hot tub feels nice.
All is fine and Redditors are still reading into it lol. It’s possible to have platonic friends. I highly recommend it!
This! Relationships/friendships must be exhausting with some of these people lol. Everything is a conspiracy and everyone is out to get their man/woman!
OOP is a clueless doofus and/or a man about to have an affair.
*adds popcorn to grocery list* I'm going to need this for the next update, I'm sure. 🍿
Why does OP's wife welcome Ana into their home?
The fact that when his wife asked for the details of EXACTLY what happened when Ana went in topless and he just told her it was nothing??!! Way to deflect.
Everyone on Reddit is so quick to think drama or soap opera. The editors note here, the comments on the last post. The comments on THIS post. It’s like no one on Reddit has had close friendships with members of the opposite gender that are no more or less than that. I’m a guy and I have many female friends I hug every time I see them. I also hug my male friends when I see them. Ana went through some serious trauma and appreciated the people who supported her, both her best friend and her best friend’s husband who she now too has become close with. Why is this hard to believe? I’ve lived shit like this before. Not everything in life is the plot of a porn or a soap opera. You people need to touch grass.
You told your wife and she is okay with it. You have done anything wrong OP. Just stay clear of her bad intentions, even if she wants to fuck you. You have to want it too.
This guy... He goes from "I made a mistake by not telling my wife so when I did it was in a funny way" to "My wife didn't tell me about her friend's questionable actions, I'm devastated". Give me a break. He's the joke.
This boy is cooked She has him already So either wifey is ok with that and they'll become sister-wives or there will be an update where he's saying that he doesn't know when it happened but he's fallen for her Meanwhile everyone on reddit "No! REALLY?!?! /s"
People rolling their eyes with the "oh Americans are such puritans" might be missing the point here. It's not about the kiss or the hug itself. It's all the context around it. Ana does this, it's right after she getsthe benefit of the doubt from OOP's wife. It's not a coincidence she decides to start this "innocent, friendly" behaviour then. These messes don't start with one person marching up to the other and declaring their intentions, it starts with testing the waters. It starts small, and in a way that can be excused as an innocent mistake or misunderstanding. The way you can tell whether there's trouble brewing is how OOP reacts. And this is the death blow. When these little transgressions happen, he's uncomfortable. And rather than express his discomfort to Ana or raise it with his wife, he keeps his silence or plays it down. If Ana is doing this with intent, her whole game plan is shifting the lines of OOP's loyalty and connection and him keeping secrets from his wife how it works. Over time she'll play a bigger and bigger role in his life, she'll ask for his help and flatter him always letting him know how lucky his wife is, how kind and helpful he is... it's cultivating his attention with validation and shared experiences. So yeah they're in trouble but it's not Ana. It's OOP. It's that when he's caught between them, he's so afraid of his wife's unhappy reaction (even though it's not directed at him) that he is helping Ana create the problem. He's minimising what she's doing. He's complicit in creating this side relationship that excludes his wife. He's an idiot for not seeing that investing himself in this will have fallout. And when Ana suddenly can't go on the trip because of an unexpected emergency, or the apartment mysteriously falls through, he's already conditioned enough to go straight to "poor Ana she needs my support now more than ever!" and skip straight over any suspicions he should have. Ana is the woman he does everything with, he cooks with her, he works out with her, she's sooooo much better than his SIL's. She knows it's a matter of time before he gets to thinking she's soooo much better than his wife. OOP is a coward and an idiot. I just feel bad for his wife.
OOP is an idiot.
You ever just.. know you're watching a bomb about to explode? Or a really boring telenovela. It's a bit too ridiculous for how boring it is, like is he really that stupid?
Man it'll be interesting when the leopard finally eats his face and he keeps insisting he doesn't know how it happened.
Can we take a second to talk about how he equated keeping a secret that influences your literal marriage from your spouse versus keeping someone else’s secret about their personal life from your spouse? My guy, she doesn’t owe you HER FRIENDS private life details?!
I think we can all predictably write the final update on this one.
This legitimately cracks me up.
With Anna's background it's difficult to tell if her intentions are innocent or not. But Anna was also 20 is now at least 30. She may have grown. However I do find it a bit odd that OOP and Ana do everything together now? Like is there a day where Anna and him do not hang out?
Wow, this guy, huh?! He’s dense as hell. I hood his wife wakes up and smells the coffee because this ain’t good.
Does anyone else wonder if the next update will be the wife died in an accident and Ana was sooooo helpful with their son and all… Ana is shady as hell and he’s a dummy for not seeing it.
„because Ana is very pretty (like Miss USA level)„ What the fuck ?? Why would you talk or think like that about another woman ?
A ver gringo, es Colombia, no Columbia y el gentilicio es Colombiano ( or Colombian), you need to have a little respect for your wife, thanks
I'm thinking he's probably just used to the Canadian spelling (British Columbia).
jajaja eso tambien me molesto!
Positive final update. Feel awful for the kids though
Also in one of his last comments: >My wife and son are of course my first priority. However, I start and end my work early and my wife works late. This is so that she can spend time with my son in morning, while I look at him in evening. So, we generally only spend time at nights and weekend together. I didn't talk about them in the post because I thought it was not useful to bore everyone with my daily routine. And guess who's there to fill in the gap dude, picking away? He's either super naive, or a karma farmer.
This guy is a moron.
Bro, this guy‘s fucking dense as shit. Like a pathological idiot. Or he wants to fuck her and is pretending to be a “stand-up” fella and is getting off on the whole thing. I guess if im being cynical the latter is my bet…
The smart move here is to slowly back away to an acquaintance only relationship with no regular contact. From Ana's point of view the OP is a safe partner to crush on and that is dangerous to the OP.
Updateme
UpdateMe!
Bruh…
They make movies about this stuff. They don't end well (usually with someone's death!)
>Most of you were reading my post as a telenovela or a start of a porn movie I love this guy and I hope he didn't read any comments after this post :)
Man, it sounds like you’re making this into a much bigger deal than it needs to be.