Elizabeth J. Moua

Two years ago, I learned the hard way that sometimes, the people you rely on the most can let you down in the worst possible way. I was 19, living with my dad, and what started as mild cold symptoms spiraled into something far more serious. But every plea for help was dismissed, ignored, or met with outright frustration.

Today was supposed to be a routine pre-op appointment for my hysterectomy, a procedure I’ve been discussing with my doctor for over a year. Instead, it turned into a stressful and infuriating encounter that left me questioning how a nurse could so blatantly overstep professional boundaries.

My relationship with my dad has always been strained, and recent events have only deepened that divide. He divorced my mom when I was a baby, and she passed away when I was just five years old.

I’ve reached my breaking point. For years, I’ve loved my stepdaughter as if she were my own, treating her no differently than my biological children. She’s been with us since she was 5 and is about to turn 13. But over the past year, her behavior has become almost impossible to handle.

I thought I was doing the right thing by helping out my older sister Emma when her car broke down a few months ago. She couldn’t afford to fix it and since I work from home and don’t need my car every day I told her she could use it whenever she needed. It felt

I’m starting to feel like I have three kids instead of two. Today was just another example of the growing frustration with my husband’s behavior and I don’t know how much more I can take. His pattern of weaponized incompetence is wearing me down and today’s ordeal pushed me one step closer to the edge.

It all started with a simple rule: no photos of our children on social media. My wife and I agreed on this long before our son was even born and we’ve stuck to it for nearly a decade. But her stepmother has never respected that boundary and after countless warnings and broken promises we’ve reached a breaking point.

Graduating from college was supposed to be one of the proudest moments of my life. As the first person in my family to earn a degree it wasn’t just my achievement it was a milestone my whole family celebrated.