By Exciting-Praline-530 • Score: 0 • April 18, 2025 11:09 PM
Hi all, looking for a bit of advice on how to feel about this situation as I’m still processing it all and feel very guilty. This is also my first post so please bear with me!
I’ll give a little backstory before getting into the current scenario. I (26F) and my friend (27F) have been friends since childhood, about 15 years now. We strayed apart for a few years during high school and got connected again when I became pregnant with my son about 5 years ago. She has 3 children and her youngest is the same age as my son. We became very close during the pregnancies together and postpartum/covid times. We talk almost every day, almost 24/7. I will admit I have a horrible time talking to people about how I feel and I know I’m very avoidant and I’m not proud of that, but I’m working on it in therapy. I honestly feel like shit I didn’t bring this up to her myself at this point because I could’ve saved her future troubles, but I also wonder if she needs a major wake up call. Now for the story. I recently went to see her for a short while and I honestly was bothered by so many things, but I’m always too scared to ever say anything to anyone regardless how I really feel. Her youngest son is 4 and isn’t fully potty trained, not judging on that because my son isn’t quite fully potty trained either. But the issue I have is she constantly leaves her son in a soiled diaper or even if he happens to soil in his pants for an hour or more. I counted multiple times during my 6 day stay that I saw her do this. She does it out of pure spite that he did it because she’s frustrated he won’t go on the potty like a big boy yet. They used to resort to making him also take a cold shower for soiling in his pants as punishment. I made so many comments while I was there about how he needed changed or how there was literal shit running down his leg while our children played outdoors, in which she all ignored or avoided. The day I left I can account for an hour and a half that his diaper wasn’t changed. I’m unsure for how long after I left that they actually changed him. Her husband is also a part of this when he is actually at home and not working. I can’t imagine leaving my son in a shit filled diaper for any amount of time, or let alone make him take a cold shower as punishment. This has also occurred during our many phone calls that we do throughout the weeks. This honestly has been happening since he was much younger, I guess witnessing it in person really just triggered me. I recently had a therapy appointment and vented to my therapist about my entire trip and at the end of my session she told me if I wasn’t going to turn my friend into CPS that she was going to have to do it. I will be quite honest, I couldn’t call her into CPS myself. I feel honestly quite shitty either way. Her children honestly don’t have the best home environment, my sons isn’t perfect but they constantly get cussed at and called horrible names like bitch, dick, asshole etc. I can recall my friend yelling at her oldest child how she wanted to “slap him across the face” and it made me sick. I pretend to drop our calls or that my phone dies often due to the way she talks to her children and it bothering me. She’s an amazing friend but I feel bad saying she’s a better friend than she is a parent. I haven’t told her that my therapist had to mandatory report it. I honestly had no idea going into therapy that was even going to occur. This happened a few days ago and I’m anxiously waiting for the ball to drop. I’ll be honest it’s consuming my soul and I’m feeling super guilty about it all. I cannot imagine treating my son the way she treats her children and it shatters my heart. So the real question here is. AITAH.
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