This week we're sharing advice on: 

• Choosing a last name
• A friend changing
• Going through a abrupt break up
• Your stepdad dating after mom's passing
• Update: stripper cheating on two men

If you want to read the call transcriptions, see the bottom of these notes!

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… with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! I'll do my best to share my wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame me if I screw up your life. I kid! My advice IS AMAZING.

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Call 1:

Hi, Meghan and Melisa, I'm 23, my fiance's 24 and we've been together for four years. We just got engaged this month and one conversation would always come up for us, but especially now that we're engaged is what our last name is going to be when we get married. He likes his last name and I love it. It's how I met him, how I have always known him for the last four years. So it just seems simple that that will be our last name, but his mom wants him to change it because he has his dad's last name who's basically done nothing for him his entire life. This doesn't bother my fiance. He has a great relationship with his grandparents and his stepbrother on his dad's side. So that's his family too. But his mom thinks he should take her husband's name. So his stepdad, who came into his life when he was already like 12 and they have the most awkward non-relationship, but she thinks since she raised him and her husband has supported him financially and those are his other siblings last names. He should do this the irony is that his stepdad's family is even more problematic than his dad's family and I absolutely do not want to be associated with them. My thing is I feel like this is creating a problem that has never really been there because this has been his name for twenty-four years and it just has the potential to piss off way too many people I feel like for no reason. My fiance thinks it would be disrespectful to his grandparents and his brother on his dad's side, but his mom can't come to grips with her grandchildren potentially having the same last name as my fiance's dad. I really love his mom and we have a good relationship, but she's very emotionally invested in this topic, understandably, and I don't really know how to talk about it when it comes up cause she gets really heated about it, which I totally understand, especially because one of the main reasons I care is that I really don't like her husband and that's a totally different topic. I don't want to have his last name and I can't exactly tell her that. My fiance also loves his mom, and he has a hard time standing up to her, but he basically doesn't really care either way as long as he's not taking his step dad's last name, which is what his mom wants. I come from a very drama-free family so I'm not really sure how to act. I know that him taking my last name is an option, but my last name is really boring, and it's just not my favorite option and I do want to have the same last name as him. I just need advice on whether to just stop caring. How do I talk about it when she brings it up again? Any advice will help. Thanks. Bye.

Call 2:

Dear Meghan and Melisa I hope you can understand me as English isn't my first language. I'm in my early thirties so naturally all my girlfriends have one, two, or three kids. I personally love kids but I don't want any for myself. Now my best friend has changed since she became a mom a few years ago which I guess is normal because my other friends have as well but hers is more extreme. She says she's finding herself, getting closer to her true self, and I've known her for 25 years and her finding herself is very far from the girl I know and love. This includes being a mom before anything else, she's considering anti-vaccining, sharing very stereotypical and cringey inspirational quotes with sunsets in the background on Facebook, and the newest addition is that institutions traumatize our children and to work around this, she has quit her job to stay with them full-time, which is also fine but her husband makes less than her so if this was truly for them I guess she would work and he would stay at home. I really suspect that this is about her more than the children. Her texts include very much me, I, myself, me me me. I've never commented on my friends' parenting even if I disagree with them because, well I'm not living their lives and I assume they make the right decisions and also the few times I have had an input I've been told that I won't know until I become a mom myself which I never will. So to this best friend, I've asked her how her husband is feeling cause she doesn't mention him in all of this. I would personally be upset if my partner one day announced that they quit their job to find themselves because it would also affect me. I would have to work harder, we would have to not go on holidays and so on. She replied, he has a hard time being the only provider, but I feel so relieved not working and I feel that I am getting closer to myself. So should I challenge her, what about her pension when she isn't working, she says they will have to take a huge loan, is he the only one who's going to pay off a shared loan? I used to help children who had eating disorders and a lot of them actually had their self-harming problems because they were all their parents had, they didn't care about their jobs, they didn't see their friends, they didn't have any hobbies, so they put all the responsibility of their happiness on their children. Is it a good friend move to confront her about these things, including that she might be pushing her husband away or is this me being selfish and missing the friend I used to have instead of accepting the choices she's making now? Can I put a friendship on hold? What do I do? 

Call 3:

Hi Meghan and Melisa, love the podcast so I'm 25, I'm an Aries and I need your guys's advice or words of wisdom whatever, because I got myself into a situation that is pretty annoying to me right now. So about a month ago I started dating or seeing (I don't know) one of my closest and oldest guy friends so we've known each other for about 20 years now and it's always been a little flirty, over the past couple months at least, and I know that when we were like 15 or so he had like a crush on me and asked me out but back then I just didn't understand or get it I don't know I was young and naive but so about a month ago I went camping with his family actually and the weekend after that we both got super drunk and then had sex and after that it kind of just rolled into this whole thing where we now basically see each other at like at least three times a week, I always sleep over at his house, we also hang out during the day, it's always super fun, we laugh a lot, I've met his friends that are like outside of our friend group, and apparently like the guys and even his girl best friend like me, like he told me that. Yeah it's just like overall a good time and it's pretty much like he would always text me like a good morning and good night texts and he told me that he really likes me and thinks I'm funny and all that and everything would turn into like kind of relationship if he was not in love with his coworker who is actually in a lesbian relationship though, and so she's been in this relationship for I think three years and she says that she's still in love with her girlfriend but she'll also like text my guy all the time and just like flirt with him and talk about all of these super personal intimate things and so now he's like or has been apparently for years for a couple years super in love with her and totally thinks that she's the girl for him even though she day by day chooses her girlfriend over him right, and so all of his actual friends and like his girl best friend like they all don't like her, we all think that she's just like not a nice person for playing both of them, like my guy and the girlfriend, but now I'm seeing him and it's super weird, because I think I'm honestly starting to really really like him and I just don't know what to do, so please help me.

Call 4:

Hi, I just called but it was kind of a messy call so I 'm going to try it again. So I am 21 in this situation and my ex is 22 and we're both Aries. So what happened was that last week he broke up with me on Friday. It has now been three days later. I'm very much still mourning and grieving but the issue is that all happened out of nowhere and I'm struggling to believe his reasonings for the break up. So the entire time last week, everything was completely normal. There were so many I love yous and verbal affirmations and heart emojis, even the day before everything had happened where he broke up with me. I sent him like "Hey, I'm really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, it's going to be so fun you know hanging out again" and he was like, "yeah, likewise, of course" and even the night before it, like we always text each other goodbye or sorry not goodbye, good night, and he sent me a voice memo and he said I love you like two times in it and it was just a very like sweet and cute voice memo so I kept it. And the next day rolls around and it's a very normal day again, you know, nothing much to comment on there and what I realize happening was that yeah. I was just, sorry. I was just getting ready and everything and he was at the gym and out of nowhere it's like, "Hey, can I stop by your house really quick?" And I was like "sure, but why" and he said "it was better to be said in person and I'll be there in 20 minutes." So I had twenty minutes to shift my perspective from, yo, this guy could be the one that like I can marry, I could definitely see a future with this guy. We've been working toward the future, we have that common goal and he comes over, he breaks up with me and his reasoning was that he doesn't love me anymore and I'm struggling to believe that, because every part of his behavior said that he loves me still, like I asked him if that's true, like why were you giving me so many verbal affirmations? Why were we making plans for the future? I was supposed to be hanging out with him this week, it was his plan and he just told me that he was, it was all a lie and he was just breaking down and sobbing and I'm sorry. I just really have a hard time believing his reasoning. And I guess I would just like you guys to tell me about what you think of all of this because it truly did come out of nowhere and even towards the bitter end to him and I were just hugging and laughing and at one point I kissed his cheek and he just smiled back at me and we were holding hands and I kissed his hand and he kissed mine and I asked him how much how much of the relationship was real and he said all of it, so very clearly my issue here, is that it just it seems he seems so conflicted. So I guess I'm looking for guidance. I know that you guys can't read his mind. But what do you think is going to happen with him?

Call 5:

Hi Meghan and Melisa, I'm trying to keep this short without sparing any like big details but basically so my mom passed away a year ago last July and we just hit a year, and I'm an immigrant. She was an immigrant and I currently am living with my stepdad, the man who she married to come move here. We moved out of the house that we lived in with my mom and we are living in a duplex while he's building a house. So, you know, he gave me a room there, all that kind of stuff whatever anyways, for reference. I'm Twenty-One and he's in his fifties. So I started realizing last night. He was like, oh I'm just going to like go out or whatever and he was all dressed up and he left at like 3 and he didn't come back until like 10:30, which is strange and I was texting my boyfriend and he was like, well, maybe it's a work dinner thing and I'm like, no, like he's not a late-night person whatever and then today I was with a friend and we were leaving the house and he like changed his clothes and he's like, you know, just going to go drop off the rent check, I was like, okay, well like he'll be back home when I get back home cuz we were going shopping to get a swimsuit anyways, and I've been back home for 3 hours now and he is not here. And so I feel like he's starting to date again. I don't really know how I feel about it. Like we're not very close. So if he were to just like seriously start dating, I don't know like where I would go or what I would do or what my relationship with his family would be like because I'm closer to some of his family members than I am him and like a few weeks ago, he asked me to take pictures of him for his mom, which is like really weird. He got like dressed up and like got on his bike cuz he likes cycling and stuff. You know again, I'm just saying I asked his mom and she didn't know of anything and I'm putting it out all together and he's definitely dating again. I don't know if  like if this is normal to feel like I'm mad at him, because I feel like this is so fucking awful. But I feel like he should still be like grieving and not dating, and like I was at my boyfriend's house. I came back and my bedroom door was closed, all the little things that I had left out in the living room and stuff, were just thrown on my bed. So he obviously had people over and like he doesn't have any friends by the way, so it's not like he had like a party. I don't really know what I'm asking for. I guess I just want to know like is this normal and if other people have dealt with it and like what to do because he hasn't said anything about it and people keep telling you to bring it up. But like I said, we're very close so it's kind of uncomfortable. Yeah, it's weird and I'd like to go on a road trip with him to help his oldest daughter who is like 24, move out of her apartment, and it's just like uncomfortable. I don't know. Please help me. Okay. Thanks. Love you guys bye.

Update:

Hi guys, this is an update. I'm calling back from the episode - I don't know the like seasons or the episode numbers cause I don't see them anymore - but it was just the latest episode that is titled "my boyfriend is jealous of my sex toy". I'm the girl who was cheating on these two guys, one of them being my my boyfriend living in Hawaii, the other one being my fuck-buddy living in California. I also live in California so yea Melisa was right, I do travel from LA to Hawaii. It is a quick flight. Anyway, I have a great update, some great news for you guys. I am in therapy and my therapist and I have discussed all of these things and worked all these things out and I realized that I wasn't being aware of my own cheating and I just thought it was okay and dismissful because these other two men were cheating on me too, and I realized that that's not fucking okay, and so I completely blocked my fuckbuddy on everything. We do not speak anymore and me and my boyfriend - I decided to give that a real and genuine shot. So I aired out all my dirty laundry to him and worked through that and he has accepted that because he also made mistakes in the past and we are working to have a healthy relationship. I know that you guys told me to either have an open relationship or to break up with both of them, but I didn't see the podcast until today. So that is what has happened. Things are going really really good with me and my boyfriend right now. I have been completely faithful to him. And from what I know, he's been completely faithful to me and the trust issues are getting patched and everything seems to be going great. So yeah therapy is the answer, is the lesson learned here. Therapy is always the answer. Please do it. It's saved me so much heartache, so much headache, everything. It's amazing and I love you guys. Thank you for the advice. I love you bye.

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