I don't know whether she lied about the rape allegation, or whether her former assistant is lying; that seems like it could go either way. I absolutely believe some of the abuse happened. He's admitted via text to hitting her, headbutting her, kicking her, he's had former lovers say he was jealous and controlling, clearly he was verbally abusive and the severe drug addiction is correlated with abuse. I think the most trustworthy witness was probably their couples therapist, who testified they were mutually abusive. Given that the violence and verbal abuse was at least to some degree mutual, and she couldn't prove the sexual abuse, I think she shouldn't have written the article. She's not a good victim, and she was also right (as was he), that this would end in massive social and professional humiliation, and she'd be destroyed. If there were less fangirling about Depp, I'd probably have a more nuanced take. I distrust fangirling, and the sort of over-meme-iness of it all. Maybe part of that is just a strong countercultural tendency on my part, and if the internet/social media coverage had been more balanced, I'd be more inclined to believe him entirely - but I don't. He lied straight up about the texts; he admitted some abuse. And I think the couples therapist, who saw them both during the relationship but was not in either of their retinues, is probably the least biased person who has prolonged contemporary knowledge of the situation.

Yes, she should have stayed quiet. I think that's a pretty obvious conclusion.

I mean, I cannot for the life of me imagine a lawyer doctoring evidence like this. They'd be disbarred, it would never be worth it. So I think he was surprised they had these texts, and defaulted to lying. Whether that also means he's lying about the abuse is for the jury to decide; it's not proof either way.

Nope, I cannot imagine texting these things. I can imagine venting angrily. This is perverse.

"I hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her" "Let's burn Amber!!" "Let's drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead."

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You Aussies are a lot...nicer that we Americans are when you're talking straight politics, at least on this forum. I mean, I suspect Melissa Louise and LMD agree politically about exactly one issue, and here you are wishing each other well and finding points of agreement among the dissention. It's quite remarkable to see.

I have never heard anyone say it, and in my head I say it pear-ih-dote. Like antidote.

The MeToo movement started in 2017, though. Amber Heard filed the restraining order in 2016, claiming abuse then. So it's not like she saw the rise of the metoo movement, thought "oh! I'll make up a lie that he abused me!" and then started telling people she had been abused. She first claimed abuse a year before MeToo was a thing. It's that kind of misunderstanding of the situation (along with the ridiculous equivocation about how bad Johnny Depp was or wasn't) that makes me distrust the prevailing narrative.

I would not text the mother (or anyone else) about your ambivalence about whether DD needs the money, or whether it's right for you to pursue it. Like don't even keep these posts, preferably

Jesus, Johnny Depp has a fantastic PR team, clearly.

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Can I be curious with you briefly about what life would look like if you didn't know what SIL is telling him, or what he is telling her? I believe you when you say being aware of their communication is important, but I also wonder what it would look like to give it up.

I wouldn't do Betterhelp; I'd call around locally, explain the situation in the direst and clearest terms you can, and ask if they know someone who specializes in these sorts of persistent anxieties and has difficulty dealing with the interpersonal aspect of therapy. It may take some time, and it may take some time to see an effect once you have settled with someone. Many providers will do Teleheath even if they are local and also offer in-person, so I'd focus on finding someone local (because eventually she may well want to do in-person, and also Betterhelp sucks).

What I mean is, "selfish" implies a situation in which you don't have a right to be self-concerned. This would be like if your kids were wearing threadbare clothes 2 sizes too small but you went to Dolce&Gabbana for a new bag. In this case, and not just because it's Mother's Day, you have a right to be self-concerned. Your grief (about your son, and also to be honest about the loss of the relationship you had with your husband, and the changes in parenting responsibilities that has caused) belongs to you, and you have a right to it. It might be "selfish" for you to insist that the only way your husband can ever see the kids is if he goes with you to your son's grave, even though you know that would cause him harm. Your reaction to what happened here is merely self-concern, and to be honest, imo, probably still not enough of it. You could use a little more self-concern. "Ungrateful" implies that you have been given something truly valuable TO YOU and not valued it appropriately, in a fairly extreme way. Ungrateful would be like if a doctor came along and fixed your husband up 100% so he could be a decent parent to your kids again, and take some of the load off of you (even if you don't stay married), and when you saw the doctor later you were like hey dude, you didn't also buy me a car, you're a chump. That would be ungrateful. Your reaction to what happened here was that you did not fully appreciate something that was not truly valuable to you. He made an effort - great! It didn't work the way he'd hoped - bummer! You don't owe him any fake appreciation for doing a thing that didn't work for you, on one day, for I presume a few hours, after months and months of severe, persistent unkindness and disruption, while you shoulder the entire burden of parenting your kids (and managing the situation so that he can work toward reestabilishing a relationship with them). I'm sorry to sound so severe about this, but I really think your SIL is probably projecting (possibly from your husband's projection); he owes you a great debt of appreciation which he probably cannot possibly express or even process or feel right now, and I'm sure that somewhere inside your SIL recognizes this. Although it is not his fault (so I hate to use the pejorative terms because blaming someone for mental illness is uncool), he's been (functionally, not intentionally) both selfish and ungrateful for quite some time. This isn't his fault - but it's still true, and instead of acknowledging that great debt, he (through SIL, and probably co-created by SIL) projects those feelings onto you.

For a different perspective, take it for what it's worth: Even if you had been self-concerned and unappreciative ("selfish" and "ungrateful" but without the judgment), that would have been 100% totally normal. You have a right to be self-concerned, and no one can force you to be appreciative of something you didn't appreciate. You don't owe your husband, or your SIL, fake appreciation for something that didn't work for you. You are also a person, and for that matter a person who from my perspective probably under-prioritizes herself in lieu of taking care of others, and being self-concerned ON MOTHER'S DAY (but really any day) is absolutely 100% completely and totally fine. I find this helpful sometimes in dealing with people who are mentally ill but to whom I feel an overwhelming personal obligation that can cloud my judgment: I reverse the roles, and ask myself what I would have done. So in this case I'd say to myself, Ceilingfan, if you'd taken your husband out for father's day during the reconciliation period after a very very difficult time in which your instability made things hard for him, and he had a breakdown in the bathroom, took a rescue med, and then was spacy and disconnected afterward, how would you react? And I answer myself - I'd regret that it didn't work the way I'd hoped, and I'd say to myself "bummer," and then that would be it. If I called to vent to someone about my disappointment, it would absolutely be someone I knew wouldn't call up my husband and make him feel bad for having felt bad. Then I'd say to myself, Ceilingfan, if my sister called me up and said she'd done something nice for her husband (my brother-in-law) on father's day but he had a breakdown and cried and then was spacy afterward and seemed not to appreciate her efforts, what would I do? Well, ceilingfan, I say to myself, I'd tell her that sucks and I'm sorry her plans didn't work out as she'd hoped, and that this must be a hard time for her husband. Maybe if she were really upset I'd send her some cookies via doordash. What I would not do, ever, is then TEXT THE BROTHER-IN-LAW and chew him out for having been sad on father's day after losing his child and having had a really difficult period in which my sister's mental illness made him responsible for the kids for an extended period and had led to her being unkind to him over several months. Like, 0% of the time would I do that. So then I know (and forgive me if that's confusing because the genders are all reversed) that these other people's reactions are way out of line, because they're not something I would ever in the entire universe do. I know it's not my fault, and that I don't have to take their actions or words as gospel truth, because I can see that they're not reasonable.

darn!

I guess "usually"

Well, and if you consider hormonal contraception a potential abortifacient (that is, you think the right to life begins at fertilization), using abortion as birth control is morally no different than taking the pill. In fact, late term abortion is morally no different from the pill; partial-birth abortion no different morally from an abortion at 5 weeks, before a heartbeat. So I guess from that perspective, ultra prolife believers shouldn't be so strident about organ harvesting of 39 week fetuses, or whatever other atrocities they feel will sway public opinion - because to them, be definition, that is no different from using an IUD. And if it does seem different than using an IUD - I'd suggest they're already recognizing the gray area, if not acknowledging it.

Unless you're ready to leave him right that second - and in the hospital giving birth, or even at the first obgyn appointment of the pregnancy, does not, generally speaking, feel like an opportune time to leave.

I have had four abortions. I didn't report any of them as the consequence of nonconsensual sex, for the same reason that when the obgyn asks, "are you safe at home?" you know 💯 that the correct answer is "yes, I'm safe (insert joke like "except from the toddler! Does that count?") - because the abuser is going to demand details of how you answered, and he can tell when you lie.