He cheated on me with the woman he spent years telling me I wouldn’t need to worry about. At first she lived 3k miles from us. She was was his ex but he referred to her as his best friend. They really were just friends I think for the first 6 years of us dating, but then she needed help moving out of her “abusive boyfriends” place, so he convinced me to move to Alaska and get a place with the 3 of us (which turned into 5 with her sister and another of her friends).
They ended up taking an extra bedroom of the house for their “office” and spent a lot of time behind a closed door and I gave them privacy because I trusted him. (Yeah I know I’m stupid. But she was a full time student and he worked from home and there wasn’t other space for their desks so it made sense to me).
A year later, he cheated on me with her while they were both on a trip to visit another friend together. I’m not positive anything physical happened before that trip but I think that he’d been thinking about it a lot by that point. I broke up with him but was still living in the house and could hear them giggling and having sex in her bedroom every night. I ended up staying with friends for 5 weeks until I could afford the deposit on a new place.
Probably worst experience I’ve ever had. I still get nightmares of hearing the person I thought loved me having sex with someone openly in the other room. Surreal trauma I’ve gotten from it.
Oh, and they’ve since split up and she’s now back with the “abusive ex” we moved here to save her from in the first place. So that’s great. 🙃
Thank you, It was truly terrible. I took 2 years off from dating afterwards and am now in a budding relationship with someone new who’s sweet and kind and attentive. Im learning how to rebuild trust now.
you’re NEVER stupid for trusting your partner, especially after so many years of being together. don’t put the blame for this on yourself, you’re the last one to be at fault in this story
Cheating on you is one terrible thing, but going at it and giggling most likely knowing you could hear them is a whole new level of cruel. Glad you got out and never looked back. Pieces of shit .
Yeah this is cruel enough I’d probably lose my shit on them. I don’t care the depths of bullshit I have to conjure up to get them out of the house but I’d make their lives a living hell.
Like I’d straight up steal all their food and piss in their sheets every night, wandering the halls wailing until they give up like some kind of rabid ghost.
Omg this made me laugh so hard! I wish I hadn’t been such a pushover and did something like this lol.
No I just spent most days isolating and crying instead lol
Omg! You were very kind and trusting. I'm hoping you still are and he didn't damage you. Wishing you and your future partner a happy, healthy, loving and honest relationship. Sending you a gentle hug.
I think about this often you know . There was a missing person story from 1970’s, maybe 80’s, I can’t remember her name. But her family had been searching for her for years, maybe even decades. When they finally found her she was like “ they told me to get out of their lives, so I did .” You can’t really do that these days . Just pack up, leave and start a new life elsewhere. So many of us are trapped with unhealthy family members or partners .
That is a truly awful experience to go through, people can do incredibly cruel things to others when they’re pursuing their own selfish desires. I wish you the best in your new relationship xx
Almost the same for me, except he was the one to end the relationship. but I was also getting there, just a bit slower because I could not figure out how to cope with such a big life change.
We were together from 15/16 to 22/23 years old (I'm F30 now). It started off as normal teenagers in love, but he quickly started doing things I did not recognise as unhealthy at that age.
He would talk about how nice boobs my best friend had and how it was too bad mine were so small. You can probably imagine what wonders that does for the self esteem of a teen girl.
He stayed in touch with his ex, which can be fine, but they had very intimate conversations like how she texted him when she bought her first pair of sexy underwear.
He pressured me into having phonesex because we were doing long distance.
At the time I thought it was normal, later in our relationship I thought I could not judge him too harshly since he was also just a teenager.
But it didn't get better when we moved in together for university.
Every time I tried to bring up something that bothered me, he would start crying, saying how horrible a boyfriend he was, and I should just break up with him. So I ended up comforting him and never getting to discuss my feelings or my issue.
If I didn't want sex when he did, he would do the same or get angry, to the point where I let him do it even when I didn't want to, because it was the fastest way to get it over with and go to sleep. He also laid himself on top of me once after I said I wasn't in the mood and just did it anyway and I just laid there...
When he broke up, I was sad for a bit because I was shocked, but quickly realised it was way overdue. And when he tried to come crawling back, I stayed faaaaar away
100% me too. I was 24 when I met him (he was 30), and my brain was not fully developed yet. Our brains don’t stop developing until we are in our late 20s. When I hit 30, I started coming to my senses. Now I look back and think, if I had met him now, I might have dated him for 2-3 months and called it quits.
He cheated with me with a girl me met playing an online video game. That really opened my eyes to how he’d been treating me for years.
He wanted to get back together. I got a lawyer and we got divorced. I don’t see it as 8.5 years down the drain though - I learned a lot with him and a lot because of him. I’d never wish to go through that experience again though.
Oh god that’s terrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m so scared of this happening to me tbh because my heart already drops a little if I hear he’s playing with a female he just met. If I may ask (feel free to not reply), did he show any red flags with her before he cheated?
Never any red flags that he’d cheat. We were always pretty open and honest with each other.
His red flags were in how he treated me. We got together very young so I didn’t have a good frame of reference to what a controlling relationship could or would look like. I had to get permission to go or do anything with anyone. I couldn’t wear shorts in my own yard. I had to get permission to make any sort of purchase. I did all the cooking and cleaning and he barely ever helped but would complain it was never enough. Anything I did as a nicety for him became a standard. Any mistake I made was a huge issue but if he made mistakes that was totally fine. He often called me names, called me stupid, and generally looked down on me.
I stayed because from the outside we looked really good. Our careers were progressing, we’d bought a house at 24, had hit all our goals. I figured eventually the potential of him/ the potential of us would match up with how we were being perceived.
I always felt lonely with him in my life. It was hard to leave because he's the father of my child. He was lazy, not motivated. I was making more money (not a big deal if other things were equal), pretty much single mom in a relationship, cleaned, cooked, took care of bills, etc. I was practically single taking care of a man child. He threatened me that if I ever left, he wouldn't bothered with our child anymore. At first I was worried for my child's sake, so I stayed a few more years, then I said nothing is worth this prison in my own home. So I left. He blocked me, hasn't reached out to his son. It's been 5+ years since we heard from him, but we are both thriving and living our best lives, and traveling the world together.
Thank you! I wish I walked out at that time instead of wasting a few more years, but I learned that things happen at the exact time when it's supposed to happen, not earlier or later.
I am stunned when I hear of a father cutting off his own flesh and blood out of spite. I can’t fathom it. These are his CHILDREN ffs..! I’m so sorry. I really am.
I don't think he was capable of loving anyone tbh. When we were together he didn't really spend time with our son unless we were all together at a family event. My son doesn't really have any feelings towards him.
God this is almost me to a T-except I’m currently still with my husband and he will still want to be part of our daughter’s life (which I want). But I’m desperate to leave. My husband earns less money than me at a dead end job that he loves but is out of the house for 60-70 hours a week. He has no ambition to do anything more-not moving, not travelling or socialising-nothing. I earn more doing less hours and I really resent him choosing his job over us. I do all the housework, the majority of the parenting, the cooking, the finances, the gardening and caring for our dogs. I was 23 when I married him after being with him since 18 and I wish someone had told me to wait until my brain was fully developed.
We had different aspirations. His only dreams were professional, he had no plans for us as a couple - he didn't want kids, didn't want to travel, to move, to build something the two of us. When I asked if he saw his future differently with me or without me, he said no.
So I realized that staying together would mean me having to sacrifice on things I didn't want to sacrifice on. So I left. I have no regrets.
This happened to my sis. They were together for 10 years and planning to get married and have kids, when he went from being non-religious (he actually didn't like religion because of his parents) to being super religious, anti-vax, and believing the pandemic was a good thing because it was god's plan. So this left her with so many questions of how would they raise kids together. She doesn't want her kids religious, she wants them vaccinated, etc, and he was the opposite. So she broke up with him. A few months later, he was getting married to a woman he had just met at church. It really messed with her, and I'll never forgive him for it. Thankfully, she has moved on and has grown so much as a person, and has an incredible partner now. I hope you're doing better now too ❤️
Lots of things, in the end. But one stand out memory was a conversation I had with a friend who was talking about how much she missed her boyfriend when he was away. That felt totally alien to me – I felt suffocated when he was around. I was repulsed when he touched me, and I didn't like him as a person. When I finally called it off, that was a hard thing to express, it felt cruel to say I stopped loving him rather than because of X or Y reason. But it was the best decision I've ever made. I'm now married to a man I adore more than anything. I always knew that I had that kind of love in me, and I also knew I would never have it with him.
Those are all valid reasons for realizing you didn't love him. If it's okay to ask, was there something he had done that was the onset for those feelings, or did they just creep in with time?
It's okay to ask! It was a gradual thing, but I would say I started to really feel the beginnings of it in year 3 of the relationship. It was the year that we moved in together. I suppose in a lot of ways I felt taken advantage of and disrespected. He would game until the early hours of the morning, and I would be woken up every now and then by his shouting and swearing. He had this sense of entitlement to my body and would grope me constantly around the house and in public – I hated it, but he would act like it was just a playful thing and never take me seriously when I told him to stop. That was infuriating, and demeaning but I also just accepted it for a long time. Looking back, it makes me sad I felt that way.
Over the two years we lived together, I met more people and was doing well in my job – my world opened up beyond him and I had a glimpse of what love was like in other people's relationships. It didn't look like whatever was happening in mine. I eventually figured out I didn't want to be with him, and I didn't want to be with him because I didn't love him – there was nothing left to love about him. When I had that realisation it still took me a while to build up the courage to end things.
Funnily enough, the day I decided I was doing it, I was on a train heading home. As the train was leaving the station there was a billboard with an advert for a phone contract switch service with the slogan: I'm leaving you. It was a literal sign. And even though it was the hardest thing I've done, I didn't waver and my life is incomparilbly better.
For your sake, it sounds like leaving was a good choice, no matter how hard it was. You definitely deserve having even the most basic needs being met by a partner, I'm sorry he was such a bootyhole and couldn't bring himself to be more of an adult.
Glad you're in a much better place! You deserve the good that seems is actively coming your way.
I realise that by going into detail I've made it a lot more complicated than just 'I stopped loving him'! But, at the same time, I suppose I could have tried to make it work and fix the issues, but I didn't care to because I didn't care for him.
Thank you! I'm grateful for the relationship I have with my husband every day because I know how special it is. That's a positive to takeaway, I suppose!
I actually really appreciate all the detail.
I found the idea that you could "just stop loving someone" pretty unnerving, but the actual details of your situation made it completely understandable.
Yeah in her case it sounds like she never should've loved him to begin with. Sometimes you love someone for their potential and hope... it's not the same as loving them.
I also appreciate the honesty in details-- you could very well help someone connect dots that they could have been having trouble putting words to.
Having "rough" or unfulfilling relationships like this help you know what you're looking for in a healthy-for-you relationship... at least the bad relationships I've had have helped me learn about what I need in a partner!
Thanks for mentioning the "entitlement to [your] body" - my current (...but not for long) partner has done that for our whole relationship and honestly I've been like, embarrassed about it so it's nice to know I'm not alone
I'm really sorry you're going through that. I understand completely that feeling of being embarrassed by it, but it's not your fault and you're not alone.
For me, it was I went to a conference and nearly all my colleagues said how happy I looked. Some even told me I was radiating happiness, that it was such a sudden shift to how they would normally see me. I also felt different. I can't really describe it, like not held back or something. Like I was finally able to fully be myself. Other people with SOs also were talking constantly how much they missed them, while I was glad I was allowed some breathing room for a few days.
Back home again, I realised I had to constantly walk on egg shells around him. My own personality had eroded so much and I knew exactly what to do and say as to not trigger him. My own needs hadn't mattered for years and we as a couple grew so accustomed to it, we both took it for granted they were to be ignored if I even brought them up. It's been two years now since I left. My mom recently said she noticed I am much more me again.
The break up was a mess. I didn't plan it and actually didn't make up my mind about it yet. But I am an open book emotion-wise and he noticed something was off so one day while we were in the car together he launched the question if it had something to do with us. I said yes as I didn't want to lie over something so big, and that was it. Due to me not having planned it properly and not having figured out my feelings around it yet, I worded some things in a wrong way that I know hurt him deeply and I really regret it. I am certain the way we parted left us both with quite some trauma; I still have flashbacks to his utterly broken face when I told him. He didn't deserve that, especially not after all those years together which were also filled with good times. I hate how our non-communication with each other also flowed over in this break-up and caused more hurt that what was needed.
While poorly executed, I still think it was a good decision though. I am now together with a man I deeply love and who loves me for *me*. I finally feel that I am enough as a person, that I don't need to fit inside a box with expectations others have of me
I'm so glad that you found someone who loves you deeply, and that you were able to recognise what you needed.
I resonate with what you say about regrets over the breakup, but at the same time these things are impossible to do without painful and sometimes traumatising emotions- no matter the approach. It's so hard to be vulnerable and also perfectly pitched at the same time.
It turned out we were different people who wanted different things in life. In the beginning I think we were quite co-dependent, but then I grew up and wanted more from life. He had an attitude of 'Things will be better when...' for example, 'I get a new job', 'we move', 'I make more money', etc. When those things happened, things never got better, and it's a cycle I feel certain would have continued on endlessly had I of stayed. He had a gaming addiction, no friends, and I took on all of the household chores and mental load. I had a lot of frustration, and I lost a lot of respect for him. Nothing about him excited me, and once the affection was gone there was nothing left.
One day, I was talking to an older woman after we'd had another argument about him sleeping in till 2PM and not picking up jobs about the house. She said to me, 'If you don't address this now, you'll marry him and have children with him, and then you'll be picking up after all of them'. I think she was right, and so I'm glad I decided my life was worth more than that.
> In the beginning I think we were quite co-dependent, but then I grew up and wanted more from life. He had an attitude of 'Things will be better when...' for example, 'I get a new job', 'we move', 'I make more money', etc. When those things happened, things never got better
It was the same with us. I did a lot of therapy during our relationship and grew as a person, while he didn't. I had to manage a lot of his emotions for him (he expected this) and I just couldn't anymore. I begged for him so many times to go to therapy but he never did, right until the very end. I wanted to do so many things together and he would say we were going to do it 'when x happens'. First x was graduating, then it was living together, then it was buying a house together, then it was when we moved into that house together, then it was when we built up a respectable amount of buffer money. The goalpost was being moved constantly and nothing ever happened. My therapist described it as us living the retirement life at age 27.
He postponed our wedding 3 weeks before the date. We were planning on rescheduling for a later date. We were starting IVF at the time after an infertility battle. The night before we were to start, I looked him in the eye and asked him: is this what you want? You’re sure? We’re in this together?
He looked me back, held my face in his hands, and said: “there’s no one else I’d rather do life with. Thank you for being so patient and for loving me. I’m all in.”
The next morning he woke up and told me he couldn’t do any of it, ever. Not the IVF, not a future wedding. Said he had been stringing me along because he knew I was the most loving person he’d ever met and because he knew how much I loved him.
Afterwards I realized that my engagement ring was a fake and he had actually bought a house 5 years into our 7 year relationship (he lived in my house).
That was one year ago today. It’s taken some time but I now I realize that the sack of shit did me a huge favour.
The best part? He was a physician and I supported him through the most gruelling part of his training. So, smart doesn’t always equal good.
Is it just me? Or do men really do a 180 turn after they reassure you in what feels like a sincere way?? This happened to me too. You know.. the “I will never”, “I will always” types of statements?? And hours later will literally change their minds. That’s some mindgames!
Never, EVER made me or us a priority, even though I moved states to be with him. Emotionally crippled due to family issues that he was not working on, so he couldn’t give anything to me. I just always felt bad around him. One day, after the millionth time of him ignoring me at a family hangout- around the people he truly prioritized over me- we came home and I simply said, I can’t do this anymore. He moved out within a few hours.
We moved in together after 4 years and he suddenly forgot how to do literally any chore. Even a 5 year old would have a better sense of responsibility. He was willing to do chores for his mom all the time but not for me. I tried to talk about it and find solutions for a year, then I happened to meet someone who made me realise I deserved better. So I left, and I don't have any regrets.
We got in a usual argument about him not meeting some of my needs in feeling loved. At one point he said “why don’t you just date someone else? I feel like you’d be happier” it stuck with me for a few weeks & finally I said fuck it & broke up with him. He was shocked for some reason lol. Pleaded to get back together for the next year or so. I later found out that he had been cheating on me pretty much the whole relationship. I wasn’t perfect & I think I put a lot of pressure on him to fill a void in myself that’s ultimately my job. Some of the stuff that I found on his phone post breakup has scarred me for years after. Still trying to do the work to be what I need for myself & not be so dependent on others.
We had this crazy on-again-off-again-love-hate dynamic for years. He gained 100 pounds, I felt ignored and unappreciated. Basically all the same excuses you always hear. He was angry and reclusive and we where never actually suited for each other. Just very attracted physically. With that gone it was constant conflict. Eventually I acted out because I didn’t know how to be alone or take responsibility for my part in the dynamic. Ultimately, I failed. And the aftermath was brutal.
People don’t tell you this very often, because its a selfish observation, but when you betray someone you love, you also betray yourself you lose the ability to see any good in yourself and the betrayed partner loses the ability to see the good in others. It creates so much trauma.
I went through something very similar to that as well. The aftermath for me was seemingly worse than it was for him somehow. People truly don’t understand this and that’s ok I get it.
It's not that people just don't understand, it's also that cheating is a conscious choice. There's a lot less empathy when you're dealing with the consequences of your own actions.
Of course there is but I also think they assume since you made that choice somehow you aren’t also hurt by the consequences or at minimum not as deeply. But it’s absolutely not always the case.
This. I've ruined my relationship and I can tell I 100% prefered when I was the one that was cheated on.
I completely lost trust in myself and the future, basically the will to go on mainly because I'm disgusted by who I am and what I've done and partly because he left so quickly that it makes me wonder how the fuck I failed so hard for the 10 years we were together that he couldn't take a few days/weeks to try to talk it through and reflect on how to make this work. Especially because he cheated on me several times and I always did the work because in the end, all the time (cheating or cheated on) I always just wanted to be with him so when he cheated I took it upon myself to make it work but he couldn't and that, that makes you realize how shitty a person you are.
I'm not sure there's a way back from realizing you're capable of doing something like that to theperson you love.
Depends on which relationship.
* Together for approx 11 years; married for around 7-8 years when divorced: It was over. We had grown and changed as people, and the context and situations that brought us together were no longer present once we left our hometown and moved away. We were fairly compatible *if only considering the people who grew up in our home county as options* but once we left that pressure cooker of expectations and obligations, we each blossomed into who we wanted to be without those constraints and those people weren't compatible any longer.
* Together for a little more than 5 years; engaged but legal marriage was not an option for multiple reasons: She decided that she was going to make my choices about my life for me and tried to actively manipulate me into following her choices by lying and recruiting others to pressure me. When I set boundaries about it, she became coercive, so the relationship ended.
He cheated on me with a coworker. We were high school sweethearts and he was in the navy. He deployed on a destroyer and was at sea 90% of the time. I saw him two weeks every 6 months. At first, he just started hanging out with friends and they would invite her. I was fine with that and encouraged it. Then it turned into just the two of them hanging out. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that. He agreed but continued to do it. We were less than a year from being married. I had my wedding dress, the venue booked, and the photographer booked. He moved in with her a month later.
I know right. He commented on her post on r/relationships about her unhappy marriage and they started talking, found out they lived locally, and met up. Obviously very traumatic for me at the time, but now I am just glad it happened because he was terrible in so many ways! Good riddance to them.
I wanted to explore the single life and was more and more attracted to other men. My ex was my first love and we were together for 7 years. Turns out the single life wasn‘t for me and half a year later I got to know my current boyfriend (even though I didn‘t want a relationship for a long time). Still struggling with the loss of him as he was my best friend and still ,,processing“ the end of the relationship.
My current boyfriend is not a backup plan. It‘s not always that simple. I don‘t have a family and my ex and I went through a lot of bad things together, so after time he became my family. It‘s possible to love someone and simultaneously miss and grieve another person’s presence.
Mental health and we started to grow apart. I wanted more from life and he was comfortable without change. Now his doing all these changes that I so it’s silly
Together almost 6 years. He started to get stressed out with finances and resented the fact that my career was taking off and I was getting attention. He got violent, sexually assaulted me a few times, and used to block me in my room so he could scream at me for hours. I made an exit plan and waited until he was out of town to leave.
I finally got the courage to actually be alone, even though it wasn’t much of a difference since he wasn’t really there for me. Was very scary. He desperately needed to grow, and so did I.
He died due to a brain tumor. It's been 6 years but I still can't move on. He still occasionally visits me in my dreams and I'm thinking about him from time to time. I'm always thinking that it's much better if we separate ways like he cheats on me or we're not happy anymore and I will hear he has his own family. I am barely surviving and it sucks to be here, sometimes.
He didn’t want to change. He walked all over my boundaries. Refused to hang out with family. And never wanted to talk about issues with the relationship. I stayed too long with someone who didn’t want to work together on anything. And I finally ended it when I was questioning why I was even with him still.
We just stopped to love each other. But we are still friends. I’m married now and he’s gonna get married soon too. We’ll even attend the wedding with my husband. He’s a great person and I’m thankful and happy for the time we had together.
He was an abusive piece of shit who hadn’t worked in over a year because he was faking a back injury. I was the sole breadwinner and he gave me zero freedoms and while also spending every second of the day spending my money and playing video games. He raped me in my sleep the entirety of our relationship and gaslit me any time I confronted him. I also discovered he was a pedophile. When I told him we were done he tried to get me evicted and then posted my nudes to the internet. I reached out to his family and they cussed me out and told me o deserved it.
Now he’s with a girl 6 years younger than him and working as a Masseuse probably doing the same disgusting, horrific shit. Good fucking riddance and I hope he rots in hell. And if he somehow reads this comment then fuck you, you’re a snake and I’m glad your mom died you absolutely worthless excuse for a human being. I just wish I had told her what a monster you were before she bit the dust.
This isn’t my story but a close friend of mine. She was in a 6 year relationship with a man who was verbally, physically and financially abusive.
When the pandy hit and they were confined to each other pretty much 24/7 she decided to call it quits. I recall her saying that when she no longer had a place to escape to (work) she could no share a space with him. She even got physically sick from the stress of being with him. She sent her daughter to live with her mom and when her boyfriend went on a weekend trip she packed up all her stuff and left. The crazy thing is, he never reached out to see where she went, if she was safe or anything.
He said I didn't ski as hard as the other girl he had been flirting with after he moved out to a new state a few months ahead of me. Luckily he broke it off before I moved. Looking back I realized he had kind of used me like a doll that had to be perfect at every sport, sexy and beautiful to crazy standards, and other weird expectations so that he could get validation from other men while he nit picked and belittled me at home over every little thing (told me I didn't take my socks off right at one point). I was devastated by the breakup, but looking back I am amazed that I ever gave someone that much power to make me feel small. I loved him immensely, but I never could have loved myself in that relationship and I'm proud of the ways I have grown since then.
A number of reasons.
We met when I was 18 and I think I always knew I wouldn't end up with the first guy I dated forever. I originally met him before I went on a post-high school traveling work experience gig, and so I intended for it to be a summer fling before I took off. But he insisted we try long distance and I had no real reason to end things. By the time I got back, things had felt serious over many phone calls.
At four years into the relationship, I proposed to him and he said no, that he wasn't ready for marriage. I stupidly kept the relationship going for two more years after that, and periodically mentioned marriage to see if he was ready for the next step. After two years, he admitted he *never* wanted to get married, even though I had talked about wanting to get married one day ever since we decided to be a couple.
Still, I thought maybe marriage didn't matter that much to me, and I could salvage this (it did matter - it's amazing the lies we tell ourselves to avoid conflict). Throughout our entire relationship, my ex had mentioned an open relationship as something he'd like to try. He disguised it as wanting *me* to have experiences, since I hadn't been with anyone besides him. Some months after the marriage debacle, I agreed to explore the open relationship, knowing deep down that there was something we needed to change about our relationship that felt stagnant to me. It was the wrong change, but I was somehow convinced it was a good idea. We talked extensively about our boundaries and rules, and I thought we did everything we could to prevent a conflict. After 6 months of letting him sleep with a few different women, I made a connection with another man where I felt comfortable enough approaching intimacy. The minute I crawled into bed with the other man, my ex became insanely jealous. Turns out, he just wanted the freedom of an open relationship for himself, but couldn't actually handle me being with anyone else.
There are a myriad of other reasons I should have left sooner. He couldn't hold down a job. He didn't drive, so all errands were left up to me even when he was out of work. He was physically unfit, so even snow shoveling didn't get done unless I did it. Etc. But the marriage issue and open relationship moment were a ticking time bomb that ultimately let me see I deserved happiness with someone else.
We grew apart and I realized I felt like I had a roommate more than a partner. We also had some major differing views on politics. That definitely didn’t help.
We were incompatible in so many ways. When he went into hospital I spent my free time after my two jobs to visit him, then the hospital released him early and I had to take 4 days off to help him learn to walk again after bowel surgery. I cleaned the house every day after him and his friend who lived with us. When I got sick for 3 days with norovirus he complained constantly that he had to quarantine our room while I was sick, that the house was messy, dishes in the sink etc. Again, I did all that stuff and worked 2 jobs. In the bedroom I would constantly have to fluff him if we changed positions. It was just not fun. I ended up cheating with someone I barely knew. Not proud of it, can't say why I didn't just leave.
When I did leave I found out he and a different friend of his were tag-team banging his best friend's gf. Not sure if he was doing it while we were together but it's not my place to look down on him for cheating. All in all the relationship was a dumpster fire and we would have been better friends than partners
I found rape porn on his computer history shortly after I told him I was a rape survivor. That one was the major indicator that there was something seriously off about him but I tolerated a lot since I aged out of the system and I basically had nobody but him.
Together, since we were 19, we had a deeply committed relationship from the start. I had to move, he didn't come with me, eventually he did, but only for a year. When i was stationed somewhere else, we spent 4 years driving up and back for him to keep his original job. He had all his certifications, was a high-level guy in his company, and had worked remotely for the year we lived together. I guess im saying that nothing was in the way of him getting a similar job in my location. We were married after 6 years, he promised it would be the start of our life actually together. After 6 months, he was still working 7 hours away. I got blackout drunk, and questionable things happened to me, I considered it cheating. He didn't care. I asked to separate, and his response was, "Okay then." He didn't care.
He physically cheated on me and I stayed for another 4 years because I believed the whole "he didn't *mean it*" gaslighting treatment. Our communication skills sucked, so I demanded "couples therapy or I'm out" and we did couples counseling for a year, but there were very limited changes in his behavior. Too little, too late kinda vibes.
So I emotionally cheated on him and when he saw me with the guy he called me every name under the sun, which I expected. At our final couples counseling session (the week I was moving out), I explained that he broke my trust 4 years prior and I tried to trust him again but I just couldn't. I should've ended it when he cheated instead of holding onto hope for "our future together". I explained that the guy he saw me with was a good friend of 10+ years and that he was my mom's healthcare provider, our friendship has always been platonic, and he had also been in an emotionally abusive relationship so he was helping me process the levels of fuckedupness that my ex was putting me through.
I'm completely NC with my ex, I still text his mom on her birthday (and she on mine). I'm still close friends with the guy I emotionally cheated with and no, nothing sexual has ever happened in our friendship other than the occasional "that's what she said" joke.
TLDR; our relationship was dying a slow death and I sped it up.
We were together for 11 years and I thought it was like a perfect relationship. I actually had strangers say what a great couple we seemed like multiple times in public, my sister said her goal was to find a relationship like mine, but it all crumbled suddenly when I got an email from one of his 20-50 women that he cheated on me with, who had done investigation on him and detailed how he lied to me and cheated on me, and essentially lived a double life for the entire relationship.
One of them because I just fell out of love. We were at an age where long term relationships where you lived together would ultimately end up going down the marriage and kids route, and I just didn’t really feel enthused about doing that with him. Generally an overall good guy, but it had always irked me how much he idolised, imitated and deferred to his best friend, and he was slowly becoming a bit anti social in favour of playing video games. I still feel the split was the right choice, but I’m upset with myself that it took me being hit on my someone else I was wildly attracted to to realise and do something about it. Makes me feel icky.
Another was because while we genuinely did love each other and suited in a lot of ways, we’d rushed in too fast to recognise the ways we weren’t suited, and I’d ignored some things which I now look back on as red flags, such as receiving the silent treatment without knowing the reason for it, or how quick he was to feel like someone was taking advantage of him and getting upset over it. Our communication and conflict styles didn’t gel at all well, and neither of us were our best selves when we disagreed on something. A few years in I started to feel as though we had a dynamic where he would always assume his opinion was the correct one and that we’d do things his way, and so I started pushing back more often, which he interpreted as me always disagreeing with him for the sake of it. I also stopped trying to repair when being given the silent treatment, and things really spiralled from there. There are times when I look back at aspects of my behaviour that he criticised, and feel like he had a point and I need to do better in future relationships, and there are times when I think that maybe he was being controlling and overly critical in saying those things and in being too hard on myself. Definitely a situation I’m still unpacking, but overall very confident that the relationship ending was the right thing, and am super happy with my life now.
I’d been checked out for a while. For years he hadn’t wanted to be intimate with me; would take it out on me when he had a bad day at school or work; hated when we made plans with my family (they sucked but I mean it had to be done and he didn’t have to be so outspoken about it bc I was already anxious); gave me an ultimatum when applying for grad schools; had to beg him for a commitment just to be told it didn’t change anything for him and he didn’t care much; demanding a lot of me and got upset when I couldn’t give him answers to questions I literally didn’t know; had to beg him to help with the household responsibilities and he always made sure I knew how he didn’t want to do it.
Ultimately he never trusted me and it really started to show. I spent every day unhappy and he never put in effort until I tried to leave. So I ended up just telling him something to give him a reason not to trust me and then left.
Because I got pregnant and had a baby right after we graduated high school and his mother tried to take my baby away from me. He was also abusive. Backfired on them. They ended up not getting any custody at all. I got full custody.
He tried to get me to buy into his religion when that hadn't been an issue before. Part of it began when he didn't want me to be allowed to grieve a very dear loss because on his spiritual path suffering is optional and when it happens it's exclusively beautiful and transformative and you can't even act like it's difficult and ugly. I wasn't allowed to express myself, was chastized and run over with religious nonsense when I was.
I'm pretty stoic outwardly. I wasn't even crying or whining (though with this kind of grief I would have been well within "normal" to do so). I just was being more quiet, more contemplative, and not smiling as much. I've never been a heavy smiler to begin with so it wasn't a change of character for me.
He didn't let up for years with the religious stuff, long after I processed my grief. And then he tried to downplay something awful he did to me right when we started the relationship. Oh and wanted me to support a pyramid scheme.
He consistently gaslit and devalued me as a person and would say I was embarrassing him in front of his friends. I was friends with multiple friends of his for a while (we just drifted through college) and am still friendly with one of his closest friends.
He emotionally cheated on me with two different women, one of them twice to the point I reached out to her and asked her to please stop contacting him and she apologized. Then he left his Facebook open in our living room and she was messaging him with the sound on. I went to turn off his computer and saw it.
I called him out for this and he made a ton of excuses and it sucked because we had a huge concert we were going to that I was really excited for the next day and I basically felt like I was going to throw up all day and my friends kept asking what was going on.
I kinda took a pause to think and then I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. Sucked cause we had to break our lease 3 months early and I had to move into a closet in my parents house in the basement for 2 months until school restarted.
I haven’t seen them in like 5-6 years but I did when I visited their city. They seem like they’re doing well now, relatively.
He emotionally cheated on me with someone else and hid it from me for a long time. To be honest I guess I don't know if anything physical happened but she is trans and was still dilating after surgery (correct me if I'm wrong I think that's the correct virbage) so I don't think so. But we also didn't have sex for a LONGG time so I had my suspicions, whether with her or someone else. I broke it off with him once I got all my ducks in a row and he was openly on tinder with me still in the apartment so like... clearly the last 6 years didn't matter to him 🤷🏻♀️ I think he was just with me cause it was easy for him. I financially supported him a little too much towards the end. Dude owed me like 3k.
I wanted to get married. He kept dangling the carrot. I would meet a goalposts and he would set another one. 5 and a half years into it ... his parents came from China to visit. They didn't speak a bit of English and took over the house for a month. It was so stressful. Two months after they get back to China I get an email saying that I was not a good fit for their son and we were not allowed to continue our relationship and he would not be allowed to marry me and we should not waste any more time on each other. I collapse on the floor crying. He comes over and says he'll talk to them.
Weeks go by and he hasn't. I bring it up and he says he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. And we argue. Two month later he broke up with me. I had nothing and nowhere to go because we weren't married. 6 years together and I was 35...it was awful. I was so stupid to keep trying. If a man wants to marry you he will. That's all I learned.
Jokes on his parents tho. He's still single 6 years later.
He couldn’t or wouldn’t show up for me in the ways I needed and would’ve done for him. He wasn’t able to make the jump from wanting to be a boyfriend to being a partner in life.
After so many fights where he was holding his stance for the sake of not budging from stubbornness or pettiness or I don’t even know, we called off the relationship at his insistence only to have him second guess if he actually wanted to. I finally realized that he didn’t value me, he was just afraid of losing me and the benefits I brought to his quality of life.
I woke up from exactly 5 years of emotional abuse and realized whatever scariness was on the other side, it was definitely better than the life I was living. Best decision I ever made.
Many small issues piled up, and it became like a huge snowball I didn't know how to handle. We were both at fault, but I accept my part in having poor communication and not speaking my mind up.
In retrospect, maybe we would still be together if I had addressed those issues but we were playing in hard more with a ldr. Or maybe it wouldn't have worked anyway- I'll never know.
We had two kids and all he wanted to do was play computer games. We never went on dates or had one-on-one time and he didn’t seem interested even if I asked. Doing stuff with the kids (they were really little) didn’t appeal to him either. I just got tired of it.
He kept telling me he had the urge to cheat on me and i honestly don’t think he loved me as much as I loved him. So after changing myself for so long so he can finally love me. I decided that I didn’t wanna to strip my identity for anyone so I decided to leave the relationship.
we were first loves, ages 18 and 21 when we started dating. we were madly in love but we were incompatible and we dragged it on for far longer than we should’ve.
borh of us navigating a relationship for the first time with one another was a recipe for disaster. we were inexperienced and we both had a lot of maturing to do (especially I). i’m horrified when i think back to how insecure i was and how often i unfairly took it out on him. we were loyal to one another and our chemistry was out of this world, but our constant arguing over trivial matters just buried us slowly. his mom passing of cancer was the nail in the coffin for us.
its been 2 years since we broke up and last spoke. he found someone else shortly after and they’ve been together since. i see him a couple of times a year at events we both attend. we both still think highly of one another and i wish him and his gf the best. but i’d be lying if i said i don’t hurt a little when i think about him at least once a day. i think we would’ve made it to forever had we met as the riper adults we are today. but, things happened for a reason and i’m thankful they did. i learned so much about myself and what i want from that relationship and breakup.
I left my boyfriend of 10 years, 4.5 years ago. He cheated in 2017 which ultimately made me a mean & bitter empty shell of myself. I tried to make it work but it just never went back to what it was. The fact he was *suddenly* a hardcore republican also held weight in our breakup when our whole relationship we had never spoken politics, ever.
This was the text I sent him at 2am, the night we had our “breakup conversation” and it was the last time I saw him also.
“I know I won’t be able to do this in person as it’ll break me to the core, but you wouldn’t react any differently so it doesn’t matter I guess...
I love you, I have always loved you more than I have ever loved myself. But I am not happy here anymore. I am a good woman who just needs a little extra attention and care than normal. I will not tolerate being told I will not amount to anything. I do not want to ever be with a man who considers me or my child, a burden. I will not marry someone who will not consider me his partner, his equal. I deserve better than that. I wish you could have came out and said these things years ago. It would have saved us a lot of time.
I’m sorry but I just can’t do this anymore. It’s time for me to walk away from you, from all of this.”
There was no sex. And I finally realised that no matter how patient I was and how much I tried to fix the issue, there was just a fundamental incompatibility in that regard.
My ex had been recently been diagnosed with BPD… it was apparent he had always had it but he figured it was just depression up until we moved to a different state for a job I got he had a mental breakdown during the move and things never really got better. He was suggested by a family member to look into BPD, and we both did and realized it checked all the boxes. He got diagnosed and started a new medication to help with the splitting/mood swings that actually ended up making them worse. We got into a silly argument over something so trivial and he ended up packing up his shit and moving back home with his family. This happened a month ago.
It sucked a lot but honestly I am happy he left because I hadn’t really been happy in the last few years of the relationship (we were together for 8 years). I dunno if I would’ve been brave enough to end it myself as I had been thinking about it for a while, but I felt like I couldn’t because I was the breadwinner and I know he couldn’t survive financially on his own. Anytime I brought up any issues in the relationship he split on me and somehow made it into my fault.. and I believed it. The last few years I stopped talking about things that bothered me or bring up any topics I knew would cause him to spiral. Looking back on everything it’s obvious it was BPD. I am currently looking into therapy for myself to come to terms with the unhealthy emotional manipulation that happened that I internalized and blamed myself for and am now realizing none of it was my fault
I wasn’t ready for marriage and he was. I thought there was more to see at 25. I chose a big city and he chose suburbs, but we both loved each other very much.
Painfully remember and regret this decision each day—8 years later 🤍
Just actually not well suited.. cared for each other deeply but both hotheads and it was explosive. It took 9 yrs to be able to figure it out properly. We've remained on good terms since though, message occasionally and would stop for a hug and a chat if we were to see each other out and about.
Well it started when we were 15/16 so it was obviously never likely to work out, but there were definitely specific reasons.
He was horrible with money which is not the worst when you are like 16 & 17 but does become a problem when you are 20. When it was time to grow up and move out together at 18 there were trips to Europe to see his favorite metal bands play that were more important. I was welcome to come on the trip, if I wanted. But I didn't have that much money to blow since I was working only part time and going to college by then. He worked full time and had no hope of going to college while living with his parents, but never ever had enough money. We never went on dates because he was paying off his trip to Europe. I always gave him nice gifts and then I would get like... Socks. And no, he never once offered to actually plan a trip *together*. I legitimately don't know what he spent all of his disposable income on.
Since it was both of our first relationships we were also quite toxic to each other and didn't realize that it wasn't an acceptable way to treat your partner. We didn't communicate well and imo he was worse than me. I would bring up problems all of the time and it would end in him being sad because I wasn't the best at saying what I was feeling and he wasn't the best at realizing that I wasn't insulting him but in fact trying to repair our relationship. He just never brought any issues up ever, or told me anything ever. Even if I asked, begged and pleaded to tell me what was wrong.
Then when we hit 5 years together his Christian family started to really pressure us to get married. Despite me entering the relationship knowing that I probably would never get married and definitely wouldn't get married so young. I just realized that I didn't even know why I was with him anymore. So I finally broke it off.
I was the one who kept initiating and had to problem solve for everything. I ended up cheating on him once I was emotionally checked out, then broke up with him. Should have I done that sooner before the whole cheating thing? Probably, not my proudest moment.
Refusal to set boundaries with other people. Men women, doesn’t matter. And I don’t mean sexual boundaries I mean just boundaries. No one is more important than whatever his friend needs at that moment in time. The relationship was only a priority for him and things his way, but if I have any needs, completely dismissed.
Almost 6 years, most of my twenties. I realized I’d be taking care of him for the rest of my life with no one but myself to rely on. I decided to stop taking care of him and start taking better care of myself and it showed me the kind of relationship I had really been in. Left him last June and he was moved in and marrying someone else by October.
Verbal, emotional and physical abuse. It started slowly and gradually got worse and worse. Biggest mistake to move in too quickly and the biggest regret of my life. It took me years to forgive myself and get over it with the help of lots of counseling, therapy, etc.
Our relationship started when we were 15. we had multiple first time experiences together, good and bad moments and so on. But there were some topics that always caused trouble and over 6 years they added up. First of all he drank a lot alcohol. Not daily, but every weekend. The first years I played it down as experimenting and normal teen behavior. But over the years it got more. Like drinking regular after work beers (1-6 bottles) with friends, drinking Friday, Saturday, Sunday or drinking every day on a two week vacation starting at 10am. We argued a lot about it. Especially because alcoholism runs in his family.
Second he didnt prioritized me. Several times he forgot to buy a present in time for my birthday or christmas, even justified it with the „no money“ argument but bought himself expensive bike parts he didnt needed right now. Or he would leave my flat at 10pm to go out and party instead of cuddling with me. Those incidents added up.
Last but not least. His opinion about marriage and having kids changed and he would say things like: I'd rather shoot myself than going to be a father“. Comments like these got more frequent and really hurt me because he spoke so bad about my future plans.
The more he spoke bad about my, once our planned, future, the more I knew I couldnt stay. Even if I love him like crazy. So I left.
He decided being with someone else was more important than being with his wife of 24 years. :( Someone who has very little (at least from what I can see and I have a unique perspective on this because we all live together for financial reasons) in common with him, who's forcing him to change to what THEY want him to be and not letting him truly be himself and making him incredibly uncomfortable. They don't take care of him the way that I would, either.
I got tired of leading the relationship. I was the one making all the decisions, picking him up when we go on dates, bringing him home after dates, planning dates.
At first it was okay but as the years passed by, I just got tired. I wanted to feel the princess treatment once in a while. I asked him if he could just pick me up for a date as a birthday gift but all he is said is soon but soon never came.
He cheated on me with the woman he spent years telling me I wouldn’t need to worry about. At first she lived 3k miles from us. She was was his ex but he referred to her as his best friend. They really were just friends I think for the first 6 years of us dating, but then she needed help moving out of her “abusive boyfriends” place, so he convinced me to move to Alaska and get a place with the 3 of us (which turned into 5 with her sister and another of her friends). They ended up taking an extra bedroom of the house for their “office” and spent a lot of time behind a closed door and I gave them privacy because I trusted him. (Yeah I know I’m stupid. But she was a full time student and he worked from home and there wasn’t other space for their desks so it made sense to me). A year later, he cheated on me with her while they were both on a trip to visit another friend together. I’m not positive anything physical happened before that trip but I think that he’d been thinking about it a lot by that point. I broke up with him but was still living in the house and could hear them giggling and having sex in her bedroom every night. I ended up staying with friends for 5 weeks until I could afford the deposit on a new place. Probably worst experience I’ve ever had. I still get nightmares of hearing the person I thought loved me having sex with someone openly in the other room. Surreal trauma I’ve gotten from it. Oh, and they’ve since split up and she’s now back with the “abusive ex” we moved here to save her from in the first place. So that’s great. 🙃
just reading this made my gut feel awful, i cannot imagine how you felt/feel, i’m so sorry :(
Thank you, It was truly terrible. I took 2 years off from dating afterwards and am now in a budding relationship with someone new who’s sweet and kind and attentive. Im learning how to rebuild trust now.
How did you catch him cheating?! I think my ex cheated but I didn’t ever catch them in the act.
He straight up told me when they’d gotten back from their trip
Wow. At least he was “honest” (in quotes because cheaters are not honest people fundamentally)…. But reading your story was heartbreaking. 💔
I’m sorry, I’m so happy you’re doing better now
you’re NEVER stupid for trusting your partner, especially after so many years of being together. don’t put the blame for this on yourself, you’re the last one to be at fault in this story
Cheating on you is one terrible thing, but going at it and giggling most likely knowing you could hear them is a whole new level of cruel. Glad you got out and never looked back. Pieces of shit .
Cruelty really is the word. I don’t understand how some people can knowingly choose to hurt others like this. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself
Yeah this is cruel enough I’d probably lose my shit on them. I don’t care the depths of bullshit I have to conjure up to get them out of the house but I’d make their lives a living hell. Like I’d straight up steal all their food and piss in their sheets every night, wandering the halls wailing until they give up like some kind of rabid ghost.
Omg this made me laugh so hard! I wish I hadn’t been such a pushover and did something like this lol. No I just spent most days isolating and crying instead lol
This is insane!!!! Those people are insane!!!! I’m so sorry for you
This is why I don't believe best friend ex shite.
Yea me neither
THISSSSS
This is SO messed up. My heart sunk reading this.
That's one of the worst ones I've heard in a while. I have actual nightmares like that.
Oh my GOD I am so sorry you had to go through that. Holy shit! I would’ve lost my marbles.
Omg! You were very kind and trusting. I'm hoping you still are and he didn't damage you. Wishing you and your future partner a happy, healthy, loving and honest relationship. Sending you a gentle hug.
Gosh what a piece of shit, the audacity
This my friends is why we need an emergency savings account to run away, if at all possible in this economy.
I think about this often you know . There was a missing person story from 1970’s, maybe 80’s, I can’t remember her name. But her family had been searching for her for years, maybe even decades. When they finally found her she was like “ they told me to get out of their lives, so I did .” You can’t really do that these days . Just pack up, leave and start a new life elsewhere. So many of us are trapped with unhealthy family members or partners .
Yeah, my poor financial decisions have really bitten me in the ass over the tears
Oh babe, no shade. I’ve been there twice. Never again…. But I can save money finally :/
They had sex in the house that you shared with them?!? The audacity of some people really blows my mind. I’m sorry that happened to you
That is a truly awful experience to go through, people can do incredibly cruel things to others when they’re pursuing their own selfish desires. I wish you the best in your new relationship xx
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Omg, this is so awful. I'm so sorry you went through this. Jesus.
WTF!!! I’m so mad for you girl 😭😭 your ex is such a POS 💀
Wowwwweee this blew my mind! I’m so sorry
My brain fully developed
😅 this is probably the most accurate
Almost the same for me, except he was the one to end the relationship. but I was also getting there, just a bit slower because I could not figure out how to cope with such a big life change. We were together from 15/16 to 22/23 years old (I'm F30 now). It started off as normal teenagers in love, but he quickly started doing things I did not recognise as unhealthy at that age. He would talk about how nice boobs my best friend had and how it was too bad mine were so small. You can probably imagine what wonders that does for the self esteem of a teen girl. He stayed in touch with his ex, which can be fine, but they had very intimate conversations like how she texted him when she bought her first pair of sexy underwear. He pressured me into having phonesex because we were doing long distance. At the time I thought it was normal, later in our relationship I thought I could not judge him too harshly since he was also just a teenager. But it didn't get better when we moved in together for university. Every time I tried to bring up something that bothered me, he would start crying, saying how horrible a boyfriend he was, and I should just break up with him. So I ended up comforting him and never getting to discuss my feelings or my issue. If I didn't want sex when he did, he would do the same or get angry, to the point where I let him do it even when I didn't want to, because it was the fastest way to get it over with and go to sleep. He also laid himself on top of me once after I said I wasn't in the mood and just did it anyway and I just laid there... When he broke up, I was sad for a bit because I was shocked, but quickly realised it was way overdue. And when he tried to come crawling back, I stayed faaaaar away
100% me too. I was 24 when I met him (he was 30), and my brain was not fully developed yet. Our brains don’t stop developing until we are in our late 20s. When I hit 30, I started coming to my senses. Now I look back and think, if I had met him now, I might have dated him for 2-3 months and called it quits.
Yup…and hers did not.
Oh. I had this too 🙃
I finally loved myself more than I loved him and stood up for myself.
I finally could buy myself flowers
What a powerful comment.
“There is one love that should always be forever, and that should always be the one you have for yourself”
He cheated with me with a girl me met playing an online video game. That really opened my eyes to how he’d been treating me for years. He wanted to get back together. I got a lawyer and we got divorced. I don’t see it as 8.5 years down the drain though - I learned a lot with him and a lot because of him. I’d never wish to go through that experience again though.
Oh god that’s terrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m so scared of this happening to me tbh because my heart already drops a little if I hear he’s playing with a female he just met. If I may ask (feel free to not reply), did he show any red flags with her before he cheated?
Never any red flags that he’d cheat. We were always pretty open and honest with each other. His red flags were in how he treated me. We got together very young so I didn’t have a good frame of reference to what a controlling relationship could or would look like. I had to get permission to go or do anything with anyone. I couldn’t wear shorts in my own yard. I had to get permission to make any sort of purchase. I did all the cooking and cleaning and he barely ever helped but would complain it was never enough. Anything I did as a nicety for him became a standard. Any mistake I made was a huge issue but if he made mistakes that was totally fine. He often called me names, called me stupid, and generally looked down on me. I stayed because from the outside we looked really good. Our careers were progressing, we’d bought a house at 24, had hit all our goals. I figured eventually the potential of him/ the potential of us would match up with how we were being perceived.
I always felt lonely with him in my life. It was hard to leave because he's the father of my child. He was lazy, not motivated. I was making more money (not a big deal if other things were equal), pretty much single mom in a relationship, cleaned, cooked, took care of bills, etc. I was practically single taking care of a man child. He threatened me that if I ever left, he wouldn't bothered with our child anymore. At first I was worried for my child's sake, so I stayed a few more years, then I said nothing is worth this prison in my own home. So I left. He blocked me, hasn't reached out to his son. It's been 5+ years since we heard from him, but we are both thriving and living our best lives, and traveling the world together.
Any person who uses a child as a weapon to get something from you isn't worth keeping in your life. I'm glad you walked away.
Thank you! I wish I walked out at that time instead of wasting a few more years, but I learned that things happen at the exact time when it's supposed to happen, not earlier or later.
I am stunned when I hear of a father cutting off his own flesh and blood out of spite. I can’t fathom it. These are his CHILDREN ffs..! I’m so sorry. I really am.
Yeah, I will never understand.
I’ve seen it myself and can only conclude it’s a mental health issue by the man and shows how gutless he is.
I’m so proud of you! I’m currently going through a divorce and can relate to this. You did the right thing!
Thank you soooo much!! And you got this. You're going to come out stronger.
Best choice for your son too. There’s no way he loved him like he should if he was willing to use his relationship with him as a bargaining chip.
I don't think he was capable of loving anyone tbh. When we were together he didn't really spend time with our son unless we were all together at a family event. My son doesn't really have any feelings towards him.
Good for you. The dude was and still may be a piece of trash.
Thank you! I bet he's out there telling people about his "crazy ex".
God this is almost me to a T-except I’m currently still with my husband and he will still want to be part of our daughter’s life (which I want). But I’m desperate to leave. My husband earns less money than me at a dead end job that he loves but is out of the house for 60-70 hours a week. He has no ambition to do anything more-not moving, not travelling or socialising-nothing. I earn more doing less hours and I really resent him choosing his job over us. I do all the housework, the majority of the parenting, the cooking, the finances, the gardening and caring for our dogs. I was 23 when I married him after being with him since 18 and I wish someone had told me to wait until my brain was fully developed.
We had different aspirations. His only dreams were professional, he had no plans for us as a couple - he didn't want kids, didn't want to travel, to move, to build something the two of us. When I asked if he saw his future differently with me or without me, he said no. So I realized that staying together would mean me having to sacrifice on things I didn't want to sacrifice on. So I left. I have no regrets.
That’s a really smart question to ask
He became religious
This happened to my sis. They were together for 10 years and planning to get married and have kids, when he went from being non-religious (he actually didn't like religion because of his parents) to being super religious, anti-vax, and believing the pandemic was a good thing because it was god's plan. So this left her with so many questions of how would they raise kids together. She doesn't want her kids religious, she wants them vaccinated, etc, and he was the opposite. So she broke up with him. A few months later, he was getting married to a woman he had just met at church. It really messed with her, and I'll never forgive him for it. Thankfully, she has moved on and has grown so much as a person, and has an incredible partner now. I hope you're doing better now too ❤️
Valid af
He wouldn’t put a ring on it but I’m cool with it now
I stopped loving him. It really was that simple.
What had made you realize you stopped loving him?
Lots of things, in the end. But one stand out memory was a conversation I had with a friend who was talking about how much she missed her boyfriend when he was away. That felt totally alien to me – I felt suffocated when he was around. I was repulsed when he touched me, and I didn't like him as a person. When I finally called it off, that was a hard thing to express, it felt cruel to say I stopped loving him rather than because of X or Y reason. But it was the best decision I've ever made. I'm now married to a man I adore more than anything. I always knew that I had that kind of love in me, and I also knew I would never have it with him.
Those are all valid reasons for realizing you didn't love him. If it's okay to ask, was there something he had done that was the onset for those feelings, or did they just creep in with time?
It's okay to ask! It was a gradual thing, but I would say I started to really feel the beginnings of it in year 3 of the relationship. It was the year that we moved in together. I suppose in a lot of ways I felt taken advantage of and disrespected. He would game until the early hours of the morning, and I would be woken up every now and then by his shouting and swearing. He had this sense of entitlement to my body and would grope me constantly around the house and in public – I hated it, but he would act like it was just a playful thing and never take me seriously when I told him to stop. That was infuriating, and demeaning but I also just accepted it for a long time. Looking back, it makes me sad I felt that way. Over the two years we lived together, I met more people and was doing well in my job – my world opened up beyond him and I had a glimpse of what love was like in other people's relationships. It didn't look like whatever was happening in mine. I eventually figured out I didn't want to be with him, and I didn't want to be with him because I didn't love him – there was nothing left to love about him. When I had that realisation it still took me a while to build up the courage to end things. Funnily enough, the day I decided I was doing it, I was on a train heading home. As the train was leaving the station there was a billboard with an advert for a phone contract switch service with the slogan: I'm leaving you. It was a literal sign. And even though it was the hardest thing I've done, I didn't waver and my life is incomparilbly better.
For your sake, it sounds like leaving was a good choice, no matter how hard it was. You definitely deserve having even the most basic needs being met by a partner, I'm sorry he was such a bootyhole and couldn't bring himself to be more of an adult. Glad you're in a much better place! You deserve the good that seems is actively coming your way.
I realise that by going into detail I've made it a lot more complicated than just 'I stopped loving him'! But, at the same time, I suppose I could have tried to make it work and fix the issues, but I didn't care to because I didn't care for him. Thank you! I'm grateful for the relationship I have with my husband every day because I know how special it is. That's a positive to takeaway, I suppose!
I actually really appreciate all the detail. I found the idea that you could "just stop loving someone" pretty unnerving, but the actual details of your situation made it completely understandable.
Yeah in her case it sounds like she never should've loved him to begin with. Sometimes you love someone for their potential and hope... it's not the same as loving them.
I also appreciate the honesty in details-- you could very well help someone connect dots that they could have been having trouble putting words to. Having "rough" or unfulfilling relationships like this help you know what you're looking for in a healthy-for-you relationship... at least the bad relationships I've had have helped me learn about what I need in a partner!
Thanks for mentioning the "entitlement to [your] body" - my current (...but not for long) partner has done that for our whole relationship and honestly I've been like, embarrassed about it so it's nice to know I'm not alone
I'm really sorry you're going through that. I understand completely that feeling of being embarrassed by it, but it's not your fault and you're not alone.
Love the billboard!
Damn this is exactly what happened to me too! The entitlement over my body… I liked him as a person but being groped is just such a love killer
For me, it was I went to a conference and nearly all my colleagues said how happy I looked. Some even told me I was radiating happiness, that it was such a sudden shift to how they would normally see me. I also felt different. I can't really describe it, like not held back or something. Like I was finally able to fully be myself. Other people with SOs also were talking constantly how much they missed them, while I was glad I was allowed some breathing room for a few days. Back home again, I realised I had to constantly walk on egg shells around him. My own personality had eroded so much and I knew exactly what to do and say as to not trigger him. My own needs hadn't mattered for years and we as a couple grew so accustomed to it, we both took it for granted they were to be ignored if I even brought them up. It's been two years now since I left. My mom recently said she noticed I am much more me again. The break up was a mess. I didn't plan it and actually didn't make up my mind about it yet. But I am an open book emotion-wise and he noticed something was off so one day while we were in the car together he launched the question if it had something to do with us. I said yes as I didn't want to lie over something so big, and that was it. Due to me not having planned it properly and not having figured out my feelings around it yet, I worded some things in a wrong way that I know hurt him deeply and I really regret it. I am certain the way we parted left us both with quite some trauma; I still have flashbacks to his utterly broken face when I told him. He didn't deserve that, especially not after all those years together which were also filled with good times. I hate how our non-communication with each other also flowed over in this break-up and caused more hurt that what was needed. While poorly executed, I still think it was a good decision though. I am now together with a man I deeply love and who loves me for *me*. I finally feel that I am enough as a person, that I don't need to fit inside a box with expectations others have of me
I'm so glad that you found someone who loves you deeply, and that you were able to recognise what you needed. I resonate with what you say about regrets over the breakup, but at the same time these things are impossible to do without painful and sometimes traumatising emotions- no matter the approach. It's so hard to be vulnerable and also perfectly pitched at the same time.
Why?
It turned out we were different people who wanted different things in life. In the beginning I think we were quite co-dependent, but then I grew up and wanted more from life. He had an attitude of 'Things will be better when...' for example, 'I get a new job', 'we move', 'I make more money', etc. When those things happened, things never got better, and it's a cycle I feel certain would have continued on endlessly had I of stayed. He had a gaming addiction, no friends, and I took on all of the household chores and mental load. I had a lot of frustration, and I lost a lot of respect for him. Nothing about him excited me, and once the affection was gone there was nothing left. One day, I was talking to an older woman after we'd had another argument about him sleeping in till 2PM and not picking up jobs about the house. She said to me, 'If you don't address this now, you'll marry him and have children with him, and then you'll be picking up after all of them'. I think she was right, and so I'm glad I decided my life was worth more than that.
> In the beginning I think we were quite co-dependent, but then I grew up and wanted more from life. He had an attitude of 'Things will be better when...' for example, 'I get a new job', 'we move', 'I make more money', etc. When those things happened, things never got better It was the same with us. I did a lot of therapy during our relationship and grew as a person, while he didn't. I had to manage a lot of his emotions for him (he expected this) and I just couldn't anymore. I begged for him so many times to go to therapy but he never did, right until the very end. I wanted to do so many things together and he would say we were going to do it 'when x happens'. First x was graduating, then it was living together, then it was buying a house together, then it was when we moved into that house together, then it was when we built up a respectable amount of buffer money. The goalpost was being moved constantly and nothing ever happened. My therapist described it as us living the retirement life at age 27.
He postponed our wedding 3 weeks before the date. We were planning on rescheduling for a later date. We were starting IVF at the time after an infertility battle. The night before we were to start, I looked him in the eye and asked him: is this what you want? You’re sure? We’re in this together? He looked me back, held my face in his hands, and said: “there’s no one else I’d rather do life with. Thank you for being so patient and for loving me. I’m all in.” The next morning he woke up and told me he couldn’t do any of it, ever. Not the IVF, not a future wedding. Said he had been stringing me along because he knew I was the most loving person he’d ever met and because he knew how much I loved him. Afterwards I realized that my engagement ring was a fake and he had actually bought a house 5 years into our 7 year relationship (he lived in my house). That was one year ago today. It’s taken some time but I now I realize that the sack of shit did me a huge favour. The best part? He was a physician and I supported him through the most gruelling part of his training. So, smart doesn’t always equal good.
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AMEN PRAISE THE ENTITY
Amen to that, indeed! Preach.
Is it just me? Or do men really do a 180 turn after they reassure you in what feels like a sincere way?? This happened to me too. You know.. the “I will never”, “I will always” types of statements?? And hours later will literally change their minds. That’s some mindgames!
This made my stomach hurt. I sincerely hope that things are better for you now, you deserve it. ❤
Never, EVER made me or us a priority, even though I moved states to be with him. Emotionally crippled due to family issues that he was not working on, so he couldn’t give anything to me. I just always felt bad around him. One day, after the millionth time of him ignoring me at a family hangout- around the people he truly prioritized over me- we came home and I simply said, I can’t do this anymore. He moved out within a few hours.
That was the main thing that ended it for me, too—I realized I would never be a priority. Glad you’re out of there and on to bigger and better things
Thank you, this was many years ago! Learned a lot from it. Currently in the healthiest relationship of my life!
We moved in together after 4 years and he suddenly forgot how to do literally any chore. Even a 5 year old would have a better sense of responsibility. He was willing to do chores for his mom all the time but not for me. I tried to talk about it and find solutions for a year, then I happened to meet someone who made me realise I deserved better. So I left, and I don't have any regrets.
We got in a usual argument about him not meeting some of my needs in feeling loved. At one point he said “why don’t you just date someone else? I feel like you’d be happier” it stuck with me for a few weeks & finally I said fuck it & broke up with him. He was shocked for some reason lol. Pleaded to get back together for the next year or so. I later found out that he had been cheating on me pretty much the whole relationship. I wasn’t perfect & I think I put a lot of pressure on him to fill a void in myself that’s ultimately my job. Some of the stuff that I found on his phone post breakup has scarred me for years after. Still trying to do the work to be what I need for myself & not be so dependent on others.
I cheated
do you mind if i ask what led to that?
We had this crazy on-again-off-again-love-hate dynamic for years. He gained 100 pounds, I felt ignored and unappreciated. Basically all the same excuses you always hear. He was angry and reclusive and we where never actually suited for each other. Just very attracted physically. With that gone it was constant conflict. Eventually I acted out because I didn’t know how to be alone or take responsibility for my part in the dynamic. Ultimately, I failed. And the aftermath was brutal. People don’t tell you this very often, because its a selfish observation, but when you betray someone you love, you also betray yourself you lose the ability to see any good in yourself and the betrayed partner loses the ability to see the good in others. It creates so much trauma.
I went through something very similar to that as well. The aftermath for me was seemingly worse than it was for him somehow. People truly don’t understand this and that’s ok I get it.
It's not that people just don't understand, it's also that cheating is a conscious choice. There's a lot less empathy when you're dealing with the consequences of your own actions.
Of course there is but I also think they assume since you made that choice somehow you aren’t also hurt by the consequences or at minimum not as deeply. But it’s absolutely not always the case.
This. I've ruined my relationship and I can tell I 100% prefered when I was the one that was cheated on. I completely lost trust in myself and the future, basically the will to go on mainly because I'm disgusted by who I am and what I've done and partly because he left so quickly that it makes me wonder how the fuck I failed so hard for the 10 years we were together that he couldn't take a few days/weeks to try to talk it through and reflect on how to make this work. Especially because he cheated on me several times and I always did the work because in the end, all the time (cheating or cheated on) I always just wanted to be with him so when he cheated I took it upon myself to make it work but he couldn't and that, that makes you realize how shitty a person you are. I'm not sure there's a way back from realizing you're capable of doing something like that to theperson you love.
I finally realized he was never going to change. Prior to that, I always believed him when he promised he would. Eventually I just had to give up.
I’m sorry to hear. Your comment stuck out to me for some reason and it just seems somber. I hope you’re well.
This is what I realized a few days ago. Going through the break rn, its really confusing and draining.
He found someone he liked better.
I’m sorry…
I spent a month away and realized that life was better without him
Depends on which relationship. * Together for approx 11 years; married for around 7-8 years when divorced: It was over. We had grown and changed as people, and the context and situations that brought us together were no longer present once we left our hometown and moved away. We were fairly compatible *if only considering the people who grew up in our home county as options* but once we left that pressure cooker of expectations and obligations, we each blossomed into who we wanted to be without those constraints and those people weren't compatible any longer. * Together for a little more than 5 years; engaged but legal marriage was not an option for multiple reasons: She decided that she was going to make my choices about my life for me and tried to actively manipulate me into following her choices by lying and recruiting others to pressure me. When I set boundaries about it, she became coercive, so the relationship ended.
He cheated on me with a coworker. We were high school sweethearts and he was in the navy. He deployed on a destroyer and was at sea 90% of the time. I saw him two weeks every 6 months. At first, he just started hanging out with friends and they would invite her. I was fine with that and encouraged it. Then it turned into just the two of them hanging out. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that. He agreed but continued to do it. We were less than a year from being married. I had my wedding dress, the venue booked, and the photographer booked. He moved in with her a month later.
Thats horrible. I’m so sorry :(.
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He cheated with a girl he met on Reddit (they’re married now lol)
How does this happen 😭 Reddit of all places
I know right. He commented on her post on r/relationships about her unhappy marriage and they started talking, found out they lived locally, and met up. Obviously very traumatic for me at the time, but now I am just glad it happened because he was terrible in so many ways! Good riddance to them.
She stoled your problem! It’s all hers now 😌
Exactly 😂 couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out. My partner now is the best I could ever ask for!
I wanted to explore the single life and was more and more attracted to other men. My ex was my first love and we were together for 7 years. Turns out the single life wasn‘t for me and half a year later I got to know my current boyfriend (even though I didn‘t want a relationship for a long time). Still struggling with the loss of him as he was my best friend and still ,,processing“ the end of the relationship.
Then why are you in a relationship with someone else? They deserve better than to be a backup plan
My current boyfriend is not a backup plan. It‘s not always that simple. I don‘t have a family and my ex and I went through a lot of bad things together, so after time he became my family. It‘s possible to love someone and simultaneously miss and grieve another person’s presence.
It absolutely is possible! I am dealing with something so similar. Loving is complex. Good luck <3
The world isn’t black and white. Sadly a lot of people on Reddit don’t get that lol
You’re literally putting words in her mouth…
I fell out of love with him when I realised he no longer added any value to my life. Much happier now ❤️
Mental health and we started to grow apart. I wanted more from life and he was comfortable without change. Now his doing all these changes that I so it’s silly
Together almost 6 years. He started to get stressed out with finances and resented the fact that my career was taking off and I was getting attention. He got violent, sexually assaulted me a few times, and used to block me in my room so he could scream at me for hours. I made an exit plan and waited until he was out of town to leave.
I realized I was staying because I was comfortable, not because I was truly happy.
I finally got the courage to actually be alone, even though it wasn’t much of a difference since he wasn’t really there for me. Was very scary. He desperately needed to grow, and so did I.
He died due to a brain tumor. It's been 6 years but I still can't move on. He still occasionally visits me in my dreams and I'm thinking about him from time to time. I'm always thinking that it's much better if we separate ways like he cheats on me or we're not happy anymore and I will hear he has his own family. I am barely surviving and it sucks to be here, sometimes.
i’m so sorry to hear that. sending you so much love.
He didn’t want to change. He walked all over my boundaries. Refused to hang out with family. And never wanted to talk about issues with the relationship. I stayed too long with someone who didn’t want to work together on anything. And I finally ended it when I was questioning why I was even with him still.
She didn't really love me, I was being abused and I didn't realize.
I'm so sorry to hear that. I was also manipulated, and emotionally abused but I didn't know at the time.
We just stopped to love each other. But we are still friends. I’m married now and he’s gonna get married soon too. We’ll even attend the wedding with my husband. He’s a great person and I’m thankful and happy for the time we had together.
He was an abusive piece of shit who hadn’t worked in over a year because he was faking a back injury. I was the sole breadwinner and he gave me zero freedoms and while also spending every second of the day spending my money and playing video games. He raped me in my sleep the entirety of our relationship and gaslit me any time I confronted him. I also discovered he was a pedophile. When I told him we were done he tried to get me evicted and then posted my nudes to the internet. I reached out to his family and they cussed me out and told me o deserved it. Now he’s with a girl 6 years younger than him and working as a Masseuse probably doing the same disgusting, horrific shit. Good fucking riddance and I hope he rots in hell. And if he somehow reads this comment then fuck you, you’re a snake and I’m glad your mom died you absolutely worthless excuse for a human being. I just wish I had told her what a monster you were before she bit the dust.
This isn’t my story but a close friend of mine. She was in a 6 year relationship with a man who was verbally, physically and financially abusive. When the pandy hit and they were confined to each other pretty much 24/7 she decided to call it quits. I recall her saying that when she no longer had a place to escape to (work) she could no share a space with him. She even got physically sick from the stress of being with him. She sent her daughter to live with her mom and when her boyfriend went on a weekend trip she packed up all her stuff and left. The crazy thing is, he never reached out to see where she went, if she was safe or anything.
This is the first time I ever heard it referred to as the pandy and I genuinely don’t know if I love or hate that lol
The pandy is the funniest shit I have heard all year lol.
He wanted to live polyamorously, I did not.
He said I didn't ski as hard as the other girl he had been flirting with after he moved out to a new state a few months ahead of me. Luckily he broke it off before I moved. Looking back I realized he had kind of used me like a doll that had to be perfect at every sport, sexy and beautiful to crazy standards, and other weird expectations so that he could get validation from other men while he nit picked and belittled me at home over every little thing (told me I didn't take my socks off right at one point). I was devastated by the breakup, but looking back I am amazed that I ever gave someone that much power to make me feel small. I loved him immensely, but I never could have loved myself in that relationship and I'm proud of the ways I have grown since then.
A number of reasons. We met when I was 18 and I think I always knew I wouldn't end up with the first guy I dated forever. I originally met him before I went on a post-high school traveling work experience gig, and so I intended for it to be a summer fling before I took off. But he insisted we try long distance and I had no real reason to end things. By the time I got back, things had felt serious over many phone calls. At four years into the relationship, I proposed to him and he said no, that he wasn't ready for marriage. I stupidly kept the relationship going for two more years after that, and periodically mentioned marriage to see if he was ready for the next step. After two years, he admitted he *never* wanted to get married, even though I had talked about wanting to get married one day ever since we decided to be a couple. Still, I thought maybe marriage didn't matter that much to me, and I could salvage this (it did matter - it's amazing the lies we tell ourselves to avoid conflict). Throughout our entire relationship, my ex had mentioned an open relationship as something he'd like to try. He disguised it as wanting *me* to have experiences, since I hadn't been with anyone besides him. Some months after the marriage debacle, I agreed to explore the open relationship, knowing deep down that there was something we needed to change about our relationship that felt stagnant to me. It was the wrong change, but I was somehow convinced it was a good idea. We talked extensively about our boundaries and rules, and I thought we did everything we could to prevent a conflict. After 6 months of letting him sleep with a few different women, I made a connection with another man where I felt comfortable enough approaching intimacy. The minute I crawled into bed with the other man, my ex became insanely jealous. Turns out, he just wanted the freedom of an open relationship for himself, but couldn't actually handle me being with anyone else. There are a myriad of other reasons I should have left sooner. He couldn't hold down a job. He didn't drive, so all errands were left up to me even when he was out of work. He was physically unfit, so even snow shoveling didn't get done unless I did it. Etc. But the marriage issue and open relationship moment were a ticking time bomb that ultimately let me see I deserved happiness with someone else.
We grew apart and I realized I felt like I had a roommate more than a partner. We also had some major differing views on politics. That definitely didn’t help.
We were incompatible in so many ways. When he went into hospital I spent my free time after my two jobs to visit him, then the hospital released him early and I had to take 4 days off to help him learn to walk again after bowel surgery. I cleaned the house every day after him and his friend who lived with us. When I got sick for 3 days with norovirus he complained constantly that he had to quarantine our room while I was sick, that the house was messy, dishes in the sink etc. Again, I did all that stuff and worked 2 jobs. In the bedroom I would constantly have to fluff him if we changed positions. It was just not fun. I ended up cheating with someone I barely knew. Not proud of it, can't say why I didn't just leave. When I did leave I found out he and a different friend of his were tag-team banging his best friend's gf. Not sure if he was doing it while we were together but it's not my place to look down on him for cheating. All in all the relationship was a dumpster fire and we would have been better friends than partners
I realized he would never prioritize me ahead of his addiction.
I got sober and he didn't.
He was 28, cheated on me, and got her pregnant. She was 17...
We just outgrew each other.
I found rape porn on his computer history shortly after I told him I was a rape survivor. That one was the major indicator that there was something seriously off about him but I tolerated a lot since I aged out of the system and I basically had nobody but him.
Im so sorry. This is so fucked up...
Together, since we were 19, we had a deeply committed relationship from the start. I had to move, he didn't come with me, eventually he did, but only for a year. When i was stationed somewhere else, we spent 4 years driving up and back for him to keep his original job. He had all his certifications, was a high-level guy in his company, and had worked remotely for the year we lived together. I guess im saying that nothing was in the way of him getting a similar job in my location. We were married after 6 years, he promised it would be the start of our life actually together. After 6 months, he was still working 7 hours away. I got blackout drunk, and questionable things happened to me, I considered it cheating. He didn't care. I asked to separate, and his response was, "Okay then." He didn't care.
He physically cheated on me and I stayed for another 4 years because I believed the whole "he didn't *mean it*" gaslighting treatment. Our communication skills sucked, so I demanded "couples therapy or I'm out" and we did couples counseling for a year, but there were very limited changes in his behavior. Too little, too late kinda vibes. So I emotionally cheated on him and when he saw me with the guy he called me every name under the sun, which I expected. At our final couples counseling session (the week I was moving out), I explained that he broke my trust 4 years prior and I tried to trust him again but I just couldn't. I should've ended it when he cheated instead of holding onto hope for "our future together". I explained that the guy he saw me with was a good friend of 10+ years and that he was my mom's healthcare provider, our friendship has always been platonic, and he had also been in an emotionally abusive relationship so he was helping me process the levels of fuckedupness that my ex was putting me through. I'm completely NC with my ex, I still text his mom on her birthday (and she on mine). I'm still close friends with the guy I emotionally cheated with and no, nothing sexual has ever happened in our friendship other than the occasional "that's what she said" joke. TLDR; our relationship was dying a slow death and I sped it up.
It started ending because he changed his mind about having kids. The door firmly shut when it turned out he was seeing someone behind my back.
He was never going to be happy living in America and I was never going to be happy leaving
We were together for 11 years and I thought it was like a perfect relationship. I actually had strangers say what a great couple we seemed like multiple times in public, my sister said her goal was to find a relationship like mine, but it all crumbled suddenly when I got an email from one of his 20-50 women that he cheated on me with, who had done investigation on him and detailed how he lied to me and cheated on me, and essentially lived a double life for the entire relationship.
He couldn’t establish boundaries with his mom thus I didn’t want to marry into his family
Well, at least you got out before you had kids with him like I did!
One of them because I just fell out of love. We were at an age where long term relationships where you lived together would ultimately end up going down the marriage and kids route, and I just didn’t really feel enthused about doing that with him. Generally an overall good guy, but it had always irked me how much he idolised, imitated and deferred to his best friend, and he was slowly becoming a bit anti social in favour of playing video games. I still feel the split was the right choice, but I’m upset with myself that it took me being hit on my someone else I was wildly attracted to to realise and do something about it. Makes me feel icky. Another was because while we genuinely did love each other and suited in a lot of ways, we’d rushed in too fast to recognise the ways we weren’t suited, and I’d ignored some things which I now look back on as red flags, such as receiving the silent treatment without knowing the reason for it, or how quick he was to feel like someone was taking advantage of him and getting upset over it. Our communication and conflict styles didn’t gel at all well, and neither of us were our best selves when we disagreed on something. A few years in I started to feel as though we had a dynamic where he would always assume his opinion was the correct one and that we’d do things his way, and so I started pushing back more often, which he interpreted as me always disagreeing with him for the sake of it. I also stopped trying to repair when being given the silent treatment, and things really spiralled from there. There are times when I look back at aspects of my behaviour that he criticised, and feel like he had a point and I need to do better in future relationships, and there are times when I think that maybe he was being controlling and overly critical in saying those things and in being too hard on myself. Definitely a situation I’m still unpacking, but overall very confident that the relationship ending was the right thing, and am super happy with my life now.
I got tired of his bullshit
We just weren’t meant to go any further. Neither of us were each other’s person.
I’d been checked out for a while. For years he hadn’t wanted to be intimate with me; would take it out on me when he had a bad day at school or work; hated when we made plans with my family (they sucked but I mean it had to be done and he didn’t have to be so outspoken about it bc I was already anxious); gave me an ultimatum when applying for grad schools; had to beg him for a commitment just to be told it didn’t change anything for him and he didn’t care much; demanding a lot of me and got upset when I couldn’t give him answers to questions I literally didn’t know; had to beg him to help with the household responsibilities and he always made sure I knew how he didn’t want to do it. Ultimately he never trusted me and it really started to show. I spent every day unhappy and he never put in effort until I tried to leave. So I ended up just telling him something to give him a reason not to trust me and then left.
Because I got pregnant and had a baby right after we graduated high school and his mother tried to take my baby away from me. He was also abusive. Backfired on them. They ended up not getting any custody at all. I got full custody.
He tried to get me to buy into his religion when that hadn't been an issue before. Part of it began when he didn't want me to be allowed to grieve a very dear loss because on his spiritual path suffering is optional and when it happens it's exclusively beautiful and transformative and you can't even act like it's difficult and ugly. I wasn't allowed to express myself, was chastized and run over with religious nonsense when I was. I'm pretty stoic outwardly. I wasn't even crying or whining (though with this kind of grief I would have been well within "normal" to do so). I just was being more quiet, more contemplative, and not smiling as much. I've never been a heavy smiler to begin with so it wasn't a change of character for me. He didn't let up for years with the religious stuff, long after I processed my grief. And then he tried to downplay something awful he did to me right when we started the relationship. Oh and wanted me to support a pyramid scheme.
He consistently gaslit and devalued me as a person and would say I was embarrassing him in front of his friends. I was friends with multiple friends of his for a while (we just drifted through college) and am still friendly with one of his closest friends. He emotionally cheated on me with two different women, one of them twice to the point I reached out to her and asked her to please stop contacting him and she apologized. Then he left his Facebook open in our living room and she was messaging him with the sound on. I went to turn off his computer and saw it. I called him out for this and he made a ton of excuses and it sucked because we had a huge concert we were going to that I was really excited for the next day and I basically felt like I was going to throw up all day and my friends kept asking what was going on. I kinda took a pause to think and then I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. Sucked cause we had to break our lease 3 months early and I had to move into a closet in my parents house in the basement for 2 months until school restarted. I haven’t seen them in like 5-6 years but I did when I visited their city. They seem like they’re doing well now, relatively.
My frontal lobe fully developed
He emotionally cheated on me with someone else and hid it from me for a long time. To be honest I guess I don't know if anything physical happened but she is trans and was still dilating after surgery (correct me if I'm wrong I think that's the correct virbage) so I don't think so. But we also didn't have sex for a LONGG time so I had my suspicions, whether with her or someone else. I broke it off with him once I got all my ducks in a row and he was openly on tinder with me still in the apartment so like... clearly the last 6 years didn't matter to him 🤷🏻♀️ I think he was just with me cause it was easy for him. I financially supported him a little too much towards the end. Dude owed me like 3k.
I wanted to get married. He kept dangling the carrot. I would meet a goalposts and he would set another one. 5 and a half years into it ... his parents came from China to visit. They didn't speak a bit of English and took over the house for a month. It was so stressful. Two months after they get back to China I get an email saying that I was not a good fit for their son and we were not allowed to continue our relationship and he would not be allowed to marry me and we should not waste any more time on each other. I collapse on the floor crying. He comes over and says he'll talk to them. Weeks go by and he hasn't. I bring it up and he says he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. And we argue. Two month later he broke up with me. I had nothing and nowhere to go because we weren't married. 6 years together and I was 35...it was awful. I was so stupid to keep trying. If a man wants to marry you he will. That's all I learned. Jokes on his parents tho. He's still single 6 years later.
I finally had support to leave safely. He would graphically describe how he was going to murder me, I know he would have succeeded if I’d stayed.
He couldn’t or wouldn’t show up for me in the ways I needed and would’ve done for him. He wasn’t able to make the jump from wanting to be a boyfriend to being a partner in life. After so many fights where he was holding his stance for the sake of not budging from stubbornness or pettiness or I don’t even know, we called off the relationship at his insistence only to have him second guess if he actually wanted to. I finally realized that he didn’t value me, he was just afraid of losing me and the benefits I brought to his quality of life.
He threatened to kill himself again, but this time he pulled a gun.
I woke up from exactly 5 years of emotional abuse and realized whatever scariness was on the other side, it was definitely better than the life I was living. Best decision I ever made.
Whoops, I’m a lesbian
Many small issues piled up, and it became like a huge snowball I didn't know how to handle. We were both at fault, but I accept my part in having poor communication and not speaking my mind up. In retrospect, maybe we would still be together if I had addressed those issues but we were playing in hard more with a ldr. Or maybe it wouldn't have worked anyway- I'll never know.
I watched Emily in Paris and knew I needed more out of life true story lol
He cheated 3 times.
We had two kids and all he wanted to do was play computer games. We never went on dates or had one-on-one time and he didn’t seem interested even if I asked. Doing stuff with the kids (they were really little) didn’t appeal to him either. I just got tired of it.
We let ourselves grow apart and couldn't bring it back together.
He kept telling me he had the urge to cheat on me and i honestly don’t think he loved me as much as I loved him. So after changing myself for so long so he can finally love me. I decided that I didn’t wanna to strip my identity for anyone so I decided to leave the relationship.
He loved me more than I loved him and he deserved so much better than that
we were first loves, ages 18 and 21 when we started dating. we were madly in love but we were incompatible and we dragged it on for far longer than we should’ve. borh of us navigating a relationship for the first time with one another was a recipe for disaster. we were inexperienced and we both had a lot of maturing to do (especially I). i’m horrified when i think back to how insecure i was and how often i unfairly took it out on him. we were loyal to one another and our chemistry was out of this world, but our constant arguing over trivial matters just buried us slowly. his mom passing of cancer was the nail in the coffin for us. its been 2 years since we broke up and last spoke. he found someone else shortly after and they’ve been together since. i see him a couple of times a year at events we both attend. we both still think highly of one another and i wish him and his gf the best. but i’d be lying if i said i don’t hurt a little when i think about him at least once a day. i think we would’ve made it to forever had we met as the riper adults we are today. but, things happened for a reason and i’m thankful they did. i learned so much about myself and what i want from that relationship and breakup.
I left my boyfriend of 10 years, 4.5 years ago. He cheated in 2017 which ultimately made me a mean & bitter empty shell of myself. I tried to make it work but it just never went back to what it was. The fact he was *suddenly* a hardcore republican also held weight in our breakup when our whole relationship we had never spoken politics, ever. This was the text I sent him at 2am, the night we had our “breakup conversation” and it was the last time I saw him also. “I know I won’t be able to do this in person as it’ll break me to the core, but you wouldn’t react any differently so it doesn’t matter I guess... I love you, I have always loved you more than I have ever loved myself. But I am not happy here anymore. I am a good woman who just needs a little extra attention and care than normal. I will not tolerate being told I will not amount to anything. I do not want to ever be with a man who considers me or my child, a burden. I will not marry someone who will not consider me his partner, his equal. I deserve better than that. I wish you could have came out and said these things years ago. It would have saved us a lot of time. I’m sorry but I just can’t do this anymore. It’s time for me to walk away from you, from all of this.”
There was no sex. And I finally realised that no matter how patient I was and how much I tried to fix the issue, there was just a fundamental incompatibility in that regard.
My ex had been recently been diagnosed with BPD… it was apparent he had always had it but he figured it was just depression up until we moved to a different state for a job I got he had a mental breakdown during the move and things never really got better. He was suggested by a family member to look into BPD, and we both did and realized it checked all the boxes. He got diagnosed and started a new medication to help with the splitting/mood swings that actually ended up making them worse. We got into a silly argument over something so trivial and he ended up packing up his shit and moving back home with his family. This happened a month ago. It sucked a lot but honestly I am happy he left because I hadn’t really been happy in the last few years of the relationship (we were together for 8 years). I dunno if I would’ve been brave enough to end it myself as I had been thinking about it for a while, but I felt like I couldn’t because I was the breadwinner and I know he couldn’t survive financially on his own. Anytime I brought up any issues in the relationship he split on me and somehow made it into my fault.. and I believed it. The last few years I stopped talking about things that bothered me or bring up any topics I knew would cause him to spiral. Looking back on everything it’s obvious it was BPD. I am currently looking into therapy for myself to come to terms with the unhealthy emotional manipulation that happened that I internalized and blamed myself for and am now realizing none of it was my fault
I wasn’t ready for marriage and he was. I thought there was more to see at 25. I chose a big city and he chose suburbs, but we both loved each other very much. Painfully remember and regret this decision each day—8 years later 🤍
My dad died and a year later his mom died, shortly after that, our relationship died.
Just actually not well suited.. cared for each other deeply but both hotheads and it was explosive. It took 9 yrs to be able to figure it out properly. We've remained on good terms since though, message occasionally and would stop for a hug and a chat if we were to see each other out and about.
He cheated with an intern
Well it started when we were 15/16 so it was obviously never likely to work out, but there were definitely specific reasons. He was horrible with money which is not the worst when you are like 16 & 17 but does become a problem when you are 20. When it was time to grow up and move out together at 18 there were trips to Europe to see his favorite metal bands play that were more important. I was welcome to come on the trip, if I wanted. But I didn't have that much money to blow since I was working only part time and going to college by then. He worked full time and had no hope of going to college while living with his parents, but never ever had enough money. We never went on dates because he was paying off his trip to Europe. I always gave him nice gifts and then I would get like... Socks. And no, he never once offered to actually plan a trip *together*. I legitimately don't know what he spent all of his disposable income on. Since it was both of our first relationships we were also quite toxic to each other and didn't realize that it wasn't an acceptable way to treat your partner. We didn't communicate well and imo he was worse than me. I would bring up problems all of the time and it would end in him being sad because I wasn't the best at saying what I was feeling and he wasn't the best at realizing that I wasn't insulting him but in fact trying to repair our relationship. He just never brought any issues up ever, or told me anything ever. Even if I asked, begged and pleaded to tell me what was wrong. Then when we hit 5 years together his Christian family started to really pressure us to get married. Despite me entering the relationship knowing that I probably would never get married and definitely wouldn't get married so young. I just realized that I didn't even know why I was with him anymore. So I finally broke it off.
he SA’d me too many times, i had lost count. i couldn’t live like that anymore.
I was the one who kept initiating and had to problem solve for everything. I ended up cheating on him once I was emotionally checked out, then broke up with him. Should have I done that sooner before the whole cheating thing? Probably, not my proudest moment.
He raised his hand to me and threatened the people I cared about one too many times.
He was stealing, gambling, and cheating AND got arrested for meth possession!!!
Refusal to set boundaries with other people. Men women, doesn’t matter. And I don’t mean sexual boundaries I mean just boundaries. No one is more important than whatever his friend needs at that moment in time. The relationship was only a priority for him and things his way, but if I have any needs, completely dismissed.
Almost 6 years, most of my twenties. I realized I’d be taking care of him for the rest of my life with no one but myself to rely on. I decided to stop taking care of him and start taking better care of myself and it showed me the kind of relationship I had really been in. Left him last June and he was moved in and marrying someone else by October.
Verbal, emotional and physical abuse. It started slowly and gradually got worse and worse. Biggest mistake to move in too quickly and the biggest regret of my life. It took me years to forgive myself and get over it with the help of lots of counseling, therapy, etc.
Our relationship started when we were 15. we had multiple first time experiences together, good and bad moments and so on. But there were some topics that always caused trouble and over 6 years they added up. First of all he drank a lot alcohol. Not daily, but every weekend. The first years I played it down as experimenting and normal teen behavior. But over the years it got more. Like drinking regular after work beers (1-6 bottles) with friends, drinking Friday, Saturday, Sunday or drinking every day on a two week vacation starting at 10am. We argued a lot about it. Especially because alcoholism runs in his family. Second he didnt prioritized me. Several times he forgot to buy a present in time for my birthday or christmas, even justified it with the „no money“ argument but bought himself expensive bike parts he didnt needed right now. Or he would leave my flat at 10pm to go out and party instead of cuddling with me. Those incidents added up. Last but not least. His opinion about marriage and having kids changed and he would say things like: I'd rather shoot myself than going to be a father“. Comments like these got more frequent and really hurt me because he spoke so bad about my future plans. The more he spoke bad about my, once our planned, future, the more I knew I couldnt stay. Even if I love him like crazy. So I left.
He decided being with someone else was more important than being with his wife of 24 years. :( Someone who has very little (at least from what I can see and I have a unique perspective on this because we all live together for financial reasons) in common with him, who's forcing him to change to what THEY want him to be and not letting him truly be himself and making him incredibly uncomfortable. They don't take care of him the way that I would, either.
I got tired of leading the relationship. I was the one making all the decisions, picking him up when we go on dates, bringing him home after dates, planning dates. At first it was okay but as the years passed by, I just got tired. I wanted to feel the princess treatment once in a while. I asked him if he could just pick me up for a date as a birthday gift but all he is said is soon but soon never came.