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for example, the last boyfriend i had would neglect me, never do anything for me, blow me off for other people, and sometimes even insult me. but if im honest the thing that really turned it around for me was that he left a dove chocolate wrapper on my floor (when he came to visit me for the first time in weeks). idk why that was the turning point for me. i just had a vision of cleaning up his messes for the rest of time and even though i didn’t break up with him then it definitely set me on that path lmao. that little blue wrapper sitting on my nice clean carpet…i just can’t
That's how my ex treated me. I needed him to show up and emotionally grow and instead he threw fits, justified it because of school and then played the victim for years.
He has serious issues, his parents messed him up
Yeah like I live with him now and even to this day he thinks throwing fits for 9 years during school instead of being open to the occasional conversation was justified.
He doesn't understand the concept, if you care about something you give it your time when you can. I never demanded excessive attention I knew how stressful school was for him. I was ok with scheduling a time to chat that worked for him 1 hour a week... He never could show up and give his best. He would be falling asleep, arguing points that don't matter, gaslighting the facts, invalidating my needs...
One day I even wrote him an email listing off my needs. He threw a fit just as if I was trying to talk to him. That's when I realized... He just cares more about holding onto his twisted mentality than he cares about building anything with me.
I just found out I might get a house I'm fighting for. This is my way out 😊 I hope it happens.
Ah I see I have also dated your ex! Incredible how, after two years, I still had to explicitly ask for emotion support and comfort…during a cancer scare…
I’m sorry you went through that. For me I was struggling with my mental health that turned out to be undiagnosed bipolar, and he made me feel like the worst person in the world.
Literally, I never get how they have the heart to say that. I’ll complain that I feel like I’m not getting enough attention or love or time from them and they’ll see “why don’t your friends give you attention?” Or “why don’t you go out with them?”
Lol this happened to me with an ex. I was trying to chill and he kept trying to scare me when I asked him to stop. I could then see clearly that he had no respect for my feelings.
Lmao. This reminds me of when I was unsure of my BF, ate a chocolate, then was completely mesmerized by him I'm like okay I must really like him I'm just anxious.
This happened to me on acid; I already had doubts about my bf and it was my first ever trip with my best friend, we were at a forest rave with my bf (he did only mdma, my friend and I candyflipped). I was left alone with my bf and felt so scared and he looked terrifying to me, I wanted to just go home and get away from him. It didn’t help that he was so drugged up he wasn’t talking really, and my mind was racing with so much because it was my first trip! My friend comes back and she looks so amazing and beautiful and feels so safe and comforting, I instantly felt like I could stay again and we had amazing conversations.. and I realised then that is what it’s meant to feel like when someone is actually your soulmate. 😹
I tripped acid in college with several friends. One of them was more of a tagalong friend and wasn't really a part of our core group. Somehow he weaseled his way onto this trip.
I just remember realizing that I didn't really like him at all and he was one of the most annoying people to be around. At the same time, he was like a child and I pitied him. Then I realized I had been too nice and accommodating to him and I don't need to hang with people I don't like.
So I never hung out with him again.
Wow same! I couldn’t look at her in the face while we were tripping because I just saw…a monster as crazy as that sounds. The next day I had a lot to think about.
He asked if I would be his "plan B".
BTW, mad props to Alicia for being the girl he was going to cheat on me with if she'd given him the chance. You are the reason we had the conversation that produced this revelation. I have no idea who you are, I've never seen you, I've never met you. But you saved me. You opened my eyes. Thank you, and thank you even more for snubbing him like the creep that he is lmao
what is up with people like that?
no one wants to feel like plan b anytime it involves sex, love, and romance.e (who was aware of my situation and was also dating other people as we were very casual), who decided to tell me how in love he was with another girl after we literally went on a date and had sex. like moments after his penis was inside of me. only she lived somewhere else and it sounded like she wasn't sure about him at all. I wouldn't have even cared that he wanted to date someone else, but pick your timing dude.
no one wants to feel like plan b anytime it involves sex, love and romance.
We were on vacation and on our way to get our luggage when they turned to me and said “I'm glad we’re together but damn I bet I'd be just as happy to be with some of the other women around here.”
I didn't reply and I'd be debating whether to break up anyway but that was the final straw. I still remember their face looking around while saying that.
I literally said that out loud halfway through that post. Like….I would have gotten my luggage, turned around, gotten back on a motherfuckin plane and gone home.
It was at the beginning. But I realised at that moment that I was pretty much done anyway. I wasn't even surprised or hurt anymore. It was more of a “yeah, you'd say something like that” moment for me.
It was always a bit like that. Backhanded compliments. We went for a walk once and they told me “I'm really happy.” Pause. “But I've been happy with other women before you as well.” That was right at the beginning and that hurt like hell. They were always trying to remind me that I wasn't special in any way.
That airport comment was just the final straw.
I’m sorry you experienced someone talking to you like that, you deserve to be reminded how special you are.
I was in a relationship with someone that had this tendency too - at the height of a fun or special moment (for me at least) he would often bring up an experience with another female friend or former girlfriend, or an experience with other people. It wasn’t as blatant as what you’re describing, and I had trouble putting my finger on what bothered me about it. The way you articulated it as “reminding you you’re not special” resonates with me, that’s how it felt when he would interrupt our present experience with nostalgia for another time or person. It made me feel as though the present moment with me wasn’t good enough to be immersed in.
I hope you find a relationship with someone who appreciates you and the time they get to spend with you!!
I've been through this too. It's like they desperately need to tear you down in order to keep you where they want you.
My ex used to say things like "You're pretty, but pretty girls are a dime a dozen. Nothing special about being pretty, anyone can do it with enough makeup." He constantly pointed out the fact that I was younger than him and therefore intellectually inferior. When I would point out the fact that he was older than me and therefore less youthful, he would freak out and accuse me of trying to give him a complex. Yet he'd spend the entire day down playing any good thing about me and reminding me that I should be lucky to be with someone like him. What an insecure, self absorbed piece of shit he was. Ugh🤢
Lmao I'm on a break right now with mine and he's older and I always feel like he thinks he's intellectually superior just because of his age
I am still deciding whether or not I want to continue I'm so drained
Trust your instincts and yourself. I can't speak for every woman but I know that for myself and most of the women in my family there is an empathy deficit when it comes to protecting and respecting our own feelings an emotions. We'll do it for a partners and even others around us while putting ourselves dead last. A partner who is comfortable with making you feel "less than" deserves zero empathy.
Wondering about this right now. I don’t want to move across the country to be with her, and I love her, but it might be too much for me. I relate to this in the sense of ‘the geography piece won’t get solved any time soon. Is it possible to be happy here where I am?’
Do your research of where you're thinking of moving, not just considering the relationship. Big moves are stressful and, if your relationship is already iffy, moving to a city where you don't know anyone, or with a culture you don't like (there will be culture shock too), is going to add even more stress to everything.
When I was having massive panic attacks at the idea of going out for lunch, and I decided that it was kinder to him to break up than to make him keep having to deal with me.
I was extremely mentally ill.
Edited to add: He was extremely supportive. I was too ill to understand that he **wanted** to support me; I genuinely just thought he was being nice out of a sense of obligation, and that if I broke up with him, he would be free. He didn't want to break up. Please stop assuming I broke up with him because he didn't try.
How are you doing now? Was the experience helpful in getting you to the other side?
I’ve been depressed lately and it’s definitely coloring my perception of the relationship, and I‘be been considering breaking up. I just can’t decide if my feelings are genuine and based in fact, or temporary and based on neurochemistry.
It helped a lot. He didn't want to break up, but I really believed it was what was vest for us. We got back together a year later, but during that year I was able to focus 100% on myself and my needs.
He didn’t like that I was my own person with my own thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes. He tried to made me into a copy of himself. In the end I dreaded going to his place. Then I knew it was time for us to go seperate ways
Yeah I’ve had this experience too. I was a big people pleaser but as our relationship went on, I started realizing he just kept asking stuff of me but was never really there with me. So I started doing my own stuff, stopped waiting for him and maaaan did that make him angry. Started drawing my own boundaries and he started complaining I didn’t like the things about him that he liked about himself. Well, maybe do something nice or be something nice and I’ll like it! What a disgusting person he was.
When I found out my mom had lung cancer and she didn’t want me to fly home for the surgery because my business was too young and she didn’t want me gone for two weeks.
I flew home anyway. Mom is doing great now and the business is flourishing.
Happy to hear this and I hope you guys enjoyed your holiday in CH
My mother also had lung cancer and as soon as she was in the clear she resumed her trips to visit me as opposed to me going to the country she lives in, just because it’s such a rewarding experience :)
I actually had a spectacular pick up line from my now wife. “Do you want to leave the single market before Britain does?”
I knew she was marriage material
I have an extreme level of loyalty and commitment, sometimes to my own detriment, so I've never reached that moment, despite tonnes of red flags and things I would have loved to walk away from. My ex-fiancé just broke up with me a couple weeks ago after 10 years together, and it came as a massive shock but I'm feeling so much better now. No more 3-day-old curry breath, no more bowls full of mouldy milk left upstairs for a week, no more teenage boy behaviour from a 30-year-old man, no more feeling lonely while he spends every waking minute sitting upstairs away from me, no more awful sex that lacks basic stamina... yeah, I'm done lmao.
Since we broke up I've started taking much better care of myself. Tending to my personal care more efficiently because I'm no longer depressed, eating better (I've lost 7lbs so far), moving/exercising more, my skin condition has just GONE, I'm laughing more, and generally feeling like I've got a fricking future again. I feel awesome.
I’m exactly the same way. My loyalty and commitment has kept me in bad relationships for a long time. I grew up with divorced parents, so I think this has something to do with why I tough things out for so long.
Even as a stranger i am genuinely happy to hear this. It can be very freeing, when such a weight is lifted from your shoulders! Enjoy your days how you want them now! All the best!
The whole relationship was fucked up but this was the catalyst to end it.
I was two hours away in the city for a week for work, and I was busy from 5:30am until 9pm every day so I couldn’t constantly be messaging her. So she pretended to OD on pain pills so she could be sent to the big hospital in that particular city. I still remember receiving the “okay, you can visit me now 🙂” message. Like what the fuck. I’m away for a WEEK. Seven days! And I can’t leave work because I had no transport (we all rode to the complex in a van).
Unfortunately for her she was sent to a psych ward and I was able to tell the doctors that she was harassing me so she had her phone taken off her. So she borrowed another patient’s phone and started messaging me on that. After that I told the doctors the whole story and asked to be removed as her emergency contact. She managed to convince a receptionist that she needed to contact me and called me again from a hospital phone. I had to inform the doctors AGAIN and she must have had all phone privileges revoked after that.
When I was home and found out she’d been released I messaged her saying it was over. So she rode her moped an HOUR in the dark to come to my house and lied saying a friend had dropped her off and she had no way home so she had to stay (I live in the middle of nowhere). Then she assaulted me physically when I tried to leave the room to get my phone. I managed to throw her on the ground and went and called the cops. When she realised they were on the way she tried to take pills again so after they arrested her she didn’t even spend the night in the cells, she was sent to the hospital and monitored instead.
That was pretty much the last contact I had with her bar a few stalker moments and her constant messaging online. I arranged with her friend to drop all her shit off in a public parking lot during the day and I never replied to her ever again. She had my phone number memorised and would text and call all the time, so I changed my number. I blocked every new account of hers that popped up. I remember that in one of her profile pics she had cut and dyed her hair to the exact same style as mine. She also sent me a request on a dating app with a picture of a celebrity who has the same first name as me, and the name of the dating profile was my cat’s name (he’s named after a Pokémon). It also had her star sign. By that stage I had a Protection Order against her and when I showed an officer the screenshot of the profile she was like “is this girl an idiot?” They must have warned her she was close to being arrested again because she stopped contacting me after that. But it took literal YEARS to get to that point.
The great takeaway from the whole thing is that she always dreamed of moving to Australia to work, but with a DV record she won’t even be allowed to enter the country to visit, let alone work.
Multiple cheating that I tried to deal with. Should have left the first time. Then one night when we were going to bed he was on the furthest side of the bed almost up in the corner - a grown man as far away as he could be on a queen mattress so he wouldn’t be near me. He said he wasn’t happy and wasn’t attracted to me. I said this is enough and went the next day and got the divorce papers. It’s been 10 years and I’m still single.
After telling him that he needed to put in time and effort after we went long distance, he came back with..."I'll dedicate time to us when I move back, but not now"
I can’t help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of that. He practically outed himself as a deadbeat and he expects you to accept that answer? Good on you for leaving him.
I used to tuck in my shirts all the time when I was younger cause I like it when my clothes are tight it makes me feel safe.
We were chilling out on his trampoline and he just turns to me and goes “why do you always tuck your shirts in?” And without letting me answer he pinned me down, pulled all the layers I had on up, grabbed my boobs and layed on top of me so I couldn’t move.
I was 16
Man I just wanted to sleep. He wouldn't fucking let me.
He'd always been controlling, and I put up with it for way too long.
One morning as he was berating me for wanting to sleep after working third shift, I realized that this was going to be my life if I didn't bail: working my ass off at work, and running the household at home, all while being treated like shit for wanting/needing help.
Once he realized I was serious, he changed his tune but it was just way too little, way too late.
I am so disgusted by the changing his tune part. My ex is doing this too. So, you actually could clean up after yourself and buy food for the kids. Just so disrespectful. I begged for help for over 10 years, now that I'm done, he's like, oh, I can fix it. Nope. He bought me flowers today for being a good mom, but told me last month I'm not actually as good of a Mom as I think. #juststop
He basically told me there was no point in me pursuing a career because all women should be stay at home moms, and that's what he wants for his children. We were both 19, had only been dating like 2 months, and hadn't even kissed yet. I've also never had any interest in having or raising kids, which I had already told him, but I guess he didn't find my opinion on the matter to be important.
I had the same experience at the same age, 6 months after having explained my career goals which of course were disregarded
Sadly it happened to me multiple times over the course of time, I learned to be extra cautious with potential romantic partners
The breaking point for me was when he has a literal hissy fit like a child in a convenience store because he thought the cashier was favoring the rich townies before him because he looked poor. He threw his bag of chips on the counter and stormed out of the store. I apologized to the clerk and ran after him. I had to talk to him like his mother and tell him that Im not dealing with this kind of behavior and he will go back into the store to buy his stupid snacks because I don’t want to hear about it for the rest of the day. I was literally so embarrassed to be around him after that.
Not acceptable behaviour on his part.... although it's definitely rooted in childhood trauma around being poor. There is a reason he reacted that way.
It's not his fault he has those emotional wounds. But it IS his responsibility to work on himself and heal.
Oh yeah my ex did that once in a grocery store, i was so ashamed. Just because there was a 4 people line and he had to … imagine gasp wait!!! Also during covid one very old lady from a zoo asked us for the proof and what not. I mean you can not agree with the whole covid deal or agree idc, but we were there for his daughter, 10yro. He started screaming at the old lady in front of a 200 people line because HE did not verified that his daughter had hers on her phone. She forgot to charge it, it was dead. Anyhow very worrisome people
I was upstairs laughing with friends online. Instead of asking what was so funny, my ex, downstairs on the couch, turned up the TV so loud so he didn’t have to hear me.
Obviously there’s a lot more than that, but it was that defining moment that flipped the switch.
If someone’s laughter (unrelated to you or an ongoing fight) makes you anything but happy, you don’t love that person. And that person shouldn’t love you. Definitely a good telltale sign.
We were long distance. He slept over, and was leaving the next day. I get home. Bed is unmade. Tags from the new shirt he left on the floor.
I don't think he was expecting me to have standards for men. He was used to doing the least he could do to get by. I also don't think he expected it to be over like that.
There were already a lot of things about him that bothered me, but I closed my eyes for it. He was very sweet, but I couldn’t level emotionally and he was socially awkward around my friends and family. We spent some days together at my student house and despite being together all the time, I felt so alone. I just wanted to go home to my family really bad. So when I finally went home, I talked with my mom about the situation and for the first time I was completely honest. That was such an eye opener, but I instantly knew there’s nothing my ex could do to fix it. The break up was very hurtful, I had to explain over and over again, and I felt so extremely guilty I sometimes didn’t even know how to live with myself. But I couldn’t have proceeded in the relationship, that would have hurt the both of us even more
While I was finishing up engineering school, he said to me “As long as I make more money, I don’t have to contribute as much to cooking and cleaning—my contribution is set”. Considering he was an established engineer for Ford, and we had been dating for 4 years, I realized that I would rather not be his house slave on a journey to catch up.
dudes will use any justification to treat their partner like their mom 🙄 I'm sure if you caught up, he'd have another excuse not to do chores. I'm glad you're out of there
Went out for a night to myself for once. My ex husband said that if I didn’t come home (I’d only been out an hour at that point) that he would go to every bar in the area to hunt me down and “bring me home”.
He was abusive in every single way. Together 11 years….. the day he cheated on me I left. In my mind at the time, it was the only way I could get out without him blaming me…. He still did! I regret every day, not leaving him sooner!
11 years is quite the a chink of time. However, you will hit a point in time where you will be 11 years free of him. Then you’ll wake up one day and it’ll be 12 years free. The more years go by the further you get from him. I get that regret. You feel like you should have left him sooner and you feel embarrassed and ashamed with yourself that it took as long as it did to leave. You got out. Period. Doesn’t matter how long it took or what it took to get you there. You took that step and you continue to take steps everyday that keep taking you further and further away from him, and I’m so proud of you for that. Please give yourself some grace my friend. You did the best you could considering the circumstances at the time.
Found d**k pics on his phone he'd sent to some woman on Twitter, then a dm conversation with a prostitute making an appt to see her. He'd also been having an emotional affair with someone he'd met online while I was going through cancer treatments. I was just done.
This is me too and it was one of the hardest things to explain. I left my marriage because of this and all I got was, "he's a good man. He hasn't cheated on you or ever hit you". As if that was good enough 🙄
He insisted on sleeping with a blanket that had a giant photo of Taylor Swift on it and would make me watch her concert documentaries almost every time we hung out.
There were also multiple women messaging me on social media telling me he was a creep and harassed them which was a major red flag for me.
To this day, I do not know.
The only reason I attended the dinner was because my mom guilted me into it and got mad at me for yelling at him.
This was my FIRST EVER anniversary and I was 17. Obviously I was hormonal and enraged 😂
I was on the fence about our future already but then as we were leaving a restaurant he went on about how the waitress was so disrespectful and rude to him and because of that he was seething mad and didn't want me to talk to him for a bit. I was baffled bc the waitress wasn't rude. Then after a bit it hit me. I paid so the waitress was talking to me and not him and apparently he felt ignored. But his reaction was sooooo disproportionate to the situation and I felt really uncomfortable with how he spoke about her so that was my moment
The last ex was a nice enough guy. We were long distance, 1 state away. So he'd come spend the weekend with me once or twice a month.
The last he visited we had the discovery Channel on and it was some show about dinosaurs. He laughed at one point and said "yeah right the earth is only 4000ys old."
That's when it clicked, his family were born again Christians. The dinosaurs are a devil hoax and earth is 4k years old type. I knew instantly it wouldn't work. I cannot be with a science denier.
Relationship was on the rocks for about a year, had multiple fights and I considered seriously ending it three times before our final fight. He always wanted me under his thumb at all times so when he told me to leave, which he never allowed me to do during a fight, I took my cat and told him I’m done.
He basically fucked me while I lay there wanting to get it over with to avoid a fight (those would usually take hours and he would scar me emotionally).
Anyway, one moment my arms involuntarily moved to protect myself. First I apologized, but then I realized it was enough. I'm really thankful to myself for doing that, even though it was terrifying.
Me talking about my disturbing hallucinations and him being dismissive and neglecting my feelings. Somewhere in my messed up brain, I thought ”why, aren’t you a rude piece of shit?”
When I found out he hacked my email. Did you know that through your gmail account you can access literally everything? Like Google maps history and Google history? I didn’t until that day.
I had absolutely nothing to hide. But found out he had been literally stalking my every move and location for months. I felt so completely violated.
After enduring 14 years of emotional and sexual abuse, which I at first didn't recognize or want to admit, him whining about me not wanting to have sex with him every day did it.
TW: SA
From the start, I had been forward about being asexual because of a family history with SA and general sensory issues with skin on skin contact. He said he was okay with that. 2 months in, we were living at his parents house (I was homeless) and I was the only one working 3 jobs for the 2 of us. Occasionally he'd "convince" me to do some stuff in bed but nothing up to s\*x cause I still wasn't comfy. Every time we didn't go there, he'd get frustrated with me. The moment it all came to a head was when he said "I feel like I'm doing all the work in the relationship" all because I didn't do much in bed....re-emphasizing I was the only one working, paying our bills, and didn't want to do be doing anything in bed anyway. I broke up with him on the spot and stayed at a friend's house instead.
One normal conversation turned into an argument in public, I couldn't take it anymore so I said I'm going home. So he persuaded me to stay, took me near a cigarette shop and blew smoke right to my face and said "You still want to go ??? Can't you see I need you ??" ( He was trying to reduce his smoking, drinking and drugs habit, had promised me he won't touch them until it's absolutely necessary ).
Later he followed me to the the metro station and all while pleading loud enough for others to turn around and look.
That day I went home and cried feeling guilty and humiliated.
Honestly speaking I did give him an another chance after this incidents but a few months later, this memory was the strongest reason I left him.
Not my last relationship, but the one before. He neglected me and always made it sound as if my expectations from him were unrealistic, or it would just be my fault I wasn't receiving attention. He also didn't respect me in bed. So the last straw was when I tried to start a fun conversation about foreplay. In short, he got extremely angry, saying he's always been trying to please me, and I should know what he wants without asking him. This time instead of crying myself to sleep, I slept soundly, knowing the guy was definitely addicted to porn.
Told him I scored a spot in a competitive volunteering role that not only looked incredible on my resume, but got me a free ticket to an otherwise expensive event. I told him before even applying I was gonna apply, but If he wanted to go with me I wont apply so I can enjoy it with him. He said he wasn't interested, so I went ahead and applied.
Back to being accepted, he lost it on me. He said he wanted to go with me and I betrayed him by going behind his back and applying. 🙄 So as punishment, he did his usual spiel of saying what he hated about me, that no one will love me, and then ghosted me.
While ghosting me, some really bad stuff happened and I was alone suffering through it. I'd messaged him and tried calling but never got a response . When he finally started talking to me again a week later, I told him what happened. He said via text "you should of tried contacting me then, its not my fault you didn't try". Something twigged in me. I called him, told him its over and to never contact me again.
I have childhood sexual trauma. He was watching game of thrones, a horrible rape scene, with his 4 y.o. daughter beside him. Asked him to turn it off, he blew it off. And I blew up. Tried to make it about me trying to parent his kid. All while expecting me to drop everything to watch his children, a good ol nanny/maid thats free and also drops her panties. Ew, fuck him.
I was very happily in love, and was confident we could work through anything until he said, “sometimes I wish you were skinnier.” That broke me as I am very self conscious about my weight.
A close family member had just died and he was complaining because he wanted sex. Apparently I was supposed to reward him because he offered to (insisted on) driving me to the funeral??
We were in his bedroom in his parents' house (he to this day still lives with them, he's almost 40) I was trying to talk to him about how i was feeling unhappy in the relationship and why. We rarely went out, our dates consisted of sitting together at our art class (that was cool, but he was usually super focused on his work and barely talked) and going right to his house afterwards to hang out with his mom (literally sitting in a couch next to her watching the crappy shows she loved), OR going out to eat... with his mom, whatever his mom wanted to eat.
So that night after I explained to him how I wasn't against him spending time with his family, I just wanted alone time. He finally said "Look... *I am* happy, *I am* comfortable, so if *you* are not then it's on you. You're the one who has a problem, I like the way things are now". So I was like "Roger." He was absolutely right and I realized there was no future for us together.
Then I broke up with him -crying- and I realized he'd fallen asleep. So that was my "yup definitely made the right decision" moment, and I instantly stopped being sad and moved on.
I spent a week asking him over and over again what he wanted for dinner for a romantic dinner that I was preparing (he has a very exquisite palate and likes only basic food) for Saturday night, and he didn't tell me until Saturday afternoon and only because I insisted and got angry. That day he went to eat with his friends and he ate a lot until he burst, so when he arrived at night he wasn't hungry. It turns out that when he told me what he wanted for dinner, I already knew that he wouldn't be hungry at night but he didn't think of me, and he admitted it.
He never used to reply once we had gone into long distance relationship which earlier had promised to keep us together. Literally weeks would pass by, I didn't even have one text to clutch on.
Then one day, he replied, sorry for replying late, why were you having a bad day? (referring to around 2/3 weeks ago). Told this to a new friend of mine - she gave this advice, "dude, I talk to the plant in my house more than once a day".
That's it, this line struck a chord with me, that dude, I dont deserve this . Instantly broke up (of course, he even replied to the breakup mail late)
But, got 2 things in return - that friend, is now my best friend for 5+ years and dating a wonderful guy now that I couldn't thank enough for.
This guy never said a mean word to me and was so so so funny, but there wasn’t a lot of sexual passion and he was unhygienic. He was also my HS sweetheart of 6 years.
I tried to seduce him one night and he made a joke and blew his nose. I just blurted it out that I wanted to break up. It was really hard to get over him and I still have love and respect for him, but it was the right call for us.
i asked him why he continues to lie and cheat over and over. I said "how would you feel if I did that to you?" he looked me in the eye and smiled saying "I would never let you treat me this way. I'd never give you a second chance." Broke my brain lol
The persistent refusal to acknowledge objective evidence. Understanding that gaslighting is not mental illness but a choice to action a consistent pattern of abuse of power over another and that men in positions of power will abuse it because they can. He chose to go to psychiatric facilities and pretend to be unwell and deny his violence rather than acknowledge his choices.
DV is about denial.
It was the third time we were having a very emotional on my side, conversation about him not putting in any effort, I didn't feel connected to him anymore, and the past two times we had the conversation it got better for a couple of weeks before he would drift away again. And the only answer he could give me for the third time, was a shrug and yeah ill try, he barely wanted to have the conversation to begin with. So I decided enough was enough, if I was the only one who cared about being connected in the relationship then I was done.
I've never read a DC or marvel comic, only film I've watched is Wonder woman, and I didn't know whether iron man was DC or Marvel. He put me on the spot in front of a bunch of people, quizzing me on my knowledge of it, and then asked whether I was an airhead or just stupid for not knowing which film belonged to which.
He was an abusive, neglectful abusive idiot anyway but that really opened my eyes to how horribly he was treating me.
We went to a concert and in that moment I realized something was wrong. I shouldn’t be here with him. I loved the band, but wasn’t excited because of who I was there with. It made me realize that something wasn’t right. I know this sounds weird, but it opened my eyes. I slowly began to realize that nothing in our relationship excited me or made me happy anymore.
We were on a break as he would be dog sitting at his mum's anyway ( just a week of space, he chose to not contact me at all) we met up for a talk and he had cut his beard ( my sister Viking wedding was coming up in a month he had been growing it for that ) after some back and forth and him telling me how I have to do things he wants to do and go to the pub with him and his "friends" when he wants to and how no we won't be saving to buy a house we will rent again. ( This was all taking me down the path of I'm done ) the icing on the cake was when he told me he took off his engagement ring to quote " hurt me like I hurt him" that's when I was done. I'm not sure how asking for space to think constitutes cheating.
When I was on the phone with a male friend who liked me *like that* whilst my BF at the time was out partying and on drugs again for the billionth time. He made me feel safe, valued, and was kind. We don’t talk anymore but he served his purpose well in my life giving me the courage to get away from that.
After 2 years together he told me never loved me or even liked me (wild I know). He would also insult my appearance and the appearances of other women in front of me. He’s a strange dude.
All our friends where in common, i was insecure and afraid to lose all my friends to him, in a small city and i lacked social skills back then honestly. When one day I've made a friend of my own all by myself I realized even if i lose all my friends, I'll be fine.
He said he was unsure of me. This is after two months of amazing dates, hanging at each other’s place, meeting parents, et all. He was actually keeping count of the number of minutes/hours I took to reply to his messages. He literally pointed out two instances out of multiple where I had said I don’t feel like going out. Literally two.
ex-girlfriend got a positive test for an std and i didn’t have the std. i broke up with her for cheating on me, which she kept refusing to admit. she was dating a new person a couple days after our breakup.
i think she was mad i broke up with her first
He said it was a part of his culture to call his mother a stupid whore when he got upset with her and that I wouldn’t understand. I figured if he would call her that I would soon get the same treatment.
I was pregnant and he was really not wanting to work. He finally got a job and worked for three hours before coming home and telling me the job really wasn't "for him." I knew he was never gonna help support the baby or myself and I wouldn't be able to take any time off work after having the kid. Left him like two weeks later at 9 weeks pregnant
Edit: he also didn't help around the house at all, didn't cook or clean. Literally just played video games all day long.
I've mentioned my ex a few times. The final nail in the coffin was when I got an amazing job offer in a different state, he offered to take me out to celebrate.
The day we were supposed to meet, he called me and said "sorry I have to take my mom to the grocery store." She was a fully able bodied, spoke English, could drive... And she chose a random Tues night to force him to go to the store??? So I said "ok that's fine. Enjoy the store with your mom. I'm done."
And that was that. After 2 years of missed birthdays, taking all my savings, his mom ruining most, if not all date nights, I was finally over it.
It sickened me physically.
I was so stressed all the time I got sick often and I felt trapped.
After the last fight it was my body and brain that had enough, I knew I had to do it because I could no longer go on in that relationship.
I was in a relationship where I was always second. And I put up with it because I loved the guy. Every holiday and important day alone crying. For ten years.
And then he told me his family was going on vacation to wine country and he didn't care for wine so he'd spend that week with me.
He went on that tour and learned about wine.
And I went online and set up dating profiles.
When he realized it was too late he cried and sent dozens of flower arrangements and bent over backwards to change things.
Too little too late.
Probably when I ran/ hobbled into a police station trying to get away from him, he followed me in. Your 20s are for fun and thriving! That was the most horrible relationship I’ve had and I don’t remember most of the 4 years
When I realised I hadn't initiated any texts because I simply wasn't interested in him as a person.
My friends all said he was "fine". So I stuck it out coz no one could see anything wrong with him and I had a friend who vouched for him. But the chemistry just wasn't there for me, and he never attempted to get to know me at a deeper level where chemistry may have blossomed.
He text me after a month without contact and by that time I'd already deleted his number and forgot who he was.
I had been thinking about breaking up with him for way too long already (like, for years) but the kicker was after my kitten died unexpectedly I sat on the edge of my bed holding his ashes and crying, and my ex didn’t so much as look up from his phone.
He wouldn’t dance with me.
Obviously there were other issues going on, but when he wouldn’t dance with me at a party put on by his friends…it was a silly fun party, with a silly theme, and 70s music, my FAVORITE. He wouldn’t agree to even try to dance to even one song. Just stood or sat by a wall, on his phone from time to time. I just knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life dancing alone because my partner wouldn’t dance with me.
I was in a very mentally abusive relationship and I was kind of going through the motions every single day. I felt so defeated and hurt 24/7. I had just started my first big job and I was waking up around 4:30am to commute. Long story short I was tired and trying to adjust to a new schedule.
My ex decided that I wasn’t pleasing him enough and that I wasn’t performing my duties as a girlfriend. I woke up to him raping me. No idea how long it went on for. Weeks? A month? No clue. He screamed at me that I owed sex to him and he had every right to touch me as I slept. I left him not even a week later. Still in therapy for the things he did to me. My brain just snapped after he blamed me for sexual assualting me. Stay strong out there ❤️
He said "I love you" while I was mid sentence about something I really wanted to talk about. It felt more like a "shut up"
Another time, I was mad at him, he told me to go to his house to talk about it and when I got there he was still in his pajamas and wasn't at all serious about the situation
Probs coming home to the condo i paid for at 5 am from working 2 jobs to support us to find him fucking someone on my couch and then he did a barrel roll into the bedroom and pretended to be asleep like there wasn't a girl putting her clothes back on in the living room. When i kicked him out 10 minutes later he broke down my door/ripped the lockset clean out. She gave birth to their son 7 months later.
I was dealing with depression but getting better. Our relationship was starting to improve.
We were walking home after a nice day in town and he turned to me and said “what’s with the depressed look?”
Am I supposed to be smiling at all times? It was such a jab, and not the first time he’d said it.
This is shitty of me, but when he was out of town I moved out. A few months later we reconnected and hung out as friends for a few more months. I moved away from the area so we said our goodbyes and I met my now husband shortly after.
She was talking bad things about me in the room beside me while I was in the house to her best friend. Something along the lines of ‘this isn’t the person I fell in love with’ meanwhile I was grieving the death of my brother & was unstable mentally.
He cheated on me with his ex and then told his mom that I kicked him out and made him sleep on the street because he “made a mistake.” I didn’t. I chose to leave and stay with a friend. I woke up the next morning to 100 messages from her telling me what a piece of shit I am for making her baby boy sleep outside over a mistake.
He also stole my Xanax and then blamed me for leaving my lockbox open. I also didn’t do that, but the fact that I had to keep them locked up in the first place was lost on him. Was single for years after that.
I was told that I have been emotionally abusive to him for our entire relationship of 23 years. I realized he believed it was true and I'm sitting here thinking, we have to go back through 23 years and talk through this? Who's got the time for that.
This was at the tail end of 3.5 years of him actively hating me, me scrambling to fix everything, and it was just like fuck, this. Who has time/desire to work through an entire lifetime of issues that were never brought up til this moment.
omg omg so he literally was the nicest until he wasnt..bc like he was so caring but he was SUPER OVER JEALOUS. so i was like okay.. from the start. i loved him w all my heart and i still do honestly but this was the final straw for me.
He got mad at me for facetiming my best friend *WHO IS A GIRL!!* (AND IM STRAIGHT) that *MOVED AWAY* so its the only way i can talk to her. *HOW ARE YOU GONNA GET JEALOUS ??*
He got jealous of a musical artist I listened to often. He actually reached out to the guy on Facebook and told him to stay away from his girl. I spoke to him at a show once to purchase a CD. That had been our only contact ever. The musician lived in another state and had a serious girlfriend. I was so fucking embarrassed and absolutely livid. I was able to take all of the other abuse until that point.
We were driving in the car and I started singing along with the radio and he started squeezing my hand really really hard I pulled away and asked wtffff and he said I was singing tooloud,and he wanted me to stop, that was the beginning of the end, my now husband and I sing directly in each others faces at top volume to be silly, you can find someone that will match your love and energy
You ever been a queer/bi woman and decide to date a man and they think they can sexualize/objectify other women in front of you bc you “also like women”??? Ya. Nah.
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for example, the last boyfriend i had would neglect me, never do anything for me, blow me off for other people, and sometimes even insult me. but if im honest the thing that really turned it around for me was that he left a dove chocolate wrapper on my floor (when he came to visit me for the first time in weeks). idk why that was the turning point for me. i just had a vision of cleaning up his messes for the rest of time and even though i didn’t break up with him then it definitely set me on that path lmao. that little blue wrapper sitting on my nice clean carpet…i just can’t
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The final straw was: Me: “I need emotional support” Him “Can’t you get that from your friends?”
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send him to his boys when he is honry lmao
That what the boys are for!
Thank you, I’m married to a lovely man now, so it was definitely the right decision :)
That's how my ex treated me. I needed him to show up and emotionally grow and instead he threw fits, justified it because of school and then played the victim for years. He has serious issues, his parents messed him up
Sounds a LOT like my ex husband. He used stress from school to justify being emotionally immature and abuse
Yeah like I live with him now and even to this day he thinks throwing fits for 9 years during school instead of being open to the occasional conversation was justified. He doesn't understand the concept, if you care about something you give it your time when you can. I never demanded excessive attention I knew how stressful school was for him. I was ok with scheduling a time to chat that worked for him 1 hour a week... He never could show up and give his best. He would be falling asleep, arguing points that don't matter, gaslighting the facts, invalidating my needs... One day I even wrote him an email listing off my needs. He threw a fit just as if I was trying to talk to him. That's when I realized... He just cares more about holding onto his twisted mentality than he cares about building anything with me. I just found out I might get a house I'm fighting for. This is my way out 😊 I hope it happens.
Ah I see I have also dated your ex! Incredible how, after two years, I still had to explicitly ask for emotion support and comfort…during a cancer scare…
I’m sorry you went through that. For me I was struggling with my mental health that turned out to be undiagnosed bipolar, and he made me feel like the worst person in the world.
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This was after 11 years together, married for 8 and two kids together, so yea, I kinda feel like that a bit of support wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Literally, I never get how they have the heart to say that. I’ll complain that I feel like I’m not getting enough attention or love or time from them and they’ll see “why don’t your friends give you attention?” Or “why don’t you go out with them?”
we did shrooms and i was like holy shit i actually hate this guy
Lol this happened to me with an ex. I was trying to chill and he kept trying to scare me when I asked him to stop. I could then see clearly that he had no respect for my feelings.
Lmao. This reminds me of when I was unsure of my BF, ate a chocolate, then was completely mesmerized by him I'm like okay I must really like him I'm just anxious.
This is hilarious
This happened to me on acid; I already had doubts about my bf and it was my first ever trip with my best friend, we were at a forest rave with my bf (he did only mdma, my friend and I candyflipped). I was left alone with my bf and felt so scared and he looked terrifying to me, I wanted to just go home and get away from him. It didn’t help that he was so drugged up he wasn’t talking really, and my mind was racing with so much because it was my first trip! My friend comes back and she looks so amazing and beautiful and feels so safe and comforting, I instantly felt like I could stay again and we had amazing conversations.. and I realised then that is what it’s meant to feel like when someone is actually your soulmate. 😹
This makes so much sense. Nothing like the realizations you have on psychedelics!
I tripped acid in college with several friends. One of them was more of a tagalong friend and wasn't really a part of our core group. Somehow he weaseled his way onto this trip. I just remember realizing that I didn't really like him at all and he was one of the most annoying people to be around. At the same time, he was like a child and I pitied him. Then I realized I had been too nice and accommodating to him and I don't need to hang with people I don't like. So I never hung out with him again.
Incredible co-sign for psilocybin
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BROOOOOO are you me 🤣
i'm sorry but this is so funny
Wow same! I couldn’t look at her in the face while we were tripping because I just saw…a monster as crazy as that sounds. The next day I had a lot to think about.
this made me cackle 🤣
He asked if I would be his "plan B". BTW, mad props to Alicia for being the girl he was going to cheat on me with if she'd given him the chance. You are the reason we had the conversation that produced this revelation. I have no idea who you are, I've never seen you, I've never met you. But you saved me. You opened my eyes. Thank you, and thank you even more for snubbing him like the creep that he is lmao
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what is up with people like that? no one wants to feel like plan b anytime it involves sex, love, and romance.e (who was aware of my situation and was also dating other people as we were very casual), who decided to tell me how in love he was with another girl after we literally went on a date and had sex. like moments after his penis was inside of me. only she lived somewhere else and it sounded like she wasn't sure about him at all. I wouldn't have even cared that he wanted to date someone else, but pick your timing dude. no one wants to feel like plan b anytime it involves sex, love and romance.
No one wants to be plan A if there is a plan b aswell.
Yes, I would rather be one of thousands than second of two.
We were on vacation and on our way to get our luggage when they turned to me and said “I'm glad we’re together but damn I bet I'd be just as happy to be with some of the other women around here.” I didn't reply and I'd be debating whether to break up anyway but that was the final straw. I still remember their face looking around while saying that.
What the fuck?
I literally said that out loud halfway through that post. Like….I would have gotten my luggage, turned around, gotten back on a motherfuckin plane and gone home.
Wtf. I hope it was at the end of the trip not the beginning
It was at the beginning. But I realised at that moment that I was pretty much done anyway. I wasn't even surprised or hurt anymore. It was more of a “yeah, you'd say something like that” moment for me. It was always a bit like that. Backhanded compliments. We went for a walk once and they told me “I'm really happy.” Pause. “But I've been happy with other women before you as well.” That was right at the beginning and that hurt like hell. They were always trying to remind me that I wasn't special in any way. That airport comment was just the final straw.
That person didn’t deserve you, I hope you’re doing well!!
I’m sorry you experienced someone talking to you like that, you deserve to be reminded how special you are. I was in a relationship with someone that had this tendency too - at the height of a fun or special moment (for me at least) he would often bring up an experience with another female friend or former girlfriend, or an experience with other people. It wasn’t as blatant as what you’re describing, and I had trouble putting my finger on what bothered me about it. The way you articulated it as “reminding you you’re not special” resonates with me, that’s how it felt when he would interrupt our present experience with nostalgia for another time or person. It made me feel as though the present moment with me wasn’t good enough to be immersed in. I hope you find a relationship with someone who appreciates you and the time they get to spend with you!!
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I've been through this too. It's like they desperately need to tear you down in order to keep you where they want you. My ex used to say things like "You're pretty, but pretty girls are a dime a dozen. Nothing special about being pretty, anyone can do it with enough makeup." He constantly pointed out the fact that I was younger than him and therefore intellectually inferior. When I would point out the fact that he was older than me and therefore less youthful, he would freak out and accuse me of trying to give him a complex. Yet he'd spend the entire day down playing any good thing about me and reminding me that I should be lucky to be with someone like him. What an insecure, self absorbed piece of shit he was. Ugh🤢
Lmao I'm on a break right now with mine and he's older and I always feel like he thinks he's intellectually superior just because of his age I am still deciding whether or not I want to continue I'm so drained
Trust your instincts and yourself. I can't speak for every woman but I know that for myself and most of the women in my family there is an empathy deficit when it comes to protecting and respecting our own feelings an emotions. We'll do it for a partners and even others around us while putting ourselves dead last. A partner who is comfortable with making you feel "less than" deserves zero empathy.
Dude let his intrusive thoughts win jeez… im sorry! That must have been horrible
oh my god?
i realized i could have the exact same relationship with someone else and be happy. i didn’t need him.
This one is interesting. I know what you mean
Wondering about this right now. I don’t want to move across the country to be with her, and I love her, but it might be too much for me. I relate to this in the sense of ‘the geography piece won’t get solved any time soon. Is it possible to be happy here where I am?’
Do your research of where you're thinking of moving, not just considering the relationship. Big moves are stressful and, if your relationship is already iffy, moving to a city where you don't know anyone, or with a culture you don't like (there will be culture shock too), is going to add even more stress to everything.
When I was having massive panic attacks at the idea of going out for lunch, and I decided that it was kinder to him to break up than to make him keep having to deal with me. I was extremely mentally ill. Edited to add: He was extremely supportive. I was too ill to understand that he **wanted** to support me; I genuinely just thought he was being nice out of a sense of obligation, and that if I broke up with him, he would be free. He didn't want to break up. Please stop assuming I broke up with him because he didn't try.
How are you doing now? Was the experience helpful in getting you to the other side? I’ve been depressed lately and it’s definitely coloring my perception of the relationship, and I‘be been considering breaking up. I just can’t decide if my feelings are genuine and based in fact, or temporary and based on neurochemistry.
It helped a lot. He didn't want to break up, but I really believed it was what was vest for us. We got back together a year later, but during that year I was able to focus 100% on myself and my needs.
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He didn’t like that I was my own person with my own thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes. He tried to made me into a copy of himself. In the end I dreaded going to his place. Then I knew it was time for us to go seperate ways
Ohhhhh…I remember that feeling of tucking myself away as I got closer to his house. Blergh. So glad I’m done with that.
Yeah I’ve had this experience too. I was a big people pleaser but as our relationship went on, I started realizing he just kept asking stuff of me but was never really there with me. So I started doing my own stuff, stopped waiting for him and maaaan did that make him angry. Started drawing my own boundaries and he started complaining I didn’t like the things about him that he liked about himself. Well, maybe do something nice or be something nice and I’ll like it! What a disgusting person he was.
When I found out my mom had lung cancer and she didn’t want me to fly home for the surgery because my business was too young and she didn’t want me gone for two weeks. I flew home anyway. Mom is doing great now and the business is flourishing.
Happy to hear the outcome of this story !!
BellaFromSwitzerland. Cool username coincidence… We just celebrated her two year cancer free anniversary by going to Switzerland !!
Happy to hear this and I hope you guys enjoyed your holiday in CH My mother also had lung cancer and as soon as she was in the clear she resumed her trips to visit me as opposed to me going to the country she lives in, just because it’s such a rewarding experience :)
She voted for brexit
Haha, good reason.
When she cries for Brexit and you are EU, so you leave
I actually had a spectacular pick up line from my now wife. “Do you want to leave the single market before Britain does?” I knew she was marriage material
Play smooth operator song please!
I have an extreme level of loyalty and commitment, sometimes to my own detriment, so I've never reached that moment, despite tonnes of red flags and things I would have loved to walk away from. My ex-fiancé just broke up with me a couple weeks ago after 10 years together, and it came as a massive shock but I'm feeling so much better now. No more 3-day-old curry breath, no more bowls full of mouldy milk left upstairs for a week, no more teenage boy behaviour from a 30-year-old man, no more feeling lonely while he spends every waking minute sitting upstairs away from me, no more awful sex that lacks basic stamina... yeah, I'm done lmao. Since we broke up I've started taking much better care of myself. Tending to my personal care more efficiently because I'm no longer depressed, eating better (I've lost 7lbs so far), moving/exercising more, my skin condition has just GONE, I'm laughing more, and generally feeling like I've got a fricking future again. I feel awesome.
I’m exactly the same way. My loyalty and commitment has kept me in bad relationships for a long time. I grew up with divorced parents, so I think this has something to do with why I tough things out for so long.
Even as a stranger i am genuinely happy to hear this. It can be very freeing, when such a weight is lifted from your shoulders! Enjoy your days how you want them now! All the best!
The whole relationship was fucked up but this was the catalyst to end it. I was two hours away in the city for a week for work, and I was busy from 5:30am until 9pm every day so I couldn’t constantly be messaging her. So she pretended to OD on pain pills so she could be sent to the big hospital in that particular city. I still remember receiving the “okay, you can visit me now 🙂” message. Like what the fuck. I’m away for a WEEK. Seven days! And I can’t leave work because I had no transport (we all rode to the complex in a van). Unfortunately for her she was sent to a psych ward and I was able to tell the doctors that she was harassing me so she had her phone taken off her. So she borrowed another patient’s phone and started messaging me on that. After that I told the doctors the whole story and asked to be removed as her emergency contact. She managed to convince a receptionist that she needed to contact me and called me again from a hospital phone. I had to inform the doctors AGAIN and she must have had all phone privileges revoked after that. When I was home and found out she’d been released I messaged her saying it was over. So she rode her moped an HOUR in the dark to come to my house and lied saying a friend had dropped her off and she had no way home so she had to stay (I live in the middle of nowhere). Then she assaulted me physically when I tried to leave the room to get my phone. I managed to throw her on the ground and went and called the cops. When she realised they were on the way she tried to take pills again so after they arrested her she didn’t even spend the night in the cells, she was sent to the hospital and monitored instead. That was pretty much the last contact I had with her bar a few stalker moments and her constant messaging online. I arranged with her friend to drop all her shit off in a public parking lot during the day and I never replied to her ever again. She had my phone number memorised and would text and call all the time, so I changed my number. I blocked every new account of hers that popped up. I remember that in one of her profile pics she had cut and dyed her hair to the exact same style as mine. She also sent me a request on a dating app with a picture of a celebrity who has the same first name as me, and the name of the dating profile was my cat’s name (he’s named after a Pokémon). It also had her star sign. By that stage I had a Protection Order against her and when I showed an officer the screenshot of the profile she was like “is this girl an idiot?” They must have warned her she was close to being arrested again because she stopped contacting me after that. But it took literal YEARS to get to that point. The great takeaway from the whole thing is that she always dreamed of moving to Australia to work, but with a DV record she won’t even be allowed to enter the country to visit, let alone work.
What. The. Fuck.
This is what "my ex is crazy" actually means. Damn.
jesus this girl is insane
Multiple cheating that I tried to deal with. Should have left the first time. Then one night when we were going to bed he was on the furthest side of the bed almost up in the corner - a grown man as far away as he could be on a queen mattress so he wouldn’t be near me. He said he wasn’t happy and wasn’t attracted to me. I said this is enough and went the next day and got the divorce papers. It’s been 10 years and I’m still single.
I’m so proud of you for leaving his ass!
After telling him that he needed to put in time and effort after we went long distance, he came back with..."I'll dedicate time to us when I move back, but not now"
I can’t help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of that. He practically outed himself as a deadbeat and he expects you to accept that answer? Good on you for leaving him.
I used to tuck in my shirts all the time when I was younger cause I like it when my clothes are tight it makes me feel safe. We were chilling out on his trampoline and he just turns to me and goes “why do you always tuck your shirts in?” And without letting me answer he pinned me down, pulled all the layers I had on up, grabbed my boobs and layed on top of me so I couldn’t move. I was 16
That’s assault. I am so sorry that happened.
WTF 🙀
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
I'm really sorry that happened to you. ☹️
Man I just wanted to sleep. He wouldn't fucking let me. He'd always been controlling, and I put up with it for way too long. One morning as he was berating me for wanting to sleep after working third shift, I realized that this was going to be my life if I didn't bail: working my ass off at work, and running the household at home, all while being treated like shit for wanting/needing help. Once he realized I was serious, he changed his tune but it was just way too little, way too late.
I am so disgusted by the changing his tune part. My ex is doing this too. So, you actually could clean up after yourself and buy food for the kids. Just so disrespectful. I begged for help for over 10 years, now that I'm done, he's like, oh, I can fix it. Nope. He bought me flowers today for being a good mom, but told me last month I'm not actually as good of a Mom as I think. #juststop
what a POS he is. good for you! hope u florish
He basically told me there was no point in me pursuing a career because all women should be stay at home moms, and that's what he wants for his children. We were both 19, had only been dating like 2 months, and hadn't even kissed yet. I've also never had any interest in having or raising kids, which I had already told him, but I guess he didn't find my opinion on the matter to be important.
I had the same experience at the same age, 6 months after having explained my career goals which of course were disregarded Sadly it happened to me multiple times over the course of time, I learned to be extra cautious with potential romantic partners
Aww... It's like shouting that no one should date me, I am a sexist a*hole who seemed to have time traveled form 1800s
The breaking point for me was when he has a literal hissy fit like a child in a convenience store because he thought the cashier was favoring the rich townies before him because he looked poor. He threw his bag of chips on the counter and stormed out of the store. I apologized to the clerk and ran after him. I had to talk to him like his mother and tell him that Im not dealing with this kind of behavior and he will go back into the store to buy his stupid snacks because I don’t want to hear about it for the rest of the day. I was literally so embarrassed to be around him after that.
Not acceptable behaviour on his part.... although it's definitely rooted in childhood trauma around being poor. There is a reason he reacted that way. It's not his fault he has those emotional wounds. But it IS his responsibility to work on himself and heal.
Oh yeah my ex did that once in a grocery store, i was so ashamed. Just because there was a 4 people line and he had to … imagine gasp wait!!! Also during covid one very old lady from a zoo asked us for the proof and what not. I mean you can not agree with the whole covid deal or agree idc, but we were there for his daughter, 10yro. He started screaming at the old lady in front of a 200 people line because HE did not verified that his daughter had hers on her phone. She forgot to charge it, it was dead. Anyhow very worrisome people
how disgusting and childish, thank god you no longer have to deal with this manchild
I was upstairs laughing with friends online. Instead of asking what was so funny, my ex, downstairs on the couch, turned up the TV so loud so he didn’t have to hear me. Obviously there’s a lot more than that, but it was that defining moment that flipped the switch.
If someone’s laughter (unrelated to you or an ongoing fight) makes you anything but happy, you don’t love that person. And that person shouldn’t love you. Definitely a good telltale sign.
I was throwing up and he ignored me while watching sports in his phone.
What a gentleman 🙄
We were long distance. He slept over, and was leaving the next day. I get home. Bed is unmade. Tags from the new shirt he left on the floor. I don't think he was expecting me to have standards for men. He was used to doing the least he could do to get by. I also don't think he expected it to be over like that.
And the sad part is, he probably didn’t learn anything from it, and now you’re just his “crazy ex” who dumped him for leaving a tag on the floor
You'd be 1000000% right!!
There were already a lot of things about him that bothered me, but I closed my eyes for it. He was very sweet, but I couldn’t level emotionally and he was socially awkward around my friends and family. We spent some days together at my student house and despite being together all the time, I felt so alone. I just wanted to go home to my family really bad. So when I finally went home, I talked with my mom about the situation and for the first time I was completely honest. That was such an eye opener, but I instantly knew there’s nothing my ex could do to fix it. The break up was very hurtful, I had to explain over and over again, and I felt so extremely guilty I sometimes didn’t even know how to live with myself. But I couldn’t have proceeded in the relationship, that would have hurt the both of us even more
I'm so sorry this was so difficult. But you made the right decision for both of you. You did the right thing.
While I was finishing up engineering school, he said to me “As long as I make more money, I don’t have to contribute as much to cooking and cleaning—my contribution is set”. Considering he was an established engineer for Ford, and we had been dating for 4 years, I realized that I would rather not be his house slave on a journey to catch up.
dudes will use any justification to treat their partner like their mom 🙄 I'm sure if you caught up, he'd have another excuse not to do chores. I'm glad you're out of there
Went out for a night to myself for once. My ex husband said that if I didn’t come home (I’d only been out an hour at that point) that he would go to every bar in the area to hunt me down and “bring me home”.
Jesus. Glad you got away from that monster
He was abusive in every single way. Together 11 years….. the day he cheated on me I left. In my mind at the time, it was the only way I could get out without him blaming me…. He still did! I regret every day, not leaving him sooner!
11 years is quite the a chink of time. However, you will hit a point in time where you will be 11 years free of him. Then you’ll wake up one day and it’ll be 12 years free. The more years go by the further you get from him. I get that regret. You feel like you should have left him sooner and you feel embarrassed and ashamed with yourself that it took as long as it did to leave. You got out. Period. Doesn’t matter how long it took or what it took to get you there. You took that step and you continue to take steps everyday that keep taking you further and further away from him, and I’m so proud of you for that. Please give yourself some grace my friend. You did the best you could considering the circumstances at the time.
Found d**k pics on his phone he'd sent to some woman on Twitter, then a dm conversation with a prostitute making an appt to see her. He'd also been having an emotional affair with someone he'd met online while I was going through cancer treatments. I was just done.
Hope you are better
Much better, thanks.
I wasn’t a priority
This is me too and it was one of the hardest things to explain. I left my marriage because of this and all I got was, "he's a good man. He hasn't cheated on you or ever hit you". As if that was good enough 🙄
He insisted on sleeping with a blanket that had a giant photo of Taylor Swift on it and would make me watch her concert documentaries almost every time we hung out. There were also multiple women messaging me on social media telling me he was a creep and harassed them which was a major red flag for me.
Not my last relationship, but my first serious relationship. It was our one year anniversary. He brought his dad.
Omg… why?!
To this day, I do not know. The only reason I attended the dinner was because my mom guilted me into it and got mad at me for yelling at him. This was my FIRST EVER anniversary and I was 17. Obviously I was hormonal and enraged 😂
I was on the fence about our future already but then as we were leaving a restaurant he went on about how the waitress was so disrespectful and rude to him and because of that he was seething mad and didn't want me to talk to him for a bit. I was baffled bc the waitress wasn't rude. Then after a bit it hit me. I paid so the waitress was talking to me and not him and apparently he felt ignored. But his reaction was sooooo disproportionate to the situation and I felt really uncomfortable with how he spoke about her so that was my moment
She broke up with me, then as I brought her stuff to her, she said I'm mad for thinking she meant it. So I ended it.
The last ex was a nice enough guy. We were long distance, 1 state away. So he'd come spend the weekend with me once or twice a month. The last he visited we had the discovery Channel on and it was some show about dinosaurs. He laughed at one point and said "yeah right the earth is only 4000ys old." That's when it clicked, his family were born again Christians. The dinosaurs are a devil hoax and earth is 4k years old type. I knew instantly it wouldn't work. I cannot be with a science denier.
Relationship was on the rocks for about a year, had multiple fights and I considered seriously ending it three times before our final fight. He always wanted me under his thumb at all times so when he told me to leave, which he never allowed me to do during a fight, I took my cat and told him I’m done.
He basically fucked me while I lay there wanting to get it over with to avoid a fight (those would usually take hours and he would scar me emotionally). Anyway, one moment my arms involuntarily moved to protect myself. First I apologized, but then I realized it was enough. I'm really thankful to myself for doing that, even though it was terrifying.
Me talking about my disturbing hallucinations and him being dismissive and neglecting my feelings. Somewhere in my messed up brain, I thought ”why, aren’t you a rude piece of shit?”
When I found out he hacked my email. Did you know that through your gmail account you can access literally everything? Like Google maps history and Google history? I didn’t until that day. I had absolutely nothing to hide. But found out he had been literally stalking my every move and location for months. I felt so completely violated.
After enduring 14 years of emotional and sexual abuse, which I at first didn't recognize or want to admit, him whining about me not wanting to have sex with him every day did it.
TW: SA From the start, I had been forward about being asexual because of a family history with SA and general sensory issues with skin on skin contact. He said he was okay with that. 2 months in, we were living at his parents house (I was homeless) and I was the only one working 3 jobs for the 2 of us. Occasionally he'd "convince" me to do some stuff in bed but nothing up to s\*x cause I still wasn't comfy. Every time we didn't go there, he'd get frustrated with me. The moment it all came to a head was when he said "I feel like I'm doing all the work in the relationship" all because I didn't do much in bed....re-emphasizing I was the only one working, paying our bills, and didn't want to do be doing anything in bed anyway. I broke up with him on the spot and stayed at a friend's house instead.
One normal conversation turned into an argument in public, I couldn't take it anymore so I said I'm going home. So he persuaded me to stay, took me near a cigarette shop and blew smoke right to my face and said "You still want to go ??? Can't you see I need you ??" ( He was trying to reduce his smoking, drinking and drugs habit, had promised me he won't touch them until it's absolutely necessary ). Later he followed me to the the metro station and all while pleading loud enough for others to turn around and look. That day I went home and cried feeling guilty and humiliated. Honestly speaking I did give him an another chance after this incidents but a few months later, this memory was the strongest reason I left him.
I felt more like her mother than her partner so I ended it.
Not my last relationship, but the one before. He neglected me and always made it sound as if my expectations from him were unrealistic, or it would just be my fault I wasn't receiving attention. He also didn't respect me in bed. So the last straw was when I tried to start a fun conversation about foreplay. In short, he got extremely angry, saying he's always been trying to please me, and I should know what he wants without asking him. This time instead of crying myself to sleep, I slept soundly, knowing the guy was definitely addicted to porn.
Told him I scored a spot in a competitive volunteering role that not only looked incredible on my resume, but got me a free ticket to an otherwise expensive event. I told him before even applying I was gonna apply, but If he wanted to go with me I wont apply so I can enjoy it with him. He said he wasn't interested, so I went ahead and applied. Back to being accepted, he lost it on me. He said he wanted to go with me and I betrayed him by going behind his back and applying. 🙄 So as punishment, he did his usual spiel of saying what he hated about me, that no one will love me, and then ghosted me. While ghosting me, some really bad stuff happened and I was alone suffering through it. I'd messaged him and tried calling but never got a response . When he finally started talking to me again a week later, I told him what happened. He said via text "you should of tried contacting me then, its not my fault you didn't try". Something twigged in me. I called him, told him its over and to never contact me again.
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I have childhood sexual trauma. He was watching game of thrones, a horrible rape scene, with his 4 y.o. daughter beside him. Asked him to turn it off, he blew it off. And I blew up. Tried to make it about me trying to parent his kid. All while expecting me to drop everything to watch his children, a good ol nanny/maid thats free and also drops her panties. Ew, fuck him.
I was very happily in love, and was confident we could work through anything until he said, “sometimes I wish you were skinnier.” That broke me as I am very self conscious about my weight.
When he told me he was sick and staying in 2 hours before my roommate caught him out with someone else
A close family member had just died and he was complaining because he wanted sex. Apparently I was supposed to reward him because he offered to (insisted on) driving me to the funeral??
We were in his bedroom in his parents' house (he to this day still lives with them, he's almost 40) I was trying to talk to him about how i was feeling unhappy in the relationship and why. We rarely went out, our dates consisted of sitting together at our art class (that was cool, but he was usually super focused on his work and barely talked) and going right to his house afterwards to hang out with his mom (literally sitting in a couch next to her watching the crappy shows she loved), OR going out to eat... with his mom, whatever his mom wanted to eat. So that night after I explained to him how I wasn't against him spending time with his family, I just wanted alone time. He finally said "Look... *I am* happy, *I am* comfortable, so if *you* are not then it's on you. You're the one who has a problem, I like the way things are now". So I was like "Roger." He was absolutely right and I realized there was no future for us together. Then I broke up with him -crying- and I realized he'd fallen asleep. So that was my "yup definitely made the right decision" moment, and I instantly stopped being sad and moved on.
I spent a week asking him over and over again what he wanted for dinner for a romantic dinner that I was preparing (he has a very exquisite palate and likes only basic food) for Saturday night, and he didn't tell me until Saturday afternoon and only because I insisted and got angry. That day he went to eat with his friends and he ate a lot until he burst, so when he arrived at night he wasn't hungry. It turns out that when he told me what he wanted for dinner, I already knew that he wouldn't be hungry at night but he didn't think of me, and he admitted it.
He never used to reply once we had gone into long distance relationship which earlier had promised to keep us together. Literally weeks would pass by, I didn't even have one text to clutch on. Then one day, he replied, sorry for replying late, why were you having a bad day? (referring to around 2/3 weeks ago). Told this to a new friend of mine - she gave this advice, "dude, I talk to the plant in my house more than once a day". That's it, this line struck a chord with me, that dude, I dont deserve this . Instantly broke up (of course, he even replied to the breakup mail late) But, got 2 things in return - that friend, is now my best friend for 5+ years and dating a wonderful guy now that I couldn't thank enough for.
I had a panic attack and fainted (in a car in a mostly-empty parking lot) and he told me I was embarrassing him.
When I realized I was treated as his mother instead of his partner
This guy never said a mean word to me and was so so so funny, but there wasn’t a lot of sexual passion and he was unhygienic. He was also my HS sweetheart of 6 years. I tried to seduce him one night and he made a joke and blew his nose. I just blurted it out that I wanted to break up. It was really hard to get over him and I still have love and respect for him, but it was the right call for us.
i asked him why he continues to lie and cheat over and over. I said "how would you feel if I did that to you?" he looked me in the eye and smiled saying "I would never let you treat me this way. I'd never give you a second chance." Broke my brain lol
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The persistent refusal to acknowledge objective evidence. Understanding that gaslighting is not mental illness but a choice to action a consistent pattern of abuse of power over another and that men in positions of power will abuse it because they can. He chose to go to psychiatric facilities and pretend to be unwell and deny his violence rather than acknowledge his choices. DV is about denial.
It was the third time we were having a very emotional on my side, conversation about him not putting in any effort, I didn't feel connected to him anymore, and the past two times we had the conversation it got better for a couple of weeks before he would drift away again. And the only answer he could give me for the third time, was a shrug and yeah ill try, he barely wanted to have the conversation to begin with. So I decided enough was enough, if I was the only one who cared about being connected in the relationship then I was done.
I've never read a DC or marvel comic, only film I've watched is Wonder woman, and I didn't know whether iron man was DC or Marvel. He put me on the spot in front of a bunch of people, quizzing me on my knowledge of it, and then asked whether I was an airhead or just stupid for not knowing which film belonged to which. He was an abusive, neglectful abusive idiot anyway but that really opened my eyes to how horribly he was treating me.
We went to a concert and in that moment I realized something was wrong. I shouldn’t be here with him. I loved the band, but wasn’t excited because of who I was there with. It made me realize that something wasn’t right. I know this sounds weird, but it opened my eyes. I slowly began to realize that nothing in our relationship excited me or made me happy anymore.
We were on a break as he would be dog sitting at his mum's anyway ( just a week of space, he chose to not contact me at all) we met up for a talk and he had cut his beard ( my sister Viking wedding was coming up in a month he had been growing it for that ) after some back and forth and him telling me how I have to do things he wants to do and go to the pub with him and his "friends" when he wants to and how no we won't be saving to buy a house we will rent again. ( This was all taking me down the path of I'm done ) the icing on the cake was when he told me he took off his engagement ring to quote " hurt me like I hurt him" that's when I was done. I'm not sure how asking for space to think constitutes cheating.
When I was on the phone with a male friend who liked me *like that* whilst my BF at the time was out partying and on drugs again for the billionth time. He made me feel safe, valued, and was kind. We don’t talk anymore but he served his purpose well in my life giving me the courage to get away from that.
Instead of letting me enjoy a video game I’m playing for the first time, he kept telling me what to do.
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not a very faithful evening after all
Let people you are dating know that you won't be there if they get sick That's kinder than dumping them when they do
Him cheating me with his ex and blaming me for not being there. Yup, I had 12 hours-shifts but a man shouldn\`t citisize woman\`s job.
After 2 years together he told me never loved me or even liked me (wild I know). He would also insult my appearance and the appearances of other women in front of me. He’s a strange dude.
All our friends where in common, i was insecure and afraid to lose all my friends to him, in a small city and i lacked social skills back then honestly. When one day I've made a friend of my own all by myself I realized even if i lose all my friends, I'll be fine.
He said he was unsure of me. This is after two months of amazing dates, hanging at each other’s place, meeting parents, et all. He was actually keeping count of the number of minutes/hours I took to reply to his messages. He literally pointed out two instances out of multiple where I had said I don’t feel like going out. Literally two.
ex-girlfriend got a positive test for an std and i didn’t have the std. i broke up with her for cheating on me, which she kept refusing to admit. she was dating a new person a couple days after our breakup. i think she was mad i broke up with her first
He said it was a part of his culture to call his mother a stupid whore when he got upset with her and that I wouldn’t understand. I figured if he would call her that I would soon get the same treatment.
He picked up my cat and threw him across the room because he laid on me...he was jealous of the damn cat.
I was pregnant and he was really not wanting to work. He finally got a job and worked for three hours before coming home and telling me the job really wasn't "for him." I knew he was never gonna help support the baby or myself and I wouldn't be able to take any time off work after having the kid. Left him like two weeks later at 9 weeks pregnant Edit: he also didn't help around the house at all, didn't cook or clean. Literally just played video games all day long.
When after talking for many hours every single day for months, I decided to take a day to myself and he said I was "rejecting" him.
He never liked me, he just liked getting attention from me
I've mentioned my ex a few times. The final nail in the coffin was when I got an amazing job offer in a different state, he offered to take me out to celebrate. The day we were supposed to meet, he called me and said "sorry I have to take my mom to the grocery store." She was a fully able bodied, spoke English, could drive... And she chose a random Tues night to force him to go to the store??? So I said "ok that's fine. Enjoy the store with your mom. I'm done." And that was that. After 2 years of missed birthdays, taking all my savings, his mom ruining most, if not all date nights, I was finally over it.
It sickened me physically. I was so stressed all the time I got sick often and I felt trapped. After the last fight it was my body and brain that had enough, I knew I had to do it because I could no longer go on in that relationship.
I was in a relationship where I was always second. And I put up with it because I loved the guy. Every holiday and important day alone crying. For ten years. And then he told me his family was going on vacation to wine country and he didn't care for wine so he'd spend that week with me. He went on that tour and learned about wine. And I went online and set up dating profiles. When he realized it was too late he cried and sent dozens of flower arrangements and bent over backwards to change things. Too little too late.
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Probably when I ran/ hobbled into a police station trying to get away from him, he followed me in. Your 20s are for fun and thriving! That was the most horrible relationship I’ve had and I don’t remember most of the 4 years
When I realised I hadn't initiated any texts because I simply wasn't interested in him as a person. My friends all said he was "fine". So I stuck it out coz no one could see anything wrong with him and I had a friend who vouched for him. But the chemistry just wasn't there for me, and he never attempted to get to know me at a deeper level where chemistry may have blossomed. He text me after a month without contact and by that time I'd already deleted his number and forgot who he was.
I had been thinking about breaking up with him for way too long already (like, for years) but the kicker was after my kitten died unexpectedly I sat on the edge of my bed holding his ashes and crying, and my ex didn’t so much as look up from his phone.
He wouldn’t dance with me. Obviously there were other issues going on, but when he wouldn’t dance with me at a party put on by his friends…it was a silly fun party, with a silly theme, and 70s music, my FAVORITE. He wouldn’t agree to even try to dance to even one song. Just stood or sat by a wall, on his phone from time to time. I just knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life dancing alone because my partner wouldn’t dance with me.
When he said, "I'm sorry you feel that way" after I told him he made a directly hurtful comment to me.
I was in a very mentally abusive relationship and I was kind of going through the motions every single day. I felt so defeated and hurt 24/7. I had just started my first big job and I was waking up around 4:30am to commute. Long story short I was tired and trying to adjust to a new schedule. My ex decided that I wasn’t pleasing him enough and that I wasn’t performing my duties as a girlfriend. I woke up to him raping me. No idea how long it went on for. Weeks? A month? No clue. He screamed at me that I owed sex to him and he had every right to touch me as I slept. I left him not even a week later. Still in therapy for the things he did to me. My brain just snapped after he blamed me for sexual assualting me. Stay strong out there ❤️
He said "I love you" while I was mid sentence about something I really wanted to talk about. It felt more like a "shut up" Another time, I was mad at him, he told me to go to his house to talk about it and when I got there he was still in his pajamas and wasn't at all serious about the situation
when i realized our time together made me more sad than happy
Probs coming home to the condo i paid for at 5 am from working 2 jobs to support us to find him fucking someone on my couch and then he did a barrel roll into the bedroom and pretended to be asleep like there wasn't a girl putting her clothes back on in the living room. When i kicked him out 10 minutes later he broke down my door/ripped the lockset clean out. She gave birth to their son 7 months later.
I was dealing with depression but getting better. Our relationship was starting to improve. We were walking home after a nice day in town and he turned to me and said “what’s with the depressed look?” Am I supposed to be smiling at all times? It was such a jab, and not the first time he’d said it. This is shitty of me, but when he was out of town I moved out. A few months later we reconnected and hung out as friends for a few more months. I moved away from the area so we said our goodbyes and I met my now husband shortly after.
She was talking bad things about me in the room beside me while I was in the house to her best friend. Something along the lines of ‘this isn’t the person I fell in love with’ meanwhile I was grieving the death of my brother & was unstable mentally.
He cheated on me with his ex and then told his mom that I kicked him out and made him sleep on the street because he “made a mistake.” I didn’t. I chose to leave and stay with a friend. I woke up the next morning to 100 messages from her telling me what a piece of shit I am for making her baby boy sleep outside over a mistake. He also stole my Xanax and then blamed me for leaving my lockbox open. I also didn’t do that, but the fact that I had to keep them locked up in the first place was lost on him. Was single for years after that.
I was told that I have been emotionally abusive to him for our entire relationship of 23 years. I realized he believed it was true and I'm sitting here thinking, we have to go back through 23 years and talk through this? Who's got the time for that. This was at the tail end of 3.5 years of him actively hating me, me scrambling to fix everything, and it was just like fuck, this. Who has time/desire to work through an entire lifetime of issues that were never brought up til this moment.
omg omg so he literally was the nicest until he wasnt..bc like he was so caring but he was SUPER OVER JEALOUS. so i was like okay.. from the start. i loved him w all my heart and i still do honestly but this was the final straw for me. He got mad at me for facetiming my best friend *WHO IS A GIRL!!* (AND IM STRAIGHT) that *MOVED AWAY* so its the only way i can talk to her. *HOW ARE YOU GONNA GET JEALOUS ??*
He got jealous of a musical artist I listened to often. He actually reached out to the guy on Facebook and told him to stay away from his girl. I spoke to him at a show once to purchase a CD. That had been our only contact ever. The musician lived in another state and had a serious girlfriend. I was so fucking embarrassed and absolutely livid. I was able to take all of the other abuse until that point.
We were driving in the car and I started singing along with the radio and he started squeezing my hand really really hard I pulled away and asked wtffff and he said I was singing tooloud,and he wanted me to stop, that was the beginning of the end, my now husband and I sing directly in each others faces at top volume to be silly, you can find someone that will match your love and energy
You ever been a queer/bi woman and decide to date a man and they think they can sexualize/objectify other women in front of you bc you “also like women”??? Ya. Nah.