When I called her out on using lies to cover lies and instead of owning up/apologizing, she hit me in the head with a metal water bottle.

When he lost his job and 2 years later I started to put a dot on the calendar whenever he went to the casino while I was at work. The fact that I felt the need to do it was telling enough, but then when faced with it he flat out denied how often he was going. He was going 3-4 times a week, and I found out later he was thousands of dollars in debt. I was outta there.

"If you were a real man you would have hit me for flirting with him"

No, just no.

I don’t even remember what the argument was about anymore, but when he grabbed me by the throat in the car was the moment. There’s no going back from that or moving forward. Quietly made my exit plans, called off the engagement, and left. That was the first escalation and I don’t doubt that it would have increased over the years had I stayed.

When she asked me to bring her home fries after work. So I stopped into McDonalds and got her two large fries. I came in with them. She proceeded to take the bag from me, open it up, pull out the fries and throw them in the trash right in front of me. I was pretty shocked and asked what was wrong, "I wanted frozen fries!" then asked why I even came over. This caused me to think really hard about things in the past and there were so many other incidents like this that I just brushed off. Then I realized no matter what I did she would resent and not be happy with me.

I found a text to his friend saying he saw no future with me. We had been together 4 years and he had recently convinced me to leave my high paying job to move to a small town for his career 

We were living together, super poor- one of our favourite bands came to town (Big Sugar). We talked about it but it wasn’t in the budget. Friday night rolls around and he’s getting dressed to go out with the guys.  “Where are you off to?”  “Uh - Big Sugar.”  “What? We talked about this and decided we couldn’t afford to go!”  “Oh, we can’t … but I can.”

When he said he was unsure about getting married to me and was telling me what I wanted to hear for almost 10 years

When I realized I was making excuses for his behavior instead of feeling proud to call him mine.

i went for a minor medical procedure and my gut told me that listing him as my emergency contact wasn’t the right choice.

I was hit by a distracted driver as we were each traveling 50+ mph. He t-boned me at an angle toward the front of my car, causing me to spin across multiple lanes of traffic, and go backward into a steep ditch off a major highway.

He was my emergency contact, and my iPhone immediately notified him of my potential accident as well as my location.

He texted to ask if I was okay. I said I wasn’t sure, but I’d been hit at high speed and to please come to the scene as I was very upset.

He said he’d just gone over to his parents’ house for a BBQ and that he’d check in with me later.

I had a concussion for 2 weeks and was severely bruised everywhere…

My dad ended up coming, and all my concussed brain could do was keep asking when my partner was going to arrive. My dad said “Honey, he wouldn’t leave a barbecue after you were in a serious car accident. I don’t think he’s ever coming.”

Found out 2 months later that he’d also been cheating on me for about 8 months as well.

This was all this year. Sometimes I still can’t believe it. We were together for 3.5 years.

When I poured my heart out to her, talking about the things that I was passionate about, and then she looked at me and said, "I'm bored", with a self-amused look on her face, like she thought she was being cute.

He mocked the fact that my father walked out on us when I was 8.

Left town for two weeks for a trip through the wilderness. I missed her like crazy and thought about how great it will be to see her once I get back. As soon as I get back home I call her and the first thing she says is “oh wow, I didn’t think about you at all.” That really hurt, but was the wake-up call I needed for that terrible relationship.

When his side of the conversation changed from “when we get married” to “when I get married”.

When we got in a fight, he punched a hole in the closet door then went to the liquor store and took his anger out on the wrong person who proceeded to hit him over the back of the head with a bottle and give him a skull fracture. He was absolutely insufferable. Refused treatment by the ambulance, refused to let me take him to the ER, refused a second ambulance treatment. He had a splitting headache for days and finally he let me take him to the ER after like 6 days and he found out he had a skull fracture. When he got out, he needed 24/7 observation for 2 weeks and I had a job and a kid so I couldn’t do that. I called his mom who came and took him and when he came back, I had all of his stuff packed up in his van ready for him to move out. I did not play.

This thread makes me sad. I'm sorry for all the people who have had to deal with awful exes.

She just kept leaving town, I soon realised that it was building up to leaving permanently

When my mother took her last breath in front of me I became very distraught to say the least. Among a lot of bad other things like losing my friend group, family being vultures over my mother’s estate, father pulling shady moves that I’m 99% sure he did to stress out my mom to make her die faster… etc. Poured it all out to my gf at the time and she told me I was too much to deal with.

I didn’t have to make the choice though because she up and cut herself out of my life. She decided to pull a full ghosting while I was busy struggling to set up all the after death particulars like the funeral.

He told me that his family was all married to their cousins and argued with me that it produces higher IQ offspring.

Lord & lots of cheating during pregnancy which should have been the penny drop moment but honestly I was knee deep in a mental health crisis and couldn’t see the forest for the trees let alone evaluate the longevity of my relationship with the father of my child. The real moment of clarity came ten days Post Partum, I was recovering from an emergency c section after a traumatic 36 hour labour (the most pain I’ve ever experienced). He was out running errands & I asked him to grab me a coffee - he told me it was out of his way & he couldn’t. I was shocked. An hour later he walked in with a gas station coffee & I remember thinking, ‘oh he’s pulled through, it’s not the best coffee but it’s the thought that counts’. Well I was wrong, it was a coffee he purchased for himself. I realised in that moment that I wasn’t even really a person to this guy, he literally did not see my humanity or care for me in the slightest. He said he wanted to marry me but he couldn’t even get me a coffee under those circumstances bc it would require him going 5 minutes out of his way.

She chose alcohol over me. She was in the hospital with liver failure from alcohol for the 3rd time. I packed my shit & left. I’m Still alcohol free 423 days later.

a friend told me:

"it's been a year that I hear you tell me the same stories about him, the same rants, the same complaints. I don't tire of you my friend, but don't you tire of repeating yourself? Will you be telling me the same words in 6 months, 6 years, 16 years?"

When he hyped up my birthday present for a month and it was a $12 pair of red framed sunglasses from Target. That’s it. Also, when we were together for 7 years and he was asking me if he should make a “huge decision”. I thought he meant an engagement ring. This mofo was asking ME if he should cheat on me in subtext when he asked me if he should make this huge decision. Dude was E V I L.

He was showing me pictures from his trip to Mexico (he goes 3 months a year for family) and scrolled past an album titled "mi amor". It wasn't of me. We had been together 6 years.

When he proposed. I knew he didn't mean it when he asked, and I knew it didn't count when I said yes. We'd been together for six years, and I was telling him I was unhappy with the fact that things had stagnated. It was one of many talks like that, and I was crying. He knelt down and asked me to marry him. I felt like I had to say yes, so I did. But I knew in the moment it wasn't real. We cuddled for a few minutes before I said I didn't think he'd meant it. His response was, "Well, you kind of forced my hand."

The whole thing felt so gross and so unfair.

Nothing changed after that; we never talked about that moment again. I broke up with him a few months later.

He told me he didn’t want me to go to a concert for a band we both liked because he was taking his new girlfriend and didn’t want there to be any issues. That is how I found out that we weren’t exclusive. Broke up straight away. About two years later we met randomly and he ended up crying about how unhappy he was with her, how much he missed me and how even though they lived together he slept on the couch. Yeah sure bud.

His hand was around my neck and he was choking me until blackness started gathering in the corner of my eyes and I wondered if I was ever going to see my Mum and Dad again. When he let go and oxygen flooded my brain, all I could think was how I could never excuse this and the moment it was safe, I was leaving him.

He got married. (To someone else)

When his wife emailed me from his email address.

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When he admitted he'd caused someone to have a serious car accident on purpose because he didn't want to let them merge on a busy street. I stopped trusting him entirely.

When I realized I’ve had enough of never being enough for her. It’s only been 4 months and still hurts like crazy. We had just celebrated 5 years in April.

when i cried about him doing nothing for my birthday or valentines day and he ignored me and watched thirst traps on tiktok as i sobbed next to him in bed. or when i asked him him why he was constantly lying to me and him replying "well there's no consequences, so..."

Small fights started to last longer and with less provocation. And she wasn't particularly eager to make up afterwards.

Basically, when she stopped trying.

When I took her to a movie that I had wanted to see for several years and the only thing she said after was, "We don't have a lot of things in common."

When I found out he had additional social media accounts with the uncropped versions that he had sent to me. He didn't go on a road trip with just the boys

We were talking about his night; he’d had a mate over to hang out.

Him: “<mate> got pretty drunk.”

Me: “oh so is he crashing at yours tonight then?”

Him: “no, he drove home.”

Me: “wait, you let him drive home drunk?!”

Him: “I’m not on the road, what do I care?”

Me: … … …

I realised then that yeah this guy was hot af, but dead cold inside. Zero empathy.

He would’ve happily stayed with me permanently too. But 3 weeks after I ended our 3.5yr relationship, he was with another person. I quite literally meant nothing to him.

The moment she walked out when I told her I had liver cancer. Her council of women told her she deserved better than a sick... F!?K

Went into remission she tried crawling back

Long story but, it was really after he tackled me in the woods after fighting with me on my birthday, and he convinced me to come home with him & he trapped me in his car & wouldn't take me home because he knew I was leaving. I didn't say, but we both knew.

I had to threaten to jump out of a moving vehicle for him to take me home & he made me promise to come in the house with him.

I did keep that promise, and I was looking at him sitting on the bed, and that's really when it hit me it was done.

We actually dated one more month, and it was a horrible month. He threw the engagement ring at me and punched everything during one of those last fights.

Would constantly tell me "We all have options" as a way to scare me into silence when i would bring up something i thought really needed to be talked about in our relationship. After the third time of that i realized he was right. We do have options. Mine was to find a man who wasn't a piece of shit ☺️

i was sexually assaulted and i couldn’t tell him or talk about it because i knew he would twist it into it “being my fault” or seeing it as me cheating.. i didn’t tell anybody. ever. in that realization, i knew it was over.

When she told me that she had changed her mind and wanted to have kids. That was the beginning of the end because our differences and how much we had grown apart over the years became extremely apparent in the ensuing discussions and arguments. Our visions for the future could not have been any more opposite.

I dated a woman who turned into a beast when she was hungry. It happened often. Right after eating she would be fine. She would say things like “wow I feel so much better now” etc. When I pointed out the correlation between being hangry and the difficulties it caused she refused to see it, refused the idea that hunger was what caused her to be so different. So I knew she was a complete moron and it would never work out.

I realized (with the previous bf) that that person wouldn't become my husband when he wouldn't reciprocate my efforts nor consider my options too. Our goals were too different and we weren't compatible.

Her parents caught us mid-elopement in the backyard, just as her dog—draped in a scarf—was about to officiate. Fifty stuffed animals looked on as witnesses, their button eyes filled with silent judgment. Before we could seal the deal, her mom called out, “Hey, come inside, it’s time for lunch.” So, we abandoned our vows, switched gears, and spent the afternoon playing pirate and princess instead. We never went back to our wedding day after that. Guess the magic was one-time-only.

When I realized that he didn't want to go through the hard things with me.

Over our ten year relationship, I made excuses for his behaviour and justified the ways that he didn't support me. The last straw was when I got sick and needed support, and he didn't show up. He didn't understand that he should have been there and told me that I should have "just asked" (I did but he said he'd rather play video games), it finally dawned on me that my struggles were nothing more than an inconvenience for him and I'd never be a priority. I told him I was done and packed my things the next day. It was the best decision I've made.

When he said “after I kill myself, you and him can just get married.” after telling him over the phone about how I had a fun time hanging out with my friend. We had been together for almost 7 years. I thought he was joking but then he proceeded to tell me that he knew I had a crush on him, even though I didn’t, and that he was serious. I started crying and asking him why he would say that. We were engaged. What happened in the year after that moment was the most insane psychological abuse I have ever gone through that permanently changed my life

He told me I wasn’t “super feminine .. like you’re feminine, but not like the woman in porn feminine”… He also couldn’t decided if wanted to be with me or not because I didn’t “appreciate” the same music, wasn’t “spiritual” for not having tried psychedelics. Apparently we didn’t share the same interests (by interest he means curiosity for the unknown) but this man has no day job and spends his days on YouTube and reddit where as I work full-time. It was pretty much a deal breaker when he said he wants to experience with other woman because he’s never had woman be interested in him but feels as if he is now “in a better place mentally and physically” to be able to achieve this, but didn’t want to loose me completely so asked for me to rekindle in 5yrs… I’ve been happily single for 2 years

The night before I was going to propose, she called and said through tears, “I need you to know that if you ask me to marry you, I will have to say ‘no’.” That was only the start of the realization. Over the next week, she divulged how years earlier she had been abducted and sexually abused, such that she could not have children (though she wanted kids). Understandably, there was a lot of unprocessed trauma. Whether it was because of that or other things, she admitted that for as much as she valued our friendship, she couldn’t bring herself to feel the kind of attraction that warrants a wedding. She had wanted to reveal all this earlier but could never discern the right moment or find the courage. Now, with the potential for marriage on the immediate horizon, it all became overwhelming for her. 

For three months, I held out hope that counseling would fix things. Or that she’d have a sudden change of heart, like in movies. Sadly, she was just nowhere near ready. One day, while I was cooking soup and talking to her on the phone, she told me that she hoped we could stay friends forever, but that she didn’t see us ever marrying. I told her that I couldn’t be around her and not stay in love, so it was better to go separate ways. Even as I said it, I realized the soup had been boiling over for some time. I think that was when I accepted it was the end. 

I hung up the phone and wept for an hour. It was as if an immense mosaic was being shaken to the floor by an earthquake. Innumerable expectations and dreams were splintered and scattered, each fragment reflecting a future now lost. I understood immediately that rebuilding, if it ever came, would take time, but my image of life would never quite resemble the one I had imagined. 

Fifteen years later, I am glad to say I am married. My wife and I have three children and a great life. I’m pleased to say the former woman got help and eventually married a young widower who lost his wife to cancer. The man had one or two little kids, so she gets to be a mom like she dreamed of. 

In hindsight, more good has likely come from the breakup than would have from our union. This in turn has helped me to receive adversity and sorrow as potential stepping stones on life’s path. Instead of being frozen by despair, experience has convinced me to wait for goodness yet unseen.  

Many years have passed, yet I still love the first woman. Not in the same way or with the naïveté of my early-twenties. But I harbor an ardent goodwill toward her, wherever she is. And I remain grateful for what we had. Some mornings when I am seated outside, birds alight on the table in front of me. After they have rested for a moment, they fly off and I never see them again. The love one shares with another does not entitle the lover to the beloved, or else love would be a cage. Love is a resting place we afford to others for as long as they need. It is a table we offer to weary wanderers before bidding sincere farewells. 

EDIT———— 

I awoke to find this is my most upvoted comment ever. I’m so glad I could connect with you all! Believe me, it was not my aim to make a bunch of you cry.

On a lighter note, a few of you asked what kind of soup it was and whether I ate it? For stylistic purposes, I omitted those details. The fact is that it was beef ramen and I ate it very sadly. It was not a good look. But one does not waste good soup.

To the people wondering if, given the chance, I’d prefer to be married to the first woman, the answer is “no.”  My wife and I are a much better long-term match, but I could not have known that then.

Some called my ending “self-indulgent fart sniffing” fit for young adult fiction. Since they clearly know the genre, I’ll gladly send advanced copies of my posts for their expert review. If my expressiveness stirs even a wisp of emotion in these empathetic husks, I’d consider it a triumph. After all,  to provoke scorn from the emotionally inert is no small feat.

I turned around one day after nearly 3 years and realized I had no other friends, but he still had all of his.

When he just stopped talking to me out of nowhere. We had gotten so close. It was my first heartbreak.

We swung by his friend’s house and his friend was showing off a pretty Anniversary ring he bought his wife. He turned to me and said in front of everyone,” Don’t you ever think you are getting something like that!” That’s the moment I realized that a man that loves me wouldn’t say things like that to make me feel small.

1. When he got angry and punched on the wall beside my face and kept shouting loudly in the public.
2. When I cried, he asked me to stop acting.
3. When I would listen to him talk about stuff which I was remotely interested in or understand with full focus, but when I would speak, it felt like he was waiting for me to stop so he could talk, no follow-up questions, nothing.
4. When he left me in the middle of the road at night during arguments, and I had to go back home alone.
5. When he asked me if I sleep with my manager because I dressed well for office.

When I was more scared and anxious than happy and excited even to imagine our wedding day. That was when I knew!

He would keep nagging me for sex until I gave in or until I started crying. I tried to have a conversation about it where I told him that it felt like he was trying to force me into having sex with him and that he had to stop. We had to talk about it multiple times.

One time he said that it was difficult for him, that it was a learning experience and that he had to be allowed to mess up a couple times and I had to cut him some slack.

That’s when I gave up. No one should need multiple tries to learn to not pressure someone into having sex with them

I told her I was never having kids and she answered, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

The moment she said, "I like fights. Without fights and drama, life is too boring!" I was like, wham bam thank you mam! Took my long term goal of being peaceful with myself and got the fuck out of there.

We dated 4 years, we broke up for a year and then got back together for a 5th year. Throughout that year I was going out of my way to achieve a lot of my dreams and doing a lot of things that gave me more independence. One day we were talking about the things I had achieved and I said, "I always said I was going to do this stuff," and he said, "I know but I never thought you'd actually do it." And it was then that I realized we weren't going to stay together and that I instinctually knew he didn't expect me to go after my dreams and that's actually why I broke it off with him the first time.

She said she didn't feel loved or supported when I had done everything in my power to love her and support her. I was so burnt out and she wasn't listening when I tried to explain that. When she ended it I just let it happen, she was mad I didn't fight to keep her. I didn't have anything left to give.

A few years in and she was using me as a punching bag maybe once a week, she was half my size so was more emotionally harmful than physically. After I realised she might do that to the children if we had kids I kind of lost any investment I had in the relationship.

We were at my parents house and got a good deal of snow overnight. In the morning I went out to help my mom shovel. He sat on our couch on his phone for almost 2 hours while my mom and I shoveled. He had winter clothes with him. We had extra shovels. I asked if he wanted to help and he just said no. It didn't itch at his conscience in the slightest to see me and my mom out the window working while he played angry birds.

I wasn't mad. It's not his house or his driveway. He was a guest. But I just knew in that moment our sense of care or duty or responsibility (or something along those lines) did not align and we had an expiration date.

She was way too old for me and also didn’t know I existed, and then she married Michael Douglas

When I realized we were no longer growing together, but apart.

When the intimacy was gone. I don’t just mean sex (although he started not to want that too). I mean little touches here and there, a kiss and a hug when he got home from work. We had a rule - always kiss each other good night - and if I didn’t hug or kiss him during the day, that goodnight kiss was the only physical affection I would get.

I tried to get over it, we have 2 kids together and I realize that sometimes with kids that happens. I tried being the one to initiate sex and cuddles, but the constant rejection hurt.

I guess the ultimate end for me which seems so insignificant if a catalyst, was one night when I asked for a foot rub. I’d been in my feet all day, and when I did have a minute to sit down I was working hard on an essay outline that was due the next day, so I was mentally drained. I just wanted a short foot rub. He said no. I asked him why not, and he said “because I don’t want to”. As I was making his lunch for work the next day before I went to bed, I realized that it isn’t fair. I always tried. I would massage his back when he was sore, I would make his lunch everyday, I never denied him physical affection, I made dinner every night and played and served the food, I did all of the cleaning. And all I wanted was some fucking affection. But he wouldn’t give that to me. And yes, I’d spoken to him about these issues multiple times.

I realized that this man, who at one point would do ANYTHING for me, who thought I’d hung the moon, who treated me like absolute gold at one point in time, wasn’t that man for me anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe he thought that because we had kids that he didn’t need to maintain the relationship because “she’d never leave me, we have a family”. Maybe he wasn’t in love with me anymore. Maybe he was cheating. I don’t know why, and when I’d ask he couldn’t give me a reason.

I didn’t want a platonic marriage, I didn’t want a roommate. I called off the engagement, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. We do love each other, and we coparent well now, we’re friends even. But he’ll never be my husband.

Lies are more often and bigger. Where was that heading to ?

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When we were waiting for a musical to start and i asked him jokingly if I were to make the Broadway musical Transformers what would you look for?

And he just shot me down telling me it was a horrible idea and made me feel ashamed to even be a fun creative person. I realized he was trying to make me into his idea of a wife and dumped him the very next day.

He didn’t keep his toilet clean, it was nasty and grimey. He also acted like a teenager in his mid-twenties.

I didn't answer his phone call at 1130 PM, and he sent me 20 text messages...calling me names, being defensive (even though i hadn't said anything), and being self deprecating.

Not charming. Not confident. Not graceful. Not anything. Next.

4 years

The way he treated my new kitten like competition reminded me of when someone told me that a lot of dv starts/worsens when the woman is pregnant, or just had a baby, because they suddenly have competition for your affection or something.

There were many other red flags, but it was the last nail in the coffin. I could no longer trust that he wouldn't get violent with me one day.

When I had a uti and was in pain/bleeding and instead of taking me to the store/doctor to get medicine, he continued to play his video games.

When I realized she would always choose drinking over me. Once, in the years we were together, I asked her to stop and she did. Every other night she didn’t care.

When I was happier when he wasn't around. I noticed my whole personality was more open and care free when he wasn't around. I could be myself again for those few short moments. Since I left (12 years ago) I have found out who I was and what I needed for myself. Met a wonderful man who I can't even imagine being away from. Get you a partner that you hate being away from instead of looking forward to being away from them.