I’ll start.
We had great chemistry but different goals. She was religious and looking to marry and thought she could change me, a non-religious person who intends to remain unmarried and childless. I was up front about the lack of religion and the lack of desire for marriage. She was not up front about her intent to change me.
After two months of regular flings she told me we couldn’t see each other anymore, because she wanted someone to go to church with, it was my fault she was living a sinful life (totally), and she was cheating on me with another dude was a Christian.
We were together 13 years. We both grew as people but not together. I did a lot of therapy and finding myself. He kept pushing everything down and refusing to experience his feelings. We were never bad to each other we just kinda… Became roommates over time. We basically stopped being intimate both physically and emotionally.
One day we sat down, talked about where we’ve been, what we both want, what our ideal future is, and realized we were going in different directions. We decided to get divorced. We lived together for another year and a half after that because we own the house together.
I moved out a few months ago. We still talk every day, share pictures of the animals that we each kept, we’re good friends. We just didn’t open up to each other the last few years. He’s done therapy and started some self exploration since we decided to divorce. He seems much happier. We’re both dating other people and we’re both genuinely happy for each other.
May have lost a husband but, I definitely did not lose a friend. This was literally the best divorce you could ask for. I hope the best for him.
Oof jeez I’ve been with my partner for 10 years and this sounds like such a familiar story. We’ve talked about splitting up but are giving couples therapy a chance for now. I really can’t see it going anywhere if he doesn’t choose to help himself though. I am too tired and feel like I am enabling more than anything.
Glad to hear it worked out okay for you. Hope you’re well.
I’m actually doing great now. That was kind of my catalyst too. He wasn’t doing anything for himself. Thankfully he’s done a lot since I let and I’m very proud of him. Good luck. You deserve to be happy.
I’m in an eerily similar situation. Married 14 years, getting a divorce soon after she decided she was no longer attracted to me after about a year of her trying and internalizing her feelings.
I’m hoping I can have a friendship with her, but this all happened a month ago so it’s too fresh to tell if that can happen
Yeah that’s too new to decide. Good luck friend. Even though I was the one who initiated it for me, it still sucked and hurt. I have no regrets now and neither does he but it will absolutely take time to get there.
We were together for 4 years. At the start i was nihilist and she was christian but respected each others views. Then we broke up coz satan made a guy gay.
Then in the last year of our relationship she suddenly wanted to me to go to church and listen to this guy talk about finding god. I thought fuck it, ill entertain the idea, whatever.
This guy (who was obviously gay) was talking about how satan made him gay and that turning to god made him straight. All i could see was pain in his eyes and hear the lack of conviction in his words. He brought his family out and everyone looked miserable. I felt terrible and cringey hearing this guy trying to convince everyone and himself that he wasnt gay and had found happiness.
My partners dad afterwards in the carpark was banging on about how the world would be better if gay people realised they werent gay but had a mental condition brought on by satan and i lost it and told her family to fuck emselves.
The guy ended up killing himself a few years later so I guess finding god didnt actually workout. Such a fucking shame cunts cant be themselves without other cunts judging em
The guy ended up killing himself a few years later so I guess finding god didnt actually workout. Such a fucking shame cunts cant be themselves without other cunts judging em
100%
This is why I’m always upfront about not being religious and not wanting marriage, because those two things are so contrary to the culture most of us were raised in that they are really difficult for people to absorb and understand.
My first marriage, because she has an undiagnosed mental illness and leaves a trail of destruction everywhere she goes.
When I was a young man, I was afraid of being alone. I learned that being with someone who makes you wish you were alone is far worse than being alone. Thankfully that was a long time ago and my life is much better.
I learned that being with someone who makes you wish you were alone is far worse than being alone.
Amen to this. It’s a really important piece of wisdom.
Glad you’re doing better!
BPD?
Textbook.
Thank you for a well-timed reminder. That was my example of “never stick your dick in crazy” but I somehow never got over it.
While things are much less stressful since I’ve got divorced (from someone else) it can be a bit lonely and my mind keeps going back to the one that I was too afraid to touch. The absolutely toxic one with BPD I knew in college and could never stop thinking of )no, I did not care while I was married to someone sane). I most certainly do not need that in my life.
Glad to hear it.
He died, which really put a damper on the whole thing.
Men just really don’t put in the effort anymore
No one puts in the effort anymore. We’re all tired boss.
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10/10 sense of humour, would date!
The bar is in hell, as they say.
Leaving to go drink smh
She died…
Becoming a widower at 40 sucks.
Much love, brother/friend. I’m sorry about that. It’s one of my biggest fears.
It’s life… It’s also the reason why I try to live my life to the best of my abilities. I am trying to teach my stepson that you can not put off for tomorrow what should be today. You never know what could happen and where tomorrow will lead.
She had deep childhood trauma that made it difficult for her to imagine being a good person in a healthy relationship. Anyways she physically abused me when one of the guys she was cheating on me met me and felt guilty enough to break it off.
We were polyamorous, had spent 8 years together, and then her other (new) partner decided she didn’t like me. So she put a wedge into our relationship by breaking the trust down between me and my partner, framing me as abusive, and eventually my partner abandoned me after the trust was gone.
The other gal turned everything I did into some manipulative scheme or way to control my partners. For example, the fact that I couldn’t suddenly drop $2k on a wisdom tooth removal for her became “financial abuse and control”.
I’m going to be angry about it for the rest of my life, I think.
As someone in a poly marriage, kitchen table poly is an absolute requirement for us. If all our partners can’t get along together, even if they aren’t involved with each other, we don’t date.
I have two partners along with my married partner, and they have two partners as well. We get along with all of each others partners, and while our partners don’t directly talk, they know about each other and are cool with everyone.
Not a chance if either of us were involved with someone who didn’t like the other would either of us stay with them.
Yeah I don’t need my partners to be friends, but I need them to get along and like each other
Pretty simple. Our relationship started when we were in our early 20’s. Over the course of the ~10 years we were together we became different people. By the time we were in our 30’s, what she wanted in a partner changed and I was no longer what she wanted. Figuring it all out hurt and sucked… but I’m in a good place these days and consider it an important learning experience in my past.
She emptied our joint bank account to buy crack.
You win. In this case winning isn’t good.
Fret not, I kicked her ass in the divorce. Got the house, kid, retirement, everything. And the sad part is she didn’t fight for it.
Wow.
Awful.
She was religious to the point of being crazy, and she was absolutely obsessed with her dog, who was the worst behaved dog I’ve ever personally known.
I fell for her because she helped me become more of an adult, someone who could pay bills and be sort of responsible for myself. And like every super-religious woman I have ever personally known, she was an absolute horndog but felt really guilty about it, especially if she really enjoyed it.
We were on this yo-yo thing for years where she would determine that im too much of a heathen, so she would leave, and then she would see me talking with some other woman, and she would run said woman off. I was young and stupid and kept going back. We were even married for a bit, but she fell right back into the same pattern and divorced me two months later.
Not long after that she went and married someone else. Finally. Shes with this guy for three months and is trying to get her claws back into me. But by this time I had found the woman I am now married to. My current wife doesn’t have the same religious and sexual hangups, and she understands things like “dogs need to be housebroken” and “You have to train dogs not to bite children”. Well of course she pulled out all the stops to try and quash it, but I finally learned to say “would you kindly fuck off”.
And I have been happily married to a really amazing woman for 17 years.
She was an alcoholic with border-line personality disorder, and as a naive and lonely young Scotsman I foolishly mistook her for a bright girl with a quirky personality who liked a drink and had occasional violent moodswings. Took way too long to realise what the gravity of her condition meant. I was emotionally inexperienced and trusting. And I paid the price.
On the bright side, when i came out of that relationship and healed I met someone well-balanced and kind, who is now my wife. I’m so grateful for the love i now have and the relative stability of my life, and in a weird way I’m glad I went through what I did with my ex, as it makes me appreciate what I now have.
Dude we have a lot in common, like 90%. BPD is INSANE.
Yep. Had a crush on one BPD. He was my world ans then boom no attention from him at all anymore from one day to the next. Fuuuck that send my autism and adhd down spirals
Quite literally, yes
She had “left” years ago but was hanging on for the money and the kids. Constantly yelled at me, refused to do any family activities together. I even funded her savings to escape ( all of our money was ours except what was hers) on the claim that it would reduce her anxiety. Eventually she filed, blames me for “not fighting for her”.
So much stress gone. So much more peace in my life.
My biggest regret really was not fighting for full custody. We have equal custody but for the first few years I was able to get the kids most of the time
Where do they learn this shit?
ALL WOMEN, HEAR ME: The one enemy he will not fight against for you IS YOU. Why would he fight for you if you’re the problem in the first place?
I wasn’t allowed to have any feelings other than happy. I wasn’t allowed to negotiate within the relationship, I had to take what he was offering or I was “blackmailing” him. He treated me like an extension of himself and if I didn’t do and act exactly how he wanted I’d get iced out.
I was at a listless, lonely, and sad point in my life when a friend made a pass at me and, appreciating the attention, I went with it. The relationship went toxic and exploitative, and I ended up being abused for years. The abusive relationship ended not because I heroically gathered my wits and strength enough to get out, but because she eventually got bored with me and kicked me out.
Thankfully, it’s long in the past now. After that I took some time away from dating and relationships to work on myself, and with the help of friends and family I slowly pieced my heart and my life back together.
When I felt ready to begin dating again I put myself back out there, and I met someone truly amazing. We’re in a very happy and healthy marriage in which we trust and appreciate each other, and nobody is being treated like crap.
10 years together. She was upfront about her long-term goal of never having children, and I was upfront about how I felt at the time, which was “meh, I could go either way.”
We met while I was diving into the depths of alcoholism. My first (and only) DUI was when we’d been seeing each other for a couple months, They wanted me to pay $300 or spend a few nights in jail, I said “Lemme text my girl so she can feed my cat.”
I broke up with her a few times, but kept coming back because she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and we did genuinely care for each other. I said “I’m moving across country, you can come or you can stay,” She came. I proposed a couple years later. We married a few years after that.
I finally got sober, and immediately knew that we didn’t belong together. My alcoholism told me I wasn’t good enough to be a father, but I truly do want to be one. We had become roommates, neither one of us really sharing emotionally or physically. I remember how terrible I felt, when we’d be in the same room, and instead of talking to each other, we’d baby talk to our (amazing, wonderful) little dog instead. I remember feeling so jealous of that dog, because she was so physically affectionate with her, and never (ever) me.
This is an aside, but, For our entire relationship together, the only thing I ever really asked for, was a giant cookie for my birthday. It’s a family tradition, and I love them. 10 years I asked for a simple $7.99 giant cookie from the grocery store, with a Happy Birthday message, and for 10 years, she never did it. I did everything for her, took care of everything. The car, the house, the groceries, her health care, her mental healthcare… I realized that’s all she wanted, was a caretaker.
Well, it came to a head one night when we were randomly talking openly, and she told me the only reason she slept with me was so I wouldn’t leave her. When I sobered up, I started a mental clock of two years, and told her what I needed from her, and gave her those 2 years to fix it. She didn’t, so after two years, I told her we weren’t right together and we split up. I cried, so much. It was awful. I still very much love her, but, I was right. We just weren’t meant for each other.
It’s been 5 years since then, and I’ve been having trouble finding my person. I went to therapy, went HARD in therapy, really worked on myself. Got better physically, mentally, have a much better job, and just recently started texting a woman that lives a thousand miles away in Texas. She’s beautiful just like my ex-wife is, except she wants to have kids.
Pray for me, bros, I really like her, and don’t want to mess this up.
Good on you for knowing what you deserve. I’m sure it was hard, but I think you made the right choice.
Hoping the next one comes correct with the giant cookies!
haha, what I think I deserve is a kick in the teeth for wasting so much of my ex-wifes time. She is a wonderful person, and I still feel terrible about it (despite the fact I never got a cookie). Especially because, looking at any climate news gives me pure existential dread at the idea of bringing a life into this world that will have to live through the collapse of our environment and way of life. You have to have hope for the future, that things will get better, to have kids, and well… it’s been really hard to hold on to hope. But, at least, with a different partner, we could at least adopt, which is also something the ex-wife wouldn’t consider. I may not be able to fathom a better future enough to have children of my own, but god if I’m in the right financial space, with a partner and house and my world traveling out of my system… so many great kids out there just need a safe, loving home.
just recently started texting a woman that lives a thousand miles away in Texas. She’s beautiful just like my ex-wife is, except she wants to have kids.
Be careful you’re not getting catfished. You know, have a video chat at some point with this person. Don’t send them money. Just be safe out there.
Not to be a wet blanket about it, sounds like you’ve been through a lot and sometimes that can leave you vulnerable to people looking to take advantage. Keep your wits about you. You will find what you are looking for.
I appreciate your very good advice, and yeah, it’s something I’m concerned about for sure. Probly do a video chat this weekend 😊














