My first marriage.
I realized it had to end after I had failed to complete suicide, and was in mandatory intensive outpatient therapy. I was listening to everyone in group therapy talking about how awful their relationships were, and how miserable their partners made them, and the really, really obvious answer was, well, just fuckin’ leave.
And it hit me that this was true for me also.
My spouse had been resisting going to marriage counseling for over a decade, controlled all the finances even though I made most of the money, had largely cut me off from the few friends that I had, was verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive, had been rejecting any attempts at intimacy for over a year (to ‘punish’ me, I guess?), and then blamed me for all the problems. I’d started spiraling when they threatened to leave me, had a couple really bad days at work, and then gotten fired for my “bad attitude”. And from there, I got forced to a hospital.
The divorce was… Unpleasant. They lied to all of our friends about what was going on, and I ended up losing all of the friends I had remaining. The only positive was that I got the house and car.
Hope your doing better. If you’re friends didn’t stick around they weren’t friends you lost nothing there.
I don’t know for certain, but I believe that my ex-spouse told people I knew that I was abusive to them. My ex- didn’t want me to tell people what was going on–they said that it wasn’t anyone else’s business–and I found that over a very short period of time a large number of people that I knew had suddenly blocked me from contacting them. At this point, I only have a single mutual friend from that time period. I’ve never asked him to make a choice, nor have I asked him what my ex- said or did, because I don’t want to put him in the middle of that shit, even though it’s been nearly ten years now.
None have been that bad. Most have ended because could not see a future. Personally I sorta have a shit or get off the pot mentality with sorta yearly timelines. Hardest relationship has been marriage because marriage and even living together is hard but life has good and bad and its goofy to think that is not going to be the case. Just has to have more good (and significantly more) than bad.
Four year relationship with a guy. At 1.5 years I found out he was cheating, and he convinced me to stay. A few years later he lost his job, never got unemployment payments, made no attempt to find a job, let me pay for everything while he smoked weed and played videogames for a year. I worked 70 hour weeks to pay our bills. He crashed my car one night by going for a midnight munchies run while stoned.
Even after all that I was willing to stay. But a few months after he got a job, I found out that he had been cheating almost every day while I was at work. I got an STD from his infidelity. This was the point I decided to leave.
Tried to leave and he hit me and physically restrained me from leaving the house. It took around 6 months to safely get out of the relationship. He stole my (new) car on his way out and tried to steal my dog.
I just want to comment that I am so sorry that you had to endure all that. Fuck that guy.
That sounds horrible. I hope you’re doing much better these days.
Other than a crippling fear of sex, I’m doing OK!
Long story TLDR: met someone on a dating website she was lazy didn’t work lied and emotionally abusive, her dad hated me when I gave her back.
For me the worst relationship was just before I turned 30. Before I met her I was sociable and quite stable financially (relevant later)
We met on a dating site got on fine, no major red flags we saw each other on the weekend mostly so lots of fun.
Eventually the lease on my flat share was coming up and we decided to move in together. We did and things started to change, turns out she was having trouble at work.
Not a major problem as I said I was financially OK and responsible with money. Then she “lost” her job. Eventually I found out she had quit.
Slowly I was isolated from my friends, we would have nights out with them and she would throw full on tantrums about the attention she wasn’t getting. Then 3 more jobs came by and went with her “losing” them. Turns out she just didn’t like working and expected me to do everything.
Finally I called her last job asked how she was fired and they told me she just left one day. I caught her at home while she was supposed to be at work one day (she left the job 2 weeks earlier and hadn’t told me).
By now I had no friends and my accounts were near empty. I woke up one Saturday morning went down to the lease office and asked to be let out of the lease. The happiest news I received was the lease was up the previous month so I gave notice straight away.
Went home told her and started the process of packing. The day she left her dad picked her up and gave me the worst look I’ve ever seen literally a “fuck I have to pay for her now” look.
Best decision of my life.
