Breakups can be hard for anyone, man or woman. However, they can be even harder when a significant other breaks the trust of a relationship. Whether it's cheating or constant belittling, it can be difficult to remain with that person, no matter the amount of love. These men share faced that and share the heartbreaking reasons why their exes are their ex. All stories have been edited for clarity.
She Wanted To Change Everything About Me
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“She and I were both law students in our final semester. She had a job lined up at a first class law firm. At the time, I had interviewed with a bunch of judges for a clerkship, but had no offers yet. What I really wanted to do was join the Marines. I’d been telling people that for a couple of years.
She came from a far wealthier and more materialistic family than I did. Just after NYE, she and her mother went to Paris for a shopping trip. They spent $10,000 just on the shopping. I grew up on a farm raised by back-to-the-land hippies who grew/hunted/gathered our food.
She had been dropping serious hints that we needed to get engaged soon since Christmas. It was nearly Valentines Day. Right before I went out to spend nearly my entire savings on a $12,000 engagement ring, my ex-almost-fiancée (that’s what I’ve called her for the last 15 years) and I had a ‘state of the union’ conversation. One of those ‘what do you really want to do with your life’ conversations. During the course of this conversation, she informed me of a few things:
‘We can never live in the state of VA, because VA is a redneck state from top to bottom.’ Even Arlington? Yes, even Arlington.
‘If we make less than $300,000 per year combined income, we might as well be living on food stamps.’
I had to sell all my weapons, because ‘only rednecks own weapons and even though I know you’re not a redneck, people might think you were if they found out you owned weapons.’
She didn’t want me to join the Marines because she didn’t want to follow me around.
After hearing all that, I decided we needed to take a break for a few days and think things over. Instead of going ring shopping, I drove down to my brother’s house in VA for the weekend. I was stuck in horrendous traffic when I got a phone call from one of the judges with whom I had interviewed. Just like that, I had a great job lined up in the same city as her. While not great pay, it was a perfect stepping stone to a higher paying job. A few minutes later I was still stuck in traffic and I look over and there’s a sporting goods store. Five minutes later, I’m still next to it. So, I went inside and after much consideration, spent $300 on a beautiful .45. It was the first time I had treated myself to anything at all in over two years. I drove down to my little brother’s house and discussed the situation with him. ‘In three years, you’re still going to have this .45 but you won’t be married to her.’
I went back up to the city where we both lived and ran into her in the parking garage. I told her, ‘I got a job in _,’ and watched her face light up. ‘And I bought a new weapon.’ And watched her smile fade. I told her she had to love me for who I was, that I loved her, but I wasn’t going to give up all the things I wanted, that we would need to compromise on some things. She wouldn’t budge, so we split for good.
After a year working for that judge, I joined the Marines. Twelve years later, I don’t regret how that situation turned out at all. I’m now happily married and I’m changing careers so I can spend more time with my wife and daughters.”
That’s Not Okay
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“My dad just dropped me back off at my house from the hospital.
The last 4 days, my fiancée has decided to stay at her new coworker’s house either overnight or until well into the morning. I told her, ‘That’s RIDICULOUSLY NOT OKAY to do when you’re engaged’, even though she claims it was just stress relief playing video games with a new guy friend. We also have a four month old son that I’ve been taking care of for the past four days she’s been gone, and I’ve been very sick with what I thought was a stomach bug. Well this morning I fainted, she insisted I just get some rest and maybe go to urgent care if I don’t get better. Then I lost my ability to keep any liquids down and I was insistent that she take me to the hospital then go home and take care of our son.
This was too much to ask though, as she’d already made plans to meet this guy again tonight. She walked to her work and left her family behind to go spend the night at his house. I told her that if she chooses to abandon her family to go spend time with another man, who I never accused her of cheating on me with despite the numerous red flags, then her family won’t be waiting for her when she gets home. I involved someone in my family out of necessity, so my dad took me to the hospital and his fiancée watched my son.
My fiancée’s last text to me simply said, ‘I can’t come home so I guess I just lose everything.’
After multiple chest x-rays and an abdomen CT, it turns out I’m not sick, but the stress caused by my relationship started causing massive problems throughout my body. Oh and apparently I have a kidney stone.
I know it was petty but when I got home I just sent her a picture of our son and told her that this was who she chose to give up on tonight.”
7 Years
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“We were together for 7 years.
When we got together, we both adamantly didn’t want kids. When her mother suddenly passed (and she was also entering her 30s), her position flipped. Mine didn’t.
Just some things to know about her: She wanted to travel more and got increasingly bitter that I didn’t with her that often, even though I spent a good chunk of our time together not in a financial position to afford it (ironically, I can afford it now.) She was obsessed with the house always being spotless. When I eventually told her I wasn’t cool spending most of my weekend cleaning a house that wasn’t dirty, she agreed to hire a cleaner. She always hated the work they did and none of them made it more than 3 sessions. Even though getting a dog was her idea (though I always wanted one too), I always walked him because she had to travel for work a lot and would whine when she was home and I asked her to do it. When we first got him, I was the one who spent 6 weeks getting up 3 times a night to take him outside to housebreak him, because she was traveling for work. But she’d get upset that he always ran to me first when we came home. She accomplished a lot of things in her career and I was super proud of her. In our time together, I attained some major career milestones I worked my butt off for. I also did (and do) a ton of charity work and spent my own money to help out friends in need and to make them happy. She never once said she was proud of me for any of it, or anything else.
Anyways, when her mom (who I was also close to) suddenly went into the hospital, she said she couldn’t have any visitors that weren’t immediate family (found out later this was nonsense.) I never got to see her mom before she died. When she did, my girl retreated to her dad’s house for weeks, wouldn’t come home, wouldn’t let me come over and barely spoke to me. I was sitting in our house alone, grieving with no one but my dog for company. When I asked her if she could come home for just one evening so we could talk and I could try to get some emotional support, she blew up at me, accused me of making her mom’s death all about me and called me a terrible, selfish person.
At this point, I knew it was over. This was after almost two years of us effectively living as housemates that shared a bed anyway. No love, no passion, just shared bills and a sad relationship. I never cheated on her or anyone else but I was frequently thinking about it, just so I could get some kind of intimate feeling from someone.
I ended up breaking it off and at the time, got no emotion from her and the conversation immediately pivoted into one about selling our house. Shortly after the deal closed, she sent me two long, vicious screeds via email, telling me what an awful person I was, how everything was my fault and that I should be ashamed for robbing her of so many of what should have been the best years of her life.
We still share custody of our dog and I only speak to her to coordinate picking him up and dropping him off. It’s been two years since we split, I’m starting a new relationship that awesome and I’m well and truly over her but thinking about these experiences still makes me sad.”
Arranged Marriage
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“I married her after an arranged marriage set up by our parents and well-meaning members from the community.
Only met her for three hours, three times.
A few weeks in, I discovered she suffered absolute lack of personality of her own and was dependent on her mother to a scary degree.
Basically her entire personality consisted of 50% her mother’s opinions and 50% her teachers from religion school.
Still I loved and cared for her and tried to do my best with a rough situation.
But one fine day her mother decided I was not good enough for her precious youngest daughter, and so she decided to divorce me.
She kept that knowledge secret from me for several weeks so that I would be there to support her daughter through the hardest parts of the pregnancy and childbirth and as soon as that was over, it would be time to strike hard.
I found out she wanted a divorce by coming to my house on a Sunday morning (we were sleeping at her folks home after she gave birth to our son so she can be closer to her mom) and finding the doors unlocked and all my valuables missing. I called the police to thinking we’ve been robbed until I got to the bedroom and noted that her clothes were gone but mine were all there. Called the border police to find I can’t leave the country since there are 2 open court cases against me, 1) A demand for a divorce and 2) A demand for child support.
Fast forward to a few weeks later I am in court for the divorce defending myself from her standing there blatantly accusing me of assaulting and beating her (I am a pacifist, the last time I lifted a hand against my fellow man was a fight I had in 9th grade ) obviously without evidence.
And one last detail, in almost a year of marriage I have said no to anything she wanted only one time, a week before the end.
Conclusion Arranged marriage is awful, I should never have married her in the first place.”
Did She Start Lying?
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“She lied to me about being sick. First it was a blood disease, then it was a spinal related thing, and lastly it was Huntington’s disease. Of course she had no papers to prove it. She faked having breathing problems and got herself into the ER which scared the heck out of me and her poor parents in the process.
When she magically became better after I left work because I literally could not function with that kind of shock, I started getting suspicious. But hey, you know what they say. Love is blind.
I continued and things got worse. I ended up not getting enough sleep which resulted in getting in the ER myself with what I thought was the beginning of a heart attack. Turned out to be an anxiety attack instead. Oh the irony.
The day after, I called her dad, cornered him and asked exactly WHY her and her last ex broke up. He asked if she’d started lying, I confirmed it. He sighed and told me that it’s the reason her ex dumped her too, but that he’d hoped I’d be a good influence on her and that she’d learned from her mistakes.
I’d married her if she hadn’t done that, but I’m glad I dodged that bullet.
But honestly, I would have.
And I’m not the marrying type.”
She Sacrificed Everything For Me
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“My ex and I were together for close to 4 years. Let’s call her Ann. We were college sweethearts and we both graduated with the same college program in the same year. She is somewhat well-off since her parents work as boardroom executives for a big company in our home country, the Philippines, and she always covers for me since I came from an average working class family. Despite that, she understands my financial standpoint and her family treated me like family and same goes for my family towards her.
We were trying to be ‘real adults’ by starting a career. She wanted to pursue a teaching career and a Master’s and possibly a PhD. Meanwhile I wanted to make a living in the corporate world. Not long after, reality struck me and my family really hard. My family had a major financial problem that forced me to also chip in. I was barely surviving on a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Of course, I told this to my Ann and she was really supportive emotionally. She would often buy me groceries and sometimes even give me financial support if I was short on money for the period. Of course, I was hesitant but eventually accepted her financial support since we had a serious debt.
Not long after, I discovered that Ann stopped going to her certification course to become a licensed teacher, and that she was already spending her Master’s money on me. She kept it a secret from me and I only discovered it when she started working at a job which I know she doesn’t like and said that she just took it as an extra source of cash. She bought a condo unit for the both of us as we were always having a conversation about settling down.
Slowly, everything started going downhill. We would have constant banters and fights that were emotionally draining. One time we had a major argument and out of rage she blurted out ‘Why can’t you be a better boyfriend?’ and that woke me up. After she said those words, I realized that I was dragging her down. She stopped her dreams of becoming a professor because of me. She started a job I knew she despised because she wanted to support me. She sacrificed too much because she loved me that much.
Eventually, I was the one to broke it off. She didn’t want to end it (personally, I also didn’t want to end it) but, I wanted her to pursue her dreams and I didn’t want her to regret anything by staying with me. She broke down and begged me to stay. With all my will, I told her that ‘This is for the best.’
Right now, she’s about to have her teaching license and is working in a really prestigious International School who is catering for SPED students and will eventually take up her Master’s degree. I’m really happy that she’s reaching her dreams and I’m beyond proud of her. We are now on good terms and I can really say that she is genuinely happier than when she was with me. Indeed, the breakup was ‘for the best.'”
Always About Her
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“I was in the emergency room with kidney stones (didn’t know it was kidney stones at the time, just knew I was in the most pain I’d ever been in). She got angry because'”you’re not paying attention to me.’ Seriously, I’m in an emergency room hooked up to an IV with pain killers flowing through me, at this point I’m half conscious because of the morphine, and apparently I’m a piece of crap for not paying attention to her. It came to a head when I asked her to get a nurse because something didn’t feel right (they had gave me something I was allergic to and I was starting to have an allergic reaction). She said, ‘Fine, I’ll just be your babysitter.’ At that point I just told her to go home, that her negativity was making me feel worse. She got all fussy, threw a fit, and left in a rage. Next day I didn’t even call her for a ride back home when I got out of the hospital, I called my aunt and had her drive me home. The moment I got home I started packing my stuff. If you have to be the center of attention and can’t feel any empathy whatsoever while I’m in the freaking emergency room, you’re a garbage human I don’t want anything to do with.”
She Took Everything
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“We dated for 3 years. She was manipulative.
We broke up once because God told her to, then we got back together because she said it was a test from God.
She hated living with her family so we got an apartment together. She complained that I never offered to go see her parents. She’d get mad when I’d hang out with my guy friends. She destroyed my friendships with two people I cared for the most because she made up stories about them. When we broke up. she said she didn’t feel loved anymore. She moved out of the apartment, I had to finish the lease out alone for 7 months. She offered to pay her half of rent each month, which didn’t happen. She ended up taking herself off the lease agreement so she didn’t legally have to pay anything. We got a joint bank account when we first moved in so rent could be taken out of that. I still used it after she left so I could keep track of money. After I moved out at the end of the lease, the security deposit went into the joint account. I was working 65+ hour weeks just to get by so I didn’t have a chance to even see when the security deposit went into the account. She took all the money and left me with nothing. I know this story is all over the place but about a month after we broke up she started dating someone else from her new job. I haven’t talked to her since she moved out. This was about 2 and a half years ago and I’m still not over it. It’s sad that it’s taking me so long to heal and she got over it immediately.”
She Didn’t Love Me
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“Turned out she didn’t love me. Not really. In hindsight, it’s easy to see the signs: over a 5-year period or so, she only did a handful of things that you would really only do for someone you love, and specifically because you love them. Just the simple, kind, nice things you do in a healthy relationship: surprising someone with their favorite meal, doing a household chore they’ve been dreading to do, or buying them a small gift at random. That sort of stuff.
Other than that, she simply had ever increasing demands about who I should be, what I should or shouldn’t do, what clothes I should wear, etc. She knew, on some level, that it was unfair of her to ask me to change, and spoke this out sometimes too. Yet she did it anyway. She never compromised for my sake. And after a while, I found myself in more of a business relationship where we each did a portion of the household work, I put in a lot of extra effort to make her happy, and she ignored my existence beyond being amicable. No kisses, barely any cuddles or touch in general, and nothing but advice on how to deal with the issues in my life – never real emotional support.
Breaking up with her sucked, but it had to happen, and I wouldn’t for the world want to go back to how it was. I’d wish her all the best, but it never should have taken this long to begin with. I have no idea when she lost her love for me, but no one should be (or stay) in the kind of relationship I was in.”
Jealous And Insecure
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“She was needy, possessive, insecure. Didn’t want me to have any friends, didn’t matter if they were guys or girls. If I wanted to go hang out with some friends, which she was always invited to go, she’d shut down and act weird the whole night. Every night we’d go out to eat it would end in a fight. Since I’m generally aware of my surroundings, when someone walks by the table it catches my attention. Well if it happens to be a woman, she shuts down and acts weird the whole time at dinner, things get tense. After a couple times after this, I know she’s going to blow up when we get back to my place, accusing me of not wanting her, checking out other women, blah blah. There was no winning with her, it sucks cause she was really sweet but couldn’t believe that I cared for her. The last straw is she broke into my phone, and accused me of cheating for talking to a recruiter that helped me get a job (didn’t help the recruiter was flirty from the beginning and she heard the call), and accused me of seeing another woman, which was in fact my therapist. She had the dumbest look on her face when I pulled up her profile with the number on the companies website…
I missed her for a while but it was pretty emotionally abusive. She would have been happy if I didn’t talk to or look at anyone else again, man or woman. Crazy jealous…”
I Never Said That
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“I had been considering breaking up with her for a while because she would lie about little things that made no sense lying about. Never cheated or anything, but would do anything so that she would get more attention from me and other people.
I started noticing this when one night she sent me screenshots of her text messages between her and her dad. I had known her dad for a while and the things he was saying in these texts were awful. They were things like ‘You’re worthless’ and ‘I wish you weren’t my daughter.’ I knew they were things he would never ever say. The only thing he ever showcased was how much he loved his two daughters.
Thus, I was kind of skeptical when she sent me these because he would never say that stuff, but obviously I couldn’t just come out and tell her I didn’t believe her cause if it was true then I’d be a terrible person. This happens a few more times in the next few weeks and I’m just there for her trying to be a good boyfriend because there’s always a chance it could be true.
Well one weekend she went to a concert with her friend and after the concert she was trashed. We were FaceTiming and she told me that I was still in love with my ex. Immediately I’m like what are you talking about why do you say that?? She responds by telling me that I texted my ex telling her I still love her and she has the screenshot. I told her to send it to me and there it was, a screenshot of me telling my ex saying I love her. The problem was that I never sent that and it was obvious she texted herself saying that because she was out of her mind and wasn’t able to type that out correctly. She made it realistic though, because she even went out of her way to use the exact contact picture I had for my ex which was a very unique dumb picture. The moment this happened, I knew the screenshots of her dad weren’t real and I proceeded to say goodnight and break up with her the day she got back. That is why she is my ex.”