The Head Games Were A Little Much
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“She was a manipulative self-harmer. We got into an argument as I was on my way out to see an old friend. She was jealous that I had made plans with him and that I wanted to spend time with him one-on-one (we were going biking, which she didn’t really care for). It wasn’t some particularly heated argument. I came home a couple hours later to her holding an icepack to her neck. Apparently, she was so mad at me after I left that she decided to distract herself from the anger by making a cup of tea, and then pressing the bottom of the hot tea kettle to her neck. I was pretty disturbed as I had grown up with a mentally ill sibling that would self-harm and had, more than once, opened up to her about how terrible it had been wrestling away sharp objects from my sister and having standoffs through locked bathroom doors. Going to the ER and locking up all our knives and scissors.
I tried to get over it and love her for the good parts of her, but she instantly recognized how the incident opened up a weird door of controlling behavior for her. She could get me to agree to stuff by threatening to hurt herself, and the game of torturing me emotionally to get her way began.”
Money Can’t Buy Love
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“She demanded more and more money from me. I was working and she was unemployed, and soon she was spending almost everything I made. When that happened and I couldn’t give her more money, she demanded that I take on another job as well because ‘we needed money.’
I should add that I tried to find jobs for her and got her many interviews, but she never accepted one of those jobs. Instead, she lied about it and said stuff like, ‘They didn’t want me.’ But when I’d talk to the manager in charge, I’d learned that she didn’t even show up.
So I just broke up with her because how she treated me is in no way how you treat someone you actually care about.”
He Learned That Abuse Comes In All Shapes And Forms
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“I didn’t know I was getting married to a physically aggressive, crazy lady who equated her being physically violent on me to me being emotionally passive aggressive with her.
I tried not letting my emotions escalate the situation, which was something I had to learn through the whole ordeal. I realized that it just wasn’t worth losing my life and I have since gotten very good at deescalating arguments, even at the cost of my pride. I also had backups each time I recorded her violent acts on me because she had a habit of destroying everything in her wake, especially my phones and laptops. Of course, she always destroyed my possessions and not hers.
The scary bit is how I never saw this side of her personality until we started living together. At the end of the day, it was a great life lesson, and I’m the better for it.
After she assaulted and humiliated me, I just want some space to be let alone. I eventually called the cops on her, and now she’s out of my life.
When the cops came, they asked if I wanted to press charges and I said no. Yeah, I had some scars and sufficient video evidence as proof, but I didn’t want her to go to jail because I foolishly conceded that she had some redeeming qualities and was not completely a bad person. What I found out through a witness/neighbor was that she actually lied to the second cop and told him that I was the one who was assaulting her; the neighbor was well aware of her history of physical assault/aggression.
For me, the important thing was setting a precedent. She never laid a hand on me again after that day. I moved out soon after the incident and we now live in different cities, completely blocked out of each other’s lives.”
Her Political Obsession Was Too Much Even For Him
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“We dated off and on for five months. We spent most of the time out and about, home time was spent watching Netflix. We had some great times and so I thought I found the one.
Once she moved in, it was 14 hours a day of political ‘news’ and opinion shows, which would leak into every conversation we had about any subject. The entire DVR was filled within two weeks with the CNN and MSNBC six hours of evening politics shows. Delete one to make room for something and she knew within a few hours. It was creepy obsessive; she kept a notebook with TV schedules of those shows, with tightly planned viewing times and recordings to maximize being able to watch and record it all.
There was no hint of this when I asked her to move in. We agreed on most political issues too, but it’s not something I want to discuss often. I’m so glad when she moved out. It was so frustrating to have to cringe every time you speak a sentence because you know her next words are ‘I know you don’t like politics, but…'”
Who’s Worse – The Lazy One Or The Racist Homophobe?
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“I have some unresolved issues with an ex. She lives in the house we bought together, it is taking a long time to resolve, partly because I let it go a bit since I was the one that walked out. But I only did so after she became a heavy drinker, mentally abusive, and I started getting so depressed I would stay longer at work just not to be around her. While I was not actually contemplating suicide, I had that ‘if a car hit me now, that wouldn’t be bad’ type of feeling.
My new girlfriend is a passionate, smart, pretty, and fun person. She moved in with me because she spent most of her time at my house anyway, and a friend of hers came over to our city who was looking for a place to stay for a few months. We agreed she could stay in my girlfriend’s apartment and my girlfriend would move in with me for a few months and we’d see what’d happen.
My girlfriend is protective of me and hates what my ex did to me. Sometimes, she’ll go on a rant about her. Especially when she feels I’m not moving fast enough with the house.
Fine, but what’s not fine is that she knows my ex is black. And her rants about my ex aren’t, ‘That witch,’ they are always, ‘That BLACK witch.’ If we have a fight, she’ll tell me to go back to my ex, or to a female friend (who also happens to also be black) ‘because I like black chicks.’ She said she ‘felt sick to know that I slept with that black witch.’
Yeah, not cool. The fact that she also ‘doesn’t really like’ that I’m bi, something I told her right away when we started dating, which means I don’t feel like I can talk about anything regarding that… and has made some ‘That’s so gay’ remarks…
I’m breaking it off soon. I finally asked myself, ‘Why am I dating a racist homophobe?'”
How Do They Expect To Live With Someone Then?
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“She couldn’t handle any degree of confrontation. I’m not one for non-stop arguing, but if an argument needs to take place, then an argument needs to take place. I think it was to do with her upbringing and having a terrible father, but any time there was any degree of frustration building on my part, it just made her spiral/shutdown (with the occasional panic attack).
I tried my best to accommodate her, and, ultimately, as frustrating as it was, it was not a deal breaker for me. Unfortunately, it was for her. We’d tried couples therapy a year earlier and it had done absolute wonders for us, and I suggested we tried it again, but her mind was made up; she needed to go. She’d swept all of her issues under the rug and essentially created her own pressure cooker.
I feel bad for her because she seems of the genuine belief that there are healthy relationships out there that function with zero confrontation, and I feel as though she’s just going to keep repeating this cycle until she can come to the understanding that there are some changes she also needs to work on within herself.
Unlike her, I come from a household where, to this day, my parents still love each other very much, and I have observed them navigate the ups and downs of what a 30+ year marriage entails. All I wanted was the same with her. I miss her every day.”
Now That’s Just Disgusting
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“She ate her bodily fluids and pieces. She had bad eczema and she’d flake it off and eat it for breakfast. Big clump of ear wax? Snack. Nice big pimple? Lunch. Constant boogers.
She would bite off, fully chew, and consume fingernails and scabs. If it tells you what kind of person she is, she never even knew I caught her doing any of these things until I confronted her, mid vomit, when I saw the pimple thing. She was totally oblivious to the world around her; it was just her and her body snacks.
While I don’t regret having my child with her, I wish I had known these things before I full on kissed her hundreds of times.”
“She Had The Gall To Ask If I Hated Her”
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“She needed constant affirmation that I loved her or else she would think I hated her.
Here was the final straw: we were laying in her bed and I was trying to sleep. She just started poking me. I said, ‘Babe, I need to get to sleep, I have class at 8 am.’ A few minutes later, she poked me again, giggling. So I looked over and jokingly went, ‘Don’t make me go sleep on the couch.’
She said, ‘You wouldn’t.’
So I smirked and said, ‘Watch me.’ After about five minutes, I came back, when we ‘made up,’ and went back to bed. About 20 minutes passed and cue up the poking again. I just said:, ‘Oh, so we’re still playing this game?’ And went back to the couch. My plan was to go back in another few minutes. Well. I fell asleep.
I woke up an hour or so later and went back to the bedroom to find her missing. After saying her name and looking around, I was stumped. Then I noticed a light flickering under the closet door, where I found her with a candle, crying. I guess when I fell asleep on the couch, she thought I was mad. So I calmed her down, told her it was an accident, and we went to bed.
Cue 30 minutes later. She just blurted out, ‘Why do you hate me?’ That baffled me. I had just spent all weekend building her a fence, I changed her oil in her car and even changed out the plugs/belts/filters. And that evening, I had cooked her a really nice meal. The entirety of the past few days was characterized by me doing something for her every waking moment. And then she had the gall to ask me why I hated her. Because obviously all of those things I did for her with a smile on my face and love in my heart didn’t happen.
After the immediately following fight, I realized she was deeply emotionally clingy. She was never a clingy person. But she needed her emotions to be coddled in a way I wasn’t capable of doing. For God’s sake, I was still basically a child with my own issues. Lucky me, my dorm was all paid for. All I had to do was pack my stuff and leave.”
She Believes In All Sorts Of Hokey Things
“There are several things I wish I’d realized, been aware of or otherwise NOT ignored when we were dating:
She’s a whiz at being responsible for things like paying bills, making sure the kids are dressed for school, making sure the kids are REGISTERED for schools, etc.
She’s NOT capable of being responsible for her emotions. If she says something hurtful, it’s MY fault that it hurts. If I say something hurtful, that’s MY fault as well.
I either failed to realize or chose to ignore her issues with her exes, her father, and just men in general. I will admit she has plenty of valid reasons for criticisms and feeling the way she does because of her bad experiences. What I have a problem with is ME being presented with the bill for THEIR misdeeds.
Lastly, despite having a FAR more formal education than I do, she seems to SPRINT into supporting pseudo-scientific things:
Pasteurized/Homogenized milk is bad. We buy raw milk. She buys TONS of homeopathic, ‘ancient’ remedies and essential oils. I had no inkling she held these beliefs when we were dating. The first tip-off was when she got pregnant the first time and insisted on a midwife do the delivery instead of an OB/GYN. Ironically, she developed pre-eclampsia and spent the last three months of the pregnancy in a bed. During the actual delivery, things got quite a bit dicier than your average natural birth.
I’m happy to report everything turned out FINE, but an actual OB/GYN had to do the delivery because of what was going on, which a midwife would have been LAUGHABLY unprepared and untrained for.”
Does This Look Infected?
“I found out that she had something wrong with her feet – some kind of infection, she would never talk about it or seek treatment for it – which meant that we couldn’t wash her socks in with any of our other laundry, especially underwear.
I still don’t know what it was and I’m fine with that. She’s long gone from my life. She kept socks on all the time and the only real problem was when she wanted to borrow socks or shoes from me (same size feet). If I said no, she’d demand to know why, and then I’d say:
‘Because of the problem with your feet.’
‘What problem with my feet?’
‘The infection thing. Is it a fungus? Whatever it is, that means we can’t wash your socks in with the other laundry.’
And then she’d go nuts and completely lose her mind screaming and shouting that it was none of my business and I didn’t have the right to judge her and I have no idea how hard it is for her [insert increasingly unrelated screaming and crying].’
I have no idea how, or why, I lasted a whole year living with that woman.”
Frustrating Is An Understatement For This Husband
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“My wife has selective memory when it comes to arguments. She will tell me she never meant to do something, then after I refuse to back down, she will change her argument and say that she never said the former to begin with.
I don’t believe she’s maliciously gaslighting me because she often contradicts her own argument within the same sentence. She just gets flustered.
She told me I was the only man she had met that didn’t argue with her. Instead of trying to talk out problems and come to a compromise, every previous argument was just about yelling and insults.
It can be taxing, to say the least.”
So That’s What They Do For A Living
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“She was a streetwalker. I don’t remember the site name but it was similar to Craiglist, and she put pictures up.
At first, I didn’t believe it because her cousin, who we didn’t get along with, who’d sent me the screenshots. I thought he just made the post himself. Or I should say, she convinced me he fabricated the post.
Then one day, I snooped through her phone and found text messages of some guy asking if she had a runner because he could really help her out. And she had responded she’s doing fine on her own.”
It Only Gets Worse From Here
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“We never married, but we had just started dating for only a few weeks when one day, she just casually pulled out a fifth of some hard stuff from her purse and started drinking it straight out of the bottle.
I thought nothing of it at the time, but then it was like she was trying to get me to accept her problem by suddenly introducing me to it. But the deal breaker came when I told her that it was me or the bottle (at this point, she would be wasted all hours of the day). She stayed clean for a week and I was ecstatic. But then it was Thanksgiving and she was late to my mom’s house. She finally called me and I was expecting her to explain what the hold up was but no, it was her wasted butt calling me.
I told her not to bother coming over because we were done.
She died in 2013 and from what I hear, she overdosed on pills.”
I Bet He Won’t Make This Mistake Again
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“I made the mistake of letting a stoner move in with me. I told her I couldn’t stand the smell of pot inside, it’s stuffy and gross and makes me feel sick, so I’d prefer if she just smoked outside.
She responded by telling me, ‘Okay, I won’t. Well, maybe every once in a while, but I’m good at hiding the smell.’
It ended up being multiple times every day, and no, you can’t hide the smell because it’s strong and disgusting, and it’s not unfair for me to tell you to stop just because you pay half the rent. I told you that was a condition of moving into my home before you came here, and you’re disrespecting my space.”
Her Terrible Cooking Tore Them Apart
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“I discovered that she was psychologically incapable of following a recipe. We’d mostly dined out or been at my place before we moved in together (to another country where I knew nobody), so I’d never really sampled her cooking. She told me she wasn’t a confident cook but I thought we were looking forward to learning together.
It turned out that the problem was that she would get halfway through making something and then decide that she had a great idea of how to improve the dish. It would be some kind of improvisation. But she wasn’t an experienced enough cook to be able to do any kind of flavor matching. She’d just double the amount of something, or throw in some vinegar or nutmeg where no vinegar or nutmeg should be. Something she’d seen on a cooking show, but with different ingredients, and a different dish. She also had a habit of getting distracted and failing to pay attention to measurements, which made baking a terrifying experience.
I loved her, very much, and I became very good at chewing with no expression on my face at all. She’d get extremely upset if she suspected I wasn’t enjoying whatever she had cooked.
But she broke us.
She found this recipe for a spinach and ricotta cannelloni. I honestly thought it would be hard to mess up short of incinerating it completely. I was wrong. The recipe made a massive amount, so she halved all the measurements. Which would have been fine, except she didn’t halve the amount of garlic.
She got mixed up and doubled it.
I love garlic, but this was a very garlic-heavy recipe when made correctly. With quadruple the amount of garlic, it actually felt like it was burning your mouth. We both managed to choke down one serving of this stuff and put the other half in the fridge for the next day. Even double cling-filmed, the smell still managed to permeate through the tetra pack and into the milk several inches away. Garlicky milk on our cereal.
She admitted that maybe it hadn’t been a great dish and I gratefully double-bagged and threw the rest away.”