Ending a relationship is never easy, especially a relationship you spent so much time and energy in. It's hard to accept that after all those years that maybe they aren't "the one." These people share what made them call it quits on their long-term relationship.
Content has been edited for clarity.
“His Appearance Would Change Drastically”
“We started dating at the end of our senior year of high school in 2016 and even stayed together after graduation, but because we lived in two different towns the relationship turned into a long-distance one. We rarely saw each other since neither of us drove or had cars. Every time we did meet up somewhere, his appearance would change drastically. He gained so much weight and started shaving his head (a look I’m not too fond of), which resulted in me losing attraction to him over time. And we had different goals in life: he just wanted to live in his grandmother’s trailer, play video games all day and eat junk food while I wanted to work on my health and move out of my hometown. I eventually broke up with him in 2018.”
She Lost More Than Her Temper
“Her brother was living with us and this was right when WiFi was becoming available to the general public. We couldn’t afford it because we were broke kids, so her brother would take my girlfriend’s MacBook (it was a gift) and sit on a nearby bus bench and leech off someone’s unsecured WiFi.
Well, one day we got a call from her sister and she said we needed to get home immediately. It turned out some guys came up and asked her brother for change for a 20 buck and when he told them he didn’t have it they tried to snatch the MacBook and jump in their car.
He knew it wasn’t his so he held onto it and tried to get it back but they were too much. He had gotten dragged by the car, kicked in the head, and then had his leg run over. He was in pretty bad shape.
As we turned the corner (didn’t know what had happened yet) my girlfriend saw cop cars and an ambulance.
She then said, ‘This better not have anything to do with my Mac.’
We walked inside our home to see her brother visibly in bad shape.
She immediately said, ‘Did you lose my Mac?’
I’ll never forget his face. He was so ashamed and felt terrible and just started crying.
She however screamed at him, ‘My computer! My computer!’
Then started hitting him. To the point where the cops considered arresting her. It was an instant eye-opener.”
“The One”
“I had a girl break up with me while on a vacation not because something happened, but simply because midway through, she thought she would feel more elated going on vacation with a boyfriend for the first time, so obviously I wasn’t ‘the one.’
I was hurt but I decided to be mature about it and to make the most out of the vacation anyway. The way I handled it proved to be a big turn-on for her – maybe I could be ‘the one’ because her Prince Charming would always be understanding, empathetic, and cool-headed even when upset.
When we came home, she told me she had made a terrible mistake and obviously, her judgment had been wrong. She insisted on paying for me to take another vacation with her because she felt terrible for ‘ruining’ mine. It was a classy thing to do.
She broke up with me again a few months later because this time she was sure I wasn’t the one. I realized I dodged a major bullet. We remained friends while she found and unfound ‘the one’ about eight times in six to seven years.”
He Was The Issue
“I was in a long-distance relationship and I had this sinking feeling in my stomach whenever the thought of moving came up. Then one day I had a job interview in the city where he lived, which also happened to be a city I had a lot of friends in. After the job interview, I hung out with my friends and had a blast, but the sinking feeling didn’t go away. I eventually realized I wasn’t afraid of moving to the city he lived in, I was afraid of living with him.
He was the kind of guy who was into an ambitious woman in theory but also wanted her to do all of the cooking, cleaning, and other house duties. I realized that eventually I would become his housewife, because he wanted kids and definitely wasn’t going to help much. That was not the future I wanted for myself.”
Everyone Believed Him, But His Own Girlfriend
“About 10 years ago, I dated a guy for three years. We even got engaged (I was only 18, and later found out that my mom bought the ring for him to give to me.).
He was extremely charming. By all accounts he was a great guy, he would go out of his way to do nice things for people, always sweet to me, and my parents (especially my mom) loved him.
But then he started lying about things that were really important to me. I was looking for a job, he said he put in a good word for me with the owner of this one jewelry store. I went there to talk to the owner and pick up an application. The store owner proceeded to tell me that my fiancee made no mention of me, which meant he didn’t put a good word in for me as he said.
Another example was when we had planned to go to a concert in another state. Several of my favorite bands were playing there. He said he had bought the tickets and they were at will call. I drove us the two-plus hours to get there, only to find out that there were no tickets in his name (or mine) at will call. Then we found out the show was sold out. He made all sorts of excuses, saying that the vendor must have messed up. Maybe they did, but he had lied too often to me at this point for me to believe him. We hopped right back in the car and I drove the two-plus hours back, in the rain (while sobbing.)
I think the true last straw was when he lied about having brain cancer. Here’s the thing, he went to the hospital pretty often, and it was always coincidently right after we had a big fight. The last time though I didn’t drop everything to go see him at the hospital, all of his friends (and my mom) thought I was a prick.
Yeah, I probably was for thinking he was lying about brain cancer when I didn’t know for sure, but it’s hard to believe a chronic liar about anything. I found out later (from my mom, surprise) that he didn’t have cancer.
He also refused to give me space after we broke up. Constantly texting, calling, and coming to my house. My mom let him in the house once. I didn’t want to speak to him, told him that as well as my mom, and locked myself in my room. My mom proceeded to tell him where the key for the lock was (despite my protesting) and he unlocked my bedroom door so that we could talk. Looking back it seemed pretty harmless I guess, maybe I overreacted. But I wanted no contact from him though and he didn’t respect that boundary. It felt like an invasion of my ‘safe’ space.
After we broke up, my mom stayed in contact with him for several years. She always took his side over mine. She refused to meet any of the guys I dated for six years after we broke up. I ended up moving out at 19 because of how strained my relationship with my mom became after the break-up. She even bought him things, like a plane ticket. My mom and I have since talked things out, and she admits to being manipulated by him. She has met my current SO (and likes him – but doesn’t cross boundaries as she did with my ex-fiance.).”
“He Was Very Insecure Of My Best Friend”
“When I was alone, I had a panic attack at the thought of spending the rest of my life together with him. Like actual shaking, screaming, crying panic attack. Once I recovered, I went and threw up in the toilet.
We broke up about a month later.
It wasn’t one particular thing, mostly I felt like I always had to battle for the right to have my own opinion. One example was when he didn’t agree with me, he would resort to insulting my opinion and saying something like ‘only clueless idiots believe that.’
He never did something I wanted to with grace, it was always with moaning and complaining. He would always try to ruin it for me. He was very insecure of my best friend (who is like a brother to me, was in a relationship of his own, and nothing ever happened between us that could even be considered two percent inappropriate) just because he was a guy.
And he put me down a lot. I was ashamed to introduce him to my friends or bring him along because he would say something offensive or mean about either me or them. I kept making excuses for him, but after that panic attack, it was like my eyes finally opened. While it took me a month to work up the courage to leave him, I’m glad I had that panic attack because otherwise I probably never would’ve broken up with him.”
She Gave Him An Ultimatum
“We lived together for three years after college. She was suffering from depression and rehabbing from back surgery. She decided she needed to move back in with her parents to receive full-time care to improve her health. She gave me an ultimatum to either quit my job and move across the country with her or stay and break up.
I was in line for a big promotion that I had spent three years working to earn.
I tried to bring myself to apply for jobs in the new city, but my internal conscience told me that I was doing something that would betray my long-term best interests. I wanted to want to move but deep down I really didn’t want to leave my job and take a step back in my career. So I chose to stay.
I made the right choice. A few months later, I received an award, a promotion to Vice President, a bonus large enough to pay off my car and most of my student loans, and an 85 percent raise.”
“Would I Want My Kid To Grow Up In A Toxic Environment?”
“A lot of hardships had come our way over the last five years and he was not a supportive partner to me. He developed mental health issues (severe paranoia) which prevented him from keeping a job. I felt like everything was on me to keep it all together.
I kept telling him he needed to work on himself and his paranoia, and that I was genuinely concerned for his mental health. This went on for about five years and he just got more and more extreme. He lost most of his friends. He spent every waking hour on the internet or protesting on the street because of his conspiracy theories. He got arrested for assault. Then almost arrested again a few days after his probation ended. It has got to the point now where you can’t have a five-minute conversation without him bringing up something very off base with reality.
One day a few weeks ago I finally snapped. I gave him an ultimatum. Either admit that you weren’t well and that you couldn’t continue to live your life like this, or I was out. I spent so much time and energy trying to help him and ‘save’ him. But he couldn’t admit there was anything wrong. He told me that I was ‘gaslighting’ him and that I was emotionally abusive. I held a lot of resentment towards him for not taking responsibility for his issues and life, but I was the farthest thing from abusive. I love him (stupidly) even still.
I started to think that I wanted to have a child someday and that having a child with this person would be absolutely horrible.
If he couldn’t support me emotionally now, how could he when we had a kid together? Would I want my kid to grow up in a toxic environment? Homeschooled with no vaccines? Am I okay living the rest of my life without getting my needs met? Am I okay facing this kind of drama every single day of my life?
It was just overwhelming to even try to see my future as anything but a constant struggle.
So I ended my 15-year relationship. I honestly didn’t even plan to, I just snapped. Couldn’t take it anymore. And he had been pretty horrible to me. Calling me weak and telling me I was a Nazi. He would do things to jeopardize my home and my work. It was really, really sad. He thought I had betrayed him, but I didn’t think it was fair to expect someone to stay with you if you couldn’t work on yourself and admit that your life was an imploding black hole pulling everything else down with it. Hopefully, someday he realizes what we had, and how hard I tried to save it, but even if he doesn’t it isn’t really my problem anymore. I’m going to start living for myself again.”
What Happened To His Happiness?
“Three days ago, I broke up my two-year relationship. We lived together and shared pretty much everything. I was devastated. Currently laying on the floor of my new bedroom in a new house because I haven’t even had time to bring my bed over.
It started off amazing, I’ve never loved and cared about someone so much in my life. She was my best friend and I miss her so much. It ended because after the first year it started to get increasingly more and more toxic. I started to realize how truly immature she was for her age (27). She would take out all her stress on me in a really toxic way. Also, the way she treated money always had me terrified of our future together. It got to a point where whenever I came to her with a problem with the relationship or with her, she would scream at me and make it about how bad of a boyfriend I was. So many problems have popped up recently which made my self-esteem, self-worth, and happiness drop to a three from having her scream at me all the time.
Three days ago, we were having one of our many spectacular fights and she decided that it would be a good idea to break up with me as a test to see if I would fight for the relationship. That was the breaking point for me (I told her at the beginning that I don’t put up with that), I told her she couldn’t take it back and I started looking for a new place almost immediately.
Two nights ago, I was still staying at the house we rented together in the spare room because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. She got wasted and asked me to talk to her, to which I accepted. She proceeded to barricade herself against the door to our bedroom knowing I wouldn’t lay a finger on her to move her out of the way and leave. She then started screaming at me with all her might about how worthless I am, how she hated me, and never loved me. It got to the point where I had my worst ever panic attack and she still wouldn’t let me out. She just screamed at me to stop being a baby.
Anyway, now I’m out and very relieved. I’m feeling a lot safer, but still very upset about throwing away the last two years.”
Birthday Dinner Gone Wrong
“There were a lot of reasons for why we needed to break up. But the moment when I realized we weren’t going to make it was my 30th birthday.
He had told me he had made reservations at a hotel to celebrate in a nearby city and he would cover everything. He got a good deal on the hotel room, and they even upgraded us for free when they found out it was my birthday. It was going well at first when he paid for drinks at happy hour at a famous local hotel.
Dinner on the other hand he kept a surprise and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. It ended up being an Italian seafood place. I hate seafood. And while I like Italian, I don’t really like going out to eat it at restaurants. He knew all this too. He had picked arguments with me in the past because he couldn’t accept that I don’t like seafood. So I figured there must be something on the menu I could eat because why else would he take me here for my birthday.
There were a couple of things I could eat, but nothing very exciting. I think I ordered a plate of Italian sausage with peppers and onions. Meanwhile, he was delighted by all the seafood he could pick from. When our food came, I didn’t enjoy it because the entire place reeked of fish. He just happily chowed down on the steamed mussels or whatever it was that he ordered. Since it was dark and loud in the restaurant, he didn’t even notice that I was crying because he was enjoying his food so much.
Basically, he knew that I probably wouldn’t like the restaurant, but he just didn’t care. It was someplace he had wanted to try with no thought to what I would want for my 30th. Then the real kicker was at the end of dinner. He confessed that money was tight and he asked if I would cover dinner.
I did. And I ended up covering all of our meals and drinks for the rest of the weekend. It was then that I realized we weren’t going to last.
Sadly it took several months for us to actually break up. Our lives were too intertwined to do it in a clean way. Unfortunately, I didn’t break up with him when he tried to get physical after I confronted him about stealing money from me. Or the second time. We only broke up when I caught him sending inappropriate pics to other people, and he then complained that we didn’t have enough intimacy together. I’m sorry, I’m not exactly thrilled to do the ole razzle-dazzle with someone who generally treated me like trash, stole from me, and tried to abuse me. Twice.
Within a week he was in a relationship with someone else. He confessed to my friends (for some reason thinking that they had more loyalty to him than me) that there was some overlap in the relationships.
Even after all of this and the breakup, he didn’t understand why I didn’t want to do it with him anymore. He also wanted to get a two-bedroom apartment together so that we could still live together and have hook-ups while we saw other people. Apparently, he still considered me his best friend. He was so angry that I wouldn’t do any of that for him anymore, and he still tried to maintain control over me by playing mind games for months after.
It only finally stopped when I blocked him on my phone and social media. But I realized that I should have done all of that back on my 30th birthday.”
“We Would Sit In Silence With Our Webcams On”
“We were together for five years and long-distance for two of them. I realized one day it felt like just going through the motions when she answered the Skype call. I could see it in her eyes too. We got to a point where we spent more time muted on the call so we could do other things like she was more interested in reading and I was more interested in hopping on chat on the game with friends. We would sit in silence with our webcams on and barely look at each other. The flame just went out.
I eventually just had to sit down and really re-evaluate some stuff. It was a really hard conversation and absolutely broke my heart to tell her. We cried together and had the best conversation we had in over a year.”
She Would Rather Have Rather Been At The Library Than With Her Boyfriend
“I would stay late at work or study in the library after class partly because I didn’t want to go home and be around my ex-boyfriend. I dreamt about going somewhere else. I knew I would get home to dirty dishes, laundry on the floor, and no food ready to eat. I was to be expected to do all that while he sat on the couch. By the time I finished doing all the chores, I would be tired and just wanting to relax. But that was when he would want to hook up. He sometimes would berate me for not being in the mood.
Cleaning up after him was a turn-off, but he still rarely bothered to do his fair share after the first year.
I realized I was taking after my mom, and I didn’t want that. I left, and now I’ve got half the cooking and cleaning to do, and I enjoy my time at home.”
The Beautiful Trip With An Ugly Truth
“I took 10 days off work and traveled around some parts of Australia with him (we had an unexpectedly long-distance relationship at that point). I lost my wages and commission for those 10 days, but I still paid for the hire car and hotels and for over 50 percent of the meals and drinks which was over 2,000 bucks. I didn’t care because I knew he couldn’t afford more and I just wanted to see him.
Our last night I asked him what we were – was I his girlfriend? I didn’t dare ask what our future was after eight years. I just wanted to know what I was to him. He drank as much of his adult beverage as possible (he was a functioning drinker) and evaded the question. The next morning, we were supposed to go for breakfast before I went back to work. He couldn’t/wouldn’t get out of bed. The next day was my birthday, did I get a card?
Nope.
That was the last I ever saw him. It turns out what I was, I was someone who would give him free holidays and pay for things. I didn’t even call it a day, just made the decision that I wouldn’t contact him and just wait for him to contact me. That was November 1999. I’ve just discovered that he passed away in 2019, so I can give up waiting.
I met my husband in 2012 and he has made me realize how much stuff I put up with. I am incredibly tall and my ex-boyfriend, who was a lot shorter, was ashamed of that. I think I felt that that was all I deserved, that no one would ever love me properly or find me worthy.
To anyone out there who feels as I did – you are wrong. You are worthy and you can go out there and find the person who values you. Don’t waste time and put up with trashy people; it has physical and mental consequences. Ripping off the bandaid is painful but ultimately isn’t as bad as long, drawn-out pain.