I knew my relationship was over when.........

[Itwasoverwhen]

We went camping, there was a huge storm, he packed up his car and left me with 3 children, a huge tent to take down and everything still to pack in the lashing rain and wind because 'his stuff was packed'. I was still there an hour later and a man from a neighbouring tent couldn't even believe he had gone and just left me to struggle on my own.

Your turn...

Mild compared to some on here, but my boyfriend screamed at me for a good five minutes in front of his best friend because I’d left a button pushed down on the shower. His friend was bewildered. It was the long line in a series of incidents and I saw with utter clarity in that moment how little he thought of me.

I broke up with him the next week, he cried and said he just didn’t understand where it had come from

When she called me Ronnie a couple of times without realising it, my name isn't Ronnie.

He went to see my mother with my sister because he was ‘worried about our children.’ It’s now three years since he’s bothered to see them …..

When I worked 2 jobs saw his phone ring at 2am with a woman’s name apparently he was helping her at work ? Gambling on horses and spat in my face . Bye bye soon after he was with the woman who phoned

When he told me to stop making so much noise while I was in labour! Loser.

When he was out all day drinking..came home and got a hammer from the storeroom... came in livingroom and said.. this is how much you piss me off and put the hammer through the rental tv while the kids were watching it

When he stole thousands of pounds from some of my favourite friends, who had employed him because they trusted me, and gambled the lot away –then cried on his knees in front of me and told me I couldn't say anything to them because we'd have nowhere to live.

No, buddy –YOU have nowhere to live. Finally, I've realised I'm fine without this, thanks.

When he beat me up in the hospital room days after having a c section because I wanted him to stay with me and the baby and not going drinking with his mates. I was 19 and he was 27. He’d beat and abused me since I was 16. It took me another year to find a home for me and my son and took many beatings in that time but that point in hospital was the day I realised I was done.

When he thought I was just pretending to be ill so I could go to bed without him, 2am that morning I had an emergency appendix operation that nearly killed me.

"LaBellina

When I found out that he had made a complete mess of his financials and that if I’d stay, it would negatively affect mine too.
I left that night, best decision I ever made"

LaBellina- me too! I am glad you got out! My financials were hit and he didn't care. That kind of stress and worry is awful. For me it was that, when I realised the "updates" on financials/bills were not true and the comment about "if they take us to court it's fine, we just tell them we have no money" ... no. Just no.

I am doing much better now but was run into the ground. Just wish I had left sooner.

My ex was a lovely bloke, really would help anyone with anything, his one flaw was he couldn't keep his di#k out of other women! I was so obsessed with him that all the people telling me stuff about him were just jealous, or mistaken! My first twinkle of awakening was when we got engaged and my best friend said to me "You know he won't marry you don't you?" Then a few months later when yet another person told me they'd seen him kissing a girl in a club, the same friend asked me to stop talking to her about him as she was so fed up of the same old story and it was like the blinkers fell off and we broke up shortly after. Wasted 8 years of my life but it meant that I was free at the right time to meet my amazing husband so I'd do it all again if I had to

When I found a photo of a rough old lady (in her 60's) dressed in a PVC nurses outfit sitting on his lap hanging round his neck and a message with him saying she's a naughty dirty sexy girl and he can't control himself around her

And when I confronted him with it he said its just a bit of banter and I've got no sense of humour. This is the same man who a week earlier went mental because I tried on a male friends hat

He still tells anyone who wants to listen that I over reacted. Luckiest escape ever

@cuparfull

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken Yes, for financial or "other" benefit is exactly what he meant by .... "You are sitting on a goldmine" At aged 13 yrs, you learn to laugh it off but the emotional fallout never leaves. I couldn't wait to shed myself of his malign influence.

And now I have a respectful partner whom I treat as I wish to be treated.

But this thread has reinforced my intention that Women & Children Refuges will benefit in my will.

Holy shit. That was how I read it but thought “no, surely I’ve misinterpreted it”

He held the bedroom door shut and wouldn't let me out.

When I found out, just like @Armychefbethebest , that he lied about being in the military.

Surprisingly, this was after I left my kids went to visit him for two week in his country, he hid my passport so I couldn't get home, emotionally, verbally and physically abused me, isolated me from ALL outside contact that wasn't phoning my kids which he sat and listened to in case I said anything bad, faked PTSD episodes, threatened to kill me if I left him numerous times and I ended up having to report myself to ICE and call the police when I finally made it to an airport in case he came back for me after I somehow convinced him to give me my passport and willingly drop me off.

My Grandmother died while I was away and I wasn't even allowed to go home for her funeral and now I have PTSD and constant therapy. Fuck you Mike.

When I found out he slept with a 15 year old, he was 25

@ChocAuVin

It should have been the first time he raised his voice and shouted, “No fucking bitch will ever tell me what to do.”

Or maybe the time when he first threw a full plate of food I’d cooked for him up in the air and essentially said ‘now look what you’ve made me do.’

Or the first time he poked me in the chest, hard.

Or the first time I woke up to find him having sex with me — or even the time he acted like he wanted a medal for agreeing not to do that any more.

Or any one of the other —literally countless— ways he abused me in a constant cycle of charm, blow out behaviour, then freezing out, for nearly two decades.

Sadly none of these things ever felt like enough for me to admit it was over. I was utterly terrified of ‘ruining my kids’ lives’ by leaving and always second-guessed myself about whether it was bad enough.

In the end it took him punching me in the face and grabbing my throat to leave for good.

I really hope you are in a better place now. I had something similar with my eldest daughters dad. She was 4months old in my arms, he was drunk and went for me. That was enough. She was put into her cot safe out of the way. He then proceeded to grab me around the neck then I come to and HE had a bloody nose. I shoved IT out the door, and 14 years later still hasnt seem his daughter. Good riddance to rubbish!!!!

A couple of incidents all together. When I'd had a seizure at work and he'd told the office who'd rang him to come and get me that I just needed to sleep and I'd be good to go (It was a school). Came and got me and spent the whole way back screaming at me for inconviniencing him as he needed to take his grand daughter to nursery and why didn't I just sleep. Followed by a week's silent treatment.

Month later (turning point) leaving me in the car after I'd had another seizure and buggering off upstairs without glancing back or helping me.

Shortly after dropping me off at AnE with suspected blood meningitis and telling me to ring him when I wanted picked up as he wasn't prepared to pay any parking charges to be with me.

It was then I realised that if I couldn't trust him to step up and look after me when I was at my most vulnerable I couldn't trust him at all. I could write a book on the shitty things he did but those were the top three. Off you fuck pet...

When he said 'why are you angry, you knew I was lying' ..when he came clean about him sexting other women AGAIN, after I'd forgiven him the first time, which he had repeatedly denied and made out I was paranoid.

When he knocked me out cold for being angry when he bullied my dog. Leaving him was the best thing I ever did.

when I woke up in the middle of the night and he wasn't there. He could have been dead in a ditch or in someone else's bed. And I realised I didn't care either way. I kissed my baby daughter and went back to sleep.

We were young parents age 16, the police came to my door to speak to my partner of two years, there had been a rape in the area ( it wasn't my partner) but because he had ask the paper girl out for a date she was sixteen, she reported it, we lasted two more years but I never trusted him.

A member of his family told me he didn’t want a retard for a daughter. Our 9 month old was diagnosed with a syndrome.

We had split previously and were no longer living together. He would stay over a few nights a week to help with the kids (that in itself is a joke) and to try and work on our marriage.
I work from home and had an old friend and her husband over, who I hadn't seen in nearly a year, to collect an order. We were chatting away and laughing etc for a few hours. Ex stayed in bed the entire time, bear in mind this is like 2 in the afternoon. After they left he started screaming at me that he needed utter silence to sleep and that if I wanted him to move back in then I couldn't have people over and that he wouldn't live the rest of his life like that. I literally have 2 friends, who would only come over when he wasn't there.
In that moment it clicked that I hated having him in my house (he was no longer on the lease), in my bed that I paid for, dictating what I do with my life. He had emotionally and financially abused me for almost 10 years and I was truly terrified of him. All that fear just melted away and I physically dragged him out of my bed and told him to get the fuck out of my house and to never come near me again. He went awol for nearly 5 months and it was bliss. He does have visitation with the kids now, and 3 years later we actually get on OK. I put that down to me no longer being scared of him and him realising that he fucked up the only good thing he had in his life.

I knew my relationship was over when.........

My best friend of 15 years (we were like sisters, like family, did everything together, I bought her a fridge freezer when hers broke, put cream & a dressing on her bum cheek wound, persuaded her to get a skin anomaly checked out that turned out to be cancerous, supported her through a mental breakdown - she supported me through my divorce and picked me up from night out when I'd had enough - we were aa close as can be ) allowed her son to bully (and I don't use the word lightly) my daughter.

They were both in year 11, in a half term GCSE revision session when he added her to an iPhone chat with 3 of his friends. She'd only had the phone 24 hours so had no idea how to stop the notifications in that moment in the middle of a classroom of people.

They sent 194 messages in 1 hour, basically just ripping her apart, from her looks to personality, sayimgbthings about her family members - she burst into tears and had a panic attack and I was called to pick her up.

I spoke to my friend, she said 'oh just let school deal with it' - her son said he'd added my daughter to the chat to wind up his one friend who my daughter friend zoned and threw my girl under the bus but because he hadn't said any of the really awful things, just added her and laughed along because 'it was funny" he didn't think he had anything to apologise for...he refused.

So school called in his parents and he still refused and they backed him saying technically he hadn't said anything terrible so they wouldn't ask him to apologise - so school removed his prefect status.

Before I even found that out, she'd blocked my phone number, blocked me on all social media, blocked me on WhatsApp, messenger etc - her family had all blocked me too and all but 2 people in our group of friends all stopped talking to me completely without even hearing my side of things, she'd clearly been keen to tell them hers. She'd even blocked my kids on everything too.

I grieved as though I'd been bereft and I guess in a way I was. My best friend and my friendship group gone overnight and even 7 years later, I still feel hurt sometimes but after a while I started to realise that I'd been freed by it.

She had always used me, I even did her entire Christmas gift shopping one year as she was too busy, she'd always treat me as if I knew nothing because her family were all gifted in the education world and I didn't even go to uni, she often embarrassed me loudly in public which she thought was hilarious. I was treated 'affectionately' as the pity friend for years after I had to give up my job when my little girl became disabled from a brain injury.

She's very big in her religious circle and worked in a primary school and EVERYONE loved her ... but I heard and saw the real her many times but, so long as It was followed by an apology to her God it was all okay.

So yeah ... it's not just romantic relationships that can be toxic!