FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE DIVORCED/SEPERATED

[RegularNameChanger106]

What was the final nail in the coffin?
What was last thing your ex did to make you finally leave them?

I had already stopped loving him... he was shouting at me infront of the kids again... calling me all names under the sun, telling me I'm worthless ect, something just clicked and I thought no, I'm not doing this anymore! I got the kids and left and never ever looked back.

Basically affair which I was already aware of and “getting ducks in a row” so depends on your definition of “last straw”, at that point I guess you could say reading the email to her which was basically a total character assassination of me plus declarations of undying love to her, then he had a course with work and was supposed to be back on the Friday...he called me with a totally bullshit excuse about why he couldn’t come back till the Sunday!

And I knew she was with him (he didn’t know I knew this)

So I let rip with all I already knew, including I knew he was lying and he would be returning to his stuff on the lawn!

His response was initially to keep trying lying, which wasn’t really working for him then turned his phone off for the rest of the weekend.

I stuck to my word.

As it turned out if it hadn’t been those incidents then it probably would have been the fact that less than 2 weeks later the ow discovered she was pregnant! Which he tried to claim had only happened after we split - an attempt at lying that he tried to maintain until the child was almost at pre-school even claiming they were premature!

for...well basically everyone on the thread!

Nothing like a lot of these on here, I was unhappy for a long time and he kept making promises to change and work on things and nothing ever materialised. There was no abuse or infidelity but one day the penny suddenly dropped that he had no intention of making any changes and if I didn't leave I would be unhappy for the rest of my life. I'm loving being single and can't see myself ever being in a relationship again.

My ex would be in work all the time - from 5am to sometimes 9pm+ at night. He wouldn't talk to our children unless it was to tell them off for something and refused to take them anywhere as they would 'moan constantly'. There was no final straw as such, no amount of asking him to work less and treat the kids better worked and I'd had enough. After growing up with a waste it space dad I refused to let my kids get treated the same. He sees them sometimes when they go to his parents for me to work but he's not had them over once in the almost two years since we left. They're better off without him.

It was a 'double click'. My friends had been telling me and telling me and I finally started really seeing that his abusive behaviour was not my fault. That was the first 'click'. I was just on the verge of kicking him out when he announced that he did not, and had not ever, wanted children. This despite my talking about 'when we have kids' and discussing 'potential' children's names. That was the final 'click'. I thought about what the rest of my life would be like with him for about 24 hours then told him to get the hell out.

My straw was finding the text messages between him and the OW. Talk about things falling into place. It only took another couple of months to get him out of the house, then another 6 years of family court.

The lies he told to me and to his family. Just awful. That is the primary reason I cant bear him. If he wasnt happy all he had to do was say. I was more than happy for him to see his DC - as I hadnt yet realised how harmful he was as a parent. FII - made for him.

Taking yet another boys trip, this one leaving in Xmas day because the flight was cheaper. I didn’t even realize it was the end from my perspective until he had gotten on the plane.

Of course, tons of problems leading up to that moment.

Didn’t even ask me how an interview for a second job went but was quick to assign the extra money to things he wanted when I got the job. Picked a fight, which was actually more him sitting telling me how awful I was the night before I started my new job. Stormed off out of the house when I got upset and tried to defend myself. Scaring me to the point I lay awake in bed with our toddler and dog most of the night, feigning sleep when he came home and stood over the bed staring at me. He picked up where he left off the next morning and I told him it was over and to be out by the time I got home and pushed my way past him to get in the car (DD came to work with me) and drove to work with my legs shaking. Didn’t tell my bosses in either job for about a week. They were all fantastic and very supportive.

When I was finally told that I hadn't been loved for the last 7 years.

I just couldnt stand the way he spoke to me for one more second. Wish I'd done it sooner. I was far more loyal to him than I ever was to me.

The multiple affairs, not helping with the kids because “he’s not wasting his downtime babysitting”, calling me frigid when I didn’t feel like having sex, calling me fat and comparing me to every other female, financially controlling. Stupid thing is when he walked out on me I was so browbeaten and had no self esteem that I was devastated. Only now in years on the other side I can see how toxic it was and he did me a favour

@TheDuchessofMalfy

Eating a yoghurt in slow motion when I needed his help getting the kids to bed.

I suspect that there’s a long back story there😙

It wasn’t the physical, mental, financial and sexual abuse.
Wasn’t even when he came to aim a running kick at my eight month pregnant stomach, I was only ‘saved’ by my toddler who screamed in such primal fear and threw herself across me probably saving me and her unborn sibling.

It was when I found myself throwing myself between his belt and my toddler who he’d turn on constantly. He’d been having an affair and I guess me falling pregnant with my second child didn’t fit in with the narrative he’d fed OW.

What totally did it for me, was when he refused to do the grocery shopping even tho he was he only one who drove (I wasn’t allowed to learn), and when I returned he went thro the receipt and screamed at me for buying a 49p limited addition tobelerone. When I gave him the 49p he went on a tirade how he’d strip me of every bit of dignity and throw me out of my house naked.

Something inside me totally snapped. I wanted to die, I didn’t want to be there anymore.
I remember praying that I’d die and my dc have an amazing mother in my place so they’d never feel my loss.

Next day he got himself arrested for assaulting me and then continuing to abuse me in front of the police he’d called because apparently I’d assaulted him 🙄. Police officers had clearly all seen it before and were very worried about leaving me alone with him, and the senior officer had turned and looked at me and said, I take it you want him to be charged with assault on you as he wants to press charges of assault on him? He was desperately trying to ensure I didn’t get shafted.

The police put him on bail, gave me the number of the local solicitor they worked closely with and I had an emergency non-mol twenty four hours later.

Didn’t look back.

My dc don’t recognise him or think of him. The only gripe they have is that they don’t have DP’s surname as their younger siblings do.

It had been a very long time coming: verbal abuse, refusal to participate in family life and heavy drinking.

The thing that finally made me snap was when he walked out of a secure and fairly well paid job (we had a three year old) without consulting me to “start my own business” and demanded I give him five grand to start this business,

And then threatened to burn the house down if I refused. Funnily enough it was hard to come back from that.

For me it was finding empty bottles hidden in the bedroom - I knew he would always choose alcohol over me and DDs.

He's dead now, DDs and I are happy.

It was over when he pinned me to the floor and tried to choke me.

This probably sounds ridiculous but I put out up with at least 3 affairs I was aware of, physical abuse, financial abuse, coercion, emotional abuse, I even have a video of him damaging my car in the middle of the night so I couldn't go to work the next day and I stayed because every time he told me how sorry he was and what an awful childhood he had and he would change. Each time I felt guilty and stayed.
Then one day we were driving quite happily and chatting and I mentioned my friend was buying a new car, he told me he never wanted a new car he wanted to drive old chappy cars forever so he could spend his wage on 'fun'
In that instant I realised it was over. He didn't want anything better for our lives than to continue to constantly drag us into debt.
I saw a solicitor the next day to start a divorce. That one comment made me finally see him for who he was

Some of these are so awful.

Mine said hed cheated and was apologising madly. I just thought nah I'm done and that was that.

Four years on we are good mates.

20 years of emotional abuse, sexual abuse final straw was him telling me that my chronic illness I’d just been diagnosed with was going to get in the way of his career.. I left and then found out he had someone else and he had been taking her into our marital home. I filed for divorce straight away. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his first affair. I am glad every day that I left.

When he slept with my ex best mate.

When he told me I was obsessed with our DD and I should put him first....before confessing his affair of 6 months.

There were many things throughout the 4 years, going to work and not coming home for several days due to benders in between shifts, spending silly money we didn't have on expensive gyms over an hour away from where we lived, just generally sucking every ounce of self worth I had by making life unnecessarily difficult (but only for me, he was still having a great time) Finally broke when I discovered he'd started sleeping with a random woman he met on the tube on his way home from a party when our daughter was 9 weeks old. They carried on and I discovered everything when DD was 14 weeks and left the next day, never looked back. He tried to make life difficult for a while but he knows I won't take it any more. He's recently been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, makes sense!

The final straw was finding irrefutable written evidence of his affair, prior to that I had my suspicions because he was going out drinking more, he was moody and distant with the kids as well as me. A few months after I asked him to leave he moved in with the ow.

He never did any of the housework, barely did any child related stuff, if he went to the supermarket it was because he wanted something in particular, he wasn't bothered that the house was falling apart around us and didn't care that the garden looked like a jungle. If we went anywhere as a family it was OK as long as he could drink or get back in time to go to the pub for a few hours.

Funnily enough I recently heard through the grapevine that the ow has been complaining that he doesn't do anything around the house, is unadventurous wrt to food and generally does nothing except drink.

@terrelontane
That brings a tear to my eye! Hurray for decent dads!

It was a gradual process of selfishness, never doing any housework, gardening, decorating, anything to help out and getting worse and worse over the years.
Holidays were only ever where he wanted to go my needs didn't matter and I loathe city breaks. I like the country or the sea and really longed to go to Greece or Italy but that didn't suit him.
no communication whatsoever, never made his needs known unless it was whining about sex, his idea of communication was to sit there in silence and expect me to be psychic.
Sulking, the endless sulking.
Being nasty to me on my birthday always.
But the final nail in the coffin was watching endless porn and deciding he wanted to fully embrace the BDSM lifestyle, something I loathe.
He was finding it harder and harder to get it up for normal sex and he'd spent so much time wanking to porn and he finally left to fully embrace the BDSM lifestyle.
He did ask to come back but I declined because I was sick to fucking death of his crap.