If you've ended a relationship not because of abuse or cheating what was it that tipped the balance?

[margerykemp]

I mean when a relationship isn't all bad and there are lots of things you'd miss at what point do you/did you call it a day over 'minor' incompatibilities?

Is it normal to change your mind about how you feel about a relationship from one day to the next?

Is the grass always greener on the other side?

Has anyone ever regretted breaking up a family?

what tipped the balance for me was that friends witnessed how he treated me. i couldn't go on making excuses then because i knew that they knew what i was putting up with whilst making out all was rosy in the garden. i knew the first time Dfriend got me alone after that she would be telling em to leave and i knew she was right so i told him the next morning (when he was sober) to go.

I ended one relationship (my affair actually) because he was tight to the point of financial abuse.

I ended an EA relationship after I took longer than expected getting home just before we were going away for the weekend. He started going on about hoe I should have gone another route and I just turned round and walked out. Sounds like nothing doesn't it. It wasn't, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Finished with another boyfriend after they said my best friend "had gone a bit mad" while she was recovering from an emotional and physically abusive relationship. It just brought home what he thought of women.

When I realised we both wanted totally different things from the relationship, and I was never going to get what I wanted, so I could never be 100% happy. Despite the fact I was still very happy in certain situations.

No children involved in that one, though. It was pretty emotional. I actually had to run off and be sick

Oh, and then we met up a week later at a mutual friend's party, and against my better judgement deliberately missed my last bus home so I'd have to stay at his house. We spent the night in each others' arms crying and having sex very attractive.

there was a point where i realised i wasn't ever going to be put ahead of the x's family. that was it for me. couldn't be doing with a toxic parent-in-law in my face for the forseeable future.

he was a nice man and so on, nothing personal, i just couldn't be bothered with that. i could see my life stretching out before me and it didn't look very enjoyable.

i was v young and looking back, it was a good decision, but at the time it felt quite wrenching.

i do think people (not just women, but often women) stay with "problem child" partners by telling themselves that the incompatibilities are "minor". but the thing is, if the incompatibilities are that clear to you, then they're not actually that minor are they? they're fairly pronounced.

and if the partners can't a) talk about their incompatibilities and b) bend a little on both sides to reduce the incompatibility, that also begs the question, how committed are both parties to the happiness/comfort of the other?

My oldest friend killed herself and I was in terrible shock, I found out late at night on a Thursday. He told me to stop sobbing and go to sleep. The next day he went to work and didn't call to see if I was okay. On the Saturday he told me I 'needed help' because I was still crying, and told me that I should pray that God forgives her (he's a Catholic - but by way of contrast, our local priest held a mass in her name which was comforting). He also said a lot of very unpleasant things about her - he never did like her.

I realised then what an utterly selfish bastard he was, and realised that he only ever thought of himself. We limped on for a few weeks but I kicked him out.

The Father of the boyfriend in question brought us a present, something that could be shared and he put it in my hand and said "Remember, this is 50% yours" and then looked at his son and said "you heard that didn't you?"

The boyfriend did not share it. It wasn't the first arseholey, selfish act but added to what his father said, the fact he felt the need to say it to his own son in front of me, it tipped the balance.

Never, ever regretted walking away.

I stayed and felt dutiful to the point where friends were scared I'd get depressed. I kept saying to him 'do you care?' and he kept on working. Everyday I got up and he was working (writing a book). He has never been unreasonable but then he was so reasonable it was unreasonable (iyswim). He just showed no emotion. Still hasn't. He's not a bad man - he's funny, kind, clever. But he's also rigid and can be really selfish. I found the break of a family really painful and hard to bear like the other posters say. But now I feel free and I think we had grown desperately unsuited. It scares me how much I had invested in not seeing that. The catalyst was also my feelings for another man, but I am not with him and it was not the basis for the decision. There are things to be recommended about being single and, frankly, I was alone in my marriage anyway. Hope this helps.

My ex was abusive. He finally left a year ago in Feb.

It was the best decision in the world that I let him go.

The last straw was him telling my best friend's H that I had been in a mental institute for 5 years among other things, so that he would tell her to dump me as my only friend in life. He'd seen to it that everyone else had fallen by the way side.

I am kind of at the line where you say 'Did you ever regret breaking up a family?'

What family? What break-up? HE is abusive, toxic and dangerous. A child raised in an environment like this is deemed to be subject to DIRECT ABUSE.

I didn't break up my family. I saved it. HE BROKE WHAT WE COULD HAVE HAD, by CHOOSING to abuse me.

Place the blame for this at the wrong-doer, not the woman that has the gumption to actually do something about it, to do something to protect her child and herself.

i have a future now, so does my son. I couldn't say that before I dropped the Twat off at Heathrow.

Actually just reading Sunny's post, I think my marriage died when a really good friend died of cancer with a 10 week old baby. He was impatient with my grief and wish to help her. As I sat in terror after her diagnosis he was in the kitchen working. I really hated him for that and I could never make him understand the impact of her death on me. We limped on for four years after that, but I could never shake the suspicion that he would barely notice if I died.

so basically everyone stays in relationships unless it is abusive?

great

what is your point margery? do you feel you want to end a relationship but want to know if you have to stay until it gets abusive? (btw i dont think everyone has posted saying that abuse was the reason they finally left so not sure wher you are getting that from) if you want to leave then leave. it doesn't have to be because of cheating or abuse. if you aren't happy then you are doing yourself or your family no favours by cstaying and resenting it.

What did you want to hear then?

margery what are you looking for from this thread?

I think you've had a variety of answers, not all of them from people who have walked away from abusers.

For me, it was having to wake up each day and wonder what mood he'd be in. If he was miserable, which was 99% of the time, then the whole house was miserable and we'd have to tip toe round him.

I also didnt want my dc growing up with the same attitude and bigoted views as their dad.

Pre-DH I had four serious relationships. First one ended because I fancied someone else intensely and didnt want to cheat on BF.

Intense crush became boyfriend 2. Finished with him because I moved further away from him and we drifted apart. It felt right, and although I istigated the breakup, the feeling was mutual, really.

Next boyfriend dumped me for someoe else

Fourth and final before I met DH - abusive relationship, which I managed to get out of...

X posts

Disagree with IamBoo as a first position. Of course I don't know the details of your marriage Margery, but I would never say anyone unhappy should just leave a relationship where children are involved.

Depends how unhappy one is - bored, fed up, 'gone off' partner - definitely look at every way of improving/communicating/fulfilling yourself. The grass is not greener, not very often. What happens when you get bored of your next relationship. Do you give up as well as 'no one deserves to be unhappy' etc.

Utterly desolate, lonely, nothing in common at all - maybe cause for separation.

sorry for being mopey, just surely someone has a good story of leaving for 'incompatibility' reasons and goes on to have a happy ending?

proud i didn't say if someone was unhappy they should leave. i said if someone wants to leave they should leave. getting to a point where you want to leave is far more than being unhappy in my book. i wouldn't ever suggest leaving just because you were bored.

um... there are several people here who left men for compatibility issues... yes there are some abuse stories mixed in there, is that what's upsetting you?

i left a man whose idea of "putting family first" was incompatible with mine... and now i am happily married. is that a good enough story?

or do you need to explain what you mean by incompatibility? do you have some very specific thing that you're looking for in order to validate something in your own life?

what do you mean goes on to have a happy ending? surely the ending is only known when we all die?

My ex and I were hugely incompatible, and we'd have split up about that in due course. My friend's death brought things into sharp focus and I dumped him quicker!

My story does have a happy 'ending' (or beginning IYSWIM). Within a few months I met my DH. I was still grieving, and he was hugely supportive even though he never met my friend. We've been through a lot, but he's fab and I'm happy that we're together.

OP would it help if you talked about your own situation and why you are thinking of leaving? you sound very down/pissed off.

My ex developed an obsession with man's impact on the world. He started a very restrictive diet based on how 'early man' might have eaten, and talked constantly about how the world was going to end once humans had destroyed it. I started to dread coming home to another lecture of how rubbish the human race is, and we couldn't eat out because his diet was too restrictive.

He had a knack of sucking the joy out of our every interaction; I decided to leave when I realised I found our time together draining. There were other things too (we had very few interests in common and there was an age difference) but this obsession was representative of his personality as whole.

However, it took me six months to leave after I was certain it was over because he was/is basically a good bloke and very conscientious, and I felt like I needed 'permission' to go (my previous ex was just an out-and-out tool).

When I finally broke it off, the relief was amazing. A year after we broke up I met DP, who has a lovely, sunny personality and with whom I connect totally. I couldn't be happier, and believe we will stay together. I don't regret going out with the ex; it did helped me define what I was looking for in a man.

You don't need permission to leave. Being unhappy is enough.