Defining moment that you realised your relationship was over

[Faffalina]

As it sounds, really. Not sure if this has been done already but was there something your partner did / said that made you realise it would have to end?

After many threads on here I have finally realised I can't make it work. I was married 6 years this week and he forgot then shouted at me for being upset then shouted some more when said I was lonely and i wanted us to be friends i want us to be a couple. I am trapping him and no man spends all night after work with his wife was his reply. That and it is his life and he will do what he wants when he wants and I have no right to know anything about it. I have woken up and am in pain. He won't leave. Won't even admit it is over - yet spends barely an hour in 24 at home. So I have to make a plan - so far it is to find work then I can leave.

An ex said to me 'we could stay together but I don't respect you and won't ever touch you again' then handed me his toddler to look after and rolled over and went to sleep. I lay awake all night cuddling his little boy who I was very close to, and at 7am just said goodbye.

So many of these posts are so familiar.

He'd been out drinking a lot, nearly every night for a few months. We were falling further behind with rent because he kept spending his money on booze.

He was out again and I was struggling with pnd, baby ds and working shifts, being bullied at work. I needed him at home and some support or just a hug, so I phoned him and he said "I do love you and ds, but I love drinking more, so I'm gonna stay out". And hung up.

I was shocked, but he was absolutely right, he did love the booze more. So I packed his things and when he rolled in the next morning I rolled him straight back out again.

He did seek help for his drinking and kicking him out was the wake up call he needed. I just remember that night after he hung up feeling so alone and the sadness building and crushing me and then click realising I'd already been alone for months. What on earth did I have to lose by actually being on my own?

I was on top form one night. I told a really funny joke, something about eunuchs! The whole room was laughing, except XH, who had a pop at me in front of everyone for being 'embarrassing'.

I thank god I had enough left in me to realise this was just the tip of the iceberg and that the happy, charming and fun Hawkmoth was still there under all the drudgery. She's had a great ten years since then :)

I was 20, with a toddler, married to my Ex. Money was tight. I worked full time and I had a part-time bar job at the weekend.

One evening, Ex came home and told me that he didn't want to work anymore and he had spent our meagre savings on a second hand car. He wanted to drive around Europe to "find himself"".

I told him to go and not come back.

Oh god, the twat who tried to reverse over her, and her dad and step mother driving through the night to be there for Christmas for her and the children has got me. :(

Notyomomma. Sigh - yes that too. But don't forget 'other people react to steroids bit I don't - I know what in doing' twat.

MsPear, he sounds horrible. There is nothing lonelier than what you're living through now. Being alone is not lonelier.

Mrspear leave him and don't look back. I'm not seeing any regret on this thread except that we all stayed too long

I agree. These stories are sad, but what they show are people who did their best to make things work, and who have shown a lot of strength.

MrsPear, the thought of being on your own is a scary one, but you won't feel half as alone as you do now. The day I threw DP out everything was easier almost immediately.

I didn't have to worry about where he was, I didn't have to worry about what he was wasting our money on, I didn't have to wonder when the next time he would hurt my feelings or let me down again would be. I could just breathe and get on with things. It was a relief.

I was sad for DS that his father was so useless, but I knew we would be ok now.

What a sad thread. My relationship before dh lasted ten years. There were probably hundreds of defining moments as he was a dick. However, the final clinchers are a mixed blur of a racist joke in front of our friends/him angrily binning my new jeans as they made my arse look 'saggy'/kicking me in the kidneys as I crouched and swept up a glass I broke because I was 'stupid'. These probably happened over the space of two weeks and instead of fear/wishing I could make him happy - I just felt fucking blind rage fury. So I left.

Oooo there have been a few nails in the coffin in the last few weeks...

• Starting a row with a man in a bar so we had to run out with big skinheads shouting "wankers" after us
• not "allowing" me to have an ice cream on holiday
• complaining that I wasted money by buying a bottle of calpol at the airport because DS had a cough but we never needed to use it
• telling me proudly about how he had intimidated an old man in the supermarket car park

These are just the little "what an arsehole" moments that make me feel completely justified in going to see a solicitor next week. There is much more.

The coffin lid is well and truly secure and it's now ready for the incinerator!!

When I was ill with flu and he didn't lift a finger to do anything to help with the children so I had to just carry on as normal.

When I found ex mobile phone upstairs and we couldn't get a mobile signal . So I looked and found all the text messages I needed to see to know that ex was having an affair. I waited and watched and snooped for months, but it was over then.

when my ex deliberately drove past a service station knowing i needed the toilet desparately. i truly thought i was going to wet myself. it took me a long time to leave and its only from mumsnet that ive realised he was abusive. for lots of little things that build up into a very horrible picture.

My ex was such a tight arse and I realise now was financially abusive. We'd just bought our second house together and the previous owners had taken the carpet with them!

I was Totally broke and not earning much at all, but got a quote for carpet it was £900. He seemed happy to pay but then threw it back it my face and queried why he should pay.

We ended up getting one room done at a cost of £250. We went to the cashpoint to get the money out 1/2 each of course and he checked his balance first. I was virtually up to my overdraft limit and worrying how i would last until i got paid whilst he casually stood there and said I've got nearly £30k in my account I should transfer it to my savings..... I could have cried on the spot.

Took about 6 months to finally finish, he had an affair with someone at work, but something changed in me at that point. I remember crying and looking at myself in the bathroom mirror saying to myself you've got to finish it.

The tight arse bought me out the house and then got the whole place carpeted anyway- cunt!!!

There were so many incidents but the final straw was one night after we'd been out with some friends.

We went back to another friends house where I was sitting chatting with my best friend on the sofa. She had her legs up across my knees and I had my hands resting on her legs.

I was bawled out in front of everyone, told I was never as affectionate with him and had made a fool out of him. I was then dragged off to the toilet so he could continue shouting and to have sex to make it up to him with all my friends only feet away.

I woke up the next morning and thought fuck you, I'm out and left him a couple of weeks later. My friends were very, very glad I did.

When my 9 year old DS told me to 'shut up!!' I told him it was unacceptable and not to speak to me like that. DS said 'why not? Dad does'.

Christmas Eve, 2008: A mutual friend got beaten up in the pub and couldn't get in contact with his parents. I suggested to my partner that we let him sleep on the sofa. My partner instantly decided that I was having an affair with him, forbade my suggestion and once we were safely home, attacked me and smashed up the flat.

Despite knowing that it was over, I had nowhere else to go, so tried to make it work again.

The real end came later, when he had driven me to the point of nervous breakdown. I saw my GP and was prescribed antipsychotics because I confessed that I had seen a screaming face looking back at me from the gravel in the garden (I knew that it was just an unconscious projection, and not real).

I got back home, left a note in the hall explaining that I was unwell and didn't want to be disturbed, laid out a bed on the sofa, propped a chair under the door-handle, and settled down to sleep, only for him to force his way in because he wanted to watch the TV. I am afraid I lost it and attacked him. And, bizarrely he didn't fight back for once.

Still didn't end it.

The absolute end came when he behaved so unreasonably in a pub that I turned away and ignored him. This was unforgiveable, and so he punched me so hard in the head that I blacked out momentarily. When I regained consciousness a moment or two later, two of the pub staff were just sitting there watching, while the barman leapt over the bar, restrained my partner from behind and manhandled him out of the door, with my partner still ranting and raving like a possessed man.

Thanks, Stuart the barman, for doing the right thing. I'll never forget that.

There were many more violent episodes en route, but the punch in the head was the end.

When I told him I was leaving, he blamed the breakdown of our relationship on me, said he was sick of my moods (!) and that he really had tried his best and I didn't know what I was throwing away. He gave me three hours to move all my stuff out. This included a computer that I had bought from him (actually, I just reduced the amount of money he owed me by fifty pounds, so I never saw a penny of it). The next day he phoned my mother (which means he took her number off my phone) and told me he was going to the police and was going to lose me my job because I had stolen his computer.

He was a classic narc, although I didn't realise it till later. FFS, he kept photos of himself in his wallet.

He asked me what I wanted to eat and I said I didn't know because when I tried to chew my jaw hurt and he joked about getting me a straw. My jaw was was still sore from when he knocked me to the ground earlier in the day. This was the first time he was violent and I ended the relationship immediately and cancelled the relationship counselling we had planned for later in the day. The next day I still doubted my decision to the end the relationship but thankfully his suggestion of break-up sex reminded me that it would always be about him and my needs and opinions weren't relevant.

I'm not sure about defining but it was the first time I realised that he would never take responsibility for his actions and that it would never get better, it could and did get worse but never better. I was shocked by the violence but it didn't stop me comforting him after the attack and assuming partial responsibility for his actions but the "I'll get a straw" remark was a definite WTF! moment.

The next year he pissed about with contact with DD and was a nightmare during mediation and when I stopped accommodating his selfishness over contact he tried to kill me.

The scary thing was, had he showed an ounce of remorse after the first attack I would have wanted us to get back together, so in the end his "I'll get a straw" remark saved me.

He'd already left me but i desperately wanted him back. The stress brought on my first ever migraine but luckily it was on a day H said he would watch the DC. i took the day off and when he arrived, went to bed (he still had full access to the house)

Couple of hours later after lots of sympathy (which i didn't actually want - i just wanted to be left alone) he went out to see OW, came back and said he wasn't going to watch the DC anymore as i was there... fucked in bed and incapable of looking after them but there. I was now a single parent so had to just get on with it... He then left me with a 3yr old and 1yr old.

Might not seem much but killed any love i had and started me accepting it was over & planning my future without him.

9/11 twin towers watched it on the news and it hit me hard. Ex came home we had been engaged for most of the time we been together but it was very abusive he never let me leave. Anyway he said let's get married next month life's too short.... And I said..... No. And decided me and my baby deserved more than a life like this. A month later we were kipping in friends spare room the start of our new life as he informed me his underage gf hed been seeing for months would be staying the night in my bed so effectively yes I made myself and my baby homeless but there was no way I wanted that house

Mine is much duller than these (thankfully) - with my notoriously tight Ex DP. He went through the shopping list and crossed off all the items he claimed never to eat or use and refused to pay for. Which included biscuits, olive oil and toilet roll.