What was your 'enough is enough' moment?

[mae2014]

Hey,

Really struggling at the moment to bite the bullet and walk away from my relationship. I don't want to but I know I need to..

What was your moment in your relationship when you just said enough is enough? I've been hoping and praying for an infamous 'one day i just woke up' but starting to feel like that never happens :(

And if so, are you glad you did? Did it take you long to heal?

xxx

I'm in the same situation myself atm. My partner and I have been in a bad place since we argued back in September (can't even remember what about now!) and he went to stay at his mates for 3 nights. He took my engagement ring and I haven't had it back in all this time. And he also now goes to his mates to drink at least twice a week and doesn't come home. He doesn't tell me, he just becomes uncontactable when I message asking him where he is. He lies and says he has no phone signal but actually he's turned his phone off. He's given me every excuse in the book as to why he couldn't just tell me he wasn't coming home. Now he's doesn't even bother with an excuse or apology. I told him I'm sick of being left took after a toddler and baby by myself several nights a week as well as all day when he's at work and he had to chose between his family and his loser friends. He said "I'm nuts" for even giving him the ultimatum so I told him to go fuck himself coz I'm not putting up with it. He left me with a 2 year old and 1 week old baby alone on new years eve so he could drink at his friends. I should have thrown him out then but it's a hard situation when you've got 2 young children, like I don't think j want to be with him any more but I also don't want to be a single mum

He admitted he was being blackmailed by a cam girl who had a video of him wanking and had my contact details, she wants £300 or would send me the video. He confessed, she sent it anyway.
He’d used cam sites and paid for private videos while I was pregnant and we were meant to be saving, he was given a final warning and he did it again when DS was 5mo.

Kicked the fuck face out of my house.

It's bloody hard. Mine was so so kind in so many ways, but his actions were terribly unkind and cruel, and that was such a mindfuck. We had such lovely times together, and he was gentle and generous, but also fucked my best mate, and was predatory in his messaging other women too. I knew deep inside that it was unsalvagable, but it took a long time after learning about all his infidelity for me to get to a place where I knew I could leave. I'm kind of glad I waited- I would have gone back otherwise.

I remember one particular moment when I really knew that it was him, not me. We were standing in his kitchen after I'd found out that he was still secretly messaging a woman he'd had an affair with, and he said that it was unfair and controlling of me to want this contact to cease. "I'm not allowed to speak to other women!" I suddenly just "got" how disordered that thinking was.

Not a marriage or living with situation but this was mine. We had been going out for about a year, and he had stopped making any effort at all - not only was I doing the domestic stuff when he was at mine, but also all the planning, organization etc etc. Before he went to see his family for a few weeks, I told him I didnt think it was working, and explained that I was getting tired of being the one who always made all the arrangements. He promised he would do better and make more effort. He got back after an extended holiday, announced he was too busy to see me til the weekend (fair enough) and asked if we wanted to go out then. I said yes, happy to do whatever he wanted. On the day got an abrupt call saying it would have to be an hour later than arranged and I would have to pick him up, as his van was not running well. No niceties, no pleasantries. While he had been away I had an ankle op - no asking how I was or anything, or concern that maybe it was hard to drive with a painful ankle. Final straw - I picked him up, he got in the car, no how are yous, how is the ankle? I asked where we were going and he said wherever I wanted as he had not made any plans. I told him to get out and not call me again. He felt I was very unreasonable. I think it was the best thing I ever did.

I'd been thinking about leaving for a long time (waited far too long). He was away on a long trip which I thought would be the best time for me to really know how I felt without him around. I didn't miss him at all, I felt relief. When it got closer to the time he was coming back I started to have panic attacks although at the time i didn't realise what they were at the time and I thought I was ill. I knew the defining moment would be the second he got back. When I heard his key in the door, my heart sank. I knew that's what my reaction was going to be but somehow I still hoped it wouldn't be. I felt overwhelmed by dread when I heard him wheeling his suitcase in and I left him a couple of days later. Best decision I ever made. I just kick myself for taking too long to make it and the years I wasted putting up with his moods and coldness.

He did come back about 6 months ago and say he realised he had grown up with a narcissist for a mum and it had badly affected him. He wanted us to start doing family stuff together and for me to be his friend so he had someone to talk to. I said no. His misery made me miserable for most of our marriage. I worked so hard at looking after him. I made excuses for him. I let him lean on me for over 10years. I am done being someone’s crutch. I want reciprocity. If I buy my partner birthday gifts I want birthday gifts bought for me. If I make nice meals for a partner I want something nice in return. If I’m your shoulder to cry on I want to know you’ll be there when I need a good cry. He hadn’t changed and he just wanted me to go back to being his prop - there was nothing in it for me so I said no. I’m glad I said no. For the first time in a very long time I am fitting my own oxygen mask before helping anyone else fit there’s and I’m proud of myself for it!

I had those moment when I caught him cheating. Unfortunately I accepted him back. Very hard to wait for another moment when he is on his best behaviour. I don't want to leave - we get along fine - but I know he is cheater and liar and I shouldn't be with him.

I tried to move on with my ex after I discovered an EA just after having our second baby that he'd had two years previously when I had just had our first baby. I struggled for two years with him constantly lying, mocking my mental health struggles, gaslighting me, his alcoholism became clear, his appalling behaviour to others over the years was revealed, he did some terrible things to me, and Im ashamed to say I still thought I could save things if I went to counselling and "improved" myself.

I gave him one thing to do, and that was to not lie to me again (he was already starting to show interest in yet another work colleague) and he promised me on our kids lives he wouldn't. He lied to me the following day about being in the office and I knew it was a lie as his boss had called me because he couldn't reach him. When he got home I told him to pack a bag and I made him leave the following day. Despite all of the abuse I would have forgiven him anything at that point but I just could not physically cope with one more lie.

I've divorced him and done the freedom programme since then and I recognise now just how damaged I'd become in my marriage.

Ex- when he beat me so badly I ended up in hospital.
Current - meh 😕 still deciding. No abuse or anything bad just , don't know.

When he got another girl pregnant, our own dd was just 1.

I cried for so long, i used to take DD to the park and find him pushing the new GFs child in the pushchair, her heavily pregnant. It broke my heart.

That was 11 years ago, I am now married with a baby on the way. DD sees him once a week at his mums and knows no different. She adores her stepdad and is so excited for her baby sister.

Oh, the new GF also left him for his cousin, karma 😂

@mae2014 you don't sound happy. Could you come back ? Doesn't have to be anything major.

I could, and I think that's whats going to have to happen when I decide to leave but I just find it so hard to bite the bullet :(

His daughter will be over tonight so it'll be playing happy families after everything hes said to me last night. I'm torn between leaving before he gets home to stay with a friend or seeing what happens when he gets home.
But I feel like regardless of whats said, him telling me ' i dont love you as much as i used to because you're wrecking my head' is just going over and over in my head :(

Jesus
You are so young!
Leave!
Now. Go and stay with a friend. Let him play happy families the fucker

Jesus...
You are so young! You have no ties to this arsehole
Leave!
Now. Go and stay with a friend. Let him play happy families the fucker

He arranged to meet another woman in the park whilst I would be a work, very flirty and sexual messages. Only he was taking our 1 year dd with him, so I took the pram in my car to work ruining his plans. I mentally checked out then and physically left 12 months later

Last night on the phone I realised my ex has been gaslighting me for over a year. He told me last night how all he wanted from me now was companionship and the occasional meet up and chat - when the week before he'd told me he loved me and couldn't live without me and wanted a relationship but to take it slow (we've been on a break due to his inability to know what he wanted/pushing me away.)

Then when I called him out on his sudden change in what he wants from me he yet again tried to deny what he was saying and said he does want to progress to a relationship.

I reached my limit, I see now how he wants to call all the shots and control how the relationship progresses or even if it is a relationship any more. I've wasted so much time and been told constantly it's me in the wrong, but yesterday I realised he really is messing me around. How can one person dictate a whole relationship?

I have put up with an unbelievable amount of stuff from him, things I would never allow anyone to do, and finally I feel done. I think some of us just take a LOT longer and endure a lot more horrific things before we finally see the light.

When I'd been in hospital all day with our baby son who was having an operation, when he picked us up he took us all to buy drugs.
Still boils my blood and this was years ago now.

He had been miserable/grumpy for so long and when I said to him, I don't want to live like this anymore he announced, Well, I want a divorce.

And I just thought, Do you know what? You can have one.

20+ years on. Never, ever regretted it.

When he’d spent all my trust fund money on building himself a new wanky gaming computer so at 26 years of age he could shoot people all night...

I wasn’t even allowed to get my hair cut.

He’s the only person in this world i have ever genuinely hated.

God OP, you're only 24, stop wasting your youth being miserable with this guy.

For me, I guess the final nail in the coffin was a text that he'd lost his job (through gross misconduct) and all I could think of to reply was "OK". And I just kind of knew I couldn't be arsed going through any more dramas and self-sabotage with him, that nothing was ever going to change, that he was never going to change, we could go round and round forever and it would just be more of the same, if he stopped one way of fucking things up, he'd find another.

Told him it was over. He threatened to drive off a bridge and kill himself. That sealed the deal. I told him to be gone by the end of the day and to call his family to support him if he felt suicidal. The stupid cunt got himself one of those idiotic apostrophe tattoos that symbolise suicide survival a few weeks later.

If someone is telling you they no longer love you the same way, what’s left? It can only get worse.

When I was wrongly given a cancer diagnosis with a terrible survival rate and he didn't up his game with me or the kids at all. Should have done it then but I was quite traumatised for a while after that experience. Then 2 years later after he had been unemployed for ages (yet again) and he was pondering whether to take the job he had just been offered as he was certain there was something better round the corner.... he didn't take me seriously when I told him to go so I signed him up for daily alerts for rentals on Rightmove 😂 he's in that same job 3 years later so the 'big one' would never have materialised

He rested his feet in me while we were sitting reading on the sofa.

I asked him nicely to move them (“they’re not hurting you!”)
I offered to switch places with him so he could stretch out comfortably (“I’m fine where I am!”)
I told him I was uncomfortable (“it’s psychological”)

So in the end I slightly raised my voice and said, “please will you take your feet off of me.”

And instantly he’s a whimpering that I’m always shouting, I have a short fuse, I’m verbally abusing him daily.

So I told him I thought our relationship wasn’t a positive force in either of our lives.

It wasn’t about the feet. It was just the straw that broke my back.

@Poached

He rested his feet in me while we were sitting reading on the sofa.

I asked him nicely to move them (“they’re not hurting you!”)
I offered to switch places with him so he could stretch out comfortably (“I’m fine where I am!”)
I told him I was uncomfortable (“it’s psychological”)

So in the end I slightly raised my voice and said, “please will you take your feet off of me.”

And instantly he’s a whimpering that I’m always shouting, I have a short fuse, I’m verbally abusing him daily.

So I told him I thought our relationship wasn’t a positive force in either of our lives.

It wasn’t about the feet. It was just the straw that broke my back.

What a cunt. I used to get the same over him insisting on having an arm over me in bed. Why the fuck I put up with so many fights about that I don't know.

Now my husband wouldn't even think to continue doing something I clearly wasn't enjoying. And, funnily enough, were very close physically because of that.

I'm thankful I didn't waste too much time on the bastard before him and didn't marry him. But I regret wasting any time at all.