What made you leave? Your final straw?

[Lifeisarollercoaster647382]

We all have our reasons for separation, what's yours? What was your final straw, what made you make that decision?

Mine was that my exh could not / can't priorise his children's needs before his own. Didn't take responsibility / discuss anything ever! The separation is all my fault, I have destroyed my children's lives etc etc blah blah....

[barbedwired]

He assaulted me

[Inthesameboatatmo]

He was an agency hgv driver. He'd been lying about going to work for 3 years and took out credit cards to cover everything . All expenses came out of his account I just transferred what was needed a month for my share of bills,expenses etc . He was having an affair. We'd been married over 20 years I had no clue. Bastard. And he's the one slagging me off down to the ground because he got caught. So I'm a psycho abusive wife the while nine yards. Typical narc script

[Lifeisarollercoaster647382]

@barbedwired so sorry to hear this.

@Inthesameboatatmo wow! Just wow.

What an awful situation for both of you for very different reasons

[Ohtoberoavingagain]

He said he’d kill me, then changed his mind and said he’d just make my life so miserable I’d wish I was dead. He died from his alcoholism a few years later. I started my own business and made enough money to retire at 50. Justice?

[Lifeisarollercoaster647382]

@Ohtoberoavingagain sounds like karma to me 😁

[cartbeforehorse]

I’d put up with poor behaviour that I shouldn’t have. One day I realised that his behaviour and our relationship dynamic was not only bad for me, it was an extremely poor window for DC to look through. I’d be horrified if my kids ended up in the relationship my marriage became.

[FinallyHere]

We had bought a house together, then move to an even better house.

'P' would win any argument by saying 'well, we will have to sell the house'... and I would back down. One day, we were driving somewhere, sitting side by side, he did the usual 'well, we would have the sell the house' and I found myself saying 'ok, then, we have to put the house on the market'

I'm not saying it went smoothly, he even tried telling me that I would never remember to pay my bills on time. I bought a house, set up direct debits for the bills and ...never looked back.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering why it took me so long to split up. Could drive myself mad wondering I wasted those years, they fid also help me work out what I wanted from life and the people around me.

[PixelatedLunchbox]

I found my journal from five years earlier and was reading my own words of how miserable I was. Five years of my life later, nothing had changed, and the penny dropped: that in another five years and another and another, nothing would still have changed. I got my financial ducks in a row and left six months later. Life is short, and it's precious, and we hold the keys to our own cages.

[Lifeisarollercoaster647382]

I agree life is way too short, if something isn't right for ourselves or our children, we need to do something about it if its causing unhappiness.

if things cannot be resolved they need to change, it takes such a lot of courage to make those changes though unfortunately

[FMSucks]

When my DS who was was 9 at the time asked me why Daddy never hugs Mummy, cuddles her, holds her hand or makes her tea. I refused to let my DS’s grow up thinking this is how you treat a woman. There were other issues but when my own child was questioning how his father treated his mother it was the final nail in the coffin. I told my ex it was over a few weeks later.

[PeeGlitter]

He was a serial cheater and an alcoholic

[cheekychatta]

@PixelatedLunchbox

I found my journal from five years earlier and was reading my own words of how miserable I was. Five years of my life later, nothing had changed, and the penny dropped: that in another five years and another and another, nothing would still have changed. I got my financial ducks in a row and left six months later. Life is short, and it's precious, and we hold the keys to our own cages.

This is wisdom

[Nat6999]

He raped me & then a week later tried to burn the house down with me & ds in it.

[YnysMonCrone]

I started to stand up to his narcissistic nonsense and he panicked and tried to burn the house down

[bettycat81]

My most recent ex was widowed (8yrs ago) and a toxic grief permeates through the family stemming mainly from his fmil. There were certain people he didn't want to find out about us (former in laws) and when others started to say some awful things about me he refused to stand up for me because it would mean admitting we had been seeing each other for a year. Basically I was a source of shame. That was the last straw.

[Sapphirensteel]

@Nat6999 F**ing hell, that is horrendous. Are you ok now?

[Pebbledashery]

Very very severe domestic abuse.. The final straw was a punch in the face in front of our daughter. Got my affairs in order as much as I could and left with my daughter and never looked back.

[SallyAnn32]

He cheated. Like previous poster he is continuing to make me out to be the reason he had an affair and left. He will tell anyone who listens that I was a bad wife. Our DD1 has cut him off on her own accord and he blames me.

I wished and wished for him to come back and I would have taken him back at first but over 3 years later I've realised I wasn't truly happy. I thought I was but I'm with someone new and now I see what real happiness is. I'm a firm believer in everything happening for a reason.

[Nat6999]

Saphirensteel yes I'm fine, it was 12 years ago. I reported him for the rape but the police didn't charge him, ds had done fire safety training at school (he was only 6) & dialled 999. I told the operator it was a mistake but the police turned up & very kindly helped me & ds with our bags & we left, we spent the night in a travelogue, we must have been the first customers who turned up clutching a hamster. Exh couldn't accept that our marriage was over I had been trying to leave him for years, he was financially & emotionally abusive, it took me meeting someone else to give me the kick up the bum to finally tell him it was over & then he exploded & did what he did.

[Pollydon]

He was an abusive arse but I thought I'd hidden that fact well, I was very young. Over the Christmas period I was working nights in healthcare , he had 2 weeks off work. To punish me for speaking to my family on Xmas day he decided that he wasn't going to allow me to sleep in between shifts. After the 4th day I arrived in work to find my lovely boss waiting for me, she told me that I was on leave and she was taking me home to my parent's house, over an hours drive away. She and my colleagues had known for months that I was in an abusive relationship and she had decided enough was enough. I never went back to him & met my now DH of 28 years within a year.
She was a bloody angel.

[choolaboola]

@Pollydon

He was an abusive arse but I thought I'd hidden that fact well, I was very young. Over the Christmas period I was working nights in healthcare , he had 2 weeks off work. To punish me for speaking to my family on Xmas day he decided that he wasn't going to allow me to sleep in between shifts. After the 4th day I arrived in work to find my lovely boss waiting for me, she told me that I was on leave and she was taking me home to my parent's house, over an hours drive away. She and my colleagues had known for months that I was in an abusive relationship and she had decided enough was enough. I never went back to him & met my now DH of 28 years within a year.
She was a bloody angel.

What a good person!!!! Amazing.

[Natsku]

@Pollydon

He was an abusive arse but I thought I'd hidden that fact well, I was very young. Over the Christmas period I was working nights in healthcare , he had 2 weeks off work. To punish me for speaking to my family on Xmas day he decided that he wasn't going to allow me to sleep in between shifts. After the 4th day I arrived in work to find my lovely boss waiting for me, she told me that I was on leave and she was taking me home to my parent's house, over an hours drive away. She and my colleagues had known for months that I was in an abusive relationship and she had decided enough was enough. I never went back to him & met my now DH of 28 years within a year.
She was a bloody angel.

What a wonderful woman

[Natsku]

He threw something at me in a rage while I was sat with baby DD on my lap. It missed me and hit her. I packed my bags and left that day.

[littleburgers]

A new argument every day where he was getting more and more abusive, controlling and vindictive. Started after I got pregnant and spiralled.

[NotReallySure]

Just like you @FMSucks it was when my DS (6) piped up about what was happening, saying to his dad that he "wasn't very nice to mummy". It was like I suddenly had no option but to leave, and was such a relief to have that "permission" from myself to do it. I had been staying for the kids up until then.