How did you broach the breaking up conversation?

[ClassicStripe]

90% sure I want to break up with DP. He's become more unpleasant as he's got older and despite me trying very hard to fix things it's intolerable st the moment.
However it just seems such a massive step to say I don't want to be with you (been together our whole adult lives) and then dealing with the fallout.

We’d had a couple of conversations already and he’d hinted at splitting. I arranged childcare and we’d agreed to have a ‘chat’. I had booked my first solicitor appointment in. I had been on entitledto.com and knew what help I was entitled to and started looking at where I could cut back.

I think I phrased it as ‘I’ve thought long and hard about this, it’s not working, I think we need to separate’. He agreed, we talked for ages about it and he agreed to move out. The next day he said he wanted a trial separation (where you separate then still date), he did naff all to actually try in the trial then said ‘I think we know it’s not working’ about 2 weeks later…turns out he’d met someone else.

I don’t regret my decision. When he left I felt I could finally breathe again. I hadn’t realised how much he was weighing me down.

What's the 10% doubt? Do you think it could be fixed or it is uncertainty about the conversation?

Have you broached the difficulties with him before? I know you say you've tried to fix things but sometimes people try to fix things by trying to change their approach and not including the other person in that so they are unaware. It's unclear whether you've spoken to him or just tried to find ways of fixing it yourself

If you've lived with it in silence, is it worth talking through? Is he aware? Sometimes we tread the same path in a relationship for so long that what starts off as a worn path, becomes a groove, becomes a rut and eventually becomes a trench you have to climb out of.

If you've spoken with him and it's still made no difference then I think it's fair to say you've been thinking about it for a long time and, despite efforts to fix things, you think you're just no longer compatible and you need to separate.

Thing about how you've broached your previous conversations and do that but with a view to ending it this time rather than fixing it.

There is no speaking to him. He is resolute always that he is right and everyone else is wrong. He never used to be like this. He corrects me on everything I do or say. He would just point blank say "No I don't" if I gave examples of upsetting behaviour

Would make a plan first, get legal advice if there are money and DC to sort out.

Don't talk about whatt he does then. Talk about how you feel - which is that you're not happy and so it's over. You need to discuss the practicalities of splitting up not enter into a battle about who is at fault and why.

I agree with the others who say make plans and do some fact finding. Be fully prepared. It looks as though your 'D'H is incapable of discussion, so stop hoping that he will listen, or be reasonable. It's not going to be easy to tell him but the alternative is staying as you are for the foreseeable future. You don't have to have his agreement or understanding in order to separate.

It's not a conversation. He doesn't converse with you. Stop involving him: find out what you need to know about how you're going to leave him, then inform him. He doesn't have to speak. You're operating independently now, and unless you can get your head round it, you'll keep struggling to get free.

If you've decided to leave, his opinion is as irrelevant as he makes you feel. The boot's on the other foot. It's time for you not to care what he thinks/feels.

Be respectful. The chances are that he’s unhappy too. Make sure you have your ducks in a row. Don’t use it as an opportunity to list his failings and don’t say things in such a way that he can start arguing against you. By saying, ‘I am unhappy in the relationship and it is time to end it’ rather than, ‘You’re a useless partner and you get on my nerves so I want to end it’, you make it more clear that you are done and there is no leeway for him to promise to change. Phrases like, ‘I think we different people to the ones we were when we first met, and we don’t being out the best in each other anymore’, ‘We clearly don’t work as a couple anymore’.

Rip off the plaster. My friend wanted to split up with her ex. It took her 2 years to work up the courage to talk to him. When she finally did he enthusiastically agreed and they had their house on the market a week later, sold and new homes bought in 10 weeks!

I think we different people to the ones we were when we first met, and we don’t being out the best in each other anymore

'Yes, we do.'

We clearly don’t work as a couple anymore

'Yes we do.'

He'll argue and dismiss OP's point of view. These are conversation openers.

'It's over because I'm not happy anymore, and I'm not discussing it any further' is as respectful and inclusive as OP can risk being. There's no need to offer explanations about why.

I think you should be sure he’s aware that it’s reached the point whereby you aren’t prepared to continue.

it took me two years of those conversations to be sure I’d given it enough opportunity to be worked at.

However at the point where I knew there was no coming back I calmly sat him down, told him it was over and I wasn’t prepared to sit in it anymore then left immediately the next morning. (Although the overnight was very difficult with lots of yelling etc on his part)

if you want out you need to create the definite distance and space. Otherwise there’s a danger you get drawn back in. Try to have no or minimal contact after that.

The advice about not blaming is helpful. I think I've been so fixated on telling him everything that is wrong in a stupid attempt to get him to see how much he's upset me and what he's throwing away.