Things my ex did and I still stayed

[datcherygrateful]

Thought we can share what our exes have done and yet we still stayed but looking back could not believe we did not leave sooner.

For me- I am ashamed but have learnt a biiiig lesson. TRUST YOUR GUT

Anyway, there's loads but I'll start with

First Date, complimented me and said I was his type and that it was difficult dating online and that and I quote him saying "I don't like black women or fat women" - YEP. ON THE FIRST DATE and I stayed??!

It was around the time of the song “these h**s ain’t loyal” by Chris brown, his friend sung it and he muttered under his breath “yup..and expensive too” and I stayed!! By the way I offered to pay all the time when we went out, but that’s besides the point.

First date, we were meeting after work to see a film. I was about a quarter of an hour late. On Piccadilly Circus in rush hour, he launched into a red-faced tirade about keeping him waiting. I de-escalated, we saw the film.

I was a fool then, I was a fool many times after, and I was a bloody world-beating fool a couple of years later. We were engaged. Having both been out with clients after work, he texted me to say he was staying out later and would I like to join them? As I walked up to them in the bar, he was telling his client he was "Young, free and single".

... Not wanting to make a fuss in front of client guy (fool), I said hello/goodbye and walked out. Fiancé followed me. He was sorry. He seemed sorry. I married him.

This fool hardly needs to tell you the marriage was neither happy nor long 🙄

Oh Gosh, I am so sorry

Another from me

He said “ she should not have walked in” when describing a story where he was mucking about in the office with a nerf gun, with some mates and then hit the cleaner in her EYE

Lied about being in debt. He said £0. Turned out to over 10k.

Whenever a driver so much as forgets to indicate he went into a full blown “I wish they would die or get cancer” rant

Used to go for “a beer” after work on a Friday but usually that meant staying out until 4/5am.
On a couple of occasions (yes, more than one) he just didn’t come home at all, when he was supposed to be looking after our daughter so that I could go to work the next morning. I ended up both times having to call my mum in desperation to come and get my daughter so that I could go to work because DP just hadn’t come home- poor mum lived 30 miles away at the time !

edited to say that should read “HE used to go for a beer”

Oh my days!

Ex is 45- his friends are in their mid 20's. He loved clubbing with them even though one is notorious when drunk and tends to get kicked out of clubs for SA women.

Pretty loose with the C word- called his daughters that behind their back; they're only teens.

I had a particularly bad day was upset and venting on a drive to the airport- he said " this is stressing me out, I don't want to be stressed when I fly, let's talk about something else". Then proceeded to tell me what he has learnt about clouds.

More racially prejudiced and charged language.

My job involves interacting daily with many men on a one on one basis, on a first date he asked me if I would ever leave my job for a man (I said a firm "no"). It went downhill from there, I should have known better and stepped out but I was foolish and stayed. We broke up 3 months later because of his jealousy. He is deeply insecure.

Had no contact with his 3 adult children, yet thought he could tell me how to discipline my teenagers.
I know, the 🚩 were already at the top of the flagpole 🤦‍♀️

I dated a guy soon after my marriage break up so was on the rebound and probably naive to red flags after so long.

First date he told me ‘you’ll hear loads of gossip about me but none of it true, there’s a lot of people jealous of me’ (it was all true and no one was jealous)

Went on a pre booked holiday a couple of weeks after we met and ‘lost his phone’ (spent the night with a woman)

Then the week after he got home I was out with friends Friday night and he said he’d pick me up to save paying for a taxi. He turned up 90 minutes early and said he’d finished early as he got a fare coming out this way (he’s a London cabbie). I now realise it was to either catch me out or to control what time I went home - probably both.

Stormed out of a pub because I was chatting to a man at the bar waiting to be served (who he knows anyway and who was there with his partner)

Thankfully it only lasted a year before he revealed himself as a jealous controlling twat many times over.

-chose to work from 7am-8.30pm (leaving house at 6.30am, home at 9pm) four nights a week when his kids were small, gone when they woke up and not back when they went to bed. He came home "early" at 6pm once a week, meaning he spent 2hours total with them between Monday and Friday. This went on from 2008 until Covid, when he started working from home and got to know them.
-roared "it's the job" whenever I queried his working hours.
-would not take any time off work when I had cancer. Left me trying to sort childcare when I had weekly chemo throughout the summer.
-roared at me when ever I wanted to make a financial decision
-refused to ask for consent during sex, said talking made him uncomfortable and he knew what I liked anyway so no need.

I could tell you but I'm too embarrassed. It's all on MN under various user names. In my defence I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like and many other reasons ...

I'm free now and it's bliss.

I agree @datcherygrateful and say it often - listen your gut, it's trying to protect you. It might be hard to end it now but it'll be a lot harder down the line.

God,way too many (I grew up in an abusive home,so red flags where my normal-i lived with my amazing grandad,but my mothers a narc and my father her enabler)

I've written about my thought-he-was-a-rock god-but-was-a-coclodger ex on another thread

The bit I missed was I had an awful pregnancy with my baby

I was rushed into hospital,only to find I'd been pregnant with twins but lost one

We went home-im bleeding and so scared of losing the other baby

We went to bed-im laid sobbing when he snuggles up behind me and mutters 'I know your not up for proper sex,but how do you fancy some anal?'

As I'm miscarrying his child and was in real danger of losing the other

I stayed and it turned out he wasn't going without-he was shagging my best friend,who had shot round to help me and was sleeping in the next room

(they finally ran away together when baby was about 5 months old)

But,as he told me later,they'd waited until I'd sobbed myself to sleep

How bloody kind of them...

OMFG @Sharontheodopolodous 😳😔

My ex expected me to answer his calls or call him back within 5 minutes or he would get mad, he had to know where I was at all times.

One day I had the day off and went to the gym without telling him, when I got out there was over 40 missed calls from him. He was so raging at me he said we were over and that he was moving out and literally packed his bags and left. 2 days later he came back and said that he'd changed his mind because his best mate had convinced him to stay. He then said I should call his best mate to say thank you for convincing him to take me back. I am so ashamed that I actually did it, what was I thinking? I was actually grateful for him giving me a second chance.. took me another 6 months and discovering he had been sleeping with 2 other girls to see the light.

Cheated numerous times with various women.
I was young and petrified to be alone with the children so forgave him. At one point he was shagging a woman he worked with as well as her friend who also worked with them (he was 26/27 they were both around 40). I used to track him on his iPhone because I KNEW where he was but he lied so convincingly I had to catch him out. I remember sitting at the train station to catch him coming back at 10pm with a baby asleep in the pram and a toddler who was exhausted just so I could prove to myself I wasn't insane. He saw me and went a different way. I ended up messaging her on Facebook after reading a chat between them and her first reaction was to message him on the account he had left open on our laptop. I sat by while he went on nights out with work knowing she was there and even to a weekend festival with both of them. Lord knows what they got up to.

Had a girl in a club approach us and whisper and giggle in his ear then stroke my face telling me how pretty I was. He denied knowing her. Found a text on his phone later on to his uncle laughing that she luckily hadn't told me he was shagging her. His uncle thought it was hilarous.

He used a prostitute when I was home in bed with a ten day old baby.

He gave me chlamydia.

He got someone else pregnant whilst I was also pregnant and refused to have any kind of conversation with her. I had to go to her house and discuss what would happen and what she wanted. She was so lovely and made me realise these girls weren't the enemy, he was lying to them as much as he was lying to me. She lost the baby. I left him for good shortly after.

He moved in with his new girlfriend within days of moving out of the family home and is still with her. She is lovely. He treats her like shit.

I on the other hand have thrived since he's been gone, gained my confidence back, amazing job, beautiful house, car, just me and my boys. Chronically single but don't think I could ever trust another man again sadly.

My ex didn't show any red flag until I got pregnant. Or I didn't see them. I think he though I got her caught and he was right. I even forgive him cheating once. He left for OW, took every penny he was entitled to and I even pack his stuff when he moved.
What a mug! I know that know. Every day without him has been a blessing. Even the bad ones.
We don't see it form the inside. We have to be outside to see all the shit some of us have been through.

@Epidote I packed mine's stuff too (a massive job, he was a hoarder) - he had already done some planning and hiding things so he wasn't having any more opportunity to do any more damage.

We don't see it from the inside. We have to be outside to see all the shit some of us have been through

This is so true. You don't realise the load you're carrying until you are no longer carrying it. It's part of the abuse - they keep your head so filled with them that you don't have the headspace or clarity to see their behaviour for what it is.

@Sharontheodopolodous . What a cunt.

@TwoThousandAcresofBlueSkyThinking thank you gor the flowers
Won't amaze anyone that he wriggled out of paying csa,and finally stopped contact once he got bored,but I went on to meet my amazing dp and our child wants nothing to do with him

You reap what you sew

Indeed @Sharontheodopolodous . I'm glad you're happy now and that your child doesn't see him, he would never have been a good influence.

Oh god, I have loads. I feel ashamed even thinking back to them.

Abuse started when I was pregnant, where he threatened to smash my laptop if I didn’t hand over his we*d (he said he was quitting)

Turned up to the hospital 3 hours late the day after we had DD because he got a mate round the night before

Day after we came home with DD he screamed that I wasn’t “f*cking disabled” when I asked him for help getting DD down the stairs (after a 36 hour labour and forceps)

Held me by the wall by my neck, punched me in the nose, accused me of cheating and spat in my face, and encouraged then toddler DD to call me a whore.

i still didn’t leave 😞

Was unemployed when we met, told me I could move in with him IF I contributed enough to the house and enough to keep him (beer money), ignored my birthday every year except the one where my sons birthday party fell on my birthday when a huge bouquet of flowers was delivered just so everyone could see how wonderful he was, played no part in Christmas (I always went to my parents and he refused to come), got moody if I went out, didn’t like my friends or family coming round, didn’t really do much with either of the kids, complained when I got a p/t job because it would interfere with his hobby, kept guns in the house, threatened to shoot me if I ever cheated, used lots of racist and homophobic language (but was actually neither racist or homophobic, but I think he thought it made him look tough), decorated his man cave with numerous pictures of Hitler and many more stupid things. 10 years, reader….yep…10 years and 2 kids. How bloody blind was I.

Half of the household budget went on his weed habit. He actually had me convinced that it was a necessity and had to be budgeted for.

Sold all of mine and baby dds jewellery. Bought weed with the money.

Ruined every birthday, Christmas, special occasion and day out.

Quit every job he ever had. Borrowed money constantly from me, family, friends, and even convinced me to contact long lost friends and ask for money.

Spent every hour of every day, sat on a stool by the backdoor smoking weed. I used to call it the throne of misery.

He wasn't a shouter or screamer, but a miserable, whining, seething, mood hoover that would criticise everyone and everything. He would go on long, aggressive rants about shit that displeased him, or pick fights with me then gaslight me into thinkng I was the problem.

Dear God, I'm glad he's gone! We share 2 dc that are doing amazing and thriving (he has very low contact) but I do worry if he will have a negative impact on their lives as they get older. He's like a parasite, he'll latch onto happy, positive people and slowly suck them dry leaving them nothing but a hollow shell.

God, my heart goes out to every PP. The shit we've put up with! I'm so pleased we eventually decided to stop taking it, whatever the final straw may have been.

I KNEW where he was but he lied so convincingly I had to catch him out. I remember sitting at the train station to catch him coming back ... just so I could prove to myself I wasn't insane.

I really recognise your feeling, @GlitteryFarts. It's why I'm an absolute stickler for verifiable facts and evidence these days. It's also how I learned that people who instruct you to trust them are NOT to be trusted!

I recognise the wonderful public gestures, @Trinity69. Just so everyone can tell you how lucky you are (to be with a two-faced cunt ).

Too much for too long. The only thing he didn't do was beat me. He only physically threatened me after we had separated and he realised he couldn't control me any more.

I actually could have died because of my ex.

When I was going into sepsis from a mystery infection, he told me to stop wallowing in self pity, then convinced me that I was making up being ill because I wanted attention while dancing around taking the piss out of me. Because I was delirious with fever, I believed it and delayed going into hospital until I was screaming in pain.

Thank god I left him a few months later. I've never been so delighted to be single in my entire life. It was then me dancing around my own house with glee.