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??!

Soooo many. I'll give some 'lighter' examples because there's too much tragedy here already.

These are all different exes...

His nickname for me was 'shit for brains'. He convinced me this was cute but in reality he hated I'd stayed in education.

He dutch-ovened me then had a flypaper ready for when I ran out of the bed which caught in my hair. Hahaha such a funny fucking joke. Had to clean glue and dead flies out of my hair while tired and gagging on fart.

Had a running 'joke' about him always turning off lights (even though I paid 100% of the electricity bill). Watched me sorting and loading his washing in the utility room (off the kitchen). Then turned off the utility room light and shut me in and then turned off the kitchen light and shut the door to there too. When I emerged less than happy, having been left alone in the dark sorting his shitty boxers he was pissing himself laughing and told me 'learn how to take a joke'. LEARN HOW TO MAKE A JOKE YOU CHILDISH PRICK.

Of course, this was the tip of the iceberg but all these men were BLINDSIDED when I left them. I didn't leave them for the above reasons (although I should have) but when the above behaviour is their attempt at fun, you can see the level I used to tolerate.

Not anymore.

Mine was an online date when I’d come out of a horrifically toxic relationship.
I met him at a motorway services (said he could meet elsewhere due to work, but only lived 10 miles from me)
He was wearing his work uniform, looked nothing like his pictures and was obnoxious and just awful. I was so grateful someone appeared to like me that when I asked, when he called me the next day, why he liked me out of everyone on OLD, he replied……..
’Because you’ve had no kids and therefore are likely to be lovely and tight down there’

Literally makes my skin crawl typing it.

I went on two more coffee dates and invited him over for drinks but stopped short of full sex because he was just so vile.

When I asked him to leave me alone he continually text me, it ended when he text me again after me ignoring him for many weeks, to say how thankful he was for me helping him by listening when he wanted to talk about his dad passing away.
I asked him again to not contact me again as we have nothing to discuss and he wrote back ‘I totally agree, in hindsight I realise you aren’t right for me and I don’t find you attractive’

Thankfully 3 years later he remains blocked but makes me shudder to think I actually went on other dates with him because my self confidence was so low 🤦‍♀️

I think I needed to hear that. Thanks.

Admitted to having cheated on several people previously.
Constantly stared at other women when we were out together I must have had a knock on the head

Buckle In - It's Long ish

When we first met/were dating - he completely misrepresented himself. Lied. Exaggerated. I believe he was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear, instead of the truth. FYI, the guy wasn't a slouch, so there was NO reason for him to do this. He felt he was punching above his weight, so he lied.

Lovebombed. Hard. Readers, this was almost 20 years ago, before anyone had heard of love bombing. Basically, love bombing resulted in a very whirlwind romance. Moved in after 6 weeks, he was desperate to have a baby (another deliberate ploy to "keep me" - he has admitted to that!), so a few months later I was pregnant, so we got married. All of this within a year.

By the time I became aware of all this, I was married, with an infant, had moved many, many, many miles from home for this man... and I didn't want to be a single mum. I do remember once thinking to myself that if we did split, would 'fraud' be grounds for divorce...

He wasn't the greatest husband. Funnily enough, the lies just kept coming and coming and coming. He lied about basic, inane stuff that you don't need to lie about. He is just unable to tell the truth. He was also a cheat.

The real kicker though - he's not my Ex. I'm still married to this guy. I have stayed with him. Mostly for the kids. Mostly for the financial stability. Mostly for me, I was scared to be alone.

Oh, @ItsFreedomBabyYeah ((( 😢 )))

On about our second date, went into a mood when he realised he knew one of my ex-boyfriends. The next time we met he told me he’d gone home and punched a wardrobe.

Told the most awfully misogynistic anecdotes.

Coerced me into sex on our wedding night.

I was so young and so naive. It makes me sad to look back.

We were on holiday with 8-week old DC1 and DM. I did all the baby care and cooking. DM did all the cleaning and washing up. DP spent his time relaxing in the sofa while DM and I were doing the work. One morning, about 11am, DP started yelling his head off at me saying that I had deliberately made us late for the outing we had planned. Apparently it was an evil plan of mine designed to make me into a victim. When I talked to him about it a few days later, he insisted he was right, even though he had no evidence.

21 years and another DC later, I finally extricated myself from the narcissistic sod.

@Sharontheodopolodous that's horrific. Utterly horrific. I am so sorry.

I am so sorry to hear all these awful stories from everyone on this thread.

My ex'd'h - there were many, many red flags from the get-go, and if I'd had a healthy sense of self-worth and all the rest of it back in my 20's when I met him, we wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of weeks. Instead I married the twat and that's when his dreadful behaviour really ramped up. Classic.

Two weeks after we were wed "your cellulite is getting worse", a week or so later "I don't want you ever to socialise with me and my friends again". I asked why, and his response: "because it means I can't talk about other women I've had sex with".

Of course he would always claim he was faithful, even when he would go missing for days at a time.

I was physically, mentally and emotionally abused for the duration of the marriage, I stayed in this shit-show for 6 years until one day I quite literally woke up and just knew I was done - feels so ridiculous typing that... why did it take me so long??

There are so many of us with these sorts of stories. I do not know why there are so many fucked up men out there.

Left me alone in hospital after having an operation as he needed to be somewhere else (he didn't), lied about where he was, said he was in Brighton but was in London, drove past my house on a Friday night and didn't call in because his social life was more important and he lived 70 miles away, never had my back, his dad said I wasn't important to him, said he didn't feel the need to speak on the phone or FaceTime me, again despite being in a long distance relationship!

To all the other posters just wow..Astounded that how some people can “function” and actually behave the way that they do..so happy for anyone who has come out the other side of any form of abuse 👏❤️

How do you actually leave though, guys? I can't say we're bad earners but the cost of living crisis is making it impossible for me to leave! Mortgage is crippling, just on the wrong side of being entitled to benefits. I so want to leave but have two kids and just can't see how people afford it

Pushed me down the stairs. It was my fault for winding him up. Had sex raped with me while I was asleep. That was my fault for being in bed. Happened multiple times. Embarrassed me in company by making jokes about my genitals and saying I had "no sense of humour". Embarrassed me in front of my friends. That was my fault for making him socialise. Threw a huge fireplace out the door that narrowly missed our crawling son and shouted at me for "overreacting". Urgh, I could go on and on. I was utterly devastated when his prolific cheating led to him leaving me. Years of therapy later, I'm so so very relieved. I'll never go near a man again though. I'm educated and intelligent and can't spot an arsehole even if they tell me that's what they are.

I'm really really sorry. I've been on the receiving end of some utterly vicious behaviour by my ex and OW but that is something else. I hope they both get what they so richly deserve

• He was an alcoholic and regular drug user. He pressured me to drink and take drugs on several occasions, one time he told me he’d spiked the drugs with something else after I’d taken them. I had a really bad reaction - vomiting, shaking, sweating, seizure. He videod me during this to humiliate me. He still made me go out on the town after those symptoms had gotten slightly better. I could have died.
• cheated with his ex, came to mine blind drunk after she’d kicked him out with a bottle of booze and a frozen pizza he’d stolen from her. I begged him not to come but since he didn’t respect anyone’s boundaries he came anyway. Made me cry, pushed me, shouted at me, laughed at me and finally left an hour or so later. This was usual form to treat me that way when drunk.
• the same night he was arrested for indecent exposure and sexual assault on a poor girl in town.
• R@ped me
• didn’t tell me he had a 6 year old son, then lied about why he doesn’t see him when I found out
• After i found out about the cheating and his ex found out about me (not his sons mum) ex told me he hit her, threw objects at her, smashed her living room and her phone and r@ped her.
• I got pregnant and he begged me to have an abortion, telling me I couldnt be a mother. I kept the baby but ditched him. He told me not to tell anyone he’s the father, stalked and harrassed me during pregnancy, then never bothered to get in contact to meet his daughter. He’s not on the birth certificate and as long as I get a say he will never meet her.

Reading this back I am so ashamed of that time in my life. I tried to leave 3 times but I let him back in. There’s so much he did to me I didn’t include. I’m 2 and a half years free of him now. I will never let someone abuse me like that again.

Span me a line early on about how all his money worries were down to his ex wife, I supported him while he went through bankruptcy only for him to get himself in just as big of a mess again 10 years later. By this point he’s taking very little responsibility financially or otherwise for our family preferring to leave all of his children with me, including the ones that aren’t mine, so he could pursue his hobbies every weekend. He was also being routinely awful to me and the kids shouting at us and berating us. I put up with it to try and keep my family together but I couldn’t any longer.

My ex husband told me in the first six months of our relationship I was a head not a heart discussion and if I could just lose a few stone I'd be perfect.
9 years of weigh ins, five stone starved off because he was so awful if I wasn't losing weight, more emotional/ financial abuse that later over spilled into sexual and physical violence - I finally left him.

@Sharontheodopolodous that has to be the most abhorrent thing I have ever read on Mumsnet. I’m so sorry you went through that.

I’m so sorry everyone on here has these experiences to share!

I saw him with another girl not long after we got together, he lied and said nothing happened but why sit with your arm around her, cuddled up on a sofa in a club. I look back and now realise how dumb I was and how much he was controlling me already.

He also lied about his age. I should have dumped him after that (and got with the guy from the university rugby team, I often wonder how my life would be now had I said yes to him), instead I forgave him, sadly that was the start. He would often go off for 2 hour phone calls to a female friend, lied that I wasn't invited to dinner at our friend's then this female friend just so happened to turn up. He belittled me (in public as well as private), hit me, pinned me down and strangled me. That went on for years.

I put up with it because I had no confidence left. I eventually snapped when he threw the laundry basket at me, almost hitting one of the cats. I had always said if he raised a hand to a child I'd be gone, looking back the cat was my 'child' moment. Thankfully we never had children.

Reading all these situations, I'm left wondering why you stayed after the first horrific date or red flags in the first few months? And if you were giving advice to a daughter, what would you tell her? Is there anything someone could have said to you back then that would have changed your mind?

Right, this was when I was 19, so confidence lacking. But I bumped in to my boyfriend of 3 years in the local pub with another girl.

He took me to one side and begged me to not tell her who I was, I agreed and spent the rest of the evening on the other side of the pub with a family member, feeling confused and hurt.

It turned out he’d been seeing her for 6 months, she knew nothing about me either.

I dumped him the next day

I was with my last one for 3 months. Not that long in the scheme of things. In the first few weeks, he was really nice - not too much and just seemed normal.

In the last month, he sexually assaulted me. I stayed with him for 3 weeks after this and the last time I saw him he said he wanted to watch me have unprotected sex with other men. I posted about it on here.

After he said this, I forced myself to not call him. This was when it hit me what he had done. I feel it helped that we weren't living together and that we were early on in our relationship. It was still hard breaking up with him. I liked him and the fact we had some really good conversations was what attracted me.

I can understand how people stay at a much deeper level now. Before, whilst I would never have shamed anyone for staying, I never really understood it. These men are skilled at turning the charm on when required and know how to keep someone just where they need them.

I imagine once you're living with someone like this, you might not even know you're traumatised. I remember being completely numb. I mistook that for being fine. It's also really hard to leave someone that abusive after a long relationship.

Pointed out my cellulite after we had sex.
Said he would never date someone fat and that after childbirth women are disgusting.
Proposed within the first year, with no intention to actually get married.
If I ever borrowed money off him, I had to pay it back, even it was just £1.
Not interested in my family or friends, yet expected me to see his family every weekend for dinner.
Constantly messaging other girls.
Called me thick or stupid many times.
If he gave me a lift anywhere, I had to pay him petrol money.
Expected me to iron his shirts for work and make his sandwiches.
I am so glad I left him and never married or had children with him, he would have ruined my life.

@Sharontheodopolodous Holy crap. What a bastard. I'm sorry that happened to you.

XH told me after we'd been together about 6 months that I was the first girlfriend he'd had that he hadn't cheated on. It was a line he'd trot out occasionally throughout our marriage.

He stopped saying it in our 16th year of marriage when I found out what he'd been up to for the previous 6 years. Can't believe I stayed for him to cheat on me twice more.

He also slapped me round the face during an argument a couple of months into our marriage. We went to talk about it to an older couple we trusted. I'd been stamping my feet as i was so cross with him. He apparently slapped my face to stop me "behaving like a toddler", and that justified his behaviour to both him and the older couple. Hence began his occasional violent behaviour towards me. And mine toward him.

It wasn't until I'd been divorced for about a year that I realised the link between what they said and what we felt was acceptable in our marriage.

There were, hand on heart, NO red flags before we married. But afterwards, those flags flew high and proud. I was in my early 20s and pretty gullible.

Two things spring to mind. I stayed after he locked me in a closet to prevent me from going to see a friend because 'he might want the car'. I blanked this from my mind and it wasn't til after we separated that the memory resurfaced (during therapy).

He was not Christian (nothing wrong with that) and after taking part in the usual Xmas stuff every year since we met, announced that there would be NO Xmas in our house. No tree, no decs, no music, and especially no gifts to or from anyone. Then pulled a major strop when he didn't get any at my family's Xmas dinner (his no Xmas didn't extend to missing all the delicious Xmas food.

When I DIDN'T stay was when he suddenly announced (after 4 years of marriage) that he had never wanted, and that we would never have, children. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and I kicked him out about a week later.