What was the defining moment that made you realise it was over?...

[skinnyhinny]

I love my H very much but not in the way I think I should and although we are actually living in a happy house at the moment I'm sure it can't go on and that something is missing. Am waiting for what that actually is to hit me in the face/creep up on me etc etc

So I was just wondering as a bit of a poll what or when that might be! There's been talk on another thread that there will definitely be 'the moment' that it hits you or dawns on you that it is definitely finally over. I don't mean finding out about an affair or anything as concrete as that but more the 'final straw' Only wondering because I'm waiting for mine....!

I'd just left a hospital ward after having a breast lump removed (thankfully benign) when I was stopped by someone wielding a clipboard. She asked if I could answer some questions about my hospital stay and I told her I was in pain and just wanted to get home. After she apologised and walked off, ex-h turned to me and said "you didn't have to be so rude . You should have answered her questions." That did it for me.

Not nearly as horrendous as some of you on here, but just showed how little respect he had for me.

There's a line in War of the Roses - Kathleen Turner says to her soon to be ex - "every time I look at you I want to smash your face in!" - I recognise that feeling.

I just feel that everything DH does is only just on the right side of acceptable, I need something really bad to justify leaving a man who is basically decent but very wrong for me

I've posted about this before, but here goes again....

We were in New York, supposedly to spend time together, and all he wanted to do was go to social networking meetups. Before the trip I agreed one night wouldn't hurt, but any more than that was taking the piss--our marriage was on shaky ground and had been for a long time (we were in sex therapy at the time and had already done Relate the year before). The trip was about US connecting.

So he comes back to where we were staying afterward and says 'oh, they're doing stuff tomorrow too, playing frisbee in the park and then having a BBQ at this guy's flat'. I told him I didn't want to spend my time in NYC socialising with strangers, I wanted to spend time with him! We had a big argument about it, and he agreed we'd do sightseeing together as planned.

Next day, we go on a boat cruise, have a lovely time, and afterward, I say, 'what shall we see next?'. And he says, looking at his watch.....

'I can still make it, the frisbee doesn't start till 4pm'.

With those words, I FINALLY realised I was ALWAYS going to be at the bottom of his priorities. We had a standoff in the street, and he just kept saying, like a petulant little boy, 'well, I really want to go'. 'So GO,' I said, and off he trotted, thinking he'd be able to apologise his way out of it later, as he had always done. He couldn't. I left him, and never regretted it.

I mean, fucking FRISBEE! FFS.

'

I knew it was over when he came to visit me after I moved to a new shared house. We were in the living room with my friend and her boyfriend when I went to the toilet. I was halfway down the hall when I realised he was right behind me, following me to the toilet. I asked him what he was doing and he said "You can't expect me to stay in there with them. I don't know what to say"

He was 35 years old.

When I found he had booked a weekend trip to New York with the woman he was having an affair with. I called him home from work and made him pack his bags there and then. He never spent another night in our home

For me it's been more gradual - and it's all very recent. But the mini revelations still surprise me on a daily basis. How I relax when he is out and tense up when he either wakes up or arrives back home. I hadn't noticed it, but once I started to, well I just kept on noticing. Am still noticing; the melting cool worried feeling he gives me in the pit of my stomach, like the complete opporsite of the lovely butterflies you get when you are falling in love. The mind games. The attempts to control, all the time. How he likes to push my buttons for the fun of seeing me get wound up.

But the defining moment was probably when I burst into tears in front of his mum, as I was recounting something shitty he had done. Just being that open and vulnerable, I knew it was over then. Because I was telling her it was over, and I knew I wouldn't change my mind then.

There was no moment, more a period over which I realised, after her affair came to light, that I was never going to get the love and respect I craved because she had never loved me.

Things had gone bad for several months years, when during a conversation my friend asked how would I feel if I knew my H was having an affair. The first thought that came to my mind was "Good, at least he will leave me alone for a while".

I started to plan my way out on that day.

when I test drove a new car I had been saving up for for 2 years and drove in to our drive and did a comedy screetching stop in the gravel drive as he was passing.

He looked up and said "arse" and walked on.

There was an earhtquake tremor in England, we were standing up arguing across the room at eachoteher at 1am, then the floor started sliding away from the walls, to and fro, for about 60 seconds.

He looked petrified.
I'd never, ever, ever seen him scared before.
He'd spent 7 years making me scared to be alive in his presence, then a little thing like a minor tremor knocked him for six. One thing he couldn't control I suppose!

After that, I realised he's not a monster after all, he's human and frail too, I can beat him at his own game, he's not invincible anymore, he has weaknesses!

Daft.

Mum'sspecialjuice; could you not just say 'no'? Much quicker than either of the options you mentioned.

Seriously, that's totally mad.

When I asked him, point blank, 'Do you ever want children?'

And he answered me in the same manner, 'No.'

Nearly 10 years later, I am remarried and have 3.

He is remarried and has none.

When a man tells you he never wants children, believe him, and if you do, go.

when after a few months of trying to work out what was wrong with him, asking is he tired, stressed, worried about anything at work etc. getting the same answer about everything being fine.
My gut feeling was that he was seeing someone else but I had no proof.
I finally realised we were in trouble when I wrote a letter to him, expressing all my feelings of doubt, lack of self worth, the way he made me feel about my appearance (never complimented me or said he loved me any more etc) and put the letter on the kitchen table for him to read when he got up to go to work. He acknowledged the letter and said we would talk, we didn't.
He never spoke of his feelings to me about anything, a very closed person. I found out the truth of the affair 12 months later.

The were several "nail in the coffin" experiences, memorable ones being ex holding dd's head under a cold tap when she wouldn't lie down in the bath to rinse her hair, she was 3.
I started to bleed at 20wks with ds, while I sat upstairs anxiously waitng for Dr to phone, ex sat downstairs eating toast & reading the paper.

Ds (18months)had an op, ex didn't come home until 5.30am on the day I took ds to hospital, and didn't phone the ward to see how he was.

On the 15th June 2009. I started a thread to pour out all the horrible guilt I felt about the way I had treated my h and why, as a result, he had punished me for most of our marriage.
I waited for the punishing replies and instead I received support, masses of it. I slowly began to realise that I wasn't the awful person I had come to believe I was. I realised that he had chosen to stay and punish me.
Then I learned what NPD was for the first time and a lightbulb went 'ping' above my head. Talk about a life changing moment.

The more I read threads like this the more horrified I become at SOME male behaviours.

I have never encounted extreme bad behaviour from a man -sure I've had some hum dinger arguments and other relationships have just drifted but I feel very angry, sad and shocked for the complete lack of respect some people have had to put up in their relationship before they relize it is not right.

Ok I'm not saying anything constructive here but thought I'd have a mild rant. The way I dumped an ex for bowling a 10 pin ball is pretty off the wall compared to somethings you MN's are going through/have been through.

OK, my turn. I had been in hospital for two weeks following an unexplained collapse (stroke, encephalitis, hepatic encephalopathy - they didn't know) and he started badgering and bullying me to come home. He wanted me to discharge myself from hospital against medical advice so I could go home and look after our four year daughter because he wanted to go on a work jolly in Italy for four days. He just couldn't believe I said no.

Went to a party XP gave in a poncey wine bar in Pimlico. We'd been together for over 3 years (although not living together - now I know why), yet I knew absolutely no-one there. I attempted to mingle and chat to people, and it became clear that not one of them was aware he had a partner at all, and made numerous references to parties, trips and events that I'd had no idea had been happening.

Seems he'd been living a whole secret life. I made a dignified exit and never spoke to him again.

I didn't behave well at the end of my marriage and I felt v guilty. Wasn't unfaithful, but almost. I got very depressed after we split, felt I had ruined the family, wanted to make it up to him even though we'd had a pretty terrible marriage for years (no sex, loads of rows about nothing, loads of feeling undermined and blanked).

I hit rock bottom last year when we were still in counselling and i ende up in a respite centre in lieu of hospital. He phoned and talked to me as if I'd told him I was spending a weekend at my mum's and rang off with something like 'the kids are fine, see you later.' He didn't offer to come and see me or pick me up or to bring the kids over. That was when I knew it was utterly, finally dead.

When I was talking to an old male friend and he burst out laughing at something I said and I realised my husband hadn't laughed at anything I had said in years!

There were hundreds (no exaggeration) of other signs, but this was the one was the epiphany moment.

I came back from a grim two-day business trip in November 2009 to find our kitchen an absolute mess.

As I was surveying the scene, he also came through the front door, announced that he had had a hard day, wanted to slump in front of the TV, and promptly buggered off to the sitting room, saying I should join him too. 'Ho hum', thinks I. On with the machine, wash up the pans, and I was just on my hands and knees scrubbing some blimmin gravy off the floor, when P stormed into the kitchen: 'What the hell are you doing? I've been sitting waiting for you in the front room for ages! Why do you always keep me waiting?!'

This wasn't it though - the moment I went 'you know what? fuck it' was about half an hour later when we were sat on the sofa and I was trying to be soothing and asking him why he felt so angry? I took his hand to try and connect with him, but he snatched it away, snapping that I should 'stop being so clingy.'

It was like; 'fine! no more clinging from me!

I've hardly seen him since.

well, this is a very long time ago

but, the day he said I couldn't go to university because he couldn't trust himself not to be unfaithful while I was away during the week...

cue...dump from a great height

mucho retractions and protestations he didn't really mean it, tears and snot akimbo

yeah, right, stroll on you fucking liar

I sometimes wonder how differently my life would have turned out if I hadn't got that moment of clarity

I dunno why I did, tbh, because I put up with a shedload of shit prior to this

WAIT! In retrospect - what really sounded the death knell was the day he bought a bloody iPhone.

If I were meaner than I am, I would have smashed that bloody thing in front of his weeping eyes.

I remember quite clearly the time when I was crying about a terrible day at work, and he calmly took it out of his pocket to check his Twitter and said 'carry on - I'm listening.'

When he threatened to kill me and the dc's. Pretty clear cut that one. And I didn't shed a tear once it was over and we were safe, didn't want to waste my time getting wrinkles because of him.