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Original poster

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

112 replies

skinnyhinny · 21/03/2010 14:44

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....!

OP posts:
BalloonSlayer · 23/03/2010 08:20

It didn't make me dump him (Shaaaame!) but the moment I realised it had all gone wrong was when we went somewhere with friends.

He was driving but couldn't remember the way to the place we were going. Neither of the friends could remember the way. However, I could remember the way and said where to go. He ignored me - not aggressively, he was a very placid chap. We got lost. In the end he found the place, exactly where I had said it was.

The realisation that he thought so little of me that he saw any suggestion of mine as obviously and utterly worthless, even if he had no idea of his own in opposition to it, was a revelation.

(I don't think he was a narcissist exactly, but when I read the bits about: Idealise, Devalue, Discard on the NPD threads I always remember that incident, as a classic Devalue one.)

TheSteelFairy2 · 23/03/2010 12:59

Something similar BalloonSlayer. We have a child with ASD and he really struggles with writing. One day after no work done whatsoever at school, I took it all home with us and we did it that night, beautiful, long sentences written about Thomas the tank engine (ds's big obsession at the time). A few days later exh brought ds and his english book home and started raving about this writing, how much ds had come on and how it was all down to ds's new teacher. I said how great it was and then explained that it was me who had thought of it and then told his teachers so they were now doing that at school. He completely shut down, no more enthusiasm and changed the subject, it was as though as soon as it became something good that I had done it had to be diminished and belittled, he absolutely could not bear to praise me or say "hey you did a really good job". I remember looking at him and thinking why am I with a man who is actually angry when I do something well or am excited about something?

It happened hundreds of times but that was the one that really stuck in my mind.

TheSteelFairy2 · 23/03/2010 13:02

Oh and the times I ever pointed this out to him he snapped "So what, it's not always about YOU!". Thing is in 8 years of marriage it was never about me. Never a word of praise and outright irritation whenever anything was about me like my Birthday or Mothers Day. God he was such a knob (still is for that matter!)

pinkstuff · 23/03/2010 13:05

posting my life with him on here and then reading it back.

MarshaMallow · 23/03/2010 13:07

My defining moment was the night he threw me down some stairs on the way out of a nightclub (granite and steel trimmed!)...then picked me up from the floor using my hair - all this was done with many other clubbers watching as it was chucking out time.

Somehow when he treated me like this behind closed doors it was Ok...then he did it in public and I realised this so called 'man' would one day probably kill me.

I left that night after he'd passed out.

sez2068 · 23/03/2010 13:23

when i caught him yet again texting sex text line and he denied it and when he fell asleep oh i mean passed out drunk i checked his phone and there was a text from someone called leila saying ' sorry busy cant do sexy now but am free to meet tomorrow'

wtf!!
that was my last straw!!

BigusBumus · 23/03/2010 13:25

I started a new job (as a full time PA) when DS1 was 7 months. After about a month I had to organiser and attend a 3 day exhibition in Germany, which was very stressful and overwhelming but ultimately successful and made me feel great.

I got back home, animated about my acheivments, at 9.30pm, Ex-h was watching Cracker and didn't even turn his head to say hello, let alone ask me all about the conference. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of wine and sat in silence looking at his profile, and vowed that this was the moment my life would start without him.

(It had been terrible for months btw, he had no interest in me and DS and we had already talked of splitting, but I was wavering, up to that moment).

giveitago · 23/03/2010 15:49

I think it was following an emergency c section that I didn't get on with - him deciding at that moment to work double shifts but bring mil over and they were evil - mil had been moaning that her ds was tired and worked to hard (as opposed to me obviously) said in front of him,

I couldn't lift anythung and I needed iron his shirts - he wouldn't set up the ironing board for me - so I did it myself - ironed his stuff and had it on hangers by the door - I asked if he could put his shirts away and leaned and sneered in my face 'no I'm tired as I work too hard'.

The other is that I had to have a suspected skin cancer removed shortly after birth of ds - he never even asked about the results (all OK now but it was a skin cancer).

Yet he's such a bloody victim.

petitmaman · 23/03/2010 15:59

SKINNYHINNY ( sorry for shouting) 'tis me from the other thread. There has not been a defining moment as you know (relate meeting tomorrow. we will see what happens) but a friend said to me today 'you have already detatched and grieved for your relationship haven't you?' and I realised that i had. Feel weird now. Like it is over even though it is only me that knows it. Good luck and keep in touch.

maristella · 23/03/2010 18:54

my defing moment came after i had my first proper night out with a friend after ds was born. i came home to find things had been smashed (he said the cat broke things ) he accused me of being unfaithful. then when i was trying to get to sleep he physically assaulted me over and over again, saying he did not believe i hadn't cheated. i was so scared, i thought he was going to kill me. i just lay there, he must have known i was awake, but then i didnt sleep for another hour. the first thing i said to him when we woke up was that it was over.
best decision i ever made, still can't believe it took me so long!

Original poster
skinnyhinny · 23/03/2010 21:41

Hey petit! Lovely to see you. So glad you popped in. I'm quite pleased with my thread and that it has spawned a new one too. Hope everyone is getting the help they need. I'm still no further forward but so glad things are getting clearer for you. It would be great to meet for a coffee IRL and chat but we prob don't live anywhere near each other and anyway to let you know where I am or vice versa would break the anon of it all!!!!!!! So good luck and keep in touch xxx

OP posts:
lilac21 · 23/03/2010 21:47

And you know it is time to go when...

The plastic thing that holds the shower head on the rail broke tonight, just shattered into about ten pieces as I moved the shower head down for 10yo DD to have her shower. Very quickly she said 'I'll tell Daddy I broke it.'

Don't know what is going through her mind that she feels she has to protect me. Thank God we are almost out of here.

JaynieB · 23/03/2010 21:56

After all these very serious posts, mine sounds horribly trivial - I split up with my first serious boyfriend because of lots of reasons, but the final straw was that I just couldn't bear to watch him eat, something funny happened to his eyes when he opened his mouth...

Original poster
skinnyhinny · 23/03/2010 22:07

Lol that's brilliant jayneyb!!!!! X

OP posts:
fattramp · 26/07/2011 22:54

just found this great old thread and thought I'd revive it for new tales of "thud" moments

RabbitPie · 26/07/2011 23:07

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fattramp · 26/07/2011 23:15

mine was when he called me a fat tramp Sad

mrscynical · 27/07/2011 07:45

It was when, at an awards ceremony, his name was completely and unexpectedley read out as the winner (another person was apparently the dead cert) and as he stood to walk to the stage I grabbed his hand to say 'Bloody hell, well done' he brushed me aside without a glance. It was as if my hand was a piece of shit that he had to quickly remove from his body.

I still cannot watch something like the Oscars when winners immediately look to their spouses and kiss them and smile at each other.

I sat in that seat as he bounded up to the stage and felt completely empty and totally alone. I wanted to howl.

FreudianSlipper · 27/07/2011 08:25

once i started telling myself well if they do this or do not do that or do that again i will finish it. sadly i did this a few times, the last time as soon as i started giving myself a reason i got out straightaway as i knew i was just wasting time

JeffTracy · 27/07/2011 09:43

For me it was when XW came up the stairs at 2am blind drunk as usual, took a wrong turn and ended up in DDs bedroom. She started ripping DDs posters off the wall and mumbling incoherently whilst a scared DD hid on the other side of the bed. Next day XW could not remember anything. I had to have a long talk with DD. I ended the marriage ended a few weeks later.

ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow · 27/07/2011 10:09

same as meglet: when he threatened to kill me.

Well, actually the moment just before that, when he flew into an abusive rage about how I was "betraying" him because I had a different opinion to him about an aspect of government policy that neither of us is directly concerned by. That gave me a kind of an out-of-body moment of clarity. It's when I then stated that abusive rages weren't tolerable for me that his response was to threaten to kill me.

superv1xen · 27/07/2011 10:17

god there was sooooo many of those moments with my ex in the last year or so we were "together" but i was too chicken to end things

but the one that stands out for me, i think it was because it was the final "thing" that made me know i had to end it. we were sitting in a pub with him in silence on a saturday night when everyone seemed to be having fun around us, and just feeling an incredible yearning to feel for someone again, to feel that excitement, to have fun with someone and feel a thrill at being with them, i realised i felt none of those things for him

4 days later i asked him to move out and it was the start of my new life and the best thing i ever did.

aftereight · 27/07/2011 11:10

Years ago:
When I came home from hospital having had a very sensitive gynae op, and within the hour he asked for a hand job!

I didn't dump him then, but that was the moment I emotionally left the relationship.

LesserOfTwoWeevils · 27/07/2011 13:19

Shock and Sad at so many of these.
Lilac, your poor sweet daughter. I hope you get out of there today!
I had two moments: one was after he finally confessed to an affair?and then several others I'd suspected but not known about. I asked him to promise never to to do it again and he said, "No, that would be boring."
The other was just after we bought a house together. My dad had given me a small table and I said it could go in DS1's room as he needed a bedside table.
XP said, "No, it has to go on the porch, and if it doesn't I'm going to pack my things and move out."

bejeezus · 27/07/2011 13:44

a week after my due date with dd2 and a day before our 9th wedding anniversary, we were invited as a family to a friends house for sunday lunch. stbxh said he couldnt come as he was studying.

Wilst visiting the friends hey commented that he had never accepted an invitation to their house in the 6 years we had been friends.

When I got home with dd1 I phoned to let him know- he didnt answer his phone for over an hour. Then he accidentally phoned me back and I listened whilst he was in the pub with friends, chatting up a women and insulting and racially abusing me to his audience

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