What are some reasons your past relationships failed?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Boy, this will sound unoriginal. Maybe the Walter Benjamin effect of triteness in love letters gone wild is in play.

(a) Just grew apart – young (maybe nineteen and twenty I guess).
(b) I moved away. I also kind of got sick of her – she was too sweet – but she was older (27 v 22) and let me live in her apartment/studio, which was a step up from the transient hotel and exciting at that age to be around someone “old” (hah).
© Some wife-thing and I just didn’t work out. She never communicated anything she felt, and I was self-absorbed, very busy, and often in need of communication and feeling both capable of being understood and capable of understanding another on an intellectual level as well as the emotional and primal.

My verbal cruelty during periods of relative estrangement with © was a factor as well, to be fair to that…woman, and (b) kind of thought I was a bit of a mean jerk as well, as I learned by accident a year later reading the archives of an online newspaper’s “Romantic Advice” column (obviously it was her wondering about going back to her ex-husband or trying again with me, although anonymous – too many details for there to be any doubt), for as much as she admired me, and I her, and shared my love of quiet, tenderness, compassion.

42

I was my SO’s other half. :wink:

43

Under a cut because the second one is really long. This is the first time I’ve ever vented about my second relationship. Feel free to read if you’re interested or just up with the sniffles like I am!

  1. First relationship, initially online but then transitioned into a “real” one with biannual week(s)-long visits, surviving high school and my undergrad years. Eventually moved in with him and his family. I think we just grew apart partly in due to our different attitudes. He’s laid back, and I have an anxiety disorder/depression that was undiagnosed at the time. Coupled with living with his family, suddenly being around one another 24/7 and the fact that I couldn’t find a stable job, the stress was too much. As many things we had in common, we also varied on. Somewhere along the way I lost the physical attraction to him and it just tore me apart. I kept thinking “Maybe the next time I visit him, it’ll respark it. When I return from Japan, it’ll respark. When I move in, it’ll respark…” and so on, but it never did.
    He is truly a wonderful guy, took it all in stride, and it broke my heart realizing that I no longer loved my first love. There was so much crying and apologizing on my side and he was wonderful about it all. We tried to keep in touch as friends but six months later he confessed that he still wasn’t over me which took me completely by surprise and turning him down again tore me up all over again. Eventually he found somebody better and we lost contact. I still think of him often, and miss him as a person in my life. I bear no ill will towards him and wish him all the best; his relationship was one of the best things to ever happen to me. We were just so young in the beginning, I think it was inevitable to grow apart as we grew into different people. I fully admit that the break-up was my fault.

  2. Second relationship began online as well, before the first one ended, I am ashamed to say. This person seemed like the answer to my problems, could relate to me, and had everything that I felt I was lacking in relationship #1. Of course, I blindly overlooked the fact that he was still married and lived across the country (closer to my home state.) But he was “thinking of divorcing” and “loved” me! In the beginning it was all new and exciting, having somebody take an interest in me. He was older, mature, and had the stable life that I yearned for. The emotional cheating and waiting for the never-coming divorce took a toll on me, worsening my anxiety and depression as I lived with boyfriend #1. I knew I couldn’t keep living with him and moved back home. I met boyfriend #2 eventually, and the first couple of dates together were stellar, just like I had hoped. They were full of emotion, physical contact, and sweetness. But eventually it slowed down and his true colors shone through and I realized that he wasn’t like that all the time; I think he was just initially excited to be with somebody that loved him back.

He divorced his ex (supposedly) but kept making excuses as to why I couldn’t visit him. For a year and a half I was strung along through excuse after excuse of us not being together. It became embarrassing building him up to my friends, being visibly excited for them to meet him, only to repeatedly sheepishly have to tell them that “something came up again” and make up yet another excuse. After the first couple of visits, it became boring. He didn’t have many hobbies or talked much, I soon found out his two favorite hobbies were sleeping and watching tv. He would break up with me a couple days before a visit and beg for me to take him back after. Like a sap, I would. I said nasty things to him that I would later be forced to apologize for by him…I guess the downfall began when I realized that my apologies were forced, and I STILL stood by all the things I had said. Our conversations dwindled down to talking about sandwiches and one-word e-mails. Sex was less than stellar, often uncomfortable, and he made me feel bad about being a virgin. I felt like an old married couple already.

He hated children and disliked meeting new people (my friends included.) He cared more about his pets than he did me. He wanted me to live closer to him and I even considered to going to a university just 45 minutes away but suddenly that was still too far away for him- this coming from a guy who cancelled 90% of our visits. The point of no return was when his “aunt” suddenly “died” the day before I was to visit and we were to go on a huge vacation together to the beach and to a concert he had been talking about/excited for over six months. (I had taken a month off of my new job which lowered my seniority, an action I regret to this day.) I was upset and he came up to visit a few days later…Arriving hours after what he had told me, at about 2 am. He kept asking “Do you want me to go?” and was ready to leave as soon as he got there. I wanted to patch things up, as I had thought he was changing for the better. I let him stay the night and we had sex. Woke up in the morning, asked him about the concert, and he said “Yeah…I was just thinking about taking a coworker instead…”

Promptly kicked him out of the house.

Of course got an apologetic e-mail right after the concert. :rolleyes: He had the routine of “beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission” down to an art.

I’m embarrassed to say that I still didn’t officially dump him until a couple of months later, shortly after Christmas. By then I had been accepted into a nearby university for grad school and began to reestablish my life in my hometown. I was aware that there were a handful of guys that liked me, one in particular I began to like back. After he told me that, yet again, he wasn’t going to be able to make our monthly visit, I was strangely fine with it. That’s when I knew I was over him.
Unlike relationship #1, I tried to make the breakup as swift as possible. By that time, I tried to get out numerous times only to take him back after an assault of dozens of apologetic e-mails promising that he’d change and voicemails blowing up my phone. I stuck to my guns and told him we could be friends, but even that proved to be too difficult for him (he kept saying things to try to lure me back in, things by this point I knew were just blind, enticing lies.) I had to block him from everything and ignore his claims on a mutual website that he was changing for the better. Suddenly he loved kids, he’s realized! He never thought anything was wrong with our relationship, he claimed! He began doing all the things I suggested he do when we were together! :dubious: I was over him and shortly after, he stopped showing up on the site.

I am far from blameless. I threw gasoline on this fire by showing interest and falling for him, encouraging him to divorce. My anxiety/depression grew into near-manic levels during some times and I did some things I greatly regret. I believe that I karmically deserved the emotional hell I was put through for emotionally cheating on boyfriend #1 and helping to break up a marriage.

I wish him the best and hope he finds somebody suited for him, but it wasn’t going to be me. I couldn’t forgive him for all the emotional abuse I was put through. I don’t even know if he was truthful about all the things he said, all the excuses. I will never know, and I have to accept that.
I try not to have any regrets in my life, but that 18 month relationship is the biggest regret I have. Sometimes I still have nightmares that I am still with him, going through the hellish emotional rollercoaster.

After that I promised myself that I will never do another long-distance/online relationship ever again.

  1. Relationship #3 has been fantastic since the beginning and, despite some minor squabbles, we have been going strong for almost a year now. This boyfriend breaks my past (silly, I now realize) rules of never dating anyone younger than me or anyone without a college degree. I am grateful that I got over my own dumb rules and gave him a chance. The past relationship has helped me to better appreciate the great guy that I have in my life now and the love we have for one another. I have never been happier.:slight_smile:
44

Entering a relationship is not the same as handing your partner a remote-control to your soul.

The first two LTR gals had trouble with that concept and kept pushing the buttons (to their disappointment). The third one grasped the concept (and insists on it in return). We will celebrate our 31st anniversary in two weeks.

45

First serious relationship: He was very sweet, and I’m lucky to have had him as part of my life. But we were too young, had too much growing left to do, and had too little of the important stuff in common. There was really nothing to build a relationship on. Ended when we both moved away.

Second serious relationship: I’ll have to go with “He was a controlling dick and I was too young and sheltered to know better”, mostly. I think there was an aspect of “I was stupid enough to think I could love him enough to make him change”, too.

Still married to the person I would count as my third serious relationship.

46

I’ve only been in 1 relationship that failed, and it was doomed from the get go for a variety of reasons.

First was the age difference of nearly 32 years. We met in Everquest, and spent a great deal of time playing together, and talking online. By the time we asked each other our age, we were already madly in love. From the way I talked and acted, she thought I was much older than my then 21 years of age. From the way she talked and acted, I thought she was much younger than her 53 years. Despite this, we tried for a relationship anyhow.

Then there was the distance. I lived in GA, she lived in CT, and neither of us could afford to travel as much as we would have liked.

Our unwillingness to compromise. This ties in to the distance thing. Neither of us was willing to pack up and leave our families.

Marriage. She was still married, though by this time it was a marriage in name only. Her husband treated her as a maid, not a wife.

Her daughters. They knew about me, and didn’t like the idea of their mom being involved with someone younger than the both of them.

Money and health. Near the end of the relationship, her health took a turn for the worst, and if we had ended up living together, she wouldn’t have been able to afford her meds. I don’t remember what she was put on, but the medicine was costing her almost $300/month even with insurance. At the time, I wasn’t making no where near enough to cover that plus other expenses, and she couldn’t work then.

My need to always be right. It led to a lot of arguements between us.

We eventually broke up, but stayed friends. We can and do talk to each other about anything.

47

Incompatibility. Incompatible maturity levels, incompatible energy levels, incompatible values, incompatible goals, incompatible temperaments.

Oh, and the one guy just happened to be married already. I guess that could be called incompatible marital statuses.

48

  1. I was much too young and immature. I just wanted out of moms house.

  2. He died. Saved us the trouble of splitting up probably. We fought and made up…a lot.

  3. Still together. Almost 30 years.

49

sucks:(…

50

Interesting how many people take all the blame onto themselves or shovel it all on the other person, like there’s no middle ground.

Middle grounders are a rare breed, I’d guess. Most of my relationships end because our expectations of what we have going grow incompatible.

51

The people who really get up my nose are the ones who take 35% of the blame, and assign 65% to the other person. It’s as if they’d LIKE to blame them completely, but are too indecisive to go all the way!

52

  1. We fought alot, then he put his hands around my neck and told me that if he couldn’t have me, no one else would…

  2. We were married for 2.5 years, together 4.5 years. I moved away from my entire family to be with him, 1200 miles away…I wanted to move back up North, he did not want to. His mother hated me, and I was not fond of his family either. I could not handle being that far from home.

  3. We got along fine for 2 years, then fought and broke up. Stupid stuff. Then we got back together for a few months. He had an aversion to employment, however.

  4. I reminded him of his ex-girlfriend. He could not handle the fact that I rented from my parents and did not feel comfortable spending the night with him right away.

53

Relationship number one sounds scary, not a fan of the controlling types!

54

I take the blame for all of them…I was too short, too fat, changed my hair color, style, was not right for the person

55

  1. Poor communication and emotional immaturity on both our parts. We were young and stupid and didn’t really know how to deal with some big issues.

  2. Fear of commitment on my part. She was also emotionally higher-maintenance than I could really handle.

  3. Fear of commitment and sexual hangups on my part. And maybe some other stuff I’m still trying to figure out.

The disturbing trend here is that I seem to be more and more the cause of failure. Maybe I’m just becoming more aware of my own limitations. Or maybe I’m actually getting worse at relationships.

56

  1. A lovely girl I was set up with; we enjoyed 18 months together and then we went to different Universities and lost touch.

  2. A wonderful artisan, in contrast to me, who got bored and dumped on me hard.

  3. At University a long-term relationship with a girl but we were, maybe, too alike (we both left and went into identical jobs unrelated to our different degrees) and were both beset by previous health - mental and physical - problems that rebounded during our courses.

  4. Someone completely different but who also tried really hard to maintain a relationship - it ended in divorce and no contact.

57

Me too! I chose…poorly. :slight_smile:

58

We were far too young and immature.

59

In hindsight, my past relationships didn’t fail.

I used to go for the “wrong” men…rich, handsome guys with an eye for the ladies. Then, after a certain amount of time, I convinced myself that I wanted a “relationship” with these guys…probably in large part because of social expectations that the relationship should “advance” and lead to something.

But I really didn’t want that. I wanted nice dinners, intelligent conversation and good sex with someone that was easy on the eyes. I didn’t want to cleave my heart to someone else’s, I didn’t want a partnership and I didn’t want commitment. I didn’t want the part that required work.

Eventually, the relationships would fizzle…usually after a year or so, although the most serious lasted 7 years. Most of the guys went on to serious relationships that involved marriage and babies. At the time I was hurt.

Then I fell in love with the man I would end up marrying. There was a moment of illumination when I realized how much I had with him that I would have never had with my previous boyfirends and I sort of “got it”. I suprised myself more than anyone when the rich hunk I had dated for 7 years tried to reconnect and I turned him down.

60

My first relationship (8th grade) ended because I was gay and she was, too. Although we didn’t tell each other (or anyone else) about that until years later.

Other relationships have failed because a) I was very emotionally immature until I was almost 30, and b) I kept jumping into relationships that I shouldn’t have because I didn’t love any of the men I jumped in with. Which relates back to reason a).

After my dad died, I started on a deliberate path to actually grow up, and met my current partner only a couple of years later, in 2003. I’m still with him, so the growing up thing must have worked. :slight_smile: