Ouch! I hope he at least spent the money on something impressive!
It wasn’t when I asked her to marry me and she said no. It was later when she said yes and my insides responded with “Oh Shit!”.
Ok, my first post here so please be gentle with me.
When, after spending a day wandering round jewellery shops looking for an engagement ring, she turned up later that evening wearing someone else’s diamond on her finger. I had no idea about it.
And her comment:
‘It doesn’t make a difference does it?’
I think that did it for me.
Luckiest break I got in the end though.
When she found out about my going out with co-workers for an evening, figured out which bar it was, and showed up unwanted just because she felt that the rule we all had set of ‘no SO’s for the night’ was wrong. She then proceeded to not sit at the table with the rest of us and tried to run interference whenever I was included in the conversation. This is when I knew she was really just a high-functioning sociopath.
Unfortunately she was already pregnant by then, and I wasn’t leaving until I could establish paternity and sue for custody.
Mine’s a little more mundane than many other stories, but for one of my exes, I knew he wasn’t The One for me when we both had colds, and were in my dorm room with my one box of Kleenix and every time he used one of my (apparently) precious Kleenix I seethed inside.
I don’t remember anything else setting me off though.
First wife; When she told me “Pack your bags, get out and never come back!”, I should have. It actually took another 20 or so times (at approx. 28-day intervals) before I warned her that this was the last time I would let her beg me back. So as to be fair, the last time she ordered me to leave I reminded her and asked her repeatedly if she was sure. She was.
Second wife; When, after insisting that I take the job in TX promising to follow as soon as I was set up, she then seemed to find all kinds of reasons to believe that moving a household interstate was an impossibility–despite the fact that thousands of families do it every day.
Latest GF; When she woke me up by slapping me rapid-fire with alternating hands and then pressed charges against me for having the instinctive reaction of shoving her off of me!
I guess I’m a little slow on the uptake when it comes to knowing it’s over.
When he spent more time with video games than with me. There was a lot of stuff building up before that, and that was the proverbial straw.
I loved him, but I first knew he wasn’t “The One” when…
We both work in bars, four nights/week. I finally realised that I was going to have to break it off when we managed to not spend ANY time together during the three days we’re home. We barely even spoke, and it wasn’t just that “we’re so comfortable we don’t need words” silence, but more like “we have absolutely nothing in common anymore and have no desire to spend time trying to change that” silence.
We still live together, but now he’s just a roommate who decorates my bed.
With the guy before my loving hubby… I knew it was over when he said “gee you’ve put on a few pounds… if you don’t lose it I will make you” Then when I told him we were over he threatened to kill himself by throwing himself out my 17th floor dorm window and when I offered to open the window he punched some walls and said something about wrapping his car around a tree. Instead he called my abusive father and had him order me to take him back. I didn’t. ( I’d lived in hell long enough and wasnt going to marry into it!!!) He stalked me for a bit but all that did was make me fall madly in love with the man who is now my husband.
What finally did it for me was when my ex-bf, the drunken, impotent loser I was dating when I met my wonderful husband, called me one night ranting about the two years he wasted chasing a lesbian. When I said something less than supportive about the situation he berated me for not being a friend and backing him up. We didn’t break up right away, but I no longer felt guilty about cheating on him with my boss.
He has since had, he says, an epiphany. It occurred when I finally, finally, finally dumped him. He went a little crazy – threatened suicide, sent gifts to my workplace even after I had them sent back, came by my parents’ house to talk to them, etc. – and then tried to contact me every few months to “see how I was doing” and to let me know how sorry he was that he acted like such an ass, and he realized that he wasted an opportunity to be a father to my child, blah blah blah.
You know, it’s funny. We were together for four years – he was my first serious, adult relationship – and even though I have no feelings for him whatsoever anymore (well…I did like his parents a lot) the fallout from that relationship stays with me even now. I see guys all the time that look like him and it still freaks me out nearly four years later. My current SO, who’s the bee’s knees, is probably a little disturbed by my constant “criminy, I thought this guy on the train was Gregg” stories.
Very insightful… good post 
About a week before we broke up, I had sensed that she was being distant. I asked her what was wrong, and even asked her point blank if she wanted to break up (she acted exactly the same way my previous girlfriend had acted right before she dumped me). I had basically let her drive the pace of the relationship anyway. (She was a freshman in college, I was a senior, I could have had a relationship either serious or not, it didn’t matter to me, but knowing how freshman in college can be, I figured I’d let her control the seriousness). We were dating exclusively, but other than that, things weren’t that serious. When I suggested we break up, I figured we could have an amicable parting of ways with no one getting hurt. She swore up and down that she didn’t want to break up. Though my gut told me otherwise, I chose to ignore instincts and actually believe her. A week later, she cheats on me with another guy, for the sole purpose (as realized later) to get me to break up with her. Rather than break up with me a week ago, she wanted to make everything difficult. A few weeks later, she was at a party I was at (we had an overlapping circle of friends and acquaintances) and happened to accost me while she was drunk claiming I was ignoring her after we broke up. (She honestly wanted to stay friends after the breakup.) She had no recollection of this the next morning.
Getting out of that one early was a good thing. I shudder to think what would have happened had it ever gotten serious. I never did figure out why she just didn’t break up with me when I gave her tha chance.
Sheesh. Stuff like this makes me want to…
Stop lurking!
When did I know? Hrm. I think it was when she thought I was asleep and had sex with a mutual friend about 4 feet from me.
Kinda thing makes a man bitter.
Oh, and Hi, everyone! First post!
I got a big clue when he said that taking medication for depression made people weak.
And then another one when he told me that he felt he had to choose between me and God (I’m an atheist, and until that point, though he was, too).
It was fun while it lasted.
So it wasn’t that he was a drunken, impotent loser or the fact that you were cheating on him that clued you in? 
When I forgave my high-school girlfriend for kissing another guy (and thereby acting as the vector for a case of mononucleosis) I figured we were forever. But a couple weeks later we were at some school function when we bumped into Marcie, a girl I had mooned over constantly until she graduated a couple years prior. Marcie asked how we were doing. I said “good.” My GF threw her arm around me and said “In fact, we’re doing good together.” I knew that it would be over soon when I almost blurted out “Get your hand the hell off my shoulder bitch!” – But I managed to choke out a half-hearted “Yeah” instead.
–Cliffy
I’m waiting for that very thing to happen with the girl I’m seeing now…
When I realized I dreaded coming home in the evenings and looked forward to his going to sleep so I could be alone. This developed into a full scale aversion to him, to the point where I literally felt revulsion when he tried to exercise [so help me, he once referred to it as this, and this was 1996] his ‘husbandly rights’. I started sleeping in a recliner after I woke up once to find him, er, availing himself of such rights after I’d said no earlier in the evening. One of the many reasons I’ve never thought that deliberately waiting until one is married to have sex was a good idea – if I hadn’t had a basis for comparison, I’d’ve never known how godawful lousy he was.
Given that he also insisted on keeping the cat after the divorce [to which I acceded because the cat liked him better, anyway], then deliberately put it in the pound and left it to be euthanized, then called me Christmas Day after it was done to give me the news…well, you can definitely see why I’m glad I didn’t remain with the ass-frenching fucktard.
when she looked down at me, the first time we had sex and said"
“you know i’m going to hurt you eventually, right?”
i knew that it woldn’t end well.
'course it was a full year of dating and six months of living together before i got the hint.