I’m just a little curious on what made you break up with an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend.
I’ve heard all the “S/he cheated on me” stories, but whenever I ask my friends, they always respond with a “It just didn’t work out.” What is that supposed to mean?
So, details please, if you don’t mind.
With my last serious one, it didn’t work out because he cheated on me…
Seriously, the people I dated between that one and my husband just didn’t work out for a few reasons:
One man travelled a lot for work, and wasn’t always real great about keeping in close enough contact when he was gone (and sometimes when we had here… I didn’t feel particularly secure in the relationship, which was enough for me to end it. He didn’t do anything wrong, really; I just didn’t feel it was a very strong relationship.
Another guy was nice, fun to be around, treated me well, but was just on the “too arrogant” side for my liking. Again, nothing fundamentally wrong, I just didn’t feel real love for him.
Another man that I dated for some time - several years, actually - and I just drifted apart. We started wanting very different things out of life, and couldn’t find a way to make things work out between the two of us. It was a terrible heartbreak, but we managed to stay good friends.
I didn’t like his girlfriend.
I’ve decided that I attract needy men. Two boyfriends ago, I was actually engaged to the guy. We were together for four years, and he was verbally and emotionally abusive. He made me cry 3 or 4 times a week, and somehow I had convinced myself that this was acceptable/normal/I deserved it/he was really sorry this time/I just had to be forgiving, etc. Finally I woke up and broke it off. It wasn’t pretty–he said all the right things, until he saw I wasn’t buying it, then started watching my apartment, trashing me to our friends, calling me and cussing me out, etc. Best decision I ever made.
The last boyfriend was a guy I started dating right after I broke up with Mr. Abusive. He was a sweetheart, only too much so. I knew we would never get married or anything, and I thought he did, too, but he was way more serious than I was. We just weren’t compatible. He was clingy and needy, and were I the manipulative type, I really could have taken advantage of him. I don’t like that–I want a stronger man. We also thought about things differently. I love to read and am constantly learning and thinking about things. He would just sit at home and watch TV after school. He has still never once read an entire book that wasn’t assigned for school. He was in school so he could make money; I was in school to learn to think and to absorb as much information as possible about anything I could. It’s not so much the fact that he doesn’t read, but that the absence of books in his life is indicative of the difference in the way we view the world and think about things. I tried to explain this to him, and all he got out of it was that I broke up with him because he didn’t like to read. Which illustrated my point perfectly, but he didn’t catch that.
So, 7, why did you break up with YOUR SO?
well… I don’t think she ever actually boiled a bunny… but I think she would REALLY relish the chance to give 'er a try…
Because she was a lot of nuts and little bit of crazy. And, as someone once mentioned to me, she had so much baggage left over from her first (and last) marriage, she could have taken on Samsonite.
Basically, she was unhappy, suspicious, paranoid, depressed and bitter. While I almost always seem to appreciate a good challenge, I didn’t feel that her challenge was one I needed for the rest of my life.
That, and coupled with the fact that she was working in the same school district I was, I decided that the unhappiness between us should end for both personal and professional reasons.
Oh, and what verbenabeast said about the bunny… :eek:
Several SO’s down the drain, several different answers …
Engaged and living together during university in Toronto. I am a West Coast girl, and knew that my time in The Big Smoke was going to be short. He didn’t believe me. His parents thought I was a gold-digging flake. I came west to set up housekeeping and plan our wedding here, and by the time he got it figured out that I meant it when I said I wouldn’t live near his parents, I’d figured out that I was running from him, too. Nice guy - for someone else.
Came over for dinner. Stayed for a year. Proposed marriage to me at a Page & Plant concert, possibly under the influence of the air quality in that venue. 
Ran like hell when he realized I was holding him to it. Shacked up with an ex for a month, then came back asking if we could be friends. What really tore it for me, was his vicious reaction to news that a very dear platonic friend had bought me dinner. He cheated on me, then had the nerve to call my integrity into question?!? Not partner material. No, sir.
Came over for dinner. Stayed for a year. (I’m a slow learner, sometimes.) Turned out to be the biggest betrayal of self I have EVER indulged in. Didn’t like his wife. Didn’t like his refusal to get a divorce. Didn’t like being under his thumb. Didn’t like supporting his unemployed ass. Finally, didn’t like the screaming sessions in public. Got backup that didn’t like his refusal to move out. (Didn’t like being stalked for the next six months.)
You said you wanted details …
~I met him through a friend of a friend. I should have known better when the first night we hung out together, he wouldn’t let me leave without kissing him first. He’d call my friends to see if I was there. Not in a cool way either. Like, I’d tell him I’d be going to a friends house in a couple of minutes,10 minutes later he’d be calling there. He’d check my email to check up on me. He rode by other friends house to see if I was actually there. I couldn’t stand having a “mother” as a boyfriend.
~I met this one through my cousin. I liked him alot. A year and half later I got tired of him not talking/interacting with me much. He’d call me up to come over, then not talk to me until I was ready to leave. He also thought my name, Jessica, was pronounced Bitch. One night I just told him I was tired of feeling like I was alone in the relationship. He came back 3 times that night to tell me I’d made the biggest mistake in my life and to also scream/throw stuff at me.
~He was a very sweet man, but he rarely showered or wore deoderant. The smell seriously overpowered me. I couldn’t take it and just told him it wasn’t working out.
Did you at least explain the hygene situation to him? I mean, heaven forbid you condemn a naive man a life of being single!
I myself haven’t been in any ‘relationships’ before in my life (I define a relationship as a mutal romantic interest). I’ve had a lot of imaginary relationships though (where I thought I was in a relationship but the girl did NOT, however this didn’t stop her from playing along with how I felt).
His friends used to tell him he stunk. His mother used to tell him he stunk. All his X’s told him he needed to wear deoderant or shower more. He once blamed the B.O on me. Now I’m not sayin I’m Miss Priss who smells like flowers constantly, but my god it WAS NOT ME. I had people smell me that day he blamed me, just to reassure me that IT WAS NOT ME. He was just in denial.
Btw. Its not just the stench. Its the lack of showering also. My current b/f will be sweaty and stinky one day, but he showers regularly. I’m not all about breaking up with someon because they stink one day. Its the constant bad hygeine…and oh…lord…the lack of brushing teeth. shudder
She made terrible coffee.
I thought it was grounds.
Well, besides those that “just didn’t work out”…
#1, #2, and #4 (same guy, it just took me a while to learn):
He was overly dramatic, but somehow managed to blame it on me. If I sounded the slightest bit irritated on the phone, he’d show up knocking on my bedroom window in his bathrobe at 3:00 in the morning. I don’t know why he couldn’t call. I mean, he never called me at any other time than in the middle of the night. He also had this bad habit of ignoring me in public or around other people, but then demanding my full attention when he was alone. Then there was the impending alcoholism that I started to notice towards the end of our third go-round. He just made my life crazy. I tell you what, folks, love does not conquer all.
#3: He was annoying. This was the ultimate nice guy, who, as you can see, was a break from Evil Guy. But after about a year of constantly doing random nice things for me (“I noticed that you were about to run out of toilet paper when I was in the bathroom earlier and so I thought I’d bring you some more”, for example) and blaming himself for anything that went wrong, I decided it was too much of a good thing. He’s just a little immature - emotional I. Q. of a thirteen-year-old, I think. He’s a really nice guy so sometimes we hang out, but only in very small doses, so I can be nice to him the whole time.
Time. I was getting less and less of it from her, and I had so much to give. It finally got to the point where there was nothing left
Q
For me, it was because, while I suppose I’d say that I still loved him, I didn’t like him very much, and I didn’t particularly like the person I was becoming when I was around him.
When I moved (something that had been in the works for a while), I realized that it was such a weight off my shoulders to not have to deal with him, that I was happy knowing there was no chance I’d see him on a particular day, rather than being happy that I would see him…I knew the breakup had to happen.
The ones that hurt the most were the cheaters. Sometimes I didn’t know that he was cheating on me until months afterward, when a friend of mine confessed.
Others went back to their ex-girlfriend, and usually I said good riddance because I was sick of hearing about how wonderful she was.
There was one guy who had proposed (I didn’t accept) only to tell me months later that he didn’t want to see me any more because I was going back to college. Understandable, long distance relationships are a lot of work, but what was really strange was that he’d call me every night for the next month to see if I wanted to come over. 
I mean, that’s what I thought breaking up was, a cessation of time together!
There were only a few that I broke up with. One was a construction worker who watched television for hours every night and who thought sitcoms were the funniest things ever. Completely different from me, and I mean completely. I was also into palmistry at this time, and I took a look at his palm to see that there were only three faint lines crossing it and NOTHING ELSE – meaning he was an emotional/mental midget!
That really creeped me out, even though I don’t believe in palmistry.
kicks Andy under the table, smiling sweetly
He was unable to be both happy and productive and he wanted to marry me. I’m okay with happy, unproductive people as boyfriends, I’m young, I like happy. But when I get married, I plan to at least miss the mistakes my parents made, and that means that boy-o needs to have a career/job/life plan that he is both fond of and working on. I am umimpressed by continued beautiful plans that nothing gets done on. (and then I’d get yelled at and called a nag when several weeks later I ask “How’s that thing going?”)
I pointed this little habit out to him (of saying he’d do things and then failing to, or planning to fix his life and then not, and blaming everyone but him, because how could such a shining example of man ever screw anything up?) and said “I love you, but I can’t agree to marry you until you fix that, or at least make an effort toward doing so.” He said “Its done, I’ll fix it.” and like everything else, it never happened. And, despite continuing to be not productive or happy, he started treating me like his wife, taking for granted that I would always be there, growth or no growth.
Since I hadn’t yet made that promise, I left.
It’s like this…
Let’s say you find a puppy. In the rain. Cold, wet, shivering, really neding some attention.
So you take her home. Love her, feed her, give her attention and care. She loves you, licks your face, pledges that she’ll be yours forever.
Then, she goes into the neighborhood one day and finds that there a lot of other dogs out there who want to screw her. She spends a lot of her time in their back-yards allowing herself to become a real slut-puppy! But always maintains that she comes back home every night to be with you. Unfortunately, when she gets home, she smells and looks like she’s been plowed by other dogs. So, you tell her that the next time she wanders off to another back yard, you tell her she can stay there… and change the locks when she’s gone.
Yeah…it’s kinda like that.
Mr2U is only the seventh guy I’ve ever had a relationship with. The six before him either beat me up, cheated on me, or both. In one case, one of them hit my son - he was toast (and in jail) that same afternoon.
Mr2U doesn’t. 
GrizzRich: Damn fine allegory!
Quasi