# Why is your ex your ex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 24, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602 "2008-03-24T22:09:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Red\_Stilettos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/141 "2014-04-21T21:17:42Z")
He wouldn’t quit drinking and get a job. I knew that, as long as I was with him, he wouldn’t hit his bottom, so I left. Apparently, the divorce was his bottom. He’s now sober and has a good job. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/142 "2014-04-21T23:26:50Z")
> [@BrknButterfly](#): > > Very first boyfriend: He was and still is a gamer. Canceling dates to play matches. During the middle of our three anniversary date, he got a call from one of his playmates that they were being challenged to a “match” online. So he said in the middle of dinner that he had to go home and play and the rest of the date would have to be rescheduled. That and a few months before I became pregnant with his child, only ending in an eptopic pregnancy 2 moths later. There were signs everywhere. > > Ex- Husband… because he is way to emotional, controlling and I just didn’t love him the way a wife should love her husband. Though I will never forget the look of his face when I left him. **I actually saw what a broken heart looks like on someone’s face**. I hated myself for a very long time because when I finally put myself before someone else - I hurt someone that really cared for me. I just wished I felt only half what he felt for me. Maybe it would have worked out… I dunno. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/143 "2014-04-22T00:49:00Z")
I’m not sure if she counts as an ex. We were co-workers who became friends. We went on to be friends-with-benefits but we were never exclusive. It was more of an “I’m unattached-you’re-unattached-why-not” type thing. I still remember the first time she said “I Love You” without me hearing an inferred “as a friend.” She told me how I was the only one besides her daughter who stood behind her through thick and thin and how she wanted to make love to me in every room of my townhouse when she moved in with me and before her daughter moved in with us. The entire conversation took place on a Thursday night over the phone, collect. I know it was a Thursday, because that’s when I told her to call me collect from the county sheriff’s honor farm every week. Why was she there? She worked for a Temp Service and she was making up time-cards for people and cashing the paychecks when they came in. She used her daughter’s Social Security Number; her daughter’s boy-friend’s SSN. She used **MY** SSN. Overall, she made my life a living hell with the IRS for three years. Turns out, she’s bi-polar and has/had a drug habit (multiple types.) Still, I might have gotten back with her except for two things: One, she never apologized, but mainly; Two, I met a really cool person while “ex” was doing time. So cool that she moved in, we got married (16 years this year,) and had two great daughters. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/144 "2014-04-22T02:42:33Z")
Notice that nobody here wants to admit THEY were the cause of the breakup? I’ll admit I was an asshole to one girl years ago and I’ve never forgiven myself for it. ---
**Author:** ![bubba\_jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@bubba\_jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba_jr)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/145 "2014-04-22T03:19:32Z")
#1) High school through college and a year beyond… A lot of things change in people through those years, and most of those years were pretty darn good. But in the end… she thought I should grow up and I didn’t want to… Or She got bitchy, and I got stupid… #3) she was older than me, by quite a bit… we had a good run, lots of fun, but then her 2 young adult children (useless human beings) moved back in with her. I don’t get it, she did everything a good mother should, and they were just rotten, probably soulless. Crushed her spirit into the ground and it just didn’t work. I’ll take the blame for those 2… #2) #2 obviously came after #1, but before #3… BAT SHIT FUCKING CRAZY!!! And I was dumb enough to deal with it for 4 years… I’d never encountered such craziness. BAT SHIT CRAZY!!! My friends hated her, my parents hated her. Worst 4 years of my life… Moved in with her fairly quick because she got kicked out of her parents house and then kicked out of an apartment… Wouldn’t get a job, and when she did, she lost it… In the 4 years we were together she had 19 jobs. I had one full time job, the whole time, and some part time gigs here and there. Phone bill. Digging through a pile of crap, come across 4 months of phone bills she said she had paid… $396 to talk to a psychic for an hour… I didn’t have a phone for a while… Asked her to drop some bills in the mail box on the way to work, since she went that way… 3 weeks later, both bills not paid, but on my bank statement was a check made out to her, in her handwriting for the amount of the 2 bills combined… This was the first year… Thankfully just a bit past the first year, we had a bit of throw down (no hitting, ever) about birth control… Of course it was just before her birthday, and I had a surprise party planned. Had to cancel all that because I didn’t know where she was… Then she moved out… and moved NEXT DOOR!!! Then she got evicted and moved south a bit. And I stayed, because I was stupid… I eventually moved back in with my folks, and would go see her a few times a week. Talk to her almost every day… Not quite sure what I was doing. It was 2 weeks of good and then she would say or do something stupid, or mean or horrible. And the better things were going, the more fucked up the crash was… Ever had a woman tell you “you have the smallest penis I’ve ever had”. And I could bottom it out in her… She just had to say something fucked up to ruin things… EVERY… FUCKING… TIME… After 4 years, got a job offer 2600 miles away, couldn’t refuse… Told her I was going, we started making plans and then she went stupid… Didn’t see her for the 3 weeks before I left, because she had to say something mean and nasty… Got to my destination, she called, I cut it short… 6 weeks later her name came up on the caller ID… With a local #… Just before X-mas. OK… My Mom told me to make sure she had a good X-mas, and then get rid of her… OK. I didn’t have to do much of anything… She had a good X-mas… I told her, I’m sick of the crap, Every 2 weeks you say or do something totally fucked up, do that one more time and that’s it, over, done… So… 2 weeks to the day… guess what… and that was it. What a waste of 4 years of my life… I don’t take blame for that one, I tried hard to make it work… Soured me on women for quite a long time ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/146 "2014-04-22T07:02:12Z")
He ran off with a married co-worker. Mine, not his. That would have required him to have a job. I recently googled him. He died in a shoot-out with police in 2005. Dodged a bullet. Literally. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/147 "2014-04-22T11:55:03Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > SOne time at a BBQ at my parent’s house she asks me whats for dinner. I told her my stepdad was preparing tri-tip, corn on the cob, butternut squash, potato salad, beans, dinner rolls, green beans, and rice. My stepdad goes all out for meals, and with so many dishes its easy to find SOMETHINGS you would like to eat. That’s it. I’m coming over for dinner. My ex is my ex because she didn’t want to be married any more. So she told me. In an email. While I was in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/148 "2014-04-22T14:09:24Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Notice that nobody here wants to admit THEY were the cause of the breakup? ME! ME! I was well into marriage #1 when I met someone who seemed like candy and Hi-Def color and digital-surround-sound, compared to what I perceived as my plain oatmeal and black-and-white and AM radio spouse. So, off I went…thus I created an “ex”. ---
**Author:** ![delsina363](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@delsina363](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delsina363)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/149 "2014-04-22T14:51:02Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > ME! ME! > > I was well into marriage #1 when I met someone who seemed like candy and Hi-Def color and digital-surround-sound, compared to what I perceived as my plain oatmeal and black-and-white and AM radio spouse. So, off I went…thus I created an “ex”. How did that work out for you? Was it all it seemed to be? My # 1 did this to me, and they broke up after a few months. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/150 "2014-04-22T15:45:15Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Notice that nobody here wants to admit THEY were the cause of the breakup? > > I’ll admit I was an asshole to one girl years ago and I’ve never forgiven myself for it. My first ex I was the moody jerk I’ll admit. I was insecure, didn’t really find her attractive, and wasn’t able to set boundaries well. It dragged on longer than it should. I blame immaturity and desperation on my part. Not proud to admit it. I was dating online, and she was the first woman out of about twenty at that point who was willing to go out with me again. The biggest confidence booster I had was learning I didn’t have to settle. That there was nothing wrong with finding a woman on a blind date too ugly, too boring, or too crazy. Before, I used to feel too guilty to do this, because I had been turned down so much I didn’t want other people to go through what I felt. In hindsight, all those women that declined a second date due to “no chemistry” were doing me a big favor. I couldn’t accept it at the time, but looking back, it saved me time and dignity by preventing me from being hung up on some woman that rejecting me or developing a complex because some woman said I walked funny or something. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/151 "2014-04-22T15:57:20Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That’s it. I’m coming over for dinner. > > My ex is my ex because she didn’t want to be married any more. So she told me. In an email. While I was in Iraq. In contrast, my wife LOVES my stepdad’s cooking, and they get along well. My stepdad also really likes my in-laws’ (Mexican) cooking as well, making him greatly respected by my wife’s family. Unlike my exes, my family had explicitly stated they really liked my wife, how smart she was, how beautiful she looked, etc. With my exes, they never said anything and I take that to assume they disliked them (bur didn’t want to say anything figuring I’d get offended/defensive about it. That makes me wonder- with these awful exes People had, what did your friends or family think of them? Did they warn about possible issues, refrain from judging, or what? ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/152 "2014-04-22T15:58:51Z")
> [@Aangelica](#): > > I booted the most notable ex for a whole host of reasons - but the proverbial straw was on the morning of September 11, 2001 when he was watching news coverage from New York and woke me up at 6:30 local time (when he knew full well I’d been working until 3:30 and had to get up in half an hour to go to class) because the _funniest thing ever had happened_. > > Seriously, he was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak coherently. He was actually all like “Bwahahahahahahahahahaha omg a plane bwahahahahahahahahaha buildings bwahahahahahahahahahaha smoke _gasp_ bwahahahahahahahahahaha” I had to go look at the TV in the living room for myself to find out what the hell he was going on about. > > I stared in glazed horror at the TV and he was saying things like “Hey, don’t you have a cousin that works in the World Trade Center? Sucks to be him!\*” and giggling like a fiend until I eventually had to leave the house (both because I had class\*\* and because I was going to kill him if I stayed). > > I went apartment hunting that afternoon. > > There were other grounds on which to break up with him - some of which I didn’t find out until some time later, but that was the trigger, right there. He was serially unfaithful, had a drinking problem, was profoundly selfish, almost certainly had the drinking problem as a result of self-medicating depression with liquor, was emotionally and physically abusive, and by the time I booted him, he’d become generally an asshole with no real redeeming qualities. When we started dating he was a little arrogant, but not a bad person. By the end, he was, in fact, a bad person - not only in my personal opinion. After we broke up, even his friends kept saying things to me like “_shakes head_ He’s really changed, man - he didn’t used to be this way.” > > \*It did, in fact, suck to be him - and he was my cousin’s husband, actually. > > \*\*Which was ultimately cancelled, but I was a second-year law student. I went to class come Hell or high water. Wow. Dude sounds like he was quite unstable. (I know - probably stating the obvious as far as _you’re_ concerned) ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/153 "2014-04-22T18:05:04Z")
A) Got together while I was in the navy (we’d started out as “pen pals”). I broke it off, admittedly in probably not the most elegant of ways (I was very inexperienced with women)…I think she and I were a little _too_ much alike in that our feelings were easily hurt. Made it tough. We were never married. B) Got to know her while I was earning an associate’s degree in the '90s (she was in some of my classes). I’m not 100% sure why that one came to an end but I think, after a while, she came not to like me very much, for some reason(s). I never did bother to try to find out why. Again, we were never married. C) This is the weirdest one, for me - she was my landlady in a room I rented in a house for what turned out to only be about a year-and-a-half. She was something like 21½ years my senior. She claimed to have not had sex in something like 11 years when I moved in and she seemed to be “warm for my form” right from the start. So, you guessed it - our “relationship” became more than just a landlady/tenant one. Turned out, though, that she was a VERY heavy drinker (Seriously. I mean, she drank more in one week - sometimes one weekend - than I normally do in, oh, I dunno - about 2 or 3 years!) and she lost whatever job she’d had and wasn’t able to stay employed after that, at least not on a consistent basis. Things degraded and when I saw that she was getting foreclosure notices that was basically that. Again, we were never married (one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, although it never really seriously came up…I don’t think). Interestingly that whole fiasco is at least part of the reason why I’m married to the woman that I am now - I met her at work during that time period and I was telling her my tales of woe, and because she grew up in a household with an alcoholic father she told me that “things are going to get worse before they get better.” I didn’t believe her (or at least I didn’t _want_ to believe her) as I had developed feelings for my “landlady” but it turned out that she was right. Somewhat awkwardly I moved in with her (turned out she lived not too far away from where I was living at the time) and the rest, as they say, is history. THIS woman is also older than me (by about 11 years - I’ve had a “thing” for older women for quite some time) but she’s a keeper. At least that’s what I believe. And I believe that she feels the same way about me. If things go as planned neither of us will ever have to refer to the other as an “ex-” except in the case of death. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/154 "2014-04-22T18:29:31Z")
> [@A\_Priori\_Tea](#): > > To report to him where I would be, and with whom, and doing what, for every hour that he would not be at work (and all of them where he would be at work, if I were going to socialize with “certain people”), every day. With updates as plans changed, or if we went somewhere else, or if the schedule changed by more than 15 minutes. > > Given my recent posting history, I feel obligated to point out that this didn’t start as a power exchange relationship in any form - which is a fair portion of why I felt it was just batshit insane to want that kind of up-to-the-minute influence over my plans. (He was of the opinion that controlling others was not particularly right in the head, and became very offended when I pointed out that what he was trying to do is one of the more common newbie-dom demands.) > > …and here you (generic you) thought it’d be something interesting and/or simple, **like anal**. 😃 Ewwww! Even if I’d been thinking about something like that (which I wasn’t) I certainly wouldn’t ask for more information on it. Yuck. (I know, I know - “different strokes for different folks” and all that…) ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/155 "2014-04-22T18:35:03Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Not me! I figured it was oral. All right, all right - I admit it: I thought the “X” was just that last letter of what the fellow was asking of her all those times. I’m pretty “vanilla” when it comes to stuff like that so the thought of engaging in sexually related activities outside of what I normally engage in doesn’t often enter my mind. Call me “sex nerd racepug.” Or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/156 "2014-04-22T18:47:19Z")
> [@NightRabbit](#): > > He stopped **going down on me** and became combative when I tried to talk about it. Actually, he became combative when we tried to talk about anything. > > And he was excessively negative about everything- people who carry BAGS (no kidding), people who go to the gym, people who listen to anything but his favorite music, people who catch little fish instead of big fish, people whose wives are unattractive, etc. etc. etc. He also developed the notion that he knew what was best for me better than I did. THAT got old fast. THAT’s one of my “specialties”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/157 "2014-04-22T18:50:28Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > I am happy to report that I have never had any negative experiences with the opposite sex whatsoever. > > This is not actually true, but I have been led to believe that everyone hereabouts has heard me complain about women too much already. If this is true then you are a RARE person, indeed! (And, if it is true: KUDOS to you!) ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/158 "2014-04-22T19:17:58Z")
> [@SylverOne](#): > > Because he was a mouthy know-it-all that had no aversion to hitting on and propositioning my friends when I wasn’t around, and even sometimes when I was. > > Years later, when we were both with different people, he propositioned me one night under the guise of ‘for old times sake…’ > > Ummm… yeah, not just no, Hell No! There can be no proposition that is less likely to succeed than “Old Times Sake”. None more shabby and none more pitiful. I would think most women who hear this will realize it means that the man cares nothing at all for her. He doesn’t care what she thinks or what she says or anything else about her. In addition, he is too stupid to realize this proposal has no chance of being accepted but he doesn’t care. I wish I could think of a good way to wrap up this comment. All I can think of saying is that any man who tries that is just too dumb to live. Unfortunately, I think most every man alive has tried it at some time or will try it. Most men - but fortunately not all of them. The saddest thing about this is that most women really do not deserve to be treated in such a shabby way. It is at times like this that I wish it were possible to hire an agency that will kill someone just for the purpose of stopping them from breeding because they are just too stupid to breed. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/159 "2014-04-22T19:20:56Z")
#1 Batshit crazy. #2 Death. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/160 "2014-04-22T19:31:06Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > \ > 5. Money. In 14 years of marriage, she paid for a total of 4 things … > \ This reminds me of a girl I dated for two years. Things were going very well and I was considering marrying her. But in those two years, the only thing she ever paid for was a ten cent ice cream cone that she bought me. I kid you not. One summer’s day, I took her for a drive in the country. We stopped by a rest stop on the highway and she bought herself an ice cream cone. As an afterthought, she then bought one for me. I never said anything to her about her incredible stinginess. During those two years, she was working as a pharmacist and earning lots of money. I was a student and finishing my degree. I never said anything because I wanted to see just how far this would go. After about a year, I decided that if it continued, I would never marry her and would eventually dump her. When I finally did dump her, she cried and begged and pleaded for me not to dump her. Then, she wanted to know why I would do that. But by that time I despised her so much that I decided not telling her would be a suitable form of punishment because there was a good chance she would continue treating her next bf in the same way and he would then dump her too. So, I just told her that I met someone new and then told her goodbye. To this day, I cannot understand how she could have been so incredibly cheap. I took her out at least once a week to nice restaurants and bought her plenty of fine liquor and other lovely and expensive refreshments. I couldn’t believe she was so cheap that she never bought me anything except that one ice cream cone. By the way, it was the smallest size cone they sold. She wouldn’t even spring for a medium or a large. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602.md?page=9)