# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/161 "2014-04-22T19:36:43Z")
> [@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. I’ll admit that I was the cause of my OTHER breakups. But not my last one. That was definitely a “solo production.”😃 ---
**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, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/162 "2014-04-22T19:38:53Z")
> [@racepug](#): > > If this is true then you are a RARE person, indeed! (And, if it is true: KUDOS to you!) Ever see the film “Johnny Get Your Gun”? He never had any negative experiences with the opposite sex either. ---
**Author:** ![Inter\_Alia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@Inter\_Alia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inter_Alia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/163 "2014-04-22T20:00:22Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] I’ll tell you with the same words that I told him: "If I had a heart attack, I know you’d be genuinely upset. But we’d have to deal with your being upset before we dealt with my heart attack. [/QUOTE] OMG, yes! I used to tell my ex, “Rick,” that if I broke a leg, he’d find a way to make it all about him. When my dad died, Rick actually told me he was sorry but then immediately afterward made it all about himself. He started crying and carrying on about how he felt like he was part of my family and he was so upset my dad was gone and on and on. Rick met my dad once, more than a year before he died, and he didn’t even like Rick! When my dad first told me he’d been diagnosed with cancer, I was with Rick. I was, of course, incredibly upset after I got off the phone with my dad. Rick’s response was to ask me if I wanted to have sex. Then he tried to play it off like it was completely for my benefit - to distract me from my problems. Rick also had a serious gambling problem, used me as his own, personal payday loan service (for which I’m equally at fault), lied to me, was unreliable, was extremely immature, and was completely incapable of empathy. [QUOTE=DianaG] panache45, you just described my ex perfectly. It was The Jack Show - All Jack, All The Fucking Time. Jesus Christ, what a self-involved pain in the ass that man was. [/QUOTE] This x 1,000. ---
**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, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/164 "2014-04-22T20:19:31Z")
> [@RancidYakButterTeaParty](#): > > Mine was pretty recent and still hurts… > > On our 11th wedding anniversary I came home from work, then started getting ready to take my wife out for dinner to celebrate. She said we needed to talk before leaving. I could tell something was wrong–I was worried she had found out she was sick or something. > > She then told me that she could no longer go on being married to me. I asked her if she was joking, and she said no. She said she was just tired of being married and felt like she had to get out of the relationship. I tried to get her to give me specific reasons, but she really didn’t have any. She just kept saying that she knew she didn’t love me anymore. > > 11 years, 3 great kids, no financial problems, no big marital problems–and it was over just like that. She moved out about a month later. I helped her move into her new place and we decided to do joint custody. We still talked daily after she left. > > At this time I went to my closest friend and told him about the situation. He said he didn’t know what to tell me, that he had no words for such a situation. Not very long after that conversation he stopped calling and coming by. I tried to get in touch with him a few times, but couldn’t. I then found out that he was still hanging out with my ex. This completely devastated me. We had been incredibly close friends since age 15. > > Now I have to listen tomy kids talking about the things they are doing with him at her place and so on. It kills me. I’m not 100% sure they are moving towards a marital relationship, but it sure seems that way. > > I’m not saying I was the best husband to walk the face of the earth, but I do know that I never laid a hand on her, I never cheated on her, I never disrespected her. We had our arguments and so on, but went out of my way to make her feel special. I planned surprise trips for her and always made a point to buy or make thoughtful gifts for birthdays, and other occasions. I cleaned and cooked and did laundry. I took care of the kids while she went back to school. I drove them to the sitter every morning so she could sleep in, and so on. I really don’t know what else I was supposed to do to show her that I cared for her deeply. > > I haven’t really given much thought to dating anyone else, and I’m not really looking forward to dating again–but I know that I don’t feel like being alone for the rest of my life either. > > All in all, **I think it sucks**. And based on what you wrote, it does. Sorry that you had to go through that. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/165 "2014-04-22T20:29:28Z")
Well, it was 6 years ago. Perhaps Rancid has a positive update, if he cares to share. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/166 "2014-04-22T20:33:40Z")
> [@Sahirrnee](#): > > Go figure. > He’s dead now. > > My son’s father beat me up, while I was holding the baby. I had to stand there taking the blows while trying to shield my son from them. > He’s dead now, too. > > The last one is still too raw to talk about. He doesn’t want to let go. Maybe knowing the last two are dead he’s afraid to? > It’s not like I had anything to do with it. Yeah… I’m still not going to mess with you, just in case! > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Notice that nobody here wants to admit THEY were the cause of the breakup? I was unfaithful in my marriage, but that had ceased[1] years before I was pregnant with our daughter, he threw me out, moved his mistress in and must have knocked her up that weekend, given the 5 month age gap in our kids. No one’s perfect? 😉 [1] If I was to miss anyone, it would be the guy I cheated with, rather than the man I cheated on. ---
**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, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/167 "2014-04-22T20:44:45Z")
> [@nava](#): > > i was nice… I refrained from telling him “i absolutely hated sex with you, but didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” mind you, he probably would not have understood it. He’s the kind of guy who thinks “i’ve never had any complaints” is the same as “i do a fine job.” hint: If you were so good, some of those holes would want a repeat. daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!! ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/168 "2014-04-22T20:46:32Z")
He was niggardly with his money and consistently late. Glad we broke up before we did something stupid like get married. We’d have never made it. ---
**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, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/169 "2014-04-22T20:53:55Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Well she was 5 years older than me but also 5 years less mature. While I was seeing her for those 2 years we in many ways acted like a married couple and over time I just couldnt see me spending the rest of my life with her. **Note - great sex alone wont make a solid marriage**. > > So we split up even though she kept crying and wanting me back. Funny thing is she was the one who introduced me to my wife. _Sigh_ If only more people (not just on these boards but EVERYWHERE) figured that out before tying the knot. ---
**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, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/170 "2014-04-22T21:16:32Z")
> [@Charlie\_Wayne](#): > > 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. Wow. Is your story from the 1950s? ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/171 "2014-04-22T21:23:14Z")
> [@Charlie\_Wayne](#): > > There can be no proposition that is less likely to succeed than “Old Times Sake”. None more shabby and none more pitiful. This reminds me of the episode of Taxi where Louie’s girlfriend (played by Rhea Perlman) dumped him for being, well, Louie. After all his attempts to talk her out of it failed he ended by saying “You could at least have…the DECENCY…to go to bed with me one last time!” ---
**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, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/172 "2014-04-22T21:26:07Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > This reminds me of the episode of Taxi where Louie’s girlfriend (played by Rhea Perlman) dumped him for being, well, Louie. After all his attempts to talk her out of it failed he ended by saying “You could at least have…the DECENCY…to go to bed with me one last time!” 😃 - I can TOTALLY see Louie saying that!! ---
**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, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/173 "2014-04-22T22:04:56Z")
> [@delsina363](#): > > 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. Like they say - it was fun while it lasted. But that was long ago, I’ve moved way on, with spouse #2 and the kids finishing college. ---
**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 23, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/174 "2014-04-23T02:51:45Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Yes, there are that many nuts running around loose, and I’d bet that most of us posting here are considered nuts by at least one other person. > > We are all insane. Every one of us. It’s part of being Human. I think that some people pretend to be nuts as a good technique for dumping someone. It happens when they don’t know of any better way to dump that person or are frightened of the consequences. Also, many of the other posts in this thread could well describe people who are pretending to act badly as a way to get out of a relationship because telling the truth would be too painful. So they act crazy instead and hope the other person will decide to dump them instead. Unfortunately, there is usually no way to tell if someone is just pretending to be crazy or really is crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/175 "2014-04-23T13:33:08Z")
I’ve had three strikes. #1 - we married too young, grew apart from each other. Managed to salvage a friendship from the experience, though. #2 - The Bitch From Hell. Evil incarnate. She conned me good. We got married and she started shagging a guy I thought was one of my best friends about two months later. Turns out she continued shagging several of her former boyfriends, too. #3 - she decided that her drug dependency was more important than I was. Or her kids. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602/176 "2014-04-23T14:32:03Z")
Since this thread started, I met a great girl and we dated for 2 or 3 years. She drove 2 hours to spend the weekend with me just about every weekend. We had a few minor issues but nothing big. Then in 2012 she moved in and we got married. I had not planned on marrying again but this girl was very down-to-Earth and special, and we just clicked mentally and physically. Or so I thought. She became good friends with a woman from work, and started spending time with her. Which was great at the time, she had left her friends behind when she moved. Then she started staying out late and eventually not coming home at night. I thought something was weird with the woman, but long story short they are now in a lesbian relationship and there goes marriage #2 for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-your-ex-your-ex/442602.md?page=8)