When it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a shower alone in three months because he couldn’t stand to be away from me for the FIFTEEN MINUTES it takes me to do all my bathroom stuff in the morning.
I have learned: never watch Jerry Maguire. 
People tend to be on their best behavior at the beginning of a relationship.
At first our disagreements were civil. If she had a point I would change my thinking on the subject. When I calmly explained my point of view and the facts and logic I based my beliefs on she would stop and consider what I had said. She would usually accept at least the possibility that she was wrong or at fault. Slowly that changed–so slowly that I didn’t notice it happening.
We were having yet another disagreement and I had told her what I think and why. She stopped to think and I knew what she was going to say. It was my fault–I was wrong. I realized that I was never right anymore and it was always my fault. She had stopped considering my side of things a long, long time before and now what she was thinking was “How can I twist this so that he’s in the wrong?”
In the few seconds it took her to warp reality enough so that she was in the right I had formed a basic plan to disentangle my life from hers.
Ancient history here, early 90s. One guy, we went out for maybe three weeks: he seemed smart – programmer for Microsoft – seemed to have a sense of humor – we both liked some Hal Hartley movies – seemed to be relaxed – he’d just written an essay for the local alt weekly about how dating shouldn’t be such a serious game for people our age – all eventually revealed to be wrong, wrong, wrong. My first clue was when I noticed that he used the word “nice” as the adjective in about 75% of all phrases needing a positive adjective. The final moment was when he was describing his idea for what to do with his MS stock loot: he had this great idea that no one had ever had before. He would start a business expressly for the purpose of giving all profits to charity! What, like Newman’s Own? Oh… well, kind of like that… but… … Okaaay. And to which charity or charities? Well, not sure yet, maybe something with kids would be nice…
Then when I told him I didn’t think it was working out, no hard feelings, etc., he went all Mopey Stalker on me, calling me several times a day no matter what the hour. “But WHY don’t you like me?? We had such a NICE TIME together!” I had to call his boss at MS to get him in trouble for calling me from there. I found out later that the project he was programming for was two or three years in development but never got off the ground – a kind of dedicated fax machine that would take directions from your PC, made obsolete by software that does the same damn thing with no extra hardware. I also found out he was a repeat offender with the Mopey Stalker routine, to the extent that he was a running joke with the women in his office.
Poor guy. I hope he eventually found someone nice to settle down with.
ETA: Nothing wrong with programming something that doesn’t work out – it was just emblematic. His thoughts were not deep, and that was OK with him.
I have to admit I don’t see what’s so awful about asking you if you were close to your grandmother. It’s not something I assume automatically between people and their grandparents.
This had me howling! I too can vividly picture the scenario and completely empathize with your ire.
I broke up with a girlfriend of 4 months because she didn’t like the movie Titanic. There were other factors, but that’s what did it.
Sure, but isn’t something that you would know about your SO?
I was sitting in the Family Court waiting room, waiting for our hearing over the Order For Protection that I had filed against her. My intention was to attempt to force her to get treatment for her mental illness, hopefully to commit her to a mental hospital where competent professionals would have a chance to examine her in detail.
Her attorney presented me with a package of false charges that they were filing against me, and an ultimatum to accept a deal whereby they would drop their charges and I would drop my OFP. When I refused, I was presented with Divorce proceedings.
At that moment, I knew there was no hope and I was best off walking away.
In light of the fact that my ex sprung the charges on me moments before our hearing, the judge refused to hear them and gave me 10 days to review them and respond. She also refused to consider my ex’s demands that I be kicked out of the house in her favor.
I used those 10 days to move out of the house (which had been hers). Then I agreed to mutually dropping charges, perhaps my greatest single mistake of the entire relationship, because I didn’t want to fight that battle anymore. I just wanted out.
Previously;
Back in 1992, I walked off an IT job mid-day. A co-worker of mine had threatened my life, my job, my personal life and property. In Writing. They refused to discipline her because 5 of her 8 immediate co-workers had quit two weeks earlier and they couldn’t afford to lose her too. My radical feminist Director told me to “Take it like a man and put up with it.”
Nope.
Along the same lines as in the OP, I once dated a guy who, in 1992, asked me, “Why are there so many movies about Columbus this year?”
It wasn’t the final straw, but it was an eye-opener and one of my thoughts was, “Do I want to be explaining stuff to this guy the rest of my life?”
The last thing for me, in my college long-distance relationship, in a school year or so of “ignore her and she’ll go away” interspersed with just enough contact and believable excuses for me to keep my freaking hopes up, was hearing from him… I can’t even remember, maybe a month before Thanksgiving, that he wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving, that instead he would be spending it with his roommate and the roomie’s family.
We were hours away from each other, to the point where we only saw each other during the summer and at Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring Break (if they coincided). So hearing that he was passing up one of the few times we could be together just made me snap. Last straw. Screw this “stand by your man” BS, screw the “understanding girlfriend” thing. All of the unreturned phone calls, the infrequent letters, the doing just enough to keep me from going over the edge, it was too much.
I had been thinking before this event that I would maybe have to have a “goodbye” talk with him at Thanksgiving because he deserved a face-to-face talk but was feeling bad and having lots of second thoughts and just didn’t feel settled about it. This changed my feelings, and I decided he didn’t even deserve a phone call. I wrote a “Dear John” letter within days.
So it wasn’t my “I need to break up” moment but the “No really I’m doing the right thing, time to end this” moment.
When I ejaculated blood.
My ex-husband and I always argued about money. I had to pretty much ask permission if I used our joint account and when I bought something with my own money, He would constantly bitch that I was blowing it away. Together we made almost 130 grand a year, so it wasn’t like we were poor. Had a good savings. Affordable home. Then came tax refund time and together we were looking at getting a return of close to 10 grand. We talked about what we wanted to do with it and I suggested paving the drive way. We were looking at most likely selling the house in a few years and I knew it would have added value to the house.
He was dead against it. Another fight ensued where I once again gave in and just dealt with not getting a say. An hour later we were laying on the couch together and I said to him, “Why when I have an opinion or suggestion for the house or whatever, it holds no weight with you?” and he said without hesitation, “Because I make 70 percent of the income, therefore I make 70 percent of the decision.”
I sat there quietly that night and knew that it was never going to change. A week later I told him I wanted a separation, he gave me a divorce. Even then it felt like he had to make the final decision or last say.
Yes. Food for thought.
Once in my mid-20’s, as I sat around getting high, I realized that she hadn’t seen me or called me in 6 weeks. And I thought to myself, man, if she expects me to call her back after that, she’s got another thing coming.
We’d been together for about 6 yrs but had attended university in different cities. And it was easy to really enjoy each others company and have a great time together when there’s no day to day, just a couple of days every few weeks. Lots to share, sex is good, yada, yada.
But those are pivotal years of personal growth and I was changing fast. I can see now that there was some protection for me to be able to say, “I have a boyfriend!”, it made life simple for me.
He came from a very conservative family and I was a bit of free spirit. His parents were appalled when I hitchhiked across country with a friend, but then they were also always voicing their displeasure that anyone, meaning me, would choose an arts degree, yada, yada, yada, you get the idea.
He was rapidly changing from the free spirited young man I’d fallen for into his parents at the same time I was truly blossoming into who I would become. The writing was on the wall. We rarely found ourselves on the same side of any given issue anymore.
We were talking on the phone, not fighting just talking, I can’t even remember about what now. I don’t know where the thought came from but into my head it popped, “I could just put the phone down!” It took all of my strength, every fiber of my being to override that urge, I was actually twitching it was so strong. At the very first opportunity I got off the phone.
Next day I bought a bottle of rum, had him meet me at the lakeshore, poured a liberal amount of the rum into him and let him down easy. Left him, in the sand, with the bottle, got up dusted myself off, and walked out of his life and never looked back.
We were walking through a parking lot and saw a car with a personalized plate that said “ACEOSPDS”. Being a flippant smart-ass I said, “Look, Ace of Spuds.” He said, “Must be a potato farmer.”
I was joking. He wasn’t.
Maybe. I have people I’m close to, and I talk about them a lot. But I also have people I often talk about to whom I’m not as close; I just talk about them more often because I see them more often. The conversation topics aren’t noticeably more profound or anything with the people I’m close, so you can’t really judge it by quality of conversation.
I think my SO could correctly identify which family members I’m close to based on how often I talk about them and what we talk about, but I don’t think he could say with complete certainty on his part who I’m close to without me explicitly stating so.
When I moved away, with the expectation that we were starting a brief LD relationship and realized that I wasn’t feeling regret at not being able to move at the same time, I was feeling relief that I wouldn’t have to deal with him for months at a time.
Yeah, there were probably earlier signs, but that was when I knew.
When he called me up and told me that he was at a bridge, and was going to jump off if I wouldn’t promise to be “his girlfriend”. We had dated when we were kids (16 and 18), and had reconnected in our late 20’s - but I had just gotten out of a serious relationship and had no desire to get into another one, a fact that I had told him repeatedly over the last few months.
That call confirmed for me that, even though we had had great times when we were teens together, he had grown up into someone who I just did. not. want. in. my. life.
So did he jump?