13 Women Are Sharing The Devastating, Freeing, And Unbelievable Reasons Why Their Long-Term Relationships Ended
Finding the strength to leave a situation that no longer serves you, whether it be a job, a relationship, or even a party, is a vital life lesson everyone has to learn at some point.
So, when Reddit user u/Upstairs-Fox917 posed the question, "Why did your 5+ year long relationship end?" in r/AskWomen, I knew it was going to be a real testament to that important life lesson:
1."He cheated on me with the woman he spent years telling me I wouldn’t need to worry about. At first, she lived 3,000 miles from us. She was his ex, but he referred to her as his 'best friend.' They really were just friends, I think, for the first six years of our dating, but then she needed help moving out of her 'abusive boyfriend's' place, so he convinced me to move to Alaska and get a place with the three of us (which turned into five with her sister and another of her friends)."
"She and my boyfriend ended up taking an extra bedroom in the house for their 'office' and spent a lot of time behind a closed door. I gave them privacy because I trusted him. Yeah, I know I’m stupid, but she was a full-time student, and he worked from home. There wasn’t any other space for their desks, so it made sense to me. A year later, he cheated on me with her while they were both on a trip to visit another friend. I’m not positive anything physical happened before that trip, but I think he’d been thinking about it a lot by then. I broke up with him but was still living in the house and could hear them giggling and having sex in her bedroom every night. I stayed with friends for five weeks until I could afford the deposit on a new place."
2."We had different aspirations. His only dreams were professional, and he had no plans for us as a couple — he didn't want kids, didn't want to travel, move, or build something [for] the two of us. When I asked if he saw his future differently with me or without me, he said no. So I realized that staying together would mean I had to sacrifice on things I didn't want to sacrifice on. So I left. I have no regrets."
3."I always felt lonely with him in my life. It was hard to leave because he's the father of my child. He was lazy and not motivated. I was making more money (not a big deal if other things were equal) and pretty much a single mom in a relationship. I cleaned, cooked, took care of bills, etc. I was practically single, taking care of a man-child. He threatened me that if I ever left, he wouldn't bother with our child anymore."
"At first, I was worried for my child's sake, so I stayed a few more years. Then I said nothing was worth this prison in my own home, so I left. He blocked me and hasn't reached out to his son. It's been over five years since we heard from him, but we are both thriving, living our best lives, and traveling the world together."
4."He didn’t want to change. He walked all over my boundaries, refused to hang out with family, and never wanted to talk about issues with the relationship. I stayed too long with someone who didn’t want to work together on anything. I finally ended it when I was questioning why I was even with him still."
5."He postponed our wedding three weeks before the date. We were planning on rescheduling for a later date, and we were starting IVF at the time after an infertility battle. The night before we were supposed to start IVF, I looked him in the eye and asked him: Is this what you want? You’re sure? We’re in this together? He looked at me, held my face in his hands, and said: 'There’s no one else I’d rather do life with. Thank you for being so patient and for loving me. I’m all in.'"
"The next morning he woke up and told me he couldn’t do any of it, ever. Not the IVF and not a future wedding. He said he had been stringing me along because he knew I was the most loving person he’d ever met and because he knew how much I loved him. Afterward, I realized that my engagement ring was fake and that he had actually bought a house five years into our seven-year relationship (he lived in my house). It’s taken some time, but now I realize that the sack of shit did me a huge favor."
6."My dad died, and a year later, his mom died. Shortly after that, our relationship died."
7."He tried to get me to buy into his religion when that hadn't been an issue before. Part of it began when he didn't want me to be allowed to grieve a very dear loss because on his spiritual path, suffering is optional, and when it happens, it's exclusively beautiful and transformative, and you can't even act like it's difficult and ugly."
"I wasn't allowed to express myself and was chastised and run over with religious nonsense when I was. I'm pretty stoic outwardly; I wasn't even crying or whining (though with this kind of grief, I would have been well within 'normal' to do so). I was just being quieter, more contemplative, and not smiling as much. I've never been a heavy smiler, so it wasn't a change of character for me. He didn't let up for years with the religious stuff, long after I processed my grief."
8."He never, EVER made me or us a priority, even though I moved states to be with him. He was emotionally stunted due to family issues that he was not working on, so he couldn’t give anything to me. I just always felt bad around him. One day, after the millionth time of him ignoring me at a family hangout — around the people he truly prioritized over me — we came home, and I simply said, 'I can’t do this anymore.' He moved out within a few hours."
9."I cheated. We had this on-again-off-again-love-hate dynamic for years. He gained 100 pounds, and I felt ignored and unappreciated. Basically, they are all the same excuses you always hear. He was angry and reclusive, and we were never actually suited for each other; we were just very attracted to each other physically. With that gone, it was constant conflict. Eventually, I acted out because I didn’t know how to be alone or take responsibility for my part in the dynamic."
"Ultimately, I failed, and the aftermath was brutal. People don’t tell you this often because it's a selfish observation, but when you betray someone you love, you also betray yourself. You lose the ability to see any good in yourself, and the betrayed partner loses the ability to see the good in others. It creates so much trauma."
10."We were together for approximately eleven years and married for around seven or eight years when we divorced; it was over. We had grown and changed as people, and the context and situations that brought us together were no longer present once we left our hometown and moved away."
"We were fairly compatible if we only considered the people who grew up in our home county as options. However, once we left that pressure cooker of expectations and obligations, we each blossomed into who we wanted to be without those constraints and those people. We weren't compatible any longer."
11."I wanted to get married, but he kept dangling the carrot. I would meet a goalpost, and he would set another one. Five and a half years into it, his parents came from China to visit. They didn't speak a bit of English and took over the house for a month; it was so stressful. Two months after they returned to China, I got an email saying that I was not a good fit for their son and that we were not allowed to continue our relationship. He would not be allowed to marry me, and we should not waste any more time on each other."
"I collapsed on the floor crying, and he came over and said he'd talk to them. Weeks go by, and he hasn't; I bring it up, and he says he doesn't know what he's supposed to say, and we argue. Two months later, he broke up with me. I had nothing and nowhere to go because we weren't married. Six years together, and I was 35...it was awful. I was so stupid to keep trying. If a man wants to marry you, he will. That's all I learned. Joke's on his parents, though, he's still single six years later."
12."He said I didn't ski as hard as the other girl he had been flirting with after he moved out to a new state a few months ahead of me. Luckily, he broke it off before I moved. Looking back, I realized he had kind of used me like a doll that had to be perfect at every sport, sexy and beautiful to ridiculous standards, and other weird expectations so that he could get validation from other men."
"At the same time, he nitpicked and belittled me at home over every little thing (he told me I didn't take my socks off right at one point). I was devastated by the breakup, but looking back, I am amazed that I ever gave someone that much power to make me feel small. I loved him immensely, but I never could have loved myself in that relationship, and I'm proud of how I have grown since then."
And finally, this person shared their short, maybe not so sweet, but very to the point realization:
13."I stopped loving him. It was really that simple."
Did you leave a long-term relationship and want to share your story? Let me know in the comments!
