Note: This is my first ever Reddit post. Thank you FDS. I think I need to share this. This was supposed to be brief lol.

Hopefully this is a good example to other ladies in the same situation. No abuse, but not on the same page. This is about an old relationship, about 3 years ago. Me 35F, him 34M. Long term relationship, moved in together, broke up 6 months later. I will try to be brief.

I had no idea it was coming. But I should have if I wanted to see the red flags. We had been to an event for his family the week before, and intimate together that week. As far as I knew, we were all good.

I came home from work one day. And - his stuff was mostly packed and he dropped the bomb: "I'm leaving, you don't want kids and I do." That was it. I remember crying in shock and he left.

Ok then. His reason: "You didn't want to have kids and I do." WELL. This was information I gave on date 1, 2 and throughout our time together. I love kids. I just don't want any. He was ok with that. I see now to get what he wanted: bangmaid, mum etc. But he waited until we were moved in to tell me that was his deal breaker.

Looking back I see! Oh, I see. A few weeks before his abrupt departure, we had been discussing household money and his lack of income. He had been "working from home" trying to start his third business. I have no idea if it ever got off the ground. He mentioned kids again. And, compromising my own desires for no children, I finally put forward some boundaries and demands that were lacking on my behalf that summarized as:

  1. yo dude get a stable job
  2. hey muppet contribute more to our expenses
  3. man child show me you are ready and can clean up after yourself
  4. etc All this time I had been "fair and nice and accommodating to him", but the roles had to be reversed for me to bake and pop out a tiny human right?

And BAM! His true colours came through. When I finally set down some boundaries, his LVM personality whooped me in the ass and here we are today. Funnily enough, looking back I realise I cried when he left, not for losing him, but for losing the relationship I thought we had. That was an eye opener.

AND! Let me share some light relief that makes me laugh now about his poor man baby ways. A great example of him gaslighting and showing me his true colours early on:- We get two steaks to eat for dinner, he cooks them the way we BOTH like, medium rare.- He slices them up and serves them.- As I am confusedly eating my brown, dry and tough steak, I see him chomping down on his lovely moist and red perfectly cooked steak. I remember feeling sick straight away. Why?- He cooked one for too long somehow, and guess what? He served it to me. Remember - they were sliced before serving? There was no way he mixed up the steaks. He served me the bad one.- I wish I'd confronted him then, but I was too shocked by this obvious display of selfishness that I was speechless. I feel sick again thinking about it.- Later that evening when I finally talked myself into asking him what happened about that? Hmmm. Tried to tell me I was mistaken. He never noticed. Yadda yadda. There was no yelling, no swearing from either of us but I didn't back down and said that was really unfair. If I'd cooked like that for anyone I'd be eating the shoe-leather one and at the very least we could have half and half! I bought the damn things LOL. Later he referred to that argument as "WW3". Thanks you fool. A tiny example but a big insight in to his selfish and miserly character.

So ladies, please:

  1. VET VET VET
  2. when he shows you who he is, believe him
  3. don't be gaslit into things that cross your boundaries
  4. make sure you're physically attracted to him too, I wasn't really, but went with the motions, ugh

I saw that post a while back... forgive yourself for loving his potential! Not who he really was. He really showed me who he was but I didn't take notice.

I'm shaking now as I release this story to the wild as I forgive myself. I hope you can too, we all deserve it.