We were polyamorous, had spent 8 years together, and then her other (new) partner decided she didn’t like me. So she put a wedge into our relationship by breaking the trust down between me and my partner, framing me as abusive, and eventually my partner abandoned me after the trust was gone.

The other gal turned everything I did into some manipulative scheme or way to control my partners. For example, the fact that I couldn’t suddenly drop $2k on a wisdom tooth removal for her became “financial abuse and control”.

I’m going to be angry about it for the rest of my life, I think.

She was religious to the point of being crazy, and she was absolutely obsessed with her dog, who was the worst behaved dog I’ve ever personally known.

I fell for her because she helped me become more of an adult, someone who could pay bills and be sort of responsible for myself. And like every super-religious woman I have ever personally known, she was an absolute horndog but felt really guilty about it, especially if she really enjoyed it.

We were on this yo-yo thing for years where she would determine that im too much of a heathen, so she would leave, and then she would see me talking with some other woman, and she would run said woman off. I was young and stupid and kept going back. We were even married for a bit, but she fell right back into the same pattern and divorced me two months later.

Not long after that she went and married someone else. Finally. Shes with this guy for three months and is trying to get her claws back into me. But by this time I had found the woman I am now married to. My current wife doesn’t have the same religious and sexual hangups, and she understands things like “dogs need to be housebroken” and “You have to train dogs not to bite children”. Well of course she pulled out all the stops to try and quash it, but I finally learned to say “would you kindly fuck off”.

And I have been happily married to a really amazing woman for 17 years.

The short version of the story is I was seeing a nurse, then Covid happened and she did the travel nurse thing and I never saw her again.

In fact…remember those 3D printed notebook divider face masks? I had volunteered to make a bunch of those, including one that, one spool ran out so I started another spool so it came out two-colored. Just so happens she was the point of contact between the hospital and the maker community, so she was the one tasked with the “how to correctly use” instructions, and that was the one she wore in the demo pictures. Those are the last pictures I have of her.

I loved her because she was flirty, inclusive and adorably silly. But life threw a curveball at us and that was in the form of her father’s death. Try as I might, it really was difficult to manage that. On top of me at the time, working on moving states and then there was online drama between her groupie and mine over stupid things.

So it was a recipe of things to end. But if we had remained, I would have visited her to comfort as she requested I do when I moved. But by the time I moved, we broke up and she was 2 hours away from me.

She had “left” years ago but was hanging on for the money and the kids. Constantly yelled at me, refused to do any family activities together. I even funded her savings to escape ( all of our money was ours except what was hers) on the claim that it would reduce her anxiety. Eventually she filed, blames me for “not fighting for her”.

So much stress gone. So much more peace in my life.

My biggest regret really was not fighting for full custody. We have equal custody but for the first few years I was able to get the kids most of the time

10 years together. She was upfront about her long-term goal of never having children, and I was upfront about how I felt at the time, which was “meh, I could go either way.”

We met while I was diving into the depths of alcoholism. My first (and only) DUI was when we’d been seeing each other for a couple months, They wanted me to pay $300 or spend a few nights in jail, I said “Lemme text my girl so she can feed my cat.”

I broke up with her a few times, but kept coming back because she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and we did genuinely care for each other. I said “I’m moving across country, you can come or you can stay,” She came. I proposed a couple years later. We married a few years after that.

I finally got sober, and immediately knew that we didn’t belong together. My alcoholism told me I wasn’t good enough to be a father, but I truly do want to be one. We had become roommates, neither one of us really sharing emotionally or physically. I remember how terrible I felt, when we’d be in the same room, and instead of talking to each other, we’d baby talk to our (amazing, wonderful) little dog instead. I remember feeling so jealous of that dog, because she was so physically affectionate with her, and never (ever) me.

This is an aside, but, For our entire relationship together, the only thing I ever really asked for, was a giant cookie for my birthday. It’s a family tradition, and I love them. 10 years I asked for a simple $7.99 giant cookie from the grocery store, with a Happy Birthday message, and for 10 years, she never did it. I did everything for her, took care of everything. The car, the house, the groceries, her health care, her mental healthcare… I realized that’s all she wanted, was a caretaker.

Well, it came to a head one night when we were randomly talking openly, and she told me the only reason she slept with me was so I wouldn’t leave her. When I sobered up, I started a mental clock of two years, and told her what I needed from her, and gave her those 2 years to fix it. She didn’t, so after two years, I told her we weren’t right together and we split up. I cried, so much. It was awful. I still very much love her, but, I was right. We just weren’t meant for each other.

It’s been 5 years since then, and I’ve been having trouble finding my person. I went to therapy, went HARD in therapy, really worked on myself. Got better physically, mentally, have a much better job, and just recently started texting a woman that lives a thousand miles away in Texas. She’s beautiful just like my ex-wife is, except she wants to have kids.

Pray for me, bros, I really like her, and don’t want to mess this up.

I wasn’t allowed to have any feelings other than happy. I wasn’t allowed to negotiate within the relationship, I had to take what he was offering or I was “blackmailing” him. He treated me like an extension of himself and if I didn’t do and act exactly how he wanted I’d get iced out.

Found out she cheated. Not sure what her motivation for that was, we never really had any problems prior to it.

I do not consider past relationships failures. Given enough time, I believe we are all able to go from “why is/was this happening to me?” to “what is/was this teaching me?”

With that said, I’ll gladly share, starting with the latest:

1. Divorced her after eight happy years, in 2021, because she wanted kids and I didn’t. Having kids was one of her dreams and I didn’t think it fair to keep her waiting for me to have a change of heart on the matter. Also, she called me “stupid” whenever I intervened in quarrels, brawls, threats or other antisocial behavior on the streets. Lastly, she told me once, when I opened up about my clinical depression, that I probably have to live alone the rest of my life.

2. Broke up with her about ten years ago, after dating for one year, because she couldn’t take having a long distance relationship. In addition, she had apparently fallen for somebody else.

3. Broke up with her over 15 years ago, because she couldn’t wait while I sought medical care for my erectile dysfunction. She called me names too. Took me 15 years after that to realize that my dick was causing gender dysphoria, which in turn made me unable to fuck “like a man”.

4. My first love, over 20 years ago, I broke up with after four years of her cheating on me with my best friend. For some stupid reason, I forgave that sorry excuse of a human being every single time, destroying my self-esteem for life in the process.

I refused rape her, so she found someone who would.

She emptied our joint bank account to buy crack.

She cheated on me, forgave her, she cheated on me again. I ended up a husk of a man unable to date until very recently

He died, which really put a damper on the whole thing.

I was at a listless, lonely, and sad point in my life when a friend made a pass at me and, appreciating the attention, I went with it. The relationship went toxic and exploitative, and I ended up being abused for years. The abusive relationship ended not because I heroically gathered my wits and strength enough to get out, but because she eventually got bored with me and kicked me out.

Thankfully, it’s long in the past now. After that I took some time away from dating and relationships to work on myself, and with the help of friends and family I slowly pieced my heart and my life back together.

When I felt ready to begin dating again I put myself back out there, and I met someone truly amazing. We’re in a very happy and healthy marriage in which we trust and appreciate each other, and nobody is being treated like crap.

I was in middle school. We just didn’t last, too different I think.