When we met, we were both pretty broken from past experiences. She had had a line of bad relationships and I had my own issues. She was creative, smart and very beautiful, way out of my league.

With her I was happy for the first time in my adult life and I loved her just as she was. We enjoyed the same things and our friends talked of us as a “perfect couple”. And for a time everything truly was pretty perfect.

Then one day she called me and said: “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”

After the initial shock I managed to say: “I love you and want you to be happy. If this makes you happy, so be it.”

And that was it. I was emotionally devastated.

I never saw her again. Nine months later a common friend told me she had a baby coming in the next month. Apparently she had switched me for a better candidate and gotten herself pregnant almost instantly.

Realizing this broke me even more. I guess our time together had fixed her to a point where she was ready to start a family, just not with me. According to my friend she got three kids with the same guy and is very happy with her life.

It took me years to recover from this and I don’t think that I’ll ever really get “over it”.

I broke up with my first girlfriend years ago because “there was no spark”. In truth I went on my senior cruise, reconnected with a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years, developed a massive crush on her, and though I did not intend to pursue anything romantically with her as she was already dating someone else, I realized that I had never been attracted to my gf in the first place. I regret that I broke her heart and wish I would have had this realization to begin with, but that’s youth. I wanted more for my life, and I got it. She did too, and much faster. She ended up meeting her soulmate within a year of us breaking up and they have a beautiful daughter together.

Three different relationships. They ended because…

1. …neither of us was mature enough to actually do what was necessary to stay together.
2. …for the exact same reason as her friends consistently distance themselves from her: she’s entitled, irrational, and selfish.
3. …what she actually wanted wasn’t a long-term relationship, just some emotional comfort. But both of us got a bit too excited with the relationship, so it lasted more than it should.

Every breakup was totally predictable, and for a/multiple VERY good reasons. I don’t regret any relationship I’ve ever had. Some I learned some things that immediately made me a better person, others took me reflecting later on, to make me realize things that ultimately helped me improve as a person. Regardless I learned something from every relationship/partner. A lot of them were red flags to avoid, and traits I couldn’t be with, but I learned things

Most of the times it was because I would subconsciously emulate my fathers way of conflict resolution, which was subtle manipulation of the other persons emotions so that if I was sad, they’d be sad too. Not nice, not respectful, and not sustainable for any amount of longer term relation.

I smartened up with age and realizations that I was turning into my father and made sure that man’s spirit is dead forever. I’m married now 😙

Mine wouldn’t quit drugs. I quit. He eventually died in his sleep from what I hear. I hadn’t talked to him in so long, by then. But he used to say he didn’t want to live past 40…

I know I made the right choice.

Incompatibility from the start, different values, different mindsets.

I don’t think I’m really over it, but I’m over it more than I was.

My ex wife kept cheating on me. That makes it pretty simple really.

As to why she did that. I don’t know. She was going through a bad time, and I think feeling bad about and for herself. She wanted to feel better about herself, and escaping her life made her feel that way. At least, that’s what I think. I’ll never really know I guess.

She was absolutely right, we were better off as friends and I only wanted a relationship because i didnt want to be alone anymore. It hurt a lot at first and I lost one of my best friends, but it was for the best for sure.

Another breakup, she broke up with me because she wasn’t as healed from the trauma from her last relationship as she thought.

I saw it coming. She was honest with me the whole time and I thought handled it as well as could be expected.

Ex-wife. I feel our lives went in different directions. We had a great bond when we were young and both struggling to make ends meet, but then we found good jobs and started saving up money. That’s when all the problems started. Turns out we had very different ideas of what we were going to do with our lives once we had the freedom to choose.

For me, the same thing that was the reason at the time, too: Over the years my partner realized she’s not into men at all actually, just into women. The into-men part was more learned behavior left over from her youth (we were together for 15 years, so it’s utterly normalized to be together and hence needs a lot of time to realize you just do it out of habit).

I got mad and threw them out after the millionth time they tried to gaslight me. Everything they wanted was important and had to happen ASAP. Everything I wanted was excuses trying to make me feel bad for them.

When someone is never willing to change their behavior to accommodate you and expect you to constantly, run. Just wish I’d realized the pattern sooner.

There was no reason to not break up. When in love drunkness all reasons are empty and when reality hits become oblivious to split up.

She really loved me very deeply, it made me uncomfortable at times as I didn’t grow up with love. It was the kind of love you want though and I loved her a lot as well - just the wrong time ultimately. Hard part is that I had to lose that relationship to learn the lesson for next partner.