Why Did You Break Up With Your Partner?

[GS_Dirtboy]

Reading this thread should make you think twice before getting married.

I am on my second marriage. My first wife was a psychologist and I am 100% sure she went into the field because she was a bit whacko and she could get some free help. Not joking. When we would have a fight and I would leave to get some thinking time and cool down she'd follow me around the house just to keep fighting. Who does that? Then, I'd walk past her going the other way and we'd brush shoulders and she'd throw herself onto the floor like she'd been hit by a bus. Sorry chickie poo, I played American football for 15 years and I know exactly how much force it takes to knock someone over. Brushing shoulders doesn't do it. When I saw that sh*t happening I was outta there!

If, for some reason my current marriage ends you can be sure I will never get married again. I had a great life when I was single. I'm a decent looking guy and a very decent man, a gentleman, and I enjoy life. I had no problem finding great companionship when I was solo.

 

[PhilipDT]

. It just has been
on hiatus, with me still loving him and him moved on slightly only to
compare others with me (at least that what's he says) and them treating
him badly comparatively.

Oh man....

I thought Argentina would have cured you of that naivety

 

[mex]

I found this an interesting teenage read (it is a classic). Of course, any person and any story is different, but it won't hurt to know more about men and women work differently way ahead starting a relationship.

Omg....i read this Aaaages ago ; Kind of funny but also helpful at this time. We need an update. Women changed a lot! Let's bring it back to the point.
Women like it, to make things more complicated. There is no problem...no stress at all..ok, let's create some but i will not tell you, why i do that now.Why? No one knows...

 

[Joe]

I swear my a** off that they are.
Not only that...there are a lot of very common things around here that are really hard to handle. Sorry, but some stuff is just sick.
What i went through here...not to believe and i'm still not done and fight every day.

What are examples of the histrionics so the newcomers know what to expect. And how do you deal with it?

 

[ElQueso]

19 years (we share that, Khairy) of incompatibility. Me as a young man, an idiot who kind of fell into being married (I think you should have to pass tests to get married AND to have a kid before you're 35 - hehe). We lived together awhile, even bought a house (oh, as an investment) before we got married. I was young (23), unfocused, didn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I was a hard worker and provided well. Hey, I had regular sex and we got along alright (at the time). I really did think I was in love, but looking back over time (which provides its own filters, of course) I think it was the lust and my particular ignorance of youth. I really think I had no idea what love was - and neither did she.

We really didn't have any problems the first 3-4 years.

But she hated my folks. That should have told me right there that I was marrying the wrong person. My folks aren't saints, but I have no doubt that my mother and father sacrificed an awful lot of their lives to give us a good home (not just a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat) and did everything they could to ensure my brother and I started off life better than they did. My folks are good, upstanding people.

My folks tolerated her, for all 19+ years that they had to know her. But they never liked her. They treated her well, even when she treated them with thinly-disguised contempt. I should have paid more attention to my folks' feelings about her - having had kids of my own and now raising another batch and they coming into the same age where choosing partners starts to happen, I realize my biggest mistake then was not paying attention to why my folks didn't like her (and realize this is the arrogance of youth [disguising the necessity of experience!] that the young will rarely listen to their parents, and having seen a couple of the guys one of my sisters-in-law has gone out with, I know it's hopeless to hope for any different outcome related to warnings shouted from the rooftops).

My ex turned out to be a different person than I thought she was, and she may well have felt that way about me, but I think she knew me well enough and figured she could change me. We didn't communicate very well. I was simple, I really didn't get pissed off by very much, but she could sure do it to me. And it mostly started with what nlarrucia already said: "If you don't know or can't figure out why I'm mad then you are showing just how big a problem you have."

I stayed with my ex so long because my parents taught me that giving your word, and particularly as an oath in matrimony ('till death do we part), means something important in this world. She hated my folks, but it was their teachings to me that kept us together so long. In fact, I so didn't want to disappoint my folks that the last 5 years that my ex and I were together was solely due to that - I'd already figured out I was miserable and had to do something but couldn't disappoint my folks. Turned out I was quite an idiot, for more than one reason.

I'll never forget the night I called my folks (they lived some 900 miles away by then) to tell them that I was getting a divorce. I'd steeled myself to take criticism, to have to explain things, to withstand their attempts to talk me out of it, etc. After I gave them the news, there was a moment of silence and I thought "oh crap." Then my mom says "well, all I can say is it's about time!".

Then I come down here and meet a true angel from Paraguay. She loves her family (something my ex didn't - my ex's mother and father were both alcoholics and obviously that affected her, but my wife's parents have their own issues and she still loves them!), desperately wants to meet mine (we can't get her a visa without going the immigration route and my mother would have issues being on a plane for so long to get down here - we're thinking about meeting somewhere in the Caribbean some day soon - not such a long flight for mom ). She works not because she has to, but because she wants to contribute (she bought me a beautiful leather coat two years ago for my 50th birthday that cost her a month's wages!). We're not jealous of each other - our happiness isn't tied to us being together all the time. We have our own lives and we have our lives together. We have three "daughters" (her [much] younger sisters) who are quite demanding and we both share in their raising and in giving them a loving home in which to get a better start than their parents had.

My advice to anyone out there in a relationship in which they are not happy: Get the hell out of it as soon as you can. Life is too short. Be happy, not a martyr.

If you have kids, don't let that stop you. The idea that you have to be together until the kids are grown up is fallible: the kids will suffer more from the constant stress and probable fighting over the years than they will sharing parents while they grow up - and how you handle that part of it (post divorce) should be a better example for them than staying together and having to listen to the crap that comes out of a bad marriage.

 

[Girino]

If you have kids, don't let that stop you. The idea that you have to be together until the kids are grown up is fallible: the kids will suffer more from the constant stress and probable fighting over the years than they will sharing parents while they grow up - and how you handle that part of it (post divorce) should be a better example for them than staying together and having to listen to the crap that comes out of a bad marriage.

Yeah, it should be "fake it if you can fake it well, or it is just going to be worse".
Me and my husband both came from "broken" families and this played a huge role in our life choices. We never thought too lightly the idea of starting something serious and then to get married. I am still very afraid to commit the same mistakes our folks did. I truly believe that even heavenly marriages started with the best intentions, and then...
A lot of divorced coupled later reported "I was not so sure at the time I got married, but my parents pushed me/all of my friends were doing it and we thought 'why not?'" but there are also a lot of others who, like our khairyexpat, had genuine intentions and lived unconsciously a life of lies until it all fell apart.

 

[nikad]

In the long run, couples come and go, friends come and go and only family remains.

You never get married thinking of things not working and having to divorce. But s**t happens - my favorite motto - in reality life happens. He cheated on me. I forgave him once, not twice.

My first marriage. I was 20, he was 23. Two kids. Still selfish and with little patience. That lasted 4 years. We are still friends. He had about 4 serious relationships after and 3 kids with different women. He cheated on all of them . We had a son together that is 20 yo now.

I met a gringo online when I was just looking to change jobs. He was in the US, I was down here. I was even giving him love advice, encouraging him to go out and meet some people. Long story short, he has been here for 11 year. We have been married for 10 yrs. We have always worked together from home. with a brief pause. We basically spend everyday, most of the day together, have one 3 yo child, and we enjoy each other's company. With the occasional time for ourselves with friends, etc. We take turns.

I have learned that when you least expect it, and especially when you are not looking but keep a positive/open attitude, chances are that you are going to meet somebody.

 

[nlaruccia]

I married young and I was so foolish. He was eight years older than me, but later I realized he was emotionally younger than me. We met in BA and went to the States in 2001 and he became disilusioned with the States and particularly with my family. He thought my family was "North American" and said I misled him since my family was really Italian/Argentine and he wanted a white, blond haired, blue-eyed wife. He changed when he went to the States and revealed his true nature. When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, my siblings nominated me to be her nurse for the last six months of her life. I slept next to her bed and cared for her 24/7 and my ex left and moved back to our new apartment in California. He came back for one day for the funeral and left again while I dealed with the estate sale. Upon returning to California, I discovered that he had spent the thousands of dollars that my mother had gifted him and he wanted more money but yet he didn't work. No job was good enough for him. I served him divorce papers and he moved out but
months later asked if he could stay with me for one month while finding a place of his own. He agreed to help pay gas/light but not the rent. Two months later he hadn't given me a cent, so I kicked him out. Then I discovered my grandmother's silver dollars and my mother's tourmalines missing. It's a good thing that I divorced him before he got his green card. Now I have no desire to get married again. I think maybe long-term relationships with separate houses might work better. You need to have time apart and your private space to miss the other person, to have your own thoughts and to fart if you want to.

 

[Crema Americana]

I've always been the one to call it quits in past relationships, although it was already over. For some reason my ex just became distant - didn't seem interested anymore, didn't want to talk or do anything together - and even after trying to talk about it or figure out what was going on, there was no solution. So I broke it off... some time later he wanted to get back together, but it was too late. I had already buried the relationship. To this day I still don't know what his issue was -- the fact he was a pathological liar didn't help. In the end, breaking up was for the best. We were perhaps too young and perhaps not fully compatible... we had our moments, but it wasn't meant to be and that's fine.

If there's one thing I could go back and tell myself is that relationships are work, yes, but they shouldn't be hard work. I put way too much energy and importance into things that were lost causes hoping to make it work.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

One important data point in relationships here is the language barrier. My wife and I didn't speak the same language (I don't mean figuratively) and we still don't. She expresses herself in Spanish which is not her first language and I in Spanish which is not my first language, either. Often, I feel there is a lot that I want to communicate but just can't.

Of all the things we deal with for me that is the most limiting followed by cultural differences of everything from politics, religion, medical decisions, and career paths.