What’s the biggest trauma a past relationship has given you? I’ll give my own…the ability to really be able to trust anyone fully.

33 comments

  2. My ex used to verbally abuse me, manipulate me, and when I finally dumped her she punched me a good few times

  3. It started with gaslighting. My feelings and thoughts weren’t real and she told me what I actually thought and felt. Then hitting led to bruises. She threw a lamp at me and broke my arm. Then blamed me for breaking her nice lamp. Then she hit me in the head hard enough to cause hearing loss and a concussion. The apology was her describing why I made her do it.

    Divorced 10 years now. I only date casually. I now get physical affection from casual friends and sex workers. I still have vertigo, migraines, and hearing loss from the concussion.

    That recent popular Fingers Crossed song by Lauren Spencer-Smith kind of triggers me because that’s totally the kind of gaslighting my ex would do.

  4. My wife died in a pretty horrific way. I had to be the one to identify her body. I have PTSD from it.

  5. Attempted suicide on multiple occasions by a (then) partner (who had undiagnosed bipolar)

  7. I doubt everything and everyone, it’s getting to the point where i have to second guess every single fucking decision in fear of retaliation or losing friends. It’s getting to the point where i feel paranoid towards my very best friends.

  9. Recent ex has borderline personality disorder and it took everything from me. Just crushing to a person trying their best to be supportive. They can be intimately abusive. Piecing back together and trying to forget the pain but not the lessons.

  10. My big one is that I am naturally an overthinker, stress about stuff I probably shouldn’t. I had probably the closest thing to a nervous breakdown like 6-8 months ago in front of my wife, telling her I have had bad depression and intrusive thoughts of her leaving me, not being happy, finding someone better, etc. and I got nothing but reassurance that it wasn’t the case.

    She woke up about three weeks ago and told me she is leaving, is not happy and has no intention of trying to make it work. So for the first time since I was 18, I have to not only learn how to be single again, find myself, date, all that but learn how to trust that someone after ~9 years won’t wake up and abandon me after telling me up and down that I was overthinking.

  12. Trust issues so severe that I started to create a very unhealthy disdain for ALL women. I let my guard down and fully gave myself to another person for 10 years. Only to be scraped off her shoe like old dog shit. Being forced to stop loving my best friend and watch them walk out of my life, walk away from our family and our home, and immediately into the arms of another man has crushed me. Maybe permanently.
    I have walls in my head that will never come down again. I’ll never allow myself to marry, cohabitate, or let anyone get that close with me again…

  13. Seeing people physically harmed by someone they love.

    Even though it didn’t happen to me I get flashback images of what happened to the other person. For example, as a kid adults would fight and you could here or see the brutality.

    I.e. black eyes, swollen faces, bruises, wounds, screaming, crying, banging, etc. As well as emotional traumas that are beneath the surface.

    Til’ this day images and sounds pop up psychologically (intrusive mental tapes/replays). I’ve become avoidant of violent media (movies, music, shows, videos, etc. AKA what society is calling “entertainment”).

    Very hard for me to “enjoy” something like that.

    Personally, the biggest trauma I’ve gotten from a past relationship is not knowing what you had until they are gone.

    Exes always try coming back once they realize you were actually a good person. Yet, they didn’t realize it until it was too late.

    You are already gone, not interested in them intimately anymore.

  14. My ex wife told me that every time we had sex after my son was born it felt like I was raping her. Even though she initiated the encounters about half the time. This has been a difficult thing to get past, I know she was just trying to hurt me but damn.

  15. I don’t believe in love anymore and I don’t want another relationship. Ever.

  16. She said she needed time to work on herself. Moved out of “our” apartment, and right in with another guy.

  17. This one brings bad memories

    I was starting my basketball carrier and i almost made it.
    This girl ( fucking beautiful ) never seen more beautiful girl in my life, sheere perfection.
    So i dump my carrier and get on with her so we are together for 2 year and everything is going great. Then one time she’s break’s up with me by cheating on me with her ex ( and that guy is half my size, looks and brains) so we break up. And i started drinking a lot cause of her and the lost chance in life.
    Next think I have trust issues with everyone, had that trauma since. I’m in a relationship for 4 years now and still have those same old trust issues. But on the bright side that girl understands my problem and I’m trying to fight that problem cause I ruined a good chance in life thinking that someone is going to di the same thing for me.

    So remember:

    If you see something that seems like a red flag or some kind of problem. Push her into talking about that problem and if the talk isn’t working or she’s evading the talk you dump her immediately. That will save you a lot of things in life. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s better to suffer for a short time then long time. You first, “the love of your life second”.

  18. The fear of allowing myself to love.

    I had decided that I would never marry, never truly love anyone until one amazing person showed me that I was worthy of someone’s love and that the love I felt for her was an ok thing to have.

    Kim was 25, I was 23 when, after knowing each other for 5 years, she asked me one day “Are you ever going to ask me out???”. That started the very best 2 1/2 years of my life even though they included her battling Hodgkin’s disease and me almost dying on my motorcycle (30 days inpatient, months of recovery). She beat the Hodgkin’s, I got back in school. We got engaged about May 1987 and were at the absolute top of the world. December 2,1987 at the age of 28, she died in my arms after getting a pulmonary embolism.

    To say that I was devastated would not begin to describe the huge gaping hole left in my life. It took nearly 14 years to find someone who could live me for the damaged soul I was.

    Karen and I have been married for 20 years now and she understands that sometimes out of the blue something will trigger memories and I will just start to cry. Like now, for instance.

  19. I have an inherent distrust of women now. Old friends? Probably secretly hate me. New people? They’re probably a bitch. I even feel wary around my own sisters sometimes. I absolutely hate it and hate myself for it.

  20. I can’t look at a beautiful, sexy, or even cute girl anymore without just sobbing or having this VERY intrusive thought in my head “my boyfriend would love her. He would probably be happier with her in bed than me. I’m so fucking ugly.” My bf is a sweet man, but this stems from my ex. It’s something I’m working in, we all deserve to appreciate ladies! I’m very supportive of other women but NOT so much myself.

  21. Have to say my g/f from ~roughly three years ago. She ghosted me after 2.5 year of dating so ghosting is a very very sore spot for me.

    She did eventually drunkenly reach out about 6-7 months after said she was “going through some stuff” and “she was stupid to try and think she could be in a relationship” all of which would have been preferable to hear and not just ghost.

  22. She hit me in the face with a frying pan. Lost a tooth, still have the scar. That is the only time I have struck a woman – and you know what? I’m not going to apologize for that right cross. I’m pretty proud of the way she dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes.

    Haven’t thought about that woman in years, but the memory still tinges my vision red. I don’t think I have ever been that angry before.

  23. Love of my life just got up and left one day. Five months later she called me and apologized and admitted some things. She then told me she was currently pregnant by a guy that was trying to force her to get an abortion and wanted nothing to do with the baby. I could tell she was wanting me to take initiative and try and reconcile, however on general principle I could not. She’s now raising a baby by herself in a one bedroom apartment.

  24. My sons mother threw everything in the book at me to keep me from being a dad. I’m permanently changed, every decision I make is about protecting my kids.

  25. I’m not sure how easily I can trust again. I always felt like it didn’t affect me too much until I started dating again. I’m a much different person from before and after the relationship, but I can even feel myself just not trusting as much in general.

  26. I have massive trust issues.

    To the point that I’ll have doubts even if their dad sends a message.
    Ex cheated on me with most of my friends, she even changed one guys name to that of her father so I wouldn’t ask about him. She even went to the lenghts of not telling her parents that 2e broke up so that she could use me as an excuse to go meet with other men.

    Her reason for doing it?

    I didn’t give her enough attention.

    used to be there for her beck and call. She was my first priority in everything. I would drop whatever I was doing to actually be with her whenever she ask but no, it wasn’t enough.

  27. My ex tried to paint me as a pedophile to her family after we broke up. I lost almost all my friends because of it too. The only friends I kept were the ones who knew me before her, because they knew she was full of sh*t.

    The social death was awful because I was still recovering from being physically assaulted and mugged a few months prior that left me hospitalized, so I had people telling me I deserved it.

    Oh, and she cheated on me. So… not a great person honestly. That’s 13 years I’ll never get back.

  28. Wife at the time texted her Affair Partner “Just had sex with husband, god it was awful”

  29. Hum, an ex threatened to kill himself when I wouldn’t take him back. Ironically it lead to my own mental breakdown where I did tried to kill myself lol. I failed.

  30. Ex wife cheated on me an undisclosed number of times after 18 years of marriage, while pregnant with my child. Told me the worse things about how it’s my fault, I’m a rapist, not a real man that I needed another man to show me how to be a man. And many many more things. I’ve had Ed ever since and it’s been six years since that. I can’t keep a relationship even with women that really seem to truly love me I wreck it in the end. I absolutely adore my now exgf that dumped me at 3:00am this morning. Over text no less.

  32. She said she wanted a future and a family. She was sleeping with two of my close friends, told me she was pregnant. Told me her cousin needed money for the hospital, had an abortion anD told me afterwards. Said she didn’t know if it was mine or not, but “you don’t deserve to be a happy dad”

    I went through some dark times after that breakup, got super depressed and tried to kill myself.

    I’m in a much better place now, and my wife and I are watching our 4 year old daughter play in the kids pool that’s on the front porch

  33. My ex had some pretty significant mental health issues which I 100% knew going into the relationship.

    What I didn’t know was that she was going to use me as crutch to get better and then, as soon as she could handle things again, toss me to the wayside like I meant nothing to her and then slander my name to friends and family.

    Then she accused me of raping her shortly after for no discernable reason and has been cyberstalking me ever since. I can’t have any public social media with my actual name because she goes after them.

    I attempted suicide several times, had crippling depression for years, and could barely function because I was afraid of her.

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