Men of Reddit. What was the moment that you realised you deserved better?

22 comments

1. My simple test for that is would I be happier living on my own or fucking someone else? If the answer is consistently yes to either of those then I deserve better.

   I should also note I actually enjoy living on my own.

2. Most people get out what they put into life, if u deserve better gotta do better

3. I got home from a 17 hour emergency work day that involved getting a 3:30am call, an hour drive, 13 hours straight dissecting a multimillion dollar machine that handles a million dollars worth of production a day, and two hours of inspection and checks after restart, then the drive home and after spraying myself off outside with the hose and 55 degree water because I didn’t want to make the house messy I stepped inside into a tirade of bitching. Apparently it was so inconsiderate of me to have to do that, and I have a job where I’m on call for fun.

   I told her to get her shit and get out. I didn’t want to see her here again. I took my door key off her keys and went to bed. I didn’t care about the crying.

4. In my experience. Not until I leave the relationship and go, “Oh wait that was bad.”

5. Took my EX to my sports club then it got announced i made the 1st team. I was really happy it took a lot of hard work. The only thing she said: “Can we go home now i don’t care!”

   Was like a gut punch, I supported her on everything. This was the one thing i worked hard for and was proud of.

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   Then when i thought about it it hit me. She was not a nice person. She controlled me. I was scared to ask if i could game for a few hours. I was scared that she’d hit me if i did not do a thing she asked. She did hit me one time already.

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   It was a wild ride man.

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   Edit: pls excuse any grammatical errors I’m not a native English speaker.

6. When I realized how pathetic I was being. After putting up with the silent treatment for two weeks, it finally hit me.

7. Never did when it was the case. Now I live a live I don’t really deserve, even if it isn’t much.

8. When I started to dread going home from work more than actually going to work.

9. When I realized I was constantly telling myself “this is the best I can get”

10. I was talking to a girl for about a year on and off. She was very noncommittal and I was very committal. I tricked myself into thinking that if I just was the best thing she’d ever had, that she’d fall in love with me like I did to her. It didn’t work out that way.

    At a certain point I realized that she was not interested in being with me for this reason or that. Then, later, my dumbass realized that she’d been trying to tell me that for awhile. I still feel really stupid for ignoring that. This isn’t a story of how I realized I deserved better from her, I deserved better from myself. She made her decisions, but it’s not my fault and it’s not her fault either. Not moving on was my fault and my problem; blaming her is why it tore me up so much inside. I deserve to be able to deal with my problems. At the end of the day, she didn’t love me romantically and I deserve to be with someone who loved me so it wouldn’t have worked to begin with. Simple as that.

11. When for about the 10th time I was having the conversation that her actions don’t match her words, her lack of effort hurts me and us. I miss her as this is a recent break up but I know I’m well deserving of much more. I’ll love her forever but she isn’t the right one for me.

12. I somehow let a woman whose biological clock was ticking convince me to impregnate her, before we got married.

    Anyhow, I had a 20 hour work day from hell, and I wasn’t able to get a test done that her fertility doctor requested. All while I needed to study for board exams. After listening to her abuse about how I only cared about myself, how inconsiderate I was being, about how I was ruining all of her plans, I finally had my moment of clarity. I apologized to her for wasting her time, and informed her in no uncertain terms that we were finished.

    One of the best decisions I ever made!

13. Marriage was in trouble after 25 yrs,we had done well financially but my wife’s drinking was out of control again. Went grocery shopping with her and tossed a package of razor cartridges in the cart when she said you can’t have those and replaced them with the cheapest disposable razors available 😂

14. The contrast between how I treated her when she was sick vs how she treated me when I was sick. It unveiled how she didn’t really care about my feelings or wellbeing at all. My main priority in our relationship was “how can I make her feel loved, heard, safe, and comfortable”. She clearly didnt approach our relationship in the same way for me.

15. When she started breaking all of the rules that she insisted on and then gaslit me about it.

16. When I realised that I’d made him a priority but I was only an option.

17. Never felt I deserved better or anything actually, but it was my childhood that lit the fire in me and made me realize I want better for myself and vowed my would be future child would never go through what I had to. I was about 13 and I asked my dad for 5 bucks to go out, and his reply was get a fucking job. Never asked him for anything again and got the job saved to move out, but he emptied bank account. Bit of set back but still managed to leave that fucking place at 17 and still one of the best decisions of my life. It’s not about deserving it, it’s about making better shit happen for yourself and your future.

18. A girl in her 20s behaves like she was in the middle of her puberty. I can not express enough with human words how much I hat immaturity

19. still waiting for it

20. When I realized the person I was pouring my heart out to did not care about my feelings… Had to go through therapy to realize this harsh reality.

21. After being long distance for 3 months, I gave her the option to stay with me and my family before returning to school, which she had done before as she lived in another country. I sent her a text saying, I could pick her up from any airport in the region so she could get the cheapest flight. Then we could enjoy time together before returning to a stressful college environment.

    I didn’t get a response back. Later that day, I asked her what she decided and she said she was returning to school directly several days before she needed to be there instead of seeing me and being with my family. This was surprising and hurtful since we hadn’t seen each other in a while and she wasn’t taking the opportunity to spend time with me. She had also skipped other opportunities to see me earlier in this 3 month long distance period. When I asked her why, she gave a very weak answer about needing time to mentally prepare for school. When I asked again I got a very different answer. I broke up with her the next day after sleeping on it. Best decision I ever made.

    Write this made me realize, that it really seems like she didn’t want to be with me at all. She certainly acted that way. But she was nevertheless incredibly angry at me for breaking up with her and said it was “out of no where.” The truth was she was using and manipulating me for attention and validation but never cared about me. And she was effectively mad at me for taking that attention away from her when I broke up with her.

    It’s been over a year, we see each other in college almost everyday because we share the same major but she won’t acknowledge my presence and makes situations very awkward for me and others.

22. Trick question: I don’t deserve better. I know that I don’t because it’s been made abundantly clear to me my whole life.