Getting older is filled with learning from our mistakes, learning what we want more and how to get it. I try, after every breakup, to critically think about what role I may have played, what I could improve on, what I need to look for and what’s really important, etc. Each time I take away many lessons but also sometimes previous ones disappear and the path becomes more open as I realize they didnt matter as much.
What realizations, lessons, goals did you come away from the end of a relationship in your thirties that you are using or plan to use in dating or next partnerships?
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Don’t hold onto relationships past their expiry date, but also, don’t get into relationships with a clear expiry date to begin with – I was looking for a long-term partner.
Never ever let someone make you feel less than or undeserving of care, compassion and safety for whatever reason. If someone makes me question whether I deserve love or deserve to be accepted for who I am – either subtly or explicitly – I’m out.
Know what you want. If you’re not cool with something, it’s okay to not be cool with it. You decide the kind of relationship you want.
Stop ignoring red flag. If I’m not comfortable enough to be goofy with the person, they’re not right for me. It’s not my job to fix or mother anyone. Believe people when they tell you things about themselves (one dude described himself as a monster in a box and I was like, oh what a silly exaggeration… absolutely dead wrong). Pay attention to how they talk about their ex’s. If they’re nasty/mean/anything negative when under the influence of any substance, get out. Stop giving third chances to people.
Actions speak louder than words.
I guess my ex’s heart was in the right place but he never delivered on his promises. He was also genuinely sorry whenever he never delivered but the outcome was still the same and I didn’t allow myself to be angry at him. I am now trying hard to judge people on their actions rather than their intentions or just their words.
The biggest is that my two favourite things to do with a partner (and it’s a dead tie) are fucking them and talking with them. Frequent, compatible, hot sex is one of the most important things to me in a relationship, and I’m tired of pretending I’m okay with ‘adequate.’ When I’m single, those two things – having someone to send silly memes, or flirt with all day, and everything to do with sex – are the two things I find myself missing most.
In every relationship I know of or have been in, the sex declines as a natural consequence of the relationship. And I get it. So, with that in mind, I’d rather go from ‘hot, compatible, frequent’ sex to ‘hot, compatible, less frequent’ sex, than from ‘adequate’ sex to ‘none.’ Because the happiest ones I know are the ones where they’re still fucking.
And then of course the talking bit is awesome, because it gives us something else to do the other 23.75 hours of the day (or whatever). And the better we enjoy each other’s non-sex company, the better the sex tends to be.
My four biggest lessons:
* I need to be better about communicating my wants and needs, even (especially!) if that leads to uncovering incompatibilities.
* I learned that Living Apart Together is a huge, red flag for me.
* I don’t do well with people who exhibit behaviours associated with the Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style. It ends up triggering Anxious-Preoccupied behaviours in me, and I’d prefer to avoid that.
* Having good coping and self-soothing skills is extremely important for both people. Her trip to the US to see friends triggered some insecurities in me (which I didn’t share, but journaled and worked through). When she got stressed out by work she shut down emotionally, didn’t want to do anything but stay in and get high, and eventually withdrew.
* I need to continue to work on my non-romantic life and support system. I was “hella depressed” (clinical terminology) from 2017 to 2022 and lost some connections along the way. I’m a pretty analytical and organization-focused person so I’ve broken out some categories and try to regularly plan activities for each of them when they don’t happen ‘naturally’:
* Family, friends, career, physical health (e.g. eating well, daily walk, etc.), mental health (e.g. therapy appointments, journaling, etc.), self-love (e.g. celebrating victories, not demanding perfection from myself, etc.)
Worry less about if they are going to choose you. Take a good hard look at the person as they are and ask yourself if YOU want to choose THEM.
Also, learn to rely on your friends for companionship and emotional support. In the past, I would feel so lonely and desperate for a relationship. Now, when I’m feeling that way, I reach out to a friend and it almost always makes me feel better even if what I actually want is a romantic partner.
Stop ignoring or justifying red flags. Trust my freakin gut feeling.
Two people can care about each other deeply and treat each other well and still not be a good fit long-term. My ex was such a kind and gentle soul, but we were a terrible match communication-wise and that impacted everything (our sex lives, our social lives, the way we approached conflict). It was very hard to admit that this wasn’t the person for me, but in retrospect breaking up was the right choice for both of us.
If you’re not sexually attracted to someone 2 months in, you probably won’t be 8 months in either 😂
I started my last relationship at 28 and it ended at 32. It was a challenging but amazing relationship and the positive lessons I learned far outweigh the negative.
The biggest lesson I learned is to look for a relationship with someone who I would actually be friends with if we weren’t in a relationship.
To each their own, obviously, but I’ve just noticed a tendency in others, which I also had in my 20s, to look for partners under a completely different set of criteria than I would for, say, someone who I would want to talk to for 2 hours about their interests.
Maybe it’s because you just want to be in a relationship and have a “take what you can get” mentality. But I dated people in my 20s who, although we broke up on good terms, i just didn’t have anything to talk to about afterward. I didn’t keep in touch with their family or their friends after we dated.
And it’s occurred to me now that those were people I was around all the time and I was mostly just smiling and nodding the whole time, like having polite conversation with nice classmates who aren’t really your friends.
That dating a fearful avoidant turns me into an anxiously attached person. Not healthy for either of us.
When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
After ending a 10 year marriage, addiction and severe mental illness are dealbreakers for me now. I’m sad that I feel like I can’t be as openminded and accepting as I used to be. I have plenty of friends and family with mental health issues whom I love, and whom I believe deserve loving partners. But the financial and emotional abuse in my marriage nearly destroyed me, so I can’t open myself up to codependence again in that way.
9 year LTR ended when I was 33.
I’m 35F single + dating a bit now, but haven’t met the right one yet.
Biggest lesson was I figured out what I want + don’t want and what compatibility really looked like for me.
In my previous relationship, there were so many issues + incompatibilities I just didn’t understand at the time, so I learned a lot of lessons the really hard way. I thought things would get better overtime and they obviously never did.
I have firm boundaries + dealbreakers while dating this time around.
If somebody wants to, they will.
Actions + words have to align.
And chemistry and or looks good on paper doesn’t mean compatibility.
Pillars and experience of what a healthy relationship looks like + feels like. (Or what I don’t want.)
Make sure you’re keeping your core values front + center. Listen to your feelings.
I’m dating with intention this time around, so all that experience + therapy and having important conversations up front, I’m able to make decisions very quickly.
If I had the experience I have now, I should’ve ended my previous relationship after 3-4 months of dating, not 9 years.
I’m looking for healthy + compatible partner that also wants marriage + kids.
Trust my gut when something doesn’t feel right, and don’t stay past the time it’s clear it isn’t working. Life’s to short.
You can only control your own actions. You can set boundaries and expectations in a relationship, but at the end of the day all you can control is you, so be the best you that you can. If you’re doing your best, communicating honestly and openly, and listening to your partner, then you’re setting yourself up as best you can.
Then it’s just a matter of whether or not you are happy with how you’re treated in return
37 yo, just ended a 1.7 year relationship a month ago. Still healing, starting to recover, I thought he was the one.
1. Love bombing is a thing. I will recognize that next time.
2. My breakup to me, was out of the blue. Yet, post mortem I recognize the signs. Learn to recognize them earlier.
3. Don’t introduce them too soon to your family, friends.
4. If you break up, go no contact asap. It really makes a difference.
5. Don’t waste time wondering if they’ll come back. Inmediately after breaking up focus on yourself.
If you find yourself regularly calling your closest family member/friend or using google/reddit to inquire about your SO’s behavior – and at the root of it, your question is always “is it normal to feel hurt/upset by this?” – whether it’s normal or not, is irrelevant. *If you’re feeling hurt/upset by their behavior on a regular basis, that person is not right for you.*
Edited to add: also, in a healthy relationship, there’s enough communication between you both that going to secondary sources to try to decipher why they behave the way they do, and why it makes you feel badly, isn’t necessary. If you can’t just go straight to the source, that’s a problem.
I don’t really know. In my 30s, I got out of an abusive decade-long marriage to an alcoholic, then a long-term relationship where the man was everything I’d been looking for until it all just stopped and he started treating me crappy very suddenly and I still have no idea why.
I guess I’ve learned that I won’t be in a relationship with an alcoholic or somebody who likes to party a lot. And it turns out I’m happy being single, so it would take something really, really wildly amazing to be better than being single. My standards get higher and higher with every heartbreak.
That’s all I’ve got; mostly I’m just romantically broken and have no idea what to do next. So I’m out of the dating scene for awhile.
Being a mid-30s woman, I’m still very romantic, none of cynical, giving and way too empathetic believing in possibility to meet a good man of my age who will be loving and respectful.
But I need to practice boundaries and being more discerning – women of my age are vulnerable to predators who promise a lot and leave while we have not much time to waste if we want a family. This is so unfair.. So, taking it slow in the very beginning and not expecting too much of house playing and being very selective and discerning is what I know now. Also, just know your own biggest flaws, work on them, seek a partner who is mature and adequate enough to accept you without expecting you to be perfect.
I’ve (40) learned that I can’t do relationships. I can’t set boundaries, I ignore red flags, and so on. I’ve also learned that I’m asexual.
So what I’ve learned from my last 5 year long relationship is that I never want to be in a relationship again.
Well. Maybe when my daughter moves out. She’s 12, so I guess I might have a change of heart by then.
A bad relationship can make you feel more alone than if you we’re actually single.
I leanerd to not just in a relationship to fast and to end a relationship if the other person isn’t invested in it success…
I think my biggest lesson has been that two people, even those who live together and experience that much of life together, see the world differently. When those views diverge greatly, there is no amount of open communication that can fix that if one person refuses to recognize your views as valid.
This lesson also comes with the [accompanying lesson of this wonderful little paragraph](https://imgur.com/a/IJ5ZZzg)… there is no amount of desire to fix things that can actually fix things if someone is not meeting the other whole-hearted.
Also, I have learned I have daddy issues. But that wasn’t because of the break up, and it’s just hilarious to say like that as a guy pushing 39 this year 😂
I learned that if I advocate for myself, bring an issue to the table, and it’s not fixed, then it’s time to walk away. I spent my 20s with a man who slowly wore me down, I won’t let that happen again. I went back, read emails I had sent to him, where I advocated for myself, for what I wanted, in a very reasonable, calm way. He either ignored that, or made excuses for why he couldn’t/wouldn’t change (I emailed btw because he had a tendency to shout me down or drown me out when I was trying to bring up issues we were having as a couple, even when I worded them as “I” statements and that just flared up my anxiety and shut down conversations. Lol that in and of itself is a huge red flag)
Just, overall, knowing that I don’t *need* another person to be a complete person on my own. I have a life, friends, hobbies, interests. I can go out to eat alone, go to a movie alone. Hell, I go to concerts alone all the time. I am very comfortable living my life with my own company. I know that if I decide to invite another person in, it’s to enhance my life. Knowing that I won’t settle for or stay with someone who is a burden on me, my happiness, my time and my money. If they are not enriching and bringing joy to my life, they don’t need to be in it. I’m far more comfortable in my own skin and life in my mid 30’s than I was at 20. I personally think people who say that the 20’s are the best years of your life are liars, lol. I was still figuring so much out in my 20’s, I think a lot of people are.
Started the relationship at 28, ended at 31.
Lying early in the relationship is just indicative of a behavior pattern that will continue
If they are unable to live alone, don’t think they will do any better when they live with you.
After two conversations about the same thing with no changed behavior, leave.
Respect yourself enough to make the hard decision to walk away – don’t wait on someone’s promises to change.
People show you through their actions how they feel about you, not their words.
I need to TRULY evaluate if a person improves my life or not in a tangible way. I have been far too willing to go into “we will work through it together” mode and fail to evaluate “does this person actually make my life better”. I have realized I gravitate towards people who need love and try to accept them through their flaws. In some weird twisted attempt to be pure and loving I ended up just screwing myself over and floating losers. Now I need to see that someone will handle their own business from their own motivation. I’m not interested in being anyone’s muse or motivator anymore.
Speaking specifically to the ladies here: be yourself. Whether that is beach babe or hardcore tomboy. Life is too short for some dude to tell you how to live. Guarantee he’ll be doing his own thing anyway, so if he can’t deal with you being you, he ain’t ya man.
Also, I would echo the sentiment that actions are the only thing that matters. The. Only. Thing.