I need some advice because I don’t really know what to do/if I’m being the asshole…
We’ve been together for 6 years and the first 4 or 5 years were great. Over the last year or so she’s become bitter for lack of a better word.
It’s gradually got worse, but the general vibe is that she doesn’t want to be together anymore. She gives me dirty looks, she sleeps in another room, she won’t let me touch her even for a hug, she tells me to shut up when I speak, she declines any dates or activities together but always goes out with friends, the list goes on.
Ive tried so hard to make things better. I’ve sat her down three times and explained that I’m not happy with the way things are, and each time I’ve done this things have improved for a week or two and she’s promised to be better and it’s back to our normal relationship for a short while before going back to not being good.
A few weeks ago I snapped. She threw me one of her dirty looks and I couldn’t take it anymore and I said I’m done. I said I’ve tried to make this better and it’s clearly not worked so we’re over and I want you to move out. She cried and said nothing and left to stay at her parent’s house.
Around a week later she messaged and asked if we could talk so I agreed. We met in a neutral location and she said she’s unhappy at work, her contraceptive pill is changing her moods, she needs help and she doesn’t want to lose me. Of course I agreed to help her through this and said I want to make it work and I’d do anything to help. We agreed that she would stay with her parents and we’d take it very slow.
A few days later she started messaging me things like her family are really angry at me, I need to make this up to her by buying her flowers, I need to take her on dates, her dad wants to “have a chat” with me, her brother doesn’t want her to get back together with me, generally messaging me things that imply I have a lot of making up to do and that her family and friends hate me and that I’m the one that’s fucked up. I have no idea what she has told them has happened between us.
I feel like this has made me resent her even more… I feel like the entire reason our relationship ended was because of the way she was acting around me. It’s honestly made me not want to make things right with her even more and just give up on the relationship.
Am I an asshole for being annoyed at this? Should I be the one that’s making this all better?
37 comments
Nope. And nope.
Run. Stop torturing yourself.
If everything she says is correct then it would be best for her to stay single and figure her shit out
Once the toxic person is removed things improve.
I will let you in on a secret.
You have no obligation to be in a relationship with anyone if you don’t want to.
It is that simple.
Especially when there are no kids involved.
If you don’t want to be with her, you don’t have to be and you don’t have to have a justification.
There is no universal limit of terrible behaviour from a partner that has to be met in order to break up. You can set you set your own limits.
Even if she is depressed or you have done things wrong etc., it still does not obligate you to be in the relationship if you don’t want to.
There’s a lot that can be said here but it boils down to one thing: it’s over. One day you’ll look back and be very glad you left before wasting more of your life.
That should be enough evidence that nothing will ever change and it’s time to go no contact. She hasn’t changed. One fake conversation quickly morphed into making you feel like you’re at fault again. Take it as evidence that it’s time to move on.
I’m not sure why you’re tolerating this situation. You want to end the relationship. She’s conned you into trying to make it work, but instead she’s just badmouthing you to her family. No, this is not your situation to sort out, beyond ending the relationship properly and getting on with your life. You don’t have to put up with her.
What she said about how she’s treating you may very well be true but her actions towards you are not okay and the fact that she’s now gaslighting you and saying it’s your problem to fix negates any responsibility on her part to fix her own behaviour. If you stay with her or stay in her life this isn’t going to get any better, Cut ties and stay away from her
Dude your situation sounds a lot like mine for the last couple years of my marriage. Like you I tried to fix it in a few ways, offered suggestions to work as a couple to fix things and one day I had enough and say we’re done can’t spend the rest of my life like that. A year and a half later I know that was the best decision I could have made at that time.
You can’t fix someone who refuses to believe there is a problem to be fixed, it just doesn’t work and you will destroy your own mental health trying.
Obviously this is just a snapshot of your relationship and it’s easy to say what to do when I don’t know you and vice versa but if you genuinely tried to make it work when together and she didn’t then it’s not up to you to try now that it’s over. You don’t have kids together so you literally never have to see her or her family again if you choose not to.
You did the right thing for you.
Based on your story, she’s actually the one who needs to make it up with you.
She needs to be coming at you with flowers and asking you out and showing you how she can be a better girlfriend.
Well not quite girlfriend.
At this stage, she would need to make moves on you and date you again before you two become boyfriend and girlfriend in the future, if you do.
she needs to woo you and convince you that she would be somebody you want to be dating again in a romantic relationship.
But if you don’t want to wait around see if she’s changed , it that’s okay too . you can go on about your business and meet and date other people
If her family are so against you
It’s because when she got home she trashed you and made out you’re not fit to burn
Don’t ever date people that have to be the victim, where you are the villain
What she is doing is triangulation where she brings in supporters of her stance that your effort (or lack of) is the issue
She’s turned her family against you by doing this, a long term relationship wont work unless you never get involved with them (which is near impossible)
I’ve dated people like your gf and the solution requires two letters every time they pop up with their demands “no”
Tell her she’s the one on probation, not you, and you have nothing to be making up to her. What she’s told her family is her problem. Ask he if she actually wants to work on making this relationship possible again or not, because if she does, she needs to tell her family to back off.
Sounds like a miserable relationship and you’d be a fool to get back together
if what you have written is accurate, do a full break.
Revisit each other in a year AFTER she’s gotten help for whatever is going on. SHE kept her mouth shut the entire time and assumes YOU should fix the problem she’s not told you about. That is impossible and insane.
Do a clean break. Stop talking to her because it is ALWAYS going to be your fault and she is NEVER going to share what is wrong. It isn’t worth it to play this game with her.
Seem like you’ve got your answer of if she was actually willing to work on herself and your relationship and a reminder that you cannot help those who aren’t willing to be helped.
If I were in your shoes, I’d break of the relationship, it’s not a healthy one for you, it’s not on you to fix her issues, only she can decide to do that, but maybe take up the offer to chat with her dad so you can inform him of her condition and situation so they can try and get her the help she needs.
I once had birth control fuck with my moods and I didn’t realize it till my SO pointed out how horrible I was being. I was mortified, but the next thing I did was go to my doctor and switch pills. (Which really sucked for me, because in every other way it was the best BC I’d ever taken and the most effective at keeping my erratic cycle in check.) At no time did I ever demand that my SO make amends to me for pointing out that I was being horrible and I sure as shit didn’t get my family involved. IMO you need to stay broken up.
Run now. Don’t waste anymore time on this dead relationship. She isn’t going to change. She also told you everything about her feelings when she turned her family and friends on you.
She trashed you to her whole family and wants presents for it.
And she expects you to respond to her father’s summons to be berated for giving his little princess consequences to her actions?
Run from this entire toxic family.
They whole lot of them will never let you move past this. What you are going through now is your entire future with this petulant woman-child and her obnoxious relatives.
So she was being emotionally abusive, you ended the relationship, and then she manipulated you into taking her back, and now wants you to “atone” for refusing to accept her emotional abuse?
Absolutely not. End it for good. Block her everywhere. She’s abusive and manipulative.
Your relationship is over and it’s time she realised that. You don’t owe her anything.
OP, now is a great time to pack up her shit and drop it off at her parents’ place.
you guys were together for five years – you tried, but this is clearly not a relationship either of you is going to be good in. You two are just not good for each other, but your ex especially sounds like she needs to really look inward and focus on her own shit because she doesn’t sound like she is in a good place for anyone.
I’d write out a script outlining how horrible she has behaved and talk to either her father or brother – or hell, both at the same time – before I told them I’d be dropping off the rest of her thing because she is not capable of being in a healthy partnership right now if she is going to use her partner as an emotional punching bag. Let them sort her out and pressure her to get the help she needs. Your her partner, not her Daddy. You shouldn’t have to force her to get help so she stops treating you like shit – that’s something she needs to want to do and does on her own.
I’d give her one last text or telling her the reason the relationship is over is because she refuses to accept she has sabotaged your relationship with her terrible mood – one you have addressed several times and she has ignored. Wish her well, and then block her ass.
You should honestly be the one to leave.
Her struggeling with mood swings due to contraceptives and having a shit time at work is one thing. Her using her whole family as levarage on you to put you in your place is not even vaguely related to that.
You did what you could. Even after you understandably asked her to leave you were willing to help her and try and work things out. Then she threw you under the bus with her family. It’s time to call it a day and move on.
“Run away, Simba. Run. Run away and never return.”
You sat her down and explain to her how you were feeling several occasions, and not at any point in time did she say what was going on with her. And now that you are finally sick of her crappy treatment towards you she has decided she wants to have an honest conversation. And honestly, It’s a little bit too late for that.
And now she’s trying to coerce you into making it up to her when she treated you like crap.
Her excuses are just that. Excuses for crappy behavior that she doesn’t seem like she’s willing to take an internal inventory of what she is doing.
what I would tell my kids is that you should move on. There’s a reason why you called it quits in the first place and only then did she decide she wanted to have a conversation about what’s going on with her, but you have to put in the effort. Where is her effort? Where is her apology? Where is her accountability? Because based on this there isn’t any. And this would be the definition of a toxic relationship that you would be better off, walking away from, and finding someone who will give you the same amount of effort that you give them
Cut your losses. I would’ve been open to working on things but
>A few days later she started messaging me things like her family are really angry at me, I need to make this up to her by buying her flowers, I need to take her on dates, her dad wants to “have a chat” with me, her brother doesn’t want her to get back together with me, generally messaging me things that imply I have a lot of making up to do and that her family and friends hate me and that I’m the one that’s fucked up. I have no idea what she has told them has happened between us.
All of this is a deal breaker. She’s obviously painted you as the reason things aren’t working out to her friends and family, rather than take ownership of her own behavior.
>She gives me dirty looks, she sleeps in another room, she won’t let me touch her even for a hug, she tells me to shut up when I speak, she declines any dates or activities together but always goes out with friends
Her behavior towards you has not been ok or acceptable, and for her to run and paint herself as the victim to everyone else is fucked. Sure other factors made things hard on her, but that doesn’t excuse the visible contempt in her actions.
There’s a chance that her family just assumed things and reacted out of a desire to protect her, but if that’s the case it’s HER responsibility to set the record straight with them, rather than letting them blame you for what’s happening.
If she only wants to be the victim instead of owning that her behavior hasn’t been ok, then she’s not worth it. You’re in no way an asshole for wanting to leave that kind of relationship.
So she she treats you like crap and now you owe her flowers? WTF?
In the most painful breakups when you are so focused on the fear of losing the other person in front of you, you stop noticing what you are gradually losing within you.
Bro just move on and don’t look back I promise you’ll be happier
**In other words, after a years worth of her treating you like shit til the point you could not take it anymore, she took the liberties of talking shit to her family about you, painting you into the villain.** Now after treating you like shit and getting her family involved into the drama with her tales of woe, she and her family are expecting *you* to crawl on your thumbs, kiss her ass, begging for forgiveness. If I was you, that would not just be a hell no, that would be a fuck no! And it would be another reminder as to why I made this clown shoe an ex in the first place.
You’re definitely not an AH for being annoyed that she has withheld affection for so long that it’s come to this. Idk if gaslighting is the right term buuuut essentially you drew a (healthy) boundary with how you were going to let her treat you (a good thing) and she turned it around on you and is acting like you need to make up for some deficiency. You guys got together when you were young, people change a lot in their 20s so don’t beat yourself up if you’re no longer compatible. From an outsider’s perspective, she clearly doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore. This whole thing is her reacting in fear, don’t you act in fear too. She is afraid to lose you because you’re all she’s known as an adult, she’s afraid of the stigma of being single or being alone, she’s afraid of her family’s reaction to her admitting, even to herself, that she’s not happy, she’s afraid to stay because she deep down knows she’s unhappy. Really ask yourself if you want to throw good money after bad. Ask yourself if you really see a life with this person who is so detached from you to the point she’ll keep withholding affection and sic her family on you. Starting over is scary, especially with society programming you to be in a relationship, married, having babies, house, etc by on a timeline like robots. It’s no one’s fault, it doesn’t have to be dramatic, it doesn’t mean something is wrong or bad, nothing like that. You just owe it to yourselves, both of you do, a chance at happiness with other people.
It looks like her new contraceptives are making her delusional. In any case, throw the whole girlfriend away.
She of course has not told her family the truth, you have done nothing to redeem yourself for. You should probably really think about if you want to continue this relationship.
Stay broken up. Shes clearly the miserable one amd you’ve tried to take her on dates and do everything you can. I think breaking up with her was the best thing you could have done.
Sounds like she doesn’t really want to be with you, does not enjoy your company, does not love or even *like* you. Absolutely valid reasons to leave a relationship. You need to stay away from her, IMO, there’s some emotional abuse happening on her end. Block her and her toxic family, too. You did not fuck up. A relationship is supposed to make you happy and enrich your life. Dose not sound like it does.
Look everyone’s given good advice here but I just wanna add. If she’s been unhappy at work and her contraceptive pills have caused a hormonal imbalance then why has it gone on for two years before coming up after you’ve kicked her out? It’s too little too late man. If they were legitimate reasons and she actually cared to be with you then they would have come up way before now.
Why even bother any more? She’s nutballs. Get free and enjoy your life.