Man, I had the complete opposite experience. I had a nervous breakdown, fought like hell to make it work, caught her cheating over and over again, lost my mind completely.
Then, when I couldn’t take anymore and had spent a night out looking for her when she failed to get back home after a concert, only for her to show up the next afternoon with a hickey on her neck, I decided enough was enough.
I went out with a girl who had been asking me out for a while, fell in love, and moved on.
She lost her damn mind and tried to get me to come back, but it was too late. She ended up committed to a hospital, then after a fight on her end to fix things she ended up with the last guy she cheated with and then died from cancer a few years later.
Fortunately he turned out to be a great guy and took care of her through it all.
It’s crazy how fast everything has gone since then. I’ve been with the girl I mentioned above for nearly a decade, we have children, and still have passion.
I felt like I had spent a thousand years with my ex. If started when I was around 18 and ended when I was around 32. We lived together for 10 years.
This last decade has gone by in a minute, and I can’t believe I will have lived with my wife for longer than I ever lived with anyone just around the corner.
I believe that I am better prepared to deal with such chaos now, but I hope I never have to again.
Man, I could write a book on the chaos that was my ex.
The first chapter would open up with the story about us just being very close friends, and her telling me that when she turned 18 she’d move in with me. Well, the day came and she did just that, packed her bags and showed up to my place in the middle of the night.
About 4 days later I got a call at work, “If you don’t bring my daughter home tonight, you will have hell to pay.”
“Oh yeah!?” I replied. “Well, she’s 18 now and she doesn’t have to be your fucking prisoner anymore, bitch! Have a good life!” click
Phone rings again, “Listen! I don’t know what my goddamn headache of a daughter has told you, but she just turned 17. My advice to you would be to call someone to come take your shift and get in your ugly little car, and bring my daughter home now or rot in jail!”
Uh oh. I did just that. She cried all the way home. Her mom told me if she ever seen my car in her driveway again, I’d go to jail. I had the apology letter my ex wrote me for years, but she burned the box of letters when we split. It went something like, “I’m really sorry I lied to you. I thought you were awesome when we met and I thought you wouldn’t talk to me if you had known my actual age. Time went by and it became more embarrassing and harder to deal with. I didn’t think my mom cared if I left. I didn’t think she’d even try to get me to come back home. I’m never there, and she never cares.”
That should have been it, but one year later she showed up with her bags again. We lived together as friends for months, slept in the same queen size bed under our own blankets. One night we moved on each other and that was all she wrote.
Man, that isn’t even the craziest story with her haha. But it was always something like that. She lied about EVERYTHING. I believed her father was a lawyer for the first 5 years of our relationship. Turns out he was a mechanic. He’s actually been a meme for the last few years, but I don’t want to dox myself. You have definitely seen the meme, I can say that much. He became a meme for something really, really dumb too.
All the years I was with her, I didn’t meet him until her funeral. I feel guilty, but I said that out loud when I shook is hand. “It’s crazy that your granddaughter is 13 and we’re meeting you for the first time at her mom’s funeral.” You could tell it hurt him, and I still lose sleep over that because I wouldn’t want someone to say something like that to my father and I doubt he’d even be at my funeral.
Man, it got so crazy at the end it was unfuckingbelievable.
She went around telling people I beat and raped her, all kinds of things.
If there wasn’t something wrong with my brain I’d be terrified to ever do it again.
It caused me to seriously believe that any long lasting relationship only lasts because one of the two always has their head in the sand.
Even after all of that, I’m still who I always was. I do not spy on my wife, I respect her privacy. I never even have the desire to go digging.
I can’t help but wonder though, if I did would everything come crashing down.
As long as she’s smart enough to keep it from being blatant, I’ll never know. That’s how my ex got away with so much chaos over the years. I never once looked. She got too confident with one though, either confident or impatient. She slipped up and told easily verifiable lies. “I’m house sitting for my sister.” The only time she was ever asked to do that. Didn’t make sense. “I’m not ignoring you, I’m just watching Shameless on Netflix and I keep falling asleep.” Nothing had been played for days on Netflix.
When I caught her red handed with a guy, she told me to my face that he was a gay friend of her sister. He couldn’t even look at me. She said the car he was driving was her sister’s car. Same color, different make and model, tags from another state.
And my god, the people all around me who knew, smiled and waved, and never said a word.
It just blows my mind. It really does.
I have no idea how I managed to trust anyone enough to ever do this again.
Dude I’m glad you’re in a better place. Our lives have very strange parallels. I was with my crazy ex from 17-32, she also falsely accused me of raping and beating her, telling our friends, family, my coworkers and neighbors - I even got a night in jail, but thankfully recorded conversations of us talking about her bruises and her saying she’d falsely accuse me - and I dealt with her craziness and fought for our marriage for years only to find she was cheating on me. When I found out and threw in the towel she went completely unhinged, especially when I got involved with another woman. My ex also died not long after we divorced.
I’ve now been with my wife much longer than my first and it’s been nothing but wonderful. I did not let my experience with my ex change my outlook on marriage and relationships… I don’t want to be with anyone that doesn’t want to be with me, and I’m convinced anyone cheating is going to screw up and get caught so there’s no need to be suspicious and go looking… it’ll reveal itself in time, and if so, I’ll say goodbye. Unwarranted distrust does great harm and it seems to be projecting with most people. Trusting each other and loving each other’s company is the mainstay of a great relationship and I’m so thankful I went from a nightmare marriage to what’s really an unrealistic movie romance. I didn’t really think such an amazing relationship was possible.
Glad to hear you’re in a much better place and relationship. A past of bad experiences should make you be more careful who you get involved with but if you use it to build walls around yourself, you hurt your relationships. Love with your all and don’t live in fear of betrayal. It’s the only way a relationship can become what your heart longs for.
You’re absolutely right. That bit about projection is so true. My ex was always convinced I was cheating with someone, but it never even crossed my mind. She only ever outright accused me once, but my sister said that she was always paranoid about it.
Life is crazy, isn’t it?
I don’t want to spend my life paranoid and looking for crap to explode all the time. I just want a peaceful life.
I have refused to build up walls because of my ex.
I’m glad you’re doing well too. I hope it keeps going that way for you.
I’d be willing to bet that if we talked for a few hours we’d find many parallels. My ex was diagnosed with BPD right at the end of our relationship. Of course, I “made that up” once she did some reading and realized it was the answer for everything.
I too was constantly accused of cheating throughout my first marriage. Not for any reason other than her suspicions… it was exhausting! She also took offense to the fact that I’m not the jealous type. Some dude would hit on her and she’d be upset it didn’t make me mad. I’d respond “Are you interested?” “Well no!” “Then why should I be worried or upset. I trust you.” It took me far too long to realize she suspected me because she knew she’d cheat on me if the situation were reversed and she figured everyone was like her.
During our divorce our court-ordered psychiatrist said he believed she suffered from some psychosis but would need more time to properly diagnose it. Since then I’ve come to realize her behavior is well-described as a vulnerable narcissist, and combined with her alcoholism and paranoia she destroyed just about every relationship she had before she died. It was a very sad and lonely end… I wish she’d have gotten help.
I was sure my ex was a narcissist and I wasn’t surprised at all by her diagnosis, except I expected NPD.
Funny thing, my ex never drank, but after I caught her cheating I also had to drag her out of dangerous places so intoxicated she couldn’t stand and was vomiting on herself regularly.
It’s like once that door opened, the floodgates opened with it.
I’ve always been a drinker, but I have two beers a night (10% alcohol, so almost 4 typical beers). In all the years we were together she drank only one time until those floodgates opened.
I am going to a Modest Mouse concert with my wife tomorrow, just kissed her good night and went outside the hotel for a smoke. I can’t believe I have her at all.
I hope you have amazing luck for the rest of your life. I really do.
Yeah my ex was only ever in my life out of her own sheer convenience. And when I left her a bunch of other people in my life also revealed themselves. I’ll probably never get over it and I’ll probably never trust a woman ever again. But man, being alone is so fucking easy. I wish I left her ages ago. Turns out alcohol was never my problem it was just people.
Man, I had the complete opposite experience. I had a nervous breakdown, fought like hell to make it work, caught her cheating over and over again, lost my mind completely.
Then, when I couldn’t take anymore and had spent a night out looking for her when she failed to get back home after a concert, only for her to show up the next afternoon with a hickey on her neck, I decided enough was enough.
I went out with a girl who had been asking me out for a while, fell in love, and moved on.
She lost her damn mind and tried to get me to come back, but it was too late. She ended up committed to a hospital, then after a fight on her end to fix things she ended up with the last guy she cheated with and then died from cancer a few years later.
Fortunately he turned out to be a great guy and took care of her through it all.
It’s crazy how fast everything has gone since then. I’ve been with the girl I mentioned above for nearly a decade, we have children, and still have passion.
I felt like I had spent a thousand years with my ex. If started when I was around 18 and ended when I was around 32. We lived together for 10 years.
This last decade has gone by in a minute, and I can’t believe I will have lived with my wife for longer than I ever lived with anyone just around the corner.
I believe that I am better prepared to deal with such chaos now, but I hope I never have to again.
Man, I could write a book on the chaos that was my ex.
The first chapter would open up with the story about us just being very close friends, and her telling me that when she turned 18 she’d move in with me. Well, the day came and she did just that, packed her bags and showed up to my place in the middle of the night.
About 4 days later I got a call at work, “If you don’t bring my daughter home tonight, you will have hell to pay.”
“Oh yeah!?” I replied. “Well, she’s 18 now and she doesn’t have to be your fucking prisoner anymore, bitch! Have a good life!” click
Phone rings again, “Listen! I don’t know what my goddamn headache of a daughter has told you, but she just turned 17. My advice to you would be to call someone to come take your shift and get in your ugly little car, and bring my daughter home now or rot in jail!”
Uh oh. I did just that. She cried all the way home. Her mom told me if she ever seen my car in her driveway again, I’d go to jail. I had the apology letter my ex wrote me for years, but she burned the box of letters when we split. It went something like, “I’m really sorry I lied to you. I thought you were awesome when we met and I thought you wouldn’t talk to me if you had known my actual age. Time went by and it became more embarrassing and harder to deal with. I didn’t think my mom cared if I left. I didn’t think she’d even try to get me to come back home. I’m never there, and she never cares.”
That should have been it, but one year later she showed up with her bags again. We lived together as friends for months, slept in the same queen size bed under our own blankets. One night we moved on each other and that was all she wrote.
Man, that isn’t even the craziest story with her haha. But it was always something like that. She lied about EVERYTHING. I believed her father was a lawyer for the first 5 years of our relationship. Turns out he was a mechanic. He’s actually been a meme for the last few years, but I don’t want to dox myself. You have definitely seen the meme, I can say that much. He became a meme for something really, really dumb too.
All the years I was with her, I didn’t meet him until her funeral. I feel guilty, but I said that out loud when I shook is hand. “It’s crazy that your granddaughter is 13 and we’re meeting you for the first time at her mom’s funeral.” You could tell it hurt him, and I still lose sleep over that because I wouldn’t want someone to say something like that to my father and I doubt he’d even be at my funeral.
Sorry for the book. I’ll stop now.
Your story sounds like it belongs to the podcast Everyone Has an Ex. 😅 What is it with these crazy people lying to their dates? And for what?
Man, it got so crazy at the end it was unfuckingbelievable.
She went around telling people I beat and raped her, all kinds of things.
If there wasn’t something wrong with my brain I’d be terrified to ever do it again.
It caused me to seriously believe that any long lasting relationship only lasts because one of the two always has their head in the sand.
Even after all of that, I’m still who I always was. I do not spy on my wife, I respect her privacy. I never even have the desire to go digging.
I can’t help but wonder though, if I did would everything come crashing down.
As long as she’s smart enough to keep it from being blatant, I’ll never know. That’s how my ex got away with so much chaos over the years. I never once looked. She got too confident with one though, either confident or impatient. She slipped up and told easily verifiable lies. “I’m house sitting for my sister.” The only time she was ever asked to do that. Didn’t make sense. “I’m not ignoring you, I’m just watching Shameless on Netflix and I keep falling asleep.” Nothing had been played for days on Netflix.
When I caught her red handed with a guy, she told me to my face that he was a gay friend of her sister. He couldn’t even look at me. She said the car he was driving was her sister’s car. Same color, different make and model, tags from another state.
And my god, the people all around me who knew, smiled and waved, and never said a word.
It just blows my mind. It really does.
I have no idea how I managed to trust anyone enough to ever do this again.
Dude I’m glad you’re in a better place. Our lives have very strange parallels. I was with my crazy ex from 17-32, she also falsely accused me of raping and beating her, telling our friends, family, my coworkers and neighbors - I even got a night in jail, but thankfully recorded conversations of us talking about her bruises and her saying she’d falsely accuse me - and I dealt with her craziness and fought for our marriage for years only to find she was cheating on me. When I found out and threw in the towel she went completely unhinged, especially when I got involved with another woman. My ex also died not long after we divorced.
I’ve now been with my wife much longer than my first and it’s been nothing but wonderful. I did not let my experience with my ex change my outlook on marriage and relationships… I don’t want to be with anyone that doesn’t want to be with me, and I’m convinced anyone cheating is going to screw up and get caught so there’s no need to be suspicious and go looking… it’ll reveal itself in time, and if so, I’ll say goodbye. Unwarranted distrust does great harm and it seems to be projecting with most people. Trusting each other and loving each other’s company is the mainstay of a great relationship and I’m so thankful I went from a nightmare marriage to what’s really an unrealistic movie romance. I didn’t really think such an amazing relationship was possible.
Glad to hear you’re in a much better place and relationship. A past of bad experiences should make you be more careful who you get involved with but if you use it to build walls around yourself, you hurt your relationships. Love with your all and don’t live in fear of betrayal. It’s the only way a relationship can become what your heart longs for.
You’re absolutely right. That bit about projection is so true. My ex was always convinced I was cheating with someone, but it never even crossed my mind. She only ever outright accused me once, but my sister said that she was always paranoid about it.
Life is crazy, isn’t it?
I don’t want to spend my life paranoid and looking for crap to explode all the time. I just want a peaceful life.
I have refused to build up walls because of my ex.
I’m glad you’re doing well too. I hope it keeps going that way for you.
I’d be willing to bet that if we talked for a few hours we’d find many parallels. My ex was diagnosed with BPD right at the end of our relationship. Of course, I “made that up” once she did some reading and realized it was the answer for everything.
I too was constantly accused of cheating throughout my first marriage. Not for any reason other than her suspicions… it was exhausting! She also took offense to the fact that I’m not the jealous type. Some dude would hit on her and she’d be upset it didn’t make me mad. I’d respond “Are you interested?” “Well no!” “Then why should I be worried or upset. I trust you.” It took me far too long to realize she suspected me because she knew she’d cheat on me if the situation were reversed and she figured everyone was like her.
During our divorce our court-ordered psychiatrist said he believed she suffered from some psychosis but would need more time to properly diagnose it. Since then I’ve come to realize her behavior is well-described as a vulnerable narcissist, and combined with her alcoholism and paranoia she destroyed just about every relationship she had before she died. It was a very sad and lonely end… I wish she’d have gotten help.
BPD and NPD (narcissism) are related.
I was sure my ex was a narcissist and I wasn’t surprised at all by her diagnosis, except I expected NPD.
Funny thing, my ex never drank, but after I caught her cheating I also had to drag her out of dangerous places so intoxicated she couldn’t stand and was vomiting on herself regularly.
It’s like once that door opened, the floodgates opened with it.
I’ve always been a drinker, but I have two beers a night (10% alcohol, so almost 4 typical beers). In all the years we were together she drank only one time until those floodgates opened.
I am going to a Modest Mouse concert with my wife tomorrow, just kissed her good night and went outside the hotel for a smoke. I can’t believe I have her at all.
I hope you have amazing luck for the rest of your life. I really do.
Yeah my ex was only ever in my life out of her own sheer convenience. And when I left her a bunch of other people in my life also revealed themselves. I’ll probably never get over it and I’ll probably never trust a woman ever again. But man, being alone is so fucking easy. I wish I left her ages ago. Turns out alcohol was never my problem it was just people.
That’s funny, because that’s what I say about men as a gay man. Fuck dating altogether.
Yeah I wouldn’t trust a man either after what I went through. People are in general, no good.