1. “When I realized that what was required to make her happy was making me miserable and I couldn’t keep that up.”
2. “It started feeling like all the compromises we made as a couple were in his favor and I started to resent him.”
3. “Technically happened after we broke up, during the breakup she used ‘you can’t spoil me the way I deserve’ as one of the reasons. That bounced around in my head for a few weeks before it really kind of clicked, and opened my eyes to how unhealthy the relationship had been.”
4. “When she quit her job and I started finding bags of crushed beer cans. A new bag each day in a different spot than the last.
Another when I found a bent, burnt spoon along with a dirty swab of cotton, a hoodie string and a needle.”
5. “She wanted kids, 100%. I love kids, but I love going home after spending time with them more. Thought about this for a year; tried to convince myself I’d be a great Dad (everyone says so). I couldn’t take it any more. We had a good long cry about it, and made the call.”
6. “When he screamed at me, in front of all our friends, over a game of Pictionary.”
7. “My long term boyfriend came out gay while dating me. We are still good friends 15 years later.”
8. “When i found myself typing ‘signs of abuse in relationships’ in google”
9. “Probably just when he justified all of his cheating (5 chicks, six months, nothing physical (that I found) but lots of pics/ Skype ‘sex’ ) by saying I wasn’t loving enough to him
We shared a bedroom in a dingy share house, I cooked, cleaned and played the good little housewife I thought I needed to be. he was glued to gaming so badly I was often left struggling with things waiting for him to get off it and help, and told me I was ‘too fat’ (those exact words used, on our one, and only, anniversary) for him to want sex…despite me weighing almost half what he did.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do for someone, they’ll find an excuse.”
10. “He told me that it was my fault that he had to cut ties with his longtime online friend; the woman he cheated on me with.”
11. “It was my highschool sweetheart of three years, and I had joined the military a few months after graduating high school. While in bootcamp, I met so many people and other men who were interested in me(I never cheated) and speaking with other people and their lives made me realize there was no future with him. He was lazy, and had no ambition in his life at all besides to become a professional youtube video game player, or sell weed, which at the time I was fine with because it’s what he wanted to do and I was madly in love with the kid. But then after I joined the military and we made plans to get married, he decided he would not have to get a job because me being in the military means we would get so much money, which, if anyone else reading this is in the military, knows that this is certainly not true. And this is not what I wanted at all. And then, when I was thinking maybe I was being harsh and just having doubts, he never sent me a single letter during BMT, AND later found out the dog we owned together had been poisoned and he had refused to take the pup to the vet, even when my mom offered to take him AND pay for the vet bill, which I found out after I graduated bootcamp.”
12. “When she tried to convince me that being flirty with lots of other guys was totally normal and that no one gets hurt by it.
Didn’t actually end it until she started really emotionally cheating on me.”
13. “At my birthday party I ate a slice of pizza and she yelled at me that I didn’t do any situps that day and I can’t eat pizza. Everyone there just stopped and looked stunned.”
14. “Gaslighting. Basically went to a psychiatrist only to find out I’m totally fine. Turns out some people can’t face their own problems so they blame others.”
15. “Had doubts during dating, but I’m not exactly any woman’s dream, so continued. Had serious doubts about 5 years in, tried to break up. Break up didn’t go well, stayed together and had kids.
We’re so much a part of each others lives now that I wouldn’t know how to live. I mean, financially, breaking up would see me on the streets. Suck it up, I’ll be dead in 30 years max.”
16. “My ex had a poor perspective on mental heath and array of other things, and I couldn’t bear the thought of someone like that being the father of my children.”
17. “He said that he would have to give up weed if he wanted to get a job in his field. His job involved a lot of heavy machinery, even if you aren’t high on the job if a mistake is made and you piss hot it would be an automatic firing. That’s fine and dandy, but his plan was to start faking a back injury now so he could get pain killers legally from the doctor to get high, because nothing bad has ever came from that. I’ve seen a lot of people go down the opioid path, including his best friend at the time who had just started taking “h tabs” and went from a young man going places in life to a strung out junkie in about 6 months. I left and I never looked back.”
18. “When I got home from 5 weeks overseas without him visiting my family to an absolutely DISGUSTING pig sty of a house and he ignored me all night to play computer games.”
19. “I had one that really, really, wanted kids. Me: not so much. Also she was very needy for attention and validation, moreso than a normal person. I wasn’t up for that.”
20. “After getting upset at me for I’m-still-not-sure-what, she screamed at me that she wanted to go back home (to Australia) and instead of feeling hurt or sad or angry, I just felt relieved.
Relief that she might actually go and that I might actually get a break from her was the biggest indicator I could have unknowingly been exposed to.” 
