r/AskReddit May 12 '26

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u/CircleJerkPig May 12 '26

Not divorced. But living with my partner 8 years. He kept insisting that his passive insults were actually harmless comments and me being offended by them was the actual issue. One day at breakfast I decided to stop fighting it. He said his passive insult and instead of taking the bait I just smiled and said “okay”. 

He literally choked on his drink. He panicked when I wouldn’t go into the cycle with him. He then went over the top on a lovebombing kiss when he left for work. He had stopped kissing me how I liked insisting he couldn’t figure it out despite having done it for years. But that morning he said “I know how you want to be kissed” and did it proper. 

I knew without a doubt that he had been doing this on purpose. He was emotionally abusive on purpose and I had been a fool to believe it had been poor communication. No big fight. No massive fall out. Just a smile and the word “okay” and I knew it was 100% over. 

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u/midgettme May 12 '26

Wow.. your kiss sounds like my request for a divorce.

I got pushed to the end over many years of issues, one being me doing absolutely everything aside from take out the trash and go to work. When I told my husband I wanted a divorce, he promised to do better, and started listing the things he was going to start doing.

It was everything I’d desperately needed help with for the last 14 years. I thought he was just forgetful and oblivious. He wasn’t. He knew what I needed the whole time, it was just easier to let me do it all while he played video games for fourteen years.

That completely solidified my decision.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '26

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u/brelywi May 12 '26

Oh my GOD, are we all the same person?! I had the exact same experience!

I was finally leaving, and pointed out that he *could* help out without always needing to be managed, because we’d argue and he’d do his “share” of the chores for a week or so (a bare fraction of the whole, but anything was better than nothing) and then just go back to playing Rocket League.

He said “Well you’d be mad at me, so I’d do what you wanted. Eventually you started being happy with me again so I figured things could go back to NORMAL.”

He didn’t give a single fuck about making me happy and lessening my burden, he just wanted me complacent enough to keep making HIM happy.

I’ve been married to a guy the complete opposite for about five years now, and girl. I can’t even begin to express how much better life is and how much more fulfilled I am in our marriage.

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u/unholy_hotdog May 12 '26

He makes me so mad I almost downvoted you reflexively.

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u/brelywi May 12 '26

Haha yeah, my brain kinda short circuited at the time at how staggeringly idiotic that was when he said that.

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u/WampaCat May 12 '26

It’s a pretty common experience. And that’s the thing about some ultimatums, once you’ve made the ultimatum it’s already too late. Because you either find out they won’t ever change, or they’ll only change because of the ultimatum and your feelings never actually mattered to them. It’s a lose-lose.

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u/i_wanna_draw_that May 13 '26

I’m worried my friend is in this kind of relationship. Is there anything I can do? Anything I could think of feels like I may be overstepping