I’ve seen this mostly with women but I’m sure men do it too. It seems like it’s being normalized for women to break up with a man in her heart and mind but he’ll have no idea until weeks, months, sometimes years down the road when she actually leaves him or cheats on him.
“Oh the relationship was over a long time ago, you just didn’t realize it.” Fuck that! How selfish do you have to be to string someone along for so long, pretending to love them until you’re ready to blindside them with heartbreak?
You take advantage of their love and companionship just so you don’t have to be lonely while you get over your “soon-to-be-ex” and then you leave them to pick up the pieces by themselves, while they wonder what they did wrong. Why they weren’t good enough. How did this happen so quickly when everything seemed fine the day before?
Y’all can try to justify that behavior in the comments, I’m sure someone’s going to say “they should’ve known something was wrong if they were paying attention to the relationship. I’m sure there were signs blah blah blah” grow up and communicate. No one is telepathic, how are they supposed to know something is wrong if you don’t talk to them about it? They might’ve picked up on a change but if you refuse to communicate about it, they’ll most likely just accept that it’s just how things are now.
“I did communicate my issues and they didn’t listen.” Then leave them when you’ve had enough. It’s no excuse to silently give up on them and still string them along.
If you did communicate and didn’t lead them on after you decided to end things, then this post doesn’t apply to you. As far as I’m concerned, any other excuse is just an attempt at dodging accountability.
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If that’s the concept it’s evil.
if it works, then it works.
TL;DR: OP’s girlfriend left them
I know our society is broken and all, but I still hold out hope that there’s no way this opinion is unpopular.
I think you have entirely misunderstood the idea of “mourning the relationship for a long time.”
Most people in that situation have been asking for changes, or attention, or adjustments, often for years, and not gotten what they needed out of the relationship. At some point, they slowly give up on the other person ever trying to offer what they need or want out of a relationship. So, yeah, by the time they actually break up, they have been slowly going through the process of imagining their life without that person and handling the sadness of recognizing that the relationship will either stay miserable or just end.
But they’re not sitting around twirling their evil little moustache thinking “I’ll just pretend I’m still in love so i can make it all more of SURPRISE!”
No one wants the relationship they’re in to fall apart. No one wants to wind up so lonely and unhappy within a relationship that they feel they have no choice but to leave.
But sometimes, you can only handle being miserable and begging for changes for so long before you realize you have to go. If the other person is “blindsided,” it’s because they ignored every sign of sadness and cry for help as long as they were getting what they wanted.
Both sexes do this all the time. It’s not a women thing, it’s a shitty spouse thing. But that being said everytime I’ve seen this in a relationship it was so done it was obvious to everyone and the other person must of also been shit to not have noticed when complete strangers could absolutely see it.
It’s always the partner that is really shit that doesn’t notice.
That is all to say there are people who SAY this but they are assholes and nothing was even wrong in the relationship and the partner doesn’t know because nothing WAS wrong, and that is not what I am talking about. There are exceptions to every rule.
You think people are “breaking up in their hearts and minds,” but still pretending to love someone? That’s not how this works. People don’t suddenly flip a switch and stop loving someone else. It dwindles over time until it finally gets so low, someone pulls the trigger on separating.
Honestly, who would volunteer to just…pretend to love someone for an extended period of time?!? Who has energy for that.
Idk… People stay in dead relationships for all kinds of reasons~ fear, guilt, habit, convenience. Most of the time, it’s not about being malicious.
Yeah, being blindsided hurts. But that doesn’t mean the person was faking everything or “using” you. Sometimes it was already over. you just didn’t want to see the signs, or they didn’t feel safe enough to be fully honest until they were ready to go
I have never heard of it being done the way you’re explaining it. I’m pretty sure when people talk about grieving the relationship while they’re still in it it’s more in a sense of coming to terms with the reality that it’s not going to work out and it’s time to end things. It’s not healthy to abandon relationships the second they get hard, and you probably aren’t going to leave while you have hope of repairing a relationship or are hoping your partner will treat you better. I’ve heard of people distancing while in a relationship in hope that they break up with you, and I find that immature and selfish, but people need to process things before making a decision about throwing a relationship away.
I feel like the other person just ignored the signs when this happens. Not everyone is that good at hiding when they’re losing interest they definitely show it
I think you’ve got this completely backwards.
You can’t just flip a switch and turn off your love for someone. Even after leaving someone you love, your love doesn’t just die off within minutes, hours, or days.
This phrase points to be neglected in a relationship for so long that you have become checked out from the relationship itself.
This can be for a multitude of reasonings such as begging for change that never occurs no matter how much you bring it up. Showing someone your deepest self and never feeling like they can truly be there for you and your feelings. When your feelings are neglected by someone for so long, you tend to suppress your feelings and emotions, which contributes to checking out and becoming distant in the relationship.
It’s not about being selfish, it’s about hanging onto faith and hope that your relationship will turn around. Having hope that all the nights you cried to this person, all the times you begged for changed would pay off. It’s about literally staying until you physically, mentally, and emotionally can’t anymore.
Idk, nearly every single time I’ve ever seen this happen it follows months and even years of one person repeatedly saying “I need x. I need y. This is becoming unbearable. I am unhappy.” over and over and getting halfhearted efforts or nothing at all. And then when the breakup finally comes, the other person claims to be “blindsided” and they “don’t know what went wrong”.
When someone says the relationship has been over for a long time it means they have been stuck due to circumstances. Maybe there are kids involved, maybe they can’t afford to move out. They were also probably hoping things would change, so hung on a bit longer.
Sometimes relationships don’t work out, and you feel like a rug has been pulled out from under you. You need time to grieve, and in time it will get easier. You were going to be blindsided with heartbreak if it happened now or when she first decided it wasn’t going to work.
Being angry at her isn’t going to change anything, and if you are being aggressive it will only make it worse.
It’s awful. They act off, you sense it, and then they tell you everything is fine.
Not 2 weeks later…
Yea it’s a well known ‘thing’ that majorly women glorify.
There’s even a popular meme that I’ve seen floating around for years.
“A woman will check out mentally ,way before she checks out physically let that sink in”
That quote has been shared everywhere smh
I think it takes people a while to realize that they’re “checked out” of the relationship. I know somebody who asked for a divorce only after she noticed that certain things he did didn’t bother her anymore. She subconsciously got over him but didn’t realize it until quite a bit of time had passed.
This isn’t unpopular. This is objective fact.
This is a current thing? Is anyone impulsive anymore?
OP if you are that naive to not see the writing on the wall then you get whats coming for you. Grow a pair and look around don’t let the world fuck you over. Seriously
When someone says ‘the relationship was over a long time ago’ they’re usually admitting it to themself for the first time too.
Damn dude. So, you going through a rough break up? It’s going to be okay, OP. Time heals all wounds.
I had no idea that this was a thing until I’ve had it done to me. Hard agree. When breaking up, I did it at the point where the deciding event occurred.
Unless you’re being abused or some crap, then keeping your partner in the loop about how you feel with the relationship is basic decency.
You’re affording yourself the comfort of that person during your mourning process. You’re using them, withholding information to your advantage while fully knowing this will cause them more suffering.
You had their presence and love to comfort you, to give you the safety of moving at your own pace. You’re denying them the same thing.
It is selfish.
People break up. Not everyone is going to want you. Date, try things out, move on, try again. Your pain is so far from unique.
She got over you. Now you get over her. You will.
Ok, I’ve been in a situation where “the relationship was over long time ago”. I begged for changes, I said that I’ve been in tears for many nights and even stated directly “I’m leaving if this shit continues”. And he was willing to completely ignore all of that untill I actually said I was done with it and of coarse he acted like this was some surprise event
This is oversimplifying the issue lol. You don’t do it on purpose.
This happened to me with my ex. The relationship was over for a while… but I didn’t want to believe it.
We had a shared life, shared pets… it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t want to feel the way I did and I wanted it to change but it didn’t.
The same side of the coin is leaving immediately and giving up when you have those feelings which isn’t fair either.
It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
This happened to me and it’s completely fucked me up.
And you’re right; some people are saying ‘you should have realised sooner. Even my ex said that. He pointed out that months before the breakup and him cheating on me that I should have noticed he changed his behaviour.
And I did; but I thought it was just the norm. The entire time since that change in behaviour; he was still telling me he loved me, that he wanted to spend his life with me and that there was no one else he could see himself with, and we made plans for trips, a house, to move city and even country together.
So, when he turned around and said “I gave up on the relationship ages ago, surely you noticed?”, it was the biggest mindfuck.
No. I didn’t notice. How the fuck was I supposed to notice? I was asking if he was happy, and he said he was, and all of the aforementioned things right up until a week or two before breaking up. He gave no indication it was over for him.
And I’m ruined.
Six months later and I still have no idea what really happened, why he lied to me, and what to do with myself. I miss him, I’m in mourning.
And he’s perfectly fine. All because it apparently was over for him ages ago – and yet he led me on to believe nothing was wrong right up until it wasn’t.
I’m crippled.
“It was over a long time ago” is not code for “I was stringing them along for a long time.” It is code for “I have recently (or just) come to realize that it was over a long time ago.”
This is not an unpopular opinion. This is just a vent.