18 Times Men Realized The Woman They Were Dating Was Extremely Toxic
We hear a lot about women dealing with toxic male partners, and much less frequently from men about the inverse. So, I decided to ask men in our BuzzFeed Community to tell me, if they'd ever been in a toxic relationship with a woman, about the moment they knew something was wrong. Here are their answers:
1."My ex told me she never should have married me 15 years into our marriage. I responded that I would never, ever say that, because it would mean our two wonderful children would not exist. She replied that she stood by her comment."
Pop TV / CBC Television
"I knew then our marriage was over. After all the other toxic things she put me through, that was by far the worst of it all and I knew I had to get out."
2."I was woken up at about 3 a.m. by a phone call. The lady on the other end asked if I knew where her husband was. I answered he must be with my wife, because she wasn't home either."
Photographer, Basak Gurbuz Derma / Getty Images, Channel 4, BBC Two
"She explained this was the last number on her caller ID. (We still had landlines at the time). She and I spoke, and I found out her husband was my wife's boss.
She stated that her husband had been staying at his parent's house while they sorted out their marriage and no way would he be with my wife. I then told her the nights my wife had not come home; they magically were the same nights her husband had stayed at his dad's house."
3."I didn’t know until I got out of the relationship and looked back and thought, 'Well, that wasn’t good.' If it’s all you know then you might not notice when it’s bad."
4."Despite multiple missed red flags, the point of toxicity was when I had a smoothie thrown at me while I was driving to visit my grandmother in the hospital. Apparently, I hadn't thought enough of my ex’s up-to-that-point-unknown fear of needles."
5."Dated her for six months. Ended it because we weren't compatible. A couple of months later, she hit me up, telling me she was heading to junior college, she wanted to be 'experienced,' and she wanted someone she trusted to take her virginity (we were both in our early 20s). Well, a stiff dick is a stupid dick, so I readily agreed."
"What followed was 12 years of harassment and emotional control via guilt trips and weaponized psychology (called me a narcissist, accused me of gaslighting) before it was even popular. It wasn't until 10 years in when I was laying in a suicide ward that I realized, 'She is literally going to drive me insane.'"Men, my advice is this: If your partner accuses you of being 'psychologically abusive,' leave immediately. Either A) your partner is correct, and you need severe help, or B) they're weaponizing it, and if you defer to their argument, every time you have any valid complaints, they'll re-use it. For your sanity, it isn't worth it."
6."My wife has consistently cheated on me, not always physically but definitely always emotionally. She has spent more time talking to her side piece than to her family. One day I found messages between her and a coworker, and although it was nothing explicit, we talked through it and realized we were not communicating effectively outside of discussing the needs of our kids."
"So, I initiated the change in communication and committed to being more vocal about my needs. But even after our reset, she still engages with other people out of her need for constant attention.
It hurts, but I told her she could never do anything to break up our marriage because I come from a broken home and don’t want my kids to experience that, ever. She’s also a good mother to our kids, plans all family functions, manages the home, sports, and play dates, and looks like she hasn’t aged in the 10 years we’ve been married. It doesn’t help that others find her attractive. I wish she would just be faithful."
—Anonymous
7."Not me, but my younger brother. He ended up going out with a really good friend of mine who was a couple of years older than him. She used to be really nice and caring, and seemed to genuinely love him. But then I started to notice that he was acting WAY different."
"He became isolated from me, our family, and our friends, and began acting irrationally. I eventually came to find out that she was emotionally manipulating him by convincing him that we hated him and that she was the only person who loved him.
I was, as you can imagine, livid, and dropped her as a friend. They dated for a couple of years more before she dumped him, claiming that she was getting in the way of his and our family’s relationship (though I suspect she was seeing another guy).
It wrecked my brother and he went into a deep depression because he had grown so attached to her, when in reality she only wanted him for the attention and status quo. He’s doing much better now, thank God, but he hasn’t dated anybody since, and I doubt he will until he can find somebody he can truly and fully trust."
—Anonymous
8."I figured it was not right when the girl I was dating for almost a year left me behind at a wedding reception. It was in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know anyone there."
Comedy Central
"I went to the bathroom and when I came back out, I received a snap saying that she had left with her friends and I had to find my own way back. After walking the wrong way down the highway for an hour at 1 a.m., I saw the DJ from the wedding happened to be heading home. I said, 'I will give you $100 now to drive me back to the hotel five miles away.'"
—Anonymous
9."I was out visiting my dad with our son (one-year-old), and she was watching a friend's baby at their place for a couple of hours. When I was on my way back, she said she was going to finish the hockey game and come home. She never ever watches hockey."
"I literally caught them about to do it through the giant bay windows. I may be socially awkward but I’m not dumb, I can do math."
—Anonymous
10."I dated a woman eight years my junior. I was 40 at the time. 17 months into the relationship, she moved in. One week in, she had a total meltdown."
"She spent the day day-drinking with her friends and lied about it. Continued to drink at dinner. Got home and drank more. In hindsight, I should have seen the signs.
She ended up physically punching me and choking me. She was small and I started to laugh as I was trying to calm her down. Big mistake! She grabbed a chef's knife and proceeded to chase me around the kitchen island screaming she was going to kill me. Long story short, her son called the cops and she was arrested. Her friends moved her stuff out a few days later. Hope she’s doing well."
—Anonymous
11."This was many years ago when I was in my mid-20s and single. I started dating a woman who was my same age. We had actually gone to the same middle and high school, but didn’t really know each other back then."
"We met through a workgroup and started dating. She was pretty and vivacious and could be very charming when she wanted to be. She could turn the charm off and on at will.She would go through a process of reeling me in and then pushing me away when I got too close for her comfort. After about the third time this happened, it finally dawned on me what she was doing. I went to a therapist to try and deal with this relationship... it was still difficult for me to finally and fully extricate myself from her. This woman was a first-class manipulator and she would use that as an emotional weapon against me to try and keep me under her control."
12."The moment we had a baby. It was like night and day. She tells everyone I'm a great dad and partner, and tags me in everything on social media (perfect family), but I feel dead inside."
"I do my best every day to be a good dad and partner. She is controlling and has zero trust in me, judging by how she treats me in real life.
I wish someone would've told me that if you have a baby with the wrong person it can mess up your whole life. I feel like I had babies for her to post and brag on social media about her accomplishments in life, and I'm following along, with no actual feelings anymore."
—Anonymous
13."She had no problem making fun of me in front of friends for saying things she thought were dumb or ignorant —which was fine with me, when it was in jest— but would get extremely upset at the slightest critical comment from my side."
"Generally, any critique was immediately taken as a personal attack The question 'Who's to blame?' always seemed foremost in her mind, which made it very difficult to address anything that we might want to talk about.
Meeting her mother made total sense: sweet lady, but constantly blamed everything on her daughter. So I get why her reflex at even a carefully phrased question was to lash out. But it got to a point where we couldn't even discuss very basic issues. ('Can we talk about changing the roll of toilet paper after it runs out?' 'Well it wasn't me! I do everything around here!')."
"Generally, she was just a sweet, smart, and strong woman, and she treated me like a king. But she couldn't handle talking about accountability and never, ever apologized for anything, because that would suggest she would accept the blame, and she just couldn't do that."
"As a person who was raised to always be accountable and take responsibility for my actions, this was (and is) quite shocking to me. There's so much insecurity in there; in fact, the way she treated me like a king felt just like the flip side of that, like preemptively making sure I had nothing to complain about. It wasn't healthy and really got on my nerves."
—Anonymous
14."After we moved into our first place together, we got into an argument, and as I was trying to leave to take a breath and just chill, she jumped in front of me... she stated, 'Come on hit me, you know you want to, just hit me.'"
Pop TV / CBC Television
"That was the like 50th red flag, but her kids from other relationships had grown on me and me on them. I stayed another 16 years for the kids, and I'm sure glad I did."
15."She always overworked herself around the holidays. I made a point of it to share with her how much I saw her mood and mental health change, and why I thought she should really cut back. My observations were always taken as an insult."
"When it came time for me to purchase my own business, and go through some months of crazy work hours, I was not afforded the same grace."
—Anonymous
16."Maybe it was when I went to go find the yogurt while she was at checkout and was then left stranded at the supercenter, or maybe it was when she was running stop lights and talking about her exes, or maybe it was when she threatened to poison me, or when I had micro cuts on my legs in the morning, or when she insisted my rescue dog keep her sweater on even though it was June. My Bitzie died of heat stroke."
—Anonymous
17."The moment I knew was when I realized every time we had a disagreement, she would immediately turn defensive no matter how blatantly wrong she was."
"Accountability was not on her radar of things to do in any situation; everything about her was to fight to be right, no matter how wrong she was, and the funny thing is I didn’t see the harsh side until we had kids. Sucks for me, now I’m dealing with a lifer, and ain’t shit changed."
—Anonymous
18.And finally: "It wasn't a single moment, but I've realized that after 32 years of marriage, it is time to stop. I do well in all areas of my life except for at home or in my toxic relationship. In that arena, I can never do anything right."
"The breaking point came as my older sons began to criticize what and how I did things just like dear old mom. It was all a big joke... I would just shut down instead of defending myself. I need to get divorced, but my youngest son is experiencing mental health issues, and may not react well to the news."
—Anonymous
I want to hear all your thoughts down in the comments below. Men, if you have any more anecdotes to share, please, feel free!
If you want to share, but prefer to stay anonymous, you can check out this Google form. Your answers could show up in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!
Please note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarirty.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
