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Relationship dealbreakers

Josie

Loves third parties and steak
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What have you experienced in your relationships or observing other people's relationships that you just couldn't deal with? What are some behaviors you wouldn't put up with from a significant other - things that would make you walk away or not even get the relationship started in the first place?

I could not and would not deal with any man who is easily angered. No thank you - next.
 
When I was much younger I would offer popeye cigarettes to girls in bars. Those who accepted them seemed to have a sense of humour, those who looked at me like I was crazy were ones I knew I wouldn't get along with. So I guess lack of sense of humour or being overly serious would also be a deal breaker.
Of course my wife has an excellent sense of humour, after all she married me
 

Yeah,no sense of humor is not good
 

I had to look up "Popeye cigarettes". I remember candy cigarettes, but I don't remember Popeye being on the box. You'd think he'd be the face of "candy smoking pipes".
 
For me, almost nothing is a so-called "dealbreaker" if it really is a serious relationship, but now at age 62 I have come to realize that when things are starting to get serious, certain red flags should be taken at face value:

  • 1. She "throws the engagement ring at you" (or on the floor etc) over a trifling dispute.
  • 2. Cheating, or getting set up to be open to cheating.
  • 3. Dishonesty. No, not little white lies...dishonesty, as in complete and utter fabrications.
  • 4. Drug or alcohol addiction. No, not in sobriety/recovery...active addiction.

Re: #1: By "trifling" I mean silly stuff like where we're going to eat, or what you or her wanted to wear, or something lightweight like that.
Taking off an engagement ring and tossing it is a serious thing, it means "we are done" and that happened to me, and I took off for a couple of days and she (first wife as fiancee) begged for me to come back. In retrospect, I should have correctly interpreted it as a bad sign and stayed gone.
And it was a totally stupid argument which escalated. She was drunk, I wasn't, and she did it, she took the ring off and threw it at me, for the stupidest little thing.

Re #2: At the time I did not know my first wife had cheated on me. I learned it later, after we'd split up.
Had I found out then, it would have ended the marriage immediately. I do not cheat, because if it's a serious relationship, I just don't do that.

#3: Self explanatory.

#4: I've been there. Take my word for it, don't get serious with someone who is actively an addict. You will regret it.
Take them to bed? That's your choice, but don't get involved beyond that is my advice. As an older guy now, I'm saying even doing that might be disastrous but I understand how young men think, having been young once upon a time.
In retrospect, I probably still would have bedded my first wife - - like my current wife, she was absolutely spectacular at the time, but looking back, I wouldn't have gotten serious and I wouldn't have married her.

Almost everything else, a serious relationship can recover from, and in fact maybe even be strengthened by sometimes.
But the four horsemen of the above are most definitely signs of an apocalypse.
 
Quag said:
Smoking
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Smoking was a huge turn off for me. My wife was a smoker when we met. She promised to quit. She did that, a month after we started being "involved". She hasn't smoked in 20 years.
 
Being overcontrolling.
 
For me, it's cheating & deceit. Just can't get past those two.

Well, I take respect pretty seriously too. Probably too seriously, than most. Which is why I'm lucky I have a very old-school conservative women. We're kinda' throwbacks, in a world that's become very disrespectful in our eyes.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
Smoking was a huge turn off for me. My wife was a smoker when we met. She promised to quit. She did that, a month after we started being "involved". She hasn't smoked in 20 years.
Click to expand...

Goddamn, I not only have to tip my hat to her, but to you as well.
Apparently you must be quite the stud-muffin, or something about you is so compelling that she has managed to stick with quitting the hardest addiction of them all.

So not only hats off to her, but hats off to you too. Whatever you brought into the relationship, it must have been pretty damn good
 

I guess I sorta have to include that as a potential #5, because if your significant other is openly disrespecting you, even if it's only happening between the two of you, it's a huge red flag. If they are openly disrespecting you in front of others, I guess you have to have extremely low self-esteem to take it.

In all honesty I cannot remember a single girlfriend or serious girl ever doing that to me.
Yes, of course I've been disrespected by "girls" that I was just having fun with/playing the field with, but I wasn't able to muster up any anger or outrage over it because I was just getting my jollies and I guess so were they, and somewhere it just went wrong and all's fair in love and war.
I just wasn't quite so eager to keep after them after that most of the time. Once they do something like that, it's a turn-off and I start looking elsewhere.

But none of my old flames ever did anything like that to me, I must be very lucky.
And no, I am not a saint.
I admit that in my youth, it was ME who sometimes was disrespectful to some of them.
So if anything, had any of them done it back, I probably would have had it coming to me, but all my old girlfriends had nothing but kind words to say about me. It's so bittersweet, especially since two of them are now deceased.

It's just the one wife who cheated on me, that's a form of disrespect, perhaps the highest form.
But even she had kind words to say about me in the end, and she is gone from this world as well now.
 
Violence, substance abuse or cheating are deal breakers for sure. Becoming a lazy slob or financially foolish are problems that can usually be dealt with but if not could become deal breakers.
 
Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, the problem is disrespect is so broad a term though, that it can cover just about anything. But each of us in our person, knows what it means to us personally. But we may all be different! It's internally interpreted. And therefore, problematic in that it may not be communicated and understood by others.

But I was raised and molded - in part - by old-world Poles and old-world Calabrese, with a healthy dose of Sicilians thrown in for good measure. By old-world, I mean from the old country. And damn, did they demand respect! And don't underestimate Polish patriarchy, for all the talk of Italians in that regard. And truth be told, as I got older I came to appreciate my culture and was grateful for the way I was raised. And I luckily found a women who was bred in family and respect, as I was. So I scooped her up, and never looked back!
 

I get that whole Italian thing, being half Italian myself but I am not sure what you mean because you don't seem like the type that goes in for all the old greaseball formalities in old Palermo or Calabria, and besides, when IN Calabria, the ones who are the most effusive in their outward displays of respect MIGHT be the ones loading up to take a shot at you.
I'm sure you get my drift, what with being Calabrese and all.

The Italian half of my family turned out to be the warm ones, after my father passed away all our German-Jewish relatives sort of disappeared off the map, it is sad to say. I have an eldest brother who makes every effort to be a Messianic Jew and goes through all the motions of being Jewish but the Haas relatives sort of dropped off the map after my father was killed while the Amorosos stuck with our family and drew us even tighter into the fold. So I really identify as Italian more than anything else.

But we're really the sarcastic and half-crazy Italians. We love the family togetherness but half the time we're trash talking and making each other laugh and trying to one-up each other, so the whole serious formalities are lost on us.
For us, respect is sticking by each other when things get tough, and when others on the outside are doing us wrong.
Outside of that, we're just loud and obnoxious, and we love to cook up tasty things to eat and we're very touchy feely affectionate and musical.
After all, we are "Amorosos" which means "amorous".
 

I take honesty and respect as givens, without which, there would have been no relationship deal to break.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
I take honesty and respect as givens, without which, there would have been no relationship deal to break.
Click to expand...
I think I very much agree. Without respect (and honesty too), there can be no relationship. It is the basic foundation of which to start.
 
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