Special thanks to rojie for today’s daily prompt. Incidentally, she has an entire list of monthly props that go up every month. You can check out her prompts for August here.
What’s a small or minor habit your partner or significant other had that turned you off or made you want to end the relationship?
I can honestly say that none of my exes ever had a small or minor habit that made me want to actually end the relationship on its own. However, there certainly were small habits that turned me off. Let me see if I can go through a few of them.
I’m going to use aliases on here, just as I use on every other blog entry, so that I’m not throwing anybody completely under the bus—even though these are actual exes I’m talking about.
X1, my ex-wife, used to have this startlingly loud sneeze. It was one of those explosive ones that, if you weren’t ready for it, would make you jump because it sounded less like a physical reflex and more like someone suddenly yelling in an empty room. I want to say that I eventually got used to it, but it was really more that I was just conditioned to expect it.
But that was just the surface stuff I didn’t really get into initially. She was a very headstrong, flat-out aggressive person. She liked to throw her weight around, figuratively speaking, to the point where even coworker friends of ours would pull me aside to say, “I’m really intimidated by her.”
For a long time, I justified it, telling myself she was just trying to be a “strong, independent woman,” and I honestly thought it was kind of cool. But that novelty wore off pretty quickly when I realized that, at times, she had the interpersonal skills of a dead fish. In hindsight, her habit of sliding right past assertiveness straight into aggression should’ve been the biggest red flag of all. Being in love is a lot like wearing horse blinders—it makes it remarkably hard to see anything happening in your peripheral vision until the blinders finally come off.
As for X2, she had a particular approach to collecting that felt less like a hobby and more like an aggressive competitive sport. It reminded me of how Rosie O’Donnell used to treat celebrity trivia on her old daytime talk show—always needing to out-know, out-collect, and gatekeep whatever niche interest was on the table. It was as if everyone from a specific generational span took the Pokémon slogan “gotta catch ‘em all” far too seriously.
Of course, over the years, other relationships hit walls for entirely different reasons. Customer Service drank a bit too much for comfort. Shipping and Receiving came with an endless laundry list of health problems that never seemed to get addressed or rectified. And for Jessica, the world simply revolved around her axis; she wasn’t looking so much for an equal partner as she was shopping for a permanent plus-one.
Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.
Today’s post is inspired by the WordPress Daily Prompt. While I’ve taken the topic in my own direction for the Road beyond 1,000 Days, you can find more responses to today’s prompt HERE.
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The article “horse blinders and minor annoyances” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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