I think it’s really easy to draw inaccurate conclusions about people’s relationships. Someone else mentioned that people usually only show the good stuff on social media, which is true. Even if you know someone personally, they can hide the bad stuff out of shame.
I get judged a lot when I say I left my child’s father due to emotional abuse. Many people have little sympathy for women who are beaten close to death (or worse), so why would they have empathy for me? I hid the abuse from almost everyone because I was ashamed. Growing up being subject to and witnessing abuse, I half felt this treatment was normal, and half was embarrassed for making the same mistakes. I was having mental breakdowns over the stupidest things on an almost daily basis because I had been mentally destroyed. That’s what being repeatedly screamed at and called a c*nt for 8 hours straight for saying “okay” does to you.
I did try to fix it both before and after having the baby (unplanned). I tried everything, from changing myself, to giving him a free pass to cheat, to telling him he didn’t have to financially or physically contribute to the baby at all and I’d work my minimum wage job and earn pennies after paying for childcare and then come home and look after the baby all evening while he messed about on his laptop. My birth was traumatic and hours later, while I was exhausted and recovering from surgery, he was already back to verbally abusing and gaslighting me
It took becoming a mother for me to value myself enough to leave. My daughter looked exactly like me as a newborn and the thought of this little baby growing up and being treated like that broke my heart. So I left
Only a couple of people know the whole story. My exes family think I just can’t be bothered to work on the relationship. I don’t want any more drama so I let them think that. People are so proud and private that you’ll rarely get 100% of the story of why they split