"When I initiated the divorce process, he told me that I 'wasn't allowed to' because he was the man and had final say."

Content warning: Racism, sexual assault, police brutality, and anti-LGBT rhetoric.

Note: Some responses were also sourced from this Reddit thread.

"In the heat of his rage, he confessed to having doxxed Muslims and given their personal info to hate groups for targeting them with threats of violence.

"He had become MAGA slowly over the course of our relationship, but that comment finally made me realize how bad it was. 

"This led to a long conversation about his recent trip down a YouTube rabbit hole, culminating in his statement that the 2020 election was 'stolen' and the only reason I didn’t believe that is because I don’t know how elections work in the United States."

"To put things succinctly, in 2016, he believed in God (but wasn't religious) and voted for Bernie Sanders in the democratic primaries, while I was an atheist, bleeding heart liberal (and still am). By 2020, he was super religious, repeating conservative conspiracy theories, believing the media was lying, and thinking Democrats were evil.

I’d always told him that if I were ever to become pregnant, I’d abort it, and it wasn’t until this year that he told me he’d leave me if I did. We were on rocky grounds before he said that, but that was just the bomb that caused the mudslide.

I don’t recommend dating someone with vastly different views from yourself — it’s too stressful. I found myself tiptoeing around certain issues, feeling uncomfortable when we watched a show together that dared to mention racism or anti-LGBT rhetoric because I couldn’t share my fears with him or my opinions. When I really needed his support, he couldn’t speak to me in a way that offered it.

It was only three days ago that we finally separated. The wild and awful part of it is that I still totally love him. I helped him move into his apartment, we went on a date, and laughed and loved each other. I still know I can lean on him, and he can lean on me.

I didn’t really leave him, but we concluded that we’re better off away from each other. I’ve learned a lot of things — mainly that kind and intelligent people can believe the most awful things. I believe fear drives people more than they realize, and fear makes people cling to not only religion, but also traditions and systems of the past."

"He flipped his lid when he discovered that I actually made more money than he did, and railed on me for out-earning him. He also kept making racist jokes (I work with immigrants) and started using incel names for me — even his best friend cut him off. 

When I initiated the divorce process, he told me that I 'wasn't allowed to' because he was the man and had final say. I did it anyway, and I can guarantee he's becoming more right-wing every single day."

"I couldn’t stop thinking about it as a betrayal of me and womankind. His refusal to have any political opinions, even now, in the face of everything happening, was too much for me. 

"Then the dark side of him started showing, and he'd say subtly racist and sexist things. We never saw eye to eye on abortion, but he also started calling BLM a terrorist group and saying racist things. Then came his support for the Confederate flag and how it's 'heritage, not hate' and he even wanted to go as far as get a tattoo of the Confederate flag. I was so deeply disturbed.

I broke up with him one time over it, but we got back together because he had 'changed and started acting like Jesus,' but that was a load of BS. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but it only lasted three months. I was SO conflicted near the end of the relationship because I couldn't view him as a good person, and he certainly wasn't a good role model. And I didn't want our children, if we were to have any, to look up to him. I fell out of love because our morality was just so different.

Our relationship lasted two years in all, and I'm so glad I left because I'm much happier now and not stressing over stupid shit.

I learned a lot from that relationship. Now I know how important political views and morality are. If I find out somebody identifies as Republican/conservative, I'm instantly abandoning ship — never doing that again."

"He snarked back, 'What rights don't you have?' 

It's for the ones we're trying to keep, you braindead misogynist."

"He was concerned 'some kid pretending to be a girl' was going to use the same bathroom as his niece in an attempt to make friends or flirt (she was two and a half at the time). It was weird, and I didn't see his bigotry coming. 

Looking back on this incident connects red flags I missed when I was 19. I don't miss that relationship."

"The MAGA tried to rationally explain that the COVID vaccine wasn't necessary for the majority of people, especially children. He then explained that since 1986, the only product you can't sue for damages is a childhood vaccine, and that once you get infected and recover, you don't need to be vaccinated or boosted. I couldn't believe it! 

As I told my partner this, they seemed to validate these points, and I became furious! How could he possibly agree with this bigot pushing his hateful, racist, and frankly untrue ideology? So, I ended things with my partner because of this. I can't stand for people dying because of this type of misinformation."

"Not only did we not share beliefs, but he also didn’t care to listen to or learn about mine at all — he was very ignorant and willfully so. He wasn’t very intelligent, so he wasn’t able to have those tough conversations because he couldn't grasp how important certain things are.

We broke up for other reasons (he was freshly divorced, incredibly clingy, made fun of my interests, etc), but that revelation was what started to kick things downhill. 

Ultimately, it’s very important to respect your partner’s beliefs about the big issues, and I could not respect his lack of beliefs at all."

"I sent him a message and told him not to bother coming over again, then he blew up my phone with 38 texts with pretty much every dumb insult you can think of before he showed up at my house anyway, pounding on my door and screaming. 

"There wasn't one particular thing that ended it. I discovered he wasn't the kind person I originally thought he was, and our polite debates, which were somewhat fun at the beginning of the relationship, turned into something I dreaded because it upset me that he chose to believe in things that genuinely hurt people and were sometimes unscientific. 

I eventually grew distant and didn’t want to engage with things like that."

"I stopped being able to do that when the Black Lives Matter protests started. My ex claimed he didn’t support police brutality, but was also vocally anti-protest (he was even against peaceful ones because they 'inconvenience regular people trying to go about their lives'). The specific incident that sent me over the edge happened after the protests in our city. The protesters were peaceful and had planned a march from downtown onto a nearby highway, which was blocked in anticipation. When they got to the highway, police suddenly started tear gassing the crowds, who up until this point had been completely non-violent.

Despite knowing all of this, my ex told me that he thought the protesters DESERVED to be attacked by the police for blocking the road and therefore 'dragging innocent people who don’t want to be involved in it.' The fact that he could justify police brutality for any reason was too much for me. Things had been rocky for a long time leading up to that, and it was the final straw.

Not long after that, I was proven right about him. One of my best friends told me that a mutual (former) friend of my ex’s and mine had been extremely racist towards her on multiple occasions. I was still trying to be friendly with my ex at this point, but when I told him about what my friend had said, he immediately jumped to the racist girl’s defense, saying that my friend was being too sensitive and seeing things that weren’t there. He straight-up accused a Black woman of lying about having had several repeated racist encounters with one of his friends because he couldn’t bear the idea that one of his BFFs is actually a really shitty person. I can’t believe I ever dated him, to be honest."

"I grew up in a pretty small town, so I never had a lot of political opinions. I went to school to study business, but after living in a more ‘liberal’ town, I started having my own political beliefs (which were much more left-leaning), and I even changed my major to sociology.

As time went on, he would constantly get angry at me because ‘I was so much more conservative than I think I am.’ He would constantly bring up topics (like abortion) that we differed greatly on to start debates. He was also a free-speech warrior; he wanted controversial speakers to come to our university even when I explained that their backgrounds were wrong, but he didn’t care. I became so frustrated with his beliefs and his belittlement of my own opinions.

The final straw was when he and his mother belittled my sexual assault by saying I made it an excuse for everything. I packed my bags and left. I was young then, and I will never date someone who differs politically from me ever again. That was two years I won’t get back."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.