Photo: Drazen Zigic / Shutterstock
Say yes to the dress.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Nov 07, 2022
A post on Reddit’s “r/TrueOffMyChest” forum claims that a woman decided that she was going to break up with her boyfriend over a dress that she wanted to wear — but goes much deeper than just that.
This subreddit is a place for people to air their concerns, thoughts, or predicaments without fear of unwarranted advice or judgment — within reason, of course.
She finally realized her boyfriend is not the “sweet” and “gentle” man she thought he was.
“I’d been ignoring so many things that he did that made me uncomfortable because the other times were great,” she wrote. “I rationalized that he was so much better than my exes.”
She had just finished pointing out all of the good qualities that her boyfriend, who became her fiancé, possessed before getting into what was really wrong with the guy.
“He let me set the pace for our sex life but would still push a little more and frame it as exposure therapy, or complain that we tried one thing once but never again, or not soon enough again,” she wrote.
If that wasn’t enough to set you off, the next part definitely will.
“He would grope me constantly, pout if I didn’t let him and if I tried to stop him he’d playfully continue, all while justifying it because it was a compliment that I was just too sexy to resist,” she continued.
To make matter worse, he would often use any sexual innuendos to be crude and joke with her, and make sexual advances toward her.
She claimed that someone saying “pickle” would be enough to set him off.
It got to the point where she started wearing more layers like “biker shorts” and multiple sports bras in order to further his touch, even avoiding form-fitting clothes.
She would angle herself away from him and position herself so she was never easy to reach and admitted that she stopped being able to get a good night’s sleep next to him.
“If I brought up topics, actions or comments that made me uncomfortable,” she continued, “He weaseled around it with an excuse and turned it back to me about how I was lashing out at him for no reason.”
He stopped caring about her food allergies and would complain whenever they ate things he never wanted to eat until “he got to grope me.”
She recalls the moment she realized that she wanted to break up with him — when she realized a dress she wanted to wear would be a problem for him.
She didn’t want that dress to turn into one of the many she felt “dirty” wearing.
The dress was one that her great-grandmother gave her for her high school graduation, and one of the only “feminine” outfits she owned that made her feel “powerful and confident” when she wore it.
“I wanted to wear it to dinner tonight, but the last time I wore a dress he tried to grab my a-- under the fabric and made a joke about easy access,” she wrote.
“I didn’t want my Gram’s dress to be yet another article of clothing that made me feel dirty when I put it on.”
She decided that she would end things with him that night at dinner and give him the ring back.
Many women in the comments supported her and shared their own experiences.
“I'm really sorry and offer giant Internet hugs. You're doing the right thing,” one user wrote. “You don't have to put up with anyone who makes you feel this way. Remember that every single day. It's hard but try to really believe that. Good luck.”
Another user joked, “I didn’t know my ex-husband was dating again…” prompting someone else to write “Did we all have the same ex?”
Healing from past trauma to the point of being able to laugh about it later is great, but the fact that so many women claim to have gone through the same thing is not.
Many people claimed that her post was hard to read because they experienced a lot of the same things and were ultimately glad to see that she decided to end things with him.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.