When you’re in a romantic relationship, the last thing you want to do is have a public spat. Not only does it leave at least one of the partners embarrassed, it also makes things awkward for the people witnessing the blowout.

One woman thinks she’s reached the end of her tether with her fiancé after he blew up at sandwich store staff and threatened to leave her if she carried on getting their food. Already struggling with social anxiety, the woman turned to Reddit for advice. 

More info: Reddit

Lover’s quarrels are par for the course, but this woman’s fiancé took things too far

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

After a morning running errands, the couple stopped in at a sandwich shop for their favorite bite

Image credits: Timur Weber / Pexels (not the actual photo)

The queue was long, and the store was running out of ingredients, but the couple finally got to place their order

Image credits: PROSPER MBEMBA KOUTIHOU / Pexels (not the actual photo)

When one of the store staff members let the couple know they were fresh out of spinach, the woman’s fiancé had a complete Karen moment and stormed out

Image credits: Erin Wang / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Deeply embarrassed, the woman was left to deal with the fallout all by herself

Image credits: samethyst23

Now she’s considering ending their 9-year relationship and turned to netizens to plead for advice

OP begins her story by telling the community that she and her fiancé have been together for 9 years, the first 4-5 of which were great, but things have been in steady decline since then.

Apparently, her fiancé always has an excuse for why he can’t help her out with cooking or cleaning the house, makes her feel like seeing her family is an inconvenience to him, doesn’t communicate in a healthy manner, and waits for the last moment to apologize – that’s if he apologizes at all.

Things came to a head one day when, after a great morning running errands, the couple decided to visit one of OP’s favorite sandwich shops. When they got there, the line was long and the store was running out of ingredients. When they finally got to place their order, the store staff informed them that they were fresh out of spinach.

At this point, OP says her fiancé kicked up a huge fuss before storming out of the store. While she was left behind to deal with the fallout, the store staff informed her that if she left without paying for her order they would call the cops. To add insult to injury, her fiancé kept texting her rude messages and threatening to break up with her.

After she left the store almost crippled by her social anxiety, OP says that her fiancé lost it at her, screaming for the whole drive home and leaving her in tears. She concludes her post by saying they haven’t spoken in 3 days, although he did try to apologize – by text. OP tells the community that she’s feeling fed up with it all and pleads for advice.

Image credits: RDNE Stock project / Pexels (not the actual photo)

From what OP tells us in her post, it seems likely that her fiancé is both toxic and entitled, an awful mix of personality traits. If you’ve ever had to deal with a toxic partner, you can probably relate. 

According to the Calm website, “A toxic relationship consistently undermines your sense of happiness, wellbeing, and, at times, even safety. While occasional conflicts are normal in any relationship, a continual pattern of disrespect, manipulation, and emotional harm, can lead to deterioration in mental and emotional health.”

Characteristics of a toxic relationship can include a lack of support, persistent unhappiness, control and dominance, neglect and manipulation, and a breakdown in communication.

In his TEDxNavesink talk, Gary Lewandowski, professor of psychology at Monmouth University, makes the case that if your relationship doesn’t help you become a better person, ending it does. 

According to Lewandowski, “Some breakups, I would argue, are worthy of celebration.”

He adds, “Sometimes your relationship is impoverished, it lacks self-expansion. Your partner’s not building you up, they’re holding you back, in fact.”

Perhaps getting out from under the oppressive weight of her relationship with her fiancé might be the best thing that could happen to OP – it certainly doesn’t seem like there’s much left worth fighting for.

Image credits: Alena Darmel / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Bored Panda reached out to psychotherapist Barbara Grace to get her expert take on the matter.

When we asked her what she thought of the fiancé’s behavior, she had this to say, “Somewhere along the way, the fiancé has got the message that his needs are more important than OP’s and unfortunately, a power imbalance in the relationship now exists.”

Grace continues, “Many couples move into a relationship without talking about their ‘relational values’, ‘core needs’, and a way to communicate feelings so each can be heard. When this happens, ultimately neither partner will be happy – and instead of communicating effectively each falls back into old patterns to get what they want – using anything from whining, blaming, judging, criticizing, dismissing, minimizing, demanding or demeaning the other.”

Grace goes on to say that these old patterns often stem from a person’s family of origin – it’s what they saw modelled by parents or caregivers – and it’s an easy go-to as the person may not ever have had the need or opportunity to learn skills that could offer a more effective – and relational – outcome.

“If this is the case, it’s easy to tumble into unhealthy habits that reinforce relational dysfunction, keeping each person in a spiraling loop of fear mixed with hope – hope that ‘love’ is all that’s needed to get it right, fear that they’re doomed to live in a never-ending nightmare,” says Grace.

Grace added that, from what OP shares in her post, the only way to rectify a relationship that has gone from a clean pond to an infested swamp is to either leave the relationship as the toxicity is unbearable and unhealthy or learn how to create a relationship that is respectful, emotionally aware and based on equality/shared power.

Grace suggested 10 free tools to help avoiding relationship struggles.

What would you do if you found yourself in OP’s shoes? Should she ditch her toxic fiancé and focus on her own freedom? Let us know your opinion in the comments!

In the comments, readers slammed the fiancé for his toxic and immature behavior and urged the woman to cut her losses before things got worse

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