'Broke up with my girlfriend over tattoos. She no longer 'agrees' with our breakup.' AITA? + UPDATE
"Broke up with my girlfriend over tattoos. She no longer 'agrees' with our breakup. Nuts."
I want to preface this with a disclaimer that there is nothing wrong with having tattoos if you want and like them. They aren't my thing. Please don't take this as a condemnation of tattoos or the people that get them as a whole.
My ex and I were together about a year. Early on in the relationship she had mentioned wanting to get some tattoos. I told her she had every right to do so since its her body, but I find tattoos very unattractive and I would likely break up with her if she went through with it.
It became a small fight and she was cold and passive aggressive about it for a few days, but eventually she said she understood and would not be getting the tattoos done.
Fast forward to about two months ago and she makes another attempt to get me on board with tattoos. I reiterate my stance and tell her again she can do it, but I won't stick around if she does.
I went out of town to visit my cousin for a week and come home to her with a partial sleeve done. Her arm was basically one big scab. I ask her what's going on and she just nonchalantly says her and her best friend had talked and agreed I was being unreasonable.
So she went ahead and used my time out of town to get it done so I wouldn't be around to be a "buzzkill" about it. She said she got as much as the guy was willing to do in one sitting inked and once she was healed she planned to get it extended.
The tattoo was already a dealbreaker for me, but the blatant disrespect and casual way she was implying my opinion didn't matter broke my feelings for her right there. We fought and eventually she just told me to get the hell out and locked herself in the bathroom.
Thank god she did this when she did because I was close to not renewing my lease at my apartment and moving in with her. Packed my stuff up and left while she trash talked me to her best friend on the phone.
I dropped her stuff off from my place the next day. She told me I was making a huge mistake and throwing a good thing away for petty reasons. I just handed her the bag and left. That was weeks ago. Didn't hear from her until today.
She called me. Here's a very brief summary of the call:
Her: "Ok the petty drama has run its course. You can move back in and move on ok?"
Me: "No we are broken up. It's over permanently. I don't want to get back together."
Her: "We aren't getting back together. This was just a spat that got out of hand. You freaked out and left in a huff. I know you're just too proud to admit you're wrong so we'll just call it even and you can come back."
Me: "No I told you repeatedly that tattoos are a deal breaker. You did it anyway and then disrespected me on top of that with the way you went about it. We're done. You can move on now. Find a guy that finds your new ink attractive because I find it repulsive and wouldn't be able to look at you or that arm again."
Our conversation then just goes in circles for a bit before I hang up. Then she tries sending me some pictures in an attempt to seduce me, but her body does nothing for me now and her sleeve was visible which, even after it healed, was gross and unflattering. I told her I deleted them and to leave me alone. Blocked.
She then messaged me on a snap saying she never agreed to a breakup and I owed her a conversation face to face if I wanted to end things. Blocked again. I know it's bad form to be a guy calling his ex crazy, but this girl is nuts.
Edit: I find all the talk about me being shallow pretty funny considering she told me that if I ever gained weight or stopped going to the gym she'd leave me. Hell, she put on weight throughout our entire relationship and it never once made me consider leaving her.
I still found her beautiful. When she changed her hair color to colors that I didn't like I never said a bad word to her about it. I was supportive. I didn't like it, but it wasn't a dealbreaker.
One last edit: This was great. Sub really is great for getting things off your chest. Had a lot of fun reading responses and while I didn't need validation to know what I did was right I still appreciate the supportive folks.
The negative ones accusing me of being shallow, controlling, weird, and all sorts of other things because I have a preference were fun too. Didn't change my mind one bit, but I'm glad you guys were able to get those things off your chests as well.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
A breakup is not a debate, and it doesn't need consensus agreement.
Speaking of...She thinks that he can't consent. It's her body. Agreed. He can't consent to what she does, but he can consent to what someone with a tattoo does to him, which means intimacy that he doesn't want. And she is telling him he can't consent to ending a relationship.
That being said a tattoo doesn't make you not love somebody anymore. They are clearly just incompatible.
You two were just incompatible. Nothing wrong with breaking up over it. On to the next adventure!
It's a bit weird to go from considering a tattoo to a complete sleeve. I could understand her thinking of we will get back together had she some small tattoo on her ankle or something.
I know I am definitely older than OP and his ex, but I've seen a few of these posts about one side not accepting or agreeing to a breakup. When did that become an option? Even when people said a breakup was mutual it never really was, but now apparently, they have to be?
A week later, the OP returned with an update.
I came here a week ago to vent about a strange situation with my ex getting a tattoo and it resulting in us breaking up. Weeks later she acted like our breakup was just a spat and that I was being unreasonable.
I told her we were broken up permanently and blocked her. She then tried to message me on other platforms demanding a face to face meeting because she never agreed to the breakup.
In the end the tattoo was a secondary cause of our breakup in my mind. She disregarded what we'd spoken and agreed about early on in the relationship. When I didn't give her the supportive response she wanted she proceeded to belittle me and insult me then kicked me out of her home which we were close to having me move into full time.
Then she locked herself in the bathroom and loudly insulted me while on the phone with her best friend whom had been the one to convince her to get the tattoo while I was out of town. At that point we were done. I took my stuff back to my place and brought her stuff from mine back to hers.
She showed up at my place last night with a bag full of my bathroom stuff from her place. Just a bottle of body wash and a few other things. She asked to come in and talk but I stepped outside and we talked out front where the cameras could see.
She asked if I was really breaking up with her over a tattoo and I reiterated that it was about more than the tattoo at this point. And that I wasn't breaking up with her. I already broke up with her weeks ago. She tried to argue with me that our relationship was stronger than that but I told her that it wasn't.
That while I was comfortable with her this whole incident made me realize I wasn't happy with her. Her treating me poorly was the wake up call we both needed to go our separate ways and find people we could be truly happy with. She kept trying to argue that this was crazy and I was throwing a good thing away.
I told her that I wish she'd just gotten the tattoo when we started dating. We could have broken up and just been friends. She said she'd considered it but decided she'd rather be with me than get the tattoo so she lied to me when she said she was ok not getting one.
Then when I went on my trip her best friend convinced her to get it and claimed I'd get over it and stick around. Guy that did the first part of her sleeve was an old friend with benefits of her friend and agreed to do it for a discount. Conversation sort of went in circles for a bit before she tossed the bag at me and left crying yelling "fine we're effing over then."
So that's that. She showed up at my place like a lot of people predicted, but no stabby stabs or anything. Friends told me she made a bunch of vague posts about heartbreak on social media but I haven't seen any of it. Regardless of how things went down I hope she heals and finds herself someone who can be more supportive of her choices than I was.
Thanks to those people who offered me support for my decision. And to everyone calling me shallow, controlling, and weird for my stance on tattoos I gotta say I had a blast reading those comments. Absolutely hilarious.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
"Her best friend convinced her to get it and claimed I'd get over it and stick around."
I really want to know how their friendship is going.
It was a relationship of one year. Not 20. They're not married. They don't have kids. People break up for all kinds of reasons.
People who are calling him controlling are just wrong. I have tattoos, and I wouldn't want to be with someone who found them repulsive. It's just incompatibility, it's fine, not everyone has to be compatible with everyone.
He is opposite of controlling, he left l. If he was controlling he would have stayed and nagged her to get rid of the tattoo. And it’s not like they were married, you can break up easily when you don’t even live together.
I have tattoos because I like them. Other people don't. That's fine. Dealbreakers are dealbreakers. They might differ but we all have them. This shouldn't be so hard to understand.