Welcome to exesanonymous.com

We would like to thank everyone who contributed their stories to exesanonymous.com, where you can go very personal without jeopardizing your privacy.

The end of a relationship can be messy, embarrassing, and sometimes even too difficult to understand. But telling these tales helps us all to cope and, more importantly, to build empathy towards our former significant others. The fact that we have stories to share is proof enough that life, however it looks now, goes on. After all, we've lived to tell the tale.

Now, we've received some inquiries on how and why Shahrazad (not her real name, obviously) and I built this site. Okay, we publish other people's stories here. But what is our story? We've received varied speculations as to who we are and why we do this. Some suspect that Shahrazad and I are dealing with our own respective breakups. That Shahrazad and I are kindred spirits regarding this experience.

It's something like that. Shahrazad and I, we're the exes. We're exes, and yet we've managed to still be cordial after our relationship. It was something we did realize, given our experience: we had to be clear with how we loved each other.

We didn't start our relationship under the best of circumstances, admittedly. We were already close before we even thought of dating. So close, we accidentally warded off people: guys that would have courted Shahrazad, girls I could have courted. When we both realized that, I told Shahrazad, "Maybe we're meant to be together, and we just didn't know it."

It was a joke, of course, and Shahrazad knew that. Still, Shahrazad thought to push the joke further. "Then let's date," she replied.

Initially, I didn't want my joke to turn on me. I told her, "We were just kidding, right?"

"Yes, we were," she said, without batting an eyelash.

"But do you think we can be serious about... You know, going out? Going steady?"

Shahrazad looked at me. "So long as we don't waste each other's time."

So we dated. And we clicked, I'd like to believe. Too well, even. My relatives were ecstatic; they hadn't seen two people so in love with each other since Grandpa Eli and Grandma Clarisse (again, not their real names).

Towards the end of our four years, it became kinda clear that being boyfriend-girlfriend was never really a relationship goal but a path. Funny. It was Shahrazad who brought it up. During one of our dates, she asked me, "So where is this going? Us?"

Of course, I was ready to propose. We had already been together for four years after all. Then Grandma Clarisse died. That's when things got messy for me, and eventually for Shahrazad.

My cousins and I took turns keeping Grandpa Eli company. It didn't take too long to conclude: Grandpa's mind was slipping fast. He kept asking for Grandma and got upset when we tell him that she... passed away. In the end, Grandpa followed Grandma in the state he was in: spending the rest of his days in search of her.

That image of Grandpa Eli and Grandma Clarisse was, well, eye opening. And Shahrazad could clearly see through me. I was deathly scared. Would I end up like Grandpa? I don't think I can take it. And what if I kicked the bucket first? How would Shahrazad be, then?

Anyway, Shahrazad called me out on it, so I had to tell her what I was going through. She was quiet for a moment. Then she finally spoke.

"Look, what are you expecting out of a relationship? It's either we wait to see who kicks the bucket first, or we walk away from this relationship while we're still alive."

I was so ashamed. Without her saying anything, this was Shahrazad giving me a way out. But to take it was to affirm that I just wasted her time. But to push through all the way to the end... Are relationships really just a choice among a string of heartaches? If so, why does anyone get into relationships in the first place? Or are most people just like me: naive about what's waiting at the end of the road?

And that's how we ended our relationship. Just like that. As much of a jerk that I was at that moment, I wasn't going to be worse by pretending I could handle my fears. Shahrazad deserved more than what I could give her.

I was profusely apologetic. Shahrazad was very forgiving. "We sometimes need to get burned to learn," she told me.

And this is why we started exesanonymous.com. Perhaps, just perhaps, as Shahrazad hopes, through the stories shared, I'll understand what people really look for in relationships. What makes them stay for as long as they can. What makes them decide to cut things short.

In the meantime, just keep the stories rolling. Thank you.