The wrong partner

FINDING “the one” in love is often described as a deeply transformative experience. It’s the moment when everything aligns — your values, dreams, and even your flaws feel understood and accepted by another person. It’s not just about romance, but a profound sense of safety and connection, like coming home to someone who sees the most authentic version of you and still chooses you wholeheartedly.

Finding “the one” is all fine and dandy for some people. But what happens when you were, in fact, wrong? When did you realise that your partner was not, in fact, the one?

Liberty, 23:

I brought him home to my family for Christmas, we had been dating for a year at the time. My parents were very welcoming and warm, but on the evening of Christmas day, various family members were coming by the house. My drunk uncle took one look at him, pulled me aside, and asked me to “think about the children”. He said mixing our genes would be unfair to our kids. I brushed it off, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and eventually we broke up, because my mind couldn’t move past that.

Rachael, 31:

After three years living together and contemplating marriage, he said he had a secret to tell me. His father didn’t actually die in an accident in America, he was in prison for messing with not just one child, but several in their old community. I knew that at some point that man could be out, and worse, I didn’t know if it was a trait that could be passed on. Either way, I didn’t want to taint my life or bloodline with that kind of thing.

Tiny, 33:

He was repping a certain high school all through Champs, for years and years, and mind you, we had been dating since I was in university. He would buy memorabilia, and even his car was decked out. He was a very proud “old boy”. Only to find out one day when I was helping him with his resume, that he never even attended that school, and in fact went to a school in another parish, and dropped out in grade eight.

Maureen, 44:

We were married. I had a daughter before I met him, and he played stepfather since she was eight. Fast forward some years, now she was heading for college abroad. The day she left and I was bawling my eyes out, he said, “finally, I can feel like I’m in a marriage alone with you, and don’t have to compete with [daughter]”. He was jealous of the child the whole time, jealous of our relationship, and thought I would just forget about her and focus on him.

John Jr, 28:

She had dated a couple people I know, and that was fine, because I wasn’t going to hold her past against her. When she started comparing us, and told me that she kept a journal of all her exes, and ranked them, I hesitated. She had no problem showing me, and when I saw my profile, I was ranking really low. Then, I realised she was a player.

Edward, 58:

She was 15 years my junior, but she was mature in my estimation. When I proposed, her question, after saying yes, was how I saw my future when I got to retirement age, and how I felt about nursing homes. She was clearly not the one.