u/HeartAndCircuits

I am 100 percent sure my relationship is toxic. What I don't know is am I overreacting to leave it like you would an abusive relationship when he hasn't physically hurt me or my dog.

He has threatened. He has said awful things like he should have killed his ex when she left him. He can have a serious temper when he loses control. He has done stuff like hit me like he's seeing if I will hit back and put his hands on my neck NOT HARD to see how I would react.

One night he was upset over something and said that he hated sneaky people knowing what they are doing and playing dumb. It makes him want to be sneaky and play dumb too...he made sure I heard him by saying "ain't that right" when I tried to ignore him. Then he stands i. The mirror and says "you're a beast you're a monster they won't see you coming" I pretended I wasn't phased but I was afraid.

The next day I asked him what he was talking about and "didn't remember"...but it wasn't about me, why would I think its about me

I know he has hit previous girlfriends and onetime when he was mad he said that he didn't hit me or call me out my name but that could change. Like I was supposed to be grateful.

He makes jokes pretty regularly about black eyes and breaking my jaw.

I know its not great...toxic for sure but since he has never actually hurt me or my dog I feel like a straight up a-hole thinking about sneaking away. Especially since right now he has been so calm lately. Even now though he is super avoidance and it feels like nothing I say sinks in or matters so talking to him would be a challenge.

Any advice on if I should try to break up with him regular or "sneak" away?

So much of mr feels guilty. I want to go but lately he has been so nice I feel terrible for wanting to leave. I have an exit plan that I have all but convinced myself is just me being a lame coward. How could I consider just abandoning him like that.

He has never actually hurt me.

He has threatened.

Said stuff like :I haven't hit you or called you out of your name but that can change" and "if I wanted to I could take everything from you" (or something like that. I can't remember the exact words) I just remember that my reaction was to start hiding money.

Recently he was in a good mood and "playfully" told the dog he was going to beat him up. He said "your mama (me) ain't gonna take this beat down for you. I told him that he was wrong I would stand in front of a train for that dog and thay I wasn't scared of him. He said "yes you are you just don't know it yet".

He has LIGHTLY hit me and put his hands on my neck like he was testing to see what I would do. Neither was hard enough to hurt but it with both he looked at me like he was making a point.

He gets upset and paranoid acting. He hates when I try to go visit my family. Accuses me of crazy stuff. The other night hes all "I hate sneaking people. People who play dumb but know what they are doing. Makes me want to be sneaky and play dumb too" then he looks at himself in the mirror and says "you're a beast, your a monster they won't see you coming"

All of that feels like I am talking about someone other than the man that for the last couple of days has been the nicest person in the world. And like I said in his worst day he's never actually hurt me. I have been making real plans and lining things up but I feel like the recent him is the real him and I am just being dramatic.

I’m a woman in my 40s, recently out of a marriage to a man who used "Christian nice guy" branding to hide narcissistic and antisocial traits. For a long time, I was just lost in the fog, trying to figure out why everything felt so wrong.

Our house was quiet, but it wasn't peaceful. When I tried to talk or share my pain, he would act like an actor playing a role. He’d put on the "interested" face and say the right words, but it was hollow. There was no actual connection. I spent years exhausted, thinking I just wasn't explaining myself clearly enough. I thought if I could just find the right words, he would finally comprehend me.

I realize now that my marriage was just a long series of experiments. I was constantly trying to see what I could give, change, or soften. I was always looking for what I could do to accommodate, facilitate, or encourage him. It was all a desperate attempt to be whatever he needed so that things would stop feeling so forced and transactional. I even gave up having children because he didn’t want them. I thought if I took every stressor off his plate and became the perfect accommodation, he’d finally connect with me intimately and be real with me. It didn't work. I just lost my chance at a family while he stayed behind his mask.

The hardest part is realizing that he understood me perfectly the whole time. It wasn't a "misunderstanding." He was knowingly and intentionally doing things that made me uncomfortable. He watched me struggle and got a sense of pleasure or power out of me doing things I didn't want to do. He wasn't "missing" my signals; he was using them to control me. By the end he had started being so degrading and dehumanizing. I felt like there was something repulsive about me.

When I finally broke and tried to get real help, the act changed instantly. I was still convinced he just needed help, maybe a wakeup call. I was wrong. He had no interest in trying to fix anything; he pivoted to saving his image. The second I stopped being the quiet wife and started telling the truth, I became a threat. Faster than I can comprehend to this day, he went from "good husband" to "victim of a disloyal wife." If our marriage couldn't appear perfect while he used me as an outlet for his hidden and predatory tendencies then he didn’t want it at all.

I’ve lost years of my life, my financial stability, my chance to be a mom, the trust I had in my own head and faith that I spent years building and nurturing. I followed the rules of being a "good wife," and I was treated like a prop and a target for his own satisfaction.

I’m really looking for people who can relate to:

• A sick feeling when you look back and realize the truth you couldn't understand then—that when you looked into his eyes, there was a horrifying emptiness there.

• Constantly softening yourself or changing your life to accommodate someone, only to realize there was no "right" version of you that would ever make them real.

• Realizing your partner was intentionally causing you discomfort for their own pleasure.

• Realizing you were explaining yourself to someone who was intentionally not listening because they enjoyed the power of keeping you in distress.

If you’ve lived through this, how do you even begin to make sense of the time you lost trying to reach someone who wasn't actually there?

I feel so singled out, so uniquely chosen in a horrible way. Nobody in my real life can understand. I have talked to AI about it alot and gotten some really helpful insights but I just want to know if another human can relate.

I have been paying for a pro subscription for a few months and it has been an absolute life line. I had come to depend on it greatly. Like others, I have been noticing some serious issues. I did what I have been doing lately and asked Perplexity. Here is the transcript:

Perplexity has been acting strange recently. like its resources are diminished

>Based on recent user reports and community discussions, you're experiencing a real issue that several other Perplexity users have noticed [1][2][3]. The performance degradation appears to stem from resource constraints, though Perplexity's official status page shows no current outages [4].
Common Issues Reported
Users have documented several specific problems that align with "diminished resources":
• Faster but shallower responses: Research mode that once took a few minutes now completes almost instantly but provides less depth and fewer citations—sometimes dropping from 150+ sources to nearly zero [1]
• Prompt interruptions and lag: The system cuts off prompts mid-entry, delivers unrelated answers, or takes unusually long to process requests [2]
• Model performance degradation: Users report that models aren't operating at full capacity, with speculation that Perplexity may be using quantized models (Q4 vs fp16) or reducing "thinking budget" to save on API token costs [3]
Likely Causes
The community consensus points to server overload from too many Pro subscriptions [1][3]. Perplexity reportedly distributed numerous free Pro licenses (including through partnerships like Xfinity Rewards), which may have strained infrastructure without proportional resource scaling [1]. Some users theorize the platform is prioritizing enterprise API customers over individual subscribers to manage costs [1].
Troubleshooting Steps
While the root cause appears systemic rather than user-side, you can try:

1. Clear browser cache and cookies [5]
2. Update your Perplexity app if using mobile [2][6]
3. Simplify prompts to reduce processing load [5]
4. Check your internet connection speed [5]
   Given your heavy reliance on Perplexity for work and decision-making, this is frustrating timing. The issues seem most pronounced for complex research tasks rather than simple queries, so you might get better results for straightforward data lookups while the platform works through these capacity challenges.

 
any idea if the company plans on fixing the issue or if this is the new norm

>Based on recent activity, Perplexity appears to be doubling down on new features rather than publicly addressing performance degradation [16][17]. The company has been aggressively shipping updates throughout 2026, including major launches like Perplexity Computer and Comet [18][19], which suggests they're prioritizing product expansion over infrastructure optimization.
What Perplexity Is Actually Doing
Recent changelog updates show they've been:
• Upgrading premium features: Deep Research now runs on Opus 4.5 for Max/Pro users with claimed state-of-the-art benchmark performance [16]
• Adding new capabilities: Model Council (run three models simultaneously), improved memory engine, and browser agent upgrades to Opus 4.6 [16]
• Expanding enterprise tools: Granular access controls, audit logs, and domain restrictions for business customers [16]
Notably absent: any acknowledgment of the resource constraints or performance issues users are reporting [20][21].
The Company's Position
Perplexity appears financially healthy with $500M raised and unicorn status [22], but there's no public communication about fixing the core performance problems you're experiencing. The company's focus seems to be on monetizing enterprise customers and adding premium tiers rather than scaling infrastructure to match their Pro subscription base [16][23].
What This Likely Means
This pattern suggests the degraded performance may be the new norm unless they face significant subscriber backlash. Companies typically don't invest in expensive infrastructure upgrades when they can instead:
• Layer on premium features (Computer, Model Council) to justify higher-tier subscriptions
• Prioritize enterprise clients who pay more [16]
• Quietly manage costs by reducing resource allocation to standard Pro users
Given your workflow depends heavily on Perplexity's reliability, you might want to start identifying backup tools for critical analysis work—especially since there's no indication they plan to restore the previous performance levels for existing subscription tiers.