We all know the lazy breakup line — it’s not you, it’s me. Well, a 34-year-old woman told her boyfriend of ten years that if that’s truly the case, then he should pay her for wasting her time, or at least pay for her IVF.
Unless you’re Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, breakups are usually irreversible. Worse still, they’re often acrimonious too. For this unnamed woman, things got so complicated that she wrote to a publication asking for advice. She began by saying, “He tells me he feels, at 38, as though he still has a decade of enjoying his lifestyle and powering through with his career and is not ready for marriage and children, but he knows it has become a priority for me — so he is off.”
According to the New York Post, the woman initially wrote in to express her financial anxieties about the relationship ending and how she would have to upend her entire life to adapt. The man had never formally proposed but had convinced her that, should they ever have kids, he would be the primary earner. So she slowed down and made compromises in her own career to accommodate his ambitions.
Money issues are bad enough, but weddings have been known to break even siblings apart if they’re not planned in a way that accommodates everyone who matters. So the woman — partly driven by vindictiveness and partly by a sense of fairness — decided she would make sure she was taken care of, even after the relationship ended. She defiantly wrote that he owes her her “childbearing years.”
However, the advice that came from the column wasn’t particularly encouraging. She was told, “It is important to shift your mindset from seeking compensation from him to investing in your own resilience. IVF and egg freezing are expensive, and it is natural to feel he should contribute since your shared life choices affected your timing. But if he is unwilling, the legal system will not force him.”
Things would have been different if they were actually married. Unfortunately, the man figured out a way to “outwit” her when he convinced her he would take care of her without ever making a formal commitment. Relationships, regardless of type, always carry the risk of heartbreak — there’s no way around that. But there is a way to avoid situations like this: make sure you’re on the same page about everything, even the exit plan.
Online, people were not kind to the woman. One commenter on X wrote, “Women are either adults with agency or they’re not. There’s no middle ground.” Another added that choices have consequences and that the man owes her nothing. One user even advised that people should always leave a relationship after two years if it’s going “nowhere.” A little strict, but maybe it would have saved this woman.
Women are either adults with agency or they're not. There's no middle ground.
— Lumpkin (@Lumpkin1212) November 7, 2025
Accountability matters… YOU make your own choices, and those choices have consequences.
— Micheal Wylie
You chose that person, so no one owes you anything for decisions you freely made.(@DadModeGG) November 8, 2025
Anybody heard of the 2-year rule? If the relationship's not going somewhere within 2 years then it's up to you to ditch. Most things have an expiration date…
— MicrobialBalloon (@moosiepoops) November 8, 2025
Well, in the eyes of the law, that’s the truth. A promise and a commitment, while closely related, are not the same thing. You can count on the latter. The former, as the woman learned the hard way, is always subject to a change of mind. Or rather, a change of heart.
