Even the most civil of breakups usually leave both parties in a bit of emotional pain, parting ways with someone you were physically and emotionally intimate with involves serious adjustment and a brief (or extended) period of emotional withdrawal.
Some breakups, however, are so cringe inducing and insensitive that they almost speed up the healing process. When your ex shows just how much of a tool they are through a painful breakup initiation, it deeply sucks, but it also saves you months and years of surviving their nonsense through rose-colored glasses.
In a recent Reddit thread, people share the worst ways they've been dumped and these anecdotes will truly make your ex seem like an angel sent from above.
1. idlewildgirl's ex literally ran away.
"He literally ran away. We got back from a gig and I went to put some ice cream in the freezer only to hear footsteps and the door slamming. Ran out and he was legging it down the road."
2. cyrus_hunter's ex borrowed money and bounced.
"We'd been together for 3 years. She borrowed several hundred dollars from me a week before (knowing the whole time that she was going to do this). When she broke up with me, all she did was tell me that she didn't love me any more. No discussion, no explanation, nothing. She then kept the break-up secret, moved to another city, mooched off of my friends, trashed their apartment, and nearly killed their dog."
3. wormbreath's ex literally did it through a Facebook status.
"Changed their fb status to in a relationship with someone else."
4. Tzaddik_1726's ex ended it after sex.
"She told me she didn't want to be married anymore while we were gasping and recovering from sex."
5. b4rn5ey's ex spun a web of lies.
"Was with her for just shy of 2 years. Holidays, Festivals, discussions of marriage the lot.
Claimed she lived at home with her Mum, who had terminal cancer, and as a result her mum didn't want to bring anyone new into her life as the pain of knowing she would soon leave them was too much. Therefore we spent all our time at mine and I never met her family or mum."
"Recieved a message from a guy one night asking how I knew her, I explained, turns out her Mum was fine, and she had been engaged to this guy and living with him the entire time...they were due to get married in a fortnight."
"Still blows my mind that she managed to play us both so well the entire time. (So technically, I guess he kind of ended it by revealing the truth lol : I just wished him the best of luck and cut all ties immediately, didn't give her the satisfaction of letting her know she had hurt me)"
6. AkariAkaza's ex was cheating with his best friend.
"Traveled 5 hours by train to see me only to get my house, say she doesn't love me and that she wants to break up."
"She leaves, I cry for about 15 minutes then call my best friend and ask if he can come over with some beers so I'm not home alone all weekend. I hear her in the background asking him something."
"Yup, she traveled 5 hours to break up with me so she could fuck my best friend without feeling guilty about it ( I no longer talk to him)"
7. LumpySpaceDingus's first boyfriend was cold blooded.
"I was 17. He was my first everything, pretty much. 8 months into the relationship, lying naked in my bed, he says, "I don't love you. I never did. I just wanted to have fun." I'm almost 30, and I'm over it, but I still wonder what the fuck made him do that."
8. yrugay1's ex was a gaslighter.
"By not telling me at all. We had been together for 3-4 weeks and one day I was just coming home from work and I saw her walking with another dude. I confronted her in front of him and the conversation went something like this :"
"Me : "Hey (her name), who's this?"
Her : "Oh, hey, this is (his name), my boyfriend."
"Me : "Uhmm haven't we been in a relationship for like a month now?"
Her : "Ugh I guess, but we clearly broke up yesterday evening."
Me : *visible confusion"
"We didn't break up that evening, we just had a minor squabble about how we should spend more time together (I was working 12s that week), we even kissed when I was leaving her place and she told me "I love you".
I was so astounded I couldn't even be mad. Forgot about her in a few weeks and moved on with my life."
9. stellarbeing got friendzoned by their wife.
"NYE: Took my then-wife of 13 years to get couples massage, then a fancy dinner. Paid good money to get into a club she wanted to go to. I go get us drinks and when I return, she whispers in my ear “Let’s just be friends”
"TLDR: got friendzoned after two kids and over a decade of marriage
Tbh, I like being not married to her better so no biggie now"
10. zazzlekdazzle's ex forced her to do the deed.
"By making me do the break-up for him.
He slowly withdrew emotionally, and started to become increasingly irritable and inconsiderate. If I brought up any of these issues he would act insulted, at how I could think that of him, or say/imply maybe it was my fault for not being considerate enough of him and what he was going through."
"It was so slow and incremental, it took me a long time to figure out we weren't going through a "rough patch." Or he wasn't having a hard time that I needed to support him through."
"With my last remaining crumb of energy and self-esteem, I did what he wanted all along and did the breaking up for him, I broke my own heart. He screamed and insulted me, stole a bunch of my stuff, and later I found out he gave me the kind of HPV that gives you cancer (which I did get, but was treated)."
11. shinyhappycat survived a nightmare break up.
"She cheated on me with 5 different women in 10 days. Whilst I was in hospital. Having brain surgery. She dumped me two days after I came out of hospital, whilst at her parents' house, on Christmas Day."
12. whatevs1990 got dumped over the phone.
"Dated a guy for one month short of 3 years. Everyone, including me, thought we’d be a forever couple. He talked about engagement and marriage within the first 8 months - right up to A WEEK before it all ended. We were laying in bed, and he told me “I can’t wait to be engaged by this time next year”. Fast forward a week. Everything was normal, we went on a nice date night, he spent a couple nights at my house, and went home. Everything seemed fine."
"We texted like we always did for a few days, until he said he needed to discuss something. Long story short, he texted that he needed a break. I said I understood, and would respect that. A week later he calls me, and says “You aren’t going to like what I have to say.” I asked if he was breaking up with me and he said yes. Dated for almost 3 years, and you break up over the phone? I asked if there was a reason. “I haven’t loved you for the past 6 months”."
13. Lead5alad's ex had her friend do the deed.
"I took my girlfriend of one week to homecoming freshman year, and right after we got there she walked away and had her friend come and say she wanted to break up. I had a separated shoulder from football, and I remember chilling there in my sling feeling bummed as hell."
"Later that night, she came over and asked me to slow dance and I told her to f off"
14. greyz3n's ex legitimately hit them with a car.
"She hit me with a car."
"So the longer story, which isn't nearly as interesting as you'd think, is that we were together for a few years. We had moved in with one another, I had bought her the car... and we both made a bunch of small shitty decisions that ultimate lead to her being unfaithful. So I was unfaithful... It was kind of a Romeo & Juliette thing to be honest, in that she thought I had cheated, I hadn't, so she was unfaithful as revenge... so since she cheated - I cheated."
"The car thing really finalized the whole, "We shouldn't be together anymore"."
15. awhq's break up lead to a new, better relationship.
"High school. I'm dating a guy who is out of high school.
I worked at a Dairy Queen. A girl from my school comes through the drive-through. As I'm handing her her order, I see that the very distinct ring I gave my boyfriend is on her finger."
"I have to admit, it took me a minute because I was confused about how she could have this ring. I finally snapped to and asked her "Did Bob give you that ring?"
She said yes and how did I know? "Because I gave it to him. He's my boyfriend."
She immediately took it off, gave it to me and left."
"A few minutes later my "boyfriend" comes flying in the door and starts yelling at me for "getting him in trouble". Yeah, I know how to pick 'em.
As he continues to yell at me, I'm just staring at him with all the anger that's in me."
"A friend of his (Mike) happened to be sitting in the dining room and Mike comes up the counter and whispers something to Bob. They both go outside.
Bob comes back in and sheepishly says "Mike said if I didn't apologize to you he'd beat my ass."
"I have to admit having Bob's friend , Mike, who I barely knew, stand up for me was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
And yes, Mike and I started dating. He was a really nice guy."
16. Qwert_yu's ex pulled an emotional bait and switch.
"I've posted this before but here it is...
"I never loved you, I don't love you and I never will. You're not worth 10 seconds of my time."
"This was after a year of telling me I was #1, that he loved me and would always love me, that I was the one person he wanted to talk to every single day. He had never felt this way about anyone before, he'd take a bullet for me, his heart would beat so fast and hands would sweat when he was with me because he was nervous, he promised forever, etc. He swore on his mother's life, he swore to God, etc.....then we had sex, he gave me genital herpes and ghosted me. He was 2nd partner I've ever had and I used condoms with first."
"Anyway, when I cried and begged for an explanation, that was the response. I spent the next year literally crying every single day, multiple times a day."
17. mach_oddity's ex really did the most.
"Fucked someone else while I was deployed to Iraq. Brought him with her to our first date when I got back and introduced him as a "friend" and then ghosted me."
18. truisluv's ex was an emotional AND resource vampire.
"Waited til I was at work and him and my.coworker who had met the night before when I introduced them decided they were in love. They went in my apartment and stole some of my stuff. She stole my clothes and they moved into a tent together. He then got her pregnant. One day he had his friend call me and ask if he could come back. She was now on drugs and not taking care of their baby. He wanted me to take him and the baby back. I said you ever call me again I will call your girlfriend and tell her. Never heard from him again."
19. realish had the worst birthday ever.
"His mom made a birthday meal for me. The night before the meal, he verified what kind of cake and frosting I wanted. The day of, he was being dodgy over text about not wanting to go his parents' to eat. Since I knew they made a special dish just for me, I showed up on the time we had agreed to beforehand."
"Five minutes after I arrived, he showed up in a state of distress. He accepted a phone call from his ex-fiance and left me with his parents for ten minutes while talking to her in a different room. When he got off the phone call, he came over to me, looked me in the eyes and told me, "this is a nightmare."
"I got up and thanked his parents for preparing the meal (that hadn't yet been served) and asked him to come outside with me. He dumped me on the driveway of his parents' house at my own birthday celebration."
20. Xandango68's ex made them a voyeur.
"By having sex with my best friend literally right in front of me.
I guess I didn't really need him to tell me after that"
"We were all hanging out together at the friend's house, my boyfriend keeps trying to get it on with me despite me politely declining like 100 times bc I'm not feeling that great, plus we're at the friend's house and that would be weird / rude. My friend even starts joking about how mean I am, telling me I should keep my boyfriend satisfied and making me feel guilty."
"Well as the night goes on we're all under a blanket on the sofa watching a movie together, when I start hearing my friend quietly moaning. I try to ignore it, in denial I guess, but when the moaning gets louder I look over and yep, there they are mid-fuck right next to me."
"The best part is that the boyfriend was my ride home, so I just fucking sat there waiting for them to finish, waiting for him to decide to leave and then drive me home in complete silence."
"The next time we saw each other, a few days later, he acted as if nothing had happened. He tried to kiss me and put his arm around me. All I could offer was a sad laugh and a final "no.""