Typically before a big break up people already have a feeling that a storm is brewing. There is that spark of a moment when it hits “this is over, isn't it." For some it's a small thing like thinking about what they won't do with a spare room if their partner moved out, others it's when this lover was caught in the act with another.
For me, it was when we at down to a family dinner only to have our car surprisingly repossessed while sitting at the table. I found out the ex had spent hundreds on a multiplayer online game instead of making payments on the family vehicle. Right then was the realization that we had vastly different priorities and the days together would be numbered. Sometimes sharing these experiences can help others not feel so alone.
Redditor abul201 wanted to start the conversation about these moments. They asked:
"What was the exact moment you realized your relationship was doomed?"
From the minor to the heartbreaking, Redditors from all over shared the moments when they knew deep down it was over.
Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater...
“Using my ex's computer and saw a folder on his desktop with a random name. It was weird so I clicked on it and he had HUNDREDS of photos and screen caps of sexts, ads he put looking for women, emails, etc. It was insane. Some of the chats ended literally moments before I opened the front door.”
“Some of the chats were just complaining about me. Some were more romantic. A lot were purely sexual. I have no idea why he screenshotted them all. I have never felt that level of betrayal in such a short moment; it felt like I'd explode. So yeah, we weren't working things out after that lol.”
Parenting says a lot about a person...
“Almost 3 years ago now, my ex and I had plans for a couple weeks to take his 2 toddlers to Chuckie Cheese when I got off that day. He decided to go to CC by himself that morning to 'get out of the house.' He was screaming and cussing at them for not behaving while there and while having lunch at my work, and turned around while driving to spank one of them for something small, and I LOST IT."
“I let him know what I thought of his parenting, how I had raised his kids for two years and I was hurt he excluded me from family time, I let him absolutely have it about everything. 2 weeks later I was living with family instead of him. Thank God I got out. I'm currently laying in bed with the love of my life and our two dogs.“
This Redditor continued adding a more lighthearted break up moment...
“Also adding my funniest one because we aren't all perfect: I broke up with my last ex bc she ate my dessert and refused to accept it was rude. (After 6+ months of not being happy together, I'll add.)”
Hungry Bill Murray GIF by Groundhog Day
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“"When she stopped saying 'I love you’...”
“When she stopped saying ‘I love you’ at the end of our phone calls. I know it sounds minor, but that was when I knew. I don't think she even realized that I noticed.”
“Internally I was like brush...”
“I had this conversation with the last guy I dated. Apparently I knew things he told me which not even his friends knew and all. But I realised he doesn't ever initiate or let the conversation go that way where I can talk to him about my past relationships and all, I don't share much about family stuff initially.”
“He said he doesn't want to lose the spark and all excitement by knowing everything in one go. Internally I was like bruh, I have many stories atleast let me feel like you're interested. It was such a blegh answer. I said cool.”
“Maybe he didn't wanted me to get attached because he was going to change cities soon, but I already knew that. His way of handling it just made me realise, that I'm waiting for him to change cities soon, and if he was not , I'll end it anyway.”
What did he expect?
“When he showed up after disappearing for 5 days (after he'd picked a fight the same day he returned from a TDY and left saying he ‘was done’) and his first words were ‘I’m recording this and I'm just here to get some of my stuff’.
And then he had the audacity to be pissed and upset when I filed for divorce and moved out a week later because he ‘never said he wanted a divorce’.”
Sometimes things just run their course.
“We didn't have a crazy blowout breakup, it was a long slow death of relationship. We were laying in bed about a month before we officially split and she was expressing the possibility of leaving.”
“My first thought was ‘I could do so much cool sh*t with the office/spare bedroom once she's gone’ instead of trying to communicate or work through it in a constructive way. We had a good relationship, it had just ran it's course. But I suppose that's the exact moment I knew it was really over.”
Malaligned priorities...
“When she spent the mortgage payment on Facebook games.”
Video Games Gamer GIF
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Didn't want to deal with the consequences...
“When 3 days after admitting that she cheated and had sex with her previous boss, after 9 months of denying my suspicions and projecting on me, she said 'are you going to get over it already, or just hold this over my head forever?'"
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
So much infidelity...
“When I went to use the iPad we shared and realized he hadn't logged out of his email. He worked out of town a lot, I found out he had an Ashley Madison account and had many posts on Craigslist 'in town for one night only, looking for sex'. Felt like I got stabbed in the heart right then."
“I never saw her for days on end.”
“When she started going out to friends' houses more and more. It wasn't that I was against her seeing her friends, but I mean it was to a point where I never saw her for days on end.”
“When she DID come back? She didn't want any sort of affection. Or touch. Or anything. I knew it was over, but my heart ruled my head and I tried to ignore it in the interest of saving it, but I knew.”
“Found out a day later she was cheating while she was ‘out with friends’. And that she had fallen for the guy she was cheating on me with.” We1tfunk
Off with his head!
“When I was in the hospital after a c-section and told him I just wanted a burrito for lunch and he said he wasn't going for Mexican, he was going to Panera. Then showed up and ate his Panera in front of me, didn't get me anything because 'you never told me what you wanted'." itsgravynotsauce
“it was past time...”
“When she kept saying in arguments, ‘What if I break up with you tomorrow?’ To be fair, she probably should have long before that.”
“When I pointed out to her that she was sounding like a broken record with that line, she admitted that she had been too passive-aggressive lately, and came out and said, ‘I've been unhappy for a long time.’ We both knew, then and there, it was past time for us both to walk away from that mess of a relationship.” tifftafflarry
Young love...
“After she moved over a thousand km north I flew up to see her during holidays. When I got there I already saw how much she had fallen out of love with me (which I know is normal, to a degree). I spent two weeks up there trying to stop it from going where it was going.”
“I flew home and we ended it on non hostile terms a few days later. Sucks to have a relationship end like that, especially my first and one that lasted over a year. All less than a month ago.” Lagoon2812
How many?
“I walked in on my ex gf in bed with her co worker. Also found she had been messaging 3 other guys and was f**king them too. That was 7 years ago, I still have trust issues. I've been ghosted 4 times in the last 6 months.”
“Last one really hurt, we were doing great and she vanished. Dating sucks. Keep it up, we will find our soul mates eventually!” Shut-the-fuck-up
*Gag*
“One day I came home from work and he was asleep naked in my bed. I always made my bed with lovely fresh white cotton bedding. He was 'straddling' the edge of the duvet... the edge of the duvet was between his arse cheeks. Also he didn't shower every day.”
“Also if I didn't wash his clothes, no-one did. The duvet incident must have been the straw to break the camels back, it repulsed me to the point where any attraction I had for him drained away in seconds. I shortly after met my husband who I have been with 8 years, who is deliciously hygienic and smells amazing.” TheOutlawJosieWhale
They needed to stay out of Google...
“When they would come to me every day and tell me they think they have a new mental disorder. They would self-diagnose almost every day and then refuse to see a therapist or doctor, and would instead come to me and ask for me to help, when I have absolutely no idea how to deal with that kind of stuff, and then get pissed off when I didn't know what to do.” Anonymous26576
She didn't care...
“When I realized she never asked me how my day was when I'd ask about hers. Never asked about my hopes and dreams, about how my weekend was, or how I was doing in general. She didn't give a sh*t about me.” ipromiseimcool
“This is one of those ‘hindsight is 20/20’ things, but. My ex fiancé got into a verbal altercation with someone at a screening of Batman. I guess she stole someone's seat and didn't tell me?”
“Just led me over to the seats. So I went to get popcorn and she stayed at the seats. Well, the person whose seat it originally was came back, and was (understandably) upset that she was sitting there. Instead of moving like a normal person, my ex proceeded to get in a yelling match with the guy.”
“I came back with popcorn & saw this happening, and tried to get her to move... no dice. An usher got involved. We ended up getting her to move seats but she proceeded to rant about ‘that jerk at the movies’ for a while after.... even tho she was, in fact, the jerk that day....”
“That was very early on in what turned out to be an abusive relationship that I should have run screaming from. But hey, hindsight and all that. Now I'm in a healthy relationship with someone who would never do that. Lol so it worked out.“ CubanaCat
“When he called me crying asking if I was dating him for his (family) money. We were in college. I worked, he did not. I paid for over 50% of what we did socially. I paid for his Xmas gift out of my own pocket, he had to ask his parents permission to charge mine to a credit card.”
“I was in an awesome program with great job potential, he was not. His mom hated me for ridiculous things, his father liked me though. The funny thing, his parents were well off, but not ridiculously rich. I started laughing when he said that. It was over by the end of the call.” whichtoo
Some of these moments were glaring realizations like catching infidelity while others were more gradual and subtle. One thing is for sure, relationships take work and if the work outweighs the happiness then it might be time to reassess.
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Love is crazy. I've finally come to that conclusion. And marriage, you take your life in your hands and just throw caution to the wind in hopes of survival with that step.
When love falls apart, things can get real messy, real fast. And I've always been stunned by people's behavior when love subsides.
More often than not, it's like they become different people. Sometimes people are beset by tragedy and grief and sometimes people smile wide and move on. It's a coin toss.
But my favorite post divorce personality has to be the sudden super villain. Oh honey watch out for them!
Redditor u/hyperyog wanted to hear all the tea from the divorcees out there by asking:
Divorced Redditors, what is the craziest thing you or your former spouse did after divorce?
I once had a friend who burned her ex's house down when he wasn't home. He had started seeing someone almost immediately, so she thought, lemme set their sparks. Yeah, she wasn't well. Whatever happened to just a quick goodbye?
Swiped
dean winters crying GIF by MayhemGiphy"She removed the retaining clips for my windshield wipers, but put the wipers back on the arms. First storm after I got my car back from her, driver side wiper flew off the car on Interstate 40. Good times."
Sicko!
"He wrote suicide notes and put them in my kids backpacks for them/me to find. Then he turned off his phone and went to a coworkers house to play crib and have drinks.. all the while knowing I would be freaking out searching for him thinking he was in danger or worse. Thankfully my kids didn't see the notes and didn't know what was going on. This was just one of the many, many crazy things he did. Two years out and he just recently stopped showing up at my work and driving by my house at night."
A Sad End
"Died of a drug overdose. To be fair, her drug addiction was the reason for the divorce, so maybe that isn't too crazy."
"That's so incredibly difficult to have gone through. I unfortunately know the depths of this kind of pain, and while I'm sure the circumstances surrounding it are different, the loss that still happened is a tragedy. My condolences."
Bye Girl
"Stalked me for 5 years. Would make fake social media profiles to try to follow me (which I would block endlessly) and would try to find where I worked so she could talk to me. This lady cheated on me with 7 different men 2 months after we were married. I kicked her a** to the curb and made her sign the court papers."
"When we had our day in court she cried in the judges office while I just wanted to get this crap done. After, my dad was with me and he threw 50 dollars at her and told her to "change your freaking last name." Good guy Pops. I haven't seen or heard from her in about 5 years, thank goodness."
- Letharos
Take it All!
skin care spinning GIF by Primal Life OrganicsGiphy"I had an ex-boyfriend go through my apartment and take back every gift he had given me that he could find. Then he went in my bedside table and took the condoms. And the vibrator he had given me."
See now, when I'm out... I'm out! I don't want to see you, hear from you or know you. I wish you well in life, but please live it far from me. Anyone agree? Clearly not the people here. Let's continue...
For the Boy
bicycling father and son GIF by NETFLIXGiphy"All I wanted was custody of my son, I gave her everything else except one of our cars. She fought me through 5 hearings, I won. She never came to see him again."
Dangerous Woman
"My ex cheated on me the week my mom died in the hospital. She spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with me. She would call my old work and make fake accounts trying to message me on FB. It was insane. She later sends a certified letter explaining she was sorry that she did what she did and that she aborted our child."
"Wanted me to meet her somewhere so she could apologize face to face. She already married some other guy that she had children with and was still trying to get in touch with me. I never understood her."
- orstius
Be Gone
"After years of telling me she wanted a child, that she wanted to be a mom, that her life's dream was to be a stay at home mom, she got pregnant with the first guy she slept with while we were getting divorced and put the kid up for adoption even before it was born. This was a long-standing thing with her, she always wanted something (car, house, dog, cat, marriage, etc) and the second she got it she immediately hated it."
The "Actor"!
"Called me and pretended he had been hit by a car while we were talking. He even tried to voice the crowd that had gathered around his "body." God-awful acting, but pretty funny listening to him try to mimic a woman's voice. Points for trying to be inclusive, I guess."
"I think he was trying to get me to re-live my trauma of being on the phone with a friend who actually HAD been hit by a car while we were talking. Too bad he didn't realize that hearing the real thing is worlds different than hearing a dumba** try to act it out."
Money Blues
"I was sending 600 dollars a month to support my daughter because she's the only thing I give a sh!t about. My ex texts me and tells me I need to be sending 1200 a month because she's broke and can't pay her bills and I should feel guilty about it. She left me for another guy while I was on deployment I told her to go screw herself--call my lawyer."
Pop Off
Tom Hanks Drinking GIF by The Good FilmsGiphy"Took the sodas from the fridge as he walked out the door. Dumfounded."
See, I blame Alanis Morissette and her "Jagged Little Pill" album. All I'm going to say is... the secret song. I think she gave people ideas. (I love that song) Y'all, seek therapy if you can't shake people. When it's done, let it be done.
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