And The Fish Died Too

"I was heading home from college for three days, and I had asked my girlfriend to take care of my fish, I had an aquarium in my dorm room."

"I knew that we were having some miscommunication, so I wrote a letter to share what I was feeling."

"It was a very nice letter, and I was explaining that she meant a lot to me and that I was willing to do what it takes to keep the relationship working. And thank you for taking care of the fish."

"When I got back to college, when she saw me she said, 'We have to talk.'"

"I thought it was about the letter. She told me her friend asked about her relationship, and at first, she said it was fine, but her friend pressed her and said, 'is it really though?'"

"Then she began to realize it wasn't fine. So she decided to break up with me. I said, 'Did you read the letter?'"

"'What letter?' she said. 'The one I taped to the front of the fish tank.'"

"'Oh, after I decided to break up with you, I didn't think about feeding your fish.'"-Pongfarang

Incredibly Selfish

"Back in 1988, my mom's long term boyfriend went to go buy the Sunday paper and never came home. My mom thought he had been murdered, cops were involved, etc."

"If he was found at the time, my mom never heard of it. She spiraled into depression and ended up in the psych ward at the hospital. She learned later that he had abandoned us and moved to Nebraska to be with his ex wife."

"I found his address once the internet exploded and asked my mom if she wanted to contact him, but she declined. F**k you Jeff."-decanderus

Straight Up Cold

"One girl I was dating gave me a big basket of snacks and puzzle books for a week-long road trip I was taking."

"I tried calling her all week and never got ahold of her, when I got home at 3 am I found that she had left me a break up note the day after I had left, and had started sleeping with a co-worker the day I left."-JustAnoutherGeek

People sometimes just don't have the gall to actually break up with their partners.

Just The Worst Kind Of Person

"I visited my parents one weekend. While I was gone, he changed his relationship status to single and f**ked some other girl in our bed."

"His reasoning? We weren't Facebook official at the time, so it was ok. I came home to her picture on the nightstand instead of mine, so the he had planned the whole thing in advance."-0w1

Revolving Door

"My girlfriend was cheating on me with 2 other guys. She tried asking out a third guy, and me and him happened to be close friends and he knew I was dating her, so he told me about it."

"I texted her saying that you have some explaining to do, and she played dumb, so I finally told her about it and her first response was 'WHO TOLD YOU THAT?!'"

"Yeah. Apparently getting revenged mattered more to the little sh*t than my feelings."

"I told her that it doesn't matter but she said she wouldn't explain if I didn't tell her, so (with my friends consent) I told her that he told me and she instantly started going on this long tirade about how he had ruined everything or some sh*t."

"I blocked her afterwards."-DiggityDog6

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Such A Sad Moment

"This is a 3rd party story. I was a car insurance agent and when people split up and moved addresses they would call us and we'd split the policy."

"Car A with person A at address A and the rest at address B etc. When one person calls in, once the policy is split we call the other party to confirm the address, coverages etc."

"Well one day a woman calls in saying she and her husband are splitting up and she's moved. I separate the policy then call her husband."

"He was puzzled why I was calling and I explained (which is never comfortable) and he started sobbing. He just kept saying 'what do you mean she wants a divorce?! I thought we loved each other?' Etc."

"I felt awful for this guy. According to him this came out of left field and he had no idea she was going to divorce him. So I was used to tell this guy that she wanted a divorce."-CaraAsha

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The Worst Kind Of Human

"First high school boyfriend, everything had been fine, we'd talked on the phone over the weekend. Go to school and strangely don't see him all day until I get to my fifth hour."

"He's standing outside the classroom door with a girl on each arm, calls me a b*tch as I get there, and leaves with the girls. I go in the room in shock to have a classmate say to me they heard P and I broke up. Well yeah I guess so."-Intelligent_One445

And while it's cold, it certainly says a whole lot more about the person being cold than the recipient.

Jetting

"Not me but a friend. He came home from work to find his apartment empty except for his clothes in a pile in the bedroom and a pile of unpaid bills on the kitchen counter."

"Turns out she had been planning it for a few months stopped paying all the bills (including rent) saved the money and then just took off. Not even a f**k you letter. Just gone!"-TheTrollys

Always A Sidepiece, Never A Bride

"Heard from her sister and a friend of hers that she had slept with her 'ex' the previous weekend. We were all due to meet up for drinks on this particular night as I was struck down with an illness the weekend before."

"My heart sank when I heard the news and honestly it was quite embarrassing."

"She texted me a few days later explaining that she wasn't back with him and in had a lot going on etc. Eventually it came out that she never really broke up with him at all and I was just her bit on the side at the weekends."-Isfeidirlinn90

We Love Being Gaslit And Blindsided

"I had been going through a really tough time, my mom was fighting breast cancer, my boss was incredibly toxic and I started to feel like I was just going through motions but wasn't really there."

"My therapist finally convinced me to take a stress leave and get back on track, so I discussed it with my boyfriend and he said he would support me in my decision."

"Well, on the last Friday of work right as my stress leave was starting I got home and was actually excited to get back on track I got in the door and my bf said 'don't smoke weed!'" and I thought, 'nice a surprise date night!'... I was super wrong."

"He sat me down and broke up with me. We dated for 3.5 years and lived together and his main concern was who was going to keep the cat, he came armed with the fact that it was his house so it was better if he kept her."

"I bought the cat and loved her so much, but in that moment I felt defeated as hell so I agreed. I had been telling my mom just a week before that our relationship was going really well and I felt like he was going to propose so I was completely blindsided."

"I essentially lost my job, my house, my relationship and my cat in the same day. And went into an even more insane depression and he kept throwing more gas on that fire months after."

"I am very good now, my mom kicked cancer, I have a new job, a new boyfriend, and a new cat (though I still think about my old cat a lot, I know she is well.. but I still miss her). That sh*t was bleak AF though."-blondeboomie

In the Navy

"Navy here. She told me the morning I was leaving for a 10 week deployment that she had been cheating on me since the day we met (3.5 years). Literally as I got to the door, running late, and couldn't stay, talk, respond, deal with it, etc. That was... a rough trip..." - factanonverba_n

"too busy"

"He just stopped calling and all of a sudden became "too busy" to answer texts. He denied vehemently that anything was the matter or that he wanted to stop dating when I'd finally get ahold of him. I finally just had to accept that no answer was an answer. We had been friends for nearly 15 years at that point and had been dating for 6 months. We don't talk at all anymore." - palekaleidoscope

How Long Ago?

"I asked her why she was ignoring my texts and acting cold when we got together and she told me that we broke up 6 months earlier but she never told me. Like, I get it. Breakups don't have to be mutual but you should at least tell the other person."

"EDIT: For extra context, We hung out (as friends, apparently) about maybe a dozen times during that six months so she wasn't avoiding or was afraid of me. I don't fault her for breaking up with me as I was pretty toxic at that point in my life. My issue was how she just preferred to just keep quiet and hope I figured it out on my own." -BW_Bird

In the Gut

"Had a gut feeling something was going on. He was texting less and less. I'd been asking him why he seems to be hanging out with me/talking to me less and less. He said it was all in my head. Finally, made an account and found his pic on Bumble. Texted him a screenshot and he said "we had fun didn't we?" Well." - the_originalbookworm

"be happy"

"My ex was taking a while to respond for a few days. I asked if he was cheating, he said he'd never do that to me and was so upset I would even ask. 2 days later he FaceTimed me while I was at work to tell me he cheated on me and was leaving me to "be happy" with this other person." - demetersmuse

For the Puppy

"Dated a girl for a few months, we had dated in high school some too. Was really into her and we got to talking about things like thoughts on marriage and kids (light-hearted, nothing heavy or awkward). She led the convo on those topics. One day she ghosted me out of the blue."

"Went from good-night texts every night, hanging out almost daily, to nothing. 2 weeks later I see her wedding pics on FB and her husband bought her a puppy. I was the side piece for their entire engagement and I had no idea LMFAO. It only hurt a little." - Madman_Jordo

Teddy

"This was forty years ago -"

"She was home on leave from Air Force "A" school for Christmas, and one of her gifts was a "Teddy" silk slip from me. She held it up against her and said - "Too bad you'll never see me in it." - Adams1973

How... Wicked!

"I was making dinner for the both of us when he came over and broke up with me. I had no idea that it was coming, as we'd made plans to celebrate Valentine's Day that Friday. I'd also just bought us tickets to go see 'Wicked' the following month. He didn't really have a reason, just that he didn't feel that spark. Whatever. I ended up seeing 'Wicked' with my mom and we had a great time." - morgwinsome

Refunds

"Fiancé texted me it was over and told me she was going to sell the diamond ring I got her to "defray the cost of wedding deposits." Two weeks later, asked if I could drop off a cookie sheet left at my place." - Impressive_Giraffe48

"She was legally required to return the engagement ring to you if she broke it off (in most countries, at least). It's a conditional gift. Of course, in the moment, I can imagine not realising/caring about that." - bfcdf3e

"My ex reached out to a columnist, not the news kind but the "people," stories telling kind. He was doing a series of pieces on sad stories. She told him about how she misses her ex, the guy that was the man of her life, etc. Reading that when it came out was a real punch to the gut. We broke up pretty much the next day." - HeelyTheGreat

It seems like sometimes people really just lack the courage to express how they're really feeling as it moves from moment to moment.

They end up blindsiding the people that thought they cared for them the most, leaving them by the wayside. Is it better to just express your feelings from the get-go? Or would you rather just let it all out at once?