People Are Sharing The Final Straws That Ended Their Relationships, And It's Absolutely Gut-Wrenching
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share with us the final straw that made them walk away from a relationship. Here were their emotional responses:
Warning: Some submissions contain mentions of domestic violence, sexual assault, depression, body-shaming, and animal abuse.
1."He hit my dog and shoved her off the couch when she jumped up. We were long distance, and when he was visiting, he was annoyed I let my dog (less than 25 pounds) on my couch. I love my dog and love hanging out with her. One day, he sat down and she jumped up to say hi. He smacked her butt and shoved her off. I LOST it and threw him out. Good riddance. My dog is still happy and thriving, and has free rein of the furniture."
2."He didn’t know the color of my eyes. We’d been together for nearly two years, and he didn’t know my eye color. And then he didn’t understand why I was upset. He wound up going on a trip for a week, and I was just so relieved to be alone during that time. I broke up with him as soon as he got back. I wound up meeting my future husband two weeks later, though. Our ninth wedding anniversary is tomorrow."
3."I once dated a guy who was so annoyed that I had guy friends that one day, he stole my phone when I went to the bathroom. He sent himself their phone numbers and then proceeded to call them and threaten them if they ever talked to me again. 'She is my girlfriend! Not yours,' type of vibe."
—Anonymous
4."We’d been fizzling out for a while, but the final straw was when I was rushed to the hospital via ambulance and was told I had a spinal cord injury that threatened to paralyze me. I was told I’d need emergency spinal surgery that night to stand any chance of walking again. As the paramedics were strapping me onto a bed to take me to hospital, I heard my then-boyfriend call his boss to tell them what had happened and that he wouldn’t be in work the next morning because he needed to be with me. I was instantly comforted, as I have a chronic illness and had been in the hospital a few times and he’d never once visited me. I thought that he finally saw that I needed him there and that he would come with me. I was wrong."
"He used my emergency as an excuse to take the week off from work. During that time, he trashed my flat (we didn’t live together) and had several nights out with friends. When I confronted him about it (post-surgery), he twisted it back around to make me feel like I was in the wrong for spoiling his fun. Whilst the relationship limped on for a few more months, I lost any feelings I had for him after that."
5."My husband of 14 years was unhappy with the 20-ish pounds I had put on during the past two years. We had several arguments about diet and exercise over the course of our marriage. One day, he sent me a text message while I was preparing for a very important performance review (that he knew about) and said, 'If you agree to let me put you on a diet plan and workout routine, I will take you out on one date a month and have sex whenever you want.' After staring at the message and feeling utterly dead inside for what seemed like an eternity, I started working on my review again while mentally preparing for a divorce."
—Anonymous
6."I got a call from my doctor's office that I was positive for an STD. Instead of owning up to cheating on me, he said that I probably got it from using a public toilet seat. I should've ended it right then, but I stuck around for another week before finding out that he and my 'best friend' were sleeping together. I found this out only because she was pregnant with his kid. A three-year relationship down the drain, but I was finally able to say 'Peace out!' and never look back. It sounds strange, but him cheating on me was one of the best things that ever happened to me."
—Anonymous
7."I dated a guy (let's call him Bob) my senior year of college mostly in secret because my friends had negative opinions of him. We were still seeing each other by the time my senior project and presentation rolled around, so Bob planned to attend. I was putting on a one-act French play and presenting my research afterward in an effort to streamline a theatre and French double major. After both, the only person's opinion I wanted was Bob's, so I went up to him in the lobby after everyone else had left, and all he could talk about were the things he didn't understand and hated. The performance and presentation were on a Friday evening. I went the entire following weekend thinking I'd put on a horrible show because I didn't see anyone else who had seen my play, just good ol' Bob with nothing nice to say."
"The people I ran into on the following Monday couldn't stop telling me how WONDERFUL the show was — completely the opposite of what Bob had said. Even worse, a lot of people asked why the hell Bob was there at all because of how horribly he behaved throughout the entire show. Apparently, he distracted some audience members during the performance. When I confronted Bob later that day, he admitted he had been day-drinking before coming to see my presentation and was absolutely shit-faced for it. I've never been one to make decisions on the spot, but I wanted to break things off with him in that moment. After I slept on it, I ended things with him the next morning. In what world is it acceptable to go to your significant other's important event drunk off your ass?"
—Anonymous
8."He didn’t text me. We had been together for five years and had completely opposite schedules. I worked during the day, and he worked evenings, but even if his job ended between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., he’d stay out drinking with his friends until as late as 6:00 a.m., even though he knew I had to be up at 7:00 a.m. for work. He would barely talk to me all day long while I was at work, even though I knew he was texting his friends and I could see him all over social media all day. While he was at work, he wouldn’t text me because he was busy. One day, I was at work and saw he had been posting but hadn’t even sent me a simple good morning text or anything. I realized I didn't want to be with someone who was hardly around and acted like talking to me was a chore he hated to do. So I texted him it was over and moved out within the next two weeks. I still love him, but realized I love myself more."
9."My boyfriend's mother said she and her son were soulmates. That was it for me."
—Anonymous
10."The final straw for us was my ex graduating from college. He acted superior to me from that point on and began to talk down to me. He just kept thinking he was better than me, even after I had started going back to school. His daddy paid for his 4-year degree, but he had the nerve to say I would never amount to anything, even though I was paying for my education myself. Messy breakup and messy move-out, but good riddance."
11."After going to therapy for months to deal with him having an emotional affair, my boyfriend and I decided to spend the night out at a local hotel to celebrate getting our relationship back on track. After being intimate, he fell asleep, and his phone kept buzzing. I picked up the phone and found a conversation between him and a female friend that was overly familiar. I left the hotel, went home, and never looked back. I did find out he had been cheating with that friend for months."
—Anonymous
12."We were on a train and had about an hour and a half until we got to our destination. I had about two chapters left in my book. They weren't very long, and I was really enjoying it, so I went to get it from my bag, asking absent-mindedly if he minded. It honestly didn't occur to me that he would make a fuss, but boy, DID he make a fuss! He thought I was joking, laughed, and got offended in a strange, bemused way. I had known it wasn't a great relationship before, but the fact that he thought he deserved my undivided attention on one journey, the fact that he was so dramatic, and the fact that I inadvertently asked him permission terrified me. It made me open my eyes and get out. The people you can quietly read books with, or just be silent around, are the people you should be with."
13."The moment I found out I was pregnant, in my gut, I knew I wanted an abortion. My husband told me if I got one, I was going to do it alone, and he was going to leave me. Before then, I thought that he was going to be there with me no matter what. Out of fear and shame, I kept the pregnancy and stayed married, but that was the moment I stopped loving him."
—Anonymous
14."He was having me watched. He had been promoted at work, and that meant he worked nights and weekends, and also had new coworkers. I never got to meet them; I only knew their first names because he spoke about them often. I attended college at the time, and it turned out that some of these new coworkers attended the same college. My ex knew my class schedule, so these new 'friends' watched me and reported back to him. He knew what I did each day before I had a chance to tell him. He knew who I had lunch with, who I was in the library with, what I wore, etc. He turned into a raging, jealous SOB. He was my ex soon after that."
—Anonymous
15."I'd been miserable for years, mostly because he would leave all the chores and occupying the kids to me while he played on his phone, despite us both working and me repeatedly asking for help. I stuck it out for the kids. The final straw came when I had a pretty traumatic miscarriage at 12 weeks, which required a lot of medical intervention and resulted in an infection. I got no support from him, despite me supporting him through his own issues for years. The day after I miscarried, I had lost a fair amount of blood and would get dizzy standing up and couldn't stay standing for any length of time, but I still had to make dinner for us and the kids. After doing the majority of the cooking, I was really struggling, so I asked him to come and help. He was sitting on the couch playing on his phone as usual, and his response was a huge dramatic sigh and an, 'Ugh, fine!' like I was being a huge inconvenience."
"After that, I realized if he wasn't going to support me during one of the hardest times of my life, what was the point in staying? I'm now happily divorced and regret nothing!"
—Anonymous
16."He told me he needed money to buy books for work, and that he would buy me a little present, too...with my money. Lo and behold, he actually used my credit card to buy his (other) girlfriend the same personalized, sentimental gift I bought and had given to him months prior. Guess I have good taste in presents, but not such good taste in men."
—Anonymous
17."My last straw was when I went to bed crying with our dog (the dog hated him so much and was scared of him) standing over me, growling at him. She wouldn’t even let him in the door. I knew right then I had to get out. She had never growled at anyone before, and I knew that if the situation was bad enough for my dog to feel the need to physically guard me, I needed to leave. Three years later, my dog and I are living our best lives without him. I learned later that he had been abusing the dog while I was not at home. It makes me sick to think that I put up with that behavior for so long."
18."I think the final straw for me was realizing that I was never going to make them happy because they're someone who will never be happy. They could find a reason to complain about the tiniest thing, and everything was an inconvenience that happened TO them. They got their dream job and complained constantly. They were given money from their parents as a gift, but it wasn't enough. The bus was late because of some assholes who made it wait. It didn't matter what happened or what the outcome was. There was always some issue or complaint. I am generally a positive person and thought at first that if I just showed them the good in things, then they would see it, too. Either they couldn't, or they didn't want to."
"I finally woke up and realized that when we did things that were fun, it was because I made them fun, and that effort was never reciprocated. It took some friends' gentle nudging for me to finally end it, and I am eternally grateful to them for seeing what was right under my nose. Now, I am with someone who is wonderful and who is excited about life in general!"
—Anonymous
19."During the pandemic in 2020, we didn't see each other much. When the restrictions loosened up a little bit, he went out with his brothers and friends to a bar that they normally visited. He got extremely drunk and started flirting with a girl who was with her boyfriend. Then, he got in a fight because he was harassing her, and her boyfriend wanted the cops to be called. Instead, the owner just banned him from the bar. When I asked him how he could do something like that, his answer was, 'Well, the waitress shouldn't have served me that much alcohol!' I was done with him after that."
—Anonymous
20."He put a lemon in my iced tea. We had been together for over two years, and I knew it wasn't going well, but stayed because it was familiar. The lemon was just the final straw. He liked lemon in his tea; I do not. He brought me a glass of iced tea with a lemon in it. At that moment, I realized that the entire relationship was about him. He didn't care to know anything about me or what I liked. I told him then and there that it was over. I gathered my belongings and stayed with a friend until I could get a place of my own. I have not accepted being ignored in a relationship since."
21."My girlfriend told me I took too long to fix my depression. I had been unemployed for almost a year after the pandemic. I became depressed from the rejections. Then, I finally got a job and was on my way out of the depressive hole I had been in. Three days before I began my job, my girlfriend was upset because of some stuff with friends. She was crying, and after a while, she got up and said, 'It's YOU!' in an angry tone. Then, she said I took too long to fix my depression. My sleeping too much was causing her to be depressed. She also told me I breached her trust when I was complaining to a friend about a fight we had. She went through my phone and read the things I said, then when I told her my feelings were hurt and my privacy was invaded, she told me not to turn it around on her, so I accepted all the blame."
—Anonymous
22."Things were looking incompatible, and behaviors weren't changing. I was the breadwinner, and he struggled to keep a job. The last straw was when he told me he believed women should submit to men like the Bible says (though other areas of the Bible 'didn't need to be followed'). With any financial decision or big life decision, he believed he had all the deciding power."
—Anonymous
23."Whenever I didn't want to kiss him, he told me I 'owed him' next time. Never again."
24."He chose to make himself sick rather than show up to my dad's birthday dinner. We’d been together for about nine months. We both had pretty bad gut issues. I was even diagnosed with Celiac disease when we first started dating. But while I went out of my way to change my eating habits to avoid my trigger foods, he never made any adjustments, resulting in constant illness on his end. This was a major sore spot in our relationship. The night before we were supposed to take a train from the city to the suburbs to see my dad on his birthday, he told me he was going to go out drinking with his friends and eat a bunch of the foods that upset his stomach. I was livid and told him he better make it to the train the next day because this was important to me. He never made it to the train. I broke up with him a day later. Good riddance. Now, I’m with someone who would go out of his way to be there for me when he knows it’s important."
25."The pandemic was an eye-opener, and I finally started to realize I couldn’t imagine a future with my ex. The final straw during the pandemic was when my ex came home from work with poison oak and demanded I rub calamine lotion on his back where the poison oak was. When I told him no because it was pussing and that’s how it spreads, he proceeded to scream at me that I was a horrible girlfriend, that he expected me to put lotion on his ass if he had it there, and that I ruined his birthday weekend. Honestly, we could have figured out a different solution, like putting the lotion on with gloves, but his immediate reaction was to berate me, and I had to walk away for myself."
—Anonymous
26."The final straw for me was when my now-ex-husband refused to come home on his break when someone broke into the house, even though his work was literally a 3-minute drive away."
—Anonymous
27."It wasn't horrible or dramatic, just a quiet moment where he asked if I would potentially convert to his religion one day. I realized how important his religion was to him and his family, and while I respected that, I knew I was never going to convert. It started to shift my thinking about the longevity of the relationship."
28."After 20 years and 10 kids together, he came home from work and told me he had a girlfriend. Again. Only this time, they decided to have a baby together. She was due in a handful of months. He wanted to buy property with two houses so I could live close by, so he could still see our kids. Um, NOPE! The kids and I left to start a new, healthy life. They do spend some time with him, when they choose to."
—Anonymous
29."I dated a guy I had met my sophomore year in college for six years. I had repeatedly tried breaking up with him over those years, but could never manage to do it because he would beg me to stay or tell me he would change. I was finally able to break up with him when he wanted me to go to a Friendsgiving dinner that included a guy who sexually assaulted me. My ex said that my assailant 'wasn't that bad of a guy,' and I needed to suck it up. I ended it right then and there. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Several years later, I'm happily engaged to the love of my life. Everyone deserves love and support. I'll never make that mistake again."
30."I worked two jobs and was rehearsing for a play at the time, so I was exhausted. He called me while I was sleeping and demanded to know when he would see me next, which would be in four days. He lost it. After telling me I was selfish and inconsiderate and that he couldn’t possibly wait four days, he calmly changed his tone and told me he was arriving tomorrow after my shift whether I liked it or not. I finished work to see his car parked outside. Sitting at my kitchen table, I told him it was over. It was a messy breakup and resulted in me changing my number in the end."
31."He had a terrible temper and would scream at me and punch walls whenever he was angry. He called me every name under the sun. One day, he called me a 'stupid little whore' in front of one of my good friends, and I realized he had no respect for me at all, and one day he was going to stop punching walls and start punching me. It was like a switch was flipped, and I was completely 100% done."
32."I dated a guy who split his time between two cities because of his job, and one day, I saw a Facebook post he was tagged in. It said, 'My boyfriend’s family is the sweetest!” I'd never seen anything from this woman before, so I checked her page. There I saw the two of them as coworkers, on trips, on dates, and with his family. Pictures of them together went back really far. The two of us had never gone traveling, and I’d never met his family. I quickly realized that I was the 'other woman,' and I was infuriated. I called him and started ripping him a new one, but he tried to deny it, then tried excusing it by saying their relationship was open and I was being a child about it. So I suggested that I could show up to one of his public events where we could talk afterward, and I could introduce myself to his actual girlfriend."
"He backpedaled SO fast and started begging for forgiveness. Years later, I bumped into him at an event my then-boyfriend/now-spouse was also attending, and he turned red and walked the other way. In a way, I’m so mad at myself for ever giving someone like him my love and energy."
33."After seven years of being with a man who abused me physically, emotionally, and financially, and having three children with him, the final straw was when he asked to borrow my last bit of money until he got paid the next day. I stressed that we were almost out of nappies, as our youngest was only six weeks old, our middle child was 18 months, and our eldest was 5. He promised he would pay it back. He then disappeared for days and wouldn’t answer texts or calls. I ended up having to sellotape my newborn into my toddler's nappies, which were way too big, but with some sellotape around the middle of the waistband, it made them tight enough to hold in place. I went around to his friend's house looking for him to get the money back. One of his friends took pity on me and gave me money to buy nappies."
"That was it for me. He had abused me for years, but the minute I saw that trickle down and impact our children, I was done! That was 12 years ago, and I never looked back, despite his multiple pleadings."
34."The guy I was dating had recently moved from out of state. One weekend, I decided to prepare a meal for him at his place. Due to his lack of kitchen utensils, in addition to bringing all the food to cook with, I also had to bring pots, pans, etc. While preparing the meal, he sat in his lone chair, a recliner, in the living room. I completed the meal, we ate, and then I proceeded to clean up the kitchen while he resumed his position in the recliner. Just as I was finishing up in the kitchen, he left to go to the bathroom. I sat down in the recliner. When he emerged from the bathroom and saw where I was seated, he yelled, 'Get out of my chair!' There was literally no other place to sit in the living room. I calmly got up and without speaking a word, gathered all of my cooking supplies, took them to my car, and left."
"Two blocks from his place, he was blowing up my phone. I pulled over, blocked his number on my phone, and never saw or spoke to him again."
—Anonymous
35."My ex-husband went through my phone while I was comforting my sister at my nephew's funeral. He then proceeded to shove it into my chest and tell me not to talk to him for the rest of the day because I had texted a male friend. I told him I wanted a divorce on the drive home."
—Anonymous
36."We were engaged, and he hosted an orgy with three of my bridesmaids."
37."I got married for the wrong reasons, and knew it was a bad idea given I'd broken it off previously, but we tried making it work for many years. We had a child a couple of years after that and decided we did not want more, so he got a vasectomy. We had a box of condoms that we had to use until he got the all clear from the doctor that he was sterile. We used one and got the OK. A few months later, I was cleaning the bedroom and found the box of condoms, and only three were left. I asked about it and found out he was cheating on me. I actually didn't care about the cheating; it was that he told me we was paying a sex worker. He worked for the police department no less. I couldn't get away fast enough at that point."
—Anonymous
38.Finally: "My boyfriend of six years took forever with every mile stone. The last straw was when he closed on a house without me and any of my input. I remember asking him if he wanted me to finally move in with him because we had never lived together in the six years of dating, and he said he wasn’t ready for that next step yet. I didn’t want to waste one more year waiting for nothing to ever happen with this guy, so I dumped him that day."
—Anonymous
