Women Revealed The "Last Straw" Things Their Partners Did That Made Them End Their Relationships
It's no secret that breakups are an incredibly tough thing to go through. Sometimes in relationships, though, there's one specific moment where it becomes undeniably clear that things aren't working out the way you'd hoped.
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Well, redditor u/ValsBoobs_Fanpage asked, "Women of Reddit, what was your 'That's it, I'm done' then walked away moment?" Tons of women took to the thread to share their "last straw" moments in past relationships. Here are 14 of their stories:
Note: Submissions have also been sourced from this similar thread.
Warning: Some submissions contain mentions of domestic violence and sexual assault.
1."I told my husband that he needed to lay off our daughter for getting a B on a unit in chemistry. She was asking to quit all her extracurriculars (which she really, really loved) and didn’t want to get out of bed. I told him I was worried about her mental health, and his response was, 'Well, if the kids aren’t going to respect what I say, then maybe I should leave.'"
"It literally flipped the switch on my feelings for him after 20 whole years together. Our child was struggling, and he was so self-absorbed that he could only think about himself."
2."The last straw for me was finding out that his mother was at our place, looking through my drawers and belongings while I was at work. She found my medication and called MY MOTHER to tell her I was a liar for not telling anyone about my health issue (my ex did know; we just didn't tell her because it was none of her business). I was extremely angry and told my ex what had happened, expecting him to be shocked, too. Turns out he wasn't.
"He let his mother snoop in the first place, knew that she called my mom, and didn't bother to tell me. At that point, there was already a long history of MIL terror, and he just wouldn't stand his ground or protect me. I left in the evening of that day."
3."Simple: He didn’t want to go to a museum with me. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, after all that happened. He likes to tell people that’s why I left him...not all the other issues we had."
4."One day, he crossed a line I did not know I had: He called me a stupid bitch. He had cheated, manipulated, gaslit me, and called me crazy so many times in the couple years we were together, and I stupidly put up with him, but for whatever reason, this was my last straw. I no longer felt weak — I felt angry. I threw all his stuff into the dumpster at my apartment and never spoke to him again. It was so out of character for me, but I felt so powerful."
5."He had been gaslighting me for our entire relationship, to the point that I started recording our conversations. He said something, and I disagreed and told him he'd said something else previously. He was adamant that I was lying and started to get angry. When I didn't back down, he told me I needed to go to the doctor to get on medication for my 'paranoia,' even though I had proof that I was right."
6."My breaking point was when he cheated on me — for the third time that week — with a person online who wasn't even real. I know this because anyone could see that it was a fake account, and this was later confirmed to be true. I was dumb enough to give him a chance after the first time, but I was done. He then tried to convince me that my new boyfriend was cheating on me, in an effort to win me back. You mean... like you did? What a clown."
7."The moment I knew happened the first time he saw me after nine weeks of being apart. Instead of being excited to see me, he snapped at me immediately. I realized I had been happier without him and left for good two days later."
8."My fiancée barely reacted when I told him I got a big promotion, which involved a 25% pay rise, a car allowance, and managerial responsibilities. He never listened when I talked to him about my job, but this especially stung. We'd been together for seven years and had our wedding planned, deposits paid, and invites sent out. I'm so relieved I realized I didn't want to spend my life with him when I did."
9."For me, it was when my then-husband blamed me for the weather. Everything that was not perfect was always my fault. He'd been unreasonable like this for so long, but him angrily pointing his finger at me because it was raining was the last straw. I made the decision to gently push him out of my life. The most infuriating thing is that, now, he tells everybody how perfect I was and that I never made a mistake."
10."One night, he went to his friend's apartment and got wasted. He called me at 4 a.m. to come pick him up 30 minutes away. I did as he asked, and just as I am a minute from his friend's place, my cell rings. It's him, drunkenly stating, 'I'm home, thanks for nothing.'"
"He had driven himself anyway because he didn't want to wait for me to pick him up and apparently thought I wasn't actually coming. I snapped my pink Motorola Razr shut and drove back to our place, gathered my shit, told him I was done, and called my mom. I had put up with three years of cheating, assaults sexually, physically, and verbally, and I was done. My mother's first words to me were, 'Thank God. Come home.'"
11."I got a tattoo of a small flower on the inside of my knee, symbolizing my commitment to being a good mother to my son. Quite a few years after, I graduated from college summa cum laude and wanted another tattoo. I decided I wanted a butterfly on my left breast, right above my heart. He threw a fit and told me he wasn't going to be married to a tattooed woman. It was all about control and what other people would think. That was it."
"I got that tattoo, and a lot more since we divorced. I have a full back-piece that comes over the tops of my arms, the outsides of both thighs, one calf, one ankle, and one foot. My current husband loves me, tattoos and all."
12."The last straw — that literally snapped something in my brain — was him suggesting we get separate bedrooms. I highly, highly suspected he was cheating AGAIN, but I had no solid proof. I knew him well, and I knew his 'plan' was to keep me around for 'wifey stuff' and to keep up appearances, because his family looks down on divorce. So, when the time came, I told him we were getting a divorce instead.
"In the end, this actually forced him to have his side chick move in. I ended up telling his family about the divorce, because he tried to hide it, hoping I'd change my mind. I didn't. He got everything he wanted, and he still wasn't happy. Since our divorce though, I've never been happier. It was a rough way to get there, but so worth it."
13."The last straw was when I caught him smirking while yelling at me. That smirk ended 20 years of marriage."
14."After five years of severe abuse, someone I had just met saw me take a phone call with my then-boyfriend. He came up to me a few days later at our mutual friend’s house and said, 'I saw your face when you answered the phone. You looked upset and scared. It’s not right for a boyfriend to make you look the way I saw you look.'
"He wasn’t doing it in a creepy way. He wasn’t trying to get into my pants. He was just a nice guy, making an observation and checking to see if I was okay. Plenty of people in my life had told me to get rid of that asshole, but something about an acquaintance that I had just met making that observation really snapped me out of the fog I had been in. We became friends, and he helped me get away. I am convinced that that relationship would have killed me, and 15 years later, I am still so grateful to him for essentially saving my life."
Women of the BuzzFeed Community — do you have a "last straw" relationship story? If you feel comfortable doing so, you can share your own in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
