While we know that not every relationship is destined to last, that knowledge really does nothing to make a breakup easier.
Every breakup is going to be devastating in its own unique way, but some breakups certainly outshine the rest.
Already cringing, Redditor Jeze-bel- asked:
"What's been the worst way you've been dumped?"
The All-Important Meet-The-Parents Milestone
"I drove five hours to meet her parents for the first time over a long weekend. She dumped me on the second day at the grave site of her sister. I tried to leave during the night and drive home, but my car was blocked."
"She didn’t tell her parents she dumped me, so they kept inviting me to do things and left my car blocked in, so I had to spend another full day with them before they’d let me leave."
"On a positive note, her parents and other family loved me."
- AdSpiritual2594
An Unwanted Audience
"He broke up with me while I was with my mom. I had bought a brand new phone that day and was planning to go pick up with him, but he didn't show up, so I decided to go with my mom."
"On our way back, my mom and I were in the car together. He called me and broke up with me."
"It was tough because I really wanted to cry, but I didn't want to cry in front of my mom."
- Background-End-6971
A Messy End
"We were engaged for seven years. He went off to the Navy, and two months into being in Pensacola, he married someone without ever telling me we were over."
"We own a house and vehicles together. He kept begging/asking that my parents help him out financially, thinking we didn’t know he married someone else. I asked that he wait a few months to try to sell that house so I could leave my job on good terms."
"He told everyone I randomly left without his knowing and just went ghost. That’s a total lie; I had his blessing."
- cryss12
Give Up The Ghost
"She broke up with me by ghosting me. She helped me move to her town and then vanished."
"I no longer live there, but almost ten years later, I still have no f**king clue what happened or why she disappeared on me."
"I've still got trust issues all these years later. That was not helped by the next relationship I had."
- the_purple_goat
Not Prepared To Be A Military Spouse
"She broke up with me on the day of deployment to Iraq and asked for a divorce basically minutes after having great sex. She said she couldn't do it any longer being a military spouse."
"True to her word, she never remarried or fell in love again, but it was definitely heartbreaking for us and the kids."
- Ok-Asparagus6242
Playing Around With Someone's Heart
"She said that she cheated on me."
"Then more than two years after the breakup, she felt guilty and admitted that it was false. She said she only said that to hurt me the most because she knew it was my greatest fear."
"Another one ghosted me out of the blue, legitimately. We never had a fight or anything; just one day, she never responded again."
"I have never fully recovered, and I'm not sure I ever will."
- Stormsurgez
Keep People Guessing
"On Friday night, they said, 'I want to get married, we can do this!'"
"On Saturday morning, they said, 'I never want to see you again in my life.'"
"I’ve been cheated on before, and this is still worse."
- Sexy_Sexxxy
A Blunt Explanation
"We went to a Halloween event, separately, without knowing."
"I bumped into a friend of his, who basically laid it bare, 'He likes the sex but I don’t think he wants to see you anymore' kind of deal."
- BaroquePseudopath
Caught In The Act
"She texted me at 1 AM to say, 'I just pulled up at home and am heading inside to bed.'"
"I was sitting in my car outside her place at the time with her best friend because she hadn't been responding to my messages after meeting 'a friend' on the beach earlier, and we were worried something happened."
"Spoiler: she was not at home. But on the plus side, I really dodged a bullet there and happily married (to someone else) for more than seven years now."
- tjblang
One Last Night Together
"My boyfriend at the time came over one night. We cuddled, ate, did all the cute affection couple crap, and he even sang to me and told me how much he loved me."
"Not even 45 minutes after that while I was laying my head on his lap, he looked at me and said, 'Yeah, I’m not really feeling this anymore. We’re done.'"
"He packed his stuff and left. We had been dating for a year and a half, and he had just proposed not even a month prior."
- Littlescar21
Friends With... Benefits?
"We got married after dating for six years. Five months later, her best friend and her best friend's husband came to visit us and went to a concert. We got into an argument, and she left with them the next morning and never came back."
"We have two children. She now lives 45 minutes away with her parents in the state we moved into just a year before our marriage to be closer to her family. Divorce is official. Talk about a devastating night."
- archon2788
Anxious About Keeping All Those Lies Straight
"The worst breakup was by getting cheated on for two years and not knowing. Our relationship seemed mostly fine because we went to marriage therapy, and after eight months, the only conclusion the therapist could make was that maybe she had anxiety…"
"So she tried to treat her anxiety, but that didn't work at all… Things got really messy, and then I decided to look through her phone only to find out she loved a married dude and wanted to leave me for him, even though he didn't want her."
"We didn't have problems, and she didn't actually have anxiety. She was just taking all of her feelings about this other guy not wanting her out on me... while being in a relationship with me."
"So ya, that's how I got dumped, even though officially I wasn't dumped… I'm the one who filed for divorce. But to me, the second someone cheats, they are internally dumping that relationship."
- Knowsekr
What A Surprise
"I was coordinating his surprise birthday trip with a bunch of our friends and family. After he came home, he just dumped me out of the blue. On his own birthday."
"The group chat started to panic-write me about when to arrive/what to bring during the dumping process since I wasn’t responding, so I had to write out in the group chat, 'Never mind, he dumped me,' to about 20 of our closest friends and family."
"I did not take the trip. I cried hysterically in my apartment (our apartment) for days. As it had turned out he had already packed everything before telling me so he was out real quick."
"I got over it eventually, but I was really just sad about the friend group. I really loved his friends."
"They still apologize to me when we see each other. It was an incontrovertibly d*ck move, and they knew I didn’t deserve it… but he definitely still got the friends in the breakup."
"Ian, f**k you."
- TheJuliettest
Not Worth The Investment
"Birthdays, Christmas, and Valentine's Day all see a high volume of breakups."
"Spending money on gifts for your significant other when you don't expect the relationship to go anywhere is like investing in a stock that you think will crash soon."
"Trust me, I've been broken up for alllll of them... at least once each."
- Dovaldo83
"I spent $500 on Botox for my wife’s birthday (at her request), only to have her separate from me less than a week later. Happened Sept 18. Six years together and four years married. Fun."
- RemarkablePrint7869
A Rollercoaster Of Emotions
"The worst was the time when I got dumped via text while waiting in line for a rollercoaster."
- Chic_Feverx
"The roller coaster must have helped at least a little."
- SarlacFace
"Some ups, some downs..."
- geraintm
"Man, what an emotional rollercoaster."
- FreshLocation7827
There's no wonder that these were the worst examples of a breakup that these Redditors could think of. From premeditating the breakup to getting one last gift out of someone to just ghosting them, these were nothing short of cruel and apathetic.
Though some breakups are fairly low-stakes and blow over pretty quickly, these are far and away the total opposite.
@kileywrestling/Bluesky
