21 Selfish Exes Who Ended Their Relationships In Twisted, Cruel, Shocking Ways

We recently covered a Reddit thread started by u/ImpressiveWrap7363 that asked folks to share the worst way someone ever dumped them. The post clearly resonated with the BuzzFeed Community, as many readers submitted their own devastating breakup stories. Here's what people shared:

1. "My husband of 24 years was away on a guys' trip in Mexico. He broke up with me via a text message that said, 'I'm done,' and that he wanted a divorce. Later, I discovered he was on the trip with another woman and they had been seeing each other for over a year. You would think after being married for 24 years, he would do better than a text message. Gutless coward. It's been six years, and he has had three more relationships and has been dumped every time."

—Anonymous

2. "My first girlfriend, my first same-sex relationship, took me to dinner on Valentine's Day. I was working only part-time and had very little money. But she had said she really liked a specific brand of bubble bath, so I bought it for her. She broke up with me over dinner and left me with the bill. She conveniently 'forgot' her wallet."

—Anonymous

3. "I am a mom, and he told me the day before Mother's Day this year that he needed a week of no contact to pray to God to see if I was to be his future wife or not. It ruined my Mother's Day, in part because my ex-husband demanded that he spend the day with my daughter (since it was his weekend) and because I was confused and had to wait a week for an answer as to where I stood with my boyfriend. Exactly one week later, he called me and told me that God told him no. Using religion to break up with someone was a new low for me. I probably dodged a bullet, but it still broke my heart. Hopefully, my next Mother's Day will be joyful with my kiddo and no bad energy from any future boyfriend or exes."

—Anonymous

4. "My ex got up, and I got ready for work like normal; he even ran out and got me coffee while I was getting ready. We both left for work. Around 10:00 a.m., my sister called me at work to say that he was moving out. Our roommate called my sister because he thought my boyfriend was being rude and wanted to tell me but didn't have my work number, so he called my sister. I left work, but he was gone when I got home. Everything he owned was gone from our room. I tried calling his parents' house (these were early cellphone days), and they told me he didn't want to talk to me and that he'd call when he was ready to talk to me. Cut to 20 years later, we are in a group chat together with mutual friends."

—Anonymous

5. "I got together with my high school crush 10 years after graduation. He had broken up with his longtime fiancée about five months earlier and was still untangling himself from their shared finances. She has moved out of their apartment and into her new boyfriend's place. Things were moving along nicely with him and me, but after a little while, he became harder to get on the phone or see in person. I went to leave him a hello message on Facebook, and his relationship status had changed back to 'engaged to [her name].'"

"Turns out, when they met to split their bills, she'd convinced him to get back together, and she'd moved back into his apartment...while he and I were still seeing each other. Trust issues: activated."

— meggiebee

6. "After 23 years and three kids, I came home from working a 12-hour overnight shift and found the whole family waiting for me. He informed me that he was going to divorce me. He was waiting to establish residency but had a lawyer ready to file paperwork. He kept saying there was no other woman but married his nephew's girlfriend nine months later. They just celebrated their 28th anniversary. I've been single and happy ever since."

—Anonymous

7. "He came home from a deployment during which we had been looking at houses and making numerous future plans. He waited until the end of his first week home to tell me he just 'couldn't do a relationship.' We had been married for over four years and had a kid together, and I had lowered my standards for him in the first place."

—Anonymous

8. "He broke our year-long engagement in a restaurant in front of his mom, my dad, and my brother. I was nine weeks pregnant and a month away from our supposed wedding day. The deposits were all non-refundable."

— velvetviolet

9. "He basically made me break up with him. I realized later he only wanted to be with me because I was a virgin when we met. Once we slept together, he slowly stopped initiating contact with me. I felt him pulling away but made excuses for at least a month until I finally realized what he was doing and broke up with him. He contacted me several months later, asking for my best friend's number so he could ask her out on a date. I blocked his number after that. By far the worst person I've ever dated."

—Anonymous

10. "He went to get treatment in Costa Rica and left his dog with me. After months apart, phone calls, texts, and making plans for the future, he told me he wanted to marry me, then told me he wanted to have sex with his therapist, who shared my name. I sent him a Taylor Swift video, and then he went off on being an 'anti-feminist.' Then he stonewalled me and never even came back to get his dog. He's my dog now. We were together for seven years and friends for 15. No conversation regarding his dog. Then, both his parents attacked me on social media for stealing his dog, which he still never came to get."

—Anonymous

11. "I was on vacation in Colombia visiting family for two weeks. At the time, cheap international phone plans weren't really a thing, so I only had about an hour a day to talk to him because the apartment we were staying in had spotty WiFi. Without a reason, he broke up with me over text, with three days left in the vacation, which was also three days before my birthday. He just sent the breakup text and wouldn't respond to questions or anything else."

— lhennig925

12. "I told him I could take a hint and accepted it was over; he responded, 'What? No! I'm sorry I was being distant! I really like you!' Then, he dumped me via text the next day. I asked him why he convinced me I wasn't dumped just to dump me immediately, and he replied, 'I don't know :).' I could have kept it together if he had omitted that smiley face. But he didn't, so that smiley face made me so nuts that I actually considered burning his house down. I didn't fantasize, but I seriously considered it (for a split second)."

— annab4fef789d4

13. "I was a sophomore in college, and my boyfriend had just graduated. I overheard my sorority sister discussing her great summer in Chicago with 'Scott.' Well, my boyfriend 'Scott' had a post-grad internship there. A few minutes later, I heard her giggling and saying she hoped I wouldn’t find out. It was too late for that, so I immediately called him to confront him, and all he said was, 'Sorry.'"

—Anonymous

14. "I started dating this boy in high school and was madly in love. It was tough to go away to college because I was going to college in New York, and he was going to college in Massachusetts. The first week I was gone, we talked about how hard it was to be apart, and we decided that I would finish the semester but then move back home and attend college there so we could be together. Because of our schedules, we could only talk a few times a week. This was all before cell phones. Two weeks later, I got a letter from him in the mail that said, 'I don't remember what you look like, so I guess I don't love you anymore.'"

"He wouldn't take my frantic phone calls. I got super depressed and ended up dropping out of college a few weeks later. It took me years to get over it. My parents were so mad at me for dropping out that they wouldn't help me pay for college, so I never returned full-time. I had to work low-paying jobs and paid days for college (evenings and weekends), and it took me six years to get my degree. I saw him only once after that in a grocery store by accident (where he told me he was buying food for his girlfriend and how much he loved her), and I just nodded and kept walking. I met the love of my life about five years later, and I've had a great life, but even 50 years later, I can still remember those words: 'I can't remember what you look like, so I guess I don't love you anymore.'"

—Anonymous

15. "My husband of over 16 years was working in Huntsville. We lived near the space center in Florida. Out of the blue, he sent me a note in the mail that it wasn't working out and he was filing for divorce."

—Anonymous

16. "We had been together for over two years, adopted two dogs together, and had just booked a trip to Paris for the holidays. I thought I was getting engaged. Instead, he broke up with me after Thanksgiving. I should mention, too, that I had gotten rid of everything I owned to move across the state with him. So, I lost who I thought was the love of my life and everything else, too. It's been years, and it still bothers me. It was totally out of nowhere and unexpected. Therapy has helped."

—Anonymous

17. "He unfriended me on Facebook and changed his relationship status to in a relationship with the woman he cheated on me with. This was less than a month after I was out of the country for two weeks and let him borrow my car while I was gone since his car was repossessed. Anyway, I found another woman's bracelet under the passenger seat, and he gaslit me into thinking it must be one of my friends. Not even a text or a phone call. Didn't block me, just unfriended."

—Anonymous

18. "My best friend came home from work (911 dispatcher) after a 12-hour shift to find her boyfriend sitting on their couch, and all his stuff was packed at the door. She went to sit with him, and he told her he was sorry and left. She received an email from the landlord the next day confirming their final day in the apartment was two weeks away. Mind you, they had been together for four years and had lived together for two. She was essentially evicted from her apartment with two weeks' notice. He had movers come the next week. They took the shared bed, dressers, couches, tables, and dishware. She was left with next to nothing and had to start over. It turns out he had been planning this for a while. He had been paying rent for two apartments for a few months before realizing he couldn't afford double rent. Creep."

—Anonymous

19. "My first serious boyfriend right out of high school. We were friends first, and then it just clicked for both of us one night. He was good to me and always cared for me when I was sick. This was before cell phones, but we had pagers. I hadn't heard from him in almost a week, and I knew his mom was sick, so naively, I assumed he was caring for her. I had a good relationship with her, so I reached out, but she swore she didn't know anything. I paged him a few times with no answer. So my best friend took me to the mall to eat and see a movie, and lo and behold, I saw my boyfriend holding hands with another girl, who turned out to be his fiancée. I high-fived his face and never spoke again until two years later, when I randomly ran into him and found out she cheated on him. You know what they say about karma."

—Anonymous

20. "My ex and I had been together since we were 16. We had three kids and were married for 19 years. He had been ignoring me for months, so I finally had enough. I said maybe we shouldn't be married anymore, and he just said okay. My marriage, the love of my life, gave me up in 30 seconds. It is the most shameful, hurtful, embarrassing experience I have ever gone through and am still going through."

—Anonymous

21. And: "He dumped me via FedEx. Overnight. A typed letter. We had been dating for three years. The breakup was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm now married to the most amazing man who gives me handwritten greeting cards."

—Anonymous

What's the worst way you've ever been dumped? Tell us in the comments or share your story anonymously using this form .

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.