19 People Who Broke Up With Their "Soulmates" For Very, Very Good Reasons

Note: This post contains mentions of domestic violence and abuse.

Finding "the one" isn't always the easiest thing to do, and, unfortunately, sometimes things can take an ugly turn with the person you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with. So when redditor u/notnotaginger asked folks who almost married their "soulmate" to share why they broke up , people had a lot of gut-wrenching stories to tell. Here are a few of them.

1. "She was in love with my best friend, and they were both in denial about it. They were engaged a month after we broke up."

2. "I found a credit card statement on the floor just before a family holiday. Thousands in debt that he'd never told me about. I'd been paying the rent entirely by myself in a job I hated, and I was too young (23 years old) and naive to realize he wasn't an honest man. That was it."

— u/[deleted]

3. "My mom was dying. It was my last Thanksgiving with her. Without discussing it with me first, he had his mom buy him plane tickets to spend Thanksgiving with his parents and asked if I wanted to go with him. No. I am not missing the last Thanksgiving I can ever spend with my mom. We will have our whole lives to spend Thanksgiving with your family after this. You're leaving me to face this one alone or to abandon my mother on her last Thanksgiving?"

4. "Every time we fought, she would throw her engagement ring somewhere, make me get it, and then make me plead with her to put it back on, even for very small disagreements and in public. That was the final straw. It was a very fucked-up feeling begging somebody to be with me all the time. It gave me huge insecurity issues. That was on top of the fact she began to call me names and hit me a lot. It all started after we got engaged for some reason. Things were so perfect, but everything changed as soon as she got that ring. Suddenly, she started doing what I mentioned, along with calling me a loser, piece of shit, and ugly a lot."

— u/Anti_Social_

5. "I was engaged to a guy I'd dated for three years and was planning a destination wedding. He cheated on me with a mutual friend one night. His mom (who he lived with while we were apartment hunting) accidentally walked in on them in the middle of it while letting the dogs out. He didn't know his mom had seen him, but she called me and told me what happened. He denied it when I confronted him, which made it worse. We called off the wedding and broke up. Weirdly enough, he got married about five years later to someone else in the exact same destination wedding location/venue/package/colors I had always dreamed of and planned out for us. He must have kept my planning binder and just reused it or something."

6. "She wanted to go to Florida for the Disney college program. (She is a huge Disney nerd). She was too scared she would lose me. I convinced her to do it because if she didn't, she would regret it forever, and no matter what happened, I would still be here for her. Six months and an engagement ring later, she told me that while in Florida, she realized she didn't love me like she thought she had. The ring is in a box in the back of a drawer in my dresser. Her worst fear came true. So did mine."

— u/devildrugsguy420

7. "She was already married. We worked together at a job where you couldn't wear rings. She hid it very well. I was the other guy. I found out when I proposed, and she had to tell me that she was married."

8. "I found out the guy was no longer working when I called to see why his paychecks hadn't come in. (I handled the finances for us, and he kept saying his boss would be sending it.) It turned out he quit, and instead of telling me, he spent the next few weeks pretending to work. Instead, he started going to strip clubs with what little money he had hoarded."

"When I went to break it off with him, he punched his hand through the wall and lost his mind. By the time he finally calmed down, he had turned strangely morose. He looked at me and asked if we could have sex one last time. My response: 'No.' After a long pause, he sifted through his pockets, held out a dollar bill, and said, 'I'll pay you a dollar to sleep with me. It's all I have left.' Needless to say, he left with a dollar in his pocket and no final goodbye."

— u/ValNTine

9. "He was completely unable to manage money and spent every dollar he came across on gaming and weed, constantly putting off paying important bills. He would've dragged us both into bankruptcy if I had stayed with him."

10. "We had been dating for three years and constantly talked about getting married and what our life would be like. He went back into the military and wouldn't commit to having a long-distance relationship with me because it would be 'way too distracting when he's in the field, and I pop up on his mind.' He didn't want to commit to a relationship while in the army. So we broke it off. The real kicker is that a couple of months after being away in another state, he started dating a new woman who apparently lives in the same state as me. So, lol."

— u/collapse-collide

11. "I moved across the world for him. He kept telling me, 'One day, I want to propose,' or 'I can't wait for you to be my wife.' That proposal never came, and I was having visa issues, so after a few years, I gave up and moved back."

12. "For the last four days, my fiancé has decided to stay at her new coworker's house either overnight or until well into the morning. I told her that's ridiculously not OK to do when you're engaged, even though she claims it was just stress relief playing video games with a new guy friend. We also have a four-month-old son that I've been taking care of for the past four days. She's been gone, and I've been very sick with what I thought was a stomach bug."

"Well, this morning, I fainted, and she insisted I just get some rest and maybe go to urgent care if I don't get better. Then I lost my ability to keep any liquids down and was insistent that she take me to the hospital and then go home and take care of our son.

This was too much to ask, though, as she'd already made plans to meet this guy again tonight. She walked to her work and left her family behind to spend the night at his house.

I told her that if she chooses to abandon her family to spend time with another man, who I never accused her of cheating on me with, despite the numerous red flags, then her family won't be waiting for her when she gets home. I involved someone in my family out of necessity, so my dad took me to the hospital, and his fiancé watched my son.

My fiancé's last text said, 'I can't come home, so I guess I just lost everything.'

After multiple chest X-rays and an abdomen CT, it turns out I'm not sick, but the stress caused by my relationship started causing massive problems throughout my body. Oh, and apparently, I have a kidney stone.

I know it was petty, but when I got home, I just sent her a picture of our son and told her that this was who she chose to give up on tonight."

— u/Jeiku53

13. "I've been engaged twice. The first one ended after meeting my family for the first time. My fiancé made fun of my brother, who is very intelligent but sometimes socially awkward, for half the ride home. I slept on it, then gave the ring back the next day. Fuck that guy. In the second engagement, we dated for three years and got engaged after two. The closer it got, the more he decided he wanted to have children immediately, wanted me to stay home with them, and then said, 'Knowing that, I'm wondering if it's worth it for you to continue grad school.' I was just starting my second year of my master's program. Buh-bye."

14. "He was obsessed with making me look and speak better. He would control my food intake and make me exercise every day. Whenever I was out with him, I'd have to wear heels and dress well, and he would point out what other women were wearing and what I should try on. Putting on makeup was a must, even when I was on a plane. I wasn't allowed to speak another language aside from English and was not allowed to watch dramas that were trash to him. My last straw was him asking me to consider getting a boob job when I lost so much weight from all the exercise/controlled diet. I realized I could not live this way anymore, and he would never be satisfied. Even though I still love him, I was mentally drained and constantly felt that I was ugly and unworthy."

— u/Cutestuff_

15. "We moved in together too young and tried to be adults too fast. I should've known things were not going to work out when he tried to convince me to buy a house with him at 19. NINETEEN. In Southern California. On two retail employees' wages. Like, WHAT?!? We were high school sweethearts. He was smart and ambitious but also loved spending money and worked wild hours to make up the deficit. After we moved in together, his work schedule changed, so I was working morning shifts and would literally pass him in the driveway as he left for his night shifts. There would be several days in a row where we wouldn't see each other, and when we did see each other, we were too broke to do anything fun."

16. "I didn't want any kids and wanted to be allowed to work. He wanted a housewife and a large family. I was willing to settle on a compromise: two kids, and I still got to work. He left me for it because I wouldn't be what he wanted. He married someone else later who did exactly what he wanted, and he was miserable with her and was attempting to cheat with a mutual friend. I dodged a bullet."

— u/gothiclg

17. "He cheated and got another woman pregnant. Then he called me a few weeks later, asking me to be the child's godmother because he 'knows I'm really good with kids.'"

18. "She became very dependent on me. She didn't have many friends or opportunities to go out and make any. She didn't have the drive to do anything other than sitting at home and doing nothing. No motivation to play any sports or get a job. This sabotaged my life as I'd always be spending time and money on her because she couldn't afford anything herself. She ended up taking an emotional toll as she had mental issues, and I thought leaving her would just make it worse. But I'm so glad I left. It lifted a weight off my shoulders and allowed me to achieve a lot more than I had when I was with her."

— u/baum_g

19. "He was constantly accusing me of cheating, going through my phone and emails, jumping down my throat if I ran late at work, and calling my work when he found something he felt was incriminating to berate me and threaten to throw me out. He took texts and emails he found between me and another guy, whom I was dating during a nine-month period where we'd broken up, and used that to berate me and call me a whore because even though we were BROKEN UP, 'we still meant something to each other, and I shouldn't have done it.'"

If you feel comfortable sharing your break-up story with someone you almost married, comment below. You can also fill out this form to remain anonymous.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length/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.