Breaking up brings out the petty in people. It can't be helped.
So we recently asked the BuzzFeed Community about the pettiest breakup moments they've experienced, and oh, they delivered:
1. "My husband at the time was a bus driver in addition to being an all-round not very nice person. When we split up, not only did he break off all contact voluntarily with his three kids (we didn't get on, but the kids were 9, 10, and 14 years old, and I said they could meet him whenever they liked), but he also asked for their bus passes back."
2. "Maybe not petty, but weird. After I broke up with a guy I dated in high school, he sent me every single Bible verse on love (like the ones they read at weddings). I’m Christian, so the Bible thing is whatever, but dude, we went on one double date where your friends made out the whole movie. Let’s not bring love into this!"
3. "Not me, but a close friend: She had a temporary restraining order on her husband when the divorce began. They set up a time through their attorneys for him to come to the home (supervised) while she was gone to move out his personal items. That dumbass took every single one of her left shoes."
4. "We were six months into the divorce process. He had been posting pictures with other women at that point, and I had deleted all social media. I met someone and decided to go on a date. My ex tried to bring our children home two hours after he picked them up because they 'didn't want to be with [him],' but I already had plans. He took our kids to what was our house, which he no longer had keys to or was allowed into without me present. He used a credit card to break into the house while our children stood next to him. Stole the coffee pot, a baking pan, a power drill, and the biggest skillet I had. Then dropped off my children at my mom's, since I was busy. I was just disappointed he didn't take the coffee, too, since I never drink it anyway."
5. "Moved across the country with a dude. It didn't work out. I came home and got an apartment. He came back like two months later with all my belongings: furniture, clothes, everything. He didn't leave a single screw, nut, or bolt to put anything back together. Took me six months and a million trips to Lowe's to find all the shit I needed to put my furniture back together."
6. "A friend of mine, when she found out her now-ex-husband was cheating on her, filed for divorce and then went home and cut the toes from all of his socks and the crotches out of his underwear and every pair of pants he had. Not big holes, just small ones that rip suddenly."
7. "Right after we broke up, I stayed at my parents' house in my home state for a few days to figure out my next move, since my ex and I used to live together. Upon returning to my soon-to-be-former home, I discovered that my ex had thrown out a good number of my things without even mentioning it to me first. Then he proceeded to lie about their whereabouts when I asked him."
8. "I had a friend put a dead opossum in the engine block of his ex-girlfriend’s car. Yes, he found a dead opossum in the middle of the road, pulled over, threw it in his truck bed, remembered he still had a set of her keys, popped her hood, and placed it on the engine block. This was July in Georgia."
9. "Friend’s ex was fairly basic. Found every little thing she had left at his house (old shirts, shampoo, that stuff) and sent her a video of him burning it in his fireplace. She retaliated by doing the same."
10. "My ex cheated on me and consistently refused to send my belongings back to me, told everyone who stood still long enough that I was crazy and had different personalities, and promptly moved his new fiancé in a few weeks after our breakup."
11. "I walked in on my (now-former) boyfriend cheating on me. When I packed my bags that moment, he had the audacity to ask who was going to cook his dinner. Several days later, he called to say that he fainted and was taken to hospital. According to the test, he had issues with his heart because it had been broken by me..."
12. "As we were separating, she deleted Microsoft Office from my computer. In her eyes, I didn't even deserve my PowerPoints for work."
13. "Not an ex, but I went on a couple of dates with this guy, although I ended it quickly. He would occasionally criticize how chubby I was and how fit he was. Constantly tried to make me change for him, as I was slightly boyish. Every six months for the past seven years, he would ring me up, message me, or email me saying how he'd changed and we should meet for coffee. I turned him down every time, and he proceeded to insult me every time, saying no one would date me and I should be happy that someone like him looks my way. I said thank you but no. It’s been seven years, and he finally stopped insulting me."
14. "He slashed my tires and broke my windshield. Is that petty? Abusive? Both?"
15. "Let's see: He rode a bike to work but stole the car I needed for work after agreeing to leave it with me until court. Also, we lived on the third floor of a walk-up, and he threw the furniture he was keeping down the stairs because he couldn’t move it."
16. "My ex and I broke up with him not realizing why we broke up. It was a super-toxic relationship. He tried getting all the stuff back that he gave me — including the Apple Watch he'd GIFTED me for Christmas. Instead, I use the Apple Watch daily and burned the rest. I told him he could take the ashes."
17. "He gave my Xbox to his then-girlfriend...I never saw it again. But my favorite one was, he stopped paying for the car I'd signed for. The agreement at the time (we were still together) was that he would make all the payments. As soon as it was paid off, I’d hand him the title."
18. "It's me, I'm the problem. When I left my shitty husband number one, I emptied out the cat boxes (which he refused to clean and hadn't done so the entire time he was staying by himself at our home for two weeks) on our expensive memory foam mattress and then made the bed back up."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.