Warning: This post contains mentions of abuse. Please proceed with caution.
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. A while ago, I asked women in the BuzzFeed Community to share their "last straw" moments that made them break up with their partners for good. All I can say is I am so, so proud of these women for doing what they had to and leaving these a-holes in the past. Here are 24 stories they shared:
1. "I was in the hospital in labor, and he was paying more attention to the basketball game on TV than to the birth of his son. Then, when we got home from the hospital the next day, he asked me what was for dinner as soon as we walked into the house. I was SO done with him and his disrespectful treatment."
—Anonymous
2. "I had been married to him for nearly four years when I got into a major car accident that should have killed me. He cared more about losing his car than he did about his wife almost dying."
3. "We'd been together almost seven years. It was the healthiest relationship either of us had ever been in, and we had no issues when it came to communication, disagreements, compromise, or any of that. For all intents and purposes, things were great. But he would never talk about the future with me, and after a while, it really got to me. My mom said he would come around, just give him time, but whenever I would attempt to bring up any semblance of the topic, I'd be shut down. The last straw was my birthday, a few months before we split. He bought me flowers (he never bought me flowers), he wrote me a really sweet card (he never wrote me sweet cards), and the way the card was worded sounded like it was genuinely leading up to a proposal."
"He said the box was unwrapped and that he had to get it from the bedroom. I realized in that 10-second panic attack between reading the card and him getting the box that even if this was actually a proposal, my answer wouldn't be 'yes' anymore, because it'd feel like he was just doing it because I wanted to, and not because he wanted to. Anyway, he gave me the little box, and inside was a CBD vape pen, which I'd never asked for, nor would ever use. He's a great dude, and I wish him well in future endeavors, but it made me realize we were on two different pages about a lot of things."
—Anonymous
4. "He told me he wanted to take me on a cruise to celebrate me graduating from cosmetology school…but only if I lost weight first."
—Anonymous
5. "We had been dating for about six months. I ended up spending most of my time with him rather than with my friends, so when I did get the chance to see my friends, it was an all day or all night thing to catch up. My boyfriend was jealous, clingy, and untrusting of me. One particular night I was spending with my friends, a few hours in I received urgent texts and calls from him saying my cat got injured and was bleeding all over the carpet. I was in shock and panicking for the health of my cat. Once I got home, I found my cat with no injuries at all. I confronted him, and all he could say was he was 'worried' about me. He LIED to me about my cat being hurt to stop me from spending time with my friends. Not cool."
—Anonymous
6. "I had just left an all-night-long vigil at my stepmother's deathbed. She'd had a long battle with lung cancer. I called my then-partner of 10 years after her body was taken to the morgue to tell him that she had died and that I was on my way home to tell our kids that their grandma had died. I was sobbing. He said, 'OK, can you stop on your way home and get a plunger, because I clogged the toilet.' That was it. I felt so utterly alone and realized I could not depend on him to be there for me in a time of need, let alone be self sufficient enough to deal with his own shit (literally). I don’t remember if I got the plunger or not, but I do remember that my love died for him that day, along with my stepmom."
—Anonymous
7. "I asked him to look after my cat while I was on a three-week work trip. When I got home, I noticed how my cat ran to hide or out of the room each time he walked in, so I asked him about this skittishness. He didn't know and assured me that nothing happened while I was away. Still, I couldn't shake off the feeling and didn't like how uncomfortable my cat was around him during his visits. In spite of knowing for sure whether he did something or not, I ended our relationship and asked him not to visit again. Not only was my cat's well-being a major concern, but I figured if he did something to make my cat fearful of him, there was a decent chance that I'd be afraid of him as well some day."
8. "We dated for eight years, were married for 18, and had two kids and a house in the suburbs. The gaslighting and fighting had been escalating for years, but we stayed together for the sake of the kids. My last straw was one Christmas morning. We always filled the children's stockings, then I would fill my husband's, while he filled mine. Tradition. He was in his recliner pouting that last Christmas we were still together. We were opening gifts (everyone except me). My 7-year-old son noticed mommy didn't have any gifts to open, so he went to get my stocking, which had always been filled in the past. It was empty. The empty stocking did not bother me. What hurt me was the way I watched my son's face drop and turn very somber. He didn't know what to do. In his mind, 'Santa' didn't fill mommy's stocking. My ex was trying to hurt me, but hurt my son instead. Never again would I allow that to happen."
—Anonymous
9. "The last straw for me was when my then-husband went out to the field for two weeks and spent $260 on cigarettes and a few other supplies he 'needed,' leaving me about $30 in the account for gas, groceries, and diapers and wipes for our 1-year-old. When I called asking him how he expected me to get diapers and groceries, he told me I would figure it out. This kind of thing was normal, but this specific time really rubbed me the wrong way, and I made the decision to leave shortly after that."
—Anonymous
10. "It was Christmas 2022. We'd been together nearly seven years. 'Decided' to get married the following year (no proposal, no ring, he chose the day and food to be as cheap as possible). I sat with my parents (who'd travelled hours to be with us) watching a Christmas movie...and he walked through the living room to the TV room and started watching a different film. No words uttered, no acknowledgement of us, no checking in. I sat there wondering if all my Christmases would be like this. A month later, I had a panic attack when I realized I was soon to be 33 and living like this, with someone who just doesn't care. We had many other issues, but Christmas and my upcoming birthday just pushed me over the edge. Went to therapy, and I left him. I am MUCH happier now!"
—Anonymous
11. "I had been with my ex for seven years total, two of which we were married. Throughout the whole relationship, there were several red flags I ignored. My last straw come when we'd been 'separated' but were trying to work out our marriage, and I had accidentally cut my hand so badly that I need surgery to repair my radial artery and nerve. I had never been under anesthesia before and was so freaked out about going under. We waited in the pre-op room for almost two hours. The whole time, he played games on his phone. When they had come to take me away, he just said, 'OK, I’ll see you later,' then got up and walked away. No hug, no kiss, no 'You’re going to be OK,' just…'OK, bye.' My last conscious thought as they rolled me down the hallway was, 'That’s it, I’m done!'"
"He couldn’t even give me the slightest bit of comfort in the one moment I really needed it. He then proceeded to drop me off and left after my procedure. You’re not supposed to be alone for 24 hours after anesthesia. I finally said enough is enough, I am the one who is done. Best decision I ever made! I do not recommend marrying a narcissist."
—Anonymous
12. "The moment I was done was when this moron of a man screamed, 'You are a woman! Know your place!' during a ridiculous argument. I just felt it immediately, and when those words came out of his mouth, it was over. I really liked that man, but thank God he said it when he did, as we were looking at apartments together at the time."
13. "My then-boyfriend told me he was moving to another state. We’d been together nine years at that point; it came out of nowhere. He reasoned that he had to go because he lived with his parents (who controlled his money), even though I offered to let him stay with me when he clearly didn’t want to go there. The lack of ability to take a stand woke me up. Broke up with him about three weeks later. One week after that, he moved. Great guy otherwise, but way too much parental involvement."
14. "My last straw moment was my husband telling me that he'd been a dick to me for the past year to teach me a lesson, and that I wasn't learning my lesson, and if I didn't like it, I could get the fuck out. I filed for divorce shortly after and have been 1,000% happier without him."
—Anonymous
15. "I was with a guy for a few years. He would always gaslight me and tell me all of our issues were my fault. He would make jokes about me when we were in groups of people often, but one day, we were at a movie with another friend. There was a scene in the movie where a car crashed while driving through the snow, and my then-boyfriend called out to the entire theater, 'Hey, look! That’s how [my name] drives in the snow!' I broke up with him later that night. What an asshole."
—Anonymous
16. "I had uprooted my son and moved to a small city with this man I stupidly stayed with for 15 years. Something snapped in me when one day, I asked him why we never went on vacation. He turned and looked me dead in my eyes and said, 'I'm waiting on you to die so I can collect the insurance money and travel the world.' The verbal abuse had been going on for a while, but that really stung. I started my exit plan. Now, almost eight years later, I'm married to my amazing wife."
—Anonymous
17. "We were in our 18th year of marriage and started seeing a marriage counselor. I told the counselor that I felt like his trophy, so he suggested that we start off by saying three things that made us fall in love with each other. My ex said, verbatim, 'She's pretty, she's good in bed, and she makes good money.' I started crying and said that was the definition of trophy. All those are great attributes, but that's not who I am. Something died that day. I moved out by the end of the week."
—Anonymous
18. "I was in a 10-year relationship, and we were engaged, when he suddenly bought a brand-new car without any discussion. This left me pondering the nature of a relationship where a major purchase is not discussed in advance, nor a downpayment saved up! It also came from a man who had been emphasizing for years the necessity of paying off debt before we retired. However, the actual final straw happened 10 days later when he came home with a second brand-new car. It was two times more expensive than the first car! When I said, 'You know, dealers only let you bring home a car because they know you'll likely buy it,' he replied, 'I already bought it.' I knew it was time to cut my losses."
—Anonymous
19. "In my 20s, after eight years together and daily issues of jealousy and insecurity, he threw a HUGE tantrum at my apartment. He virtually lived there rent-free, when he wasn't staying at home with his mom. We were discussing that my best friend was getting a divorce and had nowhere to go with her 18-month-old baby. He said he didn't 'want to live with a baby.' Last straw, dude — I had finally had enough. I calmly said, 'You won't have to. I live here, this is MY apartment. Not your decision. It's time for YOU to go home.' I felt like I was on a cloud, the weight of altering everything I did to impossibly make someone else happy/secure was gone. I had been doing it for so long, I was clueless to how much it had changed me. Never again. And 25 years later? I think he still lives with his mom."
—Anonymous
20. "I decided it was over when he wouldn't take time out from work to take me to the hospital for a breast cancer biopsy. My sister had died of breast cancer. He told me to get my own ride. I did and didn't drive back, ever."
—Anonymous
21. "I was with my husband for 10 years when I finally figured out that even though he was brilliant, he was essentially an incurious person. We were on the brink of ending our marriage, not sure if it could be saved, when my sister (whom I am very close to and who had kept her opinions about him mostly to herself) finally told me that my husband had never asked her a single question about herself. In that moment, every dissatisfying piece of our relationship came together like a puzzle, and I suddenly had laser focus on something that had eluded me for years. So many of the problems between us stemmed from the fact that at his core, he simply wasn't interested in seeing things from any perspective other than his own."
"Once I figured that out, it became abundantly clear that I wasn't going to have any success at making our marriage work. He would never really *see* me. I was done contorting myself to meet his narrow expectations, when he would never meet me even close to halfway. I packed my things and left less than a month later, and I haven't looked back."
—Anonymous
22. "He said he was no longer attracted to me during a fight, because I was struggling with depression and didn’t get out of bed for days. His way of making me feel better was telling me how unattractive that was and that I was behaving like a high schooler."
—Anonymous
23. "Mine came when I flew down from a completely different continent to surprise my then-boyfriend and his parents for their anniversary. His parents were DELIGHTED to see me and couldn't stop grinning about it. But my now-ex looked me straight in my eyes and went, 'What the fuck! Why are you here?' when he first saw me. Took me a moment to recover, and I left soon after, only to learn a week later that he had invited his side piece to the party and didn't want me there."
—Anonymous
24. And finally, "I had brought him dinner to the apartment that my mother, sister, and I had just helped him move in to the day prior. The landlord saw me first and called me by the wrong name. When I informed her that wasn’t my name, she said, 'Weren’t you the one here last night?' It was final confirmation to the cheating I had assumed had been going on our entire relationship but just couldn’t prove. Looking back, I honestly don’t know why I didn’t leave a four-year relationship full of lies, cheating, and manipulation sooner, but I’m so glad she was trying to be a decent landlord that night and remember her new tenant's 'girlfriend’s' name."
—Anonymous
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 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.
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.