Reddit user u/Carrera1107 posed the question: "What was that disgusting thing someone you were dating told you and it changed your image of them?" The thread quickly filled with hundreds of nausea-inducing stories, rude remarks, and truly breakup-worthy BS. Here's what people shared:
Warning: Post contains mention of violence and animal abuse.
1. They said, 'Some things are better left to the imagination,' after I undressed."
2. "He relayed the story of how he had thrown a full milkshake out of a moving car at an old lady who was walking on the sidewalk, and hit her full in the chest. He could barely get the story out, he was laughing so hard. I thought this was something he had maybe done when he was in middle school and trying to show off for his friends. That would have been bad enough. No, he did this when he was 21."
3. "I'm a vet nurse. While talking about the emotionally difficult day I'd had, he said, 'They're just animals. It's not like you're dealing with human lives.' Lost all interest and respect on the spot."
4. "My ex completely changed after we got married. When I asked him why he'd lied to me about who he was before, he literally said, 'I didn't think you'd like me if you knew.' Damn straight. I was like, 'Don't you think I kind of deserve to decide that for myself? Now I just can't trust you at all,' and he said, 'But then you wouldn't have married me.' Surprise, surprise, we got divorced."
5. "Claimed that he never ASKED random women for nudes, they just SENT them to him, therefore it wasn’t his fault he had all these pics of other women. Claimed it was because he’s a 'natural-born alpha.'"
6. "My ex had one towel and no toilet paper in his bathroom. I asked him where his toilet paper was, and he said something like, 'Toilet paper is expensive, and washing stuff is cheap.' I don't know how I didn't notice how gross his house was before this, but it's like a light switch turned on and I could see it. His main pair of shoes were women's Uggs he found in a McDonald's lost and found. He had moldy dishes that we would throw away rather than wash. Dude had enough money. He was just gross."
7. "A couple months after an ex cheated on me and I gave him another chance, one of his friends who I liked hanging out with confessed to being into me. I told my boyfriend (at the time) what happened, and he said he knew and even encouraged his friend to try to hook up with me because 'you guys flirt all the time, so go for it and we’ll call it even.' It made me realize how emotionally manipulative he was, trying to bait me into sleeping with someone else so I didn’t have a leg to stand on anymore."
8. "'I'll marry you only if I don't get someone better.' We were dating for two years. She was the one who first proposed to me. And, it's not like we were not a good pair. Everything was smooth until she said this, and at that point, I just laughed it off. But, once I came back home, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I brought it up, it turned into a huge fight, and she said she meant it, so I broke it off."
9. "This guy on a FIRST DATE proudly told me about how when his ex kicked him out of the house (she owned the house), he took an 'upper decker' in all three of the toilets in the house (meaning he pooped in the tank), hid his literal feces between the mattress and box spring of her bed and the guest bed, and smeared some on the bottom of several kitchen drawers and in two vents. The kicker? His version of why she kicked him out and deserved the mess he left her was, 'She was crazy. She got jealous just because she's wasting her life working for the man, and I still know how to have fun and not let money control me.' I bailed on that date so fast."
10. "He confessed that he didn't come to my grandfather's funeral because he wanted to play an online video game tournament with his friends."
11. "He made a list of women he was banging, including their breast size and info on kinks so he could choose, like from a catalogue, who he was going to go to, depending on his mood."
12. "After being together for a year and him knowing I date to marry: 'Come on, you know we’re not going to get married. You’re the woman I’m gonna cheat on my future wife with.'"
13. "After knowing him for, like, six years, he randomly told me he was really depressed I quit my old job and that I had lost a lot of 'use' to him. The wording really threw me off. He was pretty good at masking, so I thought he just misstated it. Surely my 'use' wasn't my career? Oh, no, it was. He said that a big part of his interest in me was my career because he had hoped to have one like mine (and it's how we met), so me switching was a bit of a letdown."
"Eventually, he clarified that even though I was now making OVER five times the salary from my previous job and had completely transformed my life (and shared a lot of that money with him, daily, from good food to designer clothes he liked), the fact that I no longer worked in his industry made him sad every day, and he felt like I should have stayed in that industry to help his career by having contacts and advice. He said he knew I was 'selfish' and would take that 'the wrong way.'"
14. "'I don't read books written by women.' Yes, he was a total arsehole."
15. "He laughed his way through a story about how several of his 'friends' cornered and beat up a guy at a restaurant for heckling them from a table over (most likely telling them to calm or quiet down). The victim was apparently severely injured but didn't press charges. My date insisted that he didn't participate in the brawl (I didn't believe him) and was genuinely surprised by my horror. When I broke up with him, I told him it was because he lacked empathy. The story above was particularly bad, but there were others that told me not to trust him as a partner. He took it surprisingly well in the moment, but later started getting into incel rhetoric and was dumb enough to post it on his public-facing social media. He's now married after having dated his now-wife for only a little over a year. I worry for her."
16. "'Why does the toilet or shower need to be cleaned? They clean themselves.' Yeah, I had to take a breather after that."
17. "This happened several years ago. I met him in January, and we started officially dating in April. While we were friends, he was telling me (and a couple other people in our friend group) that he slept with a girl on New Years of that year. Made up this whole story saying he was sitting in his truck, he saw her walk past, then he approached her, one thing led to another, blah blah blah. He ended up telling me that whole story was a lie and he only made that up so he would look cool. We broke up soon after."
18. "He didn't brush his teeth in the mornings because he 'brushed them before he went to sleep, and it's not like he ate in his sleep, so they weren't dirty.'"
19. "He proudly admitted to having videos of all of his sexual conquests in the act on his phone."
20. "'I want to make someone fall in love with me and then break their heart.' This was during a discussion about possibly opening our relationship. We broke up shortly after."
21. "We'd been discussing the future (not ours per se, just the future), and he said he really wanted kids. I told him I didn't really want any. He then said, without even taking some time to think about his words, 'I'll swap out your birth control for duds then,' and it scared me enough to stop trusting him. Never felt smaller and less respected as a person ever before."
22. "We were talking about dinosaurs, and he started insisting that they weren’t real. Said fossils were a test from god. We broke up that day."
23. "Probably when he casually mentioned that if he lost sexual attraction toward me in the future, he would have to sleep with other people. This was three years into the relationship. He also said that if I ever stopped sleeping with him for a month or so, for instance, after giving birth or something, he would understand, but he would make my life pretty difficult because he would be so grumpy. Like, you would make my life more difficult after having a baby because you’re an entitled brat?!?! Everyone thought he was a total catch. I had a girlfriend who thought I just couldn’t handle him. LOL. He’s probably busy ruining someone else's life right now."
24. "He would only change his underwear every five days. He tried to gaslight me into thinking I was just hyper-hygienic, but I called my nan, and she said even in the '50s when her family was poor, she still changed her underwear daily. I swiftly broke up with him after that text message (due to that statement and other problems)."
25. "He would pee in used cups and put them under his bed. His mom would throw them out for him every few days. I've also heard from others that this is 'really common.' For me, it was a no-go."
26. "One of my exes told me that he had slept with hundreds of women and dropped them off at the same train station and used to aim to park in exactly the same spot every time."
27. “'I have to lie to you because you’ll overreact if I tell you what I did.'"
28. "'I didn't have time to wipe.' He was in the bathroom for 15 minutes and couldn't take the time to wipe the poop off his butt. Yes, he smelled horrid."
29. "'I like dating younger women because they're easier to manipulate.' Said it to my face. He was 11 years older. Glad I got out."
30. "He told me that a high body count for women was gross and means that they’re run through, so I asked what his body count was, and it was in the 30s. That's many times over mine. But, he said it’s different for him because he’s a guy. He said that for women, it says something about their values. But for men, it doesn’t reflect anything about them. Hmmm."
31. "'Shouldn't you be held responsible for believing my lies?' said by one of the most well-educated men I'd ever met. I burst out laughing and immediately got the ick. I left a week later. Sometimes the phrase will float into my brain randomly and I am overcome with the giggles. Just...what?"
32. "'I thought your medication was supposed to fix you,' and, 'I'm sorry I couldn't change you into someone I could love.' The second was said after having cheated on me and strung me along for six months, all the while criticizing every little thing I did or wore and gaslighting me. I'm in a much better relationship with a very caring person, but those two things will forever color my perception of my ex."
33. "He was (probably still is) a middle school teacher. He told me a story about how a kid was having troubles at home and came to him for advice. He was laughing as he said he made the student go talk to one of his female colleagues because he 'doesn't know how to handle kids' stupid problems.' The guy only got worse from there, but that total lack of empathy (and then pushing the emotional labor directly on to his female colleague) was wild to me. We were on a trip, and I ended up leaving early and never met up with him again. Luckily, we hadn't known each other long, so it was pretty easy to cut him off."
34. "'I'm the alpha in this relationship!' he said while stomping his foot. I laughed SO hard, which he did not appreciate for some reason."
35. “'I can’t get the girls I actually want, so I settle for girls like you.'"
36. “'I’m gonna buy you a ring so when other men see you wear it, they’ll know I OWN you.' Lmaooo, boy bye. Also, shoutout to my ex from high school who got so upset, like red-faced, could barely breathe, crying, because I had One Direction posters on my wall. He was accusing me of loving them more than him, so he threw his pet hamster across his room and then punched a hole through the wall."
37. And: "'I don't think most people would find you attractive,' after we were just talking about how pretty someone else was."
Oh, I am SEETHING!!!! I can see why these were dealbreakers. Geeeeeez. Have you ever dated someone who said or did something so heinous that you ended it on the spot? Tell us in the comments.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.