Recently, Reddit user heyjalapeno asked the community, "Couples who broke up because of a third person that did not involve cheating, what happened?"
Well, they admitted that it doesn't always take a sexy third person to break partnerships up. Other random folks get involved, and honestly, it's frustrating as HELL.
So, here are some truly annoying outsiders who broke up perfectly romantic relationships:
1. "I was dating a divorced single mom, and her ex-husband was petty as all hell. Any time we had something special planned, he would decide that was the perfect time to drum up drama, discuss amending their coparenting agreement, and so on. She was a good mom, but had no boundaries where her ex was concerned. After several months, I realized that our relationship was third in line behind her kids and her ex. Kids coming first is fine, but that wasn't for me — so I kindly broke it off. We never spoke again, so I do not know if she ever enacted reasonable boundaries (or if he is still sabotaging her to this day)."
2. "Not just a third person, but a whole friend group. They knew everything about me (even though I didn't share much about myself). If my partner and I had an argument, they knew. If I was out with friends? They knew. I was on my period? They knew. I had a bad day at work? They knew. Sex life, or lack of (we had only dated a few weeks) — they knew. They would start showing up at my usual hangouts to 'keep an eye on things' because they didn't like that my friend group was co-ed. I would be downtown and happen to 'run into them.' I would be at work and see them walking by multiple times a day. I understand sharing things with your friends, but there's a line. When your friends are just as involved in the relationship as your S.O., it causes issues fast. Take a clingy boyfriend, multiply that by six, and it's terrifying."
3. "The girl best friend acted more like a toxic mother-in-law than a friend of a grown man. I only met her briefly once, so she had no reason to dislike me. But she threw a fit when he gave me a key (a big romantic moment for us), and she planted doubt in his head that he was moving too fast. We got pregnant, and she told him I wasn’t actually pregnant, and it wasn’t his baby if I was. She also planted doubt and made him extremely distant for the first three months of our first pregnancy. We were dealing with postpartum during our third child, and she convinced him I was controlling and ruined all of his friendships. All of his friendships were ruined by three infants/toddlers??? I didn’t care if he hung out with friends. She never came to visit, never brought gifts for the kids, never tried to know me, but she had weird overly affectionate pet names for my kids because she 'loved anything that was part of him.'"
"Anyway, she eventually convinced him to leave me, and he says stuff like, 'I can’t just choose my loyalty between my friend of several decades and you.'
I had never urged him to choose — she did. Also, she never wanted to date him, never attempted anything — very strange."
4. "I was in a relationship about two years ago — my ex was in a cult. They had a methodology of putting the young members in touch with older women who would act as mother figures. They'd try to tell them good from bad, and how to practice it. My ex was brainwashed so bad by this group that all aspects of his life were being affected, and he was oblivious to it. I tried raising my concerns against this 'woman,' and he got so fucking defensive that she was like a mother to him. We broke up after that for a variety of reasons, but him being spineless was the majority of it. Later when I shared the entire story of this with my friend, she sent me a link about the cult."
"I basically realized that this was modus operandi of the cult members to try and break the relationships of people in the cult. They'd do this so they could push cult members to form families and thus 'grow.'
There was even a specific special term for kids born in the cult to two practicing members. Dodged that bullet big time, and I thank GOD every day for it!"
5. "Single coworkers ruined us. We married young and had two kids by the time we were 23. I was working 55–60 hours a week, and her only friends were her four coworkers who were single and in their early 20s. A once-a-week girls night out became two nights, then happy hours added, then a girls weekend. It became a toxic pattern. She stopped talking to her parents who saw it developing as well. She left when our kids were 4 and 6 years old, packed her stuff, and moved in with one of her coworkers. Once the kids got into high school, she suddenly wanted to be involved with them."
6. "This happened this week. My now ex-boyfriend (fuck that hurts) just started therapy a few months ago at my urging. The therapist helped him realize he wasn’t happy, and that he was being dishonest to me by not breaking up. I’m grateful to the therapist for helping him in many ways, but man, it hurts the most when there isn’t any major drama. It's just two people who care very much about each other realizing they aren’t compatible."
7. "Gay dating is exhausting because it seems like everyone has a weird, codependent relationship with at least one ex. Why would I want to stay in a relationship when I feel like a third wheel in their relationship with their ex?"
8. "My 30-year-old partner of eight years joined a band with some 20-year-olds. They convinced him that they will never get 'big' if they have long-term partners holding them back. Twenty years later, they're still not big, and he never made it as a musician."
9. "Her 9-year-old son was a brat and would bully other kids. We went to a birthday party, and he punched another kid — I got mad at him and made him sit with me for the rest of the party. Well, his mom lost her shit and told me I wasn't allowed to discipline her son because I wasn't his father. I broke up with her right there, and I'm glad I did — her kid ended up in juvie for stabbing someone."
10. "My ex and I met online, and her mom in particular didn't trust me whatsoever because of her meeting me online. This was after we had already met and hung out a number of times. Her dad was cool with me and would talk with me all the time, but her mom wouldn't let me inside ever. One night my ex and her dad convinced her mom to let me come over for dinner. Her mom would not let me out of her sight for even a second, and kept asking me questions almost like she was trying to catch me in a lie or something. Her dad offered me to sleep on the couch, but her mom refused and made me sleep out in the back. Never went back there even when her dad invited me back."
11. "My friend's mother in her 40s went to a psychic who told her her kids and husband were holding her back. So she got divorced, left the kids with dad, and everything good in the whole family's life tanked. Mom never found what it was that she was supposedly held back from. She now has shacked up with a random guy and just kind of works dead-end jobs. Dad got depressed, started drinking, and lost his cushy job in public government. He doesn't have a job now, and prospects are dim for a high school educated man in his 50s. He did get married to a new woman who is decent to his kids — the eldest daughter (my friend) ended up homeless after high school and kind of drifted. She found a wonderful husband, and they make ends meet. Little sister made it to art school, but works retail while she thinks about what's next."
12. "I was in a long-distance relationship with the eldest son of a family from the South of Italy for three years. I am not Italian. (Italians reading this probably already know where this is going.) We met in Milan when I was there for work and he was visiting friends. We would try to meet once a month in my country and different cities in Italy. After some time, he invited me to meet his family, and we started to stay at his family's house. To say his mother wasn't a fan is an understatement (I loved his dad, though — great man). I didn't really speak Italian — I took lessons, but their accent made it hard to follow. She would occasionally burst into our room, screaming her head off at me in Italian (I was a deer in headlights), hide or take my stuff, and just make things difficult. Knowing that we would have to take her in later in life (him being the eldest son and traditions being what they are) made it easier for me when it ended."
13. "I had a boyfriend who was extremely insecure. His bros kept telling him he could do better than me because I was not 'conventionally attractive.' He dropped me because of their advice. I guess he found out he was not the 'chick magnet' he thought he was. He begged me to take him back, but I said I didn't want anyone who was so easily led and flakey (this was a 35-year-old man)."
14. "My grandma divorced my grandpa because of his mom. She was awful to her, and he did nothing about it. She finally had enough, so she left him. She’s now in the mild (almost moderate) stages of Alzheimer’s, and one of the things she has on repeat at this point is how happy she is she left him. She says how much she loves her second husband (and how much she misses him now that he’s dead)."
15. "Her roommate was jealous that my girlfriend was in a relationship and she wasn't. She undermined everything for months until they were away together for a couple days. As soon as my girlfriend was back in town, she called me to end it. Everything she said in the breakup didn't make sense because it was all from the perspective of the roommate."
16. "His grandma was racist and just a hateful woman. He wouldn’t consider a life where he didn’t live with her. Turns out she bankrolled his whole life, and he spent her money while telling me it was his. I asked him to consider moving in with me, and he said any future we have together is going to be us living with her. Nope."
17. And, "My dad’s girlfriend has broken up my fiancé and I twice. We used to live/work with them on and off while we were both in school. The first time we broke things off, she tried to convince my fiancé that I was some deadbeat asshole. I admit my priorities weren’t where they should've been (I was working two jobs, including one with them, and was a full-time student). After breaking things off, my fiancé and I talked about what happened, and decided we just needed a step back to reflect. We did well for a few years, but then my dad’s girlfriend convinced my fiancé that she was bipolar (possibly schizophrenic)."
"She'd go to my fiancé's doctors' appointments with her and prescribed her with an ever-changing cocktail of meds. It turns out it’s hard to find the right balance of meds when you’re treating a mental illness you don’t have.
My dad’s girlfriend also convinced my fiancé she could never be a mother and should get a hysterectomy (luckily the doctors refused). When the idea was discussed with me, I was confused because my fiancé always wanted kids (but my dad's girlfriend made it clear I didn’t have a say). We felt stuck.
This all culminated in my fiancé having a mental breakdown (understandably so) and asked to be brought to a mental health facility. While there, my dad's girlfriend decided that my fiancé had 'abandoned us,' and that I needed to break up with her. Emotions were high, and I knew I couldn’t let my fiancé come back, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get her out, so I reluctantly broke things off.
Narcissism is a hell of a thing."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.