Recently, Reddit user u/Maisey_Mockingbird asked the women of the Reddit community: "What was the final nail in the coffin that ended your relationship/marriage?"
All of their stories were different, but they ultimately had one thing in common: petty treatment from horrific men. So, here are the reasons why women ended their relationships with them:
Warning: This post contains subjects of domestic abuse, mental abuse, racism, and substance abuse. Please proceed with caution.
1. "He didn't show up for our baby’s birth when I went into premature labor because we fought the evening before, and he was pissed. This all happened two days ago — he thought I was lying about being in labor to get his attention. The irony is that the fight was about how he never prioritized me, which we fought about MANY times before. He walked away from the conversation (again, nothing new) because he had to attend his best friend’s birthday party. I called him to ask when we could talk, and he didn’t pick up any of the calls. He got extremely angry — how dare I call him while he was at the party of his best friend of 20 years? Anyway, my baby is doing okay, and so am I."
2. "I went to a Mother’s Day dinner full of women who told me I was doing a great job as a first-time mom. I realized there that everyone else saw my worth except for my spouse. When I got home, I felt miserable as I approached our room where he was playing video games (the source of my neglect for years). I set the sleeping baby down so I could get ready for bed — I accidentally made a noise, and she woke up crying. He got upset that I woke her because it disturbed his gaming. He was drunk, called me stupid, and waved his hand in my face and flicked my nose. I got upset and did it back. He got mad."
"I stared at him and couldn’t feel anything for him except resentment. I looked down at our baby and around our room, and really questioned my life. When I came to my senses, I decided I deserved more. The words: 'I want a divorce' slipped out, he made a scene, packed his bags, and we’ve been separated ever since.
I’m much happier now, my baby is healthy, and we’re coparenting. He’s STILL confused as to why I want the divorce, but of course…the ones who had it great in the relationship don’t ever understand why."
3. "He threw a tantrum because my BFF of 30 years (who was in hospice) wanted to leave me something expensive, and I DARED to say yes to her instead of discussing it with him."
4. "We were three months away from our wedding, and he broke up with me on the day of my grandfather's funeral to avoid being with me through my grief. He then tried to get me back the next day, but it was over for me right then."
5. "It was the beginning of COVID, and we were separated by distance (he was living downtown, and I was living uptown). He'd do nothing but call and emotionally dump his problems on me. I told him we needed a break (just for two weeks) because I couldn’t keep doing this. Those two weeks without him taking up space in my head were absolutely wonderful. I realized I couldn't emotionally handle going back to him. I broke it off after those two weeks — though I was upset while it was happening, I was so relieved when it was finally over."
6. "Eight years and one kid together, he always had an excuse to never do anything around the house (whether it was shopping, cooking, doing the dishes, cleaning, or doing laundry). He'd offer to do something, but only if I reminded him (which just put the mental load on me). He was always too tired, he worked a long shift, his job was super hard, he made more money than me...and because of these things, he thought I should do all of the household stuff. It was excuse after excuse after excuse just to be lazy. I basically felt like his mommy, and it made me physically cringe if he tried to touch me."
"He was eventually laid off, and my hours at work increased. I was working a lot of hours and making GREAT cash while he was at home. He continued to do absolutely nothing — I'd work a 17-hour shift and come home to our place looking trashed. Then, I'd spend an hour doing dishes and laundry.
Him having zero excuses to not do anything quickly sealed the deal. He'd call me while I was at work and whine: 'I'm hungryyy, I don't feel like making food — can you bring me some, too?'"
7. "I was babysitting with his mom when I found out that they had planned a whole elaborate life for me without consulting me one bit. It was then I realized I was a side character in his family's life — an oven for their progeny. They had never once asked me because they did not care — I was supposed to just go along with their plan, and I was to be quiet and be happy about it."
8. "He told me if I ever cared about him I should unalive myself so he had a story to attract better women. I'm in a much better place now [without him]."
9. "I broke my ankle, and two weeks in, he got mad at me, so he left me outside my apartment building at night knowing I couldn’t open the doors. Then, he didn’t come home for three days, and I found out he downloaded Hinge while he was 'drunk.' Unfortunately, he’s still staying with me because I can’t take care of my dog while injured, but I can’t wait to literally walk away from this."
10. "I spent 15 years supporting him, his career, his kids from a previous relationship, our own son, running the house, and his elderly parents. I stopped studying and changed jobs so I had more time to do everything that needed to be done. There were no thanks or appreciation for any of it, and I started to crumble under the pressure. I decided I needed to take time for me, and started going to yoga and the occasional dinner with friends. Apparently, I was being selfish and unsupportive of him because of it, and it was like my brain actually clicked in that very moment. I realized he did not give a shit about me as a person — only what I did for him."
11. "He said the n-word one too many times, and we had a lot of fights over it. I told him a thousand times that he was NOT to say it in front of me or our kids. He got in the car, Beyoncé was on, and he told me to turn that n-word shit off — I lost it and yelled at him. He told me he wanted to find someone who shared his values, and I invited him to GTFO and find someone else. I didn't think he would, but he did — YAY! He tried to come back two weeks later, but I had enough of his abusive and racist bullshit."
12. "I had a close relative die, and I had to fly transatlantic. I mentioned I needed a cat sitter, and my ex-boyfriend was like: 'I can only do it for one day.' He had a home office job, so he could have babysat (or, you know, he could have also flown with me to the funeral). He just didn't care or didn't want the drama (or both)."
13. "After we moved in together, he suddenly became a totally different person — he didn't support me through my PhD in a different country (where he's from). He'd snap at me for things like me asking if he took an umbrella with him on a day when it was supposed to rain — then, I found love letters from other women. He started gaslighting me, telling me the women were bananas, and that I was the bad guy for looking through his shit. He made me sleep on the floor in front of the entrance door as punishment."
14. "He took my car without asking early one morning while I was sleeping. He knew he wasn’t allowed to drive it because he was constantly on benzos (this was after years of substance abuse and him mooching off of me). He was an unsupportive partner — when he left for work the next day, I wrote him a note and just left. It was the most freeing experience of my life. Six years later, and I've never seen him — good riddance."
15. "I asked him to change a lightbulb for me, and the domino effect that followed led me to realize that I simply COULD NOT be married to him any longer (my divorce was finalized today). He was standing on a step stool and got the lightbulb screwed in, so I went to flip the light switch to make sure it worked. I walked behind him just as he was stepping down off the stool (I don't think I even touched him), but he flipped out and accused me of trying to knock him down. He shouted: 'Why would you do that?!?' I told him it was obviously an accident — he pouted, stormed off, then came back to 'apologize.' But, his apologies were only justifications for why he misbehaved."
"In this case, he said: 'I'm sorry I yelled — I just got scared because I was stepping on my bad ankle, and you shouldn't have walked by me right then.' I told him it was shitty of him to accuse me of trying to make him fall, and he said he didn't accuse me of that. Then, he started yelling again about how I make him feel shitty.
This conversation is when I finally told him I wanted out because I was sick of being his emotional punching bag, and dealing with his outbursts because of his inability to regulate his emotions. He changed his tune and said we should do marriage counseling (which, of course, I had to research and arrange because he's a man-child). But, I was already so checked out after years of this shit that there was really no point."
16. And: "When he referred to my beautiful mother who was a professional cabaret dancer as 'a fucking stripper' and said things like: 'No wonder [your] dad cheated on her and had a secret second family.' He tried to backpedal and say he had once been to a strip club called Cabaret, and therefore thought it meant she was a stripper. It was such a massive no from me. The hypocrisy of visiting strip clubs and yet looking down on the dancers is bad enough, but the venom in his declaration was just death to any chance of an ongoing relationship. I no longer wanted to be on that toxic merry-go-round — done and done."
Note: Some stories have been edited for length and/or clarity.