Content Warning: Affairs, Sexual Assault, Body Shaming, Animal Neglect
No relationship is perfect, but there are some acts and comments that a person might make that really should be automatic deal-breakers for everyone.
From body-shaming to abuse and more, there are some things a person shouldn't put up with just for the same of a relationship.
Bracing themselves, Redditor NotMeNotHermioneYOOU asked:
"What's the most devastating thing your spouse, partner, or SO (significant other) has ever said to you?"
The Worst Possible News
"They said, 'I’m so sorry, he didn’t make it,' right after telling me about my best friend's motorcycle accident. Those seven words have hung on me for 18 years."
- Sea_M_Pea
"I heard my Mom say that to my Dad when his father died."
"My grandfather was a man among men. A gentleman, a hardworking, loving, kind, hilariously funny, backbone of our family. Like his father, my Dad is one of the strongest men I've ever known."
"Those words broke him for a long, long time. They've always stuck with me."
- TheMeanGreenGoblin
Aspirational Father
"My ex-husband and I had discussed having a baby for literally YEARS. The dude told me his greatest aspiration in life was to be a father. About a year after we got married, we officially started trying. I was tracking my cycle, informing him of ideal dates, etc."
"I got pregnant and he turned into The Worst. He was extremely unsupportive through pregnancy and was just the laziest motherf**ker alive postpartum."
"After a million fights about his behavior and literal begging on my part for him to step up, we had one more fight around one year postpartum. He told me in this fight that he never wanted this baby, and that was why he hadn't felt the need to participate as much in parenting."
"Lol (laughing out loud), I just... Couldn't you have said that I DON'T KNOW when we were in the conception stage? If I'd known, I wouldn't have relegated myself to single motherhood! We BOTH could have avoided this f**king scenario."
"So yeah. That was very devastating to hear. That point was the true end of our marriage, but I limped along for another like nine months."
- codependentmuskrat
"His greatest aspiration was that he wanted to use you to raise his kid. Then he planned on dumping you, telling you that he never wanted a kid; he just wanted to make you miserable for his benefit. That’s usually what fathers like this are. F**king a**holes."
- LegitimateDebate5014
The Trophy Wife
"He said, 'I want a trophy. And yes, if I won at life, you would be the trophy. I want a woman that every man wants to f**k when we walk in a room, but you are grotesque, your body is unnatural.'"
"Yeah, my body’s not perfect. I lost 150 lbs a few years ago, and I have some loose skin, but it’s not even that bad. And I’ve been called worse things by better people."
"But that broke me. It’s been almost a year, and I’m starting to accept that I’ll just never be the person I was before the love of my life said that to me on his way out the door."
- pandathrowaway
No Common Interests
"It wasn't what he said but an action. As a young woman, I was still figuring out who I was. I have always had issues with conversations; I was horrible at small talk. Other than my kids, I just didn't have a lot going on, so I didn't talk a lot or have much interaction with other adults."
"I was talking very excitedly about a DIY project, and I looked over, and he was making his fingers on one hand into a gun, and he was blowing his brains out, and the other hand showed the brains coming out. I stopped talking to him, like forever."
- Born-Historian-7889
Leave the Pets Out of This
"He let my dog, whom I raised from a puppy and who became my emotional support through his frequent screaming fits of rage, out at night without a leash when she was killed by a car."
"Not two weeks later, he walked my other dog, who I’d had since I was a teenager, again without a leash. So I gently asked (begged) him to leash her. He made the most disgusted noise I’ve ever heard. That killed every bit of love I had left for him in that moment."
"I've been happily divorced a year and a half now. Needless to say, the first thing I told my lawyer was that the remaining pets are staying with me."
- LauraInglesWildIn
The Utmost Disrespect
"I have rheumatoid arthritis, and when I'm in serious pain, I obviously limp and take my time on the stairs."
"One day, while arguing, he mocked me by limping down the stairs."
"To this day, it’s one of the most cruel things anyone’s ever done to me. It was so much more painful than any violence I ever took at his hands."
- Upbeat_Elderberry587
A Love Contest
"My ex-fiancé said that nobody would ever love her as much as I did but that it wasn’t enough."
"She left our relationship after five and a half years, left our engagement, our apartment, and the cat we have together to be with someone ten years younger than her."
- Sven_Svodka
"I had the opposite. Mine told me that no one would ever love me as much as he did, and he could find countless women to love him better. He was abusive, so I was already planning my exit from the relationship, but it still hurt."
"Sadly, I had to leave two cats behind but left with one cat I had before him. She never liked him, and we are doing much better now with someone who does love us, and he's still alone."
"I hope you are doing better and that a more worthy person has found your love."
- urbffenitsuj
Terrible Priorities
"I got my breast implants removed because they were making me sick, and he was awful to me the entire trip out of town to have surgery."
"On the day of the surgery, he told me, 'I feel like I’m going to a funeral.'"
"I just wanted to feel good again."
- Demornay_20
Body-Shaming to the Max
"My ex constantly made fun of my weight. I had an eating disorder that I got help for after it nearly took me out. I went from 70 pounds to a healthy 120. And he went from making skinny jokes to fat jokes. He was truly a miserable b**tard, and I told him that much when I left."
- BlueAlienFingers
Making the Final Exit Plan Details
"We had been living together for a few years, and one night after coming home from dinner, she went into our room and grabbed a suitcase that was already packed."
"Then she said, 'I haven’t loved you for the last year or so. I’m leaving.'"
- PewpyDewpyPantz
The Final Diagnosis
"She told me, 'The doctor said the cancer's advanced.'"
"Three weeks later, my best friend for over 40 years and the mother of my children was gone."
- vmBob
More or Less Kids
"She said, 'I want to have more kids, just not with you.'"
"I know it was only meant to hurt me (and it did), but it was the final straw for me. I filed for divorce the next day."
"Since getting a divorce, life has been wonderful. Better than ever, actually."
"Since my divorce, I've become financially stable, married a fantastic woman who is nothing like my ex, and we're working on our first child together. Honestly, getting divorced is in the top three decisions I've ever made (following my two kids that came from that marriage)."
- ryjohn429
Financial Abuse
"My partner of 14 years woke up one morning and, apropos of nothing, told me he wasn’t in love with me anymore over breakfast. Then, he left for work."
"This was after he had convinced me to quit my job and go back to college, leaving me 100% financially dependent upon him, which he convinced me to do because he said that my lack of higher education had caused him to lose respect for me. It was also shortly after I discovered I had a uterus full of tumors and was waiting for my insurance to approve the exploratory surgery to remove them and find out if I had cancer."
- Forever_Forgotten
Emotional Roller-coaster
"My ex-fiancee said, 'Saying I love you and being near you makes me physically sick.'"
"It’s the thing that has convinced me that I will never find love because he doted on me and loved me so much in the beginning…then that break up over text."
- Hot_Mess_Sheryl
He Wasn't the One Who Married Down
"In front of my kids, he said, 'Mom married up... I married down, WAY down.' Then he pretended to laugh and say just kidding. My kids saw me start crying, and I had to leave the house for a few hours because I was so hurt."
- Illuminions
"I am a fully grown adult, and I still sometimes remember with a pang the times my father was casually cruel like this to my mother in front of us, me and my sister. We were five and seven when they divorced."
- nagellak
These accounts were all such alarming red flags; it's reassuring to hear that all of these Redditors walked away from these relationships.
As good as a relationship might initially seem, some partnerships simply don't last, and comments like these are distinctive reasons to walk away.
@lpeterp/Bluesky
@FPWellman/X
@bobsbeatgmail.com5/Threads