15 People Who Said Goodbye to Their Exes — And Were Happy Never to Look Back

Breakups can be brutal — but sometimes, they’re the best thing that ever happened. These people said “adios” to their exes and came out stronger, happier, and with some wild stories to tell.

• She was toxic and never allowed what I liked. Using both love and a mad temper making me think I should not make her angry. She took away all my masculinity and then she cheated because she felt I was not giving her attention. ©Bennevada / Reddit
• He married another girl behind my back while still living with me and convincing me that she was just a friend and I was too paranoid. ©-acidlean- / Reddit
• We dated for two years. He constantly made me feel like I wasn’t smart enough, pretty enough, or fun enough. Always “joking,” of course.
  When I got promoted at work, he sulked for a week. Then he told me he didn’t think he could be with someone “more successful” than him. I said, “Cool. Then don’t be.”
  Two years later, I’m engaged to a guy who celebrates my wins like they’re his own. My ex? Still working the same job and liking my vacation photos from fake accounts.

• Married him right out of college. His mom was always a little too involved. She’d call daily to ask what we were having for dinner — then drop by with “better options.”
  When I got pregnant, she started referring to the baby as her child. I found out she’d already made a nursery in her house — with a rocking chair that said “Grandma’s Rules Only.”
  The final straw? She showed up at my OB appointment uninvited and argued with the doctor about my birth plan.
  I left both of them three months later. Got my own apartment, raised my daughter without the chaos, and finally learned what peace feels like. Best decision I’ve ever made.
• I was dating a guy for a brief minute (against my better judgment), and one of my really beautiful friends fell in the shower and broke her nose. His response was “Haha good. I like when girls who are too full of themselves get their faces destroyed.” After the horror of what he said wore off I promptly dumped and blocked him. His mom texted me a few days later to tell me that I wasn’t a nice girl and her son deserved better. © eggplant*** / Reddit
• Her favorite emotion was anger. After 16 years I’d had enough. In the early part of our divorce, I told her that we could work this out amicably. She responded, “No! We have to get lawyers and FIGHT!” Divorce is expensive because it’s worth it. © neal144 / Reddit

• I was asleep and apparently, he got on a dating app. He spent all night talking to a girl and texted me and I quote, “Babe, I’m sorry, I fell in love with this girl online.” When I said, “Dude, if you loved me you wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else” and then he cried at me because he couldn’t see her ever again. I broke up with him a few months after that. But I still think about it. Like, I’m asleep and you have the nerve to go and talk to other women online? © Alarming-Ad-9415 / Reddit
• He told me that there were guys from my neighborhood who reached out to him and threatened him to stop dating me. It was a lie; he just wanted to break up with me. © chilloo10 / Reddit
• Dated four years in college. Always talked about when we would get married. Broke up when I graduated (he was two years older) under weird circumstances. He had been acting shady. Anyway, he tried to crawl into my window at 3 am. I let him in a few times then stopped. He fell out of a tree once.
  A month later, his friend’s girlfriend whom I had started rooming with told me he had been cheating on me the whole time. If he went out with them on the weekend (when I didn’t see him) and didn’t meet someone he would get crazy and miserable.
  I learned a few months later that he got engaged to someone else whom I am sure he was cheating on me. But luckily, he dumped me, and luckily, I moved on and learned not to settle anymore. I met my husband a year later and we’ve been married 24 years now. He’s nothing like the ex, thankfully. © jollysnwflk / Reddit

• He broke up with me via text on our anniversary. Said he “needed space” and “wanted to find himself.” A week later, he posted a picture with his “soulmate” who looked suspiciously like the girl he said was “just a coworker.”
  But then occasionally I found out that he still had my Netflix login and didn’t think I’d notice he was watching rom-coms with her. I changed the password and renamed the account “CHEATERS GET ADS.” Haven’t heard from him since. Good riddance.
• My current boyfriend asked me to prom. While I was getting ready said he changed his mind and took his ex-girlfriend. Then had the audacity to print out their pictures and bring them to my house THE NEXT DAY. When I broke up with him he had no idea what he did wrong. © Unknown author / Reddit
• I had a baby reindeer, a girl who I chatted to in a pub for over an hour or two as my friend pulled her pal. Nothing happened, no kiss, we were both 18 and at Uni in freshers week. But, after this one night, she became obsessed with me. If I joined a club, she’d be there the following week “an amazing coincidence”. I started joining random and ludicrous clubs like the shinty club and there she would be the next week.
  I got a girlfriend and she then started engineering attempts to get into her life, bumping into her at random places like the tea queue in the central refectory and even swapped into one of her lectures. After a very careful term of avoiding her, it seemed to calm down. I bumped into her almost literally in my final year and said hello and she scowled at me like I’d ruined her life! © Eastern-Animator-595 / Reddit

• When I broke up with a significant other she decided that she was pregnant. She went as far as to Photoshop ultrasound results and pregnancy tests and tell my mother she was going to be a grandmother. She even had a name picked out for the “baby”.
  She had everyone at our work convinced I was a heartless person who didn’t care about his unborn son. I finally found the original copy of the last ultrasound that she had altered on a Google image search. I sent it to her and guess what? Never heard from her again. Not once. © mar10wright / Reddit
• I dated a guy who didn’t wear shoes ever. EVER. Come winter, I took him on a hike up the mountain near my house. I told him to wear boots as it’s WINTER and SNOWING. Man brings flip-flops. We made it up a couple of flights of stairs before he complained his feet were too cold to go any further. On our way down, I thought to myself “What am I doing dating a man who doesn’t WEAR SHOES?!?” He’d even be barefoot on the dirty city streets. There was ONE restaurant in town that’d allow him inside with no shoes. © brendrzzy / Reddit
• I was dating a young lady who lived in the midlands and she’d come down to London at the weekends and we’d have some fun. Nothing too serious but it made my weekends enjoyable. Out of the blue, I was asked to move from London to NY for work and so I told my then-casual partner that I’d have to break things off because I was leaving the country.
  She accepted it and stopped coming down at the weekends. Anyway, fast forward a few months, and my move to NY gets canned due to budget cuts. I still had my ex on Facebook and I started to notice some odd photos popping up.
  It turned out she had quit her job and moved to NY when she thought I was going to move and was now living there for 6 months. She reached out to tell me a few days later and I had to explain that I wasn’t there. © i_am_not_a_goat / Reddit

Leaving wasn’t easy, but looking back, it was the best move. Here’s to clean breaks, fresh starts, and never settling again. Here is a proof — 13 stories about exes who thought drama was ended, but it was just the beginning.