If true love was easy to find, we’d all be hitched up already. Sadly, the world is full of walking red flags.
1. True To Heart
My girl was 100% sure that one time, three years before, when I had lunch with a friend of hers, I must have hooked up with her friend. Despite no evidence of this and the adamant testimony from both of us that we did not in fact hook up but instead just discussed work and our careers, this argument came up every six months or so.
It was usually when she drank that she’d insist she was right because I’d been with her friend for over an hour in a busy open-air market with many places to have the clandestine affair. Over time, I refused to even participate in these conversations as they were not coming from any place grounded in any kind of logic.
Except this seemed to infuriate her even more. Eventually, I had enough. There were a hundred other reasons, and I left her. It was when we were on the phone when she told me about all of the other lovers she’d had and how I was terrible in bed. Well, she broke up with me every week or so, and I called her bluff.
She was very surprised. But all we did was fight all the time, which isolated me from my friends. I was relieved to know that she had been projecting the entire time.
2. A Favor For A Friend
My husband found a suspicious wrapper under the couch. He told me about it right away, but I was stumped—it definitely wasn’t from me. Then, it hit me. I went out with my friend who had crashed at our tiny apartment a few weeks before, and she told me that she slept with our other friend. I asked her where and when they slept together.
She told me it happened the night when they stayed at my place. I connected all the dots and wasn’t too thrilled that they’d done it on my couch. She spent the rest of the time talking about it, and she confirmed where the wrapper came from, which was relieving because I was going crazy wondering how it could have gotten under the couch.
3. Number’s Up
Quarantine was weighing on us significantly. We argued about her having to approve everything I did. I thought it was controlling, and she always got emotional about it when challenged. Randomly, I started to get phone calls from the same local number I'd never seen before. The first time was at 1 am, which woke us up.
The second call was after a big argument, and I was in another room. She came to talk to me when the number called me again. I looked up the number and I was shocked at what I found—it was registered to a woman in her fifties. Immediately, the accusations started flying at me. I offered to call the number and have her speak to the woman.
But she told me that she wouldn’t believe anything because we could’ve “planned something out in advice.” So, I blocked the number while she watched me. We're in a better place now, and I still don't know who that person is that called me or who they thought they were calling.
4. What, This Old Thing?
I had a 1967 Impala four-door that I bought in February 2019. A couple of months ago, I bought my first house that had a 2.5 car garage. I moved the car in and started tearing it down for a complete restoration. I had the body in one bay and the chassis in another, plus the whole garage filled with parts. About two months ago, my girlfriend came to live with me and the whole time, she has hated that car.
She wants to park in the garage but I have two acres of land with a lot of nice places to park under shady trees or even in the barn if it has to be inside. I tell her tough luck, it’s my house and it’s not like I can just throw it back together real quick. Anyways I was out of town for a couple of days on a business trip for the small local company I work for.
When I got back, my girlfriend was all smiles. Making me food all the time, doing all the chores, all that. I thought maybe she just was happy to have me home. But then I made a chilling realization. I didn’t see her car in its usual spot. I asked her where she parked so I could make sure I mow that area and keep it clean, and she said not to worry…because she parked in the garage.
I asked how and she told me to go check it out. Turns out that while I was gone she hired some people to come over and move everything related to that car, including the drivetrain, body, chassis, and all parts, and take it to the local dump/scrapyard. I was absolutely dumbfounded. I had spent over 11k on that car including new parts, services, and the car itself. I knew what I had to do.
I told her that I was going to be taking her to court for that. She brushed me off like I was being dramatic. I told her that it was done between us and to pack her things and leave. I admit I was really angry but I did end up getting a lawyer, and as I have all the receipts for all that money spent and I have her on my house's security cam footage letting the guys in and watching them take it all, I think I can win.
Her family and friends are absolutely blowing me up saying it’s just a stupid old piece of junk and that she cannot pay back all that money I spent, and that I should just let it go. But I have been putting all my time, effort, and money into that car for a year and a half now and goddarnit if I am not going to get justice for what she did.
5. False Evidence
I came home one day and before I could even step through the door, my girlfriend asked who Jill was. I didn’t know a Jill, but then she whipped out a surprising piece of "evidence"—she showed me a note with “Jill” and a phone number written on it. I was stumped and wracked my brain. Then I realized, that it wasn’t “Jill,” but “Till” that I wrote down. Someone had suggested him as a contact for my business.
All that drama because my writing was messy.
6. The Wave Of A Wand
My girl found mascara under the passenger seat of my car. She didn’t wear any makeup. We were just leaving our friend’s place when she asked me where it came from, but I honestly didn’t know. I knew I didn’t cheat, and she knew everyone who’d ever been in my car. I wasn’t defensive since I didn’t have anything to hide from her.
We didn’t talk for the rest of the two-hour ride home, and when we did, she distanced herself from me. I tried talking to her, but she said that she wanted space. So, I gave it to her. She was furiously texting everyone who had been in my car asking if it was theirs or their partner’s, but no one claimed it. Then I started getting messages—and I hit my breaking point.
They were from my friends, telling me to “Come clean,” and “Admit it,” and “How could you?” Clinging to my innocence, I went to sleep and shed a tear because there was nothing I could do to prove that I wasn’t cheating. In the morning, I made her talk to me so I could explain while she desperately waited for someone to claim it.
We talked for two hours and the entire time, she was flicking her eyes at my phone every few seconds to make sure I wasn’t asking anyone to claim it. By the end of it, she believed me and apologized for how she acted. I wasn’t angry with her because I probably would’ve reacted the same way, but you never know until you’re in the moment.
A few days later, a friend texted her back claiming the mascara and apologizing for taking so long to reply. We saw the friend weekly, and it’d fallen out of her bag, which she’d put on the floor behind the passenger seat the last time we’d gone to lunch. But since we’d already resolved it, the text didn’t change much.
7. She Got The Point
I decided to meet up for coffee with a girl that I had been talking to online. We talked for 45 minutes or so about normal first date topics like family, travel, etc. She then asked, "Where did you do your undergrad"? I had a pretty good job, but that question set the bar pretty high for a guy who didn't go to college.
She was not only assuming that I went to college but was also assuming that I was taking part in some type of post-graduate school. When I said that I went to technical school and then straight into the workforce, her reaction was brutal. She looked at me as if she had never heard of such a thing. Apparently, I didn't pass all of her minimum requirements to be considered human.
After a brief pause, she broke off her shocked stare, placed her hand on her forehead in a fashion that covered her eyes, inhaled briefly, and followed it by a valley girl, "Eew"! She took her phone out of her purse and whispered to herself as she typed, "He...didn't...even...go... to...college". I then saw her left thumb hold the shift key as she deliberately pressed the exclamation point key not once, not twice, but three times.
She pressed a few more buttons on the phone, presumably sending this text message to her friend. She put the phone away, looked at me, and after taking a deep breath, said, "Well, that is okay. Not everybody is capable of going to college". She put on a fake smile, followed by an awkward laugh, and just stared at me awkwardly.
I couldn't believe that she had reacted so rudely to something and then tried to act as if it didn't happen. Perhaps she still believed that—like a child playing hide and seek—if you covered your eyes, you would disappear. After staring at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, I finally broke the silence by saying, "Wow, okay. So, yeah…I, um, guess it is about time to get out of here".
I stood up and took my trash to the garbage can, and she followed me out the door. I turned and began walking down the street, and she followed closely and said, "How far away is your car"? This girl was expecting a ride! So, I stopped, turned around, and said, "Oh, I am about a block this way. Where did you park"? She replied, "Oh, I took the bus here. I don't have a driver's license".
I am usually not a rude person. I was going to just walk away and let that be that, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity that had presented itself. I looked her right in the eyes and said, "Eew"! I pulled out my cellphone and typed, "She...doesn't...even...have...a...license", and I added three exclamation points.
I then put my phone away, looked up at her, smiled, and said, "That's okay! Not everybody is capable of driving a car! Lucky for you, the bus stop is right over there. I hope you don't have to wait too long"! I wish I had taken a picture of the look on her face as I walked away. It was priceless.
8. Kicking When She’s Down
I was in a horrible place after losing my unborn child. That’s the exact moment my ex-husband chose to sue me for full custody of the other child. My sister consoled me and supported me through it all. I thought she was on my side. Until I realize just how deeply she had been betraying me this entire time. I don’t know if I can ever forgive her.
My sister talked my ex-husband into suing me for full custody at the exact moment I was unable to contest it properly. She also foddered his case with lies to make me look like a terrible mother, while simultaneously patting me on the back and consoling me that he was a terrible man.
He didn't win, but the case made things contentious for us for years and made it impossible to grieve with my now husband, because I was in survival mode to make sure I didn't lose my daughter.
9. It’s All Connected
Everything I did was proof of me cheating on him in his mind. I mopped the kitchen floor one day when the phone rang, and I ran across the house to answer. The floor wasn't dry yet, so I slipped and hit my knee. It was him on the phone. I told him I fell and it looked like I was going to get a decent bruise on my knee.
But his take on the situation made me livid. To him, I took longer to answer the phone because I was with someone, which resulted in a bruise. There was also the time someone at his work was going on about sleeping with a married woman with the same name as me. They said she worked at a tire shop in town. I forced him to call the tire shop.
He did and asked for her, which was when he finally believed me. Every time he got a new job, he claimed that his coworkers were whispering about sleeping with me. Even when I went grocery shopping with our kids, I must’ve been cheating because I was in town with three kids in tow then came home with all the groceries. I had to leave him for my own health.
10. I Wanted To Break Away
A regular customer of mine who knew I had a new bike asked if I wanted to go cruising with him, later on that week. Happy to have someone to ride with, I accepted. We met up at my work, grabbed a few bottles of water, and then we were off. Halfway through the ride, we stopped, grabbed a coffee, and chatted for a minute.
We continued to ride and wound up at this beautiful part of the local beach I didn't even know existed. Things began to feel a tad bit off at that point, but I didn't think much about it. We parked the bikes and chilled out on a log overlooking the water; there was no one else in sight, which was rather odd timing. There was a long moment of silence.
I looked away to gaze at the scenery and I felt a hand on my leg. When I looked back, he planted a wet one right on my lips. I stood up and screamed out of shock. Embarrassed, he jumped on his bike and sped away. It took us an hour to get there, but since I didn't even know what part of the beach I was at, it took me three hours for me to get back to my car. I had no idea he thought this was a first date.
11. Love At First Sight
I was going on my first date with someone I had met online. We had been talking for about two weeks before we met up. We went to dinner on our date. He wasn't super talkative, and it was mildly awkward. Then, when he was dropping me off, I gave him a hug good night, and he took that opportunity to whisper in my ear, "I love you".
I didn't know what to do, so I laughed, assuming he was joking. He wasn't.
12. What In The Sandhill Happened?
I met a girl in a college class and noticed that she was looking at golf clubs on eBay. Being a golfer myself, I figured it was a perfect conversation starter and went with it. After we exchanged numbers and some conversation, we had a golf date at a local country club for the following afternoon. The first few holes went well, but then the 7th hole happened.
I was about 230 yards from the green, so I pulled out my 3W club. I saw a pair of sandhill cranes that were only about 150 yards down the fairway, so I paid them no attention. I took my swing, and, to my surprise, the ball was a low line drive that got no more than a few feet off the ground. Also, to my surprise was the fact that one of the birds was in the way of the ball.
It was a direct hit to the neck, and the bird went down for good—and that’s not even the worst part. Sandhill cranes mate for life, so when one passes, the other will sit there for hours crying for the other one. It was sad, but little did I know my date LOVED these birds. The look on her face was horrific. She broke down in tears.
We played the last two holes, exchanging only a mere few words. I didn't hear from her again.
13. See Ya!
I had been texting with a guy for months late at night. He offered to take me out for drinks, and on a lark, I accepted. I was rebounding off another man, and my standards were pretty low. His friend “just so happened” to be drinking at the same pub we went to. They stood at the bar, not ten feet from the table we were sitting at, and every time this guy drained his drink, he would go up to the bar and chat with his friends.
This was obnoxious enough, but on his third little chat, they were all plastered and started talking about me—my looks, my accent, whether I would be any good in bed, etc. I was ten feet away and I could hear their conversation. He was so distracted moaning about how this American girl—me—was not as easy as he'd thought that he didn't even notice me walk by him and out the door.
14. Long Hair, Don’t Care
This started a few weeks ago. While cleaning the bathroom, I found a number of long hair strands over my bathroom wall by the shower. This is odd for two crucial reasons. Not only does my husband not have hair (he’s bald), I also wear a very cropped, short hairstyle. So it’s impossible for the strands I found to belong to either me or my husband.
Confused, I washed them away but couldn’t stop thinking about it. I decided not to mention it but kept looking out for them. There seems to be a pattern that there are hairs appearing when I’m either at work or out for a longer time period. I feel like I’m going crazy and feel like I shouldn’t just immediately go to the idea that my husband is cheating on me with a longer-haired woman.
I asked my husband about it and he just shrugged, which makes me more paranoid as surely this is something that’s strange, so why is he so blasé about it? I’m starting to think he’s playing it down to stop me from finding out the truth. It happened again two days ago and I asked my husband again. He dismissed it, but this time admitted it’s strange but told me the only explanation is that they must be my hairs.
They are not and after saying so, now he’ll just ignore me if I bring it up. I don’t want to assume my husband is cheating on me and accuse him of such over something so ridiculous, but I’m driving myself into the ground trying to work out how the hairs have got there without my husband dismissing it as nothing. But then I just figured it out.
I ultimately decided against getting a secret camera set up because ironically enough, I didn't want to betray my partner's trust, but I did plan to leave work early, which is something I've never done before. My boss allowed me to leave after a half-day. Upon returning home, nothing seemed amiss. I was expecting another car on the drive or parked outside on the street.
There was no other car I didn't recognise. Quietly letting myself in, I was immediately confused. In the hallway, there was a pair of shoes I didn't recognise, and not only that, they looked like men's shoes. I was standing in the hallway trying to work out what to do; I didn’t know if I should sneak around or make my presence known.
Before I could decide, my husband walked out of the kitchen with two cups of tea. By my husband's face, it was obvious he was surprised to see me. Playing along with naïveté, I asked my husband how he could have known I was coming home early to make me tea? Expecting my husband to lie, he surprised me by sitting me down and explaining everything.
Recently, his friend—someone I'm not all that close with because we only met once—was evicted, lost his job, and had been couch surfing. So for some days over the past couple of weeks, this guy has been traveling to our house, and with the acceptance of my husband, using our bathroom to freshen up to attend interviews.
He was also borrowing shirts and suits from my husband. As it turns out, my husband's friend has long hair and a beard. So it turns out my husband isn't cheating on me but was hiding the fact his long-haired friend was coming over to use our shower. After his shower, I ended up meeting "Dave," and he turned out to be a very nice guy just down on his luck.
I wished him the best and he went on his way. I asked my husband why he didn't just tell me, as I wouldn't have had a problem with it. He was worried about my reaction and me not liking his friend or approving of the situation. He also told me Dave was very embarrassed about the whole situation and didn't want people to know what he was having to do.
I told my husband I was starting to believe he was cheating and he was shocked, having not even considered those implications while attempting to cover for his friend. I told him this whole thing was ridiculous and even suggested his friend live with us until he's back on his feet. Funnily enough, my worst-case scenario was either a homeless man or woman living in my walls and sneakily using the shower.
And though this seems to be half the case, I'm glad it wasn't a stranger .
15. Mr. Roboto
My husband and I have been married for six years. We have two kids and I’m pregnant with a third. My husband works from 9-5, comes home, does his chores, plays with our two kids, talks to me for a little bit, and then goes to sleep. But he doesn’t seem to enjoy doing any of it. Like this whole thing is one big chore. It’s like he’s turned into a robot.
He used to be this goofy guy who smiled and told jokes all the time, but I haven’t seen the man smile in months. It’s not like he’s neglecting his duties as a husband and father, but he acts like it’s just that, duties. Like hanging with the kids and me is a second job. I’m grateful for all he’s doing, and he makes all of our lives sooo much easier, but it’s like he’s constantly on the clock and I think he might be depressed.
I tried asking him if he was doing ok and he tells me he’s doing “fantastic,” but I know he’s not. That’s the line he uses at work when customers try to make small talk and ask how he’s doing. He doesn’t take any time for himself. He doesn’t take any breaks; he stopped playing games and stopped watching TV. He just does what I feel he thinks needs to be done and I don’t know how to help him out.
Our bedroom life has become one sided. We do it frequently, but only because I initiate frequently. Even if he doesn’t seem in the mood, he’ll do it. Like it’s his responsibility to “make me happy.” It feels like he isn’t there in the moment, like his mind is wandering the whole time we’re intimate and that, to me, feels worse than getting rejected.
I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know how to help because he won’t let me in. To anybody else he seems fine, but I know something is wrong and I don’t know how to fix this. I miss my husband, the guy who complained and told jokes. Not this robotic shell that looks like him. It’s clear to me now that my husband is overworked and “burnt out.”
So tonight, my husband came home at around 6 o’clock, and after he had something to eat I took him to the bedroom to talk. It was a revelation. I sat him down on the bed and told him I was worried about him. When I finished my piece he starting crying, like full-on crying. In all the years that I have known this man, I had never seen a tear roll down his eye.
I held him for a few minutes until he could recompose himself, and he told me everything. He told me that the world was in a bad place right now, and that we’re bringing a child into a stressful time. He said when I became pregnant, he felt he had to step up. He needed to take care of things because it was his responsibility.
He said that the weight of carrying the family was so much harder than he anticipated so he thought if he “doubled down” he could get through it. But the more he tried, the “darker the tunnel got” and eventually he couldn’t see an end. He said that he feels like he’s “constantly drowning, and the only breath of fresh air is on the car ride between home and work.” But that wasn’t all.
He said that sometimes the stress is so much that he throws up, but doesn’t tell anyone and instead keeps going with his day. He then pulled out a pack of gum from his pocket and said, “this was for when it happens.” I asked him why he couldn’t tell me any of this, and he said he didn’t want to “burden me with the truth.”
He said that he thought if he told me everything, that I would stop seeing him as a “protector and provider,” and that I would inevitably stop loving him. Hearing him say that brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t know where he got the notion I would feel that way. I asked him if he wanted to quit his job, but surprisingly he said the job doesn’t bother him.
He said the work in and of itself was fine. It’s just now he feels an added weight to provide. He said that some days he feels like packing a suitcase and running to some tropical island for a week and not telling anyone. But then he feels guilty and doubles down even more. I told him that maybe he should go on a trip.
I said that he deserved a break, and maybe if he did exactly that, he’d feel better. He tried to protest, but I insisted. In the end, he said that he’ll only go if we go together. Like a romantic getaway between spouses. Before the baby is due, he wants to take a week off from work, drop the kids off at Grandma’s house, and have us go on a vacation.
Just the two of us, like we used to when we first got married. He also said he wants to take the day off tomorrow and just sleep in, so that’s the plan. I’ll call his boss tomorrow and say that he’s sick and can’t come in. Right now, he’s playing with the kids and it doesn’t feel like he’s doing one of his chores. He actually seems to be enjoying himself.
For the first time in months I don’t see the robot, I see my husband.
16. Ring Her Up
God this is a doozy. I swear my life feels like a movie right now. I am planning on proposing to my girlfriend of three years. Now, I suck at picking out jewelry. I’m the type of guy who doesn't see a problem with heart-shaped jewelry (seriously why is it considered so ugly?), so every time I want to buy something for my girl, I usually consult one of our mutual friends.
My girl's best friends are all friends with me as well and we all get along well, so asking them for help picking out jewelry is something I'm used to. When it came time to pick out a ring, I consulted my girlfriend’s best friend Justine. Justine and I are quite close and she knows my girlfriend better than anyone, including me.
So, when my girlfriend went out to visit her sister and baby nephew, I invited Justine over to the house to help pick out a ring. Justine and I looked through a few catalogs but decided it would be better to go to professionals at a jewelry store. However, I didn't know when my girlfriend would be coming home, so Justine and I thought of a clever text to gauge how much time we had.
I asked her when she'd be coming home, as I was ordering takeout and wanted to know when to tell them to have the food ready by. Her text back chilled me to the bone. She responded by saying it would be a few hours, since she met up with Justine to go shopping. I showed Justine the text, and she looked as confused as I was.
It isn't out of the ordinary for my girlfriend to meet up with people out of the blue like that for shopping, lunch, etc. She's a very spontaneous person and loves making plans on the fly. So ordinarily, I would have believed this text in a heartbeat. However, obviously this had to be a lie. When she came home she acted completely normal, and I played along, but it's been really hard to act like everything's fine.
We got takeout, ate together, and cuddled on the couch after. So far, she's caught on a little that something upset me, but I just can't tell her what. Looking at her hurts me. I don't know what to do. My girlfriend and I have zero trust issues and we tell each other everything, so this lie was ruining me. Eventually, I decided to confront her.
I decided to be honest. I basically just said that I knew we'd been thinking about marriage and she probably knew a proposal was coming soon, so I invited Justine over to help me find her the perfect ring, and that so happened to be the day that she said she was going to see her, so...what's the deal? She immediately started grinning like an idiot and prodding me about proposing and the ring.
Then we got back onto the topic of where she was, and she confessed what she was really doing. No, she wasn't cheating, and no, she wasn't picking out a ring for me. So, some people are dog people and some people are cat people. Well, me, I'm a snake person. I grew up with snakes my whole life. But I never felt I was able to get one because my girlfriend has always been uneasy about living with a snake, which I completely respected.
Also, the process of buying and raising a snake is very different than that of buying and raising a dog or cat. It's quite complicated. So you could imagine my surprise when my girlfriend showed me a picture of her holding the cutest Kenyan sand boa I have EVER SEEN! Needless to say, my girlfriend was going to surprise me with a snake!
We're picking her up next week.
17. A Cliffhanger
My girlfriend is completely crazy but mostly in a good way. Spontaneous is an understatement. Sometimes she goes too far, but I love her for her crazy personality. I am more relaxed and we balance each other out. Two recent incidents really freaked me out though. I was driving on the highway with a lot of traffic. We were going maybe 40 mph.
She suddenly started tickling me and wouldn't stop when I yelled at her. I jammed on the brakes and someone almost hit us from behind. I asked her what the heck is wrong with her, but she just laughed about it and told me to chill. I said, "What would make you want to do that?" and she said "I don’t know, just felt like it."
Then last Saturday, I was hiking with her and I was standing near this steep cliff. I'm usually wary of her because you never know what she's going to do even though it's usually just a prank or something. I let my guard down and she went behind me and pushed me towards the cliff and I swear I almost fell off. She did it hard and I ended up right at the edge.
She was laughing so hard. I freaked out and started screaming at her and I may have been out of line but oh my God. She laughed about it at first but then she started crying and saying she was so sorry. The next day, she started texting me saying that she didn't mean any harm and she just "didn't know" that I would get so mad at her for doing that.
Am I crazy for even thinking about this? Is it possible she's just immature and if I get back with her she'll be different? I'm kind of lonely and I really love her, but this really made me rethink the situation because now I feel like she's legit crazy, not just fun crazy.
18. Cat Fight
I can't believe I'm about to type this, but here we go. I've been dating my girlfriend for seven months. She's amazing and we're super compatible in a lot of ways. She is an outspoken vegan, and she made it clear at the start of our relationship that it was important to her that any potential partner had similar values.
Me, already being a pescatarian, had little difficulty transitioning to a fully plant-based diet. My girlfriend was proud of me for going vegan and everything seemed well. We became "the vegan couple" on our college campus. But a horrific problem has come up. See, then there is my cat, Mittens...I've had her for three years and I adore her.
She's such a sweet and cuddly cat. However, my girlfriend was always a little apprehensive around her, and she blamed it on not growing up around cats. After a while, we sort of made a tacit agreement to mostly hang out at her apartment instead of mine, so Mittens never really came up again in conversation. Until, well…
We began seriously looking at either buying a new apartment together or having one of us move in with the other. However, after a lot of talking and planning, my girlfriend sat me down and dropped a big reveal on me. She said that with this next phase of the relationship, she did not see a future with me unless I was willing to give away Mittens.
She said that she believed owning a cat is unconscionable for vegans, because they hunt mice and eat meat, and because the very act of owning a pet is against vegan principles. I was stunned. I told her that I was absolutely not willing to give up Mittens, and Mitten had no choice but to eat meat, so I was reducing harm as much as possible by buying reputable brands of cat food.
Plenty of vegans own cats and think along those same lines. My girlfriend got mad and said, "How much flesh does your cat eat? How many animals perished to make all that food? Would you be okay with that being human flesh?" I got mad and told my girlfriend that I would have really appreciated her telling me about her cat opinions before we got serious.
She went on and on about cats hurting animals. I ended the conversation there. I was so angry that I left my girlfriend’s apartment, and I snuggled with Mittens when I got home! Although the mood soured a bit when my girlfriend sent me a link advocating for the extinction of domestic cats. Sigh.
I think it goes without saying that I am not going to get rid of my cat. However, it pains me to think that an otherwise wonderful relationship could be ending because of a difference in ideology. I don't even really understand where my girlfriend is coming from because like I said, a lot of vegans own cats and they make it work.
Now granted, cat ownership can be a controversial topic in vegan circles and I probably would not have gotten a cat if I had been vegan at the time, but I have Mittens now, and she deserves to eat. Yes, I've researched vegan cat food, but Mittens has some digestive issues and my vet strongly cautions against it. I've talked to some of my vegan and vegetarian friends, and they all think my girlfriend has lost her mind.
Some have suggested that it's not about Mittens and my girlfriend just wants an excuse to end it. So, we broke up, obviously. I would never, ever give up my cat Mittens. Many also said that this situation was about control, not veganism, and looking back, I do see a pattern of control on my girlfriend’s part. I was blind to it, I guess.
I called my girlfriend and said I was not willing to give up Mittens under any circumstances, and given the recent issues we'd had, and our incompatible views, I thought it was best that we parted ways. I said she deserved a partner that shared her values. She then asked if we were breaking up, I said yes. There was some anger on her end, but otherwise the situation actually went better than I expected.
19. If The Shoe Fits
My wife is a neat freak. Always has been. She throws notes on my desk out assuming they're garbage, my belongings get rearranged to the point where it takes me hours to find them; it's something I've come to accept. I'm not happy about it, but we have a pretty happy marriage on the whole. I am a volunteer EMT, and I keep my boots unlaced up against the wall next to my clothes hamper so that I can throw them on along with my uniform if a call comes in during the middle of the night.
Well, my wife has taken to tying the bootlaces when she sees them untied. Not only does she tie them, but she tightens them and double knots them to the point where I need to undo the knot, open up the boots, and let a little slack out to fit my feet into them. I ignored it the first two times, but the third time she did it, I made it a point to bring up to her the next day.
I very calmly said, "Honey, I appreciate that you want everything neat, but please do not touch my boots in the future. Time is of the essence when I'm going on a call and at two in the morning I don't have the time to unlace them and open them up. It's not just a minor inconvenience, it's people's lives, so I would appreciate it if you left them alone."
She rolled her eyes, said I was being dramatic, and that she wouldn't help me out by keeping my things neat in the future. Well, she never stopped. No matter how many times I've asked her, told her, begged her; she just laughs and says, "Well you know how I am!" Then disaster struck. The other night a page went out for a CPR in progress.
I went to throw my boots on and they were, once again, tightened beyond recognition. So I'm sitting there on the edge of the bed, cursing, trying to get my boots open, and fumbling due to the stress of the situation. My wife opened her eyes, groggily looked at me, and asked, "Don't you need to go on that call?" I know I was in the wrong here, and I regret it.
I slammed the boot into the ground and yelled, "Yes! I do! I would have been out the door five minutes ago, except SOME STUPID WITCH MESSED WITH MY BOOTS AGAIN!" My wife got up without another word, walked into the bathroom, and slammed the door. I got my boots open and went on the call. By the time we arrived, the officers had gotten her back, so I didn't have to do CPR.
Still, I was sweating and shaking thinking my delay could have cost a life. I got home and my wife wasn't talking to me. She ignored me the entire day until we finally sat down and talked. She said I had scared her with how angry I got, that she thought I was going to hit her, and she didn't know I was capable of getting so angry.
Note: I have never raised a hand to her, nor have I ever yelled at her before; I am absolutely not a violent person in any way shape or form. I apologized for yelling at her, and acknowledged that I hadn't meant to snap at her, I was frustrated with the situation as I needed to get to the person in need of CPR as soon as possible and it was a delay that didn't need to happen. I, once again, pleaded with her not to touch my boots because lives were literally on the line.
She told me that if I was going to overreact and make her afraid then she would never touch my boots again because she didn't want to live like that. Last night, before I got into bed, I had a sinking feeling. I went over and checked my boots, and I was very disappointed to find them tightened up again. So I decided to show her how it felt.
I went over to her closet and pulled out her running shoes. I unlaced the shoelaces on both of them, removed them from the shoes completely, curled them each into a little coil, put them inside the shoes, and put them back. I then went to sleep. At 6:15 I was woken up by my wife screaming, "How could you!? Why would you do this?" holding up both laceless shoes with tears in her eyes.
My wife likes to go for an early morning run and I knew she would want to get out the door as soon as possible. I smiled and said, "You know how I am! I just like things neat!" She continued sobbing and walked out of the room. So, by the time she was all laced up again, it was raining so she missed out on her run. I actually feel pretty terrible about that because I really only wanted to delay her, not ruin her plans completely.
At this point, she's alternating between crying that I went out of my way to hurt her and ignoring my presence. I acknowledge that what I've done has been pretty childish and not at all constructive. I just don't know what to do. She said, through tears, "You admitted you were totally in the wrong for yelling at me, and then you turned around and took it out on me in a different way! What is wrong with you?"
The problem is, to her, an apology means taking on 100% of the fault. When I apologized for blowing up, she took that to mean she was 100% in the right and that my feelings were completely unjustified. So at this point, I haven't apologized for ruining her run, because she'll take that to mean that she wasn't wrong to touch my boots.
I've tried to have these discussions but it's in one ear and out the other. We have such a good relationship otherwise, but I feel like this issue has reached a tipping point and it's going to continue to result in arguments until we resolve it.
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20. Mrs. Wrong
My wife and I have been married for slightly more than three years now. Last Christmas, I saw texts I wish I could unsee. I found she had been having a long conversation with a co-worker of hers, in which they talked about sleeping together multiple times and that they couldn’t wait for the next one. The guy said he was going to book a hotel near their office right after Christmas.
In this conversation, when he said he was looking forward to seeing my wife, she would reply with things like “I’m looking forward to much more than just seeing you” etc. You get the idea. Overly flirty and all that. When I confronted my wife, however she denied the conversation existed. After deleting it, she showed me her phone to prove it didn't exist.
But I had taken a few pictures. She then said it was all virtual and that they never did anything physical. To prove she was right, she messaged her co-worker (in front of me) asking if he had booked the hotel, he replied “not yet.” She then asked if he was really expecting them to meet, to which he replied negatively.
She promised they would never talk again and I agreed, simply because I love her a lot and wanted to trust her, but in my mind I wasn’t completely sure she had been honest. For a few weeks, I must admit I checked her phones a few too many times, so she changed her password, which I was fine with because I was probably being too paranoid.
This week, I picked her phone up because I needed a code that had been sent to her phone number; I didn’t even need to unlock the screen to get it. When I saw her messages, my blood ran cold. To my surprise, under the message with the code there were other messages from the same guy. One of them was an audio, the second one was a shirtless photo of himself in front of a mirror, and the third one said “sweaty” and a few emojis with the tongue.
I confronted her, since she had promised they wouldn’t talk ever again and she said he just wanted to show her he’s going to the gym to show progress. But that the rest of the times they talk it’s just about work, and that this is just a coincidence. I asked her to show me the rest of their messages but she said she had mistakenly deleted their conversation history.
My wife says she’s going to change this time and that I never really forgave her and that’s why she kept talking to the guy. She says this time she’s really going to stop but I have a hard time believing it. Or even if she does stop, I fear when things don't go so well between us she'll do it again. I really love her but can’t keep living like this.
My brain just can’t overcome the catastrophe and the collapse of the world I had built for me in which my wife is my love, my best friend, and partner, as well as the person I admire the most. She was entirely perfect, and made me happy for many years. I thought no couple in the world could have what we had. We were both very happy for a long time.
We were both attractive, we were both inherently good, had big hearts, and were individually wildly successful in our careers. Recently, I moved in with my family to think things through for few months. It’s been a terrible time but a psychologist is helping me recover from a terrible mental state. My wife was very sorry and continued saying they hadn't met.
I knew it wasn't true but was willing to forgive the woman of my dreams, who continued being in the highest altar of my universe. Fast forward to last Saturday morning. I went back to our place, ready to forgive her and talk things through in the most mature way possible. And well, there she was, but I was the one who received the biggest surprise.
THE guy was in my house totally bare, and so was my wife. The guy from the messages, the guy from the pictures. The one she said she didn't even like. I caught him hiding in my bathroom as my wife was putting her pajamas on. When I saw him hiding in my bathroom, he uttered, "Sorry dude." I didn’t even know what to say back.
All I said was, "I’ve got nothing against you." Even if he was doing it in a house full of pictures of me. Pictures of our wedding and our families. Pictures of my late father who would be so sad to see how the marriage he never witnessed was going to end. He has always been the reason I try to make the world a better place. He passed two months before our wedding.
I'm sorry. But I understand enough is enough. Even if my world collapses, I hope I can build a new one without lies and in which I'm not just a blind believer under an altar of a fake god.
21. Pants On Fire
My girlfriend found a slip of paper in my work pants with a woman's name and phone number on it. She asked me who "Cynthia" was, but I had no idea what she was talking about. Then, she handed me the paper. I was confused and just stared at it because I honestly had no idea. Surprisingly, after a lot of back and forth, we managed to move on from that, and three years later, we bought a new house.
While we were sitting on our couch, it suddenly dawned on me. Cynthia was a customer who had liked the necklace I was wearing, and I had told her that I’d gotten it while on a trip to Europe. She gave me her number so I could let her know the name of the jeweler. I was too naive to realize that Cynthia had actually been flirting with me.
I told my wife of my revelation and apologized since it’d looked like I was cheating on her. But I think my obliviousness was key enough because she did marry me and had never brought it up.
22. I Knew It!
My ex-wife got it into her head that I was cheating because many of my friends were women. She was convinced that I’d banged all of them at one point and she even tried getting her mom involved. Thankfully, her mom told her she was being stupid. Then she went on my social media to scour for the smallest clues of any infidelity.
Her examples of “cheating” included me wishing a friend a happy birthday or chatting with friends from work. I had to go to Korea for a year, and she talked non-stop about my imaginary Korean girlfriend who I loved. So, I spent the year in Korea without my imaginary partner but I came back to a blood-boiling surprise—my ex-wife was sleeping with her boss.
Until the end, she justified her cheating by claiming I cheated. After that, my downward spiral began—she drained my bank accounts before initiating a divorce, and now she’s broke while I’m buying a house. Go figure!
23. Doing Too Much
In my third year of studying computer engineering, my girlfriend broke up with me because all I did was “stay home and do homework.” Little did she know that the tables would soon turn on her. After the breakup, I learned that she was cheating on me with a guy who found out that she’d lied about her name. He found her on social media and then sent me screenshots of their conversations.
I realized that all of the texts she was getting while we were together were from him. Seven months later, she messaged me telling me how sorry she was, how much she regretted hurting me, and how she’d been through so much since our breakup. She said that she didn’t appreciate how great of a guy I was. I sent her, “k.”
24. Looking Out For A Friend
I was at a bar with my SO and her roommate when I saw this little dude dancing wildly with a woman who looked uncomfortable. The woman later started talking to my SO's roommate and said it was their first date. She said that he kept grabbing and touching her. He literally stepped in between the girls as they talked and tried pulling her to the dance floor.
She looked terrified. She said, "I need to leave", and ran for the door. I normally wouldn't step in, but something told me to. Luckily, I was quite large, so he backed off, but the look on his face was an angry/insane look I hadn’t seen in a long time. He went back through the dance floor and made his way to the door.
An officer was standing nearby, and I didn't even have to say anything. He saw the woman run and was already on the radio with the officers who stood out front. They had it under control.
25. This Date Blew
I started talking to a girl on OKCupid. She was pretty, seemed down to earth, liked Skyrim and Game of Thrones, and generally seemed cool. We planned to meet for dinner. I got to the restaurant at around 7 PM. As I was sitting outside, I heard, "Hey"! I looked over and had to do a double-take. This was definitely the girl I was talking to, but she was so very different in real life than she was in her pictures lead on and not that great looking.
She was wearing a Pokémon shirt too small for her. I wasn't going to back out, so we started talking and went inside. I noticed when we were sitting down that she never closed her mouth and breathed loudly out of it—she was a mouth breather. Not only that, but she would just stare at me while mouth-breathing—it was so weird.
When we were choosing appetizers, she claimed that she couldn't eat mozzarella sticks because she "self-diagnosed" herself with Crohn's disease since cheese made her gassy. Then she started insulting our waitress, saying, "I bet she likes Twilight and Jersey Shore. I'm probably the only girl who likes gaming around here. I'm real". And somehow, it got worse.
She kept making grunting noises and heavy breathing noises, and at one point, she got sauce on her chin and never wiped it off. When the waitress brought out our dinner, my date said, "A wild steak appears", and the waitress and I just sort of looked at her. It was awkward. Towards the end of the meal, she passed gas really loud and started crying because she was embarrassed about it.
Everyone was looking at us, and I just sat there.
26. Getting Cold Feet
My wife and I have been married four years now, coming on five. We have generally had a good relationship and a good marriage. We had a reasonably expensive wedding, which we're still paying for now. I get the bill every month to prove it. My wife took charge of planning the wedding, so it was to her tastes. She seemed to enjoy it at the time.
In fact, for the first few years of our marriage, she would look back at the wedding with me happily and without issues. In recent months, however, I've noticed my wife's attitude to a) our wedding and b) our marriage itself shift. It began by her (I thought jokingly) referring to herself as my “girlfriend.” She told me to buy her a “girlfriend” card for Valentine's Day rather than a “wife” one, for example.
I thought she was just playing around at first. But this behavior has only escalated. Two months ago, my wife stopped wearing her wedding ring. I was understandably upset and asked her if there was something wrong. She told me everything was fine and she just “Doesn't like the sensation of jewelry on her hands.” My wife has never liked rings and so this could be the case.
But when we are with friends, my wife will now get upset if I talk about her as “my wife” rather than just a girlfriend. She will go as far as to interrupt me if I'm talking or telling a story to “correct” me on our relationship. Initially, this was something our friends laughed at, but now everybody just finds it understandably awkward.
One of our friends was talking about their own wedding, which is scheduled for early next year. They asked for advice from my wife about how she'd planned ours, and my wife’s reply stunned the room to silence. She responded with, “What wedding?” When our friend continued talking about the table decorations my wife had used, my wife visibly teared up in front of the whole group and had to step outside.
Later that evening, I asked her directly if she has a problem with our relationship or if I'm doing something wrong in our marriage. She assured me that everything is fine between us. From my perspective, outside of this issue, our relationship is as strong as ever. We are considering kids in the near future, and my wife recently suggested we get matching tattoos as a renewal of our love. I just don’t know what this is about.
27. Getting To Know You
I live a pretty normal life, and I thought so did my girlfriend. We've been together for a few months and after things got serious, we moved in together. We started sharing a lot of the household responsibilities, but the one thing she was adamant on doing was the laundry. She would come home and find me in the bedroom getting the laundry together and would quickly ask me to go do something else.
I'd come back to finish the laundry and she would have already started it. I always thought it was sweet and never her job to do it alone, but hey, if it makes her happy to do it all the time, I wouldn't stop her. This is where it takes a turn for the weird. I keep all my socks and underwear in the bottom drawer of my dresser.
I also go to the gym frequently, so I always keep a good supply of clean gym socks ready to go. I never kept count, but I know by just a visual glance I have several pairs. This morning when I went to grab a fresh pair to pack for the gym, I noticed there were several dress socks, but no gym socks. Again, not weird, they must have been in the laundry.
I went to check the laundry basket and it was empty, so I checked the washing machine and dryer. Both were empty. I couldn't figure out where all of my gym socks had gone. So, I did the very natural thing of asking my girlfriend what had happened to them. After all, she is the one who does the laundry all the time. She went silent, turned red, and ran out of the room.
When I went after her to see if she was okay, she wouldn't talk to me. I told her I wasn't mad, I was just looking for my socks. She kind of mumbled, "I don't know." I still wasn't mad, of course, but I was super confused. Socks just don't disappear. So I asked her again, even laughed about it, and she just looked at me and got mad and said, "I'll buy you new ones!"
The first thought that went through my head was she had somehow managed to destroy my socks while washing them. I thought the sight of that was actually pretty funny, so I joked with her about ruining my socks. Wrong. Thing. To. Say. She started immediately crying. Like, full on sobbing. At this point I don't care about the socks anymore, I want to know what's wrong with my girlfriend.
I sat down next to her on the bed and put my arm around her and asked her if she was okay. She just kept saying she was sorry and that she would buy me new socks. I tried assuring her again it was okay. Even went so far as to say I would buy new socks and she didn't have to. I sat with her for a few minutes, trying to calm her down, and eventually had to get ready for work.
I told her loved her and got my things together to leave for the day. On my way out, I grabbed the garbage to take outside. When I got outside, I lifted the lid off the garbage can and I noticed a small plastic bag sitting on top of the garbage already in there. I could see through the bag (kind of the semi see-through ones), and there were socks in the bag.
Since I was sure she had somehow managed to ruin the socks washing them, I wanted to see for myself. I opened the bag and immediately regretted my choice. There, inside the bag, were several pairs of my gym socks covered in what looked like poop. As soon as the smell hit me I knew it WAS POOP. We don't own any pets. We don't have any kids.
WHOSE POOP WAS ON MY SOCKS? Work could wait. I couldn't go the rest of the day wondering why my gym socks were covered in poop and inside a plastic bag in the garbage can. I grabbed the bag and walked back inside. As soon as my girlfriend saw the bag she flipped out and started yelling at me. She said I shouldn't be going through the garbage and that I was disgusting for bringing it back into the house.
I asked her to calm down and that I just wanted an answer as to why there was poop on my socks. I wasn't blaming her or anything, but she started accusing me of blaming her. That's when it clicked. I don't know what it was that led me to ask this, but everything leading up to this moment had just been so crazy. I asked her, "Is this your poop?"
She started sobbing again and ran out of the house. I didn't go after her this time. The only conclusion for me at the time was that she used them after going to the bathroom. Which that alone has its own set of questions above everything else. I sent her text asking her to come back, and I left for work after throwing away the bag of poopy socks.
She texted me back and she's clearly embarrassed, but felt she owed me an explanation. She said she didn't want to talk about it in person and that we could discuss it over texting and to NOT bring it up in person. Her responses were super short, but I'm getting the idea. I flat out asked her if it was some thing she's into. It is not, apparently.
She confessed to using the socks after going to the bathroom. I found the reason she always does the laundry is because she was hiding the fact that she uses socks to wipe with, primarily her own. I had no reason to question the amount of socks she ever has because who pays attention to that kind of thing? She thought I would notice and think it was weird since she doesn't own many socks.
She admitted she has done this for a long time. Her reasoning, as best as I can understand, is that because she is a germaphobe (her word), she is afraid toilet paper will tear and is afraid of getting her hands messy in ANY WAY. She uses socks because they cover her entire hand. After she's done with them, she throws them away.
She used mine because she didn't have other socks. So, my girlfriend has a fear of getting poop on her hands so she wipes with socks, and has done so for a long, long time. It could be worse, I guess. I hope we can laugh about this later. I'm trying to find the humor in it now, but I'm still weirded out, I have to admit. At least I know the truth.
28. Love Potion Number 9
Monday, my boyfriend and I decided to make the 8ish hour drive back to our home state to live for a few months. Right before leaving, we got into a big fight because I wanted to stay at my mother’s house for a while. However, he doesn’t want me to, among other things I won’t get into. Well, before leaving we decided to eat dinner so we didn’t have to stop anywhere.
Fast forward to our drive, and not long after hitting the road, it all went so wrong. I passed out. I don’t even really remember falling asleep. I woke up one time for a while, drank some Gatorade that he gave me, and then I fell asleep again. I thought this was extremely weird because I wasn’t tired hardly at all and we didn’t even leave super early.
I kept commenting on how weird it was that I was tired the whole drive and slept 90% of it. Yesterday, the tension eased a bit, and he made a disturbing confession. He made the offhanded comment that he wishes he could drug me more when I “act out” and argue with him. I ask him what he’s talking about. He proceeds to tell me he put Benadryl in my drink.
That’s why I slept, so he didn’t have to deal with me. He literally said this as though it wasn’t that big of a deal! I’m still reeling from the conversation and completely floored. I don’t know if I’m overreacting or not but something tells me I’m not, and it’s extremely messed up to put medicine in drinks. I don’t even know what to do.
29. Daddy Issues
I met my wife when we were in high school and we married in college. We have five beautiful children together—really, I consider them a total blessing regardless of what I'm about to bring up—and up until a couple of weeks ago, I thought that we had the perfect marriage. We were typical high school sweethearts for the longest time.
We go out together, we never fight, and I feel like I've done everything a loving husband should do. I am saying this not to make myself out as the perfect husband, for example my work has always meant I work long hours and maybe I haven't always been there when she needed me, but I want to stress that I've never felt our marriage was in any trouble.
And never in a million years would I ever have suspected my wife of being disloyal. She's always done everything she could to support me and take care of our children. Now, my eldest daughter recently had an ancestry test done. Well, the results of the test shook me to my core. They strongly suggested I was not her father.
She confided this to me privately, showing me the results, and I could tell this visibly upset her. Of course, the first thing I did was reassure her that no matter what, she's my daughter and I'll always love her unconditionally. But secondly, the two of us decided to get an official paternity test, since the ancestry tests are not completely reliable.
It comes back and I am indeed not her biological father. This news really broke me. I'm ashamed to say I broke down in tears in front of my daughter. It was a combination of finding out about my wife's infidelity and how upset I was making my daughter by how I was reacting. I really wish I had kept it in for her sake, but I didn't.
Following this, I asked my other children, except my youngest, to come and see me. I wanted to know the extent of my wife's infidelity—if it was a one off, I could maybe work past it, especially given how long ago it would have been. However, I didn't want to tell my youngest as she is still in school, a teenager, and really I didn't think it was appropriate to tell her yet.
We tell the other three what has happened, and I reassure them that I love them unconditionally and that I'll always be their dad, but that I need to know how long this has been going on. God, I can't begin to explain how touching their reaction was. They didn't care if I wasn't their biological father, they were just upset at how heartbroken I was.
I feel like the only thing that has kept me going these last couple of weeks is their unwavering support. So we have paternity tests for each of the three done. Not only are none of them my biological children, together four of my children have three different fathers. Which somehow made it worse. It's like, she wasn't just having an ongoing affair, she was having multiple?
I can't explain how this makes it worse, but it just does. So I confront my wife with this, expecting her to confess and beg for forgiveness. She doesn't confess. She doesn't even take it seriously. She says the tests must be flawed. All four? How the heck am I supposed to take that seriously? I keep bringing it up and she keeps brushing it off, getting progressively more annoyed at me.
When I bring it up, she will try and guilt trip me. "We've been together since high school, do you seriously not trust me?" etc. But how am I supposed to trust her in the face of such overwhelming evidence?
30. Accusing Excuses
My girlfriend was always accusing me of cheating. I slept in too late and didn’t send a good morning text to her at the very minute she had to leave for work, and apparently, that meant that I was guilty. Spent too much time with my parents? Definitely cheating. Talking to a life-long female friend whose husband plays video games with me on the weekends? “You’re cheating.”
Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and I had to dump her—but my nightmare was just beginning. She followed me everywhere and made me get a restraining order. My therapist taught me how to set boundaries and she said what I did was healthy because: “When somebody is accusing you so much, you almost start to believe you are doing something terribly wrong.”
31. Getting Fruity
I was eight months pregnant and I got some blisters on my lip. I also developed a really noticeable rash on my chin. My husband and I went to get it checked and the urgent care doctor thought they were cold sores. It seemed like a common problem, but my husband immediately became furious. I have never had cold sores, nor has he, so he automatically assumed that I must have been sucking face with somebody who did.
This turned into a situation where I became very upset because I was eight months pregnant. I was not thinking about any kind of intimacy and definitely not with anyone but my husband. My test ended up coming back negative for herpes. The doctor said that I was allergic to the mangoes that I’d shoved my face in a few days before.
32. Looked You Up
Just after we got married, my wife called me at work accusing me of having an affair. She was so upset that she just kept rambling on and she wouldn’t let me get a word in. There I was at work, sitting amongst my colleagues who were working quietly, yelling at her to shut up and listen. Another group manager came over to ask if I was okay because I was so loud.
Reality finally hit me, and I needed to get home as soon as I could to figure out what was happening. I came home to an absolute shock—my wife was having a full-blown crisis. A woman had approached her at the grocery store and told her that she was my girlfriend and that I had promised to meet her there to tell my wife that it was over. She knew personal details.
It was enough to convince my wife that I was having an affair. When I didn’t show up, she told my wife to call me and ask for herself. I explained to her that I’d been working over 50 hours a week with complete accountability for being at work every day and never away at night.
I didn’t have time to have an affair. I then brought up her ex-boyfriend who was an officer. He was still jealous that she’d left him for me, and she agreed that he would be capable to pull a stunt like that. So, we blamed him and moved on.
33. She Didn’t Want S’more Of That
My roommate's girlfriend was a dancer at a club. He and I would go on slow nights, get a couple of drinks, and she and her coworkers would sit and hang out with us when they didn't feel like being pawed at. During the course of one of these hangouts, I struck up a conversation with a dancer who turned out to be extremely well-educated and a would-be symphony composer.
She was also ridiculously hot, and we just clicked. It took a while since we met at the club, but I eventually got a date with her. We started our evening at a local coffee shop that was famous for having little s'mores platters with flaming cans to toast your marshmallows. We got a couple of lattes and a s'mores platter and proceeded to flirt.
Things were going swimmingly—until total chaos broke loose. One of the marshmallows I had on a skewer caught fire. I had a mouthful of scalding hot latte at the time, so I panicked and just waved the marshmallow to put it out. It promptly sailed through the air like a sticky, flaming meteor and landed on her lap. She looked down with horror as her velvet pants caught fire. She shrieked.
I wanted to throw a glass of water on her or blot it out with a napkin, but the only napkins I had were paper, and I had no water—just a scalding hot latte. She looked at me, panicked, and said, "Do something"! So, I did what I could. I doused the fire with the scalding hot latte. She went to the bathroom and returned with scorched pants and burns on her thighs. She said, "Let's call it a night". I did not get a second date.
34. Stop Whining!
I met a guy at a friend’s party. We had been texting for a few weeks, and he seemed awesome. We decided to go on a date to some small fancy restaurant. He picked me up and spent the entire time driving to the restaurant complaining about his day. We got to the restaurant too late, and it was closed, so he complained about that too.
His friend called him while we were looking for a new place. He answered and complained about how the date was so bad. We ended up eating at IHOP. All the while, he was still complaining about how terrible the date was. I know he meant it was terrible in that we didn't get to go to the other restaurant and ended up at IHOP.
However, in my opinion, a date is good or bad based on if you have fun with the other person, so I took it personally. At the end of the night, he dropped me off and told me he had a great time even though it was a terrible date, and that he would like to see me again. It didn't happen. Maybe if he hadn't whined the whole time, I could have had fun as well.
35. This Date Took A Bad Turn
I took a co-worker of mine to a baseball game. We had a great time, got pretty tipsy, and took the subway back to my house to close off the night properly. When we were going through the exit turnstiles, disaster struck. She got her toes stuck under them. She started freaking out and yelling at me angrily, saying her toes were broken/fractured until the ambulance got there.
When the paramedics arrived, they un-trapped her toes within three minutes. We drove 30+ minutes to the hospital and were stuck there for hours with her badgering me about how much pain she was in as she sat in a wheelchair. The X-ray came back at 6 AM—with a twisted surprise. We found out there was absolutely nothing wrong with her toes.
I paid for the expensive cab ride across the city and put her to bed in my guest room, so I could wake up two hours later to go to work.
36. He Was Not A Good Sport
I went to a large university, so it was hard to meet people in class. Luckily one semester, I had a couple of small discussion sections and hit it off pretty well with a guy in my Shakespeare class. We decided to go on a date to a local cafe. He and I had nothing in common outside of liking Shakespeare. He only talked about weightlifting and "bulking up".
His only hobby was weightlifting, which I knew nothing about, although I asked a lot of questions. He started berating me for not weightlifting and asked what sports I played in high school. I was a cheerleader and ran track, which he said "didn't count" and that he "couldn't date a girl who didn't do sports". I can run a half marathon, know all sorts of elaborate jumps, and I'm pretty flexible, but apparently, those aren't sports.
37. I Just Ran
I had just moved to Chicago and was very lonely. This ridiculously hot guy asked me out at the bus stop. Two weeks later, we went on a date. He did T-shirt designs, and I was a pianist, so for our first date, we were going to give each other a lesson in our respective crafts. This was a huge mistake for me My piano was in my apartment, and I lived alone.
I didn’t know this guy, but I was young and dumb—and he was incredibly hot—so I let him in. I should have run. He started going through my things, choked my cat, and knocked my closet door off the track. I was scared and needed to get him out of my apartment in the smoothest way possible. We left to have Thai food. He sat on the same side of the booth as me and burped—with purpose— in my ear.
He also conveniently didn't have any money, and I had to buy his dinner. Then, he let me know he had A RESTRAINING ORDER ON HIM FROM SOME GIRL HE WENT OUT WITH RIGHT BEFORE ME. As we left and started walking down the street, he flicked a penny at a homeless person, made fun of the sculptures on the street, and screamed at a lady's poodle. It was then I took off, RUNNING away from him.
I ran back home, hoping he couldn't remember where I lived—he did. Hours later, someone let him into my apartment building. I got a knock on my door, looked out the peephole, and saw it was him. I was about to call the authorities, but he ran away when I threatened him with it. He lit up my phone for two weeks after that. I thought I was going to have to move.
38. Liar, Liar
I came home from work early and found female sneakers in the garage that weren't mine. At that point, I sort of already knew what I'd be walking into. My husband has recently become very fit and has been consistently going to the gym, during which he made a female friend who he even brought home for dinner last week. Yeah.
She's beautiful and thin and everything I am not, which instantly made me feel horrible. So, I talked to him about it. He encouraged me to build my confidence and reassured me he loved me and would always be loyal to me. I walked into the laundry room from the garage and sort of tiptoed around the house before going upstairs. That’s when I saw the sight that ruined my life.
They were getting intimate. In our bed. With a framed picture from our wedding above the nightstand next to it. I silently left the room and got back in my car with tears streaming down my face and drove to get food and just sat in my car. I’ve been crying since. It’s now almost 1am (I walked in on them at 7pm) and I've returned to the hospital.
He called me asking why I wasn't home and I told him my shift is extended but in reality, I'm laying in one of the on-call rooms bawling my eyes out. I feel so worthless and ugly and stupid. I don't even know how to proceed. On the one hand, I want to divorce him and never see him again, but on the other hand, I feel so gross and the self-loathing is getting too much right now.
39. By Any Other Name
My wife and I have been married for four years and we have a two-year-old. We dated on and off for three years before getting married. Last night, I got the shock of my life. She said her ex’s name while we were getting it on. When I noted it, she gave some weird excuse as to why. She said it’s a common name (it is a very common name) and she must have heard it recently.
I wasn’t going to start a big argument with her at that time. But it has since gotten me worried about why she did that. For some background, this was a guy she was with for a couple years before I met her. They met in college and were serious for some time. They had broken up when I met her and decided they were better as friends.
They were friends for years before they dated. We started dating, but he remained in the picture. He was her best friend first and foremost and I grudgingly went along with it for her. But several months passed, and I put my foot down, saying it was too uncomfortable for me. There was some resistance, but she stepped back from him. But there was one big issue.
Every time we broke up, she was with him. We finally reconciled and got engaged. He apparently didn’t know this and stopped talking to her. She was devastated at the time, which should have been a red flag, I now see. At the time, though, we talked about it and she was happy to have chosen me. Now after this has happened, I’m tempted to see if she’s gotten back in contact with him again.
I know she’s checked in on his social media because I saw the searches on our laptop. She doesn’t know I know that. I don’t think she’d cheat, but this guy was always different for her.
40. Family Feud
I have agreed to carry my sister’s baby for her, as she is unable herself and lacks the financial resources to pay a surrogate. I am happy to do this…or at least I was. The baby is biologically my sister’s and my brother-in-law’s. This child is made from her last and only viable egg. They had tried many times before, but they all failed.
So I am 6 months along at the moment and I met a lovely man recently and we are in the early stages of a relationship. He knows about my situation and is very accepting and considerate. Before agreeing to carry their baby, we had some firm rules in place. They asked me to stay away from any bedroom contact with men.
I agreed and I really didn’t mind, nor do I mind it right now. The agreement was no bedroom intimacy of any kind, and I have not done anything with anyone, as was agreed. But this is where it started to unravel. A few days ago, I introduced my new boyfriend to my sister and brother-in-law, and at first everything was great.
They invited us for dinner last Saturday, we had a great meal and a great time together. They all seemed to get along—that is, until he had to leave. When my boyfriend had said his goodbyes, he then came over to me and hugged and kissed me. It was quite passionate but not in a vulgar way, nor was it for a long period, literally seconds.
As soon as he left, my sister and brother-in-law jumped down my throat. They were talking about how I broke the rules, and how disgusting and wicked I am. I genuinely was shocked, since I had not expected such a reaction for just getting a kiss. I decided not to argue or even get into a conversation with them and just walked home.
I live about a 30 minutes walk away, and by the time I got back home I had an email waiting for me. Its contents made my blood boil. The email contained our original agreement but now it included a section with “No kissing of any kind,” and they want me to sign the new agreement. I don’t want to sign it at all, not in the slightest.
I have been more than accommodating and considerate of all their original requests, and I feel like they are now crossing boundaries and acting as if I am some kind of farm animal they own and control. However, I don’t want to create any further animosity between us. They have been calling and texting me since then and I have yet to answer.
I understand their anxiety and worry from when we originally made the first agreement, and I viewed it and still view their initial request as acceptable. I wasn’t in a relationship at the beginning of all this and they were worried about potential STI, and I understood and I was already taking a break from men at the time. Still, I am doing this completely for free and without any reward other than helping my sister have her first and only biological child.
41. One Heck Of A Growing Pain
My mom had an affair 18 years ago, and I am the product of it. My dad just informed me of all this, and told me he will not pay for my college, while my siblings got their college experience paid by our dad. Both my older brother and sister went to the same college. My brother graduated two years ago, my sister is set to graduate in two years.
Dad paid all their expenses, including rent, food, their cars, pocket money, you name it. My brother has a job now, his own place, lives together with his fiancée, and has his life together. My sister already has a good-paying job, and my dad still pays for almost everything for her. I got accepted to the same college, which was always the plan, and was looking forward to talking with my parents about the next steps.
I was going to ask them to help me the same way they did for my siblings. Instead, I was met with a story about my mom's cheating, how I am the result of her cheating, and how my dad is not willing to support me any more moving forward. Dad told me that mom had 18 years to let me know and prepare me for the future, but obviously she never did. I was floored—what am I going to do?
He said it was never his place to say anything since I am not his son, and he didn't want to interfere with mom's parenting. Apparently, my grandparents know I am not dad's biological son, but they haven't bothered to tell me anything, either. My siblings had no idea, and they are as surprised as I am because there was never a hint of anything being off.
I might be naive, but I always thought I had a great relationship with my dad. We go to see sports together, we go fishing together, he tutored me when I had difficulties with math (dad is an engineer), and he taught me to drive. I never got a hint he stores resentment towards me. I mean, he gave me my name, and has explained what my name means, and he was very proud of it.
It's a story he tells from time to time. He likes to talk about stuff like that about me. My mom, meanwhile, has never said a word about anything, and apparently she was supposed to have "the talk" with me, but she never did. I feel abandoned and unprepared for what lies ahead. I am not even sure I will be able to go to college anymore, as I always assumed my parents would pay for it.
I never had a job, and I am not sure what job I can even get to support me through college. I have no idea how to apply for loans. All my mom has done is cry and apologize throughout this. But nothing of substance; she has no idea how to help me. I don't even know if I am welcome at home anymore. It's all up in the air, and I feel shame leaving my room. It's a nightmare.
Still, if they ask me to move out, I don't know where to go. I don't have any savings. I am angry at my mom, and I am confused about where I stand with my dad. There's a man out there who is my father who never wanted to have anything to do with me. I feel rejected and I have no idea what to do to fix this situation. I have no idea how to process all this.
42. How Rude
My boyfriend and I have been in a relationship for a year and we had a baby boy last week. I had a natural birth and my boyfriend was there throughout the whole process. I screamed A LOT, and each time I did, he whispered something awful to me. Things like, "Can you stop screaming, you're really embarrassing me."
I also threw up a few times and I saw him cover his face in shame. When I held the midwife's hand for comfort, he whispered, "Let go of her, stop being so embarrassing." He also said that my birthing position was embarrassing too, and called me a few vulgar names. I'm really upset about his behavior that day, especially when it was when I needed his support the most.
When I try to talk to him about it, he denies ever saying it and that I'm being silly...I tried asking him about couple’s counseling, but he refused. My mom has agreed to let me stay at hers until I can find a new place for myself and the baby. I haven't said anything to him yet about splitting up; I've been advised not to so I am still planning out how I am going to take the next step.
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43. Just My Type
My boyfriend, who is 29, admitted that I am the oldest girlfriend he's ever had. I am 21 years old. He then nonchalantly admitted to dating a 15-year-old when he was 27 and a 17-year-old when he was 28 before he got with me. Now I want to break up with him. It has been a difficult time to be honest, my world has been turned upside down and I have been reeling from everything that happened.
I had been staying over at his place for the week and when I woke up from what I could only describe as a depression nap, he was already in his home office working. I took the opportunity to pack my things and brace myself for what I was about to do. A part of me was still very much in denial of him being a predator, so I opted to fix breakfast so that I could get him to talk about it more. His revelations were shocking.
I wanted to find out the true extent of these relationships. I brought up his ex while we were eating, and he was more than inclined to talk about her. She went to the same high school as his sister, and that’s how he met her. My now ex-boyfriend makes a 6-figure salary and he drives a really flashy car, which he says was the reason she approached him, "to check it out."
He continued to insist that she threw herself at him, and used him for his money when they finally got together. I asked him about the girl’s parents, and he said he met them and that they clearly didn't like him, but "as long as their daughter was happy, they were alright with it." That particular line did me in, but he harped on.
He talked about how the dad never let him near his other kids and how much convincing it took for her parents to finally be all right with her sleeping over at his place. He says that they broke up because she found someone wealthier and she dumped him. He apparently met the second girl, the 17-year-old, online. I asked for specifics.
He said she lied about her age on Tinder because she was turning 18 soon anyways, and they just "clicked." However, he was only looking for a rebound, so they didn't "really date," they just "screwed" (his exact words). That apparently lasted a month until she dumped him as well. When I asked him if he prefers girls in that age range, he said, "Yes, but obviously I want a more mature woman to grow old with."
He then looked at me as if that statement was supposed to somehow reassure me, or make me feel better. I couldn't act passive anymore after that and I told him I do not think I am the woman he is going to grow old with. An argument ensued and he told me I was a "horrible lay anyways" and "How dare you accuse me of such a horrible thing, you're sick," when I told him his proclivity for young girls was not normal and it might do him some good to get help for it.
I grabbed my bags and drove back to my apartment. Hindsight truly is 20/20 because so many red flags are glaring me in the face. I am petit (5'4, 120lbs) and he always liked how small I was. He constantly commented on it. There were a few times where he told me I remind him of his ex and even though it made me feel uneasy, I just dismissed it as him having a “type.” I also didn't know at the time that she was a teenager.
He has been insistent on me moving in with him and quitting my job because he makes enough money for both of us to live comfortably and he made it sound so romantic. I was genuinely considering it, and I think he might have been trying to isolate me, as he already didn’t like most of my friends. He was also very emotionally manipulative.
All the times he has ever guilt-tripped me or used the things I told him in confidence against me, all came rushing into my mind. I am starting to see how far from perfect our relationship was, and I am sick to my stomach thinking about it all. I do not know how I can possibly stop him from doing this to someone else because I have no evidence and I am afraid my claims will be dismissed if I report him.
I am also concerned about how this will affect the victims in this case. Is it really all right for me to report something on their behalf?
44. What A Turnaround
I took a day off from work to drive across the state for medical tests because my insurance only covered one location. It took four hours to drive there, then a couple of hours for the tests, and then I got food with an old friend who had moved there, which took another hour or so. After all that, I set off for my four-hour drive back home.
While getting ready for bed, my girlfriend asked me a question that made my blood boil. She asked me how I got the marks on my back. I looked in the mirror and saw light red marks on my shoulder blades. She got upset about them, calling them “hickeys.” I was just as, if not more, confused than her and suggested that I might have sat wrong in my car or they came from the tests.
I also brought up that hickeys usually aren’t on shoulder blades. The conversation devolved from there with me trying to tell her how I should have more hickeys if I had been doing anything with someone and her screaming for me to admit that I had cheated. We lasted another week when I found out she was cheating on me.
45. Love My Bed And My Mama
When my wife and I first started dating, she let me know that she had trust issues from a previous relationship. Her ex-boyfriend was engaged to her and another woman at the same time and had chosen the other woman instead. So, one day, my mom called me, and we ended up talking for much longer than I had wanted. I didn't think anything of it—until my wife barged in and caught me completely off-guard.
My girlfriend flipped out after I hung up because it was 8 pm, but my mom lived in a different time zone. She told me that no one spoke to their mom that late. So, she checked my phone, and I showed her the call was from my mom’s landline. She calmed down, and we had a few other incidents.
But then, later on, she learned I liked D&D. Nerds don’t have time to cheat as it would take time away from hobbies. Plus, we’re happy that at least one person likes us and don’t want to mess that up.
46. Know What You Did
I learned that my boyfriend installed a key logger on my laptop. All he found was an old chat between me and a guy who I’d politely turned down. After I pointed out that he found no proof that I cheated, he went off about how I was never around or paid attention to him anymore, which was just as bad as cheating on him. But that's not even the worst part.
I had just lost my father a few months earlier. I hadn’t been around because between work and school, and I had to go back to my home to state to deal with his house and other affairs. I wanted to spend time with my family, and he had no consideration for my tough situation. I just threw the whole man out.
47. I Camp Believe What Happened
Years ago, I went out with this girl I met at the summer camp we both worked at. Camp had ended, and I had agreed to drive the hour between our houses and pick her up for a night of teenage romancing. I had spent a number of hours deciding on which restaurant I would take her to, then where to go after, even down to what time I would take her home.
When I arrived to pick her up, I was surprised to see her out on the side of the street rather than in her house, but I paid no mind. I had her hop in, and we were off. Dinner passed without a hitch. After dinner, I suggested that we go to a cafe around the corner for dessert. We ended up splitting a slice of cheesecake, which was how I knew I was doing well with her.
It was starting to get more than a little flirtatious. There was hand-holding and that sort of thing, which set my loins on fire. The entire time, I noticed that she kept ignoring a phone call from someone, but again, I still didn't think to question it. We got up to leave, ready for the passion of the night to begin. She told me about a place on her street where we could park and be alone, which sounded perfect.
I put the pedal to the floor—driving with the heart of a Nascar champion—intent on getting to her street as fast as possible. As we turned on her street, we were greeted by a horrifying sight. There were four cruisers parked outside of her parents’ house. Her response was, "Oh no, I didn't think they would do that". I pulled up to the house in time to have four officers tell me to step outside the car with my hands up.
I learned that the girl was not 17 like she had said, but was actually 15. She had two female parents who were extremely prejudiced towards men in general, so they had disallowed her to see me. She had snuck out to go on a date with me. Her parents had called the authorities, informing them that their daughter had been taken.
So, there I was, an hour away from home, being questioned and trying to hide my quickly dying libido. Eventually, everything was dropped, and I was allowed to go. We did not see each other again.
48. Doggone It
I have an 11-year old senior German Shepherd. He was hit by a car in 2018 and we went through a very difficult recovery process. He had seizures, urine issues, and a constant fear of anything going fast near him. Like, I couldn't throw a ball anymore. We actually got another puppy, but our senior was so stressed we had to re-home her.
You would have sworn he was displaying rescue dog behavior, but he was just scared. Well, he's moved past all of that now and I'm so proud of him. The vet prescribed zoniamide for his seizures and so far he's been recovering well. My vet and I were discussing ways to improve his "mobility." It’s like a walking cane, but for dogs, and it has sensory objects on the end to prevent him from bumping into furniture.
We tested it in the office and his mood improved instantly, but at that time I couldn't afford more treatment for him so I opted to come back. So I met this guy named Dan earlier this year while walking my dog. He's known since day one that my dog requires special treatment, and that I would absolutely provide what he needs.
Everything went well at the beginning. Until one day I got too comfortable. We were talking about finances and I told him about my debt and the money I was saving up for my dog. After paying off the debt from his previous treatments, I didn't want to open another card so I started saving cash in a little fireproof chest.
Well, Dan took it from me. Yesterday, I went to his place and I noticed he has a new setup. I was asking him where he got the money from, and his response sent a shiver down my spine. We fought, he admitted what he did, and then he said, "He's half gone anyway, you need to let go." My dog is not even close to passing. He's a little older, but he's nowhere near that age.
We go to the veterinarian regularly and everything checks out as well as it can be given in his circumstances. No one has ever mentioned euthanasia; we've only been looking at the future and improvements. We're both students, so I don't want to ruin his future but that was for my baby to get what he needed so he can walk around my home comfortably.
49. The Bare Truth
I've been dating this girl for over five years, and she's very special to me. Even at this point, I can't help but hope she's not too worried about why I've been acting so oddly. I honestly was planning to marry her sometime in the future as soon as we settled into our adult lives. But fate had to go and throw a massive wrench in my plans.
One day, we were chilling at her house when I asked her if she could send me the funny picture she took earlier that day of one of our puppies. She was busy on her computer, so she told me to just grab her phone to send it to myself. When I went into her phone gallery I noticed a "hidden" folder, which I hadn't seen before.
Out of curiosity, I opened it. I immediately regretted looking at it. It was filled with explicit pictures of her, most I've already seen. Some of which, however, she's never sent to me before. I thought maybe she was stockpiling for whenever I asked for any…I soon found out how wrong I was about that one. I clicked on a video.
It was an intimate bedroom tape from the POV of the guy, but the thing is—I don’t remember filming it. It 100% wasn’t me, and it was a recent video. For the last five years, we've had a few shares of fights, but nothing too serious. She'd always make me feel loved and I could tell she really cared about me. Or at least I thought she did.
After I returned her phone to her, I quickly got up and went home. I couldn't stay there any longer. And now I'm here. I don’t really know what to do. I'm planning on confronting her and breaking it off, but right now I'm just in shock. Five years down the drain, and I feel like I just lost my best friend. I'm not really sure how to feel. I can't think straight.
50. All In The Family
My wife and I have been together since high school, and married for 10 years. My wife's best friend Megan and I work for the same company, though in different departments. So yesterday, she wanted to meet me after work and told me that she had to tell me something. I met her, and she immediately broke down and started crying.
I tried to console her and asked if something was wrong. That’s when she told me that my wife and her husband were having an affair. According to her, this affair has been going on for years—but that was far from all. She also told me that her husband was my three-year-old daughter's biological father. Apparently, she confronted her husband and he didn't deny anything.
Well, when I confronted my wife, she tried to deny everything. But when I told her that Megan told me about it, she broke down and started crying, too. I really don't know what to do. I mean, everything was a lie, right? My little girl Taylor is not mine and my wife blatantly faked everything for years. What do I live for now? I just don't know what to do.
51. Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
So my good friend Aaron and his girlfriend Mary have been together for almost 7 years. They met in college and are in a very close relationship. Personally, I would call them extremely co-dependent. Neither of them really have any friends aside from each other, and she doesn't let him have guy friends. In fact, she doesn't let him do a lot of things.
He's not allowed to go out past 11, not allowed to drink or smoke, she has to approve of all of his friends, and he's not allowed to be alone with other girls. She's got this guy on a tight leash. The reason why they're still together is that Aaron is completely whipped, and to him she can do no wrong. He talks regularly about how amazed he still is that she finds him attractive.
He's a decent looking guy, but she's like supermodel level good-looking. They post cutesy couple photos every day—I’m pretty sure she makes him post them—and to everyone who sees them, they appear to be the perfect magical fairytale couple. But now I know the dark truth. A few weeks ago, he told my boyfriend and I that he was planning on proposing to Mary.
Of course, we congratulated him because he seemed super excited. Now here’s the issue: A few weeks prior to this, I hung out with a friend of Mary’s, Alison. Alison told me about a party they went to where Mary got drank too much and slept with her ex. After the party, they began hooking up regularly, and she had a threesome with him and a friend of his.
Aaron has no knowledge of these hook-ups. I told my boyfriend about it because he shares my friendship with both of them, and he believes that we need to say something, but I'm not so sure how to even go about that. It will destroy him, ruin their entire relationship, and maybe a friendship as well. However, I think in the long term he will be unhappy with a marriage where she's so controlling.
Not even that, but if she's completely okay with cheating on her long-term partner it will be the same once they're married.
52. Sibling Rivalry
Me and my girlfriend have been going out for eight and a bit months. We didn't sleep together straight away and first did it only a few weeks ago. I was a virgin before that, so I'm not experienced at all, and so far I haven’t been able to, you know, satisfy her. Now, the kicker is that before dating me, my girlfriend was dating my brother.
It was awkward at first, but we're all okay now. Anyway, so last night I tried my best to get her there but in the end she told me to "just stop," so I did. Then she said something that made my stomach drop. "Your brother turned me on so much more than you do." I was so shocked by her saying that, I didn't know what to say back.
She got dressed and left the house and we haven't spoken yet. I just feel so confused about how I feel. I know I'm not as attractive as my brother, but I didn't think she would say that. Am I just being a baby and getting upset over nothing? I understand she's probably fed up and she might have just said it in the moment.
53. Have Another
I went to the bar where my boyfriend was a regular. I usually didn’t go, but one day, I randomly wanted to know what the fuss was all about. After we got there, he didn’t stay by me—instead, he wandered off socializing the whole time. Then things got really, really weird...he kept giving this random guy permission to hit on me. The guy kept asking if he was sure.
This happened for a while, and I politely declined each time. Then I decided to play along but did nothing physical. I was being playful since my man seemed to want me to be for whatever reason. Everything seemed fine. My boyfriend even acted like the guy’s best friend. And then the next day, he accused me of cheating!
I rolled my eyes and laughed about it. But he wasn’t joking. So, we had a big fight about his accusation. It was ridiculous.
54. Missing Something
My girlfriend grabbed my backpack and found a pair of black underwear at the bottom. After she presented it to me, I was stumped. The only thing that came to mind was when her sister showered in our washroom, or it could have been our nanny’s, but neither of them would fit the underwear. I left it because I had done nothing wrong.
Every few days, she brought it up, and I gave the same answer every time–I never did anything let alone disrespect the bed that we shared. Then, a few months later, we were spring cleaning and out of nowhere, she gasped—she found the matching bra from a set she had bought years before. I told her if she wore it more often, we’d recognize it better.
55. Family Matters
I had been trying to date my friend's roommate for a few months and finally got up the courage to ask her out to dinner. Just as we were getting ready to leave her apartment, the phone started ringing. She answered and got this weird look of disgust and concern across her face. She handed me the phone and walked into her bedroom.
As I was bringing the receiver up to my ear, I could hear the sobbing. My brother had been dating my friend, and they had recently broken up. On the other end of the phone was my brother, completely trashed and pining for his girlfriend. After what seemed like an hour, I finally got my brother to tell me where he was.
He was about six miles from his house, calling from a payphone. I tried to get him to call for a ride, but the next thing I knew, he dropped the receiver, and all I could hear were cars driving by. I tried to hang up to call the authorities, but since my brother didn't hang up, I couldn't disconnect from the call. I seriously started to get worried.
In my mind, I was picturing my brother passed out in a parking lot—or worse—getting into his car and attempting to drive home. The rest of the night fell apart as I tried to find my inebriated brother and also get a phone that was 30 miles from my location hung up. We wound up never having dinner, and after that night, she didn't want to talk to anyone from my family.
56. I Wasn’t Out Of The Woods
I was 17, and summer break had just started. I asked this girl that I was hanging out with—Jenna—if she wanted to be my girlfriend, and she said yes. My new girlfriend asked me if I wanted to hang out with her that night, but I told her that I had already made plans with some friends to go out drinking in a nearby forest.
She asked if she could come, and I thought that would be awesome, so we all ended up meeting up and walking into the forest. Jenna told me that she hadn't had anything significant to eat all day, and me—being an idiot—didn't stop her from drinking on an empty stomach. After about 30 minutes of chugging booze, we all felt pretty tipsy.
I was sitting against a tree with Jenna on my lap. She turned to me, and we started kissing. Immediately after the kiss, she puked all over my pants and blacked out, leaning forward and hitting her head pretty hard on a rock. At that point, she was out cold. Two hours later, she was still unconscious. And then it got even worse. The sun was starting to go down, and the mosquitoes came out.
They were biting everyone like crazy. I called a friend to pick us up, but I had to carry Jenna about a kilometer out of the forest to get to the car. When we got to Jenna's house, her mom came out screaming at me while I was carrying her and apologizing like crazy. The next day, Jenna's mom came over to my house to tell my parents what had happened.
She said, "That's not how you treat a 14-year-old girl". I found out Jenna lied to me about her age! She was also taken to the hospital because her mom thought she was on dope, and her hands were swollen from over 200 mosquito bites. After that, we somehow ended up having a great relationship for about one and a half years.
57. The Feeling Was Never-Ending
I had been friends with a girl for a while throughout high school and college. We had hung out at school, parents' houses, and parties, so we knew each other well. I eventually convinced her to date me. Being 19 and in suburbia, the Olive Garden was the nicest place I could think to take her. The dinner was uneventful but pleasant.
As we were driving back to a friend's apartment to hang out, we sensed that something was greatly amiss in our stomachs. We just looked at each other nervously as I was driving. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was—"hurry up and get to the apartment". As we ran through the door, we were greeted by a single, unoccupied bathroom.
We spent the rest of the night taking turns delivering relatively undigested salad, breadsticks, and chicken parmesan to the Clayton County sewers.
58. Our Date Was A Trainwreck
I went to undergrad about half an hour from New York City. The best way to get in and out of the city was via a train that went to Penn Station, which just so happened to stop running at around 1 AM. I asked a girl out on a date to see a concert in Brooklyn. Everything was going well on the date itself, but the show was running long, so we had almost no chance of making the train.
We still decided to try. We were transferring subways in a rush, flying down the stairs. I must not have noticed the puke on the steps, but it sure noticed me. I wiped out about ten steps from the bottom, sliding on vomit the whole way down. I stood up immediately upon hitting the floor, but there was no salvaging this one or making it look intentional.
My arms, legs, and back were pretty well-coated in vomit. We stopped at a pharmacy to get antibacterial soap, but the puke on my clothing was not really removable. Then, we had to wait in deserted Manhattan for HOURS until the next train back, which was at around 7 AM the next morning.
59. In The Zone
I tried dating again after a bad breakup. This guy messaged me on OKCupid. We talked and hit it off. He seemed normal and asked me out, so we met up. The first thing I noticed was his hair. In his pictures, it was long, but in person, it was long, stringy, and greasy. He REALLY needed a haircut or a lesson on how to take care of long hair.
The second thing was how high-pitched his voice was. It was as if he hit puberty, and then in the middle of his voice deepening, it stopped and never finished the job. We got to the restaurant, and he decided to lug his guitar with him. The next thing I noticed was that he was quite a bit shorter than me. Everyone has their preferences, but I prefer taller men, which isn’t so hard because I'm only 5'5” tall. He was shorter than that.
We clicked, so I thought I could look beyond some of the physical turn-offs. We ate, and he took me to a park. We talked, and I jokingly said, "Oh yeah, I know EVERYTHING about WWII”, which was a hobby of mine. Instead of taking the joke, he berated me into a corner about how HE knew everything about WWII. I told him to back off, but he HAD to prove he knew more than me when I wasn't being serious to begin with.
After an awkward cheap movie, a couple of days later, I messaged him to friendzone him. Instead, he friend-zoned me, letting me know he was pretty misogynistic. He told me he didn’t believe in being just friends with a girl because he didn’t want to fall in love with them and let them break his heart. Therefore, he couldn’t talk to me anymore. I laughed with relief.
60. He Got Wigged Out
I had been talking to this guy I met on OKCupid through email for a few months. We decided to meet up. We had one of those epic first dates, the ones that last all day and most of the night. We had drinks and dinner, got caught in a rainstorm, and made out in said rainstorm. After, he wanted to go back to his place to dry off and watch a movie. I was down.
At the time, I was in the middle of growing out my hair, so I had this awesome wig that I would wear. It looked real, and it was securely fastened to my head—or so I thought. One thing led to another, and we were going at it. It was awesome. Midway through, I felt my wig coming loose, but I didn’t want to stop. It eventually came completely off, right as we finished.
It was dark, and he didn't notice. However, I was starting to freak out, so I decided it was best to come clean. I decided that a story about a chemical burn accident during a hair treatment was the best route to take. He was appropriately horrified. At that point, I just decided to grab my wig and leave. I never heard from him again.
61. Where’s The Love
When I came back from college on the weekend to visit my girlfriend, she found a thong in my backseat that was obviously not her size. I just laughed and explained that my roommate’s sister visited, and I dropped her at the airport on my way back. It must have fallen out of her bag. She didn’t buy it but didn’t end us. Little did I know that she was the one up to no good.
The next time I stopped by her house, nobody was there. Her car was not there, her lights were off, and nobody answered the door. Then I called her cell phone, and she insisted that she was in her room watching TV and her car was in the driveway. I told her I was sitting in her empty driveway and looking at her window.
62. Uncovering The Truth
I shaved my head, which my girlfriend thought made me look irresistible. You would think that's a good thing, but in her eyes, it wasn't—apparently, I did it because I was cheating and to score with other women. That's when I realized a dark truth—I found out that she only convinced me to grow my hair out to make me less attractive and help her anxiety. I hated my hair, which is why I shaved it.
But that's not even the worst part. I later found out that she cheated on me, and she'd done it with some random hitchhiker. I found his cheap sunglasses that she kept as a memento. She also had another guy on the side who bragged about how high school girls were “always barking up his tree.” He was an IT guy in his 20s. I knew all this about him because she’d introduced us…after they started hooking up!
63. Brace Yourself
After dating for a while, my girlfriend moved in with me. My sister came to let our dogs out when we were both at work. Without telling me, she put a broken bracelet on my nightstand so I could fix it for her. She thought I’d know just by seeing it. So, I got home from work and went to the basement to play video games.
When my girlfriend came home, she went to change into comfy clothes. Suddenly, I heard her yelling—and I knew it was about to go down. She came downstairs, showed me the necklace, and I told her I didn’t know whose it was, forgetting that my sister had left it there just earlier. We got into a heated argument, and at one point she even started throwing things at me.
Eventually, my girlfriend went to her sister’s to cool off. I went back to my video games, confused about what had just happened. Then I remembered. I called my sister on the off chance that she’d left it. We laughed, and she called my girlfriend to explain. She came back home, and we laughed more.
64. Bad Brew
I met this guy during a party at a friend's house and really hit it off. We agreed to go out. He showed up at my house and rang the doorbell with a six-pack in his hand. He then told me that he needed to use my porch to smoke a bit before we left to go out. Then he asked, “And by the way, what do you want to do anyway"?
I sat on the patio with him while he chain-smoked and suggested that we maybe just grab a drink somewhere. He then pounded back two cans of brew, threw the empty cans on the patio, and walked back inside. At that point, I was flustered, just went with it and followed him back into my house. He then told me that he couldn't drive because he rode a scooter, and I would have to drive.
When we got in my car, he took off his shoes and plastered his dirty feet against the inside of my windshield. I should have turned around right then, but we went to the bar. The bar was nothing special, and after one drink, I said I was ready to go. When I got back to my house, he tried to shove his tongue down my throat.
I did an awkward face turn and got his tongue on my cheek. He then retrieved his four remaining cans from my house and left. We never spoke again.
65. Be My Valentine
I was about to propose to my girlfriend of seven years, but then I discovered something. For the past seven years, we've been really, really happy together. She's sweet, loving, and caring. She's close to my family, and me to hers. We are really connected to each other, same passion, same likes and dislikes, we frequently travel together and all that.
We rarely fight, and when we do, we resolve issues quickly. It's like a perfect relationship. We've been steady, we're genuinely happy in love. Except just when I was contemplating proposing to her, I feel like she's gone cold for the past month. Just this past Valentine’s day, we were on top of the world surprising one another with gifts and sweet nothings.
But the following weeks felt different. Her "I love yous" weren't as enthusiastic. The way she talks and communicates with me feels different. She easily gets upset over trivial things. She seems to be a different person all of a sudden. I actually asked her what was wrong, but she assured me everything was ok and something was just bugging her.
I asked again but it seemed like she didn’t want to open up. She assured me though that she loved me very much. Then, just recently, like four days back, I was reminded that she has a spare phone just sitting in my drawer, though it was out of batteries. So I grabbed a charger, booted it up…and it just so happened that her Google account was still logged in on the device.
Curious, I went to see what she's been up to lately—then I discovered her recent searches. They shocked me. The searches go like this: “I cheated on him,” “I cheated on him many times,” “I cheated should we break up,” “Breaking up a long term relationship,” and so on. The searches were dated just after Valentine’s day and onwards.
Almost every day she looks at the same searches and other related topics. I am devastated discovering this. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. But I haven't confronted her about this. We are currently far apart now due to work, but we will be seeing each other next week. I am confused, I am in shock, and I just don’t know how to react.
66. The Eye Of The Beholder
I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years, and I thought he was attracted to me, all of me. He’s never called me ugly and always compliments me with or without makeup. That all changed last night. He brought his friends over. I’m cool with them, but we’re not that close so usually when they do come over to play video games, I go upstairs.
That night when I was walking past the room to the bathroom, I could hear my name. The door was closed but I stopped to listen. I know eavesdropping is wrong, but c’mon, they said my name! I heard one of my boyfriend’s friends say that they hate that I always leave when they come because I wear shorts and a tank top around the house.
Meanwhile, I usually dress more conservatively when I’m around them in social settings. The friend went on to say that I have a big butt and a nice chest, but I’m a “butterface” without makeup. And my boyfriend laughed! LOUDLY! He didn’t even defend me! His reply was somehow even worse than all that: “Her body is perfect.”
What?! They moved onto a different topic and started talking about other girls, so I gave up on listening and went back upstairs. I don’t think I’m ugly, but I did cry. I’m ashamed to say my self-esteem took a hit but it did. It hurt worse to know that my boyfriend laughed and didn’t defend my looks. I won’t lie and say I’m the best supermodel, but I’m not ugly!
I have shoulder-length brown hair, clear skin, and my features are decent. Maybe my eyebrows could be less sparse and I wear glasses, but I would give myself a solid 6/10 without makeup and maybe a 8 with? Maybe I’m just delusional? I felt sick sleeping next to my boyfriend and wouldn’t let him touch me. He’s attracted to my body and not my face and I hate myself low key.
67. Thou Shall Not Covet
My youngest brother has been staying with us. My wife and I have a 5-bedroom home but currently don't have children yet, so we let him stay here. My brother has always been...different. He's a bit of a loner and doesn't have a lot of friends outside of his online group. He's a shy, geeky kid but he's otherwise all right when you get to know him. Or so I thought.
So here's what happened. The wifi doesn't quite reach my brother's room, so he usually does his school work and other stuff in the dining room. A few nights ago, I was walking to the fridge after waking up in the middle of the night, and saw my brother working on something. As I got closer, my jaw dropped. I saw a very compromising picture of my wife; a cleavage shot as she was gardening.
He noticed me and quickly closed the window like he had something to feel guilty about. I was too shell-shocked to say anything at the time and he just smiled awkwardly and ran to his room with the laptop. When I realized that something was up, I knew I had to find out more. The next day, I asked my brother to pick up some groceries and some lunch for us.
While he was away, I went to his room and, well, it wasn't pretty. I saw a couple of my wife's bras and some of her panties, which I can only assume he used to pleasure himself. I took his laptop and screw it, decided to snoop. I knew his password, and it was there that I saw some of the most sickening entries I've read.
There were pictures of my wife in a towel, her working out, her in compromising positions, etc. All taken without her consent by the looks of it. The creepiest part? He sometimes listens in on us when we sleep together. My wife can be a bit loud, but we didn't think it would be a problem since his bedroom was in a different part of the house.
I left the room feeling like I needed a shower. It was absolutely disgusting. Now I don't know what to do. I find myself fighting the urge to pummel him into next week every time I see him. I haven't told my wife yet because I'm 100% sure she will feel violated and disgusted, so I want to find the best solution first before doing so.
I so desperately want to kick him out but he has nowhere else to go. Even if I do, what should I tell my parents? The truth? This will most likely break the family apart. I do plan on telling my wife soon but if I do, I can almost guarantee she would want nothing to do with him and would never want to visit the family if he's around.
I'm so lost right now. Still fighting the urge to beat my brother to a bloody pulp.
68. Game Over, Man
My fiancé and I got engaged in December last year. In January this year, we both together decided to save money every month for our wedding and honeymoon. In six months, we saved around $8,000. Last month, my fiancé's best friend bought a new gaming PC, so my fiancé also wanted to buy one. He asked me about it, but I denied it because we both already had laptops.
I told him that he can play games on the laptop that he already has. He repeatedly kept asking me if he could buy a PC and I finally agreed to it. Now I regret it so badly. After a week, the PC finally came…along with a new table and chair. Apparently, he had ordered a gaming chair and a table as well. That night, I asked him how much it all cost.
He was a little hesitant to tell me. After a while, he told me and I was distraught. He had spent our entire savings of $8,000 to buy the PC. We had a very big argument that night and I scolded him for spending all our savings. After all, that savings contained not only his money but my money as well. And we were saving it for our wedding.
After everything I told him, his final reply was, "I will earn it all back soon." I don't trust those words at all. I thought nothing worse than this could happen, but it has. It has been about two weeks since he got the PC and since then, my fiancé hasn't gotten up from his new chair. Ever since he got the PC, he hasn't even seen my face.
The only time he talks to me is when he is hungry, and he calls to me and tells me to get him something to eat or drink. I call him to watch TV and he says he's busy. I call him to sleep together and he says that he'll sleep later. He plays games the whole night, sleeps at 5 am and wakes up at 2 pm. Basically, he's asleep when I'm awake and he's awake when I'm asleep.
For the past two weeks, I've been so lonely that it feels like I'm alone at home with nobody to even talk to. He is ignoring me so much that I think he has absolutely forgotten that I even exist in his life. I honestly feel like his waitress nowadays. He has also 100% stopped doing all the household chores, and it's getting very hard for me to do it all alone.
He is barely even brushing his teeth and taking a bath, let alone doing the house chores. Also, ever since the PC arrived, he hasn't even touched his laptop to work, and he isn't checking his phone to see if someone has sent him something work-related. I'm now genuinely afraid that he might lose his job. Everything that is happening right now is so bad, I called my parents and told them about it last night and they almost had nothing to say.
I'm thinking of calling his parents tonight and telling it to them, and maybe they can knock some sense into him. I honestly don't know what else to do now. I want to burn that PC.
69. Message Received
I’ve been working at restaurants and bars since I was 18. It was easy to meet a lot of people, so hooking up was common. In college, I started dating a girl I really liked. I saw a potential future with her, and she knew I wasn’t hooking up with anyone anymore. One month, life got busy, and we stopped being intimate. I was stressed and angry about it.
Once we were finally able to meet, I got a message on my phone alerting me of some shocking news— a recent partner of mine had apparently tested positive for STDs and I was being advised to get tested. By then, we had been together for almost a year. When she read the message, she freaked out, screamed at me, and broke up with me on the spot.
I didn’t even get a chance to explain. Three months later, I was catching up with my high school sweetheart and telling her about it. She laughed and apologized. She’d entered my name on a site that sent anonymous messages to ex-partners of potential STDs. By then, my ex had already moved on, so it was too late for me.
70. Asleep Accusations
My ex was a super jealous marine. One time, his best friend came out to visit and we very much hit it off. He was really smart and a reader, and we discussed deep social and philosophical issues. My ex took four-hour naps in the middle of the day and was napping as per usual. His friend and I hung out and talked while he slept.
At this time, I was nine months pregnant. But after he woke up, his face was red with rage—he was convinced that we had hooked up. He had no evidence other than the fact that we had an opportunity and we must have taken it. Well, his friend and I laughed it off because we thought he was joking. Nope. For the rest of our marriage, he was convinced that we were having an affair.
71. Thin Reasoning
I was dating a girl who I really liked for six months. She had mood swings, but sometimes I thought that she was just testing me to see how I would react. Once, she asked to borrow my vacuum cleaner, and I lent it to her. When she came back with it, her next move took me completely off-guard—she literally threw it through my window. Incredulously, I asked her why she did that.
She told me that she found a strand of blonde hair in the bag that was too long to be mine. We broke up. Three months later, I bumped into her with a friend who was blonde. I asked how long they’d known each other. They said for their whole lives. I turned to my ex and said, “I guess you found your blonde hair,” and walked away.
72. Eating Image
I was at work and my wife called. She told me that someone who knew me told someone who knew her that the previous Wednesday, I was seen having lunch with a beautiful young woman. I allegedly fawned all over this woman, and as we left, I kissed her and told her I loved her. Then we got into separate cars and drove away.
My wife was enraged. I was dumbfounded. There was no way I did this, but I didn’t know how to prove something that never happened. I was miserable the rest of the day. But just before leaving work, I came up with a genius way to prove my innocence—I called my wife and I came clean. Then, I asked her what she did for lunch that day.
Turns out, it was her who I had met for lunch. Let me tell you, her reaction was priceless. It was one of those rare times in our marriage when, for about two weeks, I was treated like a god.
73. Uh, Uh, Girlfriend
An ex-co-worker and I became pretty good work friends. We’re video game nerds, so I texted him about it after work hours. Then, I found out his wife was the super jealous type. Not only did she accuse him of cheating on her with me, but she also took her paranoia to the next level—she came to the office once just to look at me. It was so weird.
The next day, he told me they’d fought because apparently, I had slept with him. They fought so much about me that I stopped texting him after work hours; and during work hours, I only texted him about work. It got to the point where context didn’t matter–she was mad just at the mere fact that I was texting him. I tried to be friends with her to help ease her suspicions.
It didn't help. I didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. She’s just had major trust issues and always been that way, so he doesn't have many friends. He wanted to divorce her but stayed for the children.
74. Constantly Catastrophic
I had a rocky relationship with a girl who I dated in high school. We began our relationship after she cheated on her boyfriend with me. She didn’t have a good home life and she needed a lot from me. My mental health and grades plummeted because of this. Whenever I tried to focus on myself, she projected. Nothing was ever enough for her.
At all times, I had to tell her who I was with, where I was going, and for how long, or else she freaked out. She eventually accused me of cheating, but I had a rock-solid defense—I had a condition that gave me seizures, so I couldn’t even drive around to get lucky. We still broke up, and she spread a rumor that I’d been taking advantage of her. She also slept with two guys behind my back.
75. Choices, Choices, Choices
I’d been friends with Mike for years before he met Sally. She was jealous and didn’t like any time he hung out with any woman, even if she was there. He loved her, so didn’t set boundaries. Once, Mike was redecorating, so he invited me shopping so he could use my discount card. We went to the store, he chose new furniture, and then he dropped me off. When he got home, Sally accused him of cheating with me.
Another time, I invited Mike to my work event. My company was holding a snowboarding day for employees and their guests. We hit the slopes together each winter, which was why I asked him to be my guest. We drove up, spent the day on the slopes, and then he dropped me at home. That night, she blew things up to gargantuan proportions—yelling and curse words aside, she told him she wasn’t comfortable with him being alone with me.
Then a few weeks later, Mike and I met up for a sports event when my husband was on a work trip. We attended, then we went our separate ways. When he got home, Sally gave him an ultimatum because she said she had evidence of us having an affair. Mike and my husband were best friends and they always talked, so this was doubtful. She pointed to the texts about my discount card, the free snowboarding day, and the sports event.
The time we spent hanging out and texting each other was apparently evidence that we were cheating. She told him that it was either her or me. Our friendship stopped existing after that.
76. Washed Up
My husband’s therapist recommended he stop drinking for his mental health, but he didn't listen. He told everyone that he was sober, but I could see straight through his lie. Anyway, at one point, his ankle gave out and he ended up breaking our glass shower. He needed to get surgery on it, which sucked because he already had two surgeries on his ankle when he was a marine.
I brought him to the hospital where we spent the night. Later, when we came home, I started cleaning around the house and I found a necklace I didn't recognize. When I confronted him about it, his reaction made my blood boil—he accused me of putting it there and he denied cheating on me. I believed him and continued to be a good wife. I treated his many stitches on his back, butt, arms, and legs while working over 50 hours a week.
Two months later, I found out who owned the necklace—some girl was wearing it in a racy photo that was on his phone. I immediately left.
77. Not A Big Deal
I used to come home after a 10-hour shift plus two hours of commute. In his eyes, being gone for half of the day of course meant that I was cheating on him. He would start accusing me if I was even just a couple of minutes late and hadn’t texted him ahead of time. If I didn’t say “I love you” enough times a day, he’d break down and start crying.
I broke up with him after I made a shocking discovery—he had tested positive for an STD, according to the test results I found in crumpled up in the trash. The first thing he told me when I got to the hospital was that he didn’t cheat. I then got tested and I didn’t have an STD; but at that point, we hadn’t been sleeping together much because I was in pain from what I know now as my autoimmune disease that he never believed I had.
On the few days that I wasn’t in pain, he’d beg and cry for us to do it, which turned me off instantly. But the cherry on top of it all? He wrote a break-up letter to me and referred to me as "J" in the entire thing. My name doesn’t start with a J...but his best friend’s name did.
78. Step One, Two, Three
I’m a teacher and I like to be super involved in school events, so I volunteered to chaperone the prom. My wife always joked that I had no proof of going to school functions and that I probably had a secret family. Prom went on pretty late, and I was there making sure the parking lot cleared and everyone got home safe. Then I got a text.
One of the students who’d been at the dance was in a panic because she’d taken off her designer stilettos and forgotten them. She asked if I could look for them then bring them to school on Monday because she didn’t know what the venue would do with them. I found them easily enough–they were huge, sparkly, and gaudy.
I tossed them onto the passenger seat of my car and forgot about them when I got home. My wife asked me the next morning to borrow my car phone charger. I said yes and then passed her the keys. Less than a minute later, she came back in freaking out about the stilettos. I laughed and showed her the message on my phone.
79. Multiple Suspects
My girlfriend and I rented a place together where I’d stay on the weekends because I worked miles away. During the week, I shared an apartment with my co-workers. One weekend, she found a pair of undies that did not belong to her. I told her the only explanation could be that they belonged to my roommate’s girlfriend.
I called him and described the undies. His girlfriend said they weren’t hers but she’d say they were if I wanted her to. I thanked them but I told my girlfriend the truth—I didn’t know where they came from. That was it. Upset, she tried getting a confession, but I had nothing to say. So, she ignored me for a few days...but she would soon laugh about the whole situation.
The truth eventually came out. Her friend had stayed over and dropped her underwear in our laundry bin and forgotten. She’d called a couple of weeks later asking about them.
80. Jumping Through Hoops
When I was in college, I had a boyfriend from “back home” who lived about an hour away. He didn’t like me going to college and he was always suspicious of who I was with. I always invited him down to the campus, but he never wanted to come. This resulted in me spending every weekend driving an hour north to stay with him.
On Halloween weekend, he finally agreed to come down to see me. My friends wanted to go to this party and I was invited. I think he didn’t want me to go, so I figured I would just bring him along with me. I was staying at a friend’s house as a temporary living situation, and the entrance to her duplex was very hard to see.
I told my boyfriend to call me when he was close so I could walk out to the street to direct him down the driveway. He texted me to say he was approaching, and I waited for the call but I never got one. Finally, I went outside—and my stomach dropped. I had terrible cell service in this area, so as soon as I did, I saw five missed calls from him.
Listening to his angry voicemails, he’d called because he couldn’t find the house where I was staying. I walked to the street then called him back. Immediately, he said that he had “heard everything I said” and that he “couldn’t believe I would do this.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I saw his car turn a block away.
I started waving my arms to get his attention while asking him on the phone what he was talking about. He told me the first house where he parked was having a gathering in their backyard behind a fence. He swore he could hear my voice telling some guy how I “hated my boyfriend but couldn’t think of a way to dump him.”
He said he even heard people addressing me by name. I was stunned and tried to reason that it did not make sense as he’d watched me walk out of the house to get his attention. It would’ve been impossible for me to have been there and then appear 30 seconds later at the actual house. But his lofty accusations didn't end there.
He then said I must have hopped over the fence and ran up the street to call him back. I didn’t know what to say as the claim was so ridiculous and physically impossible. We spent the entire night fighting, and he screamed at me so loudly that I broke down and cried so hard that I threw up. I stayed with him for six more months.
81. Photographic Evidence
On Halloween night, I sent the guy I was seeing a picture of me and my openly gay friend who he had met on multiple occasions. He immediately got all sulky and quiet, then he proceeded to ghost me. I tried texting him over the next week trying to understand what happened but then realized it wasn’t worth trying to save us.
I ended up getting him on the phone about a week after. The call was civil but felt quite awkward. After a few minutes of small talk, I brought it up and asked what happened. His response shook me to my core. He said, “Well, you cheated on me. You literally sent me a picture of it.” I couldn't help but laugh. I explained to him that was my gay friend.
But he refused to believe me. I even texted my friend to ask if he remembered taking a selfie with me, and he said he did. I sent the conversation to the guy and only then did he believe me. I continued the conversation with my friend, and he told me he saw my ex hook up with another girl at another party the next day.
82. The Only Way
I went from a part-time position to full-time, and my income increased drastically. I had over 15 years of experience in my field, so it was justified...except to the guy I was seeing. To him, a pay raise meant that I was sleeping with someone because an assistant could never become a director without some kind of seductive means.
He brought up how I worked long hours when I was doing overtime when my colleague got sick. And the fact that I refused to break up all my friendships to only spend my time with him meant that I was sleeping with them or else I wouldn’t mind excluding them from my life. Ridiculous. Once, I had a six-hour choir rehearsal.
He knew about it in advance, and I sent him pictures of all of the cakes people brought for a break. But after, I couldn’t reply to him, and rehearsals lasted for hours. He instantly lost it. Apparently, my lack of replies meant that I was somewhere else sleeping with someone. Anything I did was cheating in his eyes—grocery shopping, seeing friends, going to parties.
After breaking up with him, I found out that he was projecting. He even planned to visit a festival with his sidepiece and me at the same time. I am still baffled how he would have tried to avoid her without me noticing. The two of us became friends after having an interesting conversation. That upset him the most.
83. I Was Tongue-Tied
I met this guy at my college. We had no classes together, but every time he saw me on campus, he would ask how I was doing and smile at me. Over the course of a few months, we chatted a few times in the library and set up a date to go out for coffee. He didn’t have a car, so I picked him up at a mall that I was unfamiliar with. After I met him, I forgot where I parked.
It took me about 45 minutes to backtrack where I came from, and during that, he was constantly trying to grab my hand, put his hand on my lower back, or rub the back of my neck. I'm a person who's incredibly uncomfortable with physical contact—even hugs from close friends—so this was extremely awkward for me. We finally found my car, and we headed out for the coffee place.
He placed his hand on my thigh. I tried not to think about it and focus on driving. I chatted mindlessly about interests and stuff, trying to distract myself from the situation. When I let slip that I played World of Warcraft, he made fun of it. When we finally reached the coffee shop, I found a somewhat-shared interest between us.
He bought me a drink, and we talked about old books. We were getting along better, and for the moment, he stopped touching me—but my nightmare wasn’t over yet. Then, as I was making a point, I held my hand over the center of the table, and he grasped it with both of his hands. He started licking the back of my hand. My voice trailed off, and his eyes met mine. I tugged my hand away and feigned sickness shortly thereafter. After driving him to the college, he kissed me. I never contacted him again.
84. What A Meathead!
I was a vegetarian. One time, I ordered tofu at a restaurant on a first date and the guy asked me if I actually liked tofu. I replied with something along the lines of, "I guess I'm used to it because I'm a vegetarian". For the next hour, he lectured me about how humans have to eat meat and how I must be pretentious and judgemental.
I didn't argue with him or mention my reasoning for not eating meat, so I had no idea where the rage came from. He was also extremely rude to the waitress. Afterward, he asked me on a second date as if nothing had happened.
85. I Felt Like I Was On A Sinking Ship
I had a train wreck of a first date. It started when I picked her up in my bright pink, two-door 1995 Ford hatchback. It was pouring rain out, and my passenger side window was leaking. We drove to the ferry terminal for a 25-minute ride to our destination. The water was rather choppy, and I soon found out she gets motion sickness.
Thirty minutes into the 25-minute ferry ride, I found out that she hadn’t eaten lunch and was super hungry but nauseous as well. We were now 45-minutes into what was supposed to be a 25-minute ferry ride—we were on the wrong ferry! Our dinner reservations were in five minutes. Ten minutes later, we finally arrived at the destination.
We were on the right island but the wrong town. It was a 35-minute drive to our reservation. We were unfamiliar with the area, so we got lost. We finally arrived an hour late. My date managed to eat but was past the point of being hungry and her stomach was still heaving from the ferry ride. Then, we missed the last normal ferry back.
We had to waste time for another 45-minutes in order to get on the next ferry. We both fell asleep on the ferry ride home. I dropped her off and drove another hour back to my place. For some reason, she agreed to many future dates with me.
86. Reverse Catfish
I matched with this girl on Tinder. She was significantly bigger than girls I normally date, but we have literally everything thing in common so I figured I’d give it a shot. So after talking for a few days, we decided to meet up at this nerd bar last night. I get there and pick a table. After waiting a few minutes, this beautiful woman comes over and starts trying to flirt with me.
That’s very strange, so I assume she must be after something. Free drinks, my kidneys, I don’t know. So I explain to her that I’m actually waiting for someone and I don’t want to give a bad first impression by chatting up some other woman when she walks in. That’s when she springs it on me that she’s actually the one I’m waiting for.
She told me how she’s lost about 130 lbs over the past couple years and she wants to make sure guys are actually interested in her and not just her body. She was also testing me to see if I would ditch the fat girl if someone hotter showed up. So here’s the thing: I don’t know how I feel about being “tested.” I don’t want to live my life questioning every decision I make like she might jump out from around the corner at any minute.
But she’s also really attractive and very cool otherwise. I’m not sure how I should proceed.
87. Buckle Up
My wife works as a flight attendant and is often doing long journeys to other countries. Our second anniversary was last week and she was not going to be home for it, so I decided to give her a surprise card and one of a few gifts. However, I was going to bury it in her luggage suitcase before she was about to leave. That’s when I found them.
They were new-looking white lace lingerie pieces that I have never seen before, as well as a pair of heels that I do know because I got them for her. As soon as I saw them, there was a ringing in my ears and it felt like the world had come to a halt. I have been trying to come up with reasonable explanations as to why she would have that, but none of them are in character for her as far as I am aware.
That's why now I am fearing the worst—infidelity. She doesn't know I saw it because I didn't leave the gift and card, but she has been back home since then and gone again. I am going crazy with the thoughts of her with another man, but I don't have concrete proof. I don't know how I'd even get solid evidence to come to her with.
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88. The Pains Of Being Pure
My fiancé proposed to me about eight months ago. We decided on having a relatively small wedding, which is in two days. Everything was going great. He seems absolutely perfect and we are very much in love. I am a virgin and so is he; he wanted to save it for marriage and I wasn't fussed, so I agreed to saving it, too.
He has told me before this that in his family, the father checks the virginity of the bride the night before the wedding. I laughed this off as it seriously sounded like a massive joke. I was so, so wrong. He was super serious. He wants me, the night before, to open my legs up in a small ceremony-type thing so his dad can check me while he, his brothers, and uncle can watch so that they know I am still “pure.”
I told him fat chance I am going to do that, and he was begging to me to go through with it and saying how important it is for him. He said he knew it was slightly embarrassing for me but his mom did and it will prove how much I love him and that I have nothing to hide anyway, as I am still a virgin. I left and he was crying, it was very dramatic.
So I went and talked to him this morning I told him that his father is not going to look at me and he needs to respect that. He was adamant that it needs to happen, and then it got more brutal. He accused me of lying about my virginity. I was trying to be calm and rational, but he was not having it and just became more and more angry.
I told him if he really loved me, he would stand by me on this and tell his father no. Instead, he slapped me and said he didn’t need to prove anything. So I ended it and left him. I am currently at my friend’s house being miserable and eating pizza, which at least is pretty fun. Either way, I can’t help but think that I dodged a bullet on this on.
89. Three’s Company
So my wife and I have been together for eight years. We have a little girl who is five now and a baby boy who is two years old. I love both of them more than anything and I finally feel like I have everything. A beautiful wife, two healthy kids, a great career, and a big house. The token "American Dream," minus the dog, since I'm allergic.
When we talked about kids before, my wife always said she wanted two. I only wanted one, since it would be easier and we'd have more money for vacations and stuff, but my wife maintained it's important for a child to have a sibling. I grew up with four and my wife with none, so I guess I understand where she's coming from.
After our son and getting through the baby years and sleepless nights for the second time, I didn't want to ever go through that again. Both kids were very fussy and colicky. But when he was a year old, my wife began casually mentioning that she wanted a third. I would laugh it off, but finally, she sat me down and gave me a chilling ultimatum.
She said we have to have a third. I said no, we agreed on two, but she said she wanted four, so three was actually the compromise. I refused and said I wanted one, and we have two. She then got angry and called me selfish for taking away her dream of wanting a big family. A couple days later, she apologized and we were intimate.
In fact, over the past little while, I noticed her drive increased exponentially, but so did mine and I was happy to engage with her. After all, she was on birth control, I had a condom, and it was all good. Thinking back on it, I probably should have figured something was up. Still, I was barely handling two little kids and work on top of housework and yard work and everything.
I came home from work one day while the kids were at their grandparents. My wife had a huge smile on her face and she sat me down and showed me a positive pregnancy test, literally dancing in joy. My first thought was, "oh God." My wife noticed a less-than-happy expression on my face and started screaming at me. She berated me for not being supportive and this was a "miracle from God" and I should be grateful.
I said I was sorry and hugged her and said I was super excited for the baby. My wife was delighted, and later that night she was calling all family and friends to happily tell them the news. When she was talking about the nursery and how we'll convert my office into a room, I started to get a little suspicious. Everything was so well thought-out and it seemed like she'd been planning this for a while.
When she was asleep, I took the condoms out of the cupboard and ran them underwater. Holes. I nabbed her phone and saw she'd set a password. That was odd. Nevertheless, my wife has a terrible memory, so I tried her birthday and it opened. I saw texts that made me go white as a sheet. They were of her best friend of my wife complaining how I wouldn't come around to a baby.
Her best friend suggested to "arrange an accident" with a winky face. My wife agreed and said she was going to come off of birth control. It went on for a little while, ending with my wife saying that yes, we were going to have a third. So I woke her up immediately and asked her if this had really been a "miracle"? She got that deer-in-headlights look and burst into tears.
She wailed and then she got angry. Through tears, she screamed how I had no right to go through her phone and it's her choice whether or not she wants to take birth control; the side-effects are bad and she was sick. She also brought up that if I really didn't want a third kid, I should have had a vasectomy. She told me to go sleep on the couch.
I laughed out loud and said no, I'm sleeping here, you're leaving. So while wailing, she packed a bag and left to her parents. When she called the next day, I told her I just need some time to myself. She said that's fine, but I need to come around for our child. I told her I wasn't sure if it'd be "our child" and she cried more.
It's been two weeks since then. We're back in the same house, and she constantly keeps on stopping me and trying to get me excited for our kid and planning the nursery and names and how happy our kids will be to get a younger sibling. I've been ignoring her entirely. I don't know if I should leave her over this. I don't trust her anymore.
She entirely betrayed me. I'm angry. But I have another child on the way.
90. A Piece Of Work
I was in a group project for college with four guys. Everything was going fine, but one guy suddenly stopped messaging us back in our group chat two days before the project deadline. So, I messaged him privately to ask if he was getting our messages and sent some information from our project. It was all school-related.
All of a sudden, I got a startling message from his wife. She said I “should never be talking to a married man,” and she wanted to call me to “talk it out.” I just didn’t respond to her. She then removed me from the group chat, so I had to send the other three guys the messages so they could know what was happening and add me back.
When I was added back to the group chat, I just said, “Moving forward I will only communicate through this group chat. At this point, I want to just get the project done and will be putting 100% effort into it and expect everyone else to do the same.” I don’t even date men.
91. Working It Out
Once, a co-worker sent me a text after we hung out with our kids. It said something about how I’d left the "monster sock" at her house. My ex assumed this was slang for something dirty—but the reality was far from that. It was actually my two-year-old’s sock with a cartoon monster on. She wasn’t having it. A few months later, the same co-worker and I were out of state for work.
I’d hidden the fact that the co-worker was also going because I was tired of being accused of being a cheater when I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was a just sign of our broken marriage. During the trip, about 20 of us went to dinner together. Someone took a picture, and I just so happened to be sitting next to the co-worker.
We were in the same division, which was how we were seated at the restaurant. Later that night, the co-worker had a breakdown at the bar because she said she missed her kids and was dealing with custody issues. She also drank a bit too much. Another co-worker and I called for a ride and took her back to sleep it off. She got car sick, and things started to spiral from there.
I threw her my jacket, into which she immediately vomited. I had to literally fireman carry this woman back and drop her off with our other female coworkers to make sure she got to bed without issues. My ex, again, didn’t want to hear it. The picture alone was the obvious proof she needed to believe I had, “cheated again.”
My ex caused such a mess for me at my work that I ended up turning down over $100,000 in bonuses to stay with her longer. She even went as far as to call all of my superiors to inform them that I was having an affair with that co-worker and that she had proof. She had railroaded my career as my superiors didn’t want the drama.
She also gave me the ultimatum: the job and divorce, or leave my job to “do the right thing for my family.” She told me she would seek full custody and move with the children. My job wasn’t very family-friendly, so I left the job and moved with her back across the country to try and make things work for my kids’ sake.
92. The Night Is Young
When I was 23, I had plans to sleep at my partner’s place on Christmas Eve to spend time with her and her daughter. Prior to leaving my house to go there, the 12-year-old sister of my friend was texting me about a drawing she had made from an anime we both enjoyed. When I got to the house, I ignored my phone for the rest of the night.
I got up in the morning, and while my girl made breakfast, I checked my phone to go through all of the Christmas messages. She looked over my shoulder many times, saw me messaging the younger sister back, and jumped to the worst conclusion without context. I set my phone down to talk...but that was the wrong move.
To her, it looked shady. However, she looked the sister up on social media and apparently refused to take the age and family connection of my best friend into account. That relationship didn't work out in the end.
93. Hat Trick
We had opposite work schedules–he worked overnight, and I worked during the day. Once while I was working, he sent me a picture of a hat asking me whose it was. I told him that I didn’t know and asked if it was his because he had so many. He sent back a snarky "no" and more questions while I was supposed to be working.
So, I sent the picture to my family since we’d had them over recently. No one claimed it. He’d found the hat in between our dog’s crate and the wall, which was odd. When I got home, it was bugging me because I had no idea whose it could be. I even sent a text to his mom asking if it could be her hat. Her reply was the key to my innocence.
It was her boyfriend’s. After she told me, she called my husband and let him have it for accusing me of bringing someone into our home while he was at work. He came home early from work with flowers and apologized profusely.
94. So Much For The Language Of Love
Friend of mine divorced his then-wife because she would only speak French when her family would come over. She was Spanish, as was her family. To add, her family spoke English, French, and Spanish; he could only speak Spanish and English. She got bored of being married to him, her family basically talked smack about him while he was there, was only when he recorded a conversation while they were there and got it translated he found out what was going on.
95. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. Took her out for a dinner date and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked so she had to spend her time doing something. She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly two months, the guy she had to call the cops on just to get to leave because I was coming home in two days...soooo I slid her a copy of the police report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
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96. Sleepover
He has a longtime friend of his (who happened to be female) who was staying the night. She was sleeping in the basement bedroom and we were upstairs. Well, he slipped out of bed in the middle of the night and woke me up. When he noticed, he told me he had to go to the bathroom. I guess I already had my suspicions, because I lay there and listened to him walk down the hall, then past the bathroom, and down the stairs.
So, I followed. And caught him in the basement getting ready to have sex with her. Oh. I was not a happy puppy. Was stupid and tried to salvage our engagement, but I wasn't "fun anymore" and he left.
97. Fly Me to the Moon
Just got on a flight in London headed to Vegas. Sitting next to my GF, and she wants to show me something she has planned for the trip, so gets out her phone. It opens to the Messages and shows a chat with a guy (I know him) saying how much she is going to miss him and how she doesn't want to go away with me anyway. The doors close on the plane and that was a really fun 10-11hrs...
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98. Family Strife
Somebody said that he was supposed to cheat with his fiancé's best friend the night before their wedding, but she died in a car accident on the way to the hotel. Now THAT'S a red flag if I've ever heard one.
99. Mood Swings
My wife is pregnant with our daughter. Initially, we were really happy and excited about it. But then, it all goes wrong. She starts acting like a nut job. She gets angry and irritated at small things, insults me when she doesn't like the food I make, starts acting insecure, and accuses me of losing my attraction for her. For example, she wanted to eat chicken sandwiches for dinner last week.
Well, I made chicken sandwiches. So she eats all the sandwiches, leaves me nothing, and told me that they tasted like garbage. If she didn't like them, why did she have to eat everything? When I asked her this, she told me that she was hungry. Ok fine. She does this every time. Eats everything I make and calls it garbage. I don't argue with her because I work for more than 80 hours a week and I really want to have some peace when I'm home.
So, yesterday, a random girl starts flirting with me after the gym and asked me if I wanted to meet up with her for some drinks. I rejected her and told her that I was married. And when I got home, my wife started to hug me and apologize. That’s when I learned the dark truth. When I asked her what happened, she told me that her best friend suggested a test for my loyalty.
So they asked a mutual friend to flirt with me and ask me out. And I passed. Yay?!!? I'm really angry. I'm done with her antics.
100. Fat Chance
A few months after a business trip to Las Vegas, my wife and I were hit with a surprise that changed our lives forever—we were both diagnosed with HIV. Everyone at the doctor’s office glared at me, and a few friends and family of ours who we told thought I had been cheating on her. My wife, however, just asked me once. I told her the truth, which was a definite no. That was good enough for her.
Then, after six weeks of tests, our doctors told us that both tests had been false positives. Apparently, we both got infected by the Coxsackie virus, which caused our lymph nodes to swell up to the size of softballs. Our friends and family admired how much we trusted each other. My wife explained, “He isn’t exactly a ladies’ man; never has been. He would chicken out before he ever slept with another woman.” She’s right though, so it didn’t hurt.
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