12 Couples Whose Breakups Got Really, Really Messy

It’s tough to picture that intense feelings and long love stories can come to an end and transform into difficult breakups. We always wish that when two people part ways, it happens with minimal complications. However, reality often falls short of our hopes. In this collection, we’re sharing some surprisingly remarkable breakup stories that made us reflect on the unpredictable nature of relationships and the unexpected turns they can take.

• The day after we broke up, my ex Skyped me, claiming to be her “cousin” to announce that she had died. However, she didn’t realize that her camera was on, and I could see that it wasn’t her cousin. When I told her I could see her, she got angry and ended the call. That’s the last I ever communicated with her because she blocked me immediately afterward. © apopheniac1989 / Reddit

• My parents got divorced about a year ago. My mom didn’t want my dad to show up in court because he would contest, and then they’d have to split the assets. She phoned me and told me to get his food and put laxatives in it so he wouldn’t be able to make it there. © T***ybean22 / Reddit

• I used to work as a file clerk for a divorce attorney. Our client was trying to get full custody over her child because her husband was “dangerously neglectful of their son.”
  How was he being dangerously neglectful? By serving spaghetti (instead of turkey) for Thanksgiving. © marierosa / Reddit

• The wife started dating someone new with a severe cat allergy about a year after she split up from her ex.
  Her ex bought a cat during his time with the kids, even though he’s not allowed to have pets at his apartment. He sent the kids back to their mom’s house with the cat and all its stuff. The mom is upset because she didn’t want a cat at all, and her boyfriend is crazy allergic.
  The ex told the kids, “If mommy loves you, she’ll let you keep the cat, since daddy is not allowed to have cats at his house.” © drlitt / Reddit

• Once had a boss who had to leave his house for 6 hours while his ex-wife grabbed all the belongings she was legally entitled to. When he returned home, every knob and handle was gone. Door knobs, cabinet handles, drawer handles—anything that was attached onto something and used to open it, she had taken. Every day for the next week, he would occasionally yell out, “SHE TOOK THE KNOBS.” © JortsEnthusiast** / Reddit

• My uncle married a woman that no one in the family was very fond of. He was very well off, so he made her sign a prenup before getting married.
  They were both fans of the finer things in life. All of their clothes were designer and expensive.
  They inevitably split up after a few years, but before she left, she cut one sleeve off every shirt, one pant leg off every pair of pants, and took one of every pair of shoes.
  I suppose there are still ways to get “half” even when there is a prenup. © TheRealMrPapagorgio / Reddit

• A husband and wife were getting divorced. There was a classic car, a Ferrari, Jaguar, or something similar, that was worth a lot of money, becoming a bone of contention in the divorce. After several months, the husband finally proposed that he would let her have the car if she gave him the house. She agreed.
  Come to find out, he had been taking the car out every day, doing loops around the city for hours, putting thousands of miles on it, making it worth nothing. © NO_PRND / Reddit

• When my parents got a divorce and all the financial matters were settled, my mom agreed to take on the existing debt they had. As the paperwork was filed and things progressed with finalizing the divorce, my dad went out and ran his credit cards up to their limit, buying himself new home entertainment toys and random items, totaling about 12K. There was nothing my mom could legally do about it, so she was forced to slowly pay it off over the next 10 years. © SabrinaHiss / Reddit

• A friend’s ex-wife and he settled their divorce with her getting the house, a hefty chunk of retirement, all the gifted jewelry, and his Harley that she had gifted him for his birthday.
  A few weeks later, a “robbery” occurred, and the only thing that was stolen was the jewelry that he had gifted her, which was intended for their daughter. She tried to file an insurance claim on the jewelry but forgot to get appraisals and add them as riders, so the maximum insurance paid was $1,500 for over $20,000 worth of jewelry. Suspicion is she staged it but is now stuck with “stolen” jewelry she can’t legally sell, nor wear, nor give to the daughter without tipping the dad off to the scam. © clarketl29 / Reddit

• My ex did a good job of tricking me into thinking we were having a nice, cordial, easy divorce until she asked me to “sign a couple of quick, easy things.” She was in a real hurry and got upset when I said I needed a couple of hours to read through them. It turns out she got someone to sneak in there that I was “emotionally harmful” (which was the opposite of the truth). I had to end up getting my own lawyer because of her shady actions, and mine said she could have essentially taken anything and all of what she wanted if I had signed that. © ChetRipley / Reddit

• I worked as a divorce attorney. The craziest and most diabolical thing that came to my attention was this:
  This couple, who were breaking up, had Mister leave the house. Missus went to work the next morning as usual. When she returned home in the evening, she found that Mister had been to the house and removed his clothing and belongings, as she expected.
  What she didn’t expect was that he had also Gorilla glued her belongings together. He glued the TV remote to the table, the phone to its cradle, the couch pillows to the couch, and even glued the vacuum cleaner to the carpet. She called the police and reported this as property damage. The police went with her through the house, documenting dozens of items glued to various things, but for days she was discovering random things and would call to amend or update her report. © Maxwyfe / Reddit

• My parents owned a couple of duplexes in town, as well as our house. They had saved enough to pay off a property in full, and my dad convinced my mom that it was better to pay off one of the duplexes instead of the house. A couple of months later, he filed for divorce and only asked for the paid-off property. He got it, lived in one side, and rented out the other, leaving my mom with two kids and three mortgages.
  Of course, he refused to pay child support for my sister because she wasn’t his biological daughter, even though he had legally adopted her. It still makes me feel icky, how conniving he was. © SilverDubloon / Reddit

Some love stories may come to a close, yet the memories of our exes prove challenging to fade away—especially when they take on bizarre, unsettling, and even terrifying dimensions. The people in this article have recounted genuine “horror stories” about their past partners, and just reading them leaves us shivering.