16 Times People Got a Wake-Up Call Before Saying “I Do”

Love can be blinding—until it isn’t. Sometimes, all it takes is one shocking comment, one bizarre habit, or one unforgettable moment to realize the person you thought was “The One” is actually a walking red flag in disguise. Here are 16 times someone got lucky before saying, “I do.”

• After a few months of being pretty normal, it became clear that she was jealous and suspicious, and very clingy. She tried to put her foot down about me having female friends, which I’ve always had... And then she became resentful when I even hung out with guy friends.
  She also made it seem like if we stayed together, we would inevitably have to move to her home country of Japan, and I would end up working for her father, who was a successful entrepreneur. © MesWantooth / Reddit

• Totally ignored my suffering through a horrible viral fever, especially the part where I was on the floor and couldn’t get my muscles to help me stand up for 10 minutes, so I crawled to the door. But he just kept working at his desk, 5 feet away from me, like nothing was happening. © razar3113 / Reddit

• I drove all the way to my boyfriend’s place, excited to surprise him with dinner. I’d been planning it for weeks, picking out his favorite dishes and desserts. When I knocked on the door, I was shocked to find out he wasn’t living there anymore.
  His roommate answered and told me he’d moved out a few days ago. I couldn’t believe it. No warning, no conversation, nothing. Apparently, he hadn’t said much to his roommate either, just mentioned needing a “fresh start.”
  I felt totally blindsided. We’d been together for a while, and we had even talked about getting married one day. We’d had our ups and downs, but I never expected this. He’d never even mentioned wanting space or needing time apart.
  I stood there for a few moments, trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing. I had dinner all ready to go, and now I was standing in front of his empty place, feeling completely stupid for not knowing something was off.

• He told me that since I had graduated from high school, I could then follow him with his career and schooling. I could get a job, clean his apartment and cook for him. Never once asked what I wanted to do with my life and career, just treated me like his accessory and maid. © Chappa-ai-302 / Reddit

• We were discussing the potential of getting married, where we would live, kids, values, etc....and she said, “You know that when it comes to the house, you have no say so right....like the woman is responsible for decorating, furniture, etc...and you have no say.” I asked her if she was joking and she said no.
  I said, “So you expect me just to pay for everything, and you just get to do whatever you want with the money?” She said with a smile, “Yup!” I said, “Yeah, you might get away with that with the past guys you dated, but that’s not me. If for certain will have a say so in everything, this is a marriage, not a dictatorship, so if you really feel that way, maybe we shouldn’t be together.”
  Just to be clear, that wasn’t the cause of the breakup, but was one major area of contention where she clearly thought she was just going to dominate the marriage and just expect me to be her piggy bank. © Impossible_Donut2631 / Reddit

• Yelled at my best friend and gave her the silent treatment, the same way that he had done to me so many times in the span of our nearly five-year relationship. After that, I couldn’t think of getting married without feeling a sick feeling of dread. It’s been more than a year since I dumped him, and I haven’t looked back once. © Iridescent70 / Reddit

• We were on vacation, and we borrowed my sister’s car to travel/sightsee. We got into an argument in the car. This dude had the audacity to kick me out of the car and drive off for a little while to calm down.
  Mind you, this was MY sister’s car. © teeheexxxmy / Reddit

• He played a game on his phone while I poured my heart out about how I had been struggling with my mental health and taking care of myself.
  I didn’t really have the wake-up call until I stayed at his place for 2 weeks with my cat while I was very sick with a mystery illness that lasted about 4 months. He didn’t clean the entire time that I was there, leaving dishes to pile up and surfaces to be sticky and grimy.
  One night I got so fed up that I spent 2-5 am deep cleaning the kitchen, only taking breaks to throw up (from the illness). When he saw that I cleaned in the morning, his only response was, “I don’t know why you picked the kitchen to clean — my room is messier and I would have slept right through it.” © twentytinyhearts / Reddit

• I was working crazy hours at work for a short period and housesitting for his family while he was on holiday, and he got mad at me for not texting him during my 15-minute “lunch break” while in his timezone, he’d be in the middle of being deep in sleep.
  I texted and called him morning and night. He told me that because of this, I was “neglecting” him and that I “wasn’t missing him enough.”
  This is just the tip of the iceberg. Thank god I ended that engagement. © Mission-Average-9873 / Reddit

• I was very ill for almost a year and could get no answers. Eventually found out it was due to depression and anxiety that had gone untreated my entire life.
  Told him I found out what’s been making me so sick and that I really needed his support, and he said, “Everyone has depression. It just depends on how you deal with it.” And left it at that.
  Now I’m alone and much happier. I even had to block him recently. © itsyobbiwonuseek / Reddit

• I had a very smart ex-girlfriend, but she had a really bad temper. She’d often yell and scream. But whenever I felt hurt by her behavior, she would become very detached and calmly accuse how my feelings actually stemmed from my own flaws.
  At the time, I often thought she made sense and believed I should start by reflecting on myself. Over time, I felt like starting to lose the ability to feel angry. I developed a kind of learned helplessness when feelings came up. So I realized all feelings weren’t necessarily unreasonable, even if they were partly caused by issues within oneself.
  We broke up on peaceful terms. But now whenever something goes wrong—even if it’s 90% not my fault—I always find that 10% where I could’ve done better. It’s helped me grow, but it also puts a lot of mental pressure on me. © Jani_Ichiban / Reddit

• This was MANY years ago. The woman I was dating at the time gave me an ultimatum: a deadline by which I either had to ask her to marry me or we were done.
  We were done. © Confident-Proof2101 / Reddit

• We had been dating for 4 years, and I got a good inheritance from my grandmother. We started looking at houses with a price range of about 400k. I was doing the down payment and would pay the mortgage and utilities. My SO was unemployed due to sickness.
  We took our time trying to find the right place because we had an extremely stable living situation, but as time went on, interest rates started to go up, and the potential monthly payments got to be too much.
  I told her we needed to lower our price range to 350k, and she actually mocked me. Called me poor, asked how I could ever take care of her if I couldn’t afford a more expensive house, to the point that she looked over at our cat and said, “Isn’t daddy such a disappointment?”
  Needless to say, the house hunting ended right there, and the relationship about 6 months later.
  I bought an adorable little ranch in a nice Boston suburb and even took the cat with me! Our lives rule nowadays. She moved back in with her parents. © NoFliesOnFergee / Reddit

• Told me the first month he wanted to marry me, and then got angry after I brought up getting engaged a year later when he made me wear a ring to a weekend getaway with my drama group (but kept saying over and over the ring was not an engagement ring). I knew right then he never actually wanted to get married, and I left him. © More_Example6153 / Reddit

• It was a slow burn, but I realized they always had to be in control of what I did... whenever they saw me having fun or making jokes, they’d tell me I wasn’t funny or that I didn’t know how to read a room...or whenever I suggested working abroad or branching out creatively, they’d stop me....
  I realized I had to leave...it was like being in a cage. Still have a bit of trauma around that... © Anon_2004

• I used my boyfriend’s laptop one morning to check my email. He handed it over. I wasn’t snooping. But his inbox was open, and one subject line pulled me in: “What You Asked For.”
  I clicked, thinking maybe it was something sweet, a surprise for our anniversary, something personal. Instead, it was an invoice. A report. My name at the top, followed by addresses, job history, and even my college roommate.
  He’d hired a private investigator. Not to catch me doing something wrong — just to “be sure.”
  When I confronted him, he said, “I had to know who I was committing to.” He said it like it was smart. Logical. But all I felt was cold. Because I wasn’t his partner — I was a risk he calculated.

After reading about various bad relationship examples, if you want to look at the stories which make people to believe in love again, check this article.