Your significant other is suppose to be the one person who you love and trust most in the world, which makes it that much more painful when they say something hurtful. The following people definitely know that feeling, as they share the absolute worst thing a partner has ever said to them.
What A Jerk.
“These are two most memorable worst things my (now ex) husband said to me:
‘You would be okay if you just didn’t talk.’
I left him and asked three weeks later if he missed me. He replied, ‘I never thought about it.'”
DEFINITELY Crossed A Line.
“My dad (who was my best buddy) died when I was sixteen from lung cancer.
Several years later I was a new mom worried about the responsibilities of parenthood, finances etc. My then husband was out every night with his work crew, drinking and staying out until the wee hours.
I was tired, frustrated and tried to get a dialogue going about insurance one weekend. He shouted at me, ‘No wonder your father died; it was probably the only way he could get away from you and your mother!’ Over the years he has said many things that hurt but I think that was the very worst.”
Absolutely Traumatizing.
“‘Stop crying. I could have killed you, but I didn’t.’
I’m lying on the floor, almost blue after he had choked me. The months of emotional abuse had broken me down enough that I felt I deserved it.
We broke up. I never saw him again.
Over a decade later, I still am afraid every time a male friend raises his voice, even if it’s not directed at me.”
Not Happy With Anything.
“He said to me, ‘You’d be perfect if you lost weight.’
I was 20. I began obsessing over everything I ate. I cared about this guy, I thought I loved him and wanted to be perfect for him. I started counting calories, doing sit-ups and watching extensive YouTube videos on how to look like a Victoria’s Secret Angel. I ended up losing 40 pounds. And I looked amazing.
However, it turned out he wasn’t satisfied with anything. He said he missed the person I was before I lost the weight, the one that got no attention and was often overlooked for cute 5 foot blonde chicks. He became super jealous that I was getting A LOT of male attention when we went out to dinner or to the bar. He said I was ‘too skinny now’ and he ‘missed my curves.’
So, I dumped him.”
Wow…
“‘They are telling me I need to kill you.’
They being the voices in his head. My husband was 37 when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors gave him some medication and sent him home. However, the medication made him a zombie and he could not work. Which I was fine with, but he saw the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and thought he could control his illness on his own like John Nash did.
I was against this idea and after several failed attempts and several hospitalizations, I came to understand he needed his medication in order to be safe. It was a constant battle to get him to take his medication and finally I relented, exhausted and told him that as long as he continued seeing his psychiatrist, I would support his decision to be medication free.
I received a call from his psychiatrist one day and he told me it was his ethical duty to inform me that he thought my life was in danger. My husband admitted to him that the voices were telling him he needed to kill me, that the medication I was feeding him was poison and the CIA wanted me gone.
The psychiatrist further told me that he did not know where my husband was at the moment, but that he ordered a psychiatric order, meaning the police were on the look out for him and were instructed to bring him in for evaluation.
I stayed close to family and friends. I did not see my husband in 2 days following the phone call. I have a coffee shop that I went to every Friday night to meet friends and when I arrived he was there. A friend called the police and the police came and interviewed him and decided to cancel the order, they felt this was just a domestic disturbance.
The next day, my husband walked into my job and said, ‘They told me I had to kill you’ then he picked up a construction flashlight that weighed about 10lbs and whipped it at me. I ducked behind my computer raising my arm in front of my face and the blow shattered my elbow instantly and threw me against a wall, where I fractured my neck. I was on the ground and he then said, ‘What do I do now?’ I don’t know if he was talking to me or the voices, but I said, ‘You leave.’ He up and walked out the door and drove off. I was rushed to the hospital and the police picked him up.
He had no idea who I was nor did he remember ever being married to me, he told the judge that the CIA had copied me and that I was not his wife but a spy working for them. He was found guilty by reason of insanity and was sentenced to 3 years in a state mental hospital. I never saw him again.”
Poor Pup.
“He said, “‘Your dog died? Ha ha ha. Did you bore her to death?’
My pet dog had passed away. I came back home from college to this news. I was shattered. I told him about it. He laughed it off. God knows why. Maybe he was trying to be sarcastic, trying to make the situation light (bad attempt), trying to be funny.
Whatever his intent, things dipped between us after that.”
The Beginning Of The End.
“I was in a relationship with this guy and we were discussing our ’10 year plans’ I mentioned going back to college to pursue a degree in nursing because my job prospects without a degree were not very good. I told him about my plan and my pre-plan and post plan (I’m a planner LOL) so after spending months devising this plan and 30 minutes telling him about it, all he says is ‘Do you think you’re smart enough for nursing school?’
I. Was. Devastated.
How could he? I had never given him any reason at all to doubt me. Our relationship was downhill from there because a man so skeptical of my abilities would surely not support my effort.”
After All They Went Through…
“When I was 21 I had just broken up with a previous ex. A boy I knew but wasn’t close to offered to talk about what happened and cooked me dinner. He admitted that he liked me a lot and kissed me. I told him I wasn’t comfortable getting into a relationship as soon as I had finished one. But over the weeks he pursued me relentlessly and I finally gave in.
We spent several weeks happy in each other’s company. I had practically moved into his house- doing his laundry and cooking for him etc. This was my first time in such a domesticated relationship and I absolutely loved it. But this all soon came to an end when we discovered I had gotten pregnant.
I was devastated and he was in shock. But as I cried and shook staring at the purple line that indicated positive, he promised that he wouldn’t leave me and I promised I would never hate him for getting me pregnant.
I didn’t have that much money at the time and neither did he. We pooled our cash in together for the surgery and we survived on cheap food. True to his word, he didn’t leave me. He supported me 100%- making sure I was fed, he listened to my worries.
After the surgery was done and over, it was clear that things were not the same between us anymore. The three weeks from discovery to the last medical check up had let a huge amount of pent up anger and stress accumulate. We decided to end things.
I didn’t hear from him for three months until it was my birthday- it was purely coincidental. I had heard he got a new girlfriend and I didn’t bear him any ill feelings. I had been in a rush in the city and he happened to be in the same area as me, loitering in the streets with who I assumed was his new girlfriend. As I walked by I heard him say those words:
‘That’s the girl I used to f–k a lot.’
I can’t explain the amount of hurt and pain I experienced when I heard those words. After everything we had been through- I had hoped we could move on as adults, but I guess not.”
The Sound Of Silence.
“Nothing. Silence. Not a word.
I’d married my best friend. And after 10 years, I thought we were happy. We cooked together, listened to music together, went on vacations, laughed often and generally seemed to have a good life.
One day, just after a great trip to Disney World and shortly after my birthday he was in the spare room, cleaning some stuff out. I was in the living room cleaning. We had this thing where I would call out to him and we’d banter back and forth while we worked. He used to say he married me because I made him laugh.
One of the things I’d say to him when he didn’t answer was, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you love me anymore?’ His usual answer was, ‘Only if you cook dinner tonight.’ Or some other similar thing.
This time when I called out, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you love me anymore?’ There was silence. Complete and utter silence. Three days later he moved out.
To this day I don’t know the real reason why. He was a very quiet man, not taken to arguing, or, apparently, to talking about what’s bothering him. If he had, perhaps I’d have chosen to do something about it, perhaps I wouldn’t. But he took the choice away from me with his silence.
It took me a long time to get over this. Lots of therapy thinking it was my fault when it wasn’t. In some ways, I’m still not completely over it because it still comes to mind from time to time and it’s been 15 years.”
The Truth Hurts.
“That she had never loved me; that all supposed passion had been feigned; that she had been looking for a way out for many years; that, ‘If I never see you or have to talk to you again for the rest of my life, that would make me happy.’
But in fact, the event and the relationship proved to be necessary waypoints on a path that got me to my current wife and children. The tapestry of life is cunningly woven; dark threads are necessary; and the pattern is often not apparent as it is constructed.”
Not Details You Want To Hear.
“My then wife now ex described her method for disposing of my body should one of her beatings had resulted in my death. Alcohol loosened her lips, her punches and her kicks. In this particular case she was too drunk to hit me as she struck out at me but not so drunk as to pass out.
Her description of how she would dispose of my body used items already in the apartment. She was not good at chemistry so it would not have worked, but who cares if I’m already dead.
By then I had already decided I needed to leave so she had done worse to me in the times she had beaten me. During actual beatings her shouts had been incoherent rants not this technical description of body disposal. This experience was more like icing on the cake of my decision to build the resources I needed to leave – In that era there was no such thing as shelters that took battered husbands. This experience also reminded me exactly what would eventually happen if I did not escape. When this happened I accelerated my efforts to build up my escape strategy.
It’s now well over 20 years ago these events happened. As it says in the movie writing ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.’ Okay, really just in a state far, far away.”
When Your Feelings Are A Burden.
“My ex and I had planned at the beginning to leave Germany, and return to my home state of Florida. I had been here for 5 years when we met, and I made it abundantly clear that I wanted to return. She claimed that absolutely nothing was holding her here, and she wanted to get away from places which triggered memories of her abusive past. She decided to push the date back though, by making excuses.
Fast forward 1.5 years. Our son Elliott was born, and it’s Christmas time. We were at my in-laws for the holidays. I had told her in the beginning that the holidays can get difficult for me sometimes, because of homesickness and missing my mom, friends and family. At this point in time, it had been 7 years since I’d seen my mother at Christmas. Ex and I went outside for a smoke, and she immediately laid into me. Apparently, it’d been 10 minutes since I’d added anything to the conversation upstairs (in German, my German wasn’t as good then as it is today… sometimes it was still challenging). I hadn’t noticed. I was preoccupied with thoughts of my mother, wondering how she was and hoping that she wasn’t depressed. Ex yelled at me for ruining Christmas. I calmly explained to her again that the holidays are a difficult time for me emotionally. I’ll never forget her response, although I hope that someday I’ll be able to forgive her for it…
‘Your emotional problems are YOUR PROBLEM! NOT MINE! I don’t want you ruining Christmas for me and my family, just because you can’t deal with your stupid homesick feelings!’
I already had tears on my face when I told her about my homesickness. I was devastated when she reacted the way she did. But I remained calm and asked her to please take me in her arms, give me a hug, and tell me that she loved me.
‘No. AGAIN! It’s not my fault we’re here, and not my problem! Stop ruining Christmas for me and my family.’
And she went back inside. I wanted to have another smoke to regain my composure. I went back upstairs, and tried not to be a further burden.”
All About The Context.
“The worst thing my husband ever said to me over the course of our rocky marriage was:
‘Oh. Sorry, hon.’ And then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
Out of context, that doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, he managed to say a lot of insulting and unkind things to me over 23 years. But this…the context was me telling him that my mom had just died. It was around 1 am and I was too far away to get to her when my sister called to tell me my siblings were rushing to the hospital to say goodbye. Then I had to reach over him to take the call that she was gone. He woke up enough to ask what the call was for, then went right back to sleep after expressing the sort of bland regretful sentiment you might tell a person who was bummed that their sports team lost. I went downstairs and outside and sat on the back steps, sobbing into my dog’s fur. I got more comfort from her than from my husband.
If I wasn’t already aware of it by then, it was crystal clear that my marriage was in trouble.”
What No One Wants To Hear.
“‘I’m seeing somebody.’
This was said a few days after we broke up. She had been seeing him for a few weeks before we broke up, and had kissed him before we broke up as well (and possibly something else).
This made me feel about as useful and attractive as pile of mucus. I was not a fun person to be around for a couple years following this.”
Something Simple Than Means So Much More…
“‘I don’t like your pants.’
When I first had depression, I fell into wearing oversized t-shirts and baggy jeans. ‘When you’re ugly and useless and worthless, there’s no reason to put effort into yourself,’ I said. Sleeping in felt like a better use of that time.
As I pulled myself out of depression, I went shopping and started buying every colorful thing on the rack. I bought a pair of pants which had every color of the rainbow. They were totally obnoxious and I absolutely loved them. I wore them to school the next day.
I was excited to have clothes which fit my personality and made me feel good. They were bright and happy and that’s what I wanted to be, too. I’d spent a lot of time blending in; I was ready to stand out.
I paraded up to my boyfriend at the time with a grin on my face. I figured he’d notice. After all, it was a pretty dramatic change from what I’d been wearing. When he didn’t mention it, I finally asked him what he thought. ‘I don’t really like them, to be honest. They draw a lot of attention.’
‘That was the point,’ I thought. I grinned and told him that I didn’t mind, that I liked my pants and that was enough. It hit me like a ton of bricks, though. I had finally almost overcome my depression and was willing to be who I wanted to be, and he was shooting me down because he didn’t want to attract attention.
It hurt because I had hoped I’d have his complete support as I got better, but I realized that I didn’t. He wasn’t interested in the new me. Needless to say, we didn’t last much longer.
I’ve heard a lot of s–t in my relationships, but this is one that stuck with me. It stands out in my mind as the moment I realized that not everyone will be there for you in sickness and in health.”
Just A Few Gems.
“Gosh, hmm here’s a few that I can remember:
‘You’re worthless to me if you are not bringing in a paycheck.’
‘Do you really think you should be eating that?’
‘You just want attention,’ *Said whilst I was in hospital after a suicide attempt.
‘You can’t be a vegetable just because you have anxiety.’
‘My friends girlfriends are more successful than you, they have a job,’ *Said whilst unwell and in between jobs.
‘You’re a s–t person, a s–t wife, I didn’t sign up for this,’ *Said in regards to my illness.
‘You’ll f–k up our children with your OCD.’
There’s just a few of the gems that came out of my ex husbands mouth.”
What A Horrible Excuse.
“This was said to me by my ex girl friend, whom I loved dearly and I guess I still do.
She said this to me after she cheated on me on one of her vacations, ‘I did not want to have sex with him I just wanted to make out with him and know how it feels…’ Yes, this created a void in me which I am trying to fill for the past 5 years.”
A Complete Betrayal.
“‘Get Help.’
When I was in high school, I started experiencing crushing depression. At the time I didn’t know what that was or what it meant, I just knew that I felt horrible all the time. I experienced severe insomnia, lost all interest in my schoolwork, friends and life in general. My parents response to this was to become emotionally and physically abusive, which of course did not improve matters. I struggled to graduation and limped across the finish line.
I was smart enough to ‘fake’ my way into college, moved off to a big public school in the fall. The new scenery and distance from my horrible home life changed something in me, and I did surprisingly well my first semester – a 4.0 with a reasonably difficult course load.
By spring however, I was back in the doldrums. I started missing class, and ended up dropping one to avoid getting a low mark on my transcript. Overall my grades looked good, but I was headed in the wrong direction – back to where I had been in high school. I took up self harm as a way of controlling the consuming negative emotions I couldn’t deal with otherwise. I was overcome with suicidal thoughts.
Then I met Anne. She was at another college, and was undergoing a kind of mental anguish of her own – PTSD and related pathologies due to a sexual assault that happened when she was just 13. We connected in a way that I had never thought would be possible for me. In corny romantic comedies, characters will tell one another ‘you complete me’ in a silly way. Or I thought it was silly, until I met her. She understood me thoroughly, deeply, truly.
We poured ourselves into each other, serving as co-vessels for our mutual anguish and fear. In some ways, it was probably a very bad thing. Having someone around who was similarly incapacitated ‘normalized’ the unhealthy coping behaviors we had each developed. It was like being in an echo chamber, where each agonized scream rebounded back at you ten times the volume (for nothing is more painful that seeing the person you care most about suffer pain you understand in your soul, completely).
My grades continued to suffer in spite of all this – of finding her. The distance and the circumstances of our relationship made it almost impossible to build anything meaningful from it. It was always a sounding board and nothing more – everything and nothing, if that makes sense. At the same time the realest relationship I had ever had, but also the most false because nothing could come of it.
I ended up withdrawing from school after two progressively worse semesters. Losing the few friends I had made there as well as any hope I had of normalizing my life dropped the floor out from under me, and I hit the bottom. Anne was there to see, and she supported me as best she could.
That was when we began to diverge. Something in her was different than it was in me. She succeeded where I failed, she strove where I stumbled. A rift began to open between us. And then it happened. She came to me one day to tell me she had begun dating a different person.
I felt. Alone. Abandoned. Lost. Betrayed.
I sought out and found a job in another city and bolted. I became an automaton, devoted to work, and sleep, and work, and sleep. I worked 100 hours a week as a salaried desk employee, bringing my decent pay down to effectively minimum wage.
Anne and I still spoke, but the pain and bitterness I felt at our separation pervaded our conversations. Most of the time, though, our conversations degenerated into bitter arguments over meaningless points of contention.
Towards the end, the final fight, I remember calling her one day. It was one of the pretend nice conversations. She was with friends, and annoyed that I had bothered her – something that was a new feature in our conversations. I began to cry, desperate over how alone and isolated I felt on the phone with the person I loved most in the world. The words hurt, I won’t deny that. But it was the tone. Not…tired. Disgusted. Annoyed. Done. There was a casual brutality to it that. It was 11 years ago, and I can hear it in my mind as if the phone was pressed to my ear right now. She said, ‘Get help.’ And hung up.
It was the way that someone who understood what it was like to feel so wounded had been transformed into someone who rejected me on the basis of those wounds. Friends to enemies. Trust to distance. Love to indifference.”
Through Sickness And In Health.
“‘What good are you then?’ my husband screamed.
I pushed myself flat against the hospital wall, making myself as small as possible as I tried to squelch the flow of tears. The previous day my husband had undergone a six-hour long surgery that had dissected and reattached major abdominal organs. His stomach now sported a fourteen-inch-long surgical incision down it’s midline.
Having undergone three Cesarean sections, I had an inkling of how bad his pain was this second post-operative day. I remembered that it hurt to roll over, to sit up, to cough, to laugh, or to change my clothes. I only had a three-inch low transverse incision. I couldn’t imagine dealing with one that was long and midline.
The ICU nurse had just given us the talk about when and how to contact him should my husband need help moving, going to the bathroom, or standing up. However, my husband was acting as if these instructions never occurred.
‘Come over here and help me get up,’ he said, waving his arms at me.
‘No. You are supposed to have help to do that.’
‘I have to go to the bathroom! It’ll take too long to call the nurse.’
‘You can’t do this alone and I’m not strong enough to lift you.’
‘C’mon!’ He started to put his arms behind his body so he could get some leverage to sit.
‘No! You aren’t supposed to do that!’ I yelled as I rushed towards him. ‘You’re gonna hurt yourself!’
‘Well, you aren’t of any help,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you leave! What good are you anyway?’
After a short effort he gave up and collapsed back in bed panting. He face flushed with anger.
Those words stung, but I understood my husband wasn’t himself. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer three weeks earlier. This surgery was his only chance at a cure, and a small one at that. I held my face expressionless and ignored him, but stayed in the room and called for the nurse.
Later on he didn’t remember those first few days following the surgery, but he thanked me many times over for being by his side. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. This was what I had promised when I said my marriage vows to him all those years ago. To me, this was the very definition of love.”
The Lowest Of Blows.
“This significant other in my life was a best friend…not a partner. My ‘soul-sister’ and partner in crime. After a decade of deep friendship and camaraderie….we had a tiff, that escalated. Can never forget what she said in the spur of the moment that day…
‘He was right to leave you. You are such an unreasonable person’
As women, we expect men to break our hearts or say mean things…maybe that’s why it does not surprise or shock us this much. But when your best buddy (who’s seen you through the ups and downs of life for over 10 years) says something that’s a ‘below the belt’ kinda blow, it just crumbles the ground beneath your feet. It was the most vicious thing anyone could have said to me, to break my heart. God alone knows the pain and the sting it caused and the self esteem issues deepen…but I learnt that nothing lasts forever. Not good times. Not bad times.”
Lack Of Compassion.
“Before finishing high school, I spent a year in Europe as part of a cultural exchange program. During my exchange, I didn’t interact with many of my friends from back home in the US, but I did text and call my best friend Jenna on a biweekly basis and my then boyfriend Alex slightly more often.
High school for Jenna had been going downhill over the past few years as she started drinking and smoking more, taking some hardcore drugs, trouble with relationships including a sexual assault, and familial discontent. By the time I left, she had become quite depressed. I always expressed my worries about Jenna to Alex when we talked and he knew how important she was to me.
Fast forward to late fall and I get a message one day from Jenna thanking me for being like a sister, saying she was sorry for being such a disappointment and telling me goodbye.
I immediately spent 20 minutes working on contacting her with no success and, being out of the US with no idea where she was, didn’t know how to call to get her help. I was incredibly distraught and called my boyfriend to discuss the terrifying thought that my best friend had committed suicide.
‘It’s just Jenna being Jenna; she probably wants attention.’
This guy wasn’t the most compassionate person I knew, but his complete disregard for her well-being was shocking – he knew and had spent considerable time with her. I told him I couldn’t deal with that then and spent the next few hours endlessly calling her until I was able to get a hold of her. We talked for hours and since then she has been to rehab and gotten counseling, but I don’t doubt that she was absolutely ready to kill herself that night.
Several weeks after our conversation, I broke up with Alex because I just couldn’t see him the same way.”