There's always signs when it's time to leave a bad relationship. These Redditors share the time the were in a toxic relationship and what the red flags were that made them leave. Content has been edited for clarity.
Holiday Spirit
“I was dating a girl who had family problems and she had more than once gotten kicked out of her mom and stepdad’s house. They threw her out near Christmas one year so my family invited her to stay with us for a while until things cooled off. They even let us share my bed while she was staying here.
She was finally getting ready to go back after a few weeks, so she went to the store to get some necessities. I heard my mom, in tears, talking to my stepdad. I went out to see what was going on and I found out that the money from their paychecks was gone. My mom used to get cash from both of their paychecks and keep it in an envelope in her purse. That was their free spending money for the month and it was usually a pretty good amount.
We initiated a search around the house and finally found the envelope in my girlfriend’s suitcase. She was told to leave the house the second she came back. I broke things off and never spoke to her again after what she did. My family let her live with us and took her in during the holiday season and she repaid us by trying to steal my parents’ money.”
What The Slap?
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“We were out together at a bar when these guys approached us, and my girlfriend looked like she was interested in one of the men walking over. We started talking as a group, quite friendly at first.
The guy she liked was paying more attention to me than her, which she didn’t like. Out of nowhere, she started a physical fight with me to get his attention. She literally just walked over to me, totally unprovoked, and slapped me across the face. She ended up getting us both kicked out. Since I was her ride, I drove her home and never spoke to her again.”
Sliding In For Free
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“I realized it was toxic when she would come over every day because her boyfriend was one of my roommates, and acted like she lived there despite not paying rent, not helping clean, and always leaving her things everywhere. It was really bad; I found bags of rotting, melting veggies on two separate occasions. She would leave her dirty laundry and half-eaten food everywhere, and she would walk around her birthday suit because two of three roommates were girls so she thought it was fine.
We all confronted her about it, and she would feel terrible and try to fix herself for a week before reverting back. After being given too many chances to count, she started lashing out at me and the other roommate, calling us unappreciative of her efforts. Her boyfriend was depressed and desperate so he gave up trying to talk to her.
After the lease ended, I started renting my own one-bedroom. Last I heard, she was still piggybacking on my other roommate and the boyfriend. Our other roommate is waiting for their current lease to end so she can find a one-bedroom like I did.”
Mean Jack
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“My family moved to a new place and I was the ‘new kid’ and another kid, we’ll call him Jack, decided to be friends with me. After a few weeks, here are a few red flags I found:
• He would constantly ask for money (and I mean like $10 at once) and use a ‘friendship discount’ (not in a joking way) to waive his debts. At some point, he said he would protect me from any ‘bullies,’ but at a price, and that the debts would be enough (never got my $40 back).
• He would also borrow my things and not give them back until days later, which made me worry because I stupidly gave him the things I hold near and dear.
• Jack had a lot of enemies during school and would be in a lot of fights. After some snooping, I found out almost half of his enemies were either people who were new in town, who had just been there for a few months or a year or two.
Afterwards, I just distanced myself and found better friends. Ironically enough, I found my childhood best friend when Jack was talking to him (turned out to be, you guessed it, a new student).”
The Friendzone
“First sign: he would disappear and not contact me for months at a time, including once after he’d said he would drive me to the hospital because I was feeling really bad (I ended up driving myself and I was hospitalized for three days). I didn’t take it personally because it just seemed like his thing and I didn’t want to admit my feelings were hurt.
Second sign: he tried to (unsuccessfully) cheat on his wife with me (I was also married). I brushed it off because she was a cheater herself and he was- well, he was who he is.
Third sign: he went on at length about how much better his life would have been if he’d continued dating me way back when (before the first month-long ‘disappearance,’ when he had ditched me, the girl he was on a date with, to ‘comfort’ his coworker- whom he later married). I was on this gilded pedestal and nothing he said really had anything to do with me, just that he didn’t like his life and thought I could save him from it. I gently told him that was never the case, and wrote it off because he was depressed.
Fourth sign: he found out I was moving to a nearby city- we were both still married. He proceeded to tell me how he couldn’t wait for us to catch up, go to bars together, sleep together.
And, finally, I saw the light. I told him off for being a prick and was the one to disappear from his life- for good.”
The First Is The Worst
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“He was my first real boyfriend and looking back there were many ‘moments:’
• I went on the contraceptive pill for him but it made me feel sick. I asked if he could start wearing rubbers, and eventually told him he needed to so I didn’t have to take the pill. He lost his mind, started shouting and swearing at me, asking me how I could ask him such a thing when I know they hurt him…
• Any success I had would be me somehow punishing him. For example, I passed my driving test and called him to let him know, only for him to start crying because I wouldn’t need him as much anymore.
• When I wasn’t in the mood to engage in coitus, it was an insult to him and he got angry. It meant I no longer found him attractive and didn’t love him anymore.
• On one occasion, he called me while I was with male friends that I had known for years to tell me I had to choose between them or him.
• I cannot tell you how many times he threatened to kill himself if I ever left him.
It was an extremely toxic relationship but because he was my first I never realized until I left. I regret staying with him for so long as my mom, who is also my best friend, really disliked him and it put a massive strain on our relationship. I’m so glad I got out!”
Just Keep Swimming
“We’d been going through some tough times and our relationship was already on thin ice. I was coming up on my important swimming championships for college and all I asked was that she let me focus 100% on the meet for four days. We would have no contact about our relationship or anything.
After the morning session of the first day is complete, we head back to the hotel to get lunch, review the tape, and rest. I see that I have three voicemails and a slew of text messages of her begging me to call her and to talk about our relationship. To top it off, not a single question about how I had done.
It was like a giant weight was lifted off of me at that moment. I officially no longer had anything left for her or that relationship. She had been completely selfish the entire time and I finally saw it. I didn’t blow up at her, simply texted back that we’d talk when I was back on campus.
Our ‘talk’ consisted of me handing her a box of her stuff from my room and that was that. I Should have ended it much sooner but that’s all you can do since hindsight is 20/20. My mind was not in the right place all season because of how toxic the relationship was. I came back the following year to post personal records all season long.”
Mean Guys
“When your core group of guy friends doesn’t bother to invite you out anymore and they skip out on your plans. Some of these guys I had known since our childhood and let them stay at my house when they got kicked out of their parents’ house. Then when your ex-girlfriend cheats on you and then none of them say anything after finding out. After a while, I stopped contacting them and they never reached out to me.
Some of my the best memories from my 20s are with these guys but none of them cared when I needed them during hard times.
Yeah, I’m just a little bitter when I think of it but otherwise, it’s been 10 years and I have a completely different life and have moved on.
I met a bunch of great new friends since then and we all reach out to each other if we haven’t heard from someone in a day or two.”
The Mooch
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“My toxic relationship is with my current roommate (and best friend of 15 years) and his girlfriend. She pretty much lives there. She stays here there Monday -Friday, gets ready for her job there, keeps all her groceries there, never does her dishes (even though she has more coffee mugs there than my roommate and me combined), uses our washer and dryer, decorated the public bathroom with all her stuff, and generally abuses our hospitality. I’ve asked many times if she could just start helping with bills, not even equal with us, just enough to help, and nope she can’t afford it, and he doesn’t see it as her living there.
It really sucks because we were only able to get the apartment because of me. I had great renter’s history, he just got evicted from his last apartment where he lived for seven years and only ever paid rent on time about half the time. He’s been good on paying everything on time, because I WILL NOT let that slide, but I’m on the verge of moving out because we have a third roommate living there for free.
I sat them down to talk about how I feel she should start helping out paying for rent. Mainly, I want her to clean up after herself and help with some of the bills. I gave her a price I thought was fair and affordable. Our rent is $1600, and I asked if she could pay $200 for her portion and then $25 on gas and energy and $25 for Internet and cable. $250 a month total to live there with no complaints from me anymore.
I told her to tell me in a few days so she could think about it, and she said she doesn’t need to think about it because she couldn’t afford it. So then I reminded them about the lease agreement about how we can’t have guests in the apartment for more than 14 days of the month and she will have to start to adhere to that. Both said no problem…and well nothing has changed.”
A Changed Man
“I was around 16 and had the opportunity to hang out with my best friend for the first time in a while. He had recently slowly started changing from my nerdy best friend into someone, just different, I guess even though we still had common interests (treating girls like objects, spending all his money on fancy clothes) and hadn’t had time to hang out like we used to, we went to different schools. I decided to miss out on another friend’s birthday party so I could hang out with him.
So we were at the mall and he got some spaghetti on his shirt, and I started giving him talk and teasing him about it. Before this would have been no big deal, we teased and cracked each other up constantly. But he was annoyed about the shirt because he cared about looking snappy a lot more than he used to. He looked me in the eyes really coldly and said something to the extent of ‘If you don’t shut up, I am seriously about to freak out on you in front of all these people,’ and went back to dabbing the stain.
I sat there completely shocked, trying not to cry, and I realized I had moved my whole day around so I could be harassed at the mall instead of hanging out at the birthday party with people who don’t treat me like garbage.
That wasn’t the only thing that happened between us but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I kept hanging out with this guy because I missed my kindhearted best friend but I had to come to terms with the fact that he just wasn’t that person anymore.”
An Innocent Tweet
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“He took a week-long trip to America, where his best friend was in college on a baseball scholarship. I had no problem with this since up to this point I trusted him and I had no issue with him having fun with this friend he saw only a few times a year.
That week comes along, he heads to the United States and I’m sick as a dog. I don’t attend my classes, I just stay in bed at my parents’ pretty much dying of the flu. Bedridden, I just hang out most days sleeping, watching movies and scrolling through social media. I retweet an old ex (we must’ve dated three years prior), who tweeted something about a show I liked – something totally harmless (that ex and I had ended on good terms, lived totally separate lives, but were the kind of people that still wished each other happy birthdays, or talked briefly if we saw each other in public, etc).
Later that night that I received a call from a friend saying she was “so sorry” for all the stuff all over social media, and was asking what had happened. I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about. She told me to look at Twitter and there was honestly pages of tweets of my then boyfriend berating me, insulting me, calling me dirty names.
This idiot didn’t even speak to me directly about any feelings he was having and is away on an amazing trip, yet he’s saying this all over a public platform for all of our friends/family to see! It wasn’t until a bit later that I connected my retweet earlier that day to his behavior. It was honestly that innocent, that I didn’t even believe his behavior could’ve resulted from it. Long story short, he ended up absolutely going insane on me – and when he said it ‘was over,’ I laughed and said, ‘okay, great.’ There was no way in heck I was staying in a relationship with someone who pulled this kind of stuff. After that he kept backpedaling, thinking that his breakup threat would’ve torn me up more. He spent months trying to get back together – then sending page long texts insulting me and demeaning me. He would try and find any way or reason to contact me, even once sent me an 11-page text because he found ‘one of my hairs in his room.’ It was such a roller coaster that my parents eventually had to call my phone company and have his number blocked from contacting me in any way shape or form. And if he came into my work, my coworkers knew to tell me immediately and hide me in the back room. So yeah, never again.
OH, and if that isn’t bad enough – He was the only person at the time who I had shared that I had been assaulted by two of my male ‘friends’ that same year. He later used that against me, telling me that it ‘wasn’t real’ and that I ‘wanted it,’ saying I was terrible, everything you can think of. This really, really messed me up at the time because I was trying to come to terms and struggling with what had happened to me. It took me three years into my current relationship to tell my boyfriend that part of my past, just because of the extreme anxiety and unease my ex had caused in that department.
Thank God I’m with someone now who is the complete and utter opposite.”
Exactly The Wrong Thing To Say
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“When my dad was arrested and extradited to another state, I was going through a ton of stress. Not only was I in grad school and working two jobs, I was the one who understood the lawyers the most, it was up to me to make the 1500 mile trips for court appearances because my family and I agreed I was the one that should go. One day, while having a nervous breakdown after a fight with my boyfriend at the time because he wasn’t being supportive, he says, ‘at times like this I’m glad your dad is going to prison for the rest of his life. You are so spoiled by him.’
Basically, my dad was arrested on DEA charges; my dad has always been loving and caring to all of us. He did whatever it took; I’m not saying it was the right thing though. So, when he was taken to the Midwest, I fell apart when they wanted to give him 36 years to life. It took two years of going back and forth, a ton of stress, and my ex never offered any support. I couldn’t even talk to him about it after that comment. I was done.”
The Revolving Relationship Door
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“Our relationship ended when he said he was gay and dumped me.
I had liked him for so long and was so overjoyed when he finally asked me out. We had a great month long relationship… And then bam. We were best friends before the relationship and remained best friends after, so no hard feelings.
Funny story, he dated a girl a year later, broke up with her six months after that, and then wanted me to be his girlfriend again.
We are best friends, I currently have a boyfriend, and I just wish he’d never left me in the first place.
He had always thought he was gay, but when he asked me out he said I was the first girl he’d ever wanted to be with. So, him breaking up with me under the pretense that he still felt gay seemed legitimate. Then a year later he dated someone, which was sort of heartbreaking because I had literally wanted to be with him for two years, and I had come to terms with the fact he wasn’t attracted to me for those two/three years, never told him I had feelings for him, never tried to get him to like me, we were just friends. But then he said those things and I was so excited to finally have a chance, I was fine with the break up because in the back of my head I always thought it might happen, but when he dated that girl a year later it was heart-wrenching. We broke up in March of 2013. My current relationship began in July of 2013. He started dating this girl around January of 2014.
When he broke up with her in August of 2014 he immediately, as in next day, asked me if I’d consider dating him again. At that point, I said yes, but that I was happy in my current relationship so I wasn’t going to break up just to be with him. He was okay with that and understood and we continued being friends, I also told him that I didn’t want to hold him back in any way and that I wasn’t hurt by anything that had happened anymore. I just wanted us both to continue being best friends and for no hard feelings to be left so we could go on with our separate lives.
Now it is six months after that. I’ve been in my current relationship for a while and I’m starting to be less happy with the way things are going. I’m feeling increasingly distant and this is because some days I don’t think that my current boyfriend is right for me at all, in the long term. I mean right now things are okay on that front, but we have entirely different future goals and wants. I love him, I love him a lot, but I’m feeling more and more ‘Why am I in this relationship?’ every day because we have virtually nothing in common and when you have nothing in common, after the new relationship feeling wears off, what do you have left? We don’t like any of the same things, we don’t have any of the same goals, we deal with emotional things very differently, we deal with anger very differently, we deal with friendships, loss, anger, everything very very differently. He wants kids, I don’t. He wants to do certain things with his life that I wouldn’t want in a million years and vice versa. And there’s even more, but I won’t bother you with it. I used to think we’d just work those out as they came, but now I’m feeling less that way because I don’t know if I could be happy long-term with this guy for a lot of reasons. I’m planning to transfer to a different college next year, he plans to go to one 6 hours away from mine. He’s also leaving next summer to work on a dude ranch and he’s not always sure that he wants to move back here, at first he’d thought I might move down with him, but I have no interest in that lifestyle. He says he’d change all his plans for me if I wanted him to, but I don’t want to hold him back, nor do I want to feel guilty for influencing his decisions.
So I’m just trying to figure things out because I don’t know what I want, nor do I know if any of it is worth it.”