💔

November 3, 2019 9:43 PM

Think back to a devastating break-up. Sum it up in one sentence.

Additional one sentence break-up stories in the associated twitter thread.

cw: brief allusions to relationship trauma and violence.

posted by Slarty Bartfast (113 comments total)

"The Worst MetaTalktail Post Imaginable"
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:29 PM on November 3, 2019 [20 favorites]

"Light griefs are loquacious, but that deep sorrow has no tongue."
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:08 PM on November 3, 2019 [16 favorites]

"To be thought so inconsequential, to have one's depths be so surprising"
posted by amtho at 11:56 PM on November 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

"It was the clipboard that did me in."
posted by bendy at 12:26 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

“The assassins were a hint.”
posted by fallingbadgers at 12:40 AM on November 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

TL/DR:
"People kinda suck. Some really really suck."
posted by From Bklyn at 1:04 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

The one sentence that sums my last one up is that it completely changed my life in every conceivable way, and I'm only just now starting to bring my life back together more than nine months later.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:19 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

"I used to be a completely different person, and I really don't like him at all."
posted by halfbuckaroo at 2:24 AM on November 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

After the phone call and the tears, I dreamt that I was with her, walking up an icy slope, begging her to take it back, and when I woke, I knew my dream was a lie.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:26 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

He loved me, but decided he couldn't handle that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:27 AM on November 4, 2019 [11 favorites]

Or, Before her, I knew that I liked my pasta differently than she liked hers, but now I can't remember which of us liked it al dente.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:27 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

"Light griefs are loquacious, but that deep sorrow has no tongue."

Fine, I guess I'll go to a different thread.
posted by loquacious at 2:41 AM on November 4, 2019 [46 favorites]

I don't trust you. I don't feel safe. I'm ending this.
posted by Molesome at 2:47 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Two pieces of a jigsaw, except one's actually a piece of Lego, and it's on fire.
posted by pipeski at 3:08 AM on November 4, 2019 [18 favorites]

In hindsight I was a real piece of shit.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:17 AM on November 4, 2019 [16 favorites]

How could someone so invested in the truth and authenticity be so dishonest with themselves and with me?
posted by kokaku at 3:18 AM on November 4, 2019 [9 favorites]

One last selfishness, the dread of the self-recrimination yet to come, ends a relationship that I was too scared to trust.
posted by Eleven at 3:20 AM on November 4, 2019

I can see the "OK, boomer!" reaction coming, but he asked for sentences and so many of the responses aren't complete sentences and it's bothering me.

I was born in '74, putting me outside the boomer generation, so there.
posted by emelenjr at 3:20 AM on November 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Our inner demons got along GREAT, but there was a lot of collateral damage.
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:21 AM on November 4, 2019 [16 favorites]

I used to be an asshole - I still am, but I used to be, too.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:46 AM on November 4, 2019 [18 favorites]

I can see the "OK, boomer!" reaction coming, but he asked for sentences...

Boomer here, I read the other day that grammatical and punctuated texts and emails are "passive aggressive". SAD!
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:18 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Wait, what just happened?!?!
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:19 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's no prize for second place in the Suffering Olympics.
posted by some loser at 4:23 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

Try to see this as a memory game. Find two stories that match.
posted by mitocan at 4:45 AM on November 4, 2019 [15 favorites]

Even when you finally feel like a true equal, he still has the power to break your heart.
posted by wellred at 4:57 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Insufficient number of pants.
posted by BeeDo at 5:05 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm taking the cat.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 5:17 AM on November 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

At a certain point I realized that being punched isn’t okay.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:27 AM on November 4, 2019 [19 favorites]

Years earlier, when I had pretended to rip my heart out of my chest and give it to her as a valentine, I meant it as a joke.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:32 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

I loved Beth, and told her that as she was walking out the door.
posted by dobbs at 5:33 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

"It would be okay if you never came home."
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:45 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Well, you need a lot of excitement in your life, and I was running out of ideas for clever things to say and do.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 5:50 AM on November 4, 2019 [9 favorites]

We both had baggage that the other couldn't carry.
posted by bl1nk at 5:56 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Just one actual date, and already
I must arrange
a neutral intermediary
to return her shotgun.
posted by cnidaria at 6:00 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

My son's father abandoned us, and I lost my baby to adoption.
posted by mermayd at 6:12 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

He wanted all the fun parts of being in a relationship, but didn't want to do any of the emotional work of maintaining one.
posted by droplet at 6:25 AM on November 4, 2019 [11 favorites]

I told him a thousand times to stop lying to me; finally he said, I was lying to myself.
posted by Melismata at 6:26 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

(OMG favorited a thousand times, Multicellular Exothermic!)
posted by Melismata at 6:28 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

She ghosted, I noped.
posted by Fizz at 6:40 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Togetherness can't always cure loneliness.
posted by Otter_Handler at 6:40 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

At night, the ice weasels come.
posted by delfin at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2019 [18 favorites]

He would say, "It's important how you say goodbye," then I realized I was awakening from an anesthetising substance, and I had no recollection of how he reached that sentence in an ongoing conversation with me.
posted by Oyéah at 7:15 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

She chose the other guy that I hadn't known about.
posted by nubs at 7:17 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

On Valentine's Day, said that she didn't think we were actually dating.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:22 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

He made me evil and I wanted to die.
posted by jgirl at 7:23 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

At the party, she made out with another guy in the parking lot, but still made me drive her home.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:23 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

After hearing his other breakup stories, I knew he was a person who had to think he initiated and executed the breakup so, that became my survival plan.
posted by Oyéah at 7:24 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

He dumped me on New Years Eve so he wouldn’t have to kiss me at midnight.

Ha! That was me last December, dumped on New Year's Eve. If there's a consolation to a shitty breakup, it's that they help you get over them real fast. That's how little I meant to you, huh?
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:33 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

She texted, hey can you call me
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:35 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I keep trying to come up with one but after ending a 20-year marriage I don't know that I can. Let's just say, if it ain't right after 20 years, it won't ever be right, so move on.
posted by emjaybee at 7:37 AM on November 4, 2019 [11 favorites]

Reader, he married her.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 7:51 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

She lied to me to get together, told me frequently how abusive I was for not meeting her needs, and refused to let me go.

The lesson: it's always okay to leave a relationship. ALWAYS.

I lost two years and a huge chunk of self-esteem. I felt like I was in stasis because I wasnt making any progress towards any of my goals, just trapped in the cycle of walking on eggshells, fucking up, expressing how I felt, walking it back when I felt like it was my fault, making up through tears, and repeat. And that took over my life.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 8:13 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I wasn't ready for sex, but three of my friends were.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:18 AM on November 4, 2019 [18 favorites]

when the realization you are falling in love with this emotionally unavailable person is akin to the feeling of being on a beach and seeing a tsunami coming right for you, and your emotional response is "oh goody".
posted by supermedusa at 8:24 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

He was lying about having a brain tumor, along with lying about not sleeping with other women.
posted by cooker girl at 8:31 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

When I saw him briefly, years later, it took me a minute to recognize the face I had once loved, and another to know he was as lost to me that day as he had been at the end of us.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:40 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

It's like a death, isn't it?
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:45 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

She realized I wasn't straight before I did.
posted by wanderingmind at 8:50 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

it's been almost fifteen years - i loved her more than she loved me.
posted by sedimentary_deer at 9:00 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Sometimes absence just makes the heart grow absent.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:03 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

I wished that I knew that this was coming, so I would've been present enough to appreciate that this would be the last meal we made together, this would be the last weekend getaway, this would be the last morning in the same bed ... but then not being present was part of the problem.
posted by bl1nk at 9:05 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

Credit for my one-sentence thing above actually belongs to a friend of mine; C is, like, this total genius at giving me advice that gets to the heart of any situation I ask him about. That sentence is almost verbatim what he said when I discovered my big one-that-got-away ex had met someone within only a month of breaking up with me and had just gone on to marry her, and I was discussing the situation with C and said "now I'm wondering if my ex ever really loved me."

C just squinted a moment in thought, then said "Nah, I think that he did love you, but he just couldn't handle it." And the second I heard that, I just realized "dang....that's exactly what happened."

Basically C is one of those people you don't think is paying attention but then they say something so insightful everyone goes "daaaaaaang."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:06 AM on November 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

Love incurs a debt that is repaid with grief.
posted by mikeand1 at 9:09 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

When he finally demanded that I reject the evidence of my own eyes and ears, I refused.

(Reference to Orwell very much intended.)
posted by snowmentality at 9:39 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I poured myself out for him but instead of being filled with anything in return, I always went home empty.
posted by twilightlost at 9:45 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Two different Teapot Dome scandals:

1. When you made a salient point during the argument by picking up my blue teapot and smashing it on the floor.

2. When you woke me at two am to let me know that I had caused you to break the teapot while you were washing dishes.
posted by effluvia at 9:49 AM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I asked him if he was falling for his co-worker, but it took him eighteen months to tell me that he had.
posted by LizardBreath at 9:52 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I wish I knew then that I deserved way better; instead I held out for scraps way too long.
posted by lyssabee at 9:53 AM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

Marrying the first woman who expressed an interest in me (on the premise that there likely would never be a second) was a mistake that cost me the majority of what little self-esteem I had when the marriage inevitably ended.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:04 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

"She needed her space, and never stopped needing it."
posted by Splunge at 10:12 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I can see the "OK, boomer!" reaction coming, but he asked for sentences and so many of the responses aren't complete sentences and it's bothering me.

That's your breakup story?
posted by aws17576 at 10:13 AM on November 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

He drove twenty miles on a winter's night to tell me I didn't love him.
posted by dislegomena at 10:36 AM on November 4, 2019

He loved me for loving him.
posted by JuliaIglesias at 10:41 AM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

I untethered myself from his trajectory of self-destruction.

(This past weekend was the one year mark of the end of my marriage. Timely.)
posted by Sparky Buttons at 10:43 AM on November 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Oh, now you tell me you're imaginary?
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 10:46 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Rural Japan is neither the place to receive an LDR-LTR break-up letter OR figure out that you're gay.
posted by ikahime at 11:19 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Within a four-month period in 2011/2012, my favourite brother died of a heart attack at 42, I got hit by a car, I lost my job, and then when I told the guy I'd been seeing on and off for twelve years that I needed him to spend some time with me, he told me it "wasn't his responsibility".

Then there was the time I got stood up on New Year's Eve and never heard from the guy again.
posted by orange swan at 11:19 AM on November 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

I should have never introduced them, or claimed dibs when he asked, still can't believe she would choose him.
posted by zengargoyle at 11:20 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

"You look like a photograph of yourself, taken from far far away."
posted by holmesian at 11:46 AM on November 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

One sentence that describes my breakup, that isn't all about me:

In the span of an afternoon conversation we went from carefree to realizing that neither of us would grow as people unless we broke up, and it was devastating but true.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:51 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

She broke it off three times and kept telling me that she had made a mistake; being strung along like that is the worst heartbreak I've ever experienced (and, stupid me, I'm still hopelessly in love with her almost two years later).
posted by Token Meme at 12:07 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

"You're brand of crazy is killing me. "
posted by hoodrich at 12:17 PM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

A lot of these also sound like first lines of possibly terrible novels... but so many are so good, too!
posted by Snowishberlin at 12:50 PM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Great stress shows how deep your foundation goes, and ours was shallow.
posted by El Curioso at 12:53 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

By the way, totally offtopic, but I found out your cat died on FB
posted by some loser at 12:57 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

He said 'you actually believed I could love someone like you?'
posted by buildmyworld at 1:12 PM on November 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

you persuaded me to move to a different continent so that you wouldn't have to break up with me in person
posted by logicpunk at 1:13 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I only wanted to be with you because I was lonely, so you breaking up with me harder than it should have.
posted by waving at 1:14 PM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I found someone else who was better at enjoying life and sex.

(yes I was an asshole)
posted by SoberHighland at 1:32 PM on November 4, 2019

"You're a little bitch."

I have had better days. The fact that she had a tattoo of my brother's high school band made it funnier though.
posted by stet at 2:36 PM on November 4, 2019

When her world fell apart, instead taking refuge with me, the only place she looked for answer was the bottom of a bottle. Then my world fell apart too.
posted by ob1quixote at 4:03 PM on November 4, 2019

Married for money, earned every penny.
posted by TwoToneRow at 4:16 PM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Sometimes absence just makes the heart grow absent.

Absinthe makes the heart grow frantic.
posted by vers at 4:29 PM on November 4, 2019

All told, the thing had taken about twelve years, which is a long-ass time when you're twenty-seven, but when we finally got to the end, standing on the still-off-gassing carpet in Denver's brand-new airport, there was exactly one word left in my heart, and that word was "Bye!"
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:56 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

From the time it took me to walk from her dorm to my dorm and call her to tell her I had her notebook and I'd drop it off the next morning.

She hadn't actually done up to her dorm room, she met up with the dude she _really_ liked.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:22 PM on November 4, 2019

Sitting on a folding lawn chair in the living room (because I had said yes, you can take the furniture), listening to "What Do You Do (When Your Lover Leaves You)" by The Tams over and over again on the stereo I had kept, bending over to lift the needle, turntable on the floor.
posted by bonefish at 8:29 PM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

We always texted, so when I saw her name on the caller ID, I knew it would be for the first and last time.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:08 PM on November 4, 2019

Her feet smelled like soup
posted by the duck by the oboe at 10:29 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Sometimes absence just makes the heart grow absent.

Yeah, but sometimes perfect attendance just gets you a gold star and a book you'll never read.
posted by pracowity at 1:27 AM on November 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

It wasn't the drinking, and it wasn't drunkenly ignoring my no, it was refusing to admit you had a problem that did us in.
posted by XtinaS at 3:57 AM on November 5, 2019

Pretty much every Fleetwood Mac song.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:04 AM on November 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

When I broke my foot [in five places] on Christmas Day, you kept DJing, partying, snorting coke, and handed me the car keys, told me to drive myself home.
posted by honey-barbara at 5:51 AM on November 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

She knew I was a good person ("I thought you had a kind face" she said, describing how she'd initially been attracted), asking me at one point, "Why aren't you married (already)?!" (which made me burst into tears), saying "You're a better person than I am" at another, and "I think I understand how you feel" - but still she used me, was insincere and dishonest and self-centred (as I discovered late in the relationship she also had been to former close friends of hers who'd asked her to move out of their place), and she broke my heart in a way I still feel decades later (I lost a certain openness I'd had).
posted by Philofacts at 7:29 AM on November 5, 2019

"Adulting makes me unlovable."

"Seeing you put on Spanx will make him die inside."

"It's because I'm not normal and happy."

"Cellulite is why you're a spinster."

Alright, that's enough dark Internet for today.
posted by blerghamot at 11:48 AM on November 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

"No, half a liter of vodka a day is not proper coping skills."
posted by symbioid at 12:38 PM on November 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

He didn't want to tell his friends about me.
posted by koucha at 2:21 PM on November 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Two strangers, bound together by the shared memory of their youth, bid each other a final farewell.

A poorly behaved child tore us apart, and it took me years to grow up.
posted by whisk(e)y neat at 2:51 PM on November 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I stopped being okay with him never, ever stepping up.
posted by humbug at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Excruciating destruction of a life fostered more beautiful new growth.
posted by Edna Million at 1:48 PM on November 6, 2019

Our youth aged poorly.
posted by ipe at 3:01 PM on November 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

They got married the day I started grad school in the town I’d moved to in order to be with her.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:27 AM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

He didn’t know who sent the Valentines Day balloons.
posted by ReginaHart at 2:48 PM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

We both had baggage that the other couldn't carry.

We walked side-by-side on separate paths until they diverged too much.
posted by bendy at 12:09 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]