Back in '89 I found out my wife was having an affair. We had a 10 year old and a 4 year old. It was the worst time of my life. While going through the divorce, she had a car wreck and our 10 year old son was killed, then a month after he was killed, I lost my job due to the place I had been working for 10 years being shut down by the IRS.
It took me years to work through the pain, while trying to be a good dad to my little girl. She's 32 years old now (the age I was when I got divorced), and she's happily married with 3 kids of her own. I've been married 12 years, and between my wife and me, we have 6 of the sweetest grandkids you ever saw.
It's funny, when I was going through the hell that the 90s were (for me), I got super religious which led me to deep reflection searching for truth, which led me to atheism. I'm happy most days now, but i wouldn't have believed I ever would be again, if you asked me while I was going through it all.

Memories I refuse to relive.

Divorce, only one I've had. I never felt anything like it. One day my wife's is all loving and then the next she's out the door--she met a man online, who lives in Germany; he sent her money for a passport and plane ticket. She decided I was too boring. I turned 60 and she decided I was done at 60, she was 50. The guy she left me for was 49, worked at a nuclear power plant, so I guess she left me for Homer Simpson and I've never quite decided how I felt about that! I had never been through a breakup, I was her third marriage and she was my first. She left without telling our son goodbye. I was devastated and started going to therapy. I've since gotten over her. I'm doing well and getting on with my life.

My wife up and died on me. I thought that was pretty inconsiderate of her.

Aw hell, I got dumped after my back walked out on me. December, in a tiny town at 9,000 feet. I had to move out when I could barely stand or walk. He said, ‘Hey, you aren’t fun anymore.’ Chronic pain will ruin your life if you let it.

I've been trying to decide whether to even respond to this topic. If I did, how
would I even begin to put it into words? Yeah, I know. Surprising to hear that
I'm at a loss for words. Some things effect us so profoundly, they change us forever, and they're often really hard to discuss.

There have been a few gut-wrenching breakups. Hell, I'm 57, of course there were.
Those all occurred when I was younger and much more resilient. I still always had hope there would be love again.

The worst was the end of my marriage in 2006. I was totally blindsided.
In hindsight, there were signs that I totally missed, but when you aren't looking
for red flags, you tend to miss the subtle hints.
When you think you're happy, just living life, working hard, and thinking everything is okay, you aren't looking for cracks in the foundation. Then the house implodes and you're left standing in the rubble, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
Finding out that you've been played is damned hard to take.
Especially when you find out there has been malice of forethought.

I was broken up with in a text message. At least it wasn't a post it note.

Wow!! What an amazing bunch of survivors you are!!! You've lived through some incredible shit and are still on your feet (though maybe with a limp). Remember, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger. (Nope, no typo)

I'm not sure which way is the worst. When I was in HS and still thought I was straight, a boyfriend broke up with me in a note on Valentine's Day. I know. Sounds like a country song.

My first girlfriend, who I was living with, apparently got sick of me and the horrible depression I'd fallen into and took a few things and the dog ... two floors up, to crash with her best friend Maggie.
Maggie was such an objectively terrible person that her husband cheated on her and sired a kid, but she still kept the miserable bastard chained to her. I was left with the cats whom I only just managed to take care of and the apartment, which I couldn't take care of. I look back on it and that depression was so bad I probably should have been in a psych ward, but I didn't know what to do and no-one else cared. To this day I'm surprised but grateful that I didn't kill myself.

Subsequent girlfriends left me to marry men. Yeah, I feel a bit betrayed. I only really talk to one of them and even then not very often.

Sigh. And yet I hate being single.

Gee that's a tough one...three vying for "worst."

1. Dumping me after I had back surgery (which she really caused but doesnt know it because I was trying extra hard to "please" her)
2. After telling me "we had a good year," disappears without explanation
3. After an amazing first date where she literally had her legs over me in the booth at dinner...tells me she doesn't think there's enough chemistry

Soon to be ex-husband claimed he was going to become a Hindu and he was on a spiritual journey. Note: He was a suburban white boy from Denver. He went full-tilt boogie Don Draper at the end of Mad Men after being laid off from his corporate job. I didn't see it coming, and that's what made it the worst. BTW, the Hindu thing lasted six months and now he's back working for corporate America in a corporate town once the ink on the divorce decree got dry. I don't even, and I just can't. All this did to me was make me believe even after 27 years I can't know a person. Not really.

My ex had a break pulled a knife on me. Police took her away attacked them and screamed she was hiv positive.

I was in an on again off again relationship for nine years and hated every bit of it but I was not strong and kept going back even though I knew it was bad. I finally decided to end it once and for all. He stalked me for over a year, I had to change my phone number several times, moved in with my daughter for safety. I had him arrested and got a protective order. I saw him sitting in a car outside my gallery one day about two years ago and I started shaking. I was alone and very frightened. He just stared at me for awhile and left. I'm still afraid of him. It's been ten years but I will never trust that man.

There was one dude I lived with for a couple of years that I threatened to shoot his kneecaps off if I ever saw him again. We'll go with that one.

I've never seen him again, not even in traffic anywhere. He did know I can shoot quite well so I suspect that has a lot to do with it.

My realtor accidentally broke up for me. I was living with a guy and things had been going south for a while, so I had purchased my own house in secret and was preparing to tell him I was moving out. Well my realtor, unbeknown to me, decided in the spirit of celebrating my new home, she would send me some moving boxes with her realty logo on them... to my current address. Guess who was home when they arrived? That was an awkward phone call for me to get at work.

I didn't know a good one was possible.

Two weeks before the wedding. Guessing there's no prize if I win here.

A guy I dated said he only wanted me for sex. That left me feeling pretty useless for a week or two.
He said that after our third date when I refused him. I wanted a legitimate relationship, but I guess not.
I’ll just keep movin on.

It happened two years ago. I wrecked the car, and my 6 string lady was in it when the car was auctioned off. I can still see the gleam in her tuning keys....

I've had more than one, that totally ripped up my heart. Fortunately, I've always been with those considerate enough not to add salt to the prodigious wounds.
I'd rather not re-live the details here ...

My girlfriend in college took off my expensive fraternity pin and threw it into a giant azalea bush. I never, ever found it.

I don't think I had one, my husband left me with our two children when they were three and four years old , but I was pretty glad he went. I was a bit through-other about the idea of bringing up the children by myself but lots of people came to live with me and help me out so that was really great and we had a lot more laughs and i imagine more in common all told than just being in a family setting as there were many people to make us laugh. I have only seen him once since at our daughters wedding and we barely spoke.No need as we had nothing in common.

I only have one, so I can not give a well thought opinion. I am better at Goodbye than at Hello. Breaking up is always a Relief to me... I don't miss much and live too independent for anyone too attached. Sorry. But there is more chance of finding a Witness to My Life than from having a Bad Break Up. I am pretty mellow. Now, something I never do is Return or do Second Chances. What's Broken is Broken and I will keep it Broken.

They are all hard. The worst was A 6 year relationship with a drug addict. I didnt know until 6 months in. He had stayed clean that whole time. After that, he could only hold it together for a few months at a time. I went to support groups. He did not. I just couldn't continue to live that way. I ended it.