"My Husband Left Me For His Mom": People Share Their Valentine's Day Horror Stories, And I'm Cringing For Them
Valentine's Day is meant to be a celebration of love, so I'm observing it by sharing one of the things that I love most: messy stories!
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I recently asked the BuzzFeed Community, "What's your biggest Valentine's Day fail story?"
Here are some good ones:
1."I had just found out that my boyfriend cheated on me when some random girl Facebook messaged me with screenshots of their sexting and said she had gone over to his house. I texted him and asked, 'Who’s Alice?' I was immediately bombarded with texts and calls from him, all the bullshit answers. 'Who?' and, 'I don't know an Alice.' My personal favorite? 'Oh, HER…she’s crazy.” He showed up at my house an hour later after I didn’t respond to him with 'early Valentine’s Day gifts' (It was like the 11th or 12th of February). He said that it had NOTHING to do with him feeling guilty about anything. I broke up with him a month later (I should’ve right then and there, but I was young and naive).
2."I was 20 years old and had been dating my boyfriend for almost a year at Valentine's while we were both in university. He brought me roses and took me to dinner at a fancy restaurant. He ordered a very expensive bottle of champagne, way out of our usual budget. He was nervous and twitchy, so warning bells were going off in my head. Once the champagne was poured, he reaches in his jacket and pulls out a velvet ring box. In my head, I'm screaming, 'Oh no, no, no!' I was not ready for marriage, especially with him. He leans across the table opening the box of a diamond and emerald ring."
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"I was freaking out, wanting to stop him before he asked THE question. I practically lunged across the table, grabbed the ring box, babbling, 'What a gorgeous ring, you know emerald is my birthstone — what a beautiful Valentine's gift.' I put the ring on my right hand, held it up in his face, and practically screamed at him, 'Look how amazing it looks on my RIGHT hand!' His face crumpled, and he told me he was glad I liked the ring; He'd spent a lot of time choosing it.
The meal was very tense after that. We drank the bottle of champagne and another bottle of wine. I cringe so hard every time I remember this. We dated for another three months until I broke it off because I knew I wasn't being fair to him. I didn't feel the same way as him."
3."For my only Valentine’s Day with my ex-boyfriend, I wrote him over 20 original poems and hand wrote them in a notebook with a custom cover that I had painted myself. In return, I received a plastic grocery bag containing a shirt I already owned that I had let him borrow and a shirt of his for me to borrow. I also paid for Valentine’s Day dinner."
4."A week before Valentine's Day, my girlfriend sat me down and told me that she wanted a 'break.' Completely blindsided and absolutely heartbroken, I agreed in the hopes that she'd take the time and realize that she actually wanted to be with me. She was reluctant to give an end date to the break and only said, 'Let's see how we feel,' but was insistent that we remove each other from apps like Snapchat. Well, Valentine's Day rolls around, which means that I was feeling twice as sad over the breakup as usual, so my buddies decided to come over and hang out to cheer me up. We had spent the night drinking and laughing when suddenly, one of my friends lets out a shout and looks up from his phone. He was friends with my girlfriend on Snapchat and had checked her story, only to see that she had posted a picture of a bunch of roses in a vase and some stupid heart-shaped necklace with a caption about how lucky she is."
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"Obviously, they weren't from me, and I immediately called her out to confront her. It turns out that she had started talking to her ex while we were still dating, and had wanted to break up with me for a while now, but thought that it would be cruel to do it so close to Valentine's Day. Her solution? To ask me for a break so that she could still spend Valentine's Day with her ex, and then to come back to me, later on, to formally dump me."
—Anonymous
5."A few years back, my boyfriend (now-fiancé) and I had finished having sex when our dog came onto the bed for a cuddle. She starts gagging and then threw up what I can only describe as hot cat poop. My partner retched, and then ran to try to get into the shower as quickly as he can whilst I'm peeing myself laughing!"
6."My dad remarried when I was 9 to my stepmom, who already had two daughters. I love my sisters, and I love my stepmom, but her mother (their grandmother) has never really considered me a part of the family. She lives farther away from us, so it was never a huge issue, but she'd always send little gifts for my stepsisters and never any for me. One year on Valentine's Day when I was 12, she had sent over two enormous gift bags for my stepsisters, full of candy and fun gifts. She had even sent over a little gift bag for my stepmom and my dad, but nothing for me. I was crushed and spent the day locked in my room. However, my stepmom eventually got me to come out, and made it up to me by taking me down to the mall where we spent the day shopping and hanging out. It's one of my sweetest memories, and I can never understand how such a mean old woman could make a person as nice as my stepmom."
—Anonymous, GA, 24
7."I received a gift from my boyfriend, and I came home to 12 roses with a card that only had two hearts and an arrow drawn through them. I called to thank my boyfriend (on his midnight shift), and he said he didn't send them. Then, I heard something in my backyard, and it felt like someone was watching me. My boyfriend calmed me down on the phone, and then I went to bed. I woke up, went to start my car, and there were two hearts with an arrow drawn in the snow on my windshield!! I called the cops, and it turned out that it was my daily courier driver from work. WHAT A CREEP."
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8."My boyfriend had an allergic reaction to the flavored lube that we had specifically gotten for Valentine's Day. It wasn't a deadly reaction, but his junk was so red and inflamed that we couldn't have sex for at least a week until it cleared up. At the time, it was obviously a real mood killer, but we still laugh about it four years later."
—Anonymous, PA, 37
9."I was 19. My boyfriend of a year and a half dumped me ON Valentine's Day, which also happened to be two days before my birthday. I was given zero explanation, and never heard from him again. The best part? My birthday present had been nonrefundable tickets to go see him perform in an out-of-town choir concert. That was a fun year!"
10."I thought we were going to a restaurant but instead he took me to the 'beach' at night, really the more secluded scary dunes where homeless people often camped out. No beach blanket or chairs, just my lacy dress, and heels sitting in the sand. He got us a small pizza with toppings he liked that I didn’t, and then ate all but one slice, which he let me have. After telling him it was creepy, cold, and my shoes weren’t good in the sand, he asked if we could have sex first so he can say he did it on the beach. I declined and asked to be taken home right away. My birthday a few days later was a similar affair. We did not last."
11."My girlfriend spent the entire month of January getting excited about Valentine's Day, saying that she was going to get me an incredible gift. I don't really care much about Valentine's Day, or even gifts in general, but she seemed really excited, so I figured I'd get her something special. Come Valentine's Day, I show up at her apartment with flowers, her favorite takeout, a promise ring, and a video game that she had been wanting to play for weeks. Her face absolutely lit up when she saw everything, thanked me a thousand times before proceeding to eat the takeout and play the video game, all the while ignoring me when I was sitting 3 feet away."
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"Eventually, I asked if I could see my gift, and she seemed a bit confused before saying that it was still in the mail. OK, fine, sure. Two weeks later, still no gift, so I asked her, 'OK, what gives?' She starts swearing up and down that she never said that she had gotten me anything and that I was just making things up to make her feel bad. The worst part was that I wouldn't have even cared if she hadn't gotten me anything if she hadn't spent ages telling me how excited she was about my 'gift.' I broke up with her shortly after, and she was so confused why."
—Anonymous, MI, 42
12."I dated a military guy who was gone during the holiday, so we had a make-up dinner a few days after. He was quiet during the drive to dinner. I finally ask him what's wrong; he finally tells me he wants to break up. We ordered drinks, but our food hadn't even been brought. I sobbed the entire time, as the poor waitress refilled our waters and I whimpered for a to-go box of my untouched pasta. What's worse, we had to go back to our apartment, which we had just both signed a lease for two months earlier. He moved his things out the next week."
13."He bought me a massive super-expensive bouquet of long stem roses from a local florist. We ended up breaking up shortly thereafter, and he moved out. A couple of months later, I was going through my credit card statement and noticed a $200 charge on Valentine’s Day from the florist. He bought me roses with my credit card."
14."My ex was the absolute worst. He never wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day because he claimed it was too commercial, but in reality, he was an angry guy who didn't want to celebrate us and wanted to make me upset. Anyway, the closest we ever got to celebrating it was one day he got really excited about a new restaurant opening up near where I was living and wanted to take me, and it happened to be on Valentine's Day. So, I got a little excited and got dressed nicely. The entire car ride over he was talking up how great the restaurant will be and how much I'll love it. It was a fast-food restaurant."
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"He ordered his meal, didn't buy me anything, and then we sat next to the children's play area. While he was gorging himself and talking at me, I guess I wasn't as attentive as he wanted, so he threw some food at me to get my attention. Needless to say, we aren't together anymore, and I celebrate Valentine's Day every year with my partner, who is more attentive to me."
15."Two of my classmates had just started dating, and the relationship was about a week old. The boy bought the girl this huge chocolate box, flowers, and lots of gifts. However, she broke up with him the day before Valentine's. He gave it all to his grandma."
—Anonymous, 13, Illinois
16."My boyfriend of over a year ghosted me the day before Valentine's Day. When I texted him to see what was going on, he told me to leave him alone. We broke up shortly after that."
—Anonymous, 28, Texas
17."I had secretly been dating someone, and he turned up with a box of chocolates with a letter on each of them spelling out 'Let’s break up.' He had a crush on someone else. At least the chocolates were good."
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—19, Singapore
18."I met a very (and I mean very) suave guy through a Boston dating site. We had one very nice dinner out before deciding to spend Valentine's Day together. I bought him a monogrammed money clip, which was very expensive at the time, and a new dress for myself. He brought a Perrier champagne set from the liquor store he managed. I knew he still lived at home with his mother, so we ate out and then returned to my beach house. His suaveness didn't extend to the bedroom — meh! The morning after I made him espresso (new machine purchased for said event) as he said he always had espresso in the morning. He complained his mother made it better, so I suggested he make it — he said he didn't know how!
"This is the kicker: I was working for a temp agency and had to been working at the same place for three weeks and enjoyed chatting with a supervisor my age who then revealed her longtime fiancé had been out of town for Valentine's Day (they didn't live together). After some revelations, I found that his 'business trip' was with me! I got reassigned but learned she had a huge traditional wedding two months later. I have no idea what happened to them, but for sure she married a jerk, rascal, or whatever word you wish to assign here!"
—Anonymous, 75, MA
19."My daughter's second-grade class always does a little Valentine's Day party, where each student can bring in treats for everyone. This meant that my daughter spent the day overloading on every candy, cookie, and brownie that she could get her hands on, so when she came back home, she had a terrible stomachache that lasted well into the night. My husband, who had made no plans for us and hadn't gotten me any gifts, proceeded to lay on the couch the whole night while I was in the bathroom cleaning vomit off our daughter."
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20."When I was in high school, they had a little booth outside of the lunchroom a few weeks before Valentine's Day where you could buy a rose for someone and write a little note, and it would be delivered to them on Valentine's Day. Well, Valentine's Day rolls around, and I'm sitting in one of my classes when this guy comes in with a bunch of roses. He then drops them off on the desk of this nerdy, really shy girl, who immediately turns bright red. All of us wanted to know who they were from and what the note said, but this poor girl already looked like she was going to die of embarrassment, so we let it go. By the time I get to lunch, this news has for some reason spread like wildfire (this was a really small high school), when I started to notice that a bunch of girls seemed like they couldn't stop laughing."
"It turned out that a few of the popular girls had bought all of those flowers and signed the card pretending to be a popular guy that had a big crush on this poor girl.
I guess they couldn't even wait to tell all of their friends about what a fucked-up thing they had done, so the entire school knew that it was a trick before the end of the day. The school administration found out, and decided to cancel the rose delivery tradition. Those popular girls, strangely enough, never got detention. I still have no idea how someone can be so mean to go out of their way to try to humiliate someone like that. Also, those flowers were not cheap, so they most likely spent at least $40 trying to humiliate someone."
—Anonymous, 37, TX
21."I hooked up with my best friend on Valentine's Day when we were both 22 and feeling lonely. At the time, I thought that I had made a terrible mistake, and it would ruin our friendship. Twenty years later, we're now married with a beautiful daughter. Take your chance!"
—Anonymous, 40, VA
22."I agreed to go on a first date with this guy from Hinge on Valentine's Day, so this one is my fault. Off the bat, he gets upset when I tell him that I want to drive myself to the restaurant we're going to instead of him picking me up. Red flag number two was him treating our waiter like he wasn't even a person, complaining to his face, and then trying to talk shit about him to me when he wasn't even out of earshot. I knew that the date was over when he snapped to get another waiter's attention, and had already begun drafting a text to a friend to fake an emergency. He then had the audacity to ask if I wanted to come back to his place with him, where he STILL LIVED WITH HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND. There was no second date."
—Anonymous, 21, WA
23."I had a new boyfriend go all out for Valentine's Day, and by all out, I mean that he had seemingly raided the Valentine's Day aisle at a Walgreens. Still, I was grateful, until we were watching a movie later that night, and he started trying to have sex. I'm a virgin, and I made it clear to him at the beginning of our relationship that I had no plans to have sex until I was married. Still, he was persistent until I reminded him again, quite forcefully, that I was not going to have sex with someone that I was not married to. He spent the rest of the night pouting, and when I asked him what was wrong, he gestured to the pile of crap he had gotten me and went, 'Well I spent all of this money on you — the least that you can do is...'"
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"The end of the statement trailed off because he saw the furious look on my face. This man really believed that because he had bought me a Valentine's Day gift, he was owed sex! I had the good sense to kick him out of my apartment that night, and when we broke up properly a few days later, I made sure that he came over and picked up every crappy gift he had left me."
—Anonymous, 30, TX
24."When we were younger, my brothers and I thought that it would be a nice thing if we made our parents breakfast in bed for Valentine's Day. My oldest brother was 10, and none of us had used the oven without supervision before, but we figured it would be fine. We ended up starting a fire in the kitchen trying to make pancakes. Luckily, my father heard our screams and was able to pick up the pan and drop it outside in the snow. My parents appreciated the gesture, and my dad ended up picking up McDonald's for all of us."
—Anonymous, 28
25."I'm a teacher, and I like to give out special holiday-themed items, so for Valentine's Day, I gave each one of my fifth graders a heart-shaped eraser at the beginning of the day. These were sturdy erasers, and I guess that the kids figured out that they'd be good ammunition because they ended up spending recess whipping the erasers at each other. It was so bad that kids were sent to the nurse because they had been hit so hard that it left a bruise. We had to confiscate them before the end of the day because we were afraid they'd keep trying to hit each other on the bus. Oh, and I also caught another student trying to eat the eraser. That was fun."
—Anonymous, 38, MN
26."I was going on a date with my husband for Valentine's Day, so I thought that I'd treat myself and get my makeup professionally done. I had a friend of a friend who was trying to make it as a makeup artist. My friend really talked her up, and I thought, 'Why not?' and agreed to let her do my makeup. Listen, I'm not great at makeup, but this woman absolutely BUTCHERED my face. My foundation was at least two shades too orange for my face and didn't match my neck, my eyeliner wings were so uneven it looked like I had two different eyes, and my eyelashes looked like spider legs. I thanked her, paid her, and then went straight home and washed all of it off."
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—Anonymous, 43, TN
27."I was 17 years old and dating the boy I lost my virginity to. I showed up at his house with $75 worth of really personalized gifts, and he gave me a $5 box of chocolates. He then proceeded to break up with me later that night."
28."I had a friend try to confess his feelings for me on Valentine's Day by writing me a song that was hot garbage. I very politely told him that I wasn't interested in him like that, which he took as permission to shit talk me to our entire high school. Obviously, we stopped speaking, and he started dating another girl about a year after that. She's a mutual friend, and we're at a party together where she starts telling another girl all about how her boyfriend (my ex-friend) wrote her this amazing song. Yep, this asshole had played the song that he wrote for me and claimed that it was hers. After a few years, I'm starting to think that he might not have even written it for me, and he just keeps a song to pretend to write for every girl that he wants to hook up with."
—Anonymous, 19, IL
29."My ex-MIL was awful and hated me for no real reason other than she was upset that I was 'taking her son away.' Because of this, she insisted that we spend all major and minor holidays at her house, including Valentine's Day. When I finally put my foot down and told my husband that I'd rather not spend what is supposed to be the most romantic day of the year with his mom, he came up with a 'compromise' where he would spend Valentine's Day alone with his mom without me, and then would celebrate with me either the day before or after. My husband literally left me for HIS MOTHER. I'm so glad we're not married anymore."
—Anonymous, 37, OR
What would you have done in these situations? Or do you have your own Valentine's Day fail story? Let me know in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
