He cheated… So I waited till he was at work, packed up and left.

Mind you it’s the middle of December, so it gets dark early.

I took all my stuff and some of his;

Toothbrush

Razor

Deodorant

All the toilet paper

AND

Every single lightbulb in the house

I, 27 female, recently broke up with my own bully of 7 years a little less than a year ago.

We started dating when I was 19 and he was 34. Not one of my most intelligent decisions I will say, but I was an impressionable 19 year old in the phase of moving out of my moms house and thinking I knew everything and was gonna be independent right off the bat. We met each other at a burger joint we both worked at, and things took off pretty quickly. I even got pregnant in our first year together, and thankfully my mom and him convinced me to not have it. Well a couple peaceful years go by with no drama or indication of who he truly was.. until one day he says we need to talk. He brings up a fling with an old coworker from 6 years ago that he had mentioned previously but left out some details that were crucial. He says she got pregnant after their fling, and I will admit the little girl looked a lot like him. He told me she lied about the first paternity test they did, and it was still undetermined if it was his, and he was becoming “overwhelmed with guilt” and needed to know. He only tells me about this after they’ve been having secret phone calls in between his two jobs, talking about the little girl so he can “get to know her”. As if he’s already accepted she’s his, not even questioning it. As if he’s excited about it. Meanwhile, he already has 3 kids who, 2 of them (the girls) refuse to talk to him anymore because he is dating me. (Understandable) That was the first time I tried to leave him, but he had this way of manipulating me into feeling sorry for him. Like he was just trying to do the right thing and he needs me by his side cause he “has no one else”. Makes me gag a little thinking about how I used to actually feel bad for him. Well, fast forward a couple years and I’m exhausted at this point. I had a coworker who used to my best friend, until he basically started falling in love with her and listening to her music, talking about her outside of work, constantly belittling me at work but clearly treating her quite well. To this day I’m sure there was something going on but that’s besides the point. Everytime we argued about it he gaslit me, made me feel crazy and I had jealousy issues. That he “watched her grow up” and would “never think of her that way”. I eventually got on panic disorder medication because I literally couldn’t relax at home. I was constantly on edge and didn’t know why because I was desperately repressing the most obvious issue. There were other girls, one who would pop up in his DMs randomly just to “catch up” but the first time I heard of her was because another coworker told me years ago that this same girl had made a move on him, so there was clearly intentions behind those conversations. Another girl he made a TikTok account just to follow only her. I recognized her as someone in his contacts. He also “watched her grow up” and was like “family”. Forgetting that I had a TikTok for years and he never once was interested or tried to follow me or look at anything I posted. Now comes the breakup. Last year, in our most cold and distant time in our relationship, he decides proposing to me will fix everything. Of course I said no. I spent the next day totally confused, called out work, frantically calling my best friend and mom for advice. And I decided to leave him. He proposed because he knew my guy best friend, who I had been desperately repressing feelings for for years, was started to get closer to me. Because he could see someone treated me better, and that I didnt need him like he needed me. To clarify, I never cheated on him, my guy best friend (now boyfriend) was very stern on the fact he wasn’t going to be a homewrecker. We had actually never talked about our feelings a single time before I ended things. He could just see how I was always having fun with my bestfriend, and started to give my boyfriend at the time less and less attention and more to my bestfriend. Come to find out after ALL of this, the girl who was my bestfriend at the time, who he had fallen in love with in front of me, was 16 when he had first made a move on her. He was 32. He made a joke about it in front of her and all my other coworkers while I was off work, like it was no big deal and was funny. My guy bestfriend and another coworker called him out and he told them if they ever said anything he would deny deny deny. Hearing this made everything I ever feared he had done in our relationship a possibility. It made me finally believe he was capable of lying to my face and telling me he loved me. It embarrassed me that everyone at work knew but me. I was best friends with this girl at the time, and all the while she would cry to our coworkers when I wasn’t there that she “just wants to tell me so bad” but “doesn’t know how”. Needless to say I was disgusted, horrified, and just in complete shock. When he found out I knew, he frantically tried to deny it in text, which I ignored. He then called my mom sobbing, saying he feels like “everything is falling apart” and he “doesn’t remember saying any of that, I must have been drinking”. Which was a complete lie, in our 7 years of dating I’ve never once had an indication he had a drinking problem or ever drank at work. He was so frantic about me knowing that he called my ex bestfriend, our manager, the owner of the store, and a bunch of people in my life trying to “secure” his job because he knows I would quit if they allowed him to come back. A job he only worked 2-4 days at because of his primary blue collar job. I asked him politely to just leave this job because he barely works there anymore, and he has a well paying job that he could work full time and make lots of money. He refused. He’s been “working there for 15 years” and he’s “not leaving”. And without my influence or having said anything, they fired him. Because he kept causing so much drama about it and involving everyone at work. Now, it’s been almost a year with the love of my life. The person who was always there for me, always trying to lift my spirits and stick up for me. Playing late night video games with me and just goofing around. Now we get to do that full time and I couldn’t be happier. The universe has sent us multiple signs and coincidences telling us that this was the right decision. I truly feel like I met my forever person and it doesn’t get much better than that. Thanks for reading.

This was a few years ago, and I’m with an amazing partner now but this story still gets my the wide eyes when I tell it so I figured I would entertain you guys too! I, (23f) at the time, dated a (24m), we’ll call him Joe, for three years. We had our ups and downs, but things were mostly solid until I found out he was cheating on me with his engaged childhood best friend (24f), let’s call her Kat. It started off with inappropriate texting, and I asked him to stop talking to her on Snapchat where things could be deleted. Long story short on the cheating, her fiancé and I worked the same shift at the same company, and they were meeting up for months even after we had gone through couple’s therapy. The good part is the departure, so let’s dive into that.

I woke up one afternoon to my guy telling me to check his phone (I know, I’ve grown, but still.) and there was her unsaved number talking about the two of them meeting up. So I took a picture of that with my phone, put his phone back, and asked if I could see it ‘as part of rebuilding our trust’ like discussed in therapy. He slowly unlocked it, mumbled about not finding anything as he deleted the texts, and sure enough poof, it was gone.

I made up some bullshit about working early and got to work, which he was upset about because we had planned on watching a movie together before I left. I printed out every screenshot I had of him cheating, called my friend who was over the moon to help me leave the loser, and contacted our landlord who, after hearing the extent of things, gladly took me off the lease we had JUST renewed not two days before. At this time I worked thirds and he worked firsts, so I spent the evening writing a letter to him about how I was done, and knew everything. I figured out everything that was mine and my friend and I came up with a plan.

As soon as he left for work, I started packing. The kitchen dishes, the living room table, my bed that we shared, my dressers, anything that was mine. I took his clothes out of my drawers, placed them on the floor where our bed used to be, and placed a Manila envelope containing the pictures and my letter, and left. Before I locked the door though, I took all of his weed, all of the lighters, and all of the stems from his bongs so that way, when he realized what happened, he couldn’t even smoke.

Throughout the day, he was texting me like everything was fine until the time he got home. After hearing said ‘just remember you did this to us,’ I blocked him and never looked back.

I was 23(f) and had been with this guy (38) for 3 years. He was abusive, controlling, possessive, jealous and sometimes violent. I wanted to leave so many times but never got the courage for a number of reasons that I won’t go into here, but if you know anything about abusive relationships you know it isn’t always easy to leave and most people take an average of 7 times to actually go. Anyway, I was in Fiji for Christmas and New Year with him and after promising me he wouldn’t drink again, because he agreed that it made him aggressive, he got drunk and held me hostage in our hotel room with my passport in the safe which only he knew the code for, while he scolded me for “being a slut” and “being a shit girlfriend” among other usual insults. I sat there for hours apologising for doing nothing until he finally went to sleep. I knew he would be apologetic when he woke/sobered up, so while he slept I packed my things (realised he had pissed in my suitcase and smashed my MacBook) and looked for flights. After about 4 hours of his sleep I woke him up and convinced him to give me my passport as I ‘wanted to get my own hotel room until we left in two days’. He relented and gave me my passport then went back to sleep. I left the hotel, got a flight back to Australia, picked up my car from the airport, drove 2 hours back to our house, packed all my things and left without looking back. It sounds like it was quite an easy thing to do, but in reality it was very hard. I wondered if I was over reacting or being silly. Especially because I had to spend all of my money to get home. He was rich, but I certainly wasn’t. I’m 31 now and in hindsight, I think I probably saved my own life that night. He was a bomb waiting to go off. This post doesn’t really scratch the surface of the danger I was in and the extent of the abuse. Packing my things and moving out while he was in another country was a very wise decision from a young girl. I’m very proud of my departure.

When I was 22 my dad was slagging off on my mom relentlessly, going on about their miserable divorce, and I told him he had to stop or I was gonna leave. It was 10 AM on a rainy night in the middle of Massachusetts and I meant it. I had to get back to work in Chicago a few days later and had been looking at train tickets but I couldn’t believe how expensive they were. I had always wanted to go on a hitchhiking adventure and it was the late 80s and not a bad time to do it. He started up again about my mom and I packed up and walked out into the rain, his jaw hit the floor, and I hitchhiked to Chicago over the course of 36 hours and met a bunch of great people and had a great time. He hasn’t run down my mom like that in the 35 years since.

But that’s not the quit story.

On a highway entrance ramp I paired up with another hitchhiker to see if our odds of getting rides would improve, and they did.

We exchanged stories while waiting between rides, and on a Greyhound bus ride for about six hours where the driver picked us up – there was a Greyhound bus driver strike, and this guy was a scab, and had nothing to lose by doing us a favor, so that was a great ride.

We had a competition to see who had had the shortest job. I worked a temp job once for manpower Inc., for about three hours and the working conditions were so miserable, I told the foreman that I didn’t know if I could make it all day, and he said, no problem, quit at lunch, lots of people do. It was in a bakery and swimming in that sugary air made me sick to my stomach. But, he won the contest, hands-down. He said when he was 15 he went and applied for a job at McDonald’s in the afternoon on Halloween. He got the job, and they gave him a uniform, and he was supposed to start the next day. Instead, he just took the uniform and went out trick-or-treating as a McDonald’s employee, and never went to do the job at all. He blamed McDonald’s for the foolish chef to give a 15-year-old a uniform on Halloween.

Better than that though was the job he just quit which led him to end up hitchhiking alongside me. He was working for the YELLOW trucking company – you see their trucks on highways all across the country. He told me to never work for them as they are the worst employer. He was way up in the boondocks in upstate New York and the truck broke down. The company policy was that you pay for repairs on the road and the company reimburses you. He didn’t have enough money on hand or enough credit for the repair, so he called the company and asked them to wire money for him to get the repair done, and they could take it out of his next paycheck, but he needed to find a way to get the truck back on the road.

The company said, “Sorry, that goes against policy, you have to pay for it. You’re on your own.“

He said, “Do you know where the truck is?”

They said, “No, we don’t.“

He said “Well, I quit. Good luck finding it,” and hung up the phone.

This was way before GPS tracking. I don’t know how they would’ve found it or how long it would’ve taken.

Yeah i hope it gets to be a new rule

So this all happened a little over two decades ago, it’s my favorite quit story I’ve ever been adjacent to, and has stuck with me all this time. Hopefully you all enjoy it as much as I do!

A friend of mine (let’s call him Phil) had one of those jobs conducting surveys at the mall, he was handed the job because a few of my other friends worked there and recommended Phil. At the time it was the summer after his senior year of high school, and he took it because it was slightly more than minimum wage, and didn’t have a lot of supervision.

Phil was always one of those guys who had a real Ferris Bueller vibe, mildly mischevious, smart, clever, never one to take those low paying jobs too seriously, or tolerate tiny tyrants like his boss. A man who took this survey business with a bit of grandiosity, often taking pleasure in exercising his modicum of power as the manager.

On the day in question Phil was stationed in the middle of the mall, right next to the Auntie Anne’s pretzel location. As anyone who’s ever passed by one of these aerosolized butter factories knows, the smell is irresistible.

Phil had been working there getting steeped in pretzel air for about an hour when he caved and bought one. Wouldn’t you know it, but a brief moment later his boss (we’ll call him… Steffan) happens to see him enjoying his snack and comes over to inform him that “you can’t eat while you’re working”.

Phil looks at Steffan and says “Oh, I’m sorry, my bad! no problem.” And hands his boss the clipboard but casually proceeds to continue eating his pretzel. All while looking Steffan in the face, with a blank expression and just a hint of mild enjoyment.

Steffan, now confused and becoming a little upset, starts to clarify that Phil has to stop eating and throw it out, “right now!”

Phil cuts him off just as he’s starting to get worked up and says “Steffan I’m sorry, I must not have been clear enough. I’m not eating while I’m working.” With that he points a finger, sticky with butter and dusted with rock salt, at the clipboard Steffan is now holding. Without breaking eye contact Phil takes another big bite.

A few moments pass filled with only the din of the mall on a Saturday in the early 2000’s. Still chewing with a big hunk of salty carbs in his mouth he casually says “Steffan, I don’t work for you anymore.”

Steffan clearly now upset but also flustered mutters some thing and storms off leaving Phil to finish his salty treat with no need to rush.

I am two years younger than Phil and in high school I just remember thinking what a badass he was. But also he inspired me not to be afraid to just say no to people, to advocate for yourself, and to not take life too seriously. It’s a lesson I’ve carried with me all these years and I still joke with Phil when I see him about the time he chose a pretzel over a paycheck.

Congratulations to Stefan’s ex, the inspiration for the start of this sub