1. “We took months to go through a breakup that should have happened in one night. Just constant fighting, and trying to make up, and trying to put a bandaid on something, and acting like everything was okay, and trying to force a relationship that shouldn’t have been still going on. It would have been much more humane if we had just let ourselves let it end.”
–Corey, 30
2. “We got in a massive, massive, ugly blowout fight in front of his whole family. And we’re from the same hometown. So every time I go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas there’s like a 60% chance I’ll see one of them. It’s humiliating.”
–Kathryn, 27
3. “I was really passive aggressive about it for a couple months on social media. It was four years ago and I’m still embarrassed every time I think about how immature I was.”
–Joel, 26
4. “It was over ten years ago and we’re both in healthier, happier relationships now and I still regret how it went down. He was the one who instigated the breakup (I wanted to break up too but I was too scared). So I held it against him and made him feel guilty and refused to sit down and talk about it. I just walked out and didn’t speak to him again for two years. If I wanted to secretly break up too, I should have never made him feel that guilty.”
–Lana, 36
5. “She said she wanted to break up (and tried to do it very kindly) and I just shut off and walked out and shut her out of my life. So, I never got the closure I needed. It’s taken me forever to move on. That’s on me.”
–Zak, 25
6. “He was the one who ended things, and I was so angry that I started saying really hurtful things related to what I knew where his biggest insecurities; I did it out of anger and embarrassment and (in my brain) as a way to make him hurt as much as I was. What I realized later when I had time to cool down was that obviously he already was hurting about it, and I just threw out those really cruel statements just to make it worse. And I still remember the look in his eyes and how hurt he looked and it still makes me feel so much self-disgust to think about what I said.”
–Timothy, 29
7. “I stayed close with his parents and his sisters and looking back on it now, that just made it so much harder for me to move on. And I think it probably made me look like I was still desperately clinging on. I wish I had just made the clean break with everyone in his life after he dumped me.”
–Patricia, 25
8. “I broke up with her and felt like I made the right decision. But then she started dating someone else and I went through this huge panicky, jealous, did-I-do-the-right-thing phase and I kept texting her even when she was exclusive with him and I just think I was really selfish and self-involved throughout the whole thing. Eventually I apologized when she made it very clear that it was done between us, but I will always feel like an idiot when I think of that phase of my life.”
–Ian, 29
9. “We broke up at a wedding by having a huge, loud fight. We were in a side hallway but everyone heard us. It was my brother’s wedding. I do not recommend it.”
–James, 28
10. “I called him a lot of really mean names and I feel like all it did was make me look like a bitter jerk.”
–Jacqueline, 31
11. “We had all the same friends in college so we would still hook up with each other when we ran into each other at the bars. It just dragged the whole thing out and made it way more toxic than it should have been.”
–Erika, 23
12. “I cried and begged her to take me back and not to leave me – and SHE had just cheated on ME. It took a very, very, very long time to get my dignity back.”
–Kenneth, 24 
