7 Eye-Opening Reddit Relationship Stories

"I have been dating the most amazing woman for the past year and a half. I have been in puppy love before, the kind where they're all you can think about and you smile when you think of them - and we have that too- but she has also brought to me the joy of being together but not together (that magnificent way you can just be and be alone in the same room- her reading a book, me doing a project) and really knowing someone (knowing how her mouth crinkles when she thinks, the way the rain makes her feel,all the stories of her childhood, all the little stuff that makes her a person ). At least I thought I did.

I was shopping for a ring and had been dropping hints that made her smile and we would plan this little suburban life- a deck with a grill, a goofy puppy, a piano. We talked about baby names and vetoed ones, we have the joke names Trevor and Trevina. We'd pick out paint colors and flooring at Lowe's and giggle like idiots. I was 100% confident, I just hadn't chosen a ring, you know,she didn't want a diamond but didn't know what she does want.

Then I got a fb message today from some guy. He said that he was her brother-in-law and that she had blocked him on fb but could I please pass along a wedding invite and it would mean a lot if she was there.

I pressed for more details and it all came out. She was married before to a guy named Brendan and they had a little boy, Sam- she told me before she didn't like that name. The son died in a car accident and afterwards They had an ugly divorce and she cut ties. 5 years of her life, I never knew about and I don't know if I ever would've. I think she was never going to tell me.

I've felt sick about this all day. Made up an imaginary sickness to sit and think by myself and I feel paralyzed by it. This morning I knew her and now I don't. I don't even know how to bring this up or what. I definitely can't go buy the ring and pretend. At the same time, I want to be with. I am hurt but know that was horrible, that she went through something unimaginable but I don't know what that means for us. Am I just a distraction? Is this something she does?

I just don't know. Help?

tl;dr I(30m) just found out my girlfriend(28) of a year+ had a whole life I knew nothing about, right as I've been ring shopping. This life includes a first marriage and a child who passed away. i am stunned.. Advice?" — throw212awaay 

This now deleted r/Relationships post gained notoriety for its description of an ex's unusual revenge on a cheater: 

“I started looking through some boxes and I found this notebook buried under a bunch of old sweaters. I had never seen it before and it was really odd to find it here because like I said, she keeps her notebooks in her study. I was curious so I started reading.

“The novel starts out with her finding a wishing stone which grants her any one wish. She makes a very specific and detailed wish to become high queen of the entire world, with everyone reporting to her, while still allowing every nation to have their governments and rulers, but she can tweak their laws as she wishes. She ends up living in a grand palace and meets with delegates from every country to discuss the world events and to yay or nay certain rules or policies being enacted. I was enjoying the story thus far.

“Then she meets with the head of her “Black Squad,” a squad of trained assassins and kidnappers.

“She commands her Black Squad to kidnap women who have been in my life romantically and platonically. She kills off my exes after pages of psychological and physical tortures. She ruins the careers of platonic friends and makes their families shun them and drives some of them to commit suicide. The only people she doesn’t target are ones she deems have been respectful of our relationship. Which according to her in this book means dressing appropriately around me, liking Facebook pictures/statuses that have both of us in it instead of just me, and keeping discussions of their personal lives to me to a minimum.” — blacknotebook04 

"i'll try to make this pretty concise since i'm feeling very angry right now and don't want this too emotionally charged.

last night i was in bed until 8pm (we work overnights) and my boyfriend had our snake out roaming the apartment. this is fine, but we had recently got her so i advised him to be very careful and then i went back to sleep for a bit. i have a bearded dragon and love reptiles and am very responsible with pets and he knows this, i assumed he could simply keep an eye on a pet he elected to let roam. when i woke up later he said that she was gone because he had looked away.

we set traps, left out mice, left her cage open, etc in hopes of finding her. i cut open our couches. its been 24 hours now and she is still MIA. at first i was like hey, mistakes happen. 2 days prior i had left one side of her cage unlatched and she got out while we were gone for 3.5 hours. when we got home i was like "oh shit!" and luckily, she had barely moved from her cage and was immediately found.

what gets me here is that this wasn't a simple "mistake" like leaving the cage open, that i could groan about and maybe let go. this is blatant irresponsibility. do not take a pet out if you won't keep a close eye on them?! when the snake was out before i'd follow her very closely and keep her out from under couches and out of dangerous areas (bathroom). our apartment is also very tiny, so in 24 hours having not found her i am thinking she must've gotten into the building itself somehow. i am literally sick to my stomach with anxiety. i've sat up all day crying and now i have to work a 10 hour shift. in canada you can't get evicted for having a pet but now we don't have her anymore. what happens if she's in someone else's apartment? our building is small, just 4 units. i don't know what to do here. i am seriously reconsidering our relationship and do not know if i can ever trust him with pets or anything of that sort again.

any snake catching, relationship, or anger advice is welcome.

tl;dr: bf was irresponsible and didnt watch snake close enough and now shes loose in the apartment and/or apartment building. i dont know how to get through my anger and be rational about trusting him again." — lifesthrowaway 

"I've had my cat since he was 6 months old. He was an "unadoptable" rescue. He had so called unsurviveable pneumonia, and when healthy, was nothing but fear aggression. I was basically cat hospice.

Well, he lived. And he loved. He's the purring-est, snuggliest, sweetest cat. He is now a chubby 16 year old with arthritis (treated with Dasuquin, which has helped immensely, but he's not a kitten anymore).

We used to live in a first floor apartment where we could sit outside and I could read and he could be on his tie out and watch birds. Now we don't anymore.

Shortly before his 16th birthday, he slipped and/or fell off the bathroom vanity. I didn't see it happen, I only saw the cat who couldn't stand without screaming afterwards. We rushed him to the vet and miraculously nothing was broken, but that left the question of what he DID do. Even in a bad sprain, it may always be weak and he may never walk normally again, or walk at all. If he tore a tendon or ligament, it was basically over. Orthopedic surgeries and senior cats don't usually end well.

For a week and a half, we brought him food and water. We gave him his pain meds. We set him in the litter and held him up. We lifted him onto and off of the bed. It was basically a cat nursing home up in here.

Just when we thought he would never get up again, he did exactly that. Then he walked a few steps. Then it was cat PT. Making him go a little further every day. Getting his strength back up.

A month later, aside from sitting over on one hip when he sits, you would never know he had ever been hurt.

For his 16th, I loaded him into the car (which he doesn't mind at all) and took him to a park by the lake. He spent a couple hours watching ducks and warming his old bones in the sun.

My boyfriend was indignant. How the cat doesn't even know it's his birthday, what a waste of time, who does that, etc etc.

No, he doesn't know it's his birthday. But he knows he's doing something he enjoys. He knows he feels better than he had been. He knows those things.

Now it's 3 months later and my BF is STILL on about cat birthday outings. Idgi. He helped care for him when,he was injured and did probably more than I did, because I work 10 hour shifts. So I guess staying home to care for an injured cat isn't crazy cat person, but taking the cat to a park is? I mean, there's whole parks devoted to dogs where dogs can see their dog friends. So what's weird about taking a cat out for one afternoon? He's really starting to make me feel like shit about it.

tl;dr Senior cat was seriously injured. He recovered, and I took him to the park to celebrate his 16th bday. BF is acting like I murdered his family over it. Am I crazy?" — CatBirthdayParty 

"Elena and I have been dating for two and a half years. Our relationship is great and I love her deeply

Elena and I have a very open relationship when it comes to our personal things, for example: phones, computers, online lives. We know each other's reddit usernames, phone passcodes, email logins to various webstes. I know her Facebook password because I use her Hulu account; she knows my Amazon because we share a Prime subscription. We'll save things on each other's Spotify. Basically, my point is that we're always on each other's computers and don't really keep anything from each other in that aspect. We even know what type of porn the other watches.

The other day, however, I was using her computer to check my email for some work stuff. We started using this new program that is not compatible with google chrome (which has always been my and her default browser). It was, however, Firefox compatible, so I opened up that instead. After I do work stuff, I decide to just browse around on the internet per usual.

It turns out that my girlfriend has a whole different internet persona that she uses to troll and harass random internet strangers. She has an alternate reddit account, a fake twitter, facebook, even yelp account. She uses firefox to stay logged into them.

It's pretty horrible stuff. She just posts racist, sexist, bigoted, things. Her fake twittter account is just full of her replying to political stuff with these really horrible opinions. She's mean to people on reddit, etc. These troll opinions are completely the opposite of what she believes in real life (or at least, that's what I though).

What the hell do I do? It's like my girlfriend has this entire other hidden identity.

tl;dr: Just found out my gf has been secretly trolling the internet by using a different browser. She has a fake account for just about everything, and uses it to say some really horrible stuff." — Secondmean 

"So long story short I was hanging with my bros and some of their girls and my girl. We were just shooting the shit and drinking and the subject of a friend of a friend came up. The guy'd just dumped his long term girlfriend because she gained 20lbs and wouldn't commit to a diet/exercise routine.

We were laughing and joking and one of the guys was like "Well you know, any guy would do that. Nobody wants a fat girlfriend." The girls nervously laughed and all the guys laughed too. I said "Fuck yeah" or something like that.

My girlfriend turned to me and said "Excuse me?" and I laughed with everyone. She was not happy. She excused herself and later on we got into a fight. I told her that it was just guy talk, and she said that was not an excuse to shit on our relationship in public.

I asked her if she planned to get fat and she said "No? But that doesn't mean I think it's okay for you to run your mouth like that and tell peopel our relationship has the depth of a middle school kid's first crush."

I tried to explain that it was seriously just guy talk and she told me that she didn't care, it wasn't acceptable for me to talk like our relationship didn't mean shit. She said she wanted an apology and for me to stand up and act like an adult and not excuse something because "it's a guy thing" and to set the guys straight.

I told her I wouldn't do that, it was controlling of her and she said fine, if that's how you want people to see our relationhip and how you see it, she'd leave. She took her things and left.

I don't know what to do. I think she's being petty. I don't think I need to "stand up to the guys" because everyone knows guys talk like that. That's just what we do. But at the same time I love her and our relationship has always been great. I don't know what to do.

tl;dr: GF got upset about something I said in front of the guys and broke up with me." — sensigirlf 

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Featured photo via Freestocks.org / Unsplash; Additional photos: VenusInTaurus / Flickr (CC); Simon Petrol / Unsplash; Stephanie McCabe / Unsplash.