We all have our moments, and some are less fortunate than others. However, Reddit user Careless-Reach1722 wanted to cut through the surface level and asked everyone on the platform to describe the moment they realized their partner was an absolute fool.
The discussion quickly went viral, and the stories range from innocent and funny to confusing and borderline alarming. If there’s a common thread, though, it’s that whenever you idealize someone, just spend more time with them, and you should be eventually reminded that nobody’s perfect.
#1
When he yelled at me and said “you’re supposed to mop before you sweep”.
Careless-Reach1722:
I went silent for a minute after reading this.
Image credits: wanderingmind303
#2
I once dated a woman who was a lawyer. I’m also a woman and she argued against gay marriage.
Big surprise that one didn’t work out.
Image credits: Jubjub0527
#3
He came round the house with a burn mark on his neck. Had tried to iron a crease out of his tshirt… while he was wearing it.
3 months later did the exact same thing.
Image credits: arty_ant
#4
I definitely was not in a relationship with this girl, just seeing each other, but she did tell me that she didn’t believe in dolphins. Reasoning? She has never seen one in person.
Image credits: Red4pex
#5
He thought the movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was a documentary.
Image credits: ariolawhiplash
#6
My normally quite intelligent spouse licked a vanilla frosting scented candle to see if it tasted as good as it smelled.
It did not taste good at all.
Image credits: cloudshaper
#7
Dated someone a long time ago that thought the government was spraying pesticides on his 20ftx15ft garden every night.
Image credits: queen_paige
#8
My ex-husband had a 40th birthday party for me. He only invited his parents, his brother and his best friend. He didn’t invite anyone for me.
Image credits: Kinser9
#9
The time he crazy glued his fingers together – on both hands – while trying to fix something.
Image credits: anon
#10
A boy I dated in college visited my house for the first time. I grew up on a dairy farm. He turned into the laneway and looked at me dead in the eye and was like “wow your dad seriously needs to cut the grass” … It was a huge field of hay. My parent’s laneway is about a quarter mile long of field on both sides. It’s quite obvious that was it was not a patch of grass.
Image credits: emmma9321
#11
When I tried to explain that “just because you have never experienced racism it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”.
Image credits: you_upfora_peg
#12
I walked in on a debate between my gf at the time and my brother. She was arguing that the human brain is located outside of the skull. Like on top of it, I guess? Oof.
Image credits: NakedSnakeEyes
#13
When he admitted to me that he thought the absorbency level of tampons was determined by the size of a woman’s vaginal hole. Basically, super tampons meant you had a wider hole. Married man with five kids.
Image credits: msphelps77
#14
My ex wife was overpaying the cable bill. For years. By a lot. Because it’s smart to pay more than you owe on bills. If they’re loans. Not subscriptions. The cable company wound up owing us so much that they had to get clearance from accounting to pay us back. It was over a grand.
Image credits: Homerpaintbucket
#15
I asked him to clean the toilet. Came back to him having unscrewed the toilet seat and asking for further instruction.
Image credits: iksquarede
#16
Not my relationship but a relative. She poured the melted wax from her warmer into the disposal side of the sink….good thing her husband was capable of replacing the drain and disposal. We still bring that up.
Image credits: Roadnolongertraveled
#17
When she thought Alaska was an island. She lived in the PNW so there was no reason for not knowing the geography.
Image credits: SnatchAddict
#18
About ten minutes ago he began washing his hands over the strainer filled with cooked food. (:.
Image credits: the-sleepy-potato
#19
He insisted on “opting out” of the x-ray scanners at airports because he didn’t want them having his image. The man was a professional Internet personality, his face and info aren’t hard to find lol.
Image credits: jawshankredemption94
#20
My wife recently told me she shouldn’t have gotten a speeding ticket because she was in “the fast lane”. I asked her why that matters, and she looked at me like I’m an idiot and said… “Because there’s no speed limit! That’s why it’s called the fast lane!”
She pays for her own auto insurance now.
Image credits: ferfocsake
#21
We were no longer married, but when he said he didn’t know what the parenting agreement said because he hadn’t read it. He went to law school. Still signed a binding document about his children without reading it.
Image credits: treecatks
#22
He told me that he didn’t have to talk to me anymore. 3 days after the wedding. I left 100 days after that. F*****g idiot.
Image credits: Foundation-Bred
#23
He couldn’t figure out what was better value; $15 for a pack of 12, or $1 each.
Image credits: QueasyTurn3369
#24
I knew it was bad when his phone notified him that his charging port was dusty and needed a cleaning, so he stuck it under the tap and rinsed it with water to clean it out. Then this 30 year old man wondered why his phone wasn’t charging at all anymore.
Image credits: papajerry69
#25
My ex wife once asked if I wanted to take a 3 day trip and drive around the entire Pacific Ocean. We lived in Missouri at the time.
Image credits: intensenerd
#26
I’m sharing this on behalf of my father, who must have thought this when he saw my mother do this.
So our family was playing Pictionary with another family, and it was my mother’s turn to draw. The category was “Difficult” so we all expected a challenge.
My mother starts drawing and ends up with a very poor attempt at a Chinese person’s face and head. None of us are able to get even close to it and we are perplexed as to what she is trying to draw.
Time runs out, and she exclaims “It’s Mao!!”
I’m like, what?! Mao Zedong?! “Yes, the Chinese leader!” she says
I say, “There is NO WAY a Pictionary card would expect players to draw a portrait of Chairman Mao freestyle, show me the card!”
Mom hands me the card, and I look at the word under difficult, and I collapse on the floor in hysterical laughter.
The card read “Mow” as in “mowing the lawn”.
My mother will never live that down.
#27
He fell for a pig butchering scam and basically handed over $7k and MY identity to the scammers.
Yes, I’m still dealing with the fallout from that, four years later.
litux:
A pig butchering scam (in Chinese sha zhu pan or shazhupan, (Chinese: 杀猪盘), translated as killing pig game) is a type of long-term scam and investment fraud in which the victim is gradually lured into making increasing contributions, usually in the form of cryptocurrency, to a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.
#28
When he poured 1/4 a bottle of dish soap onto a sponge to wash one pan.
When he sprayed an ENTIRE bottle of air freshener in the bathroom of my one bedroom apartment after going number two. We had to open all the windows and sit on the balcony until it was easier to breathe.
When he admitted he didn’t have his driver’s license AFTER nearly running us into the guardrail going down a mountain pass.
When he started wearing tactical gear in public and cleaned a loaded gun that discharged into a wall…
**When I broke up with him and he stalked me for two weeks**
BONUS: When he called me two years later asking for a reference to a police academy. I said no.
#29
Dated this guy in high school, he called me after our summer reading lists were published and asked me what a paperback book was. Took me a second to explain because I was so shocked by the question and then he didn’t get it after my first two explanations. We broke up a few months later and afterwards he sent me emails “from Jesus” telling me we were supposed to get back together but they came from his email account that he had used to send me emails while we were dating.
Image credits: Pitiful-Magician-819
#30
Everything she doesn’t understand is just “f*****g stupid”.
Home loans and mortgage rates? “Well that’s the point in a down payment if you pay it off over 30 years, what even is escrow, it’s just f*****g stupid, why can’t they just get us a house?”.
Flight times. “Why the f**k are we flying at 12.45? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go at 10? It’s f*****g stupid”.
Documentary of any kind “What, no that’s f*****g stupid. No way that’s real”.
Not to mention she could not, or refused to figure out what bills are, how much they are, and when they were due. She f****d up our savings, multiple times because she couldn’t figure out how to write down s**t on a calendar and I’d have to back pay it all with late fees.
Don’t dare ask to set up a direct deposit. “That’s f*****g stupid, what if I need the money for something else that day?”.
She was so f*****g exhausting. Not gonna lie, the day I found out she cheated on me was the best day of my life at that point lmao. Ya boy was gooooone.
#31
Not really in a relationship but about a third date and the girl I was dating noticed I had “gamer callouses” and declared she was deeply concerned because “the only way she could think of that someone could get callouses on their hands like that was from hitting people.
I took stock of the situation, pondered my blue collar family that has calloused hands a dozen different ways, and decided it was better to not go on another date rather than untangle whatever was going on there.
#32
Girl I was dating in high school told me she thought that girls/women who get r***d actually wanted it. I asked her to elaborate and she explained that she thought they could just fight off any man who assaulted them. She was about 5 ft tall and 100 lbs and just would not budge on the notion that no man on earth could possibly overpower her.
#33
I was dating a girl, an engineer of all things, we got along pretty well but she was a far right enthusiast and I’m more of a left person, but ok, fair enough.
Then one day we were talking about stuff that we diverged a lot like guns, abortion etc.
Then when I talked about global warming she was like “well but you know global warming is fiction created by the USA to control the poorer nations and prevent them from growing right?”
And then I was like “sure. Now next you’ll tell me the earth is flat”
And she did just that.
#34
I dated a girl who dropped a few gems, one was:
“Why do we say words instead of just spelling them?”
I stared blankly, asked her to repeat herself, hoping I didn’t hear correctly. I did. I replied;
“B-E-C-A-U-S-E-I-T-W-O-U-L…”
Around this point she got a really confused look on her face and said “Whaaaaat?”
And I said, “that’s why.”
Another time a friend of mine mentioned his dog had a litter of puppies. The girl I was seeing said:
“What if human moms could have more than one baby?”
“…You mean like, siblings? Don’t you have an older brother?”
“No, I mean like, at the same time!”
“You’ve never heard of twins?”
Then she got angry and didn’t talk for a while.
The relationship didn’t last long.
#35
He told me some women’s cl*ts are on their necks. He thought erogenous zone and clit were interchangeable.
#36
When he asked me if he could use dish dishwashing soap in the dishwasher I said no and told him what would happen. Guess who came home to a kitchen bubble bath?
Went out to lunch with my cousin and aunt. She had moved to England from Canada a few years back. He asked her if it was difficult learning the language.
When he told his friends I was his trophy wife. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I just laughed. Later in the car, he told me I embarrassed him, and I told him he embarrassed himself. He asked me why, and I had to define what a trophy wife was and why I am not. I am much higher educated and make more money than him, I’m older than him, I spent very little time on my outward appearance and definitely he doesn’t pay for any of it.
We are divorced.
#37
She fell for an EXTREMELY obvious money scam on Instagram, got locked out of her bank account and had to pay her bank back $5000 because of her own stupidity.
This is a young woman in her late 20’s, not an 80 year old who’s never used the internet. Truly baffling.
#38
When I told her how a vaccine was made and she said I didn’t know what I was talking about and insulted my education. When I googled it and showed her proof, she refused to believe it and told me you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
#39
My ex thinking a debilitating mental disorder like OCD is all in my head and doesn’t need medication. He basically insinuated my psychiatrist is in a conspiracy with big pharma for prescribing me with an SSRI. Still makes me go crazy thinking about the sheer ignorance of this man! Thank goodness I’m not with him anymore. 🙏🏼.
#40
When he got his company truck stuck in a riverbed towing a trailer full of heavy wet sand he had stolen from the riverbed. I had asked him to go to the contractors yard to get some bedding sand $20 tops and he was too cheap to pay that. Then I had to pull him out and it smoked my transmission. He did nothing to check out my vehicle was alright. A few weeks later the transmission blew on a hill with no cellphone coverage on the way to the airport, trying to make a plane trip. Missed the flight, had to thumb a ride then had to get my vehicle towed and fixed 3k. Just one example of many idiotic decisions he made over the years.
#41
“I was in my thirties when I saw you fixing a toilet and realized they don’t use electricity to flush.”
“That’s hilarious! That’s like thinking bath taps use electricity!”
“Wait, what?”
Edit: she’s not really an idiot. She has a PhD. But talking about anything plumbing related is white noise to her and she thinks there are people in wellies who can deal with that sort of thing so she doesn’t need to ever learn it.
#42
When my ex insisted investing in cannabis dispensaries wasn’t a good idea and then dumped all of our savings into GameStop stocks because he saw an SNL skit about it.
He later wanted to put a bunch of money into NFTs but we quite literally didn’t have the money because he “bought the dip” in GameStop.
#43
When he blocked the toilet by putting thick paper towel down there and after trying to unblock it for a total of 2 minutes, he had a tantrum, yelled at me and stormed out to the pub for an hour. Whilst he was gone I managed to unblock it in less than 30 seconds. When he got back, he had another tantrum and went back to the pub for what I believe was emasculating him. Good times 😒.
#44
My husband at the time admitted to me that he had intentionally fed our toddler something he knew he was allergic to. Thankfully our toddler didn’t have a reaction to it, but I was livid when he admitted he did it on purpose. Then he told me I was overreacting to his “legitimate parenting choice.”
When I showed him where in the doctor’s notes it said we were to avoid exposing him to ANY form of the allergen (which was also told to both of us in person at the last appointment) he insisted he didn’t know it was supposed to be complete avoidance, and since he didn’t know I couldn’t get mad at him for it. When I pointed out that our child could have died from it he insisted that because our child didn’t die it was obviously an okay decision.
This was the moment I knew I had to leave him before he k**led one of us.
#45
After 2 years together she decided she was bi and wanted to explore her sexuality. I was uncomfortable with having an open relationship but I really liked her and wanted it to work. We agreed that we could sleep with other people but she became extremely volatile when she realized that if I was going to sleep with someone else it would be a woman and not a man. She figured that since she would be having s*x with another woman it made sense for me to have s*x with another man. I’m not bi. I have no attraction to men. She eventually decided against the whole open relationship thing.
This relationship did not last.
#46
Very briefly dated this guy who didn’t seem to grasp the very simple definition of “cisgender.”
He asked me what it meant. I said “it just means your gender identity matches your biological s*x. In a nutshell.” He said he didn’t get it.
So I said “Well you were born biologically male, you identify as a man. You are a cisgender male. I was born biologically female and I identify as a woman. I’m cisgender female.”
He stared at me and said “So like…are you saying you used to have a d**k?”
…I spent more time than I should have trying to explain to this idiot what cisgender meant. And he just kept coming back to “so did you have a d**k??”
I swear he had two brain cells that never connected.
#47
He decided to try and make “home made steroids” and subsequently melted the kitchen counter top in our rented apartment that cost $600 to replace as we moved out during our divorce
He won supplements in an online contest and decided to “make his own concentrate” from them. Got diarrhea so bad we nearly went to hospital from dehydration
After getting his masters in a niche field with no actual experience he replied to a job offer that was below his worth with a don’t you f*****g realize I have a MASTER’S DEGREE from x University? F**k you and your insulting offer. Turns out it’s a small world, dude is a top recruiter and he was blackballed everywhere. Think he sells security systems, never worked in his field of study
Was a cop for academy and was fired less than 60 days later for, in part, crashing the cop car 3 times and being erratic and all sorts of things
Faked his way out of the military by huffing grass clippings to trigger an asthma attack… then tries to file for disability too.
Posts super bizarre stuff on social media and insults people all over while working as a cop and is livid when called out about it
Made $90,000 throughout a 10 year marriage. Total. Tried for alimony too.
Just like, why???
#48
When he told me our son with a lung condition wasn’t really that sick. That he just had a cold. No I can’t bring him to the er. I’m being dramatic. 24hrs later I called an ambulance. ICU for 9 days. Still tries to tell me it was all in my head. That he really wasn’t all that sick. Also not the first time he’s done this and my son ended up in the icu. There’s been thousands of other things but this is one I will never forgive. Hoping he will be my ex this year.
#49
When she left for work in her socks, was gone for 15-30 minutes, then FINALLY came back and said, “Oops, I forgot my shoes!” Like how in the ever loving f**k do you walk through the house, down the steps and through the driveway, all on CONCRETE, get into your car, drive for at least 15 minutes, all in SOCKS, before realizing you’re not wearing any shoes?!
#50
I dated a doctor in medicine. And she was far from being an idiot but this was a funny ”idiot moment”. She was scared that she would one day crack open an egg and there would be an embryo in it.
I told her that I believed that to be highly unlikely since I don’t think they have any roosters around the hens where we get our eggs from. She questioned why that would matter.
I even asked her again if she meant that she didn’t think the lack of a male would be worth factoring in.
It took her a while to see the point and joked that her Ph.D would be revoked if told anyone.
#51
First time I brought one of my highschool boyfriends over to have dinner with my parents, he looked at the raised dog bowls we had (for our big labradoodle) and asked what they were for. My mom turns to him, deadpan, and says that they’re for me and that I like to eat out of them. The look of shock/bewilderment/horror he gave me was f*****g priceless.
#52
He told me the bugs on my windshield were oil and that I needed an oil change. I said they were bugs. He said, “I’ve been driving longer than you. I would know.”
Later I told him I saw a werewolf and made the story super dramatic. He said, “are you sure it wasn’t a coyote?” I said, “I’ve lived here way longer than you. I think I would know the difference”. I thought he’d realize how dumb his first comments were, but instead he said “huh. Okay” with a shrug like he actually believed me. .
#53
When my hubby was sick, I’d give him toast with garlic and butter and salt, with some tea with lemon and honey on the side.
When i was sick, i was given tea with honey, lemon, garlic and butter inside 😪 because “that one time i told (him) that all of those things are good when you have a cold”
*siiiighhhhhhh*.
#54
I was once married (and now happily divorced) to a man who looked me in the eye and said, “with global warming, I wonder if I could invent something to keep buildings cool?”
I was so shocked I stared at him for a minute before I said, “you mean air conditioning?”.
#55
He installed the netting for our window on the inside.
Big bay window in the living room. Made me cackle that this man is an aerospace engineer but couldn’t instal cat proof netting the right way asked him if it was rocket science and laughed for the rest of the day about it
#56
I think a lot of us found we were living with anti-science anti-vaxxers. Didn’t see that coming.
#57
Thought if she fell asleep in the car overnight with the windows up she would suffocate.
#58
He also believed installing boilers was harder than being a nurse on a dementia unit
You put pipes together and have a team of people with you to do one project
I get physically assaulted working in a chronically short staffed field literally in control of peoples lives.
#59
I was told “don’t be stupid, a tape measure won’t tell you the length”. By my husband. Who is a builder.
#60
He thought kids were born with the ability to swim and did not know they needed lessons. He had three young children and lived near a canal.
#61
Not me but a friend.
Her ex-husband had a doctor’s appointment and the office told him to bring in a stool sample.
He asked my friend what kind of lousy doctor doesn’t have a stool for him to sit on when we went to the visit.
#62
At my father’s funeral he leaned into me and said, “Why do they have these so f***king early.” It was 11am.
#63
When I told him you don’t catch colds by being cold and he said “I don’t care about your ‘scientific facts’” and yes he air quoted “scientific facts”.
#64
He constantly insulted my intelligence and one day he tried to cook a burger in a toaster.
#65
When he told me he’s political and when I asked him if he liked Ron DeSantis he told me he liked him because he supports gay rights…he identified as gay….
#66
When my husband fell for a crypto pyramid scam that had “motivational speakers” saying things like “I blew through my savings three times, and my wife almost left me, but now I make millions..”. Thankfully he only spent about 500 bucks in it, but we were super tight on money 🤦🏼♀️.
#67
I didn’t consider her a f*****g idiot for it, but my last GF before meeting my wife randomly dropped in conversation she didn’t believe in dinosaurs. It was something like:
Me: it’s crazy people think that, it’s like not believing in dinosaurs.
Her: Well dinosaurs didn’t exist.
Me: ……what should we do for dinner.
I was flabbergasted for a week, couldn’t wrap my head around it. When she finally asked “you’ve been different what’s wrong” I basically exploded with “seriously?!? F*****g dinosaurs are fakes????” And we parted ways.
The first date with my now wife, I asked “do you believe in dinosaurs?” And she responded with something like “are you an idiot? It’s not a belief…they did, it’s science” and I breathed a sigh of relief.
#68
He insisted my water was bad because his skin was dry, not because he literally never drank water, it was winter, he used cheap bar soap and never moisturized, but my water was bad and refused to accept any other reasoning.
#69
He used an electric saw to cut a piece of wood on our brand new kitchen table (wood).
#70
He said he would fight for his country if a war started. He thought he would be An excellent soldier i suppose because of all the counter strike he played .. was overweight too.. i loved him but this was one of those Moments…
#71
Not me. But over the holidays my brothers wife “( a Maga moron) started talking about the” lights in the sky “and apparently how the gvt of course is covering it all up. At one point she asked” and why do you think we can only see the lights at night “?! That’s when I tried to reply without sounding like an a*****e” because it’s dark out? “. Of course everyone thought I was being a d**k…
#72
This is the most recent one, and a fairly silly one, as they generally tend to be: husband bought himself a tub of cottage cheese, ate some, and then told me he didn’t like it and would probably throw the rest out. I asked him why, because he hadn’t had a problem with eating cottage cheese before (I can’t stand the texture myself so I never touch the stuff). Turns out he’d grabbed “no salt added” cottage cheese instead of the regular kind, and it didn’t occur to him that he could just add his own salt and/or other seasoning/flavor to it.
#73
He gleefully tried to enter an aloe vera product centered pyramid scheme a mate of his was trying to enter him in. He didn’t even know what aloe vera was, so he was legit convinced the aloe vera scientists from this company just discovered a true panacea. In the end I managed to dissuade him, but it took a lot of work, and it utterly ruined my trust in his ability to make reasonable financial decisions or percieve undesirable facts and admit he’s wrong. We broke up not long after.
#74
My ex is religious (christian), i am not. one night we were talking about evolution and he said something along the lines of “There has to be a God cause no way I came from a f*cking tree”….
#75
She didn’t know what solar panels were.
She had seen them on buildings and was aware they existed, but had no idea what their function was related to power generation. What did she think they were then, you might ask? She just had no idea and it never occurred to her to find out.
Turns out there were a number of common items that she knew existed but had no idea why or what their functions were. For example, cold air returns in her house “They aren’t blowing anything. Call the HVAC repair service.”.
#76
When I told my husband I was thinking of getting lash extensions and he said “why don’t you just grow them out?”.
#77
Ex refused to drink tap water and would insist on refilling her jug from the store. I tried to explain how it’s filtered the same and is probably tap water too with a plastic after taste but she didn’t care to hear me.
And I understand all water has different levels of clean and taste. This was def just city water with plastic after taste.
#78
In 2009, my ex girlfriend and I rented Death Race(2008), staring Jason Statham from Blockbuster for a quiet night in. About 15 minutes in she turns to me and asks, “This is based on a true story?!”. I believe about 1 or 2 minutes into the movie, it clearly states on screen, in text, that it is set in the year 2020. The lack of reading comprehension was most telling for me but only barely.
#79
She wasn’t sure what street I lived on (I had returned to college and she was visiting for the first time). She said she was lost. I told her to look up and tell me what she could see (I was thinking street signs, business signs, etc.).
She said “Uh, stars?”.