“What Broke Your Heart Completely?” 30 Stories

Figuring out you are not as important to someone you love as you thought you would be 🙂 i learnt it the hard way that I am very much replaceable.

When I was a child and my dad started hitting me, I realized none of the adults in my life were going to protect me.

I told my mom and she wouldn’t believe me. The next day, I told my teacher, because we had just talked about inappropriate touch the week before. She looked me in the eye and called me a lair. I stopped trusting adults completely. I was 9 years old.

Watching my grandad lose to dementia.

When my daughter died. I’ve never recovered.

One of my kindergarteners died in my arms. He had an undiagnosed heart defect.

My Grandmother raised me. My dad died of a sudden heart attack when I was 8. My mom never got over it, started drinking, so my grandmother, who was 74 at the time, took over for caring for me and my little brother.

She broke her hip when she was in her late nineties, and she had to be put in a nursing home. I would go visit her, by then she had started living in the past. She knew me, but she thought I was still in school and would ask why my brother wasn't home, what we wanted for supper, things like that.

One day I went to see her, and didn't recognize me or know who I was, and didn't speak. That was the most heartbreaking, gut wrenching day of my life. That broke me. Completely. I went to my car and cried like a baby for a long time.

She died at the age of 103, but that was the day I lost her. I didn't cry at her funeral.

Got cancer at 27, one year in I discovered my husband I met when I was 14, and had 2 sons with, had a full-blown relationship with one of my best girlfriends, and that had been going on for a year. While she pretended to be my close friend during the worst time of my life, so she could attend my children's birthdays, getting closer to my husband and so on.

Still recovering 9 years later.

When I found out my husband tried to get two other women pregnant a few days after my miscarriage.

There was a story in the news earlier this year about a middle aged single dad that had a heart attack and died in his home. They found him a couple weeks later with his toddler son who starved to death lying next to him. Even typing this out is making me tear up.

My mom died when I was a senior in high school. It all seemed very surreal, and like she had never actually left, since everything of hers was still in the house, where she had left it.

At her funeral, after hearing my brother and sister speak, make morbid jokes (as our family tends to do) and just generally do the normal funeral stuff, it finally hit me. It had been several days since she had passed, but it just hit me all at once like a bag of bricks that I would never hear her voice again. She would never be there to nag me when I needed to take out the trash, clean my room, do my homework, or the million other things that she had to constantly remind me to do.

That was the moment that I broke down and started sobbing. I hadn't shed a tear up until that point--maybe it was shock, I don't know. In that moment I realized that I now lived in a different world, one where I would have to finish growing up without the aid of my mother.

Realizing I'll truly never be loved the way I really want, or really need. Trauma is a monster.

Burnout. It made me insensible and I wasn't able to care enough about others. My girlfriend left me for that reason and when I started to get better I understood exactly what errors I've done. Now i'm healing well but I find still hard to find the desire to search another partner having the fear of repeating the story.

In 2017 my oldest son was waiting for a heart transplant. Around us were 5 other families with their children all waiting for the same. We became a family, taking care of each other, supporting one another. Of the six kids my son is the only one left alive. 5 of those children passed while waiting. I will never be able to shake the sound of those parents when their children passed. The pure anguish and pain in those cries….

Confronting my ex about the rumors I had heard that she had cheated on me. When I asked her the question and she took a second to respond I felt like my entire chest collapsed realizing that everything we'd built up until that point was a lie and that I could never trust her again.

My late wife telling me it was ok to divorce her when she got cancer.

When my husband and I got pregnant for the first time. We were beyond excited, planning the future... Then went to our 10 week appointment/first ultrasound to be told there wasn't a heartbeat. Repeat ultrasound two weeks later showed it had never developed a neural pole (what turns into the brain/spinal column) or cardiac activity of any sort, that it had basically just stopped developing for no reason they could tell, that a miscarriage was inevitable. My husband is a very stoic man, usually doesn't show a ton of emotion. Him crying with me about broke my heart.

To end the comment on a better note, though: that was late October/early November last year. We got pregnant again fairly quickly and we're 33 weeks with a healthy pregnancy so far.

Watching my dad one afternoon around sunset, sitting on a bench in our backyard with our new fishing rods, practising his casting for an upcoming fishing trip my brother that I knew he wouldn't make it to.

F**k cancer.

Losing my mum when I was 14. I'm 27 now, and it still hurts. I'd do anything just to give her one more hug.

Ending an 8 year friendship with my best friend.

Losing my dog. He was my best friend for 14 years, he died almost 2 1/2 years ago and I still regularly break down into tears just thinking about him.

I only found out I had a son 19 years after the break-up when he died in a car crash as a passenger.

I cared for my brother for three years who had end stage renal failure. He was a non compliant patient and I often had to be on him to eat right , take his meds, bathe. After a while, I had to clean him up when he soiled himself, take him to the hospital several times a week, and transport him to dialysis. In the end, I had to lift him from the floor when he fell, which was often.

One day while lifting him I heard a pop and immediately felt excruciating pain. I had developed a micro fracture in my hip from over exertion. The next time he fell, I implored EMS to help him. I had no choice.

When I visited, he begged me to bring him home, but I couldn’t. It broke my heart to hear him beg to leave. He passed away 8 months after he arrived. I couldn’t even speak for a week.

Realising my dad actually is the father and more, that I grew up begging to have.. I just wasn’t worth the time and effort but his girlfriend’s kids and grandkids are. They’ve gotten a lifetime of someone that unconditionally loves them, helps them, travels to see them, calls them regularly, has in-jokes with them, makes them laugh, buys them gifts that they’ve wanted because he knows who they are and the things they like, tells them stories and lets them in and learn about who he is.

Meanwhile I’ve begged for him to let me be a part of his life since I was 4. Only just clicked this year he’s got everything and everyone he needs without me, I’m just an obligation and the only one that’s fighting to have a relationship.

My mom died when I was 15 after a 10 year battle with recurring oral cancer (she never smoked a day in her life either, just got unlucky). Her death was incredibly painful, however there was something that happened a couple of years prior that I think broke my heart first.

Bit of backstory: My mom was a children’s librarian (she also worked at a children’s bookstore for a while) and one of her favorite parts of her job was getting to do “story times,” for the kids where she’d read to them and they’d do activities she prepared etc. For as long as I knew her she’d read to me and my sister, sung us lullabies, and was always there for advice or encouragement or any other reason we had for talking with her. Words are a very important part of my life and were always central in my perception of her and the way she showed love.

Then they had to remove her tongue.

When she first told us and once it had registered that I would likely never hear her voice again I completely broke down.

That said, she did still manage to speak some - I strongly believe there was nothing that could have stopped her from that - but it was nowhere close to how she could before. She actually made some audio recordings for us the night before her surgery. Personal messages, my favorite lullaby that she used to sing to me, and a couple of my and my sister’s favorite picture books that she used to read for us. I still have them to this day and I am forever grateful they exist.

My husband suffered a severe traumatic brain injury over ten years ago. He was not at fault in any way. Our children were eight and ten years old at the time and I was in my early thirties. After around seven months in hospitals, I brought my husband home as a diagnosed minimally conscious state patient who requires around the clock care. While I do have nursing, it is not consistent so I fill in several twelve hour shifts a week and have done so for ten years. Our children are grown now. They are healthy and well-rounded adults, for which I am abundantly grateful. 

Losing my husband was the greatest heartache of my life, so far. He is here, but not. He loved me deeply and fully and we were best friends. I fully appreciated him in every way. He was in all ways my person and I was his. Not one thing in my life has brought me so much happiness and joy as meeting him and falling in love. We would have been married for thirteen years by the time he was injured, and while we are still technically married, it is hard to feel that way. Our relationship now is one of caregiver and patient. Our kids have moved out for work and college and to live their own lives, which I encouraged because I have not wanted to drag their lives down with our tragedy. They need to build their own futures and that has been my driving force from the moment the fog of initial shock lifted after my husband's injury. 

But goddamn if I am not unhappy. And sad. I am perpetually a small trigger from crying at any moment, and I was not a crier before this all happened. The unhappiness is now an integral part of me. Sadness is twisted into my core like bind weed around a willow. My thirties are long gone. He is fairly stable because he is cared for so well in his own home, so he will likely live another ten years or longer, and that means my forties will also be devoted to his care. I can not put him into an institution because to do so would wreck me completely. The internal conflict of seeing my life go away day by day spent caring for his body, the years falling away to never be regained while also wanting to give him the best care possible is something I can not allow myself to think about. It is too painful. I still love this man so much. I miss, I miss, I miss. I feel guilt for even mourning my thirties. I feel guilt for being surprised by how much my face has aged; I am stuck in 2014 when the injury happened. I could write so much more, but this is already too long.

I married my college sweetheart after dating for 5 years through college. Then, 6 months later she had an affair on me. The affair lasted 8 months before I discovered it was happening. My life fell to pieces.

Then I decided to change things. I left the US and moved abroad. After living in a foreign country for two years I met a woman. We fell in love and she was the thread that kept me sane and connected to society. After her and I were married I discovered my mother was going through cancer at back in the states. It was also during COVID, which meant traveling was near impossible. Not to mention that I was unable to afford being able to travel. I could not afford to leave my wife behind and quit my job. 

Then, the next summer, I discovered my wife was having an affair with a business man in Singapore.

This crushed me to a point where I don’t like to be around people.

Currently, my life is good. I spent some very difficult alone time hiking 3500 km through mountains along the east coast of the US.

In that alone time I learned more about myself than I’ve ever known. I also dealt with my demons. 

I’m still very much an introvert and prefer being alone, but I have a good wife now. She’s incredibly talented. She deserves to have a man who is not broken and loves her unconditionally. I’m not that man yet, but I’m doing everything I can to become that man.

The biggest lesson I learned is the things that make life difficult are stepping stones that lead to other opportunities. I’ve also picked up a mantra that I say to myself during good times and bad times.

“Everything is as it should be”.

When my therapist asked me what I wanted most from my neglectful parents. I told him all I wanted was for them to hug me close and say they're sorry. To tell me that they tried and even though they messed up they can acknowledge that they're human too.

My therapist leaned forward, looked me right in my eyes and said "I'm so sorry (my name) that will never happen."

Stayed with me for awhile because it was the sudden realization that my parents will never change unless they wanted to themselves. Something I subconsciously knew my whole life but I didn't want it to be true, growing up thinking that 'today will be different' even though it was always the same.

Even though it tore me it was eventually helped me accept them for who they are and made going NC so much easier. Because I don't see them as Mom and Dad anymore and I haven't since that day.

" I'm so sorry, there's no heartbeat"

35 weeks pregnant with our first baby.

I kept thinking it was a nightmare then realized it wasn't so it just hit me over and over and over.

Then, the deafening silence when he was born and the 100% knowledge that my baby had actually died.

Even though on a logical level I knew, there was a teeny tiny part of me that thought maybe, just maybe they were wrong.

My fiancé breaking up with me 6 months before the wedding because her family was sure my family was poor and got into her head so bad she started nitpicking everything I did. They actually acted like she was the dumbest person on earth to marry someone like me and she just couldn't take it anymore. I swear I would have been better off if she cheated on me than that. After that day I actually do not remember anything that happened for the next 1.5 years. I have no recollection of anything. I also quit my job so I guess I just existed at my family's house until I had a wake up call and got my s**t together. I do not have a happy ending by the way. I have a nice job that lets me visit other countries several times a year for work and I guess that's nice but relationship-wise I am done.

After 15 years together, my partner said they were polyamorous. The absolute soul crushing and the feeling of wasting years of my life to come to this point of truly never being enough.

I tried so hard to make the relationship work, but it was like a slap in the face. After that, my now ex came out as trans, but I was already so done that I just wanted my ex to move out and live this new life while I healed.

I'm better now.