People Are Sharing Their Pettiest Breakup Revenge Stories and They're Honestly Inspiring
Updated April 10 2020, 3:39 p.m. ET
It's an age-old tale of sadness and despair: finding out your SO is a lying piece of trash deserving of the kind of revenge that will simultaneously amuse you and push buttons only someone who knows you intimately will know how to find.
If you're going through it right now, I'm sorry. It might feel for the next few weeks like you're carrying the weight of the world, but know that many people have been through similar breakups and have handled them with the perfect amounts of humor, grace, and pettiness.
In fact, these 11 women came together to share the most spiteful things they've done after a breakup, and you should honestly take notes (or just highlight and screengrab a bunch) because these are straight-up inspirational.
Read on for 11 stories of the most mic-drop ways to cope with being single again.
1. It's not the worst time to remind him of his daddy issues.
One woman shares how her ex "always spoke about how he hated his dad for cheating and lying to his mom." When she found out that he had, in turn, been cheating "with multiple women," she figured out a way to tell him she was in on his secret.
"I went to his apartment and found a photo of us on his bedside table," then "wrote 'Just like your daddy' on it." If that wasn't bad enough, she also thought to make his bathroom runs a little more... uncomfortable.
"I also took all his toilet paper and hand soap," she writes. "Because even though he was the 25-year-old man with a job and I was a 19-year-old college student," he apparently couldn't buy his own toiletries.
So let's just say, she took back what was rightfully hers.
2. Get someone else that thing he'd been pining for.
When one woman found out her "ex had cheated," it was just days before his birthday. "He knew I had gotten him a really fancy watch," she writes. "I was planning on having it engraved."
Instead of giving it to him, though, she "gave it to his weed dealer with the agreement that he could have it for free if he promised to wear it every time [her] ex came over."
To this day, she gets texts from her ex about the watch he wishes was his. Revenge tastes so sweet sometimes, doesn't it?
3. Or better yet, buy it for yourself.
"My ex was super into the drift scene and loved cool cars but was always super broke," writes one woman who was dumped on Christmas.
He gifted her a pair of socks and told her "it wasn't working out" after she had bought him a ton of "nice Christmas gifts." As this woman saw it though, no harm, no foul.
"The next week, I took all my hard-earned money I was saving up to buy myself a new car, and bought the exact one he talked about constantly but was too broke to buy himself," she writes. And to add insult to injury, it turns out the ex worked at the parking garage she was headed to.
"He was working as the ticket guy" and she made sure she saw the car as "he handed [her] that ticket."
- MFDONG
Honestly, I feel better just reading this.
4. Identify something he loves and make that completely unattainable.
One heroic lady shares how she "waited until fifteen minutes before the new season of Game of Thrones started" to change the password on her HBO account, which she knew he was still using.
Another writes about how she "watched all of the Gilmore Girls on his Netflix account" in order to forever ruin all of his recommendations. Ouch.
- sunlitglo, MultinucleateClub
"This girl I used to go out with is still using my Netflix and that's cool. She's watching Scandal and is currently on S7E12. Series finale is S7E18. Guess who's changing her password as soon as she gets to episode 17?" tweeted a third self-aware woman who's decided to humorously call herself "Petty Labelle." I'm stealing that inspired moniker.
5. Pet custody? No problem.
The question of who gets to keep the pup or kitty after you two split is often one of the most painful parts of a breakup. Just ask Ariana and Pete.
But one woman shares her tale of comeuppance and I couldn't be happier for her. "I let my ex keep out cat after he begged me," she writes, "only to have him call me a month later saying he didn't want the cat anymore."
When she went to get the cat from their old house, she realized that her ex hadn't cleaned the cat litter since before she'd moved out. She was understandably "mad for the kitten's sake," and began to "doubt [whether her] ex took care of him at all."
Once the two started arguing, she "ended up dumping the whole litter box right on his living room floor" then "stormed out with the litter box in one arm and the cat in the other."
Well, wow. If I were their cat, I'd pick this hero over her uncaring ex any day of the week.
6. Take the "wrong number" approach to the next level.
One woman found out two weeks before her wedding that her fiancé had been sleeping with their neighbor for six months.
For the eight years since, she's been "giving creepy dudes" her ex's phone number instead of hers. "His sister always texts me his new phone number when he changes it," she writes. The MVP sister also "sends photos and videos of him losing his mind angry when he gets a call from a dude looking for a hook-up."
- TepiKhan
Serves him right, TBQH!
7. Make him sweat. No, make him PANIC.
When one woman found out her ex had been cheating on her "with multiple women," she got a stroke of total inspiration.
"I had my pregnant roommate piss on a test and then dropped it off at his front door," she writes. "No note, no way to know who it came from."
As you can imagine, his panic was REAL. She got to experience it firsthand and through his best friend, as luck would have it.
"He found out I was in the ER (I have some chronic health issues), but he thought it was just because I was pregnant," she recalls. He started hounding the doctors for tests, and when she told him she wasn't pregnant, he "disappeared" from her life.
"According to his friend," however, "he couldn't contact" any of the other women he'd slept with. "So as far as I know, he still thinks he's got a kid out there somewhere."
This woman is a hero.
8. The devil really is in the details.
Sometimes you don't have to go through great lengths to exact the perfect revenge on your ex. Often, pettiest revenge comes from disturbing their lives ever so slightly. I mean, remember that movie Amelie?
One woman found her ex's "spare car key" after the two had gone through a tumultuous breakup. Her plan? "Move his car two blocks every morning for a week." On the last day, "after ... a week of being late to work and feeling on the verge of insanity," she left his car exactly where he'd parked it — with a few slight differences. She "turned the volume to max" and moved "everything movable" just a tad. I'm sure it felt great to be her and absolutely confounding to be him.
Another woman, who deserves to go down in petty history, "loosed the seams in all his pants and shorts so that as soon as he sat, they'd rip open on him." I love ladies who have the patience to go through the long con.
9. Let the junk mail begin.
This approach is so easy, it should be a classic breakup move, but it's the first time I've seen it executed with such diligence.
After one woman was dumped by her fiancé a week before their wedding, she decided to make his life... not completely unbearable, but just insufferable enough.
"I subscribed him to the Watchtower (Jehovah's Witness) and requested visits from them and Mormons, etc.," she writes. After subscribing him to "pretty much every religious mailing list," she also "used his email every time" she needed "to use an email to see stuff online."
Sometimes, she even went out of her way to subscribe him to "anything from daily devotionals to Ashley Madison." Obviously, the fun has to end someday, but not until all the anger is out of her system.
I wish you a long, tender and supportive relationship with the one you love. But if you do end up breaking up, I hope you exhibit the same hilarious and petty qualities as the breakup heroes above.
