People Share The Moment They Realized Something Was Off About Their Friend's Partner

Part of being a good friend to someone involves making sure he or she doesn't end up dating the wrong people. There are so many creepy, weird, and ill-intentioned humans out there and it's your responsibility to protect your friends from those people to the best of your abilities. Here are the crazy stories of when people realized something was off about their friend's partner:

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#1 The Only Explanation

Well, she's 20 and he's more than 10 years older. Six months into their relationship, she told me he won't let her touch his phone, but he gets mad if she doesn't let him touch hers. A year passed by and she'd never been to his place or met his family. The only time they see each other is at work. The dude is either married or has kids, that's got to be the only explanation.

#2 Good Riddance

Whenever she would be having fun, he would pull her to the side and whisper to her about how she looked stupid... for dancing, laughing too loud, stuff like that. He was the ultimate killjoy and it was clear he hated seeing her have fun without him. Spoiler: Six years later and the divorce is finally underway!

#3 Lots Of Red Flags

This is my wife's best friend's fiance. They've only been dating eight months and they are already engaged, so I think she's still in la-la land, but we can all see the glaring red flags. He works late often so if she's out with us on a Thursday or Friday, he'll come by and pick her up without her asking and make her leave. He's always making her come hang out with his group of friends and she's always blowing us off because of it. It's just stuff that she sees as quirks but they are total red flags to me.

#4 Two Sides To A Story

In-person, her husband was quiet and kind. But she told story after story about his fraud, depression, and general emotional abuse. She left him. I had a falling out with her. I caught her in a couple of lies and I just abruptly ended the friendship. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my husband had befriended the husband at the gym. My husband didn't care this guy had a bad reputation as painted by his ex-wife, he was a cool gym-buddy.

About a year after I ended the friendship, I became friends with her ex-husband. It's been three years of friendship now. Every time, I learn something cool about the guy. Marine. Passionate about his kids. Solid hard worker. True and loyal to the core. We often compare stories. I'll tell him her side of a story and how badly she painted him out to be. He'll either tell me his side —which is black and white opposite of what she said—or he'll flat out deny such a story ever existed. With proof.

So, the moral of the story is, while I thought something was off with him, it was all proof that something is off with her. Don't believe everything you hear.

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#5 A Mountain Of Salt

I accidentally uncovered the username of someone I know. There was a post in a relationship-oriented online thread where she had explained this situation that had been going on and asked for advice. In her telling, she was the innocent victim who couldn't figure out why this was happening to her. I know both sides of the story, and I can tell you that her retelling of events is highly skewed at best and outright fiction at worse. Now, I take most relationship stories with a mountain of salt.

#6 Piecing It Back Together

I had a friend for years. He was an old boyfriend when we were 15 years old. I lost touch and finally found his number shortly after I got married. We chatted for about five minutes on the phone, and I said I would call back when I had more time to catch up.

When I called back, his then-girlfriend answered the phone. She knew who I was since we were all part of the same group. She told me I was never to contact him again and that she was talking because he didn't even want to talk to me. I just wanted to see how he was and tell him about my new husband.

A few years after that, they broke up (she cheated). I sent him a message and found out she had done that to most of his friends & family. He was just starting to piece his life back together after she slowly secluded him. He had no clue and thought I just never called him again.

#7 Seeing Right Through

My wife's best friend's husband. I never got on with the guy while everyone else did. I found him to be very "know it all" and if you had done something, he had done it 10x better. I'm sure my wife had a thing for him, it was always "Rob has done this and Rob has done that, ain't Rob a great guy... Tracy is so lucky to have Rob, why don't you and Rob go fishing? Why don't you and Rob go for a drink?"

To keep the peace, I would and each time I spent time with him, I disliked him more and more. Something just didn't feel right about him. I ended up telling my wife that I couldn't handle the guy anymore and that I wouldn't have him around our home again. She had the raging hump, called me an unsociable twat, jealous nob, etc. Two weeks later, it came out that Rob had been hurting Tracy, mentally abusing his kids, and he was cheating with a girl from down the road. Now everyone thinks Rob is an absolute jerk.

#8 In What World?

Whilst out at a university party, I ran into my friend's significant other. She was out of town at the time. She started dancing with me, getting closer by the minute. I asked, "What are you doing?" to which she replied, "It's okay, he likes it when I flirt with other guys." Uh, no he freaking doesn't. He's one of my best friends, I know him pretty dang well. We eventually convinced him to end it with her, and he's much happier for it.

#9 Big Red Flag

We were out to dinner. I told them a story about my ex-girlfriend and how she never got a job after we moved, spent all my money, forced us to get a luxury apartment and, as soon as she did get a job, started sleeping with some dude at her job. I literally came home one night and found them in bed. After hearing all this, my friend's girlfriend said, "Wow, she sounds really resourceful. She took you for a ride and got away with it. Good for her." As soon as she was in the bathroom I told my friend to break up with her.

#10 Diaper Dumb

My uncle was a career navy man who was deployed for the majority of his two kids' toddler years. His claim to fame? He has never changed a diaper. He says it got close once when he was home on leave and his wife was out shopping, but luckily the lady that lived next door was home and changed the diaper for $5. But this is the same guy that was home for five days for the birth of his first child, and his wife was pregnant again before he left for the sea that week.

#11 The Creepy Teacher

We played DnD with him and it seemed like every week he'd say: "Rule number 1: Don't touch the kids!" He was a teacher and he always meant it as a joke. It always made sense in context, but it didn't sit right with me. For one thing, no one thought it was that funny the first time, so why call back to it?

Also, the regularity with which he said it made it almost seem like a mantra to me. They arrested him last year for allegedly Snapchatting with an underage girl he met over the internet. In hindsight, there were a bunch of other warning signs too, but that was the one that initially weirded me out.

#12 The Clues Behind Projection

I had a housemate in college who'd always say weird and out-of-context things like, "Hey guys, no messing around with each other tonight, alright?" At first, it was funny but after months of it we'd just be like, "Uh, you got it, man." About once every other night, he would make those comments, always having something to do with gay things between us guys. He came out as gay two years later. Projection is a really telling thing about someone and something they may be hiding.

#13 A Timely Escape

She was super friendly, but I’d catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye with… not a nasty expression exactly, but not a friendly one either. She’d also casually say odd little details when talking about her life that made it seem like she had a pretty skewed idea of relationships and gender roles (she went to an all girl’s school, and even though she was 24, she was the first of all of her friends to ever have a boyfriend)

“It’s ridiculous to expect a woman to change a lightbulb on her own,” she'd say, or she'd make out that some things were a big deal in relationships when they’re really not... as if she’d got all her knowledge from rom coms. It really set me on edge. She ended up going full-on psycho and not letting him see any of his friends or do any of the things he enjoyed for two whole years.

She was basically jealous of every single other woman in the world, even his male friends’ girlfriends. It took his brother to come round and have a good long chat for him to realize she was a control freak who was ruining his life. It was a timely escape too since she was starting to talk about babies.

#14 Not A Threat

I get this a lot with my male friends' girlfriends. It's dreadfully annoying, actually. It's pretty hard for me to respect them when they automatically assume that because I'm a girl who knows her boyfriend, I want her man. If I've been friends with the dude for six years, and nothing has happened between us in all that time, things aren't going to happen just because he started dating you, Stacey. I'm desperately in love with my significant other and, honestly, I'm a six at best. I'm not a threat to you. Chill the heck out.

#15 Abandonment Complex

My therapist called it an abandonment complex. He chalked it down to crippling insecurity caused by past events, particularly related to my mother just disappearing when I was young. But then I came to closure when I realized that my mother was just a person... free to make her own choices, even if they weren't the "right" ones.

When I realized that people have the freedom to do whatever the heck they want, I learned that you can't really trust anyone until you respect that fact. At the end of the day, you'll always be there for yourself. People who do things to hurt you typically don't do it to hurt you. They neglect your feelings and behave selfishly, but you basically have nothing to do with why they do them. There's nothing you can do, so just... be.

#16 You Never Know

I have six sisters. I have met a lot of despicable males. The one that immediately comes to mind is my sister's ex-husband. Let's call him Dean. Dean seemed like a cool, rather nerdy, introverted, sweet guy. Except that he had shark eyes. When he smiled or laughed, or anything really, he looked closer to pain than joy.

I was never too comfortable with him, but I wanted my heebie-jeebies to be wrong. My sister seemed genuinely happy. They married. Then, a few months later during dinner, my sister spilled some wine on their new tablecloth. Dean fractured her wrist, burst a blood vessel in her eye, and threw her down the stairs. They are now divorced. I'm still angry about it.

#17 The Worst Guy

The first time I met him was at her birthday party. He shook my hand then proceeded to dance on me in front of her and her family. Then, when I called him out on it, everyone said I was the problem and was just jealous. A year later, it turns out he had been cheating on her continuously and had gotten two girls pregnant while dating her.

#18 Cyber Spy

When he installed some kind of app on my best friend’s computer so that he could control the mouse with his phone. I think this was two months after I met him; six months into their relationship. I thought that was really messed up but he'd just say, “It’s only a joke, why do you think it’s weird?" About a year later, he asked her to sign into Facebook to "see if Facebook was working for her."

Later that day, she came over and asked me if he could’ve saved her password even if she told Chrome to not save it. We kind of bounced ideas around... “No, I don’t think so... I mean, unless he put a keylogger on his computer? But that would be messed up.” And sure enough, that’s exactly what he did. Notable favorite: After breaking up, he also tried to pose as me on Kik so he could talk to her.  The whole relationship was a mess.

#19 The Lengths They'll Go

A good friend of mine I used to date was acting really crazy one time and I grew really suspicious. I figured I'd throw her a curveball and ask her if she remembered the time she sent me those risque images of her (from back when we were dating). Sure enough, it was her psychotic boyfriend posing as her. She expressed she was glad I was one of the few people who were able to out that it wasn't her. It's bizarre how far people will go to try and control the lives of someone they supposedly love.

#20 A True Psycho

Someone hacked a friend's boyfriend's computer and posted a bunch of very sensitive photos on 4chan. But for some strange reason, nothing else (like his bank records, email, etc.) was compromised. How odd that this hacker would only be after her private images. I immediately said, "It was him. He's the one posting the pics online."

She spent so much time saying what a great guy he was and how it couldn't possibly be him because he had an important job (working for a major politician) and that he wouldn't compromise his dream of a career in politics. A few months later, she finally came to realize that he was an emotionally abusive psychopath and dumped him.

Then, he started posting her name and address (and pics) on fetish websites, claiming that she had crazy fetishes and wanted people to entertain her. She got a restraining order but he kept doing it, and eventually, he got prosecuted and is no longer allowed near a computer. I still think he got off way too easy.

#21 Not A Threat

He is genuinely concerned that I am going to turn his girlfriend gay. He goes on and on about it, well beyond a joke, and she just rolls her eyes. No idea what it is based on, but he's obsessed. She's much hotter than me, and we never really flirt or anything, not even in a joking way. If he wants to be involved he really needs to be less creepy.

#22 She Deserves Better

When my husband and I were helping them move, he would only speak to or answer my husband. I had an idea of how to move some stuff up the stairs and the guy just blew me off. So I told my husband to casually mention the same idea and poof! He'd think it was an awesome idea. He always girlfriend down and she would just take it.

In the end, HE broke up with her because he felt she wasn't thin or pretty enough for him. Then, he would get mad at her for trying to move on and he would try to sabotage every relationship she tried to have. I ended up ending the friendship because I couldn't stand listening to her complaints about how he was treating her, only for her to keep going back.

#23 The Insecure Girlfriend

Where to start...

The double date we went on where he corrected her on the difference between UFC and MMA. She turned into the corner of the booth and didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the night. He wasn't allowed to hang out with me either because I was dating someone and they might have hot friends.

There was the time I used my dad's truck to help them move and she got mad at me... I don't remember why; I just remember her friends doing almost nothing and then leaving before we were done. The final straw for me was when we were working for his parent's band on a riverboat concert. She got mad that we were hanging out, literally just talking on a small boat. She left the ring on the table and left the boat the second it docked. Unfortunately, they made up after this and have been living together for the last year, hoping it ends soon.

#24 A Strong Hold

He wasn't allowed to come over and have a "guys day" (a couple of drinks, greasy food, football, etc.) this Sunday because his girlfriend was doing homework. He's almost 27 and she's 21. They showed up at like 6 and it was me and two other dudes just shirtless, not showered, and napping on the couches with the game on. I woke up to him getting yelled at by her.

#25 A Bad Friend

When my best friend and his significant other started in a long-distance relationship, I didn't think much of it. But when she would repeatedly make fun of my him to her friends on Twitter, I brought it up. She repeatedly cheated on him and acted like they weren't serious at all. I told my friend again because he was head over heels. They finally broke up because of a fight over something unrelated to the things I brought up to my friend.

Then they got back together and my friend used the stuff I told him to make a stipulation that if she wants anything to do with him, she has to be serious. For whatever reason, she sticks with it. She started pulling him away from me gradually. A quick flashback—when his ex gave birth to his two sons, I dropped everything. I was late to work because of one of them and spent as much time as I could with them.

When I had my daughter, I invited my best friend not once, not twice, but three times to meet her. He couldn't be bothered to come to the hospital. Not because of work, but because he "needed" to be on the phone with his girlfriend. I burned that bridge so quickly. Now they're engaged with a kid of their own. He moved to Florida for her. Good riddance to both of them.

#26 Giving Up

He hated when she would spend time with me.  He'd make snide jokes about lesbian lovers and wondering about the true nature of our relationship. The day we met finally, he told me that girls couldn't possibly compare to guys. Then, he started insisting that I was closeted and obsessed with her and that my boyfriend was just a beard. Funny thing is, I was meeting this girl after five months. He was scary controlling and insecure. Four years later, they are sadly still together. I have given up at this point.

#27 A Baffling Case

He would always talk about how he was going to be an addict and how he was going to hit my friend. She never thought anything of it until after they broke up, but it bothered me. He also said things about how he was happy her dad was dying because he wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. Why she would stay with a guy like that still baffles me.

#28 Too Touchy-Feely

He was "cuddling" with her when we met and refused to even take his hands off her for one second to shake my hand when I offered it. He just looked at my hand and held her in closer. She thought it was sweet. I thought it was rude. Turns out, he didn't much care for women who he couldn't hold in and he found many such women in the course of the marriage.

#29 The Know-It-All

He ALWAYS had to be right, and ANY statement anyone else made had to be wrong (yes, even if you're talking about something you specialize in and he knew nothing about). After four years of marriage, they finally decided to end it... by which time very few of her friends were still willing or able to be her friend.

#30 Throwing Away A Decade

I had a holiday in Vegas with my friend and his partner. It was just supposed to be the two of us but he asked if he could tag along. Okay, fine. It started bad on the plane—he refused to carry my bottle of water when I asked him to help me out as I had some bags. He point blank refused to eat at any restaurant I suggested. When I tried to make a conversation, he would ignore me or just grunt.

He kept commenting on how many drinks we were consuming (I'm not a drinker but it's bloody Vegas). It was terrible. To make matters worse, he convinced my friend that I had made him feel very uncomfortable for the whole trip, that I didn't make an effort. I was shocked. We haven't spoken in months and I'm devastated. Over 10 years of friendship gone.

#31 Thanks For... That

The first time I ever met her, before she had even introduced herself, she stood right in front of my face and asked me: "Don't I have crazy eyes?" I'll never forget the chill that went down my spine at that moment. They've thankfully since broken up. One time, they were having a pretty big argument one January over the phone. He suggested they take a break for a bit (their relationship wasn't on stable ground at this point).

Her immediate response was that she would end herself if he hung up. He hung up, called the police, and she spent the night in the hospital for observation. The best part was after she got out she bought him a quesadilla maker as an apology because nothing says "sorry I threatened to end my life" like delicious quesadillas. The quesadilla maker is great though, he still has it to this day.

#32 The Psychotic Witch

The first time we met her was at a bar. My boyfriend and I arrived early, so we found a Scrabble board on the game shelf and started playing. When my friend and his significant other got there, literally before even introducing herself, she looked at our Scrabble board and said, "Wow that's a lot of small words. Are you guys stupid?" My boyfriend and I were so stunned that we kind of just ignored the comment. Was she joking??? Anyway, she (unsurprisingly) turned out to be a psychotic witch.'

#33 Toddler Tantrums

He had a full-on, toddler-level temper tantrum twice at a group game night. Once because during a trivia question he couldn't remember the planets in the solar system. Then, on the same night, he got upset playing Uno. He threw his cards down and stormed out. We all kind of looked at each other. That was when we knew he was.. off. My friends and I were all in our mid-20s and he was over 30, so it was definitely not acceptable behavior.

A couple of weeks later was my friend's birthday, so we all went out for the night and ended up at our neighborhood bar. He threw another temper tantrum (I think it was over scoring for darts or something equally ridiculous), stormed out and peeled away in his car, leaving us with no ride home. This was pre-Uber/Lyft and none of us wanted to spend the money on a taxi, so we sobered up on the two-mile walk back to my friend's house.

Thankfully...she broke up with him not long after. She is now with a wonderful guy who not only knows the planets of the solar system but also treats her a lot better.

#34 It's An Ambush

She turned up at my house while we were hanging out. She wasn't allowed in (my mom had crazy rules about visitors) so she sat at the end of our street for four hours waiting for us to finish. We didn't know she was outside. I apologized for her not being able to come in, and she just walked off and stayed just out of sight waiting for her boyfriend to appear so she could ambush him.

#35 My Way Or The Highway

When she went off on us for arranging a campsite at another friend's wedding. They got married on a 20-acre farm, and the reception was on-site. She was upset because she wanted us to agree on splitting a hotel room, with one bed, between eight people (she would get the bed, the rest of us would sleep on the floor.) Yeah, no.

#36 Miss You, Buddy

I have a friend that is currently going through something like this. His girlfriend would constantly make up excuses and new illnesses to make him come over. It got to the point where she made him come to comfort her when she was feeling a "little down," after a long drive, on the first anniversary of his grandma's death, who raised him from birth. Eventually, another one of my friends called her out on what she was doing, and she threatened legal action against the friend for violating HIPAA laws, saying it was illegal to talk to someone with a mental illness like that. He took her side and we haven't spoken since... Miss you, buddy.

#37 Ego Boost

He started attending my college at 26, which isn't strange at all, but he INSISTED on living in the dorms for three years. It's not like we were in a college town with expensive off-campus housing, he just liked the ego boost of being around kids eight years younger than him. My friend was 19 when they started dating.

Another thing was that he was a "full-time" stand up comedian with his own YouTube channel. He mostly did open mic events at bars, but couldn't stand watching other people on stage perform if it wasn't him. He would sit and seethe when my friend told him she didn't want to leave when watching other people perform.

Thankfully they broke up last week and I couldn't be more proud or happy for her.

#38 Oh Boy...

He showed abusive and manipulating behavior from day one. But it was fine because she loved him and she could change him. A year later, he had cheated at least once and was constantly threatening to end himself if she left him. It was fine though because really he loved her but didn't know how to express it.

In their second year, he controlled her Facebook and phone, and he decided who she could and couldn't talk to. It was romantic though because he just really cared about her. In their third year, he cheated at least four times and he also pretended to end himself and break up with her multiple times each, after one of which she tried to end herself.

We had a whole intervention thing while she was in the hospital and she agreed to leave him. Two weeks later, they were back together. "He spent $800 on my birthday gift, how could he NOT love me? O!h yeah, and I can't talk to you anymore because he says I shouldn't." She's still with him.

#39 Unbelievable Lies

A guy I remember around my university days went to karaoke and said he was singing a song for this girl. But depending on who was asking, he'd explain that she died or was in an accident or something. He also said that he was part of the triad and he would say "Konichiwa" to them (yup, that's Japanese). It was so grandiose and non-sensical I'm surprised anyone would fall for it.

#40 The Sensitive One

When he started trying to pick fights with me in order to separate me from my cousin. We were in our mid-teens, he looked 17 or 18, very clean cut and geeky in a boy band sort of way, you know, the "sensitive one" with the glasses. He was well mannered, respectful to our moms, but he seemed predatory to me. I didn't have the best people around me growing up, so I learned to recognize potential threats early, and this guy set off all my danger bells.

Just small things, like watching too closely to see how people reacted to him, and the way his smile never reached his eyes. I wasn't rude, but I didn't fawn over him either. Once he realized that I wasn't charmed by him, he started avoiding me, telling her he didn't feel comfortable around me, and she'd have to see him alone. He tried bullying me any time he saw me, while still bragging to me that he was her protector and her white knight.

#41 You've Been Duped

My best friend started to date this girl about a year ago. She was awesome—she always seemed so nice and was very fun to be around. About three months into the relationship, everything was going great. Then he asked her to move in with him. The day came to move them in and I went over to help move the heavy stuff. That's when she showed up with a five-year-old. When he asked whose kid it was, she said hers! We were blown away. She never mentioned it, said anything about having a kid. Her Facebook had zero pics of her kid, and no one ever mentioned it. It was a big cover-up and she basically just wanted someone to support her and her kid. He noped outta that one right then and there.

#42 Violent Tendencies

She messaged me to let me know she wouldn't be on her phone until she got a new one because the one she had was busted. He had thrown it and stomped it when she complained about it dropping calls and having a bad battery. So, being the typical best friend I amf, I would make the guy pay, blah blah. Fast forward a few hours and he is on her Facebook Messenger, reading our conversation, trying to justify it to me. It gave me the willies to have him read our conversation. He also once thrown a remote through their plasma TV when he was mad. I know that he will be violent with her one day, if he hasn't already and she is just keeping it secret. It makes me sick to my stomach.

#43 Good Looking Out

For me, it was quite simple. A friend of mine's cheery outgoing nature was suddenly GONE and when he was around her, he was very quiet and would just sit with her off in the corner. Example: at a party we had, he went to get some drinks and started to show his normal personality with his friends. He looked back at her to make sure she was okay (she was still sitting in the corner) and got such a death stare from her, he immediately excused himself and went to sit with her. He told some of us he wanted to propose and when we all unanimously told him he was crazy and why he finally got it and dumped her shortly after.

#44 Horse Lover

#45 Congrats, He Won

He got mad at me and grabbed my waist. I had handprint bruises on both sides. This happened in front of her. I confronted her. She was at the time struggling with a reoccurring "spontaneous" injury that while it does happen unprovoked is almost always a result of blunt force. She was homeschooled as a result of this issue. Her parents support the relationship despite seeing the guy (we were in high school when they began dating) physically attack me twice. But, since it wasn't her, it would be just fine. They are married now. We are no longer friends.

#46 You've Changed

When he started changing all his stuff up to adapt to her lifestyle. I'm all for adapting to a significant other's interests, but he took it too far and lost sight of who he was. Music tastes changed, he got an overwhelming number of piercings, and he just became a less happy person. Years after they broke up and he still isn't the same.

#47 Selfish Intentions

An ex of mine tried to pull this: "Stop talking to your parents because they say bad things about me and let's open a bank account together." My parents said bad things about her because she was nasty toward them and they had good reason to hate her. As for the bank account, she was absurdly in debt and I think she saw this as a way for a clean start that would probably have screwed me over if I had gone along with it.

#48 Not Worth It

He hurt himself in front of her in our apartment while I was sleeping as a twisted act of manipulation. She was freaked out, but she's pretty good at seeing the best in everyone, so they moved in together not long after. I ended up telling her I couldn't emotionally support her if she just kept complaining because it wasn't helping her. He kept telling her he would end himself. She was 18 he was 30 when it began. After two years, she finally left him.

#49 Jealous Much?

When he started trying to make me jealous of their relationship. I'm a girl, she's straight, so I don't know why he saw me as a threat. But he used to get me in private and be like, "I know you are close to her but not as close as you think. She tells me things she'd never tell you." I would just be like, "You're her fiancé, I sure freaking hope she has that level of comfort with you."

He wound up locking her on a balcony in 30-degree weather and stole her phone to text me while pretending to be her. I figured out it was him, drove to her apartment and found her on the balcony. Then he stalked her for a couple of years.

#50 The Vampire

She squeezed my upper arm as a "joke" and then, later on, we were leaning up against a wall outside the house sitting down (around 3 am) and she said she was tired and proceeded to rest her head right on my unit and when I nudged her off, then she tried to vampire my neck. I got up and went back to the party. Luckily for my friend, she did this to someone else the next night, he texted me about it and I told him it happened to me too and he broke it off.