Listen, no one is perfect. Especially not anyone who features as a main character in these stories. From stolen wedding gifts and lies about paternity, to breaking bro code and alimony acrimony, you’ll definitely need a moment of self-care to calm down after reading about some of the biggest jerks ever.
1. The Bad Check
My sister borrowed a large sum of money from our retired mother, with a promised payback plan. She never made a single payment. My mother is now down to her last dollar, so we tried to get our sister to pay her at least some of the money she owes. I still can't believe her horrific "revenge". A few months later, a check showed up at our mom's made out to her for $0.00 and a comment on the bottom that said, "Get a job".
2. Tricky Transaction
My grandfather passed a few years ago, and my grandmother was not in a position to live alone, so she decided to sell her home (of 50-odd years, no less). This was on top of the remainder of my grandfather's pension, so she had about $50,000 or so. She asked my father to handle all the bank work and such.
One day my father called her, asking if she was well enough to go to the bank, but his sister's (my aunt's) newest boyfriend picked up the phone instead, said it was taken care of, and hung up. Turns out, they had tricked my grandmother into putting all that money into their account, which they had no intention of letting her access.
Luckily, my dad was able to explain to Nan what my aunt did, and the bank, having known and respected my grandfather, reversed the transfer.
3. Mommy, Not Very “Dearest”
My dad joined the Marines when he got out of high school. He didn't really spend money but instead just sent it all back to his parents to keep for him or use in the event of an emergency. His father then passed and his mom used the money to pay for funeral expenses and keep up with bills.
She then sold their farm and made a bunch of money. They lived outside of a large city that got much larger and rich people wanted to live out in the country, so they were willing to pay a lot of money. So fast forward a couple of years. My dad married my mom. They had my little brother, who was born with severe respiratory issues.
He had to stay on a respirator for a month and they weren't sure he was going to make it. This is where the jerk comes in. My dad asked to borrow money from his mom to pay the medical bills, which were obscene. She told him no and that he shouldn't have had a kid if he couldn't afford it.
4. The Ex (For Good Reason)
This happened to a co-worker of mine. My co-worker had a son from a previous marriage die very young, around 14. He got his son cremated and had him in a vase in his house with pictures, etc. One day while he was breaking up with his second wife (now ex) he came home from work and the ashes were gone. He still has no idea where they are five years later. He assumes she threw them out.
5. Unwelcome Mother-In-Law
After my dad's wife passed, her mother, who lived with us, heard that my dad was planning to sell the house, move somewhere smaller, and pay for her to go into sheltered housing. Her reaction was so disturbing. One day when he was out at work, the old witch took my step-mom's ashes and scattered them all over the garden.
Then, when my dad went ballistic trying to find his wife's remains, the harpy said, "Well now you can't leave here and you can't make me leave". I can't describe the change in my dad after we moved out and got that woman out of our lives.
6. Everything But The Kitchen Sink
My now-ex opted to separate a couple of weeks before Christmas. I almost didn't notice because I was working 16+ hour days at that point. So, the morning of December 25th, she showed up with her entire family, with pickups and trucks to take out all of "her" things from the house, which was literally everything. Then came the kicker. After I was visibly cleaned out, she went to the closet to pull out the presents that I bought for the kids.
She told me: "They can open them at my new place, since they have no beds to sleep in here. You want them to have their gifts, right?" I consider all of that time to be a jerk move.
7. The Lazy Lumberjack
My dad once made a rocking horse for my niece. He carved it out of several pieces of wood, hand braided the tail and mane out of rope that he painstakingly unwound, and hand painted it. It was a beautiful toy that would have lasted for generations. The fate of that precious gift still haunts me. One day her father was too lazy to go out and chop wood, so he smashed it up and threw it into the fire.
8. Off Menu Order
I saw a little girl order something off a menu at a restaurant in Florida. When she was done ordering, her mom said "You really messed up again. I trusted you this time. You want to get that tummy tuck surgery when you're 20? What’s the matter with you!? Waiter!... Give us a few more minutes. My daughter was confused".
The little girl was not that overweight. She had to be only around 10 years old, and she was now crying hysterically. The mother kept yelling at her to stop embarrassing her and stop making a scene. I'm a dude, was about 22 at the time, and so angry witnessing this that I actually considered the consequences of smacking her in the face.
9. Friends For Never
My good buddy's wife is famous for her lack of tact and general jerkiness. Their little girl is about two years older than mine. Her birthday was coming up, and my daughter, who was seven at the time, wanted to pick out the birthday gift. She plays with my friend's daughter and has a good idea what she likes. She made a long list and carefully selected what she thought was perfect.
Fast forward to the day of the party. Buddy's daughter opens up my daughter's gift, her eyes light up, and she squeals "Thank you!" My blood boiled at the wife's reaction. She goes: "Oh, honey, granny got you one of those already. Go ahead and put that one in the Goodwill box". My daughter was crushed.
It took all my strength not to get up and ream the ever-loving heck out of my buddy's wife. Six months later, we drew names for Christmas gifts for the kids. My buddy drew my daughter...and his wife forgot to buy a gift for her and didn't realize it until we were passing out gifts. I don't speak with them anymore.
10. Mistranslation Of “In Case Of Emergency”
A friend of mine worked on a cruise ship as an entertainer for six months. She didn't need that much money on the ship but kept an apartment back in Germany, with the landlord getting regular standing order. When she came back home she couldn't get her door open, so she called the landlord.
He told her he had already thrown out all of her stuff because after one month of her cruise she didn't pay the rent. The horrible truth came out. Turns out her parents, who had access to her bank account in case of emergency, took all the money (and she made a lot in those months on the ship) to pay their bills because their own salary had gone into two new cars.
So basically, she sat there without an apartment, without any friends in town, totally jet-lagged and without a single Euro in her pockets. All because of her parents. Still makes me mad.
11. False Hope Father-in-law
My soon to be father-in-law contacted a real estate agent to help us look for houses...after bad mouthing the apartment we currently live in. He kept declaring it unfit for his grandchildren to grow up in. He had told the agent what the price range we were looking in, and that he had about 20,000 to put towards a smaller house.
I spent WEEKS online and in person, narrowing down my search. All the while excited, out of my mind at the prospect of owning a home and all the jazz that goes with. When we finally got it down to two, we contacted said father-in-law. He came to the properties and gave us his opinion. It was mostly stupid rich guy nonsense about "mature trees" being something we needed because they add to the value.
Not once did he start looking at pipes or foundations, which I found strange. But it was about to get so much worse. My fiancé and I went home to ponder the final decision, only to be informed by the real estate agent that the father-in-law, when asked to start signing papers, now has no money for this project, and claims he never offered to help to begin with.
12. A Wii-ally Awful Christmas
My cousin is now divorced from his wife, who was never really liked anyway by our family due to her craziness. They have two kids together. She had a son from a previous relationship that my cousin raised as his own and a daughter by the next poor, unfortunate soul to get tangled up with her. This story takes place after they separated.
Her parents get a Wii for the kids for Christmas at the mother’s home, as it's her turn for Christmas. The kids are super excited when we call them, and they say they'll bring it around so we can play together on New Year's Eve. NYE comes around, and the kids don't bring the Wii. They also seem very quiet.
I sit down with the eldest and ask what's wrong and get this. "I'm sorry we can't play games, but mummy had to sell the Wii because we don't appreciate mummy enough". I knew something was up with that, and I eventually found out the truth. The real story: The mother had pawned the system to buy substances.
13. Cheating (The System) Ex
My ex-brother-in-law pulled one of the biggest jerk moves ever. He was married to my sister for 18 years. Three kids aged 15, 13, 11. He decides to cut and run and shacks up with another woman who has two kids. So, Jerk Move #1. But that was just the beginning. He brings these kids along to his kids' soccer/rugby/rowing events and calls the new kids the nicknames, which he had used with his kids for years, in front of his biological kids.
My sister had stayed home and taken care of the kids when they were younger, and he was able to go out and build up his career. At some point in time, my sister started working a bit part time and taking courses to get her teaching certification. At the judicial hearing dealing with the divorce, the judge said that he would have to pay child support for his kids and would also have to pay some spousal support for two years until my sister was finished with her certification and could be financially more stable.
He decided to quit his 75K a year job so that he could claim not to have income and therefore couldn't pay either child or spousal support. He actually went on social assistance for five years in order to try and screw over my sister. Only, it backfired right in his face. Unfortunately for him, that didn't work and he now owes my sister 60K in back child support and the original spousal support. What an idiot.
14. The Panhandling, Not Pauper, But Prince
I once went to a movie at a mall with my buddy. As we were about to park in the lot, this jerk in a BMW cuts us off and takes the parking space. So, we get another parking space nearby and my buddy wants to mess this guy up on general principle of cutting people off in parking lots, and I tell him to "cool it".
As we walk by, this guy in the BMW is grabbing trash bags out of the trunk and my buddy and him exchange words but my buddy doesn't hurt him like I was fearing. About three hours later, we're leaving the theater and this homeless man is panhandling for change. I toss a dollar in his hat or whatever he had, and my buddy says, "No way, look who you just gave a dollar to!"
I take a moment to actually stop and look at him, and I can't believe my eyes. It's the jerk with the BMW! I go and take my dollar back out of his hat, and the jerk makes a scene and now there's a crowd of people gathering around us like I just robbed a homeless man. So I'm trying to explain to this crowd that this jerk drives a Beamer, and I can show you where he parks it, and this guy is denying he owns a Beamer, and the crowd is getting hostile and I'm nervous I'm about to get messed up.
Finally I say "Fine, I'll put the dollar back, but when I walk past a specific red BMW on the way to our truck I'm going to key the heck out of it and anyone that wants to watch can follow me!" Well, that guy got up and bolted towards the parking lot! Left his hat full of change and everything. And that's the story of how I almost got stabbed by pitchforks.
15. Broken Bro Code
In high school I had two best friends. Let's call them Jack and Alex. Jack had trouble with women. He also had a crush on the same girl since middle school, let's call her Sara. Anyways, Jack, Alex and I would always cruise around together. Alex and I were very aware that Jack had this huge crush on Sara. I just want to make it clear that the three of us had been friends for a really long time. Like five years of being best friends. That's important later.
By the time senior year rolled around, Jack had worked his magic and had included Sara in our group of friends. He wasn't dating her or anything, but he was getting to "hang out" with her all the time. I suppose that was his strategy to make her his girlfriend. Jack had a party while his dad was out of town and a bunch of people in our grade showed up.
It was a pretty big party. Jack was convinced it was the night he was going to finally sleep with Sara. It was the end of a five-year pursuit. I hoped it would work out for him. At the end of the night, Jack was up against Sara. Kissing her, whispering in her ear, making her laugh, etc. It looked like things were going to work out.
Jack smiled at me and texted me, "Wanna step outside for a smoke before I take her to my room?" "Sure," I replied. So, Jack and I went outside, and the guy is giddy with excitement. He's finally going to sleep with this girl. He was a virgin, so it was a pretty big deal. We laughed for a while and I congratulate him on his seemingly inevitable conquest.
We head back inside to the party...Sara is gone. We look around. The party is pretty loud, so we ask around. Someone piped up, saying, "Alex has her in the bathroom". We listened . Yeah, Alex and Sara were messing around in the bathroom. Jack was absolutely broken. He had spent the better part of five years of chasing Sara.
We went outside to drink our drinks and he's on the verge of tears. About 20 minutes later, Alex comes outside and looks at Jack and says, "Sorry bro," and starts laughing. They weren't friends for a long while after that. It was pretty messed up.
16. Worst Grandma Ever
My ex-mother-in-law gave my three kids gifts they loved at Christmas when they were small. Two days later, she came to the house, packed EVERYTHING she got them into bags, and took it all back to the stores because she was "broke".
17. Daddy Issues
My parents divorced when I was 14, and I went with my mom out of state. About a year later, as she was dealing with some personal issues, she said she needed a break and asked if I would mind living with dad for a year or two, having had already cleared it with him. It was a chance for me to go back to my old high school, in addition to helping mom.
So despite some misgivings I said sure and went to live with him and his new wife. It turned into the worst mistake I've ever made. Fast forward six months, dad has too many drinks and then drives. He's sentenced to 6-12 months in county lock-up. Two days after sentencing, my stepmom tells me I have to move out.
This despite my mom telling her she'll cover all my expenses until dad gets out. Nope. OK, whatever, I guess I sort of get it. But I went to the correctional facility to ask dad to maybe intervene on my behalf so I don't have to change schools AGAIN, since he would likely be out in 3-6 months. Not only did he refuse, it honestly got ten times worse. He chose that tender moment to tell me he wasn't even my biological father. I confirmed this with my mom in the aftermath. So I really just needed to go. Thanks "Dad". :(
18. The Battle Of Will(s)
When my mother and father were together, they had bought two thirds of house. To help them out, my grandmother on my mother’s side bought the other third. My parents split when I was five and thereafter had an ongoing court battle over the house shares. My grandmother lived with my mom, sister, and I right up until she passed. In her will she declared that my mother would get her share of the house and my father would get nothing.
Because of this, my mother offered my father all the investments they had, which included trucks, seeds that were very expensive to sell, etc. Basically they were worth nearly the equivalent my grandmother's share of the house. My father, being lazy, let all the trucks, seeds, and stuff go to waste after years, therefore making them worthless.
Once he realized that he messed up the investments, he declared a court battle with my mom to get half/all of my late grandmother’s share. My mother was a single parent at the time and did not have enough wages to get herself a lawyer, so she represented herself. Meanwhile, my father was able to afford all the lawyer expenses (he was miner earning big bucks).
Then my mother went to bank to retrieve my grandmother's will. The plot thickened after that. It had mysteriously disappeared. The bank lady exclaimed to my mother in a very obvious tone that "this is very odd". After a long a hurtful court battle with my father, my mother ended up getting her half of the share they had bought together, but more than half of my grandmother's share went to my father.
Months later, my mother had found out that my father’s brother-in-law worked for the same bank where my grandmother's will was kept, and you can figure out the rest. My mother couldn't prove anything. Basically, my father is cruel and greedy. This is when I found out the true side to him.
19. No Gifts, Cash Only
My wife is Indian, and we got married in India. Because of the trouble it would be to bring back gifts from India to Canada, we said in the wedding invitation that although we understand that physical gifts are more personal and genuine, for practical reasons, we would rather have money.
Obviously, we were super tired after the wedding, and we were leaving the very next day for our honeymoon. We decided to leave all the gifts, including the money (we hadn't opened anything yet), at her mom's place. When we came back from the trip to take our stuff, all the envelopes were gone. Her mom had opened and taken all the money.
We confronted her and she eventually gave back some of the money, but she insisted that in many cases, there was a note saying the money was actually for her. We never saw those notes, nor does it make any sense for people to give money to her through gifts to us. She even called my parents to complain about how I hurt her feelings when I accused her of trying to take money from us.
In the end, I didn't push it too much. I don't really need that money all that much, whereas she has some financial difficulties. I even offered to help her financially many times before that happened and she refused. It just made me angry that she'd rather take from us than accept my help.
20. One Ex And A Baby
This is about a friend and his live-in girl. She claimed to be using birth control, but she definitely wasn't. What do you know? She gets pregnant, which happens if you aren't using birth control. She then asks for money to "get it taken care of" and claims to have gone through with it. Well, she didn't, and only told my friend when it was too late.
They now have a child, a daughter. She is/was/or becomes crazy, and moves to Florida with the girl after taking custody. Turns out, she finds the child unmanageable. Crazy ex moves back to the city my friend lives in, basically dumps the kid, who is now 13 years old, in his lap.
He spends four years just about literally fighting her through school. She would throw stuff at him constantly. The girl completes high school, moves out of my friend’s house, and is now back in with her crazy mother.
21. Family Matters
My great grandparents grew up during the Depression, so they learned to save. They had a couple million dollars saved near the time they passed. My grandmother went first, and originally, they had it split up to go to my grandpa and my two uncles. That is, until my uncle Ray decided to be a jerk and trick my ailing grandmother into signing over to him only.
Once he got the money, he wasted it all on partying within a couple years. Occasionally he would buy something for someone else but would blackmail you later. He’s long gone now.
22. With Friends Like This…
This happened with my former friend. Err, "friend" actually. She loved setting up all of our friend group on blind dates. But this was all part of her ridiculous plan. She'd then show up "accidentally" on the date and completely monopolize the guy. If he was ignoring her and concentrating on us, she'd go nuts until he finally got creeped out and left.
If you'd say anything to her about it, she'd reply that we were jealous of her since she's obviously SO much more attractive, intelligent, stylish, etc.
23. Dreams Destroyed
My nephew's biological mother became pregnant with her third child and agreed to give the baby to her boyfriend’s aunt and uncle. The aunt and uncle had been trying to have a baby for years. They paid all hospital bills, bought her groceries, built a nursery in their home, and were so excited the day she went into labor.
Well, my nephew’s mom had them kicked out of the hospital because she said they were bothering her and wanted to take her baby. Uh, they DID want to take him, obviously. She then refused to give them her baby, claiming they were crazy and then named her son Bentley...when Bentley is the aunt and uncle's last name.
In the state of Indiana where they are, there is no law holding a mother to a surrogacy contract, so they were screwed. The mother had child protection services investigating her multiple times after her neighbors called the authorities because they found out she left the six-month-old alone in the trailer for hours.
24. A (Un)Happy Birthday
This happened to a good friend of mine. He had an older brother who got a car for his 21st birthday. So, leading up to my friend's own 21st birthday his parents kept hinting at him getting a car as a present, too. On the day, they blindfold him and lead him out to the garage. Naturally he's very excited.
He can hear jingling of car keys; his parents and brother are there. They remove the blindfold, and horror sets in. They show him a matchbox car sitting in the middle of the garage. They didn't get him a car, they got him a matchbox car. His parents and brother thought it was hilarious. They never got him a car.
25. Grandma’s Grouchy Greetings
My grandmother called me on my birthday one year and said "I wanted to say happy birthday, but I didn't send a card cause I know those darn things just get thrown out anyway. Why waste the $1.99. Also, your dad's birthday is in three days and I'm not making two phone calls so just tell him happy birthday, too".
26. An Undesirable IOU
My mom opened a credit card in my name without my knowledge or consent while I was in college. She took cash out and never paid the bill. By the time I figured it out, the card's balance was $2,500. I do what I can to pay the minimum each month, but I have large student loans to pay and I am only making about $15,000 a year. It makes me so angry when she tells me "your credit card people are calling again, you should do something about it".
27. A Bad Deal
When I was broke and unemployed I decided to sell my car to make rent. My dad is a mechanic, so I asked if he could help me sell it. He agreed, but said he would take some of the money when it sells to pay for some tires he helped me put on it. I thought that was fair. So, after a couple months I asked him if anyone showed interest in it. He informed me that he sold it.
I asked for my portion of the money from it. My heart broke at his reply. He said he wasn't giving me anything. A shouting match occurred. I ended up borrowing rent money from my mom, who was in a pretty bad financial situation herself. Worst part was, my dad makes well over 100k a year, owns six vehicles and three dirt bikes, and lives in a mansion while renting out the other huge house he owns. He's also currently in Hawaii.
My mom was being sued at the time because my sister "borrowed" her car and crashed into another car. My mom was also looking after that same sister’s son. I've since finally found a job, bought another car, and stopped speaking with my father. Oh, and paid my mom back.
28. The Custody Arrangement
This happened to a boss of mine at the place I used to work. It was just me and him literally for 12 hours a day, so we got to know each other quite well. He was about 42 and I was 20-21. He told me that his three kids, who he had with his ex-wife, decided that they wanted to live with him instead of her because they didn't like her boyfriend(s) or what not.
I believe they were seven, 14, and 16 at the time. So, they did, and their mother disowned them. Like, she began refusing to pick them up from school, do ANYTHING for them, pay for anything for them, etc. She also ended having to sell her brand-new Mercedes that she had bought because she was no longer getting that much-needed "child support" from her three kids.
The same woman ended up re-marrying within three months and didn't invite her two eldest children. Didn't even tell them she was planning a wedding.
29. Worst Mother Ever
My mother has done a lot of really repugnant things. The one that sticks out most is when my brother and I hit high school, our parents decided to send us to a Catholic high school. Not really a big deal, and it turned out awesome for me in the end. But my brother was very reluctant to go, understandably, because all of his friends were going to the public school in our district.
So, that's when my mother came up with a truly heinous lie. She told him that all of his friends had told her in secret that they hated him and were glad he was leaving. She had all sorts of terrible things that they supposedly said. Of course, none of these were true, but he was only 14 years old, very sensitive, and it positively wrecked him. In fact, the consequences were brutal.
He went to the new school, had trouble making friends for the first couple of years, got involved with some bad people, etc. Now he still struggles with self-confidence and all this other stuff, nearly 10 years later. She also broke up most of his relationships by telling his girlfriends that he was cheating on them and that she "couldn't bear to keep his secrets any longer!" That's far from all.
She would hit my dad to provoke him to hit her back so she could call the authorities. Of course, my dad never did. She hit me once and I was too young and foolish to know that if I called officers, she'd go away for good. That night, she took all the phones in the house and hid them so that I couldn't tell anyone.
When I first went away to college (as far away from home as possible), I slept in one Saturday. I woke up to officers at my door. They told me to check my phone. During the three hours I'd slept, my mother had called me over 40 times, alternately crying and screaming, telling me if I didn't answer her calls, I'd have to come home and she'd stop paying for school, because clearly I had done something horrible if I was ignoring her for three hours. The next year, I decided to start paying for school myself and stopped talking to her.
30. How Not To Handle A Divorce
My uncle's ex-wife had a sister who was going through a messy divorce. Her husband ended up getting the house and custody of the kids. Her revenge was jaw-dropping. She burned down the house with her kids inside. They all perished in the fire. Last time I checked, I think she was still behind bars.
31. Unbalanced Books
My mom put one of my cousins through college because his parents didn't think he needed college. It was the whole, "I didn't go to college! What do you need it for?" thing. So, my mom put up the money for a four-year degree, and he becomes a stock broker. Fast forward three years later, my dad passes. Slow, lingering cancer.
My dad arranges to get as much money in stocks a possible, so my mom has something to live on. The idea is my cousin will be able to manage her stocks and keep her in cash for a good long time. Four to five years later and my mom is broke. My cousin it seems, had been flipping the entire thing 6-7 times a day and getting commissions on every transaction.
Selling off her good stock to buy some buddy’s stock. Basically, whittling away at the cash while getting his own income. She sues, goes into arbitration with the brokerage firm, and comes out with nothing. This jerk scammed my mom out of $500,000 and walked. I have only seen this guy twice since, both at funerals. As much as I would have liked to toss him in under the coffin, cooler heads prevailed.
32. A Bad Start To A New Beginning
My dad was from Argentina and had emigrated to the US when he was in his early 20s. After getting married, my parents decided they were going to move to Argentina and start a life there as soon as they had enough money saved up. Around the time I was two years old, they had saved up about $30k, which was a decent amount of money in the 80s for a low-income family.
They had also purchased our plane tickets to fly there to start finding a place to live. My father always had a lot of issues with his brother screwing him over, so he decided to send the money ahead of time to his brother-in-law instead, whom everybody in the family loved and trusted. Well, said brother-in-law disappeared the following day with the money, leaving behind his three-year-old daughter and his wife, without saying one word.
We always thought maybe he had been offed due to some weird debt to someone or something. My parents were forced to cancel their plans and continue living in the US. We didn't find out that he had left Argentina and moved to Spain with the money until two decades later. The jerk decided to start a new family with the money he took. I'm still not sure how my father managed to track him down.
33. Santa Must Have Misheard The Request…
I remember one Christmas Day, I was out with my mom shopping for last-minute presents. Then, as we get near the store, my mom just decides to tell me that her and my dad were getting a divorce. I was eight at the time. I sit there trying to hold back tears as she just walked in the store as if nothing had happened.
34. The Extra Long Drive Home
When I was 15, I went on a date with this guy. OK, OK. So maybe the "date" amounted to nothing more than making out in the backseat of his Chevy Tahoe. But anyways. He drove me home afterward. We got within a half mile of my house, as in I could SEE IT in the distance, and then things changed drastically. All of a sudden, he says "Oh, look at the time, I don't want to miss my curfew. Is it OK if I take you back into town? Can you get a ride home?"
I was so dumbfounded that I just nodded, and I don't think we talked for the rest of the ride. When we got back into town, he gave me two quarters for the pay phone and dropped me off. I went into a bar and called my dad to come pick me up.
35. Relatively Entitled
My aunt racked up about 60 grand in credit card debt and can't declare bankruptcy because my uncle would lose his job over that. The jerk move: She called my grandmother "ignorant and uneducated" for not changing her will to cover my aunt's reckless debt. First off, you shouldn't be waiting for someone to kick the bucket to fix your mistakes! And the reason my grandmother doesn't have an education is because she spent her teen years at AUSCHWITZ.
36. A Loss In Louisiana
My best friend comes from a difficult living situation and moved out when he was 18. Horrible stepfather, apathetic mother, absent father, etc. The one plus of the situation was a wealthy uncle who he has always been close with. In high school, they made a deal that if he stuck it out and graduated with decent grades, he would pay for college.
So, he stuck it out: He put up with his stepfather's physical mistreatment, his real father's emotional mistreatment, his mother's idiocy, and practically raised his two half-sisters and graduated sixth in his class. He applied to several schools and checked with his uncle to make sure the deal was still on. It was.
The summer after senior year, he moved out and lived with friends, and that August we moved to Baton Rouge to attend LSU. First week of school, it all falls apart. He is notified that some payment or other has not gone through. He talks to the financial office, and they've never received his tuition.
Then he calls his uncle to see what's up. Well, turns out the uncle didn't believe this kid could stick it out and thought he could just lie and fake his way through it longer than my friend could put up with his family life. Even after graduation, the uncle thought that my buddy wouldn't be able to find a way to LSU, as his parents wouldn't pay for travel costs.
He never did pay tuition, and my friend deferred enrolment is still working, saving, and hopes to go next year.
37. Long, Very Lost, Relative
About 18 years ago, my cousin's now husband was in a relationship with a woman. Things were not going so well. She was a bit unstable and he decided to call it off. A few weeks later, he got a call from his ex to say she was three months pregnant with his baby and that she was going away so he could never see the baby.
He looked for her for some years after but never found her. Fast forward to a year or two ago, he is now happily married with 15- and 12-year-old daughters. He then gets a friend request on Facebook from a girl claiming to be his long-lost daughter. Naturally he is thrilled and they spend over a year chatting, sending letters, photos, and slowly getting to know each other.
His 15-year-old was particularly thrilled to have an older sister to share her problems with. Then came the day they were to finally meet up. It all began to go wrong then. Despite waiting the whole day she didn't show. They got a Facebook message later that evening apologizing and saying that she couldn't face meeting them just yet, it was too much for her so soon, so they were devastated but told her they understood.
Fast forward a few more months and they received a call out of the blue from the ex's new husband. He said he didn't know how to break it to them but the daughter they had been in touch with for over a year didn't exist. He had found Facebook messages and emails that his wife had been sending them under the guise of the daughter she had said she was pregnant with all those years ago.
Well, she never was pregnant then. All the pictures she had sent my cousin's husband were of her eldest daughter by her new husband.
38. Houseguest Nightmare
Many years ago, I allowed my brother-in-law to stay with us temporarily as he lost his job and his apartment and had nowhere else to go. He acts nice in the beginning. We go out of town for a few weeks, and he is eager to watch the house for us. We come back to a nightmare. He has changed all the locks. We knock and knock, and he refuses to answer.
Suddenly officers pull up and he had successfully evicted us from our own property. We had to rent another place for six weeks until we could go through court proceedings and get back in. When we did get back in, he had trashed the house. Poured milk and eggs on the carpets, put raw chicken inside the walls, taken all the plugs and fixtures, ceiling fans, etc.
We called the authorities again and were told it was a domestic issue and to take him to small claims court.
39. A Date Disaster
I was packing up for a weekend trip with my friends to the beach when this guy texts me, asking if I could see him today. I told him that I was leaving town and could see him when I got back. But he was relentlessly asking to see me today. So, I agreed, and he picked a breakfast spot for us to meet at.
The entire time I'm driving (it took 30 minutes) to meet this guy, he is just blowing up my phone. Like four or five messages before I can even get in one. Not only that. He's calling me when I don't respond fast enough. I'm driving! So, I get to the restaurant and I tell him I'm there...and he tells me he's 10 minutes away.
I'm like, okay cool, and I sit in my car waiting on him. The entire time I'm waiting, he's being super vulgar and asking me about doing stuff with him in his car before breakfast. I flat out tell him I'm not comfortable with that. After waiting on him for 10 minutes after that, I tell him that I can't wait any longer for him.
He sends me this, word-for-word, "Oh, trust me you just got scammed your so stupid". In all honesty, if you can't even use the proper spelling of "you're" in a sentence, I don't think it would have worked out anyway.
40. It's Just Your Imagination
I just found out my mom "killed" me and my sister off. She took out my sister first, then she told her work that I caught something from my sister and also passed. She took donations for our funerals. I only found out because a few co-workers of hers reached out to me. I was confused at first.
My mom lost her job shortly after her co-workers talked to me. She hasn't told me she lost her job yet. She also got an eviction. She stopped paying ALL of her bills about a year ago. Of course, it all goes back to one thing. I found out she's been using. I can't believe I didn't see it before. Her life is falling apart.
41. Karma Needs To Meet This Dad
I didn't witness it, but my ex's alcoholic dad out of the blue one day, when my ex and her mom were out of town, locked the younger daughter in the closet. He told her he didn't love any of them anymore, left to go get a moving truck, and packed everything in the house up and left. My ex and her mom returned home hours later to find an empty house and the other daughter still locked in the closet, sobbing.
The dad moved down to Florida to work under the table for his rich parents. Because he had no reported income but could afford a good lawyer, he wasn't required to make child support payments. He also had all the bills and the two mortgages on the house all put in the mother's name only, leaving her in bankruptcy as a single mother with no job experience.
Luckily, they made it through with the support of family and friends, but apparently it was very chaotic for several years.
42. The Good Deed, The Punishment
I met an unemployed guy who was poor and barely able to feed his family or pay the bills. So, I hire him to regularly do our lawn and pay him a higher-than-average fee to have the lawn mowed. We go out of town the week he usually mows, and I tell him to just mow it like usual and pre-paid him. I get back and the lawn hasn't been mowed. I just figured something came up, not a big deal.
I try to call him, and he doesn't answer. I called a few more times over the next couple days and got concerned for him, thinking something may have happened. I'm hoping there is something I can do to help him. The truth eventually came out. One day I go out to my shed, open it up, and everything is gone. I suspect him but know that there was no evidence he did it besides his suspicious behavior of avoiding me.
I call the authorities, file a report, and they pretty much say that I won't ever see any of the stuff again and that is that. Or so I thought. I am walking around Wal-Mart a few months later and I see him. His eyes widen, and he literally turns and quickly walks the other way. It was at that moment I knew for sure.
43. Mom’s Un-PC Move
I was very poor as a teenager. Poor as in counting pennies for the bus, living on $30 in groceries a week, and having to rely on the food bank. I was going to school full-time, working full-time, and trying to save money for a computer. Even though I only earned $3.65/hour, I still helped with the bills nearly every month and rode the city bus two hours a day for my school commutes. We barely eked out a living.
Back then a new PC cost $2,000 minimum. I was trying to save for a used computer, so I needed about $800-$1,000. I wanted it because I was changing my major to computer science and really needed that PC to get more experience. After a few months I had gotten up to $320 saved. I kept it in a box and counted it up sometimes after looking at the computer catalogs (no internet back then).
Well, my mother had seen the money, so several weeks later she got angry at me because I was cooking too much (I had to eat, I was a teenager) so she took the money and rented a motel room for five days. She said she had to "get away to think". I was absolutely crushed. I didn't get that PC until about six years later.
44. An Unfortunate Engagement
I was engaged to a woman who I really loved and would do anything for. I took a job I didn't like to support her while she got an advanced degree, paid the entirety of our "too-nice-for-my-salary" apartment in a place neither of us had lived before and took care of her pet while she was away on a several-months-long trip for school.
She gets back from this trip, and after two days of her being awkward, I come to find out that she hooked up with one guy on the trip, and then carried on a month-long relationship with another. All while wearing the engagement ring that belonged to my late mother and taking my calls while he was in bed with her.
The night that it all fell apart, we slept together once more, the first time since she was back. I got a VD. Two days later, pretty crushed and broken, I had to go be in my cousin's wedding party and walk a girl with her same name down the aisle. I also hid the fact that we had broken up from everyone so as not to take any of the attention off my cousin. This meant having to cheerfully answer lots of questions about my own upcoming wedding.
45. Where Credit Is Due
My boyfriend's sister used to be a loan officer at a credit union. She secretly took a loan of $5,000 under her parent’s name and never paid back. A couple of months ago, we found out that she also took a $30,000 loan under my boyfriend's name. I guess she figured that she wasn't making enough money to pay the loan and stopped making payments.
She quit her job and the credit union couldn’t contact her. They looked up my boyfriend’s location and sent him a letter regarding a $25,000 loan that he hasn't been making payments for. He realized that it was from his sister's former workplace and decided to contact her. She ignored him. He contacted the bank to see if he was primary or a co-signer. They told him he was the primary loaner.
His parents threaten her to contact them, or they were going to report to the authorities. She now is in the process of selling her house and paying the debt collections. My boyfriend decided not to report her, and his parents are paying half of the 25,000 to save her sorry butt.
46. The Unfair Eviction
A few years ago, as I was graduating high school, my dad got incredibly sick and ended up in a coma. While he was in the hospital, I still lived at home I was waiting to turn 18 to move out, but living with me was his new girlfriend he had moved in two weeks after my mom left. So, I am pretty upset because I thought my dad would be a goner at this point.
In the midst of that, his girlfriend is constantly calling me a liar and telling me she will throw my stuff on the lawn because she doesn't want me there. Now during this time, I was working full-time at car dealership and wasn't dating anyone. But I later found out that once my dad finally recovered, his girlfriend, now wife, told him I was bringing different men home every night and sleeping with them in his house, and that I didn't care enough to respect his house while he was gone.
I NEVER did that. I was almost never home because of work. So then because of what she told him, while he was in the hospital recovering, he took my house key from me, and told me I wasn't welcome there anymore.
47. Worst Gift Ever
I was the first person in our family to go to college and they were so proud of me. My mother gave me a credit card with my name on it and told me "as long as you are in college, we will pay this credit card every month, just be reasonable with it". Awesome! I was mostly reasonable with it, but I did buy some stupid stuff I "needed" at the time.
At the end of my stay at college, my mother came back and said "Now that you're done with college you need to start paying bills". What she handed me made my stomach drop. She gave me a credit card bill for over 20 grand. I gave her a perplexed look and said "What is this?" to which she cheerfully responded "Oh, you thought I was going to pay the whole bill? I only made minimum payments".
I was naturally angry, but thought about it for a second and said, "I thought this card was in your name and I was just a permitted user, like the emergency card you gave me in high school". Turns out, she forged my signature and applied for a credit card in my name so I could "build credit". The funny thing is, she wonders why I don't get along that well with her.
She actually thought she did me a great service, and still frequently does things like this. I truly believe that she has good intentions, but her implementations always end up as jerk moves.
48. Scammy Daddy
My father asked my mother for a divorce on my birthday. He took everything they had in their home and started dating a 20-year-old. I took out a $6,000 loan to refurnish a house I started renting with my mother. It was one I could not afford on my own. My mother passed two months after moving in.
In her final email, she told my father to give me her life insurance so I can pay the loan back and hopefully pay most of the rest of the lease. He took off with it. Bought a truck and a stereo. Left me broke, in debt, in a lease I couldn't afford, and with a little brother to take care of and get the rest of the way through high school.
My parents also owed the school $2,000 that the school demanded from me or else they would not let my brother graduate.
49. Judgy Judy
I went to a small Southern Baptist church as a kid. A friend of mine whose family didn't have a lot of money stayed over on a Saturday night and went to church with my family the next morning. She was concerned about her clothes because she didn't own a dress, but she had some nice khaki pants and a nice shirt, and we told her that would be absolutely fine.
The preacher's wife approached us after Sunday school, before the service, and pulled my friend to the side of the sanctuary. My friend was trying to pull her arm away because the woman was hurting her. I followed and heard the preacher's wife say to her, "Listen, you're welcome in God's house, but I don't want to see you back here until you can find something decent to wear".
My mother had followed me and heard her, so we packed up and left right then and did not go back. We'd been going to that church for about 10 years.
50. The Mythical Wedding Gift
My best friend got married, and the bride’s side of the family said they would pay for the wedding if it was within reason. So, they kept everything within reason. Instead of paying for the wedding, the bride’s family spent the money on a vacation and didn’t tell them. They had to postpone their wedding because nothing was paid for.
In the end, my friend and his wife paid for the wedding themselves. When the big day finally came around, the bride’s family gave $150 and an IOU in a card saying we owe you a better gift. The family has a boat, a jaguar, and took another vacation that year.
Sources: Reddit, ,
