rSlash - r/Bestof Boyfriend Faked His Death to Prank Me

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:08 Fake death 5:56 Camping trip 9:42 Leave first Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R.S. Best of Redditor updates, where O.P.'s boyfriend bakes his own death. Our next Reddit post is from R. Slash Relationship Advice. I'm a 21-year-old woman, and my boyfriend is 24. We've been together for three years. We live apart, but we've had plans to rent together soon. Everything was perfect before this. For backstory, I have a history of self-harm. I've done it since I was 11 years old. The last time I did it was two years ago. I have some brutal scars, but I'm doing much better and I'm in therapy. It's been a while since I've had the urge. My boyfriend had an ex before me who played mind games a lot. I feel it's relevant, as he sometimes thinks I'm playing mind games when I'm not. For example, he was wary when we started dating that I would self-harm for attention or do it to

punish him. His ex would threaten things like that if he ever left her. I've never done this, and despite my struggles, I'm pretty good with being patient and communicative. Until this, I considered us to have a really healthy relationship. So my boyfriend went out drinking with his friends. I usually hear from him when he gets home at around 2 a.m. to let me know that he's home and safe, but I didn't hear anything last night. I figured he just forgot. No biggie. I went to bed as normal. I woke up at 11 a.m. to a bunch of missed calls from his mother. They lived together. I called her back, and she texted at 1 p.m. that she couldn't talk. I was kind of worried and told her as much. She said that my boyfriend didn't get home last night and was in a crash and didn't make it.

This was super weird to me since I get on well with his mom and would never expect to be told this via text. After some more texting, I fully believed my boyfriend had passed away that morning and I totally shut down. The people I live with were all out that day, so I was alone. Grief set in immediately and I had an extremely bad relapse on my self-harm. At that point, I didn't even care. I was just hurting so, so much, and my usual coping techniques just weren't doing their job. I listened to old voice notes of his, and even sent one telling him how much I loved him through the most unhinged sobbing I've ever done.

Well, my boyfriend arrived at my house 20 minutes later, saying it was a prank since he got into a small bump, and he thought that I would get mad about him driving drunk, as well as about him mushing up his car a little. And him and his friends came up with this plan to just make me happy that he was all right. So they took his mom's phone and the above happened. I obviously was thankful that he wasn't dead. But I had a million other much stronger emotions. I was so angry he drove drunk.

So angry he saw nothing wrong with it. So angry that he would lie about something so serious. And absolutely heartbroken that he let me sit in grief for over an hour. until I sent a voice note that made him feel bad. Plus, lots of other things, I'm still struggling to articulate. He found out that I self-harmed and flew off the handle. He said I punished him and turned a harmless prank into something more serious and ruined the joke of it. He said that I was guilting him for having fun, and now he can't trust that I won't do it again.

He even suggested I stay in a hospital for my mental issues for a few weeks and crank up therapy. He said he can't leave me if he wants to now, or else I'll act like this just like his ex. I'm beyond hurt. I probably should look into therapy if I'm still resorting to it, I admit. But this was not an everyday bout of anxiety or even a breakup. I thought he had died. I'm also very aware that his actions were massively terrible, and he is being so manipulative in the aftermath. How am I punishing him if I thought that he was dead?

I absolutely would not react like this if he just broke up with me, and I've never said or hinted at that. I'm not really sure what to do now. My gut tells me to leave him over this, but I'm so unsure. Before hitting the update, I just got to say, I think the boyfriend needs to be hospitalized for thinking that a faking your own death prank is totally harmless fun. 13 days later, OP posted an update. Long story short, I broke up with him for the following reasons. drunk driving, taking his mother's phone and making me think that it was her, which was deception,

telling me he was dead, letting me think that four hours, not being sorry for any of these things, telling me I'm too insensitive and being mad at me for relapsing. I still won't blame him for the relapse, though, as many people here wanted me too. That's on me, and I'm still going to therapy regularly for that. So, for those interested, I took a few days to myself. I did speak over the phone to his mom, and she was incredibly apologetic on his behalf. I taught her how to put a passcode on her phone. After that, we met up, and I outlined the things I listed above.

He seemed apologetic and sincere about all of them, and listened to me well. Unfortunately, he didn't quite understand that being apologetic wouldn't get me to change my mind on ending the relationship, so his true colors came out at the end. He got annoyed at me for ending it, and again told him. me I was dramatic in other invalidating arguments. Oh well, I said what I needed to say, and that's enough closure for me. Yo, this dude, how is he calling, I would like to break up with you, dramatic? When he's like, oh my God, I got into a fender bender, time to fake my own death. A little detail at the beginning of the story, O.P. said that her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend

was crazy and manipulative and played mind games. I'm starting to wonder if maybe the boyfriend was the problem in that previous relationship, because for some people, every accusation is actually a confession. Our next Reddit post is from R-slash relationship advice. My fiancé and I have wedding planned for about a month from today. This past weekend, she went on what was supposed to be a girl's only camping trip to a lake. She was completely out of touch from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. I was okay with this because she said she really needed the break. When she got home, she didn't even say hello and just started laundry, which I thought was a little suss. But she said that it was because all of her stuff was dirty, which I guess made sense. As Sunday night went on, she kind of kept

slipping that there had been guys there. At first, it was just her friend's boyfriend, but it turns out, the guys actually outnumbered the girls. I accused her of trickle-truthing me, and she said that I was being a dick. As we were fighting, a text came on her phone, and I swear it said, At least you got the Bachelorette party out of the way. It was from JJ, and I can't for the life of me think who that is, nor do I have any context about the conversation as a whole. She said the text didn't say anything like that and accused me of spying on her. I said it's not spying if her phone was on the couch between us

and the message was on her lock screen. She got furious and left, and I haven't heard from her in two days. She turned off, Find my friend, so I have no idea where she is. What the hell do I do here? I mean, I know what my instincts tell me, but instincts aren't always right. Then two days later, OP posted an update. I was planning on going to the catering meeting for the wedding yesterday afternoon. I went to the meeting, and she and her parents were no-shows. The caterer said that they didn't cancel, so she was expecting them. I waited for about 30 minutes and went home. I got home to see her, her parents, and about five of her dad's employees picking up stuff

from my house. She hurriedly got in her car and drove away. Her mom was super rude to me, but her dad said that he was really sorry. He thought that he had raised her better than this, but this was for the best. I asked him where she was going, and he said he didn't know, but I think he was lying. I did stay in the house to make sure they only took her stuff. For those of you asking, she never wanted a ring, so there wasn't one to get back from her. Our lease was up at the end of this month and the landlord said that he would fully refund the deposits, or I could stay if I want. Not sure what to do there. Later that evening, a friend of her is called to check on me, and it's really the first info I have on why this was all happening. This friend had been camping

with my wife, and I guess my fiance really hit it off with some guy, and they spent the whole weekend at another campsite by themselves. My fiance wasn't telling her friends anything either, but I guess I've been left for the camping guy. I have no idea. She hasn't responded to any texts or calls, and I don't even know how to find her if I wanted to. I know most people are going to say that this is for the best, and I know in my head they're right, but this hurts so much.

I've been with her for three years now, and I thought that we had a great relationship. We fought, but in a healthy way. Never in a million years did I think this could happen. I guess what makes it so hard is, I don't even really know what happened. Even her closest friends seemed to be speculating. If it was this guy, then that sucks.

If it was a long-running problem she never told me about, that sucks too. I'm just really sad and in a state of shock. That's it on this. I'll be okay eventually, I'm sure. You are probably overthinking this O.P. It was likely just a simple matter of, she found him attractive, he found her attractive, and she decided to cheat.

Simple as that. You're better off without her O.P. Our next Reddit post is from our slash relationship advice. I met my wife, Anna, during our first year of university. We dated through university and got married right after her graduation. Things were happy for a while, until Anna discovered a lump in her right breast. I encouraged her to have it checked out. She was reluctant to do so, but ultimately did because breast cancer runs in her family.

And sure enough, that's what she had. The good news, if it can be considered good news, was that the breast cancer she had was extremely treatable with chemo and radiation. Based on her family history, her doctor also recommended a double mastectomy for her. This put Anna in a really dark place. I suggested she go to therapy, but she outright refused and said she never wanted to hear me suggest that again. So, I did my best to be encouraging and supportive to her. I took time off work to be at every appointment with her. I took on 100% of the household chores both inside and out. I did all the shopping, I drove Anna everywhere she wanted to go, I planned out special dates for us. I gave her an hour-long

foot massage every night. I literally did whatever I could. About six weeks into her treatment, Anna brought up the idea of going to stay with her sister Sarah for a week. This honestly relieved me as I was burning the candle at both ends, trying to accomplish everything, and I thought that some time apart would help us both. Two nights into her stay with Sarah, Anna called me and said she wanted a divorce. She said that she had read a lot about men who abandoned their wives when their wives get sick, and she was determined to leave me before I could leave her. I can't put into words how much this crushed me.

I loved my wife. She was my everything. I begged her to reconsider. I told her I'd never thought of leaving her, not even once. I asked her again to go to therapy. She refused again. I asked her to go to couples therapy with me. She wouldn't. I asked her what I could do to convince her I wanted to stay. She said there was nothing. I'm a man and therefore I would leave. End of story. It took about a year because of where we live, but eventually everything was finalized. I ended up selling the house and splitting the proceeds between me and my now ex-wife. I didn't want to stay in that town anymore, so I put in a transfer request at my job and ended up moving to a town about two hours away. For the past couple of years, I've been focused

on myself more. I got a dog, I've been on a few dates, but nothing serious. I picked up hiking as a hobby and started gardening. Out of the blue, Anna called me three weeks ago. She said that she had been in town on a trip with friends and saw me, and all of her old feelings rushed back. She said she was sick and out of her mind at the time, and that I couldn't hold her words and actions against her. She said she still loved me, that she always had, and that she regretted leaving me. She begged me to her another chance. I'm so confused. If I'm being honest, I still love Anna, but I'm no longer in love with her. She broke my heart. I was devastated when she ended things. It took me a long time to get my head on right. But I also know she really was in a bad place because of the cancer.

Do I owe it to her and what we had to hear her out? I'm scared that if we reconnect, I'll always feel like she'll have one foot out the door. But maybe that's unfair. I don't know what to do. Should I give her another chance like she wants? Then, three days later, OP posted an update. Many of you suggested I reach out to my ex-wife, Anna, for an in-person conversation. The overwhelming consensus was that meeting her in person would tell me all I needed to know, and you were right. That seemed reasonable to me.

I texted her, and she jumped at the chance to meet, and we did so yesterday after I was done with work. I chose to ask her to meet at a local coffee shop. Anyways, Anna was already there when I got there. She got up and hugged me. I led her, but didn't hug her back. Then we sat down. I asked her to remain quiet while I talked and then I told her everything. I think I talked for like 10 minutes solid while she just sat there and teared up. I told her things like how much she devastated me. I told her that I would have stuck with her through thick and thin no matter what. I told her that I loved her and that hadn't changed after her diagnosis or treatment plan. I told her that I was broken. after she initiated the divorce. I told her how hard it was for me to pull myself back together. A lot of you pointed out that if Anna and I got back together, I should be worried about what she would do the next time she got sick, or if I got sick. And you were right, so I told her that too. And she got mad and interrupted me at that point. She said I was being unfair, that I wasn't taking into consideration her mental health at the time. She said that she wasn't thinking straight,

but that now she was. I took the chance to ask her if she'd been to therapy. She told me that she hadn't and that she had no plans to and that she didn't need it. I have to admit, that crushed me a little. I asked her why, just why? It's the one question I've really wrestled with over the months, and she said that she'd gone looking for support groups and found a lot of women who had stories about their partners leaving. She even mentioned Reddit, funnily enough. She said she talked it through with her sister, Sarah. Anna said that Sarah, to her credit, had tried to dissuade her from divorcing me, but that between social media and some of Anna's friends, Anna felt like she had to go through with it to be seen as a strong woman.

She broke my heart and threw away our relationship because somehow, in her mind, that translated to being strong. She then started trying to tell me that we could get back together again, but at that point I just told her flat out that wasn't happening. What it comes down to for me is that I just can't trust her. I would always be worrying about the same thing happening again. She cried a lot and tried convincing me for a little while. When I got up to leave, she threw her iced coffee in my face and stormed out. Yo, what? So yeah, we're definitely not getting back together. I have the closure I always wanted. I wish it felt better. I've been dwelling on it for the past day and a half.

I keep wondering if there's something I could have done better, some way I could have saved our relationship. But I know there's not. I've blocked her number, and I kind of hope I never hear from her again. Well, it's super clear that Anna is unbelievably self-centered. Every problem is about how it affects her and how it affects her public image. And when she dumped O.P., it was a moment of empowerment. But when O.P. dumped her, she deserves to throw coffee in his face. The hypocrisy, man.

That was our slash best of Redditor updates. And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.