Discovering that someone we deeply care about has a truly gross habit can be quite upsetting, especially when that person happens to be our significant other.
Today, we’ve compiled a collection of surprisingly unpleasant revelations that people have shared about their romantic partners with the online community.
1.
My ex would insist that brushing your teeth 2x/day was actually really bad for your teeth and refused to be told otherwise. He believed in a lot of silly stuff like that, and was also one of those people who would constantly say that doctors are dumb and don’t know anything. At first, I brushed it off as one of his weird opinions, but over time, I noticed his breath getting worse and worse. He would laugh whenever I suggested mouthwash or dental checkups, claiming it was all a “scam.” One night, while we were watching a movie, he smiled and I noticed several of his teeth had dark stains near the gums. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t just stubbornness — it was pure neglect disguised as confidence.
2.
When I was 17, I once went to stay the weekend with my ex-boyfriend. It was my first weekend at his house. He always looked and smelled nice. In the evening, he took me to his bedroom, so I could stay in his bed. The sheets were brown. They hadn’t been changed or washed for at least 10 years. I had nowhere to go, so I got in. The smell was horrendous. He lived with his mom and dad. During the night, I barely slept because the odor seemed trapped in the room, thick and sour. Every time I moved, dust floated up from the blankets. In the morning, I noticed stains on the pillows that looked older than our entire relationship. After that, I left him. I sent him a message saying that he needed to wash his bed covers. He replied with, “They’re not dirty, they’re just old.” That message alone made my skin crawl.
3.
My most recent ex (a very attractive 35-year-old) never brushed his teeth before bed. Literally not a single time in the 3 months we were together. He stayed at my house for a weekend and forgot his toothbrush and didn’t tell me for two days. I mentioned I had bought him an extra toothbrush, and he goes, “That’s good, I was about to use yours.” I thought he was joking at first, but he looked completely serious. Then I realized he’d probably gone two entire days without brushing at all. Later that night, he casually admitted he sometimes skipped brushing for “a week or so” because he “didn’t see the point.” Suddenly, every close conversation we’d ever had replayed in my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.
4.
I walked in on my then boyfriend sitting on the bed with his foot up to his mouth, biting off his long toenails. We were living together and had been dating for three years at this point. I didn’t want to mock him or anything, but how does someone decide that’s the right way to handle long toenails?! What made it worse was the sound — tiny crunches followed by him casually spitting pieces into a tissue beside him like it was completely normal. He looked up at me, unfazed, and asked, “What?” as if I was the strange one for reacting. I suddenly realized this probably wasn’t the first time he’d done it, just the first time I’d caught him.
5.
Once, I felt something weird under the desk of my ex. I looked and the whole underside had tape on it. When I asked why it was so gross, he let me guess… Yup! It was build up snot! Apparently, instead of using tissues, he’d wipe it under the desk and cover layers of it with tape “to keep it from falling.” I genuinely wished I had never asked. The more he explained it, the worse it became. He even laughed while telling me it had been building up “for years.” I remember staring at the desk afterward, horrified by the thought of how many times I had rested my arms there without knowing what was inches beneath me.
6.
My boyfriend had always been a bit peculiar, but one habit baffled me. Every morning, I found his pillowcase strangely damp, and at night, I often heard odd slurping noises. I avoided confronting him, not wanting to embarrass him. One night, the noise was louder than ever. I turned on the bedside lamp, and what I saw made my stomach turn. He was lying there, holding a small container of yogurt, scooping it out with his fingers and licking them clean before wiping his hands on the pillowcase. He admitted he had a compulsion to eat yogurt at night but didn’t want to wake me by getting up. Then he casually confessed that the pillowcase had probably “never really been washed properly” because he liked the smell. I couldn’t look at that bed the same way again.
7.
I dated this guy who had a really crusty, gross belly button. He was otherwise clean. He’d come and visit me with his dog. The dog was very old and stinky. There was always a yeasty stink left over when the guy and the dog left. I thought it was the dog until one day he came without the dog, and I realized the stink was coming from him. From the belly button. One evening, while we were sitting on the couch, he lifted his shirt slightly to scratch his stomach and the smell hit me instantly. It was so strong I had to pretend to cough to cover my reaction. Later, I gently suggested maybe he should clean it more carefully, and he shrugged and said, “It’s just how belly buttons smell.” That sentence ended any attraction I still had left.
8.
My roommate invited her new bf over for dinner. He seemed really nice, but we noticed a putrid odor coming from him. Trying to be polite, we ignored it, but it grew unbearable… After he left, I went to the guest toilet and was horrified to find, hidden in the trash, a plastic bag filled with what looked like raw, rotten meat, swimming in a pool of putrid liquid. The smell was overwhelming. Shocked, I confronted my roommate about it. Her face turned white, and she reluctantly admitted that they had gone to a butcher shop earlier that day, and he had insisted on bringing some “special cuts” as a gift. She had no idea how the bag ended up in the toilet’s trash or why he would leave it there, but it left us both feeling queasy and bewildered. The next morning, the smell still lingered in the apartment no matter how much we cleaned. Even stranger, he texted her asking if she had “saved the meat,” as though nothing about the situation was unusual.
9.
I dated a guy for 7 weeks. The first couple of times I stayed the night, he was putting in effort for me, I guess, and had cleaned up ahead of time. However, by the third time, he’d stopped caring and resumed his habit of picking his nose in the night and wiping it on the wall next to the bed. He never cleaned them off, so they just accumulated on the wall. At first, I thought the marks were chipped paint or stains in the wallpaper. Then one evening, while we were watching TV in bed, I caught him doing it absentmindedly without even pausing the conversation. He saw my expression and casually said, “Oh, I’ll clean it eventually.” The wall beside his bed looked like some disgusting secret timeline of how long he’d lived there.
10.
I once dated a girl, and every time she visited, I noticed small, greasy smudges on the armrests of my couch. At first, I thought it was just an accident, maybe from lotion or something spilled. But one day, after cleaning the couch thoroughly, the smudges reappeared. Curious, I watched her closely one day and finally caught her in the act. She was absentmindedly picking at her scalp, collecting the bits of dandruff and oil on her fingers, and then wiping them on the couch. What unsettled me most was how automatic it seemed, like she’d done it a thousand times before without noticing. When I gently pointed it out, she looked embarrassed for a split second before saying, “I do that at home too.” Suddenly, I understood why her apartment had always smelled faintly musty no matter how clean it looked.
