Ben Ripley: At least Elizabeth will still be around?
Mike Brezinski: I broke up with her.
Ben: What? Why?
Mike: I just wasn't that into her.
Mike Brezinski: I broke up with her.
Ben: What? Why?
Mike: I just wasn't that into her.
— Spy School: Spy Ski School
Last time we saw Alice and Bob, they were dating. Things seemed to be going fine, and they're happily in love. Now we see Bob flirting with Carol. Someone brings up the fact that he was dating Alice, and Bob will respond with "We broke up", or "Things didn't work out".
This can be more than a little jarring; especially in works where the romance was a key element of the previous installment, but remember that Tropes Are Tools. At its worst, this trope can come across as blatantly freeing up Bob to be in a new relationship (or to be single) without having to do much to explain why, or set up a beat-for-beat repeat of the romantic subplot with Alice if she's in the sequel too. However, at its best, it can serve as a interesting bit of characterization or development for the character (and even those around them), especially if they need to actually reckon with the reasons why the relationship failed.
Often done to prevent Shipping Bed Death, or because the writers simply don't want to deal with writing out the mundaneness of an actual relationship. Compare to Downtime Downgrade. Subtrope of Status Quo Is God. A direct inversion to Offscreen Romance. See also Proxy Breakup.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Blue Seed: Koume Sawaguchi and Yoshiki Yaegashi break up between the end of the series and the 2-year OAV Time Skip. When prompted by Momiji as to why, Koume explains that she panicked when she and Yaegashi began talking about getting married and having kids and broke things off. Momiji tells Koume that she shouldn't worry if they love each other and at the end of the second episode of the OAV Koume agrees to marry Yaegashi.
- The second season of Da Capo subverts this: The protagonist of the first season is constantly minded by his haremettes and there are hints that his first season love interest either broke up with him or died... Only it turns out she just moved away for a bit and comes back at around the halfway point of the series.
- Bulma and Yamcha broke up between the Freeza and Cell Sagas in Dragon Ball, clearing the road for Bulma's relationship with Vegeta.
- Gundam:
- In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww seem to be headed vaguely in the direction of becoming a couple, and apparently do so following the end of the series - only to have broken up before the beginning of sequel series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny.
- Ditto for Amuro and Sayla in the end of the original seriesnote and the beginning of Zeta. And then again for Amuro and Beltorchika in between Zeta and Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack.
- Gundam Wing sequel novel Frozen Teardrop reveals that Duo and Hilde got married and divorced in the 30-year Time Skip between Endless Waltz and the novel.
- Osaragi from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War casually reveals in chapter 158 that she broke up with Kazeno over winter break after less than a week of dating. The whole thing is Played for Laughs since they originally hooked up offscreen as well.
- In the final episode of Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, Hazumu and Yasuna begin dating. Come the OVA and suddenly they're broken up for some vague reason involving Yasuna wanting to not lean on Hazumu anymore. The real, meta reason is because the OVA pairs up Hazumu and Tomari.
- Touko from Random Walk starts dating Tsukasa offscreen. Not long afterwards, she announces to her friends that they've broken up, and this also happens offscreen. They get back together, break up, and get back together again. All of them offscreen.
- This occurs in the television version of Wandering Son. Anna and Nitori break up between episodes because the televised version was shortened. In the home release, the break-up happens on-screen in a flashback. In the manga the two end up back together a while later.
Comic Books
- O5 Angel and X-23 dated for awhile, but eventually it turned into Schrödinger's Relationship. After the end of All-New X-Men Vol. 2 and the conclusion of the "Enemy of the State II" arc of All-New Wolverine they haven't appeared in a book together, yet no mention of their relationship status has been made in either X-Men: Blue or subsequent issues of Wolverine. Although Warren has hit on a number of women (including a cop and Firestar) in Blue, suggesting they may be over. Tamaki's X-23 series further supports a breakup in the first arc when Laura remarks she and Warren haven't seen one another recently. Ultimately it's rendered moot when Warren returns to his own time, and he and Laura don't even say goodbye.
Fan Works
- In the fourth "book" of The Anguis Series, Beyond This Place, it is revealed that Cal and Nat has broken up due to their differing priorities and lifestyle, despite the previous book highlighting their love and dedication towards one another, to the point that they are willing to sacrifice everything else to protect the other.
- Boxes: Goku and Chi-Chi, as well as Bulma and Vegeta, have gotten divorced just prior to the beginning of the story. The cause of both divorces was Goku and Vegeta cheating on their respective wives with each other.
- Cub: Bill and Fleur had broken up prior to the beginning of the story. It's stated that the reason was that Bill refused to stand up to his mother's criticism of Fleur. However, the two do end up getting back together and later get married.
- Dreams Scented of Coconut and Apple has Tyler break up with Lindsay after deciding he can't deal with the stress of a relationship that's purely online.
- Earth-1194: Dick and Starfire broke off their relationship at some point before the beginning of Sons of Batman.
- Sokka and Suki in How I Became Yours. Early on, Sokka compares the way Katara feels about Zuko to the way he used to feel about Suki. At the party in Chapter 2, Ty Lee mentions in passing that it's a shame they broke up, and Katara mentions that "long distance relationships never work out."
- In fact, most post-series ATLA shipping fanfics that have Sokka starting a relationship with another character have Sokka and Suki break up prior to the start of the story. Always because of the long-distance issue as well, with some adding Suki cheating on him on top of that in fics where their relationship is no longer amicable.
- Karmic Epilogue:
- During an interview, Clara reveals that Ondine broke up with Kim at some point during the Time Skip, disgusted by his self-centered behavior as a clout-chasing "nuisance streamer" that specializes in excessively cruel pranks.
- Along similar lines, Gisèle broke up with Caline Bustier at some point before the latter's focus chapter. Gisèle also took full custody of their daughter, not wanting Caline's toxic positivity and insistance on Blaming the Victim to destroy her psyche.
- Pacifica's Revenge: Dipper went through three of these before Back to Gravity Falls. First, Pacifica broke up to him thanks to the Love God using an Absent Love potion on them. He got together with Wendy, only for her to leave him in exchange for a place in Stan's will. Then he married Tracy and had a child with her, only for her to divorce him and leave him with custody of their son Tyrone.
- It's also revealed that the love potion that helped Tambry and Robbie hook up eventually wore off, and the two broke it off.
- In Total Drama Everything 2, it's eventually revealed that Julie Yamamoto went through one of these with their love interest back home before their arrival at the show.
- Twilight of the Heart: Vegeta and Bulma break up sometime before the beginning of the story, as a result of Vegeta being stuck in his Majin form. It's stated that Bulma had tried to fix him, but eventually gave up and couldn't stand the way he was now.
- Unbreakable Diamond, Protean Rain: Played With in And Then There Was Duwang (A Halloween Story) — Josuke and Onodera seem to be attempting a "trial separation", which Fubuki is taking strangely seriously. Eventually it turns out that that was all part of Fubuki's nightmare. Apparently.
- An Unexpected Child: During a conversation over the phone, Anais's mother Kelly abruptly reveals that she's seperated from Dudley. She never explains why.
- Update: My (43f) husband (43m) of 25 years cheated on me with his best friend/rival: Chi-Chi and Goku have broken up and are in the midst of a divorce when the story begins because of Goku cheating.
Films — Animated
- This exact same thing happens with the direct to video An American Tail movies. Tony Toponi had his Love at First Sight moment with Bridget in the first movie and they seemed like soul mates. Come the third movie, not only is the second movie now All Just a Dream but Bridget is gone for some reason and Tony is flirting with someone else.
- Superman and Wonder Woman date each other throughout the DC Animated Movie Universe starting from Justice League: Throne of Atlantis. However, by the time of The Death of Superman, they've broken up and Clark started dating Lois Lane with Diana hooking up with Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman: Bloodlines.
Films — Live-Action
- Hilariously subverted in the Austin Powers series, where Austin and love interest Vanessa get married in the first movie. At the beginning of the second movie, Vanessa is revealed to be a kamikaze exploding fembot sent by Dr. Evil, thus making room for Felicity Shagwell.
Austin Powers: I can't believe Vanessa, my bride, my one true love, the woman who taught me the beauty of monogamy, was a fembot all along. Wait a tick, that means I'm single again! Oh behave!
- Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale between Batman (1989) and Batman Returns. The former alludes that she couldn't handle his double life as Batman.
- In Captain America: Civil War, it's revealed Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have broken up. Inverted in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when a scene at the end reveals that Tony and Pepper got back together off-screen.
- In the Die Hard series, John McClane makes up with his estranged wife Holly in the first film, but they're separated again in the third and divorced by the fourth.
- In The Guilty, Asger and Patricia split up before the events of the movie, presumably due to his killing of a young man in the line of duty and the upcoming trial. His colleagues don't know yet, and end up unknowingly rubbing salt in the wound.
- Indiana Jones: Indy and Marion between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. They get back together in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, marrying at the end. They're separated by Dial of Destiny following their son's death in the Vietnam War, but get back together at the end of the film after Indy is able to move past his grief.
- At the end of Inspector Gadget (1999), Gadget has hooked up with scientist Brenda. When Inspector Gadget 2 rolls around, not only is the Inspector single again, but a new scientist called Baxter takes Brenda's techie role, and a new love interest in the form of G2 appears. An early animatic has Gadgetmobile mentioning that they broke up.
- James Bond. All part of the formula.
- Jurassic World Dominion reveals that Ellie Sattler divorced her husband, Mark, sometime back, freeing her to hook up with Alan Grant in this film.
- The Karate Kid Part II used this to explain the disappearance of the first film's love interest character. It was even in a needlessly cruel way; not only did she unceremoniously dump him, but she wrecked his car. Cobra Kai would eventually Retcon this when Ali herself returns, and reminds Daniel that he caused their breakup over a misunderstanding and he wrecked the car himself, but lied to Miyagi about both to save face.
- Unexpectedly averted in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, as his Rescue Sex with Princess Tilde of Sweden actually turned in a long-term relationship and eventually they get married.
- The Librarian: Flynn breaks with Nicole at some point after the first movie, before the second one...
- Magic Mike XXL: Brooke’s absence is explained by her leaving Mike when he decided to return to stripping.
- Men In Black. Linda Fiorentino is (kinda) Will Smith's love interest; come the next movie, she's outta there! (Because she apparently wanted to go back to normal life...)
- It's also implied that Will Smith has been doing it to all of his partners since Kay left in order to prevent them dedicating their lives to the job.
- Mission: Impossible II ends with Ethan going on a date with Nyah, yet Mission: Impossible III opens with him about to marry a different woman, Julia, meaning he broke up with Nyah between films.
- Ben and Abigail between the two National Treasure movies, though they get back together at the end of the second film.
- Professor Klump does get the girl in Eddie Murphy's version of The Nutty Professor. He's lost her again by the beginning of its sequel.
- Scream (2022) offhandedly mentions that Dewey and Gale divorced sometime after the events of Scream 4, and Gale has since moved to New York to become a newscaster.
- In Speed 2: Cruise Control, Annie broke up with Jack and is now in a relationship with another police officer named Alex, oddly validating Jack's theory in the first film that "relationships based on intense experiences don't work". This is because Keanu Reeves refused to return for a sequel.
- Star Wars: At the end of Return of the Jedi things seem to be going very well between Leia and Han. By the time of The Force Awakens however, their relationship is largely over. Han has returned to smuggling and Leia is still in a leadership position in the Rebellion/Resistance. The relationship did produce at least one child (whose turning to evil is indicated to be the cause of the breakup). They still seem to be on friendly terms, and Leia is heartbroken when Han dies.
- Streets of Fire: Tom Cody and Ellen Aim do this when Tom leaves town for some sort of war for 2 years.
- Thor: The Dark World ends with Thor and Jane Foster kissing dramatically and vowing their eternal love despite their Mayfly–December Romance. The next movie, Thor: Ragnarok, mentions in a very brief, casual aside that Jane dumped Thor between movies. ("Well, I dumped her actually - it, it was a mutual dumping").
- In Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Sam's previous girlfriend from the first two films, Mikaela Banes is given a simple mention early on, that she broke up with Sam at some point between the second and third film.
Literature
- The Camp Half-Blood Series: The Heroes of Olympus ends with Jason Grace and Piper McLean having their date under the stars (which both mistakenly thought happened in the past, thanks to Fake Memories) and affirming their love for each other, despite it beginning with a lie. By the events of The Trials of Apollo, Piper mentions that she and Jason broke up a while back, saying that she realized how forced and unbearable the relationship was, because lies are still lies, and she better broke it off before it ended bad and destroyed their actual friendship. This might be an answer to some fans' complaints that their relationship felt contrived.
- In Dinotopia: The World Beneath Arthur had a friend in his traveling companion Orianna. While it's never outright stated if they hooked up, it was strongly implied by certain scenes. At the very least, they became extremely close. Come Dinotopia: Journey to Chandra, Arthur decides to go traveling some more and Orianna has the briefest of cameos, basically telling him to have fun. She's not mentioned for the rest of the book.
- The Franchise Affair: The protagonist's cousin and law partner breaks up with his frequently mentioned, but never seen, fiancée due to an argument about how she and her father believe the villain's frame job.
- In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry accidentally (but not unhappily) facilitates breakups between both Ron and Lavender and Ginny and Dean, though he doesn't see either.
Live-Action TV
- Bones is usually pretty open about showing character relationships, except when it comes to a few of Cam and her adoptive daughter Michelle's love interests.
- Cam once a relationship with gynecologist Dr. Lidner, but they mutually break up when both are too busy with their work schedules to see each other more.
- Michelle has her second boyfriend Derrick, who never appears onscreen. Michelle initially wants to move into the same college as Derrick until the third time she mentions him to Cam... because he broke up with her due to not seeing himself with her in 10 years.
- Criminal Minds doesn't focus a lot on the team's personal lives, so several relationships start and end without alerting the audience:
- Morgan got involved with a victim's sister while he was temporarily leading the team, so it was a bad emotional time for either one to start a relationship, but no resolution was ever provided to the arc. She just stopped appearing and stopped being mentioned, and Morgan eventually moved onto a new relationship.
- Garcia's relationship with Sam, a hunky New Old Flame, appeared in a few episodes and was mentioned once or twice after we stop seeing him. Then, next season, she hears about a dating site and casually wonders if it's worth trying since she's single.
- Hotch got a fairly significant arc with Beth, his first girlfriend after the death of his wife/First Love Haley. There was even an episode where he went to Limbo and Haley gave her blessing to the relationship with Beth. She didn't seem to mind his career and got along great with his son... and then Hotch suddenly tells Rossi that she moved to Asia to pursue her career.
- Fourth season of Dexter: First time we see Angel he's romancing Laguerta. When asked about the girlfriend he had last season, he mentions that it didn't work out.
- And again in the sixth season when he and Laguerta had a divorce between seasons.
- Eureka: Jack is dating Callie and the relationship is progressing nicely by the end of Season 2. Season 3 starts and Callie is never seen or mentioned again, and Jack is single.
- Smash and Waverly, and Lyla and the Christian guy she was dating, on Friday Night Lights. Actually, a lot of the relationships on this show, because they don't show too many episodes that take place when football season isn't going on.
- In Gilmore Girls
- Lorelai and Max - one minute, Lorelai is talking huppahs and weddings with Luke, the next minute she's telling Rory to pack for a road trip because her wedding to Max is off. She's still even wearing the same outfit as when she was talking to Luke.
- Lorelai casually dates a guy named Alex. Despite getting along with him, he suddenly disappears without explanation, with the two seemingly breaking up offscreen.
- Puck and Quinn in Glee.
- And Santana and Sam sometime after she realizes she is a lesbian.
- Between the fourth season and the third season finale, Tina and Mike. She mentions on an interview with Jacob Ben Israel that a long distance relationship didn't work out for them.
- Josh Safran, Gossip Girl showrunner for the second half of season four and for season five, wanted to do this with Chuck and Blair in the season three premiere in order to make his own favorite ship Dan/Blair happen. Given that the entirety of season two was devoted to a Will They or Won't They? between Chuck and Blair, the two of them not getting together until the last scene of season two and them being by far the most popular ship of the show such a development would have been strange to say the least.
- Happens in House of Anubis to Patricia and Eddie. As such a beloved couple, the fans were outraged and confused when they broke up over the summer with no given explanation. It's speculated that Patricia broke up with him because the relationship was moving too fast, but it was still jarring to the fans.
- There are also some breakups that might not have even happened at all. The characters just moved on to other people without actually splitting.
- NCIS: We get hints that Abby and McGee's relationship is in trouble during early seasons, but we never get to see them actually break up.
- Only Murders in the Building: Double subverted with Howard Morris and his boyfriend Jonathan, who he met in season two but who wasn't seen at all in season four; in an early season five episode Howard says that Jonathan, who is a theater actor by trade, has been on tour, explaining his absence. However, at the end of the season he opens up to Charles and reveals that this was a lie, and that Jonathan had dumped him offscreen.
- Power Rangers: the break-up by letter for Tommy/Kimberly. Shippers for that fandom still have trouble accepting that one.
- In The Rookie, Jackson breaks up with his actor boyfriend in between seasons 2 and 3.
- Happens three times in Sherlock. John ends season one still attached to his girlfriend Sarah, but the first episode of the second season furnishes him with new girlfriend and makes it clear that he's had several since Sarah, so they obviously broke up, and Sarah is never seen again. Likewise, Molly stated that she dumped Jim offscreen after only a few dates, which was fortunate, given that he turned out to be Moriarty, and has now apparently split up with her fiancé between episodes.
- Zoey and Charlie in The West Wing, some time before she starts dating Jean-Paul.
- Also happened with Leo and Jordan. Arguably with Josh and Amy as well (the first time they break up).
- Omar and Dante from The Wire end season three still together, but with a noticable strain on their relationship, and at the beginning of season four, Omar is already living with someone else (Renaldo). Fans typically assume this is because Dante gave up Omar's location under torture, unlike his previous boyfriend Brandon who refused to talk even on pain of death.
- The 2016 revival of The X-Files reveals that Mulder and Scully broke up.
- Subverted with Jack and Rachel in season 6 of Boy Meets World. Their breakup is announced in the season 7 premiere, but it's foreshadowed in the previous season finale when they realize their relationship was built on physical attraction and Jack competing with Eric for Rachel.
Video Games
- Several entries into the Broken Sword franchise begin with George and Nico having broken up after having gotten (back) together at the end of the previous game.
- In Criminal Case: Grimsborough, GPD's Forensics Expert, Grace Delaney, was engaged to a man named Luke Harris. When the player meets Grace again in Criminal Case: World Edition, she mentioned that she's broken off her engagement to pursue a research career in Antarctica.
- Parodied in Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work. For various in-jokey reasons there was no Leisure Suit Larry 4, with Larry and Patti's break-up being one of the events that was supposedly covered in the "missing" game.
- Snake and Meryl between Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
- Guybrush and Elaine during the Time Skip between The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. And then they mysteriously are back to being in love at The Curse of Monkey Island...
- Happens repeatedly to Ratchet in Ratchet & Clank, as Ratchet regularly starts to get interested in whatever new female character is introduced in the game, and then in the next she'll be gone and usually won't even be mentioned.
Webcomics
- Daily JoJo: Eunjo Lee and Seonkyu Kim started dating in the second arc, "King's Apps". The fifth arc, "Cheat Sheet", takes place after a one-year time skip and reveals that they broke up.
- Homestuck gives us two odd examples, in the form of Davesprite and Jade, and Vriska and a doomed timeline John. What makes them unusual is that due to the Time Skip, the same conversations that establish they broke up also reveal they were in relationships to begin with, simultaneously inverting and playing this trope straight at once.
- Everyone in Homestuck ends up doing this. Besides the aforementioned, there are also, at various points of the three-year timeskip, Karkat and Terezi, Dave and Terezi, Gamzee and Terezi, Karkat and Gamzee, and Jake and Dirk. Just about the only couple that is still together is Rose and Kanaya.
- Penny and Aggie's finale reveals that this happened with the title characters, though the very last strip hints that they might still have a future together.
- In Something*Positive, Davan and that girl who liked to strangle him, though in that case it was explicitly a non-romantic relationship just for sex.
Web Original
- In The Music Freaks, Drew and Zoey break up by episode 10, due to Jake revealing that she was cheating on him, but we never see it happening. We only see what happened to both characters after said breakup.
- In Survival of the Fittest, Jonathan Jarocki and Anna Chase broke up before they got on the bus, as revealed in Anna's opening post, mainly due to the fact that the pairing was almost unanimously hated among the writers. In universe, it's implied that something went on between Chase and Dawne Jiang during a drunken evening, leading to the former breaking up with him out of guilt. This leads to major Survivor Guilt from her when both Dawne's and Jon's deaths are announced, on the same day no less.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: In the Season 6 episode "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled", Linda's sister Gayle is revealed to be dating Mr. Frond, and they're shown to still be dating throughout the season, but by the next season they broke up, with no explanation given.
- Jay being single in the Webisodes following The Critic Season 2 was explained with one of the first lines:
"What happened to your self-respect?"
"I lost it in the second divorce settlement." - King of the Hill had a season finale where Khan's mother moved in with him and began dating Bill. At the start of the next season she was inexplicably gone. Word of God says that they wanted to return Bill to his loserly status rather than have him in an ongoing relationship.
- Discussed in regards to The Legend of Korra's first season. In the DVD/Blu-Ray commentary track, Word of God states that while they intended a conversation between Mako and Asami in the season's penultimate episode to be their breakup scene, they quickly found out after the episode's release that most viewers never realized this due to how understated it was, and so have spent the years since having to field questions from fans asking if the Big Damn Kiss between Mako and Korra in the season finale meant Mako broke up with Asami offscreen or was cheating on her in that moment.
- Some time after the first Prep & Landing special, Magee and Tiny broke up.
- Benson and Audrey in Regular Show. Lampshaded when Benson talks about going on a date with a preschool teacher named Natalie. Mordecai asks what the deal with that is when he has Audrey, and Benson reminds everyone that they broke up months ago. None of the Park Crew remembers this to their confusion and his exasperation, even as he describes in detail his period of depression and all their roles in his healing process. The reason behind this breakup is never mentioned.
- In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Marco and Kelly start a G-rated Friends with Benefits relationship as "breakup buddies" at the end of the episode "Kelly's World". This relationship is seen in only one other episode before "A Boy and His DC-700XE" reveals that Marco broke up with her, much to her frustration.
- Steven Universe: Future: Steven only learns recently that not only are Lars and Sadie no longer romantically interested in each other, but also that Sadie has been dating a new partner for the last two months. Steven assumes that the two have been avoiding each other and that the reason Lars is leaving Earth is out of heartbreak. However, after Steven spends much of the episode trying to make Lars admit his supposed unresolved feelings and get them back together, the two reveal that they had already talked and tried to reconnect multiple times, but found that they've naturally grown apart and so decided to move on and part on friendly terms.
- In the second season premiere of Young Justice, Superboy and Miss Martian broke up during the five year Time Skip, and she's now dating someone else. We eventually learn what happened and that the two still have feelings for each other. By season three, they're back together again.
