AITA for breaking up on Valentine's Day?

I (41M) had been dating my now ex girlfriend (29F) for about 4 months. Things had been going well despite the rather unnatural nature of our relationship. This was due to her repeatedly telling me that she had social anxiety of a major scale and didn't like to be around large crowds. We met on a dating site and communicated exclusively through Facebook messenger and the occasional video chat.

About a month ago, I began to see some humongous red flags with our relationship. The primary of these being that she listed her location as Cherry Hill, New Jersey but somehow was never cold or had snow on the ground in her outdoor photos. This, along with her previously mentioned social anxiety, made me feel like she was being disingenuous about where she lived. She continued to say that she really lived in Cherry Hill and that there wasn't snow in her outdoor photos because it had melted.

About 2 days ago, I told her during video chat that I would be willing to rent out a small cafe in Cherry Hill so that we could go on a Valentine's Day date together. No large crowds, no social anxiety, just us two and a waitress. She was excited about the idea and I began making arrangements for the date, including a very expensive reservation at the restaurant.

This afternoon while I was getting ready for our date, I received a Facebook message from a her mother (as listed on her personal Facebook page.) In the message, she shared a photo of the two of them together in a location that was easily recognizable as Kenya, it was time-stamped as being taken at 9:00 this morning. She said that she couldn't stand seeing her daughter lie to me and wanted me to know why she wouldn't be able to make it to my very romantic sounding date. I very immediately replied with "Tell your daughter to find a new boyfriend." Not wanting to waste my very expensive reservation, I phoned a friend from work and gave her and her date the restaurant address so that someone could enjoy it. After making a Facebook post about her lies, several of her friends told me that I was being a humongous douche for breaking up on Valentine's Day (and also using her mother to do it.), however I feel like I was justified in my decision. She lied to me about her location and I responded to those lies accordingly. Am I the A*hole?

Posted Feb 15, 2026, 3:06 AM UTC

27
Loading comments…