History Main / PsychoExGirlfriend

* ''ComicBook/IronMan''
** Tony broke up with Kathleen Dare because she was being too clingy. So, she shot and crippled him. When Tony is later assumed to have died from an illness she [[spoiler: shoots herself so she can join him in the afterlife.]]

* [[ComicStrip/StarFox Fara Phoenix]] of ''VideoGame/StarFox'' fame is prone to becoming this whenever FanFiction has [[ArcWelding merged]] the series' [[VideoGame/StarFox1 two]] [[VideoGame/StarFox64 continuities]], attacking either Fox or Krystal - or both.

* Owen in ''Literature/TheExtraordinariesSeries'' is Nick's evil ex-boyfriend, who tries to kill the main characters, especially Seth, Nick's best friend turned boyfriend, and Nick himself, even though Owen [[spoiler: helped Nick remember the truth about his mom and saved his life in the third book]]. He's complicated.

* After Dexter finally cut it off with Lila in ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', she [[spoiler: nearly killed him and his girlfriend's children]].
* And then, of course, there's the Master, the Doctor's EvilCounterpart in the original ''Series/DoctorWho''. The original seventies and eighties stories depicted him as the Doctor's EvilFormerFriend, but even then there was heavy [[HomoeroticSubtext Homoerotic]] FoeRomanceSubtext, and the twenty-first-century stories with Creator/JohnSimm and Creator/MichelleGomez dropped the "sub" and made it blatantly obvious that they, in their youth, had a '''very''' close relationship.
* Vera Bates of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' to the extreme. She refuses to let Mr. Bates divorce her, blackmails him for everything he owns and then pulls an ILied and tries to ruin his reputation and those of his girlfriend Anna and the family that employs them anyway, and finally [[spoiler: commits suicide in order to frame him for her murder.]] All this to a man who ''[[TakingTheHeat went to prison in her place]]'' for theft beforehand.
* Myra becomes this in the last season of ''Series/FamilyMatters''. After going out with Steve Urkel for several years, Steve breaks things off with her after he realizes he doesn't have the same feelings for her like he used to, and on top of that he discovers she had secretly installed mini-cameras in has glasses to track his movements, which thoroughly creeped him out. Myra didn't hand the rejection well, especially since shortly afterwards, Steve began going out with Laura, who she saw as her rival for Steve's affections. Some of her actions include giving Laura her watch as a "peace offering", and then telling the cops Laura stole it, or when Steve went off into space, she called NASA posing as his fiancée. It's all PlayedForLaughs.

* For a few episodes, Blair Waldorf on ''Series/GossipGirl'' became this to Chuck. Most people thought it was fair enough since he was giving his new girlfriend incredibly expensive watches, crediting her with making him a better man and treating her like a queen, when he'd [[spoiler: whored Blair out to his uncle and then slept with her greatest enemy.]]

* Davina from ''Series/MaterialGirl'' [[spoiler: it's revealed at the end of the series that most of her attempts to hurt Ali were in fact directed at Marco; Ali just got in the way.]]
* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Earl had a girlfriend of three weeks named Jessie, as of the night he had his AccidentalMarriage to Joy. Jessie worked as a secretary at the bail bondsman's office Earl frequented. When Joy had an arrest warrant for failing to appear in traffic court 6 years later, Jessie puts herself through TrainingFromHell so she can get revenge on Joy for a) stealing Earl from her and b) knocking out her two front teeth. [[spoiler: It doesn't work, and she gets her veneers knocked out too.]]

* ''Series/Sense8'': Joaquin is a gender-flipped example with some heavy emphasis on the psycho part. He's clearly not over Daniela leaving him, and even ''breaks into Lito's'' house just so he can ask what he did wrong. Daniela helpfully reminds him it may have had something to do with ''the physical abuse''. [[spoiler: He later blackmails her into getting back together with him and still treats her badly after she agrees.]]

** John Hart, Jack's ex-"partner" who shows up in the second season premiere. He reappears in the finale, holding [[spoiler:Grey, Jack's long-lost brother,]] hostage and tearing [[AliensInCardiff Cardiff]] apart for no apparent reason but to get Jack's attention. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a subversion, as Grey is the one in charge and has a bomb fused to John's wrist, forcing him to obey when he'd rather be anywhere else]].

* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''

* In ''Series/{{You}}'', Joe describes his ex-girlfriend Candace as such to Love when Candace tells the latter that Joe has been lying to her. Joe says that Candace is a StalkerWithACrush who could not get over their relationship ending so followed him to California. [[spoiler: In reality, ''Joe'' is actually the crazy ex who has a penchant for stalking his crushes and tried to murder Candace when she broke up with him. Candace is only in California to ensure that Joe does not get the chance to harm Love the same way]].
* In ''Series/{{Zoey 101}}'', we have Chase's short-lived girlfriend, Rebecca. Admittedly, she was psycho while she and Chase were still dating; she demanded Zoey no longer have any contact with Chase, and that Chase stop being friends with Zoey. It was the reason they broke up. Rebecca, of course, took this to mean ''Zoey'' was the reason they broke up, and in a later episode ends up blackmailing her into doing all sorts of embarrassing things.

* Elena to Roget in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMana''. In this case though, he didn't call off their engagement but he did betray their Kingdom when he found out that they were planning to take over the world with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Mirrors of Esina]]. Being [[MyCountryRightOrWrong very loyal to]] [[TheEmpire the Kingdom of Pedda]] and [[spoiler: having found out that Roget killed her younger brother Juhani]], [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge Elena reacts as well as one would expect]].

* Terra for Beast Boy in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans''. She was pretty much on the neutral side of things, agreeing to sell the Titans out (well four of the five) as a favor to Slade for helping her control her powers, but not exactly on the evil side until Beast Boy told her she had no friends, which turned her over the dark side completely [[spoiler:until her HeelFaceTurn three episodes later.]]

* Blackarachnia from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' is actually this to Optimus Prime, after [[spoiler: he and [[JerkAss Sentinel]] accidentally leave her behind on a spider-infested planet.]] Sort of, anyway: [[spoiler: she was actually Sentinel's girlfriend, but it's pretty obvious Optimus has a thing for her, which she returns after being mutated; she refuses to trust him, though.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Sixteen}}'''s Lydia was Jonsey's ex; somehow she became a StalkerWithACrush to Wyatt. She thinks Wyatt and Jude are identical twins. That should tell you she's a little cracked. (Wyatt is black, Jude is white.) [[spoiler:When she meets Wayne, she thinks they're identical ''triplets''.]]

* Lola on ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow''. Bugs meets her on a tennis court and after the first date, decides that she's not right for him afterwards at least partially due to her being a StalkerWithACrush on him, and Lola [[MoodSwinger goes from being distraught about it]] [[StalkerWithACrush to believing that she's still involved with Bugs]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe to the point where she has Bugs (unwillingly) at the altar with her.]] Bugs is thankfully saved from the AndNowYouMustMarryMe situation she has put him in by her invocation of SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace on the grounds that she has decided that she loves Pepe le Pew. Then when Lola returned, the relationship was SheIsNotMyGirlfriend for a few episodes before Bugs admits she's his girlfriend, making Lola a psycho girlfriend.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', Star has a ''demonic'' ex-boyfriend, Tom. When [[ShipTease she and Marco]] ends up doing a DanceOfRomance in "Blood Moon Ball", Tom starts BurningWithAnger and tries to incinerate the Earthling. A storyboard for that episode showed him threatening to destroy the Earth if Star didn't go out with him. A second episode had him try to manipulate Star by getting a counselor to play on her fears, but a callout from Marco made him realize he'd gone too far. He decides to stop pursuing her after that.

* ''[[WebVideo/LifeSMP Double Life SMP]]'': [[IncompatibleOrientation A platonic variant]]. Pearl goes in this direction on Day 2 after being rejected by her soulmate, Scott, and abandoned by her only friend Martyn. She changes to her Red Life skin and frightens off other people with her tendency to remotely torture Scott by using powdered snow on herself via soulmate {{synchronization}}, and proceeds to [[SanitySlippage become more unhinged with each passing day]] from the loneliness. She calms down a bit on Day 5 once [[WorkingWithTheEx the two team up again]] due to an EnemyMine scenario, [[spoiler:and it takes until the end of the series for Pearl to finally forgive Scott, after he allows her to win the series by taking himself out.]]

* [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] broke up with Kathleen Dare because she was being too clingy. So, she shot and crippled him.
** When Tony is later assumed to have died from an illness she [[spoiler: shoots herself so she can join him in the afterlife.]]

* Yuri Kim in ''Manhwa/FaeriesLanding'' is just about the personification of this trope, and even physically scarred the hero just to see him squirm.

See also {{Yandere}} and WomanScorned. Overlaps with AttemptedHomewrecker if the Psycho's ex has found someone else. Not to be confused with the television series ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend'' or the movie of this premise ''Film/MySuperExGirlfriend''.

See also {{Yandere}} and WomanScorned. Not to be confused with the television series ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend'' or the movie of this premise ''Film/MySuperExGirlfriend''.

* [[ComicBook/TheAtom Ray Palmer]] and his ex-''wife'', Jean Loring, in ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis'', where Jean comes up with a scheme to murder the loved ones of superheroes to trick Ray into taking her back. She starts with setting one of their friends ''on fire'' after inducing a fatal brain aneurysm. She claims she was originally only going to ''scare'' her, and only set the body on fire after she realized she was dead, but the fact that she brought a flamethrower with her at all [[ImplausibleDeniability raises questions about that plan]]. She gets committed to Arkham Asylum at the end. (Despite, er, not even living in the same state. Apparently, there are no other asylums in the DCU.)

* ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP Double Life SMP]]'': [[IncompatibleOrientation A platonic variant]]. Pearl goes in this direction on Day 2 after being rejected by her soulmate, Scott, and abandoned by her only friend Martyn. She changes to her Red Life skin and frightens off other people with her tendency to remotely torture Scott by using powdered snow on herself via soulmate {{synchronization}}, and proceeds to [[SanitySlippage become more unhinged with each passing day]] from the loneliness. She calms down a bit on Day 5 once [[WorkingWithTheEx the two team up again]] due to an EnemyMine scenario, [[spoiler:and it takes until the end of the series for Pearl to finally forgive Scott, after he allows her to win the series by taking himself out.]]

* ''Literature/TheQuestportChronicles'': The Lord of Angels and Demons is a male example. He erases one woman's memory after she dumps him, and then [[DisproportionateRetribution destroys the only book that tells how to restore her memories]].
* Website/{{Cracked}}'s ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGIM8EPsaaI&lc=z22qvvtzbrrjgz5kvacdp430mq04aqy35uu24antqnpw03c010c America's Best Girlfriend: America's Worst Reality Show]]'' revolves around a woman who, having not taken her break-up incredibly well, goes to the trouble of (poorly) staging an entire fake reality TV show to try and humiliate her ex's new girlfriend. It fails disastrously on multiple levels.

* Shannon in ''WebVideo/EchoChamber'''s Trope Of The Week series has an entire episode dedicated to her psycho ex nature. She stalks him, threatens other girls he's seen with (Dana in particular), and seems to believe they are still dating. But the kicker? [[spoiler: She forced him to propose to her.]] Oh, and she regularly [[spoiler: cheats on him. Hooray for the DoubleStandard.]] One could take the above spoiler as [[spoiler: Tom proposes to her, but then gets cold feet and runs off. He takes Shannon back and now they have sex every so often.]]
* [[http://www.cracked.com/video_18386_if-breakup-ballads-were-more-realistic-and-way-crazier.html This NSFW music video]] about a young woman [[spoiler: who feels compelled to post pictures of her ex's dick on the internet -- and elsewhere]]. This is something of a recurring theme for Creator/RachelBloom. Her best-known project, ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend'', even references the name of the trope (although the titular character is emphatically ''not'' an example -- see the "Live TV" folder on this page for why).

* Adam Taurus in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' is a male example. The episode "Heroes and Monsters" makes it quite clear that he didn't take it well when Blake left the [[WesternTerrorists White Fang]], and his [[TermsOfEndangerment referring to her as "my darling" and "my love"]] implies that they had some sort of romantic history together, [[WordOfGod which is outright confirmed on the directors' commentary]]. [[spoiler:He's now dedicated to destroying everything Blake holds dear and starts by lopping off one of Yang's arms, then ordering the murders of Blake's parents. Adam meets his end at the end of Volume 6 when he stalks and tries to kill Blake, and she and Yang stab him with the pieces of Blake's broken Gambol Shroud.]]

** There are eventual fights involving Scott's ex-girlfriends Knives and Envy. For fairness's sake, apparently, Ramona handles these fights.

** There are eventual fights involving Scott's ex-girlfriends Envy and Knives. For fairness's sake, apparently, Ramona handles these fights.

** Zoe’s mother, Carmelita AKA Voltura dated Manny’s father, the hero White Panthera, when they were young adults. WordOfGod says she thought he was cheating on her, so she decided to cheat on him. Turns out, he wasn’t cheating, after all, and he dumped her after that.
** Zoe’s grandmother and Carmelita’s mom, Lady Gobbler (civilian name unknown) was left at the altar by Manny’s grandfather, Pumo Loco. The real salt in the wound is, he dumped her by running out of the church with the chief of police, Dora, on horseback, and left to marry her instead. It’s no wonder she holds a grudge.

* Mandy from ''Series/SecretGirlfriend'', to an extreme degree.
* ''Series/Sense8'': Joaquin is a gender-flipped example with some heavy emphasis on the psycho part. He's clearly not over Daniela leaving him, and even ''breaks into Lito's'' house just so he can ask what he did wrong. Daniela helpfully reminds him it may have had something to do with ''the physical abuse''. [[spoiler: He later blackmails her into getting back together with him and still treats her badly after she agrees.]]
* Virginia from Series/SunsetBeach. She even tried to have her ex's current girlfriend impregnated by another guy using a ''turkey-baster''! in a [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments memorable scene]].

* Davina from Series/MaterialGirl [[spoiler: it's revealed at the end of the series that most of her attempts to hurt Ali were in fact directed at Marco; Ali just got in the way.]]

* Gabe of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' is a psycho ex-boyfriend. He becomes one after Erin breaks up with him. He follows Andy, (whom Erin really likes) to the men's room and threatens him and follows Erin into the ladies' room and pleads for her to take him back.
* Kirsty in ''Series/CoronationStreet'', when suffering boyfriend Tyrone leaves her for Fizz.
* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Earl had a girlfriend of three weeks named Jessie, as of the night he had his AccidentalMarriage to Joy. Jessie worked as a secretary at the bail bondsman's office Earl frequented. When Joy had an arrest warrant for failing to appear in traffic court 6 years later, Jessie puts herself through TrainingFromHell so she can get revenge on Joy for a) stealing Earl from her and b) knocking out her two front teeth. [[spoiler: It doesn't work, and she gets her veneers knocked out too.]]
* You would think that the CW show ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend'' would be about this, but Rebecca Bunch, the main character, is actually a {{deconstruction}} of this trope: she has ''legitimate'' mental problems, including anxiety and depression [[spoiler:and as of season 3, being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder]], and so when she ran into her ex-boyfriend Josh Chan, he reminded her of a time when she was truly happy. So she quit her job and moved across the country. However, for the first half of the season, she lied to herself, saying that she did this not because of Josh, but because she "needed a change." The theme song tells it like it is:
-->'''She's the crazy ex-girlfriend!'''\\
''What? No, I'm not.''\\
'''She's the crazy ex-girlfriend!'''\\
''That's a sexist term.''\\
'''She's the crazy ex-girlfriend!'''\\
''Can you guys stop singing for just one second?''\\
'''She's so broken inside!'''\\
''The situation is a lot more nuanced than that!''
* ''Series/{{Spooks}}''. Quinn makes the mistake of confessing he's an [=MI5=] agent to a woman he's seeing, who causes all kinds of problems when he tries to back out of the relationship (like printing his name and address on gay prostitute advertisement cards). Fortunately, Quinn has attracted the attention of a BlondeRepublicanSexKitten from the CIA, who has no qualms about abusing her power to scare off a rival.
* ''Series/WellingtonParanormal'': Sheena talks about her ex-boyfriend Dion a lot even before learning that he's turned her into a werewolf. Then she tells two cops she's going to murder him and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge goes over to his house to yell at him]].
* ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'': While transporting Alice and the Knave across the lake, Silvermist, a former lover of the Knave, drops the Knave into the water. She then goes looking for him after she hears about the Caterpillar's bounty on his head.
* ''Series/Lucifer2016'': Linda's ex-husband Reese is unable to accept that they are no longer together and that Linda ''will not'' take him back. He [[FootDraggingDivorcee refuses to sign the divorce papers]] and keeps trying to win her over. All his efforts do is drive Linda further away because she's so horrified by his selfishness and the depths he's willing to go to.
* ''Series/ColdCase'': In "[[Recap/ColdCaseS2E22BestFriends Best Friends]]" Billie's ex is extremely jealous to see her with Rose and carried around a pistol (she isn't the killer, however).

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': Fox Mulder had ''two'' of these -- the first one was mostly just annoying and appeared as a NewOldFlame to dump him again, but the second one turned out to be working for the GovernmentConspiracy and having ''some'' kind of weirdly ambiguous relationship with the Smoking Man.
* For a few episodes, Blair Waldorf on ''Series/GossipGirl'' became this to Chuck. Most people thought it was fair enough since he was giving his new girlfriend incredibly expensive watches, crediting her with making him a better man and treating her like a queen, when he'd [[spoiler: whored Blair out to his uncle and then slept with her greatest enemy.]]
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** John Hart, Jack's ex-"partner" who shows up in the second season premiere. He reappears in the finale, holding [[spoiler:Grey, Jack's long-lost brother,]] hostage and tearing [[AliensInCardiff Cardiff]] apart for no apparent reason but to get Jack's attention. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a subversion, as Grey is the one in charge and has a bomb fused to John's wrist, forcing him to obey when he'd rather be anywhere else]].
** ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'': His boyfriend Angelo's Catholic {{gayngst}} leads him to do terrible, terrible things.

* ''Series/TwentyFour''. Two characters, [[spoiler:Jack and Tony]], dating the same person, [[spoiler:Nina]].
* Davina from Series/MaterialGirl [[spoiler: it's revealed at the end of the series that most of her attempts to hurt Ali were in fact directed at Marco; Ali just got in the way.]]

%%* Havoc and Sakura in ''Series/{{Renegade}}''.

* Mandy from ''Series/SecretGirlfriend'', to an extreme degree.
* Rose from ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'' both fits and subverts this. Although becoming friends with Charlie, she does manage to drive away his love interests and refuses to give up. Plus, every main character has called her crazy at some point. She's also pretty civil in her stalking, despite it being creepy. In the ninth season premiere, it's revealed she murdered Charlie for cheating on her.
* After Dexter finally cut it off with Lila in ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', she [[spoiler: nearly killed him and his girlfriend's children]].
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'':
** Niles's ex-wife [[TheGhost Maris]] probably qualifies, although more subtly: when she begs for him to come back to her, and he rejects her on the grounds that she has treated him like dirt all his life, she goes into a TranquilFury and proceeds to utterly screw Niles out of every cent he has with a team of [[AmoralAttorney amoral attornies]], just for the sake of revenge (she was filthy rich already).
** Also Niles' ''second'' ex-wife Mel, who after feeling justifiably humiliated when Niles abandoned her to run off with Daphne Moon, exacted her pound of flesh by insisting he go through the motions of marriage with her until such time as ''she'' felt they should separate and divorce. Well, everyone said she was an expy of Maris...

* In one episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', Shawn becomes the target of ''three'' of these who band together to sabotage his latest relationship because they think he is leading her on as he led them on.

* Vera Bates of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' to the extreme. She refuses to let Mr. Bates divorce her, blackmails him for everything he owns and then pulls an ILied and tries to ruin his reputation and those of his girlfriend Anna and the family that employs them anyway, and finally [[spoiler: commits suicide in order to frame him for her murder.]] All this to a man who ''[[TakingTheHeat went to prison in her place]]'' for theft beforehand.

* Lauren to Mitchell in ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}''. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since Mitchell turned her into a vampire and then dumped her to deal with her new undead status herself.

* ''Series/{{NTSFSDSUV}}'': After Sam breaks up with his girlfriend, she threatens to blow up San Diego so she can force Sam to perform several tasks and marry her. He fails miserably but decides to get in touch with her in prison.
* Jokingly played with in one ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' sketch -- Mitchell, recently an ex-boyfriend, doesn't seem particularly inclined towards this behaviour on his own, but everyone ''else'' suggests he handles the break-up in ways along this trope, ranging from writing bitch with weedkiller on her lawn, over killing her pet "in a weird way" to ''planting crack in her office desk'' (apparently a standard suggestion, as one of the others asks if the crack has already been mentioned when he joins the group).
-->'''James Bachman:''' Have you planted the crack yet?\\
'''David Mitchell:''' Er, no, we were just talking about it.\\
'''Bachman:''' You can't rush these things.
* ''Series/KnotsLanding'':
** In Jill's case, it began while she and Gary were still a couple. In the Season Nine finale "The Perfect Crime", Jill tries to kill Valene by forcing her at gunpoint to take a bottle of sleeping pills. She survives and, after regaining consciousness in the Season Ten episode "Borderline", accuses Jill of attempting to kill her. However, Gary and pretty much everyone else (bar Pat and Frank) believe that she was only hallucinating, especially since Jill was seemingly in San Francisco that night. Gary, Mack, and Karen do not begin to suspect the truth until "Mrs. Peacock in the Library with the Lead Pipe" when they discover that Jill does not have VD in spite of the fact that she supposedly slept with David Lamb, who thought that he caught it from her. Jill, who drugged David, had used having sex with him in San Francisco as a major part of her alibi. After all of her lies were fully exposed, Jill's bound and gagged dead body is found in the boot of Gary's Jaguar in "Poor Jill" and he is charged with her murder in the following episode "Double Jeopardy". In "Guilty Until Proven Innocent", Mack, Karen, and Frank figure out that Jill had committed suicide by choking on her own vomit after tying up and gagging herself and locking herself in the boot as part of a sick, elaborate scheme to frame Gary for her murder.
** Danny's behaviour in this regard did not involve as much long-term planning as Jill's had done but he was no less dangerous. In the Season Twelve episode "God Will", Danny kidnaps Gary (who had recently gotten engaged to Valene) and drives him, bound and gagged in the backseat, to a nearby hill. After removing his gag, he pours alcohol down Gary's throat, having forced him to open his mouth by squeezing his broken arm (which Danny had broken with a baseball bat). His plan is to make it look as if Gary started drinking again and accidentally killed himself when he crashed the car. With Gary out of the way, Danny hoped to force Valene into resuming their marriage. Gary is badly hurt but manages to survive whereas Danny winds up dead in a pool in a vacant property in Seaview Circle by the end of the episode. Unlike Jill, however, he didn't kill himself. Neither Gary nor Valene are suspected, at least not seriously, of having killed him since they both had iron-clad alibis. Gary's is especially solid since he was crawling his way up the hill when Danny was killed.
** In Season Thirteen, Paige's ex-boyfriend Pierce does not handle their breakup well. He blames it on Paige's on-again/off-again lover Greg, though the true cause was his obsessive jealousy manifesting itself in his threatening behaviour towards Paige. He tries to shoot Greg in revenge but he ends up shooting Paige instead. She is temporarily paralysed when the bullet is lodged near her spine but her mobility is restored by surgery. Pierce then kidnaps Paige from the hospital and takes her to his boat. He continually refers to her as "Margaret," the name of his pregnant fiancée who drowned in a boating accident ten years earlier. She is rescued by Greg and Mack while Pierce is seemingly drowned after a struggle with the other two men. In the closing moments of the Season Thirteen finale "Little Girl Lost", he turns up alive and well when he surprises Paige with a knife in her car in the Sumner Group carpark. In the Season Fourteen premiere "Found and Lost", Paige is rescued by Alex Barth. When she visits Pierce in prison several days later, he tells her that he intended to kill her and then himself so that they could be together forever.
* ''Series/HandOfGod'': [[spoiler:Anne]] is revealed to have had an affair with [[spoiler:PJ]]. Afterwards, she's shown to be a very ruthless, sadistic woman, not only arranging for his wife's rape, but his murder.
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. [[ComicBook/{{Huntress}} Helena Bertinelli]] is described using this exact trope whenever she returns to Starling City on her RoaringRampageOfRevenge, given that she had a past relationship with Oliver Queen during his failed attempt to turn her towards a less murderous form of vigilantism. Her jealous streak towards anyone she thinks Oliver is [[TheMissusAndTheEx currently in a relationship with]] does not help matters.
* Myra becomes this in the last season of ''Series/FamilyMatters''. After going out with Steve Urkel for several years, Steve breaks things off with her after he realizes he doesn’t have the same feelings for her like he used to, and on top of that he discovers she had secretly installed mini-cameras in has glasses to track his movements, which thoroughly creeped him out. Myra didn’t hand the rejection well, especially since shortly afterwards, Steve began going out with Laura, who she saw as her rival for Steve’s affections. Some of her actions include giving Laura her watch as a “peace offering”, and then telling the cops Laura stole it, or when Steve went off into space, she called NASA posing as his fiancée. It’s all PlayedForLaughs.
* ''Series/CobraKai'': Tory Nichols joins Cobra Kai in season 2. She quickly makes a bad impression on Samantha [=LaRusso=], and then shortly thereafter finds out out that Sam is Miguel's ex-girlfriend, prompting her to start dating Miguel to spite Sam. Thing is, Miguel isn't quite over Sam at all, and he cheats on Tory with Sam at Moon's party. Tory happens to see this, and rather than do the sensible thing and confront her boyfriend, she decides to make a public spectacle at school by assaulting a teacher, hijacking the PA system, and announcing an ass beating of Sam to the whole school for Miguel to watch, and resorts to using a deadly weapon on Sam when she's losing the fight. For this, she is expelled from school and placed on probation, and Miguel breaks up with her and goes back to Sam. Not only that, but thanks to buying fully into Kreese's teachings, Tory begins to see Miguel as the enemy between him returning to Sam and him choosing to join Eagle Fang, the dojo created by Johnny from students Kreese kicked out of Cobra Kai.
* ''Series/Sense8'': Joaquin is a gender-flipped example with some heavy emphasis on the psycho part. He's clearly not over Daniela leaving him, and even ''breaks into Lito's'' house just so he can ask what he did wrong. Daniela helpfully reminds him it may have had something to do with ''the physical abuse''. [[spoiler: He later blackmails her into getting back together with him and still treats her badly after she agrees.]]

Bob was dating Alice. Bob broke it off. As it turns out, Alice is NotGoodWithRejection... but she is good with knives.

* Elena to Roget in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMana''. In this case though, he didn't call off their engagement but he did betray their Kingdom when he found out that they were planning to take over the world with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Mirrors of Esina]]. Being [[MyCountryRightOrWrong very loyal to]][[TheEmpire the Kingdom of Pedda]] and [[spoiler: having found out that Roget killed her younger brother Juhani]], [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge Elena reacts as well as one would expect]].

* Aizawa from ''LightNovel/{{Sukisho}}''. More to the point, he's a psycho ex-boyfriend.

* The trope is a major part of ''LightNovel/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign''. Kyousuke knew that the [[EldritchAbomination goddess]] courting him didn't really value human life, but he also knew that she was genuinely compassionate ([[BlueAndOrangeMorality in her own weird god way]]) and determined to make the relationship work. So when she promised to never kill anybody again if he dated her, he believed her. Unfortunately, she couldn't keep that promise, and things spiralled from there. Now she goes around torturing random people to catch his attention.

* [[spoiler:Dante]] of [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version]] of ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' is the sociopathic, mass-murdering ex-lover of [[spoiler:Hohenheim]].