My cheating boyfriend broke my heart — I was in the hospital

Sometimes, heartbreak can be literal.

A woman said her ex-boyfriend actually broke her heart when he cheated on her, leaving her hospitalized with a diagnosis of broken-heart syndrome.

Leslie-Anne Smith and her boyfriend broke up in September 2022, but she had suspected her boyfriend was already cheating on her for months before finding other women’s underwear at his place.

They met on Bumble and Smith, 31, had previously seen him on Christian dating sites, so she assumed they would have the same values and morals.

When they first started dating in May 2021, Smith, from Kansas, overheard a conversation that her boyfriend started with “Hey baby.”

“I confronted him about it and asked who he was talking to, and he said it was what he called his sister,” she told Kennedy News.

Meanwhile, things in the relationship started moving fast.

“By the end of June, he’d said I love you. I thought it was a bit soon, but went with it,” Smith admitted.

Smith’s ex started leaving other girls’ things around the house, including underwear, and she finally reached her breaking point around Valentine’s Day 2022.

“I confronted him about it, but he came up with some excuse. He said maybe it got mixed up with the stuff he came in from work with. It was ridiculous. Or that it was his ex’s underwear, and he was keeping it,” she said.

“After that, he directed me to more underwear and jewelry that belonged to other females. He had no remorse whatsoever.”

When she discovered he was cheating, she was already distressed over the death of her uncle, who was a father figure to her, just one month before.

“My uncle passed [in August], and he pretty much raised me, and then, at the same time, my ex cheated on me,” she shared.

Smith’s uncle helped her mom pay for her to go to school, always checked in with her, and she lived with him for a year, but she didn’t get the chance to see him before he died.

“It left me devastated. It was an accumulation of these things which were difficult to deal with,” she said.

Smith was extremely overwhelmed and distraught by the two things happening at once, and her pulse and heart rate soared — making her fear that she might die.

After taking herself to the hospital in October, it took her spending a week there for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with her.

“When I went to the hospital, they weren’t really able to find out what was wrong with me. They did MRIs and stuff. My blood pressure would be up, my pulse would be up. I couldn’t sleep. My body was weak,” Smith said. “The hospital were checking my pulse before I’d go to sleep or eat or anything. I was so scared I might die.”

Smith was told she was most likely suffering from broken-heart syndrome, also known as stress cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

“The broken heart syndrome was triggered by the breakup and my uncle’s death,” she said. “With broken-heart syndrome, it’s a mental thing which affects your heart. It puts so much stress on your heart.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the symptoms of the condition mimic a heart attack, but a sudden physical or emotional stressor causes it, making heart muscles rapidly weaken. 

Smith was fitted with a heart monitor, is on medication for high blood pressure and has regular checkups with a cardiologist.

“After being diagnosed, I thought, ‘at least it’s an explanation for something.’ I was feeling really horrible physically,” she said.

But not all was fixed — now Smith says she’s scared to love again.

“There are people who want to be in relationships with me, but I’m scared to be in a relationship with anyone. I was holding onto people’s memories. I’ve been keeping it all in and not being able to manage it properly,” Smith said.

“I’d say to anyone else feeling the same to take care of yourself, rather than giving from an empty cup,” Smith advised.

While experts don’t know what exactly leads to broken-heart syndrome, they believe stressful scenarios such as a breakup, divorce, death of a loved one or job loss can cause it, according to Cleveland Clinic.

The body releases stress hormones in your blood when responding to physical or emotional stressors — such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, epinephrine and norepinephrine — that researchers believe could temporarily interfere with the heart’s functionality.

A 2021 study found that diagnosis of the life-threatening condition was being reported at skyrocketing rates.

Another study found that the condition increased during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.