For a comedy series, How I Met Your Mother made its viewers cry an awful lot. The show felt like a really long romantic comedy, with genuine characters and heartfelt emotions. Just like any rom-com, there were ups and downs, with both moments of hilarity and moments of heartache.
Friends, a show that How I Met Your Mother is often compared to, had dramatic moments to undercut the comedy. Still, they were never anywhere near as effective as HIMYM’s most heartbreaking scenes, which leave fans in tears even after this many years, and this many rewatches.
Updated on March 5th, 2021 by Rhys McGinley: How I Met Your Rather ran for a wildly successful nine seasons and despite the lighthearted, oftentimes hilarious nature of the show and its characters, it never shied away from big issues or emotional resonance. The show so often took fans to the brink of tears, whether that be through the actions or consequences of the characters, or life just throwing hurdles in their way. The show did sadness beautifully in most cases, crafting a narrative that fans were invested in and delivering a gut punch that left everyone reeling, and the writers did that so many times that it is hard to limit to just ten.
When Barney Cleans Up Rose Petals Off Robin's Bed
"Tick Tick Tick," the tenth episode of season seven, is pretty hard to watch for fans given all the events that go down involving Barney and Robin, and the icing on that heartbreak cake comes at the very end of the episode.
Ted returns to his apartment to find Barney blowing out candles and throwing out rose petals that were all across Robin's room. Seeing Barney so distraught is hard enough, but on top of that, we know that he would never have told anyone about this painful, vulnerable moment had Ted not caught him, he would have suffered in silence.
When Stella left Ted at the altar
Poor Ted. He just wanted to do the right thing. Stella objected to Ted inviting Robin to their wedding, so he decided to invite Stella’s ex Tony to level the playing field and prove that inviting exes to your wedding is fine. But then Robin decides she shouldn’t be there and takes the ferry back to New York, where she sees Stella and Tony canoodling together.
Ted finds a note and realizes he’s been left at the altar. One by one, his friends him and try to comfort him. Fans didn’t really like Stella from the off, so no one was disappointed when she left, but we all felt bad for Ted.
When Ted realizes he’s alone with one ticket to Robots vs. Wrestlers
On the whole, season 8 is one of How I Met Your Mother’s weakest installments, but “The Time Travelers” is a terrific episode... one of the show’s best, perhaps. Ted spends the whole episode arguing with Barney and future versions of themselves over whether or not he should go to Robots vs. Wrestlers while Marshall, Lily, and Robin argue over who a drink should be named after.
At the end of the episode, Barney tells him he’s just a figment of his imagination. The Marshall, Lily, and Robin storyline happened months ago. Barney and Robin are planning their wedding, Marshall and Lily are looking after their baby, and Ted is alone with one ticket to Robots vs. Wrestlers.
When Barney couldn’t forgive his dad
When Barney finally met his biological father, he was disappointed by how lame he’d become. He used to be a roadie who toured the United States with some of the biggest rock bands in the world, sleeping around with more women than Barney himself, but now, he’s settled down into a suburban existence with a wife and kids.
Barney is ostensibly disappointed by this because his dad isn’t as cool as he thought he was, but then he reveals why he’s heartbroken: “If you were going to be some lame suburban dad, why couldn’t you have been that for me?”
When Marshall listened to his dad’s final words to him
In the episode “Last Words,” Marshall spends his dad’s funeral hung up on a voicemail he received from him between the last time he saw his dad and his dad’s death. All throughout the episode, Marshall thinks that his dad’s final words to him were simply a recommendation to watch Crocodile Dundee III.
However, he leaves the church during the service and listens to the final message, a pocket dial that ends with Marshall’s dad saying, “Marshall? Oh, it looks like I’ve been calling you for almost five minutes. How’s my pocket sound? Oh, sorry about that, buddy. Um, anyway, your mom and I had such a great time seeing you. I love you.”
When Lily opened up about the struggles of parenthood
After Marshall and Lily had a baby, it seemed as though they were adapting to parenthood pretty well on the surface. But then, in one of the show’s darkest moments, Lily was brutally honest to Ted about how she really feels: “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a mom."
"Sometimes I want to pack a bag and leave in the middle of the night and not come back.” She told him this because it’s her deepest, darkest secret, and she wanted him to reveal his own deepest, darkest secret, so she told him something that was worse than anything he could tell her.
When Ted showed how devastating Robin and Barney’s engagement was for him
When Barney reveals that he’s been orchestrating “The Robin,” the final play in his Playbook, to woo Robin and eventually propose to her, Ted gives the engagement his blessing. But then he gets a text confirming the engagement, and he describes the emotional agony he felt in that moment to his kids with a fast-cutting montage of every single moment in the series where he got punched, kicked, or otherwise seriously injured.
He then says that it felt like all of that pain combined and then multiplied by a million. We get a pretty clear idea of what he’s talking about.
When Robin Finds Out She Cannot Conceive
One of the defining characteristics of Robin is her independence. She has never needed a man, she is career-driven, and for a lot of the show, she makes clear her general lack of interest in marriage and children.
Sadly, the choice was taken away from Robin when she finds out in season seven she is infertile. Even though she thought she never wanted children, she still struggles with no longer having the option to conceive - and it is heartbreaking to see Robin deal with this alone, as she feels that she cannot lean on any of her friends at the time.
When Ted found a heartbroken Marshall in the rain
The first season of How I Met Your Mother ends with two huge uppings of the stakes. First, Ted and Robin properly get together, so Ted feels on top of the world. Then, he returns home to find Marshall sitting in the rain on the steps outside their apartment building, looking forlorn and holding Lily’s engagement ring.
In a million years, the last thing How I Met Your Mother fans were expecting was for college sweethearts Marshall and Lily – perhaps the most adorable couple in the world – to break up. These final moments of season 1 were still memorable eight seasons later.
When Barney & Robin Divorce, & Robin Drifts From The Group
The finale of How I Met Your Mother made many controversial and heartbreaking decisions that annoyed fans, betrayed character arcs, and were just unnecessary. One that arguably fits all three was the decision to divorce Barney and Robin.
When the two announced this two the group in Marshall and Lily's home it was shocking and upsetting. The two seemed so made for each other despite all their issues, and they were one of the fan base's favorite relationships. To make matters worse, this divorce helped in seeing Robin drift from the group in a huge way, with Robin not even popping in for all the big moments, just some.
