Out Of Every Breakup On Grey's Anatomy, This One Stands Above The Rest

In the Season 3 finale "Didn't We Almost Have It All?," Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) and cardiology king Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) were set to exchange "I do's." It wasn't a shock that Yang got had a quick freak-out minutes before walking down the aisle, because she was initially not on board with the whole white-wedding-in-a-church thing, to begin with. But what was a surprise was that Burke was the one to call off the nuptials. The doomed groom rationalized his decision by telling Yang that he "knew" she didn't want to come down the aisle and that if he loved her, he would let her go. And then he did, and then he was gone.

In a famous follow-up scene, Yang returns home to find that Burke really had skipped town. "He's gone," she says. "I'm free."

There are several Reddit threads devoted to the topic, and the general consensus is that this breakup stands out because it had to happen. "She would've compromised her whole life for him just because of how much she loved him," Redditor u/brownrd2023 wrote of Yang. "Just living for Burke. Doing what Burke wants just because she loves him."

"I feel like everyone hates Burke for leaving Cristina, but in all honesty, he did it for the best," u/alissa_ye66 wrote on another thread.