History Main / TheMasqueradeWillKillYourDatingLife

** Season 4 also has [[Characters/MiraculousLadybugAlyaCesaire Alya Césaire]] secretly remain active as Rena Furtive after [[spoiler:she and most of the other heroes had their secret identities exposed to Hawkmoth]]. Her boyfriend Nino, unaware of this, throws a fit when he witnesses her talking to Chat Noir and [[MistakenForCheating leaps to all]] [[CrazyJealousGuy the wrong assumptions]]. When she realizes what happened, Alya reveals Rena Furtive's existence to him, betraying Marinette's trust in the process.

* Terry [=McGinnis=] of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': His steady girlfriend Dana got ''really'' sick of being perpetually StoodUp, and his foray into other prospects got him into a DatingCatwoman mess. Luckily for him, Dana eventually comes around, as seen in the DistantFinale the show got in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''. She knows his secret identity by then, so at some point, she either figured it out or Terry wised up and just told her.

** Marinette Dupain-Cheng has an overwhelming and unrequited crush on classmate Adrien Agreste, while superhero Cat Noir is constantly flirting with, and being rebuffed by, his partner Ladybug. Adrien is actually Cat Noir, while Ladybug is actually Marinette, but neither party knows the other's true identity (the only ones who know are their Kwamis Tikki and Plagg). [[spoiler:In episodes like "Oblivio", "Cat Blanc", "Ephemeral" & "Transmission", once the {{Masquerade}} is temporarily removed the two hook up almost instantly.]]
** Outside of the main Love Square, both heroes deal with this trope in the first two episodes of season 4: [[spoiler:Marinette calls things off with Luka when she realizes her duties make it impossible for her to be with him, and Kagami leaves Adrien when he's unable to be honest to her.]]
** Season 4 also has Alya secretly remain active as Rena Furtive after [[spoiler:she and most of the other heroes had their secret identities exposed to Hawkmoth]]. Her boyfriend Nino, unaware of this, throws a fit when he witnesses her talking to Chat Noir and [[MistakenForCheating leaps to all]] [[CrazyJealousGuy the wrong assumptions]]. When she realizes what happened, Alya reveals Rena Furtive's existence to him, betraying Marinette's trust in the process.

* In ''[[ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios Go Go Power Rangers]]'', Kimberly is seen dating a teen named Matt and is constantly having to leave him to go save the day. When they get caught up in the ''ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersShatteredGrid'' storyline, he ends up finding out their identities and begs them to confirm it to him to stop the lies. They ''can't'' because of Zordon's three rules and he walks out on Kimberly and the others.

* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack: The Animated Series'' has a pre-[=MiB=] girlfriend run into J while he and K are on stakeout. After they kiss a bit, K (who was distracted) neuralizes the girl and tells her to go home.

** If this trope had an AnthropomorphicPersonification, Peter Parker would punch it so hard the blue highlights would [[ComicBook/ScottPilgrim fly out of its hair]].

** Mary Jane, although he ''did'' marry her, but the number of times his crime-fighting got in the way of dates, it's an exception. Plus, in ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'', with his identity discovered by the whole wide world and everyone in danger because of it, he opts to lose his marriage by having a general amnesia imposed upon the world in order to resume the masquerade all over again. However, in ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderMan2018'' they got back together after MJ decided she was okay with this part of Peter's life.

** ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan isn't exempt from this either. Mary Jane originally breaks up him after she begins having nightmares about him dying, coupled with the fact that she suspects Gwen Stacy has feelings for him. Gwen briefly dates Peter but dumps him when he's replaced by Chameleon.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* Just ask Cally Stone of ''Series/DarkOracle'' about this one. Every potential relationship she has (and most of her friendships) get torpedoed by her attempts at dealing with the comic book that has taken over her life. Conversely, her brother [[CoolLoser Lance]], and his best friend [[ButtMonkey Dizzy]], probably wouldn't have dating lives if the comic hadn't forced them together with their respective girlfriends.

* ''TabletopGame/TruthAndJustice'': "Story hooks" are designed to enable this. Your Qualities (skills and traits) are also your health, so taking damage decreases them -- and the first Quality you assign damage to in a fight is your vote for where your plot goes next. Mind that you can have relationships as Qualities. This lead to the joke that you could punch Franchise/SpiderMan in the Girlfriend and that's why there was always trouble with Mary Jane.

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'':

** Mary Jane, although he ''did'' marry her, but the number of times his crime-fighting got in the way of dates, it's an exception. Plus, in ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'', with his identity discovered by the whole wide world and everyone in danger because of it, he opts to lose his marriage by having a general amnesia imposed upon the world in order to resume the masquerade all over again. However, [[ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderManNickSpencer in 2018 they got back together]] after MJ decided she was okay with this part of Peter's life.

** Tim Drake, the 3rd ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}, has a fondness for dating civilians (Arianna, Zoanne, Tam) in comparison to the other Robins. These relationships always end up going south, unsurprisingly. With Arianna and Zoanne, they have no clue of his secret identity, and with Tam, she managed to keep his secret AND dodge all death threats at her for being associated with him fairly well but broke up anyways. Even with his longest relationship, Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), they were dating as superheroes and not civilians because he couldn't give away his real identity. They had problems due to Robin's secretiveness and only patched things up when Batman, who was the one who had forbidden Tim from telling her in the first place, forcefully revealed Robin's real name to her without discussing it with Tim.

Usually, the LoveInterest freaks out. Rarely... very rarely... the LoveInterest [[UnderstandingBoyfriend doesn't freak out at all]] and instead reacts with some variation of "Huh... well that explains a lot." Of course, adding a regular character who is in the know will remove a huge source of drama, so any girlfriends or boyfriends that find out about the Masquerade [[StatusQuoIsGod have a life expectancy of a few hours]]. Compare ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies. May be because she or he LovesMyAlterEgo. Often the cause of a character being HollywoodDateless. A subtrope of KeepingSecretsSucks. If your heroic job threatens your dating life for reasons other than its secrecy, see LovedINotHonorMore. If letting the LoveInterest in on the secret is what causes the break-up, that falls under LoveCannotOvercome. As such, it is an aversion of UnderstandingBoyfriend.

* Around halfway into ''Manga/KaitouSaintTail'', Meimi realizes she doesn't actually want to hide her SecretIdentity from Asuka Jr. anymore because it's basically tantamount to deceiving him, and she knows he has a very honest personality and hates deception; however, she's also afraid of it also being such a BerserkButton for him that she's terrified of him finding out and coming to despise her. As it turns out, it ''is'' ruining her dating life, but not for the reason she thinks: Asuka Jr. has been falling in love with her and has actually been suspecting her to be Saint Tail for a while, but that's less of a problem to him than the fact he has no idea what she's thinking and can't tell if she secretly hates him, because she's been repressing all of her feelings out of guilt and forcing him to use increasingly roundabout ways to figure out what's going through her head.

* Around halfway into ''Manga/KaitouSaintTail'', Meimi realizes she doesn't actually want to hide her SecretIdentity from Asuka Jr. anymore because it's basically tantamount to deceiving him, and she knows he has a very honest personality and hates deception; however, she's also afraid of it also being such a BerserkButton for him that she's terrified of him finding out. As it turns out, it ''is'' ruining her dating life, but not for the reason she thinks: Asuka Jr. has been falling in love with her and has actually been suspecting her to be Saint Tail for a while, but that's less of a problem to him than the fact he has no idea what she's thinking and can't tell if she secretly hates him, because she's been repressing all of her feelings out of guilt and forcing him to use increasingly roundabout ways to figure out what's going through her head.