Top 10 Times How I Met Your Mother Tackled Serious Issues

Over the course of nine seasons, this show saw its share of breakups. Some didn’t go so well... others went really badly. But surprisingly enough, some of the breakups on this show did go well. After beginning to hate each other, Barney & Robin decided to end things in one of the most mature ways possible. Instead of looking at it as a break-up, they decided to take a different perspective. When they emerged from the diner, we saw two friends who became happier than when they were a couple. And even though Robin’s split with Ted was sad, they both knew it was for the best. Breakups can be hard. But as Ted puts it “Sometimes things have to fall apart to make way for better things”.

Throughout the show, both Ted and Barney saw members of their own families get married. Barney learned that his brother James was getting hitched while they were at a club together. This meant the suit-obsessed ladies’ man would lose a reliable wingman. Ted found out his mom was getting hitched before him and declared “I was so happy for them. So. Freaking Happy”. Honestly, we can’t blame either of these guys for not taking the news well right away. Suddenly finding out someone close to you is getting married is scary, because it may change the dynamic of the relationship. Be it mother or brother, the show takes a couple of beats to let Barney and Ted find their own way of handling this big change in their lives.

Season 4 was a rough year for Ted Mosby. When your year includes being both dumped at the altar and being beat up by a goat, among other setbacks, it’s hard to find the good in any of that. But Ted claimed it as a great year. By taking this perspective, he showed us that despite the obstacles, he still managed to find the good around him. Our lives are not a straight line like an endless highway. They’re more like a series of peaks and valleys. In order to reach those highest plains, you have to first travel upward from somewhere low. Thankfully, Ted made his journey surrounded by his best friends.

Most people can relate to the idea of being homesick. You go on vacation, or off to school, or maybe even take a business trip somewhere. At some point during any big trek away, many folks find themselves aching to come home. Robin experienced this feeling, and really started missing her family back in Canada. Marshall introduced her to “The Hoser Hut,” a Canadian-themed bar filled with all things Canuck-related. For Robin, it’s just what she needed to feel just a tad closer to home. We can all relate to finding a reminder of our roots when we’ve been away from the familiar for too long.

After eight long seasons, we finally got to meet Tracy, the mother of Ted’s kids. Through a single episode, we learned she lost the love of her life at 21. Initially resistant to finding anyone new, she was surprised when she took a liking to a man named Louis. They dated, and eventually he proposed. At that surprising moment, she looked to the sky and asked her long-deceased love, Max, if she could move on. A gentle breeze assured her that she could. But then she said no to the proposal. This moment illustrated that while Louis helped Tracy, their relationship was part of her healing process. Breakups and lost loves always hurt, but we all recover in different ways.

Audiences learned very early on that Robin’s biggest ambition was her career. It caused difficulties in her relationship with Ted, and was partially why she ended her marriage to Barney. But in season 4, Robin fell in love with her co-anchor. When she was offered a job of a lifetime, she turned it down in favor of staying with Don. This was such a huge departure for Robin that Ted had to remark on it. In our modern world, people are often torn between achieving success in their career versus their family or love life. Episodes like this show us that it’s ok to shoot and miss from time to time.

The first sign of Barney having daddy issues came when we learned he thought Bob Barker was his father. As the show progressed, we learned bits and pieces here and there. In season six, we finally learned the truth. He discovered his dad was just a normal guy with an entire other family. The crux of it all comes when Barney yells at his father. In that moment, we realized that our beloved Barney has been fighting his abandonment issues his whole life. It’s a moment that may feel very familiar to anyone who’s had to deal with similar issues. We got to see a self-proclaimed “awesome” guy expose the deep pain he has always been concealing.

Unless you happen to strike it rich, the odds are pretty good that you’ll likely end up with at least a little bit of debt. It’s something that many people deal with with varying degrees of success. When Marshall learned about Lily’s debt while they were going for a mortgage, it resulted in a large fight between the two. Of course, since it’s Lily and Marshall, they get through it just fine. But debt, of course, can be a real problem, especially when shared between loved ones. Marriages can even end over it. So seeing Lily and Marshall finding a way to deal with it together is something we can all take note of.

For fans of the show, we don’t think anyone would argue that Marshall is one of the most likeable characters. So when Lily gave him the news that his dad had passed away, it shocked both him and the audience. The sheer raw emotion shown on Marshall’s face is easily recognizable to anyone who has lost a parent. When Marshall yelled to God and said “Cause whenever I’m starting to feel lonely or sad or maybe a little bit cheated...” it’s easy to recognize that kind of hurt. And for Marshall’s friends, no one really knew how they should act. It was all a perfect exposition of how many of us have difficulty handling death.

From early on in the show, we learned that Robin was not exactly a fan of kids. As noted earlier on this list, Robin’s focus had always been on her career, not establishing a family. She saw kids and a family of her own as, essentially, a path that would hold her back from what she really wanted. But of course, this didn’t make it any less crushing when she learned of her infertility. Robin described her feelings in heartbreaking fashion. “Of course it’s one thing not to want something. It’s another to be told you can’t have it.” This episode beautifully captured the emotions anyone could experience processing such heart-rending news.