Ted’s 5 Best Relationships in How I Met Your Mother

It will be five years in March 2019 since the end credits rolled on the final episode of How I Met Your Mother. Love it or hate it, the final episode was the most watched episode of this beloved sitcom. To commemorate that, here is a look back at five of Ted Mosby’s best relationships. [Spoilers Ahead]

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5. Zoey

Played by Jennifer Morrison (Once Upon a Time, House MD)

Zoey Pierson was Ted’s love interest in S6 although their relationship starts off with them as adversaries. Zoey is protesting the tearing down of The Arcadian, a hotel which is proposed to be torn down to make way for the Goliath National Bank Headquarters for which Ted is the architect. A game of One upmanship ensues between Ted and Zoe, with her trying to turn his architecture class against him and him threatening his students with a fail grade if they persist with her.

Eventually, Ted falls in love with Zoey and decides to help her by saving The Arcadian. However, their relationship is strained by their constant arguments and their diametrically opposite views. This causes Ted to rethink his support for the Arcadian over his lifelong dream of having a skyscraper in New York City, thus ending their tumultuous relationship.

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4. Stella

Played by Sarah Chalke (Scrubs)

Stella Zinman is Ted’s Girlfriend (later fiancée) during S3 and S4. Stella starts out as Ted’s Dermatologist when he goes to her to get the butterfly tattoo he got drunkenly removed.Stella is adamantly against dating a patient despite Ted trying many times. After saying no to him multiple times, Stella is finally convinced by Ted to date him when he takes her out on a 2-Minute date.

Their relationship evolves and Ted proposes marriage at the end of S3. They make it as far as the wedding day when Stella leaves Ted at the altar to reunite with her ex-husband Tony. They meet again when Stella asks for Ted’s forgiveness for abandoning him and convinces him to keep his faith in the universe and wait for “The One”. In S9, Ted is shown to be friends with Stella.

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3. Victoria

Played by Ashley Williams (Saving Grace)

Victoria meets Ted at Stuart and Claudia’s wedding in S1 for which she made the cake. They have a perfect date without ever sharing names so as not to spoil the romance. Ted tracks her down, the two kiss and the start dating. Things progress smoothly until Victoria is accepted to a Cooking Fellowship at an institute in Germany. Ted and Victoria decide to make the long distance relationship work but Ted kisses Robin causing Ted and Victoria to break up.

Victoria shows up again in S8 when she runs away from her own wedding to be with Ted. The relationship breaks up soon after as they both realize they want different things in life. In S9, Ted reaches out to Victoria to find Robin’s necklace, implying that the two are friends.

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2. Robin

Played by Cobie Smulders (The Avengers)

Robin meets Ted in the pilot when their eyes meet across the bar at Maclaren’s. Barney plays a game of Have you met Ted to introduce Ted to Robin. The pair goes out on a great date after which Ted professes his love to her, which scares commitment-phobic Robin. Ted continues to pursue Robin even as she becomes a part of the gang. After a year of will-they, won’t-they, Robin and Ted finally start dating in S2. However, the relationship inevitably ends at the end of the season due to their dissimilar views on marriage and kids.The two continue to remain best friends and roommates.

Robin has other serious relationships(including one with Barney) during the course of the show, as does Ted but he continues to harbor feelings for her(causing his other relationships to fail). In S7, Ted proclaims his love for Robin once again and gets rejected. Robin eventually marries Barney but as fate would have it, that marriage ends in a divorce. Robin and Ted rekindle their romance in the series finale when he shows up with the Blue French horn, a throwback to their first date.

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1. Tracy (The Mother)

Played by Cristin Millioti (Once)

Although the show was named How I met your mother, we are not actually introduced to the titular mother until the final season. Tracy is the only character that was added to the main cast through this show’s 9 season run. Even though the two get married and have 2 kids, the show ends with Tracy dying from terminal illness. Six years later, Ted goes back to woo Robin with the blessing of his children. Tracy and Ted’s relationship is shown very briefly as compared to all of his other relationship, representing how quickly time passes when you are with the right person.

An alternate ending to the series is capped off with the first time that Ted met Tracy at the Farhampton station. Their encounter here shows how close they came to meeting each other over the years, as if always destined to do so.

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