Relationships are complicated especially marriages. Sometimes, even when the relationship is failing, the person doesn’t realize it’s coming to an end until one final moment of realization.
Here, divorced people share the moment they finally realized their marriage was over.
1. My ex and I got married very young. I was 15 and he was 17. We were together 11 years and loved each other, but realized we weren’t letting each other grow up. Staying a teenager forever isn’t an option when you’ve got kids. It’s been five years and we still care about each other. We’ve both moved on, he’s a great dad. He and his fiancee are my youngest sons godparents and they are having my goddaughter in January.
ViralFirefly
2. She decided to stay at a friends place for a couple of days to be closer to work while working long shifts. After a week she decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore and filed for divorce. After about a month of her ignoring me I found out through a mutual friend that she had been screwing her boss and had gotten pregnant and that’s why she left.
metalhose
3. Coming out of marriage counseling (one of many) standing there on the street – she keeps trying to explain why her anger was healthy.
Said to myself, “you’re a fool to wait for things to get better.” And I didn’t, though it took a couple of weeks to move out with something of a plan.
Slipacre
4. I walked in on her with another man. In our house.
WippitGuud
5. Finding 6 250-count CD cases filled with burned DVD porn, and $30K in credit card charges racked up for various porn websites, DVD purchases, etc.
I’m not against porn, but I discovered that he literally spent every waking hour that he wasn’t working copying porn DVDs. 6-8 hours a day of copying porn. And he’d call in sick easily once a week to spend more time with the porn.
jennifer1911
6. He decided he loved cocaine and partying more than me, and routinely ignored our daughter so he could do just that.
savethefairyland
7. She threw a pot of boiling water at me because I was paying more attention to my son than her. I had just gotten home from work and he asked me to play the Nintendo with him.
kjb_linux
8. She told me that the voices were telling her to hurt the kids. It broke me. This was after 4 years of treatment for schizophrenia. She wasn’t getting better, only worse.
Thisbymaster
9. After 4 years without sex we knew it was dead. We had two great kids but were just two roommates raising kids together. I moved out and after 8 years apart were still good friends. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
thewhitedeath
10. We became roommates instead of lovers. It worked for a while, but then she and I became really bad roommates for each other as well. She is a great Mom, and she thinks I’m a great Dad but we’re both really horrible as a couple.
No cheating. No financial issues. Just really really different people that probably pulled the trigger for marriage too quickly. We both just thought it was the next step after we each graduated from college.
Good news is we’re both civil and care for each other, just not in a romantic capacity. My only regret is that my kids won’t have a traditional 2-parent upbringing like I did. It made me respect my parents’ loving 35+ year marriage a whole lot more.
ernesto_lee
11. Realizing that I was the only one that still cared about making the relationship work. There was a lot that went on but the straw was after seeing the third marriage counsellor that didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. I realized she was just dragging things out but didn’t want to change or improve. The counsellor said that I sounded like I might be ready to work on things and maybe I should come back for a solo appointment. A few weeks later I go to the appointment and it lasted 5 minutes. I said thanks for all the help, I knew what needed to be done and would be asking for a separation after a few upcoming family events. In hindsight, I tried way too damn hard for way too long.
WidmerMac
12. It took years for me to finally get to the point where I was done. The last straw was the night he drunkenly screamed at me for hours, at least 5 hours. Then, he blared crappy music for another hour or so, before finally passing out. He’d done it several times in the past, but that time, it broke me. I spent most of the next day crying. That gut wrenching, mournful type of crying. I had a job and moved out six months later. It’s been 4 years, i don’t regret a minute.
QP2012
13. We got married way too quick. It was Vegas where she was from. Came back to N.Y. where I worked and she did nothing at all. She left around Xmas to see family in Vegas. Came back like three weeks later. Then a month later just after she interviewed for a job she told me she was leaving again to go to Virginia to help her worthless aunt move back to Vegas. She gets there and blows 500 in two days then calls me to ask for money to put gas in her aunt’s car. I said hell no and she didn’t talk to me for two days. I finally tell her this isn’t working. We get quick Vegas divorce and she is remarried six months later.
bushidomaster
14. I worked with special needs people, and my ex would say the nastiest, most disgusting things about special needs people to put me down and mock my career ambitions. That’s when he bothered to talk to me at all. He wanted a woman that would take care of him and his needs, but he cared very little about reciprocating. I didn’t want to have kids with him and have the kids think that how we were living was acceptable.
RaptorTractatus
15. She came up with a different excuse every time I asked her. She refused marriage counselling. She refused to talk in-depth about it. They ranged from the reasonable to the petty. Soooo, I don’t know. I’m going with she felt like she was too young and missing out on her party girl years. She could’ve figured that out earlier in our 8 year relationship so I could’ve gotten some time back.
Market0
16. Husband asked for a separation last week. Our first therapy session revealed that he wanted out and FAST.
He says he doesn’t know. I don’t know. I have a stressful job and my dad died six months ago so I’ve been a pain in the ass. Who knows. I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.
Wanted to separate bills and accounts. When I do that and it negatively impacts him, he gets shitty.
He said things like “society made me get married! You bamboozled me into marrying you! I don’t know what I want but I don’t want you. Even if I left you tomorrow I’d still love you.” It’s been a fun week!
[deleted]
17. Steve.
See, Steve was that guy my ex knew in high school. That guy where there was always a spark of chemistry, but the time was never right. He was the “one that got away”
Years later when we’d been married for a few years she got back in touch with some old friends and wound up going to visit those old friends – Steve included. Old sparks began to fly, and next thing you know the missus was carrying on an affair with Steve.
She left me to be with him. They were soul-mates, after all. Denied their true love by fourteen years of time and two intervening marriages (me and my wife and Steve and his).
That’s the easy answer. Blame it on Steve.
Truth is, I never should have got married in the first place. At least, not to her. It was doomed from the get-go and Steve was just a willing scapegoat.
gogojack
18. Financial issues. Dave Ramsey said it best: “You can’t out-earn stupid.” She was unwilling to set and live by a budget. New purses and sweaters and shoes every time you turned around. I worked FOUR jobs. I asked her if I should maybe get a fifth job? She had a doctorate and a student loan and would not go get a job. She still doesn’t work.
bananapeel
19. Basically about three months after she her green card, she wanted to separate. After another six months she said she was homesick and wanted to go back to Japan and wanted a divorce. Since then (April of 2009) she has gotten a dental hygienist degree, a nursing degree, remarried( last summer ). And she is still in the U.S.
Bar0n-5am3d1
20. When I got into a big fight with our 19 year old son and punched him in the face. She understandably left me for that. Me and my son were fine like a month later. It was all because of him playing Xbox all day and not looking for a job. Everybody else in the family was working or going to school.
That was the first time I ever hit anyone. I went to 26 anger management classes, and it was my last. It happened 6 years ago.
fastrthnu
21. For me it was 1000 little things, but the moment I decided I had to was when she was driving and I was in passenger seat as we went down highway. I thought about opening the door and jumping, killing myself just to get away from her… What stopped me from doing it was the fear I would survive and be stuck with her because I would be cripple.
Addestratore
22. I got married at 19, was divorced 2 days after my 22nd birthday. He had cheated on me twice and blamed it on “weight gain and me not having a job” (I had gained about 10 pounds and we lived in a VERY small town where I couldn’t find a job, despite all of my efforts), so we moved back to my home town, he found a job, I found a job, but by then we were so broken he just woke up one day, called me while I was at work, and told me he was leaving me. Day after Valentines Day.
begaston
23. Well my wife wanted an open marriage. She has had multiple boyfriends/sexual partners. As soon as I try to partake in the open marriage. With her knowing all about it she flips out turns out the open marriage was only supposed to work one way.
thekzman
24. Married almost 12 years, 1 kid and I found out back in May she had been cheating on me since Oct 2014. We’ve talked on the phone (I’m working away from home) and decided we want to try to make it work. I’m going home for 2 weeks next week so hopefully we will figure something out.
nimbusdimbus
25. She left me for her manager, first of May. She slept with him sometime in late April. My state has a mandatory separation period, so November will be when the divorce can be finalized. Just found out recently she’s 10 weeks pregnant with his kid.
starwarsyeah
26. I finally realized I was dealing with problems only a parent raising a child should have to deal with. When I asked for time apart she suddenly became the most self reliant lady I’ve seen in my life up until that point. At that point I knew I was a convenient fixture in her life and I was worse off for it.
jrabieh
27. I got it right the second time around but the first time…no. We didn’t live together first, big mistake. He had been able to hide his alcoholism from me even though I knew and worked closely with him for 3 years before we started dating.
After we got married I tried to put him on the lease, he was denied for having 3 DUIs and a contributing to the delinquency of a minor charge. He said those were in his past and he’s changed. Six months later, I was dusting a bookcase and found a liquor bottle wedged behind some books and upon further sleuthing found 5 more assorted bottles stashed around the apartment. We had a stocked liquor cabinet but he wanted to hide his habit.
He said he would get help, he didn’t. One night he drove home drunk and shoved me against the wall when I told him how reckless that was. I called the cops, he got held overnight, I boxed his stuff and downloaded the divorce papers and told his dad to bring him to the bank after picking him up from the station so we could split the account and notarize the paperwork.
He said, “Why are you overreacting to this? It’s not like I hit you.” I said, “Why do you think I’m stupid enough to wait until you do?” That was that.
CTRickycallsmeJamie
28. He became a totally different person after we got married. He became very controlling and manipulative. I was expected to do all the chores and make dinner every night (this after working a highly stressful 40 hour/week job). He became emotionally and verbally abusive to me. Constantly thought I was cheating on him. If I had anything other than a smile on my face at all times I was ridiculed. Everything that happened was always my fault. He was never wrong. He was always the victim
I didn’t want to go home because I didn’t know if I was walking into Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Had him go to 2 different counsellors and didn’t make it more than 2 sessions with each because he didn’t need therapy. I decided to stop it all when I started to become depressed from the constant stress. I am a normally very happy positive person and I became a walking bunch of nerves. I couldn’t get past the belief that anyone who truly loved me would never treat me like he had been. Have been divorced for 6 months now. Although I get lonely sometimes, I would still take loneliness a thousand times over being back with him.
AbbyNormal1773
29. I just realized that no matter what I did he was never going to change. I let him walk all over me and cheat on me for years and kept thinking of I just did more, was more patient, a better wife etc, he would realize his mistakes.
He would cheat. I would catch him. A huge fight would break out. He would manipulate me into it somehow being my fault he did it. “You don’t love me enough, you’ll never trust me again, you didn’t have sex with me that one time back in 2006 and I felt rejected”. Somehow I would have to make it up to him and prove to him I trusted him.
I’d forgive him and work my ass off to be happier, nicer, more understanding (all the bullshit he fed me) and after a few months I would just catch him all over again.
The last straw was when he convinced me he had really changed
He wanted to be a family, the whole package.
Of course I ended up pregnant. It turned out to be high risk and I was hospitalized often. Only allowed home with bed rest. Even then he wouldn’t stop running around on me.
I lost 45 pounds, my hair started falling out, I was to weak to even walk. My own family thought I was dying.
He didn’t even care.
So at one point I was sitting by myself and I just realized. I was done. He was never going to change. And it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t fix whatever was broken in him and I was done trying.
It took six months after the baby was born before doctors would let me go back to work. I moved out. Spent a few years alone. Now I’m with a fantastic man that loves me.
The divorce is still dragging on. My ex tried a lot of crappy tricks when he found out I was leaving. I laughed in his face at every one.
He doesn’t get it. At one point I seriously thought I would die. I thought my kids would be left alone with only him to take care of them. After going through that, nothing he could do could bother me. Ever.
TheLadyLucky
30. I will never forget this for as long as I live. Our marriage had been on autopilot for a while and one night we finally had a brutally honest conversation/argument. She asked me, “What do you want from me?!” I said, “I just want you to be with me the way I want to be with you.” This is when I knew our marriage was over. She said, “Well, that’s just not going to happen.”
That memory is so incredibly painful for me, even now after we’ve been divorced for years and I am remarried with a beautiful child. I still cry sometimes thinking about my ex. It still hurts.
Butterbean6