"I Knew It On Our Wedding Night": Married Couples Who Have Called It Quits Are Sharing The Moment They Knew Divorce Was The Only Option
Marriage is supposed to be forever, but, of course, it doesn't always turn out that way. Some people grow apart while others realize they've married the wrong person, and for some couples, divorce is the best option. Well, over on Quora, people were discussing how they knew their marriage was doomed, and it was time to get a divorce. Here are some of their stories.
1."I had been unhappy in my marriage for years but was determined to stick it out for the kids as long as I could. I knew he loved the kids, but he became more combative with them as they grew. He couldn't tolerate them correcting him or having their own opinions. He would be OK to live with as long as everything was going well, but if any problems arose, he became impossible..."
2."I realized after over 22 years of marriage that I didn't marry my best friend. I see commercials, reality TV shows, interviews, etc., with all kinds of people saying they married their best friend. I was like, why didn't anyone tell me that? I had been with this guy since I was around 19 and were together for 9 years before marriage..."
"When I think about it, our relationship wasn't anything extraordinary. We were just two people who hung out with each other and got along really well. There were no honest conversations, no real expressions of feelings, etc., just being together. I always see people on Facebook and other places (public, etc.) showing their affection for their significant other, but I never mention my husband in any context. It's sad that I've gotten to this place, really.
He doesn't help out with anything; he has no empathy for anyone or anything; he can be deceptive (not regarding me, but others); he is unemotional (I've only seen him cry when his dad died); he has no interest in things I do or want to do, can be verbally abusive, and the list goes on. I feel like I'm here just to satisfy him sexually (which I have no interest in). I want to be with someone I can talk to…about anything. Someone I can be emotional with and trusting of. Someone who wants to do things with me and encourages me to do what I want to do. Someone who deeply cares about me."
3."We finally went for counseling, after many years of me asking and months of pleading. We were talking to the counselor, and he started this thing he did: beginning with one thing he had a problem with me about, he started to range freely over unrelated topics he was also angry about until several minutes had passed by with nothing but him attacking me..."
4."I was no longer his partner. I tried to convince myself that everything was fine for a long time. My husband was kind and thoughtful — always there when I needed him. But over the years, I felt like I was slowly fading, my voice becoming quieter in the relationship. He listened, but I wasn't truly being heard. I wasn't part of the decisions that mattered most in our life together..."
5."It was the night I got home from work, made dinner while my husband worked out, and my boys played. My husband was unhappy that I was working despite desperately needing income. He expected me to prepare dinner, clean, and do the laundry, with little if any help from him..."
"...When dinner was ready and on the table, I called the kids to wash their hands and come to the table. The boys were seated, and my husband came in, stood at his place, looked at the meal I'd prepared, looked at me, and said, 'I'm not hungry.' My seven-year-old son says, 'Ya, mommy, I'm not hungry either!' I decided then that I could no longer allow my two young sons to witness how their father treated their mother. It was the beginning of my resolve to leave him. That moment is etched in my memory."
6."The day before our marriage, we moved into a new apartment together. Because of our work schedules, he moved his things in before I did. When I got there with my clothes, I found that he had put clothing in every dresser drawer, even though he put only a small amount in each drawer..."
7."There were many things, but the moment that cemented it for me was when he said, 'I make the money, so I should be able to spend it however I like...'"
"...HE was the one who wanted me to be a stay-at-home mum to our kiddos. I was more than happy to return to work, but he insisted that I stay at home until my youngest child started school. The second those words were out of his mouth, he KNEW he had messed up and started backpedaling and apologizing, but it was too late. I told him to sleep in the boat, threw his PJs into the backyard, and locked him out. He drove to his brother's place and stayed there for a few days with the boat & when he came back, I told him I wanted a divorce. That was it."
8."My wife and I were going through marriage counseling. We had been married for seven years. We were both on the fence about whether to go ahead with a divorce. I think I was leaning more towards a divorce than she was. Well, one day after dinner, I was washing dishes, and she stood beside me talking. She was saying that it wouldn't be terrible being married to me, being that I wasn't a wife-beater, unemployed, or whatever. I guess it would be okay, but it could be worse. And I realized that I didn't want a wife that would settle for me. I wanted a wife that would love me. I knew right at that moment that our marriage was over. And it was."
9."I had gotten home from my work in a department store on a busy Saturday. My husband was out all day with our 15-month-old son. The time passed slowly. There were no cell phones then, and I was very worried..."
10."I had a clear 'lightbulb' moment, even if the end of my marriage was a few years later. We were on holiday, and our place had a pile of magazines. We did a quiz together from one of those magazines, something along the lines of 'given your family history, what's your life expectancy' (cheerful stuff, eh?)..."
"...Anyway, when we worked out the numbers from this silly magazine quiz, I instantly thought, 'Oh good! I'll have 10 years of freedom starting when I'm 60′. The absolute relief at that thought was amazing. That was when I realized I did not want to be in that marriage. I think I was 27 at the time. It took me a couple more years, but we divorced, which was right for me to do. We didn't have children, so we had no one else to consider, and I at least am now so much happier, 20 years later, with the person I subsequently married."
11."I decided that my marriage was over while I was in the hospital about to give birth to our daughter. It wasn't because he left me alone after her delivery. It wasn't because our celebratory steak dinner for two sat untouched while my plate filled with tears, and he went to work. It wasn't even because he picked that day to develop a sudden work ethic after five years of excuses..."
12."A friend once shared with me her tipping point in a marriage that had been struggling for years. It wasn't a dramatic argument or a scandalous event that pushed them over the edge, but rather a quiet realization during a seemingly mundane moment. They were sitting across from their spouse at breakfast, each buried in their thoughts and smartphones when it struck them: they felt utterly alone despite being in the same room..."
13."I knew it was doomed on my wedding night. Once I got to my honeymoon suite that friends had decorated so carefully and beautifully, my new husband passed out, Face first, on the bed at 10 p.m., in his wedding suit. He was very, very drunk. There was only one thing I had asked of him during our wedding: Don't get too drunk. So, since he couldn't keep that simple promise, I immediately realized I had married the wrong man. Luckily, two years later, I was back on the market."
14."I knew for a long time before the separation happened, probably for about two years. Things were steadily becoming 'more often bad than good,' and the marriage began to wilt and wither. I moved into the spare bedroom. We stopped liking the same things. We just got on each other's nerves..."
15."On the first day of our marriage, we came down from the hotel room to the restaurant for our first breakfast together as husband and wife. She sat down, pulled out her phone, took photos of everything, including the teapot, and posted it all to Facebook. I politely suggested that our first day together was more important and should be a bit more intimate and that Facebook could wait until later. She put her phone away in bad humor, but her silence after that spoke volumes…sure enough, Facebook became her public weapon of choice when we arrived home and remained a huge barrier and poor substitute to what could have been a wonderful marriage."
Do you have a story you'd like to share? What was the tipping point in your marriage or the moment you knew divorce was the only option? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.