In 2021, a total of 689,308 divorces occurred across the 45 U.S. states that reported this statistic. Often, there's more than just a single factor that leads to it. Couples may face many problems.
But even so, people who dissolve their unions usually report there is one tipping point that causes them to make the big decision. In fact, 69% of divorcing couples noted this was the case.
In these situations, infidelity was cited the most, with 24% of couples specifying it as the thing that pushed them over the edge. Domestic violence was the reason for 21% of them and 12% said substance abuse was the issue.
Interested in how these numbers look in real life, one Reddit user asked divorced people on the platform to describe what was their final straw. Here are the most upvoted replies that they have received.
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A cheese plate. I went over to my friend’s house to visit him after he’d had surgery and he had a cheese plate for us to snack on with some goat cheese. I said “Omg, I love goat cheese!” and my friend looked at me like I was crazy and said “I know? You mentioned it the other day so I got some.”
I realized that my friend had listened to something I had said, noted it, remembered it, and gone out of his way to do something nice for me. After he’d had brain surgery, no less.
My husband had never, ever put in anywhere near that much effort for me. He still didn’t even know what flavor ice cream I liked after ten years of marriage.
So I left. And that friend and I are coming up on our first anniversary.
The day my two-year-old said 'shut up, b**ch' to me. I had endured ten years of abuse in my marriage, but hearing my innocent child repeat his father’s words was enough for me. I called a lawyer the next morning
He was so selfish for years and made excuse after excuse for it. But he always put me last. I was ready to leave him, but we made one last big push to make it work. We did a lot of things together that I had been wanting forever. One of them was getting SCUBA certified. On our first big dive (with a group) after certification, he jumped out of the boat while I was still getting ready. The dive leader screamed at him and shamed him for abandoning his dive partner. Warned him how unsafe it was for both of us, and just really laid into him. Finally I get into the water and we begin our descent. We get to 30’ down and I can’t get my ears to clear. I signal to him that I need a moment to get acclimated before going any deeper. He sees what’s happening but just takes off, leaving me behind. I went back up to the surface because now I’m basically just alone in the middle of the Caribbean and can’t catch up with the group. At some point the dive leader figures out what happened and lost his s**t on my husband. Refused to let him get back in the water because leaving your dive partner in a potentially life or death situation is apparently a no-no. Really made me wake up to the truth that he would never be there for me. Not ever. Not even for 2 minutes while I adjusted to the water depth. He would always choose his own selfish interests and leave me to figure it out on my own. Left when we got home.
love the dive instructor; we need more people to either do that or get the confidence to do it themselves. (edit: i hate to be that person but thank you for all the upvotes, holy shirts!)
One Saturday I said to my then husband, "we should take our daughter to the zoo. It's such a nice day." I His reply, "I work all week. I don't feel like it."
I worked all week too. And I was the one that picked her up and dropped her off at daycare every day. Basically I was a single mom before my divorce. I did everything with my daughter by myself. So I thought, if I'm going to be a single mom. I'm going to do with without the useless lump sitting on my couch. Best. Decision. Ever.
When one friend privately tells you they are concerned for your health and safety, you dismiss them and adamantly defend your spouse.
When five friends individually tell you they are scared for you, then you start to listen and to accept an uncomfortable truth.
He was very abusive, sexually, physically, mentally, and financially. But the final straw was when I found out he had lied about having a deceased child. He had told me all about his son who had passed away aged 4. He had told me his full name, birthday, death day, favourite toys, how he died, who the mother was, his PIN for his bank card was the child's "birthdate" which fit with the age of the child, and he even had a tattoo for the supposed child. He even had a conversation with me on a fake facebook profile he created for the fake mother. The day I found out that child never existed, and was created for sympathy, was the day I realised I had truly married a sociopath. I finally found the real facebook profile of the "mother" who told me they dated when they were 14 for just a few months and she said, and I quote "why does he keep telling people this! We don't have a child, dead or alive!" He stuck with the lie to almost the very end, until i looked at records and confronted him that this child has no birth or death record. (I found out about 6m into the marriage that he had a diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder, otherwise frequently called sociopathy, but that was what made me acknowledge just how dangerously twisted he is)
I went to my mother's house a few days later and my ex husband had diarrhea, so he became stuck on her toilet and I got to speak to her alone for the first time (he never left me alone), we planned my escape and I left later that day with my 9 month old baby. I thankfully have not seen him since that day, I moved house 10 times in 6 years, and changed my daughter's name along with getting sole custody and a protection order, I travelled to 3 different towns to get my court documents signed by the required witnesses, so he has 3 documents with 3 different towns on it, none of which that I live in. I had my address concealed by the courts on all the paperwork including the divorce.
Jesus, this is just terrifying. So glad you're both safe & I'm also hoping that case of diarrhea wasn't accidental.
He got his second DUI with our daughter in the car. I filed 3 days later. You can f**k up your life and you can f**k up my life but never hers.
For years I was the only one putting ANY effort into our life goals or raising our kids. I felt like he was my 3rd (most idiotic) child since I did everything for him, up to filling out employment paperwork and making his Dr.s appointments, while not receiving any kindness or acts of love in return.
A month before our 5th anniversary I told him that if he wanted to do something, he would need to plan it; I was exhausted.
You see, every year I did SO MUCH for our anniversary; I booked the same honeymoon suite we’d had on our wedding night at the same romantic bed and breakfast. I’d arrange for a babysitter, research and make reservations at a different fancy restaurant each time, PACKED HIS BAG (usually buying him new clothes too), packed my bags (obviously), bought gifts, made sure he was off work early, etc. EVERYTHING, HONEY.
I reminded him a week ahead of time that I wasn’t planning anything this year.
I woke up the day of our anniversary knowing he had made no plans. Would he throw something together last minute? Give me a gas station gift? Offer another back rub that turned into coerced sex? Who knows? I said I wasn’t planning anything so I waited.
He came home from work and complained about not having good food for dinner; so we went grocery shopping.
In the check out line, at 8pm, he turned around with a surprised f*****g look on his face and said “s**t, today is our anniversary, isn’t it?”
HE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER until that very moment. GOD I felt so small, SO INSIGNIFICANT. So very used and discarded.
And then I felt every ounce of hope and love I had left for him disappear. It simply evaporated. gone.
“Yes, it is” was all I said. He turned back around after laughing and saying “lol. we both forgot.”
Nope. We didn’t. You did, again, like always. And I had the obvious realization that we’re not in an equitable relationship, I’m just your full-time mommy that you get to f**k.
I was NOT treated like a loved and wanted human being at all. I left him after I got my ducks in a row about 6 months later.
yeah, you go! leave that little (well more like big) s**t behind!
Was married for 5 years. The last 2.5, he was physically abusive. I kept blaming myself, trying to be better… if only I didn’t do____ he wouldn’t do this. I’ll be better, and it will go away. The last night it happened, my 4 yo child tried to protect me, and he went after her. Something came over me, I saw red, I kicked his a*s, and filed for divorce the next morning. In retrospect, I should have filed the morning after he abused me, physically or otherwise the first time. And that is my advice to all others out there. Your abusive spouse will not change. Cut your losses and get out as soon as you can.
I was the problem in the marriage. We were young when we married and I wasn’t done being a careless partying person. Looking back, I was such an a*s. My partner didn’t deserve that at all.
i’m glad you recognize that and are able to grow from that. takes good character.
Made a poor financial decision which almost led to us getting evicted. He did not tell me until he “figured it out”. However, he discussed the matter with people at work. He also had extreme anger issues, and drank a lot. The final straw was when my 7 y/o told me he no longer felt safe with him, and did not want to be nice to him because of how mean he was to me.
I finally realized that my kid was watching
And learning. Young children interpret whatever their parents do as love because they have no other context. That’s why they will fight to stay even when there’s abuse.
He told me 'it was time to get over' my miscarriage the day of my follow-up appointment when my OB said the procedure was successful. AKA, four days later
b***h??? ask him to get over the loss of his parent/job/anything significant four days later, and watch him get *pissed.* terrible thing about your baby, though. hugs and kisses from your weird cousin in mn.
After two DUIs, multiple relapses, and a separation we decided to work things out. I had to take my friend out of town to buy a car and told my husband I’d be home “around 6.”
I was very excited to be early and surprise him. As I turned down our block at 5, I noticed his car coming down the block. Stopped one house early and tossed something in the dumpster.
I waited momentarily till he pulled into the garage then drove up to the dumpster. It was a beer can he tossed. He was drinking and driving with our kids after all of that.
Came in and immediately tossed him out.
I went on a weekend trip with my mom to a town on the coast that has a casino and outlet mall. I’m notoriously frugal, so my mom enticed me with a free hotel room. Cool, that just leaves food. I gave myself $20 to spend at the casino and had zero plans to buy anything at the mall. Well, that $20 turned into $860 (edit: the additional $840 was gambling winnings). So I paid for our hotel room and food, and bought some wardrobe staples at the outlet mall. I went home with $230 remaining, less my gas money. Not too bad, right?
Well, my ex-husband flipped out when he saw that I had bought some clothes. He started yelling about how we needed to put together a budget, because “our” spending was out of control. But a reminder: I’m very frugal. It was his 4-6 lattes a day, breakfasts and lunches out, and iTunes addiction, plus the $60/each he gave his 3 kids each week to buy their lunches at fast food places instead of the school cafeteria that were bleeding us dry. Never mind the random expensive stuff his kids regularly asked for. But despite that, he just wouldn’t stop yelling at me about needing to budget and he had me backed into a corner, physically. He would not listen when I pointed out that I actually made a profit that weekend.
He stormed out to go pick up the kids from their moms, so I decided to distract myself to calm down. I broke out my laptop and created a spreadsheet on Excel to chart expenses and analyze where we could make cuts, etc. Logged into our bank account online to start charting the spending for the last 6 months and what do I see? $600 in ATM withdrawals and a credit card charge of over $900 to a very classy establishment named The Boom Boom Room, all on the first night I was gone. The ATM he used (thankfully, our bank’s so no fees) was located near the club.
I decided to just input the charges on my little spreadsheet along with everything else, and gave it the header “Strippers”. He was taking his sweet time coming home (he took the kids out to eat, budget be damned), so I put together a basic budget and highlighted non-essential expenses to “discuss” and try to find ways to cut down. I broke those expenses down by mine, his, and ours, which definitely confirmed the source of the problem.
That night, after he’d returned home and the kids were sleeping, I broke out the laptop and pulled up my spreadsheet. It took a minute, but he eventually saw the “Strippers” entry. He immediately denied it, said we must have been hacked. So I said “great, then we need to shut down the cards, notify the authorities, and request help from the bank.” He soon caved, and claimed that he’d called his buddy to go out and the buddy chose the location (which he thought was just a bar), and the buddy was going to bring a guitar he was selling for $600 cash. He took out money, but then his buddy stood him up. By then, he was drinking and got conned into buying really expensive booze for the girls flirting with him, who he wasn’t tipping at all, as he didn’t realize it was a strip club. He gave the club his cash to pay part of the bar tab, then charged the rest. Sure, uh huh. Right.
He tried to play victim and say that he was just so embarrassed about being tricked that he snapped when he saw I spent money - he panicked, thinking we’d go into the negative.
Like, dude, you went to a strip club. Own it - I don’t give a c**p if you go to one. What I do care about is not setting boundaries on what you’ll spend, then refusing to take accountability when you over do it. And to then corner ME physically while you scream at ME after YOU screw up? Hell no. We’d been having problems already, but that flipped the switch for me. I moved out a week later and our divorce was finalized a mere 9 days after we filed. Screw those mind games.
After years of his alcoholism and constant belittling, the last straw was his confession that he had done something terrible to our daughter.
Emotional neglect over several years. She promised we would have kids and made excuse after excuse why it would never happen. Didn’t support me emotionally. Made me feel like less of a man for showing any emotion at all. I buried it all. One day on my way home from work, 20 hour shift, completely exhausted. I started falling asleep at the wheel, hit the rumble strip, woke up, looked at the barricade in the median on the freeway and was ready to die, so started accelerating toward the barricade. Last second I slammed on the brakes, turned, and avoided collision. I sat there for a moment wondering why I wanted to die, and realized I had been in a one way relationship for years, and all of the reasons to leave flooded in. Took a while to muster up the courage to go, and she acted so blindsided by it when I left.
Found a true partner, and am now happily remarried. 😊
Being pushed down the stairs so hard that I had splinters up and down my arms from trying to catch myself on the wooden rails. Multiple broken ribs that time. My brand new laptop I just got for school smashed on the sidewalk. Found crack in his tool belt in the shed. All within about 48 hours
Edit: thanks for the kind comments and messages guys. Guess I’ll add this as well, after I left he ended up with a new girlfriend very quickly who was also into d***s and according to his daughter, absolutely batshit. She caught him cheating on her, and waited in his bed for him to get home after seeing the other woman. She had a gum (edit: gun), and shot him. It only went through his hand though, so I really wonder if he learned his lesson or not
One night, after manifesting another argument, he threw his ring at me screaming for a divorce (for the second time), and left the house. That night, I got the BEST nights sleep I’d had in months. Called our marriage counselor and my therapist the next morning to get their take; both conversations were less than 5 minutes long and each said it was over. He was shocked when I served him papers 🤣🤷♀️
Screams & throws things then has surprised Pikachu face that she's done? Bon Voyage, dumbass.
When I borrowed his tablet, I looked thru his messages and saw one where he asked his female friend to spend the night with him on a business trip. And that was just the tip of the iceberg with his cheating. I filed for divorce a few months later after getting all my ducks in a row.
It would be so hard not to act on impulse and lash out. Good for you for keeping a level head and setting yourself up for a successful fresh start!
To make a long story short, my ex became lazy. He lost a great paying job and quit it because someone was mean to him. He never helped around the house and decided to smoke pot, drink, and play video games while I was working a ton of overtime to help keep the house.
My grandfather died, and I was unable to attend the funeral 1500 miles away because we didn't even have enough money for rent. I began to resent him at this point.
Eventually, he finds a job, and things are going better, but he's still not pulling his weight, and he keeps spending any extra money on alcohol.
My last straw was when we went out to a local bar where everyone knew me. I played pool for their bar team, so I was there at least once a week for 6 months out of the year.
He was yelling at the bartender because he felt they would only help him when I was asking for drinks with him. I took him off to the side and told him not to speak to the girls that way, and he was out of line. When I tried to walk away, he grabbed my arms and threw me against the wall. I was able to free my right hand and punched him. I moved out the next day.
Our marriage was miserable for both of us. We'd been to many marriage counsellors over the past few years.
During a counselling session the counsellor mentioned that some couples are just better off divorced. It was an off-hand comment not related to us specifically, but for me it was an epiphany. I realised on the way home that it was over. I left about 4 weeks later, and my only regret since is that I didn't leave years earlier.
Sometimes it just doesn't work out. People are like puzzle pieces- you can't force them to fit together.
My husband worked out of the country for a year with my blessing, but when he accepted another 6-month contract, I offered my support but said that this is the last contract extension and when it was complete, I expected him to come home. I said I would move anywhere in the country so he could find a comparable job. He left on schedule...then did not speak to me for 199 days. No calls, no emails, unlike during the previous times. When he did finally contact me, he acted as though nothing was wrong. I had obviously determined by then that things were over, but the callousness in which he acted was astounding. But it's all cool; my second husband is way better!
This is just psychotic. 199 days!? Get the f**k out of here, dude.
At our second round of marriage therapy; the therapist asked him “What nice thing can you do with your wife?” He replied “She can help me gap the spark plugs in the Durango and re-wire the boat trailer.” After 40 years of marriage; I decided right then and there that I still had some years left to live and I was going to live them…without him.
When you ask that question to a healthy couple or at least one that has still real feelings for each other you'll get something they both enjoy. Like going camping, having a nice dinner, going on a weekend trip, or even role playing and gaming. I heard one guy say: we could go foraging mushrooms together and her face lit up and she said: yes, we haven't done that in years! We could bring a picnic and then cook mushroom casserole the next day! It doesn't matter what it is, but it matters that it's something they've used to do and were both looking forward to. If the couple can't think of something they'd do for leisure together that both would equally enjoy, that's usually a sign that the relationship is over. It usually means that the partner doesn't enjoy their significant other's company no matter what they're doing unless they get something else out of it.
TW: blood, atv accident
Not a divorce but a break up nonetheless. One night, my friend and I got into a really bad 4 wheeler accident. Neither of us had helmets on (incredibly stupid, I know). Like bad enough that she knocked out a bunch of her teeth, and broke her cheekbone and jaw. I luckily walked away with a mild concussion and needed a couple stitches in my head. Right after the crash, as I was kneeling over my friend screaming her name trying to get her to wake up, with my own blood running down my face, I see my ex walk right past us and start assessing the damage to his 4 wheeler. Not a word to me asking if we were okay, barely even a glance. The next thing that happened was our other friends realizing what happened and rushing to us to help, my ex still fussing over his precious 4 wheeler. And then I see/hear my friends husband sprinting up the hill, screaming and in tears because he was so scared for his wife. Once she was awake and coherent, I went to go back to the house to get her some water. As I walked past my ex, he very halfheartedly goes “you good?” That’s when it really hit me that he probably wouldn’t p**s on me if I was on fire.
He stole from a subordinate at work and tried to get someone else arrested for it
Probably when she thought I was sleeping and she got her gun and tried to shoot me in the head. (I had removed the firing pin and I hear the whole thing).
She had been spiraling out of control for a while. My son was 16 and started to protect himself by spending more time with his girlfriend and her mother. In retrospect the GF's mother helped us a lot.
My (then) wife was angry about something, she kept trying to call our son. He did't answer. His GF and the GF's mother had blocked her calls. She hung up, threw her phone across the room and walked into her study.
She came out of the study carrying her hammer and tried to swing it at me. I walked out without saying anything and got a protection order against her.
My ex was so narcissist that he didn't even notice when I was distressed.
He had been at the football club all day, came home and dropped off his bag, so I could wash his clothes, then went back. I was crying when he arrived home to do that and he didn't even bother to ask me why (had the tell-tail pains of a miscarriage).
I bundled myself and my kids up and walked to the hospital a few blocks away once he was gone.
He didn't even notice when we came home the next day, he was still asleep on the couch after being drunk the night before.
I made arrangements with my father to leave him while he slept it off.
I'm so sorry you went through all of this alone. I hope you find the love and support you deserve.
Him screaming at me in the car because I answered ‘fine’ to his question of how am I. He just decided he didn’t like my tone, the way I said fine, and it was ok to scream and yelled at me the entire car ride back from the grocery store.
We’ve been having issues for some time because he wouldn’t communicate, wouldn’t do his fair share of responsibilities with chores, everything has to be a fight to the death or an argument where he has to have the last word, and then I suspect his bipolar mania kicked in and he was basically waking me up at least 2-3 times during weekdays and every weekend to scream and argue with me over everything that he’s not happy with, that is somehow my fault. It’s my fault he has to have a job, it’s my fault there’s chores, it’s my fault his boss is s**t. His go to phrase when I point out that some things are just beyond my control is ‘I don’t understand’ and then it’s a repeat of the argument from the beginning over and over again. To top everything off, he would wake me up the next day and force me to recount the entire scene of him screaming and yelling at me and then he would look me right in the eye and say ‘I don’t believe you when you say I did all that.’
It’s f*****g traumatic and being forced to relive the whole thing the next day again or else he’ll harass me non stop just cause me to have PTSD to the point I just checked out. I can barely be civil around him. Just seeing him makes me upset and angry to the point that I have to spend a week working it out through my system. Then the whole gaslighting of ‘I don’t believe you’ just adds more to the mental abuse. That day when he screamed at me in the car, something just snapped and I realized that it doesn’t matter what happened, it was a stupid game that I’m never going to win so I might as well just quit.
Funny thing is, he did admit that he knew there was something wrong with us when I basically stopped caring. But he still did nothing. He just sat there and waited for what idk. When I told him I’m done and I want a divorce, he started booking couples therapy and forcing me to attend the sessions because he’s trying you see, he wants to ‘save’ our marriage. It’s just further proof to me that he doesn’t really care and he’s going through the motions so he’s not the ‘bad guy’. He never at any point apologized for his behavior or took the initiative to talk to me. He wanted a witness aka the therapist to see that he’s a ‘good person’. And when I didn’t play the game by his rules, he realized that there’s no controlling the narrative anymore. So now when someone asks, I just tell them straight, he’s abusive, that’s why I left him. He doesn’t like it, but that’s no longer my problem.
Claiming to want to make it work but still having dating apps and refusing to wear a wedding ring
Yeah, if they're still hitting Tinder that doesn't seem like a promising start.
8 years of his slob ways. He wouldn't shower but wanted sex. He was so lazy. After 8 years I couldn't do it anymore. Now I'm with a man for 25 years who is very clean and smells so good!
When she cheated on me. I found out. We went to counseling. Meanwhile I'm trying to save our marriage and she is still seeing him.
I called his wife at her job to let her know my wife and her husband were still carrying on.
We were together since I was 15 and he was 18. Married for 25 years in 2022. He had been progressively more and more angry for years by that point. He constantly screamed at me. I couldn’t do anything right and was constantly walking on eggshells. He allowed our house to literally fall apart around us and refused to do anything to help me. With anything. All he did was hold a job. I held a job sometimes 2 and did everything else. He was a massive hoarder too. Both our children left the house immediately upon graduation because they hated it there.
On 6/23/22 he up and left me for my cousin. I was at work and didn’t know he was leaving. He blamed me for everything. Basically every problem over the last 30 years he laid at my feet.
I filed for and paid for our divorce. It’s pending in the courts now.
We were fighting constantly. During a a screaming match, she ran into the bathroom. I pulled the door open, she tried to kick me in the balls. I looked down, to my horror, my fist was cocked. I looked between her and my hand, uncurled my fingers, said "this needs to end now", turned around and calmly walked out. Neither of our proudest moments but no one was hurt, and we had 100% clarity
The realisation that we had become 'apartment buddies' instead of life partners. It was like we were running a co-habitation business without the benefits. The romance had moved out, and we were left with joint custody of a fridge. Time to close that chapter and let the next tenant of love move in
We were together for the wrong reasons anyway (too young, trying to escape our lives, etc), and our marriage was very benign, boring, and emotionless for like 8 years until he started a new position at work that had him driving 10 hours a day and his work van only had AM radio. Suddenly, this boring dude that I married came alive with excitement over all the new things he was learning about the world on the Rush Limbaugh show, and couldn't wait to bring all that b******t into our lives. All of a sudden EVERYTHING was a f*****g problem/ conspiracy. When our son needed glasses, it was a "money-grabbing scheme" from the Optometrist. When I wanted to buy a really cool Andy Warhol themed shower curtain, he refused because he didn't want any "gay s**t" in his house. He would call the music I listened to (Goth/Industrial/Post Punk) "f*****g queer"....you get the picture. So after years of his crusty attitude, compounded with me developing an ED as a coping mechanism, I was at my breaking point. All it took was us being at a party one night and a mutual friend making an extremely light hearted-yet- kinda flirty comment, and my husband lost his s**t ON ME. It was like a switch flipped in my brain. I was ready to be homeless with 2 kids before I would continue with this m**********r. He ended up moving in with his Mom and drinking himself to death, and I ended up meeting the funniest, most amazing and attentive man I've ever met and we've been thriving together for 16 years!
Mum left my father when she caught him uploading a naked picture of himself to a p**nographic site. She said she watched him for a good 2 or 3 minutes before he noticed her.
I can't help but laugh any time I think about the absurdity of it.
I worked non-stop for years to support her ability to pursue her dreams. The financial strain of only my income supporting both our lives and her networking, etc. put a ton of stress on us, and neither of us handled it all that well. But we were moving toward a goal together, and as soon as she landed what she was working on, things would get better.
When she finally landed her dream job, suddenly we were done. Her choice.
It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the emotional core of it for me. She did love me. I know that, but ultimately I’m still not sure if, way deep down, she loved me as a support structure for her goals or if I was a true part of her life plan that she abandoned when it became easier to let go than put in the work.
He would not stop drinking. And he is a very mean drunk. I refused to put my kids or myself through that any more. He’s still drinking and I’ve got the kids. I know I chose right- my kids are awesome!
Told me she was cheating and had the papers ready the literal second I got back home from burying my dad.
Got married to my ex husband at 17 and was married for 20 years with 3 kids. He always had anger issues but after 10 years of marriage he started to become physically abusive to me although never in front of our kids.
I didn't leave bc the abuse was "borderline". He never punched me in the face or anything like that. He would push me down, grab me by the back of my hair, etc.
One day I'm laying in bed with our youngest who is 3 years old at the time. My ex comes rushing into the room, grabs me by my ankles and swiftly pulls me off the bed onto the ground. I had been laying on my stomach so when I landed on the floor my face smacked into the ground so I started crying hysterically.
My 3 year old was still on the bed and not only became hysterical as well but also ran to his dad and started attempting to punch him in effort to protect me. It was absolutely heart breaking.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't leave at that time. My son was 3 and I thought he would forget about the abuse he saw. My ex was always remorseful and agreed to start individual therapy as well as medication, which he did. The medication really seemed to be helping.
However, about 6 months later my 3 year old son randomly tells the story of seeing his dad attack me to my parents. This was the first time he ever mentioned it and I was really surprised he still remembered it. THAT was the last straw for me. When I realized my son was never going to forget what happened that day.
He's almost 9 now and he still remembers it.
Edit: Wow, you guys are so amazing! Thank you so much for all the love and support. I never had an ounce of support from anyone while the kids and I were going through this. I had made my parents aware of the abuse long before my son told them that story. My mom's words were, "I think you should just feel lucky you found someone who will tolerate you." And another time, "Well, since you're not really hurt I think calling the police would be dramatic. But you have always loved painting yourself as the victim." Even our marriage counselor never once took me aside and said, "OP, you need to get out of this marriage." He was insistent that we could manage our issues, abuse and all, successfully.
All of my kids and I did go to counseling. All the kids took the split really hard. My older son who was 15 at the time started self harming and using Xanax. I was extremely lucky to have gotten him into a great program. He spent 6 weeks in a mental health facility/rehab, followed up with therapy once he got home and still goes to therapy to this day. He is absolutely thriving now at 20 years old. All my kids seem very well adjusted at this point. I have been to therapy as well but actually have my first EMDR therapy session scheduled for next month.
As far as thinking my son would forget at 3 years old...I realize now that was an ignorant assumption to make. I myself have very early memories even before 3 years old but I was always under the impression that for males, memories typically started around the age of 5. It never occurred to me that being so traumatic it would obviously be stuck in his mind forever but now that it's been pointed out to me it makes perfect sense.
Thank you all so much for your positivity and compassion. Thank you for taking the time to comment and share your own stories.
I am 42 and remember several abusive moments from ages 3-5. Don't think your kids won't understand what they're seeing/ forget. They might, but they might not and kids really DO blame themselves, even if they don't realize that's what they're doing.
Finding out that she had resigned to never be happy in the marriage (her words) and that she did not want to go to therapy to try to improve the relationship. Because she said “it doesn’t matter“. Oh, and then all the subsequent passive aggressiveness, stonewalling, and silent treatment.
I went and got therapy for myself and figured out what I wanted. Turned out I wanted to get the f**k out.
Maybe she was depressed though. Sometimes you can just feel like nothing matters.
He was always jealous. I could understand it to an extent. Did my best to be the Good Little Wife. Then my place of employment closed up, right after we had moved to the middle of nowhere. Our closest neighbor was several miles away, an old lady with cats. He then lost his job! Good times!
He routinely would accuse me of cheating on him. Never could get a coherent answer from him about with whom? how? when? He would flip his s**t when I pointed out he was right there with me all day every day.
He would also tell me all the time that he loved me. And then one day, while we were sitting around doing nothing, for no reason, I decided to keep count. We were awake and in the same room for about 14 hours. He told me he loved me THIRTY-SEVEN TIMES. Maybe it was more, I was getting deaf to it by then. And of course if I didn't immediately shoot back "luv ya too" there would be huge scene.
But yeah........I left and divorced man who told me too often that he loved me.
Sounds petty as hell, but honestly, it was exhausting. He was like a jug with a hole in the bottom, there was nothing on earth that would fill him up.
Yeah, he was definitely cheating. Him constantly saying "I love you" was out of guilt.
Not me but one of my best mates got divorced. They'd been obviously unhappy for a while so it wasn't a complete surprise. I asked him exactly this question and he answered:
"She was out with a couple of male coworkers. I began wondering if she was f*****g them. Then I realised that I didn't even give a s**t if she was. That was when I knew....I felt absolutely nothing for her anymore, even the prospect of her f*****g other guys didn't hurt or upset me"
I guess that's different from most other stories here. There was no one Big Bang moment of abuse or threats or betrayal that stunned him into action. It was just a realisation that she no longer meant a thing to him.
The kids were mine to raise and not his. One day I was in the postpartum trenches and just needed an hour to myself to shower for longer than 2 minutes, eat something and just relax without someone needing something. I told him how badly I needed a break. He said ok but then made some excuse to run an errand. 3 hours later he still wasn’t home and I found out from my SIL when I texted her to ask if she’d seen him (he was ignoring my calls) that him and his brother went golfing.
He would drive drunk all the time and was a momma’s boy with a totally evil and enmeshed mom who blamed me for everything, including her baby boy’s drunk driving (“well did you put your foot down and tell him not to? You need to make sure he doesn’t do that” UHH LADY IVE TRIED).
He came home from golf and I blew up. Ended up with me and the kids barricaded in our room while he was screaming outside the door. He kicked the door down and scared the s**t out of my babies. I caught a glimpse of us all in the full length mirror in our room and knew instantly this was done. The looks on my face and my little one’s faces as we were all huddled together on the bed looking up at this maniacal man who was screaming. He didn’t care how upsetting this was to our kids and that image of us in my brain just instantly killed our marriage. There was no going back.
No surprise here he hasn’t been the most present and involved father since the divorce but he gave me full custody of our kids and visits them consistently. He does love them and things have somewhat calmed down. I know he regrets his actions but he just has to live with them now. He has a girlfriend who looks eerily similar to me and still to this day hints that he’d like to reconcile lol.
He's lucky you didn't call the police and that he even gets to see those kids.
Him leaving with the mistress behind my back while I visited my parents for the holidays. Got a message from the guy watching my cats that a moving truck was in front of my house. He was supposed to be on a military assignment in another state. Nope. F*****g the woman in the next town over.
Sounds like you came out the winner in the end, sorry you had to endure all that bs, but good riddance. Hope you and your cats are living your best lives.
He always found fault with anything I did, regardless of what I did or how I did it. As usual, this one night he went on a rampage again, screaming at me about something so insignificant that that light switch in my brain just went from ON to OFF. I never had a F**k Off Fund before, but at that specific time, my bonus that he had earmarked for another one of his projects, was still in my bank account, so I could bugger off. Best decision I ever made
I don't have a f**k off fund, but I do have an emergency fund my husband knows about but has no access to. I took some money here and there to pay for things we needed but never so much that I had less than 3 months wages left on it. He does the same and also has an independent emergency fund. Our funeral director recommended that when we made arrangements in case one of us dies, so the other has time to grieve and doesn't have to be burdened with the fallout alone. She said it's useful in case that our shared funds get locked and it might take a while to sort things out if one of us dies. But if my husband switched from angel to devil from one day to the next, that would be a good safety net too.
Final straw was him being arrested for drunk driving and crashing into multiple parked vehicles.
Definitely not the first time I’d had a call in the middle of the night from the police.
There’s so much more to the story including infidelity and abuse.
Note: this post originally had 63 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Reading these stories on what is me and my partners 11th anniversary makes me realise how lucky we truly are.
Opposite for me.. 10yrs in Jan. Bits and pieces are resonating badly..
Load More Replies... much like how the abuse had increased over time until it was overwhelming, so did the signs i was ready to say enough. the top 4 signs that pushed me to be done 1) he tried to force me to abort and if i didnt he was going to throw me and our two other kids out of the house. my MIL stepped in and said no, HE can leave as she owns the house. i kept the pregnancy and she is a beautiful healthy 3 year old 2) he told me i was going to die (ie he was going to kill me) if i didnt shut up one night when i was putting the kids to bed 3) made me drive to pharmacy the day after i got out of the hospital when i wasnt supposed to drive for at least two weeks to get my pain meds and 4) my daughter started telling me she was gonna build a house for us to be safe from him and that she would protect me. shes 6 years old. no child should ever be put in that position. that was the end. i'm working to get my ducks in a row and documenting everything to make sure he doesnt get custody. we are getting out.
My ex used to work as a contractor in project management-he earned good money, but was lazy, so he regularly had gaps of 6 months or more between contracts. I was a junior doctor at the time, working about 60-70 hours a week, and doing on call and overnight shifts. I used to get home from work and he had done nothing all day-no housework, no cooking, nothing. He used to say that I was too particular about how the chores were done, so it was easier for me just to do them all (example-if he did the washing up, he'd leave the dirty water in the sink along with a couple of spoons and not bother wiping down the counters, he always left chores half-done). One evening I got home about 8pm, absolutely exhausted and he said he hadn't cooked me anything because he didn't know what I wanted, and he knew I enjoyed cooking so he'd left it to me, but I didn't need to worry about him, he'd already eaten. That was it, the moment I realised I didn't want to be in a relationship anymore.
Reading these stories on what is me and my partners 11th anniversary makes me realise how lucky we truly are.
Opposite for me.. 10yrs in Jan. Bits and pieces are resonating badly..
Load More Replies... much like how the abuse had increased over time until it was overwhelming, so did the signs i was ready to say enough. the top 4 signs that pushed me to be done 1) he tried to force me to abort and if i didnt he was going to throw me and our two other kids out of the house. my MIL stepped in and said no, HE can leave as she owns the house. i kept the pregnancy and she is a beautiful healthy 3 year old 2) he told me i was going to die (ie he was going to kill me) if i didnt shut up one night when i was putting the kids to bed 3) made me drive to pharmacy the day after i got out of the hospital when i wasnt supposed to drive for at least two weeks to get my pain meds and 4) my daughter started telling me she was gonna build a house for us to be safe from him and that she would protect me. shes 6 years old. no child should ever be put in that position. that was the end. i'm working to get my ducks in a row and documenting everything to make sure he doesnt get custody. we are getting out.
My ex used to work as a contractor in project management-he earned good money, but was lazy, so he regularly had gaps of 6 months or more between contracts. I was a junior doctor at the time, working about 60-70 hours a week, and doing on call and overnight shifts. I used to get home from work and he had done nothing all day-no housework, no cooking, nothing. He used to say that I was too particular about how the chores were done, so it was easier for me just to do them all (example-if he did the washing up, he'd leave the dirty water in the sink along with a couple of spoons and not bother wiping down the counters, he always left chores half-done). One evening I got home about 8pm, absolutely exhausted and he said he hadn't cooked me anything because he didn't know what I wanted, and he knew I enjoyed cooking so he'd left it to me, but I didn't need to worry about him, he'd already eaten. That was it, the moment I realised I didn't want to be in a relationship anymore.
