26 Divorcees Revealed The Final Straw In Their Marriage, And Let It Be A Cautionary Tale
We recently covered this Reddit thread from u/tippytoes1216, which asked, "When did you realize you married the wrong person?" We opened the floor up to divorced BuzzFeed Community members and gave them a chance to share their own stories. Here's what they revealed:
1."Our wedding night. On our wedding day, my soon-to-be husband went to check our luggage into the hotel we had booked for the night before we left for our honeymoon. He was gone for several hours. After our reception, we went to the room, which was clean, except there was a used condom in one of the trash cans. His ex-girlfriend (and three of his other friends) had flown 600 miles to attend our wedding, which I didn't mind because I had met her several times before and liked her. I knew that I had married the wrong man when I believed they had sex hours before our wedding, even though he denied it. Mind you, this was a very upscale hotel that would never have left used items in a trashcan. The ex-girlfriend pretty much confirmed they slept together about a year into our marriage. Our marriage was done after her admission."
—Anonymous
2."We were married for over 25 years and had two almost grown children. For all of our married life, he overspent on everything, and we had difficulty paying the bills, yet he always found money for the things he wanted. We went through two bankruptcies and remortgaged our home three times. One morning, while I was at work, I got a call from a young man who relayed that he was in the parking lot to repossess my car. I had to go out and take possession of my personal belongings. It was at the moment I saw my car, up on a flatbed truck, that I realized my life would never change unless I changed it myself. Four months later, I left and never looked back. It wasn't easy, but it was well worth it."
—Anonymous
3."When, after five years of marriage, we were having the same fight over priorities, and I asked her, 'Where do I fit into your life?' Her answer? 'You don't. I expect you to be sitting at home waiting for me, so when I want to be with you, you will be waiting for me.' I shut down after that and didn't realize how depressed I was and how much anxiety I had in my life until I finally left her five years later."
—Anonymous
4."When his mom told me I 'cleaned up nice for white trash,' in front of my mom and sister, right before I walked down the aisle to get married."
—Anonymous
5."I realized I had made a mistake when my new husband cried about the breakup of his first marriage in front of people we were having drinks with on our honeymoon."
—Anonymous
6."When, during an argument, he said, 'Like most men, I leave the emotional side of the marriage to you.' I was shocked to the core. I felt like I was in our marriage alone."
—Anonymous
7."Surprisingly, not until the day he filed for divorce. We had problems, but I always thought we would work things out. I was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2022. I had never smoked in my life, so it came as a total shock. He stood by my side and supported me during my surgery. After surgery, I had chemo. After I was done with my chemo, he dropped the bomb and said he was filing for divorce. I asked him to please go to marriage counseling with me. He refused. When I asked him why he was divorcing me, he said it was because we never traveled outside the country. I've had a terrible fear of flying my whole life, so while we did go on trips all the time, they were all road trips. He also brought up some disagreements we had several years ago that I didn't even remember."
"Oddly enough, before I got diagnosed with lung cancer, I was secretly attending classes on how to get over my fear of flying because I was saving money for a trip to Europe and was going to surprise him with tickets for our 20th anniversary. Thinking back, when I told him I had lung cancer, he never once said he was sorry I was going through this. We are now going through divorce proceedings, and because I kept working and he retired, he is actually trying to get money from me! I found out he left me because he didn't want to live with someone whose cancer may come back, and he wanted to travel the world.
I've never felt as much stress as I did the day he told me it was over, which was right after I stopped chemo. Stress feeds cancer, so it was the worst thing. I never considered him selfish, but he proved he was by leaving me during the worst time in my life. This was also around the time my daughter was leaving for college. It put a significant burden on her. She was already worried about me and my lung cancer, and then she had to leave for college, knowing her parents were getting divorced. I am still heartbroken."
—Anonymous
8."Ugh. I was young when I married a guy 10 years my senior. I knew him from work. He supervised a department of people and managed its budget. Everyone loved him, including me. A couple of years after we married, he would act way out of character and go ballistic at me in public without hesitation during any minor disagreement. It shocked and scared me. I stayed, though. I knew it was over when he was spending money like it was literally flowing from a faucet and refused to pay the bills, even though he insisted on doing them. Going through the divorce was awful. He was very spiteful, and I learned later his attorney was about to let him go. Needless to say, I'm relieved now and doing MUCH better. Unfortunately, some people hide behind a facade until you're deep in a relationship with them."
—Anonymous
9."I figured it out on our honeymoon in Hawaii. We were in a beautiful place for 10 days, and he was mad there was a line to check into our hotel. Then, after returning from a dinner cruise, we realized neither of us had a hotel key card (we were rushed when we left), so he scolded me as if I couldn't just walk to the front desk and get help. The worst was the last day when we went shark diving. I'd driven us (his license was suspended) to the North Shore, and we were having a bit of a hard time finding the pier we needed to go to. He started screaming at me and berating me, and I just broke down in tears. I thought, 'Oh my god, what have I done?' We were together for two more years. A lot more happened, but this was when I first realized it."
—Anonymous
10."There were so many flags. I knew all along (for about nine years) that he was the wrong guy. We had a child before we got engaged, and he didn't lift a finger to help and would scream about how useless I was if dishes weren't done when he came home from work, despite me nursing every two hours around the clock. He never once got up in the middle of the night to do a bottle feed. He consistently disappeared and would go play hockey or baseball with his friends. He'd come back six hours later drunk. I initially called off the wedding, and his parents convinced me to stay and that they'd help him get sober."
—Anonymous
11."It was the beginning of the end when he went on a 'work trip' for 10 days in England. I had just had a full abdominal hysterectomy one week before this. Our sons were 2 (in diapers or pull-ups) and 6 years old, but he felt his job was more important than ensuring the three of us were okay. My dad lived an hour away and had to take time off work to care for me and our sons."
—Anonymous
12."It was a culmination of a lot of things. He never wanted me to see my family and told me I acted differently when I spent time with them. He always hated that I had a social life with friends outside of him. If I wanted to go out to breakfast with a girlfriend without him, he would be up in arms about why he wasn't invited. Sometimes, he would even invite himself, and my time with my friend felt ruined. Our ideologies started to misalign. I didn't feel safe where we lived, and he never listened to my fears or opinions on the matter. He wouldn't have a real conversation with me when we went on dates. I felt lucky if he even looked up from his phone. I paid for everything for him because he could not budget. When I tried to teach him how to pay our bills, he said he was completely lost and had no idea how I did it. He couldn't go to the doctor by himself and needed me to be there to hold his hand, so his sick days became my sick days."
"During the COVID lockdown, I told him I was really concerned about his weight gain, and he took it as a personal attack on him, even though I was genuinely trying to help him realize I just wanted him to be healthy and happy. He worked out for a week and never did anything else again. We had no physical relationship for three years. The final straw was that even though he woke up next to me on my birthday, he waited until noon to tell me happy birthday after I asked my mother to intervene. We were together for 15 years, married for 10, and he forgot my birthday. And my favorite part? He asked me to buy my own birthday gift — one I explicitly asked for months in advance so he could budget and buy them for me."
—Anonymous
13."My husband and I were going through infertility treatments. I got pregnant but lost the baby. That night, he played video games at a friend's house. He then told me, after we discovered a problem with my eggs, 'I'm not the problem. Glad it's you and not me.' This should've been the 'see ya later' moment, but I stayed for another 12 years. The straw that broke the camel's back was when he retired from the military. My mother lived with us, and every day, he'd tell her to tell me what he'd done that day when, in reality, he played video games all day. His retirement plan was to become a pro video game player. I was promoted multiple times and bettered our lot. He did nothing. I called it quits after 18 years. I don't know how I held out so long."
—Anonymous
14."The day of the wedding. I married my high school sweetheart after losing touch for 10 years or so. We married at City Hall, and I cried both before and after the wedding. Not tears of joy but of sadness because I somehow knew I should not be marrying him. I finally grasped that I wanted to marry my high school boyfriend, but I was no longer in love with him. I realized he was the same person, but I had changed. I was now an assertive and independent woman, and he wanted the shy, insecure pushover I used to be. The marriage lasted less than two years, and then he left me."
—Anonymous
15."I realized I married the wrong person on my 30th birthday. We went to Las Vegas to celebrate with friends. My BFF paid to have my hair and makeup done. We spent hours in the salon. When I asked him how he liked it, he said, 'You look like a two-bit whore.' I stayed for two more years."
—Anonymous
16."I knew when, unbeknownst to me, he had invited his two buddies to join us on our skiing honeymoon. Since I was new to skiing, he said he wanted to be able to ski the more challenging runs. I was left alone the entire time and had to make the meals for them since he said it was cheaper to 'dine in.' I should have known something was up when he insisted we rent a two-bedroom cabin."
—Anonymous
17."We had been together for six years and married for three when my dad died suddenly from a massive heart attack. He loved my dad, and his grief was profound, but he never, ever comforted me and refused to stand by me at the funeral home, church, or gravesite because he was 'too upset.' He was angry and said that I was 'too self-absorbed' to understand his suffering. I knew then that he could not love or even care about me. It took me a few more years and a lot of money to untangle and remove myself from him and his relentless negativity. But it was the best money I ever spent, and I'm grateful I trusted my intuition and never had kids with him. My life is sweet and peaceful now. My only regret is that I wish I had divorced him much earlier instead of holding out hope for what turned out to be a non-existent relationship."
—Anonymous
18."My husband and I had struggled to get pregnant for 12 long years before I was finally able to get pregnant through in-vitro. Because of my age (40) and the pregnancy being through in-vitro, the risk of miscarrying in the first 12 weeks of the pregnancy was very high. One day, when I was about six weeks pregnant, I was out running errands when I began to bleed heavily. I managed to get to a public restroom, where some tissue came out of me, and I was sure that I was miscarrying. I called my husband and rushed myself to the ER. None of our family lived close, so I had no one to go with me to the ER except my husband. However, my husband has a fear of ERs due to past trauma, so he refused to come to be with me."
"I had to sit all alone and bleeding in the waiting room for hours. When I finally got called back, the nurses looked at me in shock when I said no one was coming back with me. Luckily, the baby ended up being okay, but I had to go through one of the scariest experiences of my life, all alone. And that was pretty much the pattern in our marriage. We divorced a few years later. The divorce was tough at first, but I felt more alone being married than I do now as a single mom."
—Anonymous
19."I realized I'd married the wrong person when he told me on our honeymoon that his previous girlfriend gave better blow jobs than me. We were from a very strict religion that emphasized purity, and I had little experience going into the marriage. I actually stayed with him for 20 years (also for religious reasons). He refused to go to marital counseling because I was the 'crazy one.' I walked away while we were living in a foreign country, and he cheated me out of almost everything, but I was just happy to be free. I now have a partner who cherishes me."
—Anonymous
20."Early in our marriage, we shared an email account. We respected each other's privacy, but once, she left open a message she was writing to her sister. Of course, I read it and was shocked that she was going on and on about how I was a loser and would never amount to anything! That is when I knew it was over. I was well-respected in my field, and we had five children. After 34 years, she divorced me and married a friend who she said 'made her laugh.' Eight years later, I remarried, and my spouse is constantly building me up and is proud of every accomplishment. What a difference! I feel truly loved and respected and am the happiest I have ever been!"
—Anonymous
21."It took me 18 years to connect the dots. There were two big incidents. The first was when I sliced my finger open and asked her to take me to the ER, and she argued for 15 minutes that I could drive myself. She finally relented. The other one was when a tree branch cut a gash on my head while I was mowing the lawn, and I was bleeding profusely. She was at the neighbor's house then, so I walked into their home, and the neighbor took me to the sink, cleaned me up, and bandaged it. My wife never got up from her chair. She said she was 'tickled pink' when she lost her job and never got another one. Lastly, she said she couldn't care less if she ever had sex again. And she was surprised I divorced her?!"
—Anonymous
22."I knew when he wanted to spend breakfast with another woman on our honeymoon."
—Anonymous
23."We both worked until after 1:00 a.m. as musicians in Las Vegas. My mother had the baby until I got off and brought her home. My husband would stay out and not come home until about 5:00 a.m. I would get up after a short nap to feed and play with our daughter. Then, I realized we never had sex after her birth. He would roll over or be too tired. I offered therapy to get the romance back, but he refused. After nine months without any romantic contact, I found out he had been seeing our mutual friend all along. I took our daughter and left. He wound up with the girlfriend for about a year. I realized I had a child with the wrong man, but I never fell out of love with him until he died."
—Anonymous
24."My ex-wife got a huge, exciting job promotion. I was ecstatic for her but couldn't figure out why she was so on the fence about it. Well, she wasn't. She was worried about inviting me to a dinner with work because I'd then find out the 22-year-old she was cheating on me with (who had planned the dinner and would be there). She thought I would catch on, and she was right. I already had. She decided to wait until the night of her celebration dinner to not only un-invite me but also tell me she wanted a divorce."
—Anonymous
25."I had three complicated pregnancies. The first one ended up in miscarriage, and my husband gave me zero support. The second one was a difficult delivery; after the baby was born, I was in a lot of pain, and he yelled at me because I complained about the pain. The third one, I started dilating when I was six months pregnant, and the doctor put me on bed rest to avoid going into early labor. He yelled at me and said, 'Lots of women get pregnant, and pregnancy is not a disease.'"
"I had a toddler girl and had just given birth to a baby boy. He pushed me to have sex with him, even though my doctor told me to wait six weeks to have intercourse again. I was exhausted from caring for a toddler and a newborn alone. I told him that I had to wait six weeks to have intercourse. He told me that if I didn't have sex with him right then, he was going out to look for other women to have sex with. That's when I started planning my divorce, but I had to wait many years to protect my kids from their father's violent behavior."
—Anonymous
26.And: "Our marriage was always dramatic and tumultuous, but I really loved him and did everything in my power to try to make things better between us, which is something he never did. He never trusted me and constantly accused me of being interested in other men. He was regularly mentally and emotionally abusive. After 17 years together, he started drinking heavily, and one night, when he was drunk, I asked him if he was ever going to trust me and if things would ever be better. He smiled and said blithely, 'Nope!' My heart sank, and at that moment, I knew it was over for me. I had lived on hope, and hope had just died. It was three years before I finally had the right circumstances to leave him, and I never regretted it."
—Anonymous
If you've gone through a divorce, what was the moment you realized you'd married the wrong person? Share your story in the comments or submit it anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
