"She Told Him They Were Done From The Airport" And 33 More Wild And Heartbreaking Stories About How People's Marriages Ended Before Their First Anniversary
Recently, we wrote about why people divorced after less than a year of marriage, and members of the BuzzFeed Community submitted their own stories. Here are 34 more heartbreaking and shocking stories about people who got divorced super soon after getting married.*
*Along with some responses from the original Reddit thread.
NOTE: There are mentions of domestic abuse, child abuse, and miscarriage in this post.
1."Two weeks after we got married, she said to either get her pregnant or it was over. It was annulled eight weeks later."
2."I caught him drinking and driving with my kids in the car after he'd already had a few DUIs and was supposedly getting sober. I came home early and saw him toss something in the trash a few houses down as he pulled up, so I stopped to check, and it was a beer can. I walked inside and tossed him right out."
3."At 11 months of marriage (and a seven-month-old son), my husband (29M) just started leaving me (31F) and our son every night and not coming home until after work the next day. He was cheating on me with a 21-year-old gas station attendant at his work. I finally caught them at a motel, just like the movies. He then kicked our son and me out of the house and moved the girlfriend into the marital home. It took me four months (the last third of my maternity leave) to get the law to kick them out and reclaim the house. Before we got married, we'd been together for seven years."
4."We started dating when I was 16 and he was 18. We broke up a couple of times. He was incredibly controlling, and I was incredibly insecure. He wouldn't allow me to go to the college I had been planning on going to my whole life. Instead, I was allowed to go to the college he went to, and right before the semester started, he decided to go to a different school. I lasted the semester and moved home."
"He was extremely verbally abusive. Then, our families were pushing for an engagement. We got married, moved into an apartment, and promptly got kicked out because he refused to work. We had to move in with my parents. I'd finally had enough when I came home from working two shifts, and he had spent all the money I had saved up to move out on a new game system and TV. He said he was completely fine living with my parents and didn't want to move out. I moved in with a friend, and he had me followed for months until the divorce was final. He had taken credit cards out in my name that I didn't know about. And I was almost never allowed to hang out with friends. It was the best decision I ever made. I haven't spoken to him since. I am now married to the love of my life."
—Anonymous
5."We met at work and dated for over a year. I was divorced and had primary custody of a 2-year-old daughter. While we were dating, he was amazing with my daughter, my boxer Zeus, and my friends and family! ... We decided to marry and had a small ceremony at my sister's home, and my family traveled to attend from another state. Almost immediately after the ceremony ended, my new husband's ENTIRE personality changed — so much so that even my dad called it out and said, 'Hey, what's wrong with him?'"
"My new husband then isolated himself from the entire family and all guests until it was time to make the three-hour drive back to my (premarital, thank goodness) home and, while on that trip, my 3-year-old daughter became fussy and began to cry in the backseat while I was driving. I could see in the rearview that she'd lost her pacifier, and I wasn't able to reach it. My new husband, who was trying to nap in the front passenger's seat, says, 'You need to shut her up!' I said, 'WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?" He said, 'She should be seen and not heard unless spoken to. She needs to be quiet!' He's lucky I didn't pull off the highway and kick him out of the car right there on the spot. The divorce papers were filed within two weeks of the ceremony, and he didn't even have time to move into my home. Nobody treats my children with disrespect. Nobody. From the 'I do' to the smack of the gavel in the finalization of the divorce was 11 months. Ten of those were waiting for a court date. My daughter is now 27 years old and has just graduated from law school."
—Anonymous
6."I found out my ex lied about both of their parents dying in the previous year (of COVID...turns out they were 'estranged'). .,. I'll never wrap my head around it. And those lies were just the tip of the iceberg."
7."He stopped working, doing anything in or around the house, refused counseling or doctor appointments, and then started to get mean, calling me horrible names. He was mad I didn't do everything just right — when he was doing nothing. I left when I realized he was becoming abusive and knew if I stayed, he would start hitting me. Then, the day I left, I found out about all the affairs going on. Including sleeping with my boss at the time."
8."Not me, but an acquaintance. His wife sat him down the day they came back from their honeymoon. Apparently, she had met someone at work some months before, and flirting ensued. What she told him: she thought it was just cold feet, so she kept going forward with the wedding. She chickened out on calling it off the day of, even though this was apparently when a light went on, and she knew she didn't want to be with him. He is a good sport about it and takes solace in knowing it was all her. Married a wonderful lady later and has a gaggle of kids. Ex-wife and random dude dated for a while but did not stay together."
9."I began dating Mr X after I accepted a job in a neighboring state. We traded off on weekends, driving to each other's homes. He proposed over the intercom of a commercial air flight while we were taking a trip. I wanted to wait and think about it and was extremely turned off by the manner of the proposal; however, the other passengers pressured me to answer, so I gave in and said yes. Women, if your boyfriend proposes in a creepy public way that garners him attention but puts you on the spot, don't let the Jumbotron rule. Say you need to think about it or outright say, 'Not at this time!'"
"Well, I planned a small wedding in a mansion. The night before the wedding, he accused me of cheating. Red flag. When I got back from my honeymoon, we were both arrested for crimes he had been committing. Three weeks later, I had the marriage annulled based on fraud. When push came to shove, he blamed me, so I served time also. I had vetted him in ways no one would dream of, but I didn't check with the Justice Department. It ruined the next decade of my life. I rose above it all and found the love of my life ten years later. I am forever changed by the depth of love we shared, and I no longer think of that bitter time. No matter how smart you are, people who lie well can convince anyone of anything. Just watch the news!"
—Anonymous
10."My Spanish cousin married a woman from the US, and she moved in with him to a town outside Barcelona. She made no effort to integrate or learn the language and generally ended up isolated. My cousin's family tried hard to help, inviting her to go out to things all the time, but she always refused. One day, my cousin went to work and came home to an empty house. She got moving vans to come and collect all her stuff and furniture, and she went back to America. She told him they were done from the airport. It was brutal."
11."We were working opposite shifts part of the time, so when I was working, and she was off, she would eat with her parents. Her mother was a total head case who never liked me and never believed anybody was good enough for either of her kids, so she was constantly in her ear about how she should have never married me. I tried to be respectful for the first nine months in hopes she would decide her daughter's happiness was more important than her being in charge of everything, but that didn't happen. ... By the last 3-5 months, I had put up with all I was going to put up with and started telling her mother the harsh truth and being less willing to compromise around her demands and poisoning of the marriage. My wife went with her parents for a long weekend at the beach to 'think about everything.'"
"I knew she would come home and say she couldn't do it anymore and wanted a divorce because I knew her mom would be in her ear all weekend. I was right. The funny thing now is when I read her face as she walked in when she got home, I told her I would listen to anything she had to say, and we could talk as long as she wanted, but I warned her if she asked for a divorce it would be over forever and nothing would ever undo it so to consider her words carefully. Sure enough, she said she wanted a divorce, so I said okay. We talked for about an hour, and then she left to see her parents. Three days later, she came back and tried as hard as she could to initiate sex. I had never seen her try so hard. I rejected her and reminded her what I had told her. She cried and asked if I could please let her take it back and go low-contact with her mom. I told her no, and she needed to leave. She sat in her car for an hour crying but eventually left. I never saw her one-on-one again. She is remarried with three kids in another state. I'm married with two."
12."Not me, but my friend. He pulled the plug after ten months. She ... kept her place and never moved in with him. She brought her kid on their honeymoon to Disney World and did everything with the kid, leaving him behind. She screamed at him constantly. This is why you don’t get engaged to someone you only dated for a month."
13."My ex-wife’s son (three years old), who I considered my son, told us that his biological father was molesting him. .... It sent my ex-wife into a depression, and she started drinking heavily. She started being harsh, and verbally and physically abusing me. I worked 50+ hours, paid all the bills, and was taking care of her and her son, and I was only getting about 12 hours of sleep a week. We were living, I would say, more middle class to meet her standards as well. This happened right after we got married. I helped her pay for the court costs/lawyers and going to three therapy sessions a week (couples therapy, a psychologist, and child therapy). I eventually broke after eight months when I found her talking to other men — her reasoning was that I wasn’t emotionally there for her. After a year, I met someone else while still in the marriage."
"I didn't know how to escape, and I just couldn't think straight. I've never been in that condition in my life, and someone was there for me. Fast forward to today, I'm diagnosed with mild depression and severe anxiety. Her son still sees his biological father, and my ex-wife doesn't recognize any of this happened. [She thinks] I'm the reason our marriage failed because I left her for another person. I divorced her after a year and a half. If I could go back and do this again, I would have just left, but instead, I had my mind on loving her and thought we could've gotten through all of this until I eventually broke."
14."I had a coworker who got married to her college boyfriend. They came back from their Caribbean honeymoon and a month later told us she was pregnant. Everyone was happy for her...until later that week, I saw her crying coming out of our boss' office. I found out later that day that she was indeed pregnant — but by another guy. A guy who would bartend our office parties a couple of times a year. Apparently, they were having sex through her entire engagement and one month of marriage. She ended up getting a divorce and trying to make it work with the bartender. Let's just say it was weird at the next couple of office parties. They didn't seem too happy together."
15."It was always an emotionally draining and abusive relationship that got worse with time. He thought I was cheating on him, he refused to get a job because 'it's your turn to take care of me' (we had lived in his MOM's house prior, where SHE took care of him), ... and he believed that everyone and everything was against him because he was a 'superior being' and that intimidated other people. Ugh, well, he never laid hands on me, and with my absolutely lovely upbringing (sarcasm) I assumed the relationship was not that bad because he wasn't physically abusing me."
"Until we had another dumb argument, and I went to bed early — he came back from storming around the neighborhood for the last four hours (no doubt hoping I was going to call him and apologize and panic that he hadn’t returned for dinner). Anyway, he got himself ready for bed, and I could hear that he was still pissed off with his huffing and kicking his shoes off, etc. He eventually got to bed and laid down, sat up, laid down, rolled, what have you, to try to wake me up and cuddle him, but I kept pretending to sleep. After a minute of this, he was lying still, and I thought he had finally given up, but the second I thought I could just actually sleep, a very hard, crushing pain flashed across my left eye socket. I sat up immediately just as he quickly rolled over to face the opposite wall and act as though he was asleep. He elbowed me in the face!!! WHO hits someone when they’re ASLEEP??? I had a gross bruise on the outer edge of my eye socket that went from purple to blue to green and eventually yellow over the course of weeks. Apparently, your face has a lot of capillaries. I remember trying to cover it with makeup and match the other eye with eyeshadow, so it looked like it was an intentional artistic thing. I don't think anyone was fooled.
Months later, I somehow convinced him to move back to my country, where it was apparently 'my turn' to take care of him. He would dress up in his military uniform (he never went on tour; he was on reserve, so basically a Boy Scout as far as I care) and walk around town waiting to be praised for his 'service,' then bum drinks at the pubs and come home vomiting and shitting his guts out. It took another six months to build up the courage and enough of a support system that I could leave him. I was at the time genuinely afraid he was going to kill our dog we had gotten together as a puppy, set my family's home on fire as we slept, or come up with something else I couldn’t dream up. Thankfully, he truly was a coward, and nothing else transpired. He ran out his visiting visa without a job or another person to sponsor him through citizenship, so he went back to England and likely rewrote history to villainize me and my family to the people I had made friends with there, but that was some of the cost of getting away.
My dog and I had another wonderful 11 years together until she passed last October. It’s still painful, but I would do all of that again to have her from the start. The rest just makes for a good story, and my advice is never to settle or give the self-proclaimed 'gentleman' or 'nice guy' a chance; he’s likely an incel who hates everyone for his own failures. Truly good men don’t spend a year pretending and trying to convince others they’re good."
16."Not me, but a woman whose husband claimed to be in the navy because her father was, and even bought a Navy uniform off eBay to get married in. She found out when she pushed to get a VA loan so they could buy a house, and his story all fell apart."
17."I had a cousin who married a real piece of work. As background, my extended family tends to drink too much, get too loud, and get too rowdy. The family reunion has been kicked out and banned from multiple venues. My cousin shows up with her fiancé one year, and he's an absolute shithead. He was picking fights, lighting fireworks, terrorizing people's pets...He was so bad that my uncle, her dad (who, by the way, is probably the loudest and most obnoxious of the bunch), had to pull him aside and say, 'You need to take it down a notch.' She married him anyway because she didn't understand that was him on his best behavior. They lasted less than a year. She won't talk about it, but the rumor was she found out he did meth."
18."I discovered on our wedding night that my wife ... abhorred sex. I tried to be as patient and sensitive to her fears and inhibitions as possible. After three months without the experience of expressing our love in the act of physical intimacy, I knew I could not persevere and asked for a divorce."
—Anonymous
19."TL;DR: he was an angry, miserable man who made me miserable, and I should have realized earlier, but I was young and naive. I left nine months after the wedding. Long version: I had almost canceled the wedding but convinced myself I was just getting cold feet. He was angry and judgemental all the time. He moved us into his mom's house until he found work. I was still studying at the time. Nothing was good enough for him. Everybody was too dumb; every job was beneath him. His mom found him a job through a friend of hers. He went for two days, then announced that if he were made to go back, he would crash the car into a tree. He said that he'd rather become homeless than do a job he didn't want. His brother asked, 'What about your wife? You're married now.' He said, 'Oh, she'll follow.'"
"I made him go to therapy and moved back to a bigger city where I could find work. He decided he wanted to go work in Canada. That's when I knew I did not want to follow and be alone with him in a country where I knew nobody. I asked for a break to figure things out. He said, 'Either you leave me, or we stay together,' he didn't 'agree with' breaks. I left. It was nine months after the wedding.
He wasn't supportive of anything I did. I was writing the first draft of my book at the time; he couldn't even get the genre right when people asked about it. He read a couple of chapters and said, 'None of the characters are like me.' He caused conflict with his family and mine. I understand now that he was extremely depressed but refused to go back to therapy after the first couple of sessions. He blamed it on me. He made my life miserable, and I accepted it because I had my own trauma. ... I ran straight into another terrible relationship with another angry man after that and lost another nine years. I have now removed angry people from my life altogether."
20."He left me for a woman who he worked with two months after the wedding. We had to wait for the year mark to apply for a divorce."
21."I'd previously married my college boyfriend when I was a month shy of 23. We split shortly after I turned 25. So, I was extremely pessimistic about relationships and had vowed never to get married again. I had some short-term stuff and was casually dating for a couple of years. Right after I turned 30 in 2021, I met this guy at a pizza place in mid-September."
"He was good-looking, charismatic, and a smooth talker. We hooked up a couple of days later, and he just never left. At first, he was sweet and fun. Soon, though, some red flags popped up that I ignored because I thought I'd be a good influence for him. (He's addicted to drugs and a felon. I'd never been in trouble.) He quickly became super controlling and was an expert in gaslighting, nearly to the point of me being brainwashed. We ended up getting married/eloping in December, three months to the day after we met, and things kept getting worse. I was ashamed and didn't want to admit how bad things were. I did try to leave him in March 2022, but he talked his way back in, and I believed his lies. My family was NOT happy. Things got worse, but I was even more ashamed at that point because I'd taken him back. I figured I deserved it all. Over the ten months we were together, police were called at least 15 times. (One of those times, I actually got arrested because I'd admitted to slapping him in self-defense to make him look better. I'm still dealing with that whole mess.) He almost killed us both multiple times during meth-fueled paranoid episodes by driving around like wild for hours on end, sometimes into opposing traffic. He threw me into walls and once even kicked the bedroom door off its hinges when I tried to lock him out. He controlled and monitored my every move (I couldn't even close the door when I was in the bathroom) and would spend HOURS going through every possible thing on my phone. He maxed out all of my credit cards and stole $10k of my student loan money for gambling. I still have to declare bankruptcy for the $50k+ of debt, plus the loans. I lost my grad school internship because he wouldn't let me go, which derailed that whole program, and I had to drop out. He forced me to have sex with him multiple times a day, saying I'd make him cheat on me if he didn't get it, then got angry at me for not being 'into it.' And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I finally reached my limit in July 2022, about a month after my arrest and a week or so after I had a miscarriage. It took him weeks to leave, and the police couldn't force him because he'd been living at MY apartment. He took full advantage of that and just continued making my life hell, but he finally left for good. ... When the divorce was finalized on May 4, 2023, I celebrated hard and cried harder. I still have very bad PTSD that I'm working through, along with all the other stuff I have to resolve, but at least I'm free. I'm for sure never getting married again. I'll never be able to trust anyone that much."
—Anonymous
22."We got married, and he lived on base in the barracks. I couldn't get on base until I got my military ID card. He disappeared for three days with no texting, calling, or contact of any kind. He said he just played video games. After that, he started getting abusive and trying to isolate me from my family. One night, he drank too much, got nasty, and started pushing me around. Icing on the cake was me having a back surgery and I was in the hospital alone for a week and he never visited or called/texted. I went to our house to get my clothes to move in with my family, and he hit me. I called the cops and had him arrested. Divorce was filed right after that. While our marriage was only nine months, it took two years to get him to sign divorce papers."
23."About six months into our marriage, I realized his mom was always going to come before me and our marriage, so I asked for a divorce. His family hated me, and it took me a long time to realize it didn't matter what I did or who I was; they would hate me regardless. I think he resented me for not giving in to his parents' pressure to make me who they wanted me to be. It took about another year of him insisting therapy would work and that he would change/treat me the way I deserved to be treated. I moved out six weeks ago."
24."She cheated on our wedding night. She was also emotionally abusive. ... She wanted to be non-monogamous, and I didn’t. She convinced me to try some group stuff together, and on our wedding night, she invited this girl that we had been talking to."
"They went to the bathroom together and made out. It wasn't the worst case of cheating ever, but it was bad enough for me."
25."My cousin got divorced after six months. The guy stole $50,000 from her dad and was a complete douche on multiple levels."
26."He started cheating before the ink was dry on our marriage certificate because that's how his parents' marriage was for decades. I had no clue until after we split up. He told me that such behavior was 'normal.' I ended it as soon as I realized that he'd done a 180. Asshole."
27."Not me, but a friend got married in December 2019…then COVID hit. She realized they were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum in pretty much every way. She wanted to honor lockdowns, and he thought it was all a hoax. This was also around the time that society started letting their racism show. Guess who was also a closet racist? So yeah, she noped right out of there."
28."My uncle ... got fired from his job and never told his wife. He cashed out his 401k so he could fake still having an income. For weeks, he'd put on his work uniform and leave and come home every day at the same time, like he was still going to his job. He usually went to his mother's house and hung out there all day. But eventually, he got caught when his wife followed him after he left their house. He went by the store before heading to his mom's. She could see him sitting in his car in the parking lot, then she called him and asked if he was at work yet. He said yes, he was. And the rest is history."
29."My ex 'found out' through tarot that I was cheating on her. I wasn't. We both worked from home."
30."About 30 seconds after we left the church, he became wildly jealous, to the point that he demanded that I quit attending university, that I could only wear the clothes he chose for me(because my torn-up jeans and oversized hoodies were apparently way too sexy), and that if he couldn't 'chaperone' me when I set foot outside the house, his mother had to do so in his stead."
"He was completely convinced that I was actively cheating with everyone, from the mailman to every single professor, associate, postdoc, dean, etc. at the university (how on earth I would accomplish that just from a logistical point of view, I have no idea, since that's well over 3000 people total).
He started screaming that I was a gold-digger (he didn't have a dime to his name), that I did nothing but sit on my ass all day (which is pretty difficult if you have to have sex with 3000+ people on a regular basis, just saying), and at the one month mark, he smacked me in the face full force with his wallet of all things.
He went all Pikachu Face when he received the divorce papers."
31."My ex got diagnosed with a chronic illness two months after we got married. The short story is that he lost his mind and pushed everyone out, including me, after four months of marriage. He, out of left field, kicked me out of the house after four months of marriage. We tried to make it work for a couple of years with couple's therapy while we were separated, but it didn't work."
"The longer story is that he lied pretty much through our whole relationship — five plus years. He was able to mask who he was up until he was diagnosed, and then he couldn't maintain the facade and his illness at the same time. To most people (including me and his family at first), it looked like he had a complete personality change. He went from loving, optimistic, and charismatic to rude, narcissistic, and aggressive. At one point, I had to call the police on him because he had shoved me during an argument.
I will never know why he really wanted to get married, as he was apparently having doubts when he proposed. I still will never know why he hung on for as long as he did because he was telling his best friend (now ex-best) at the time that he wasn't interested in the marriage after we separated and were still going to couple's therapy. His behavior was just bizarre, and I was so upset over everything that I was just walking in a brain fog, not understanding what was happening. The only thing I and his ex-best friend can think of is that I fit into his idea of a perfect life. His ex-best friend pointed out that our house was decorated the way HE wanted it. He also got super jealous when I got a new job and was making a lot more than him. I was a total dummy to all out until it was too late. When he realized that divorce meant that he'd be off my health insurance, I think that's why he tried to hang on.
I had a life-changing moment when I was at an art market that had a Tarot reader. The reader happened to be someone with a chronic illness, and after I explained my situation to them, they told me, 'Someone can be an asshole and still have a chronic illness. Their illness is not their fault, but it is their responsibility.' It completely blew my mind because I kept explaining away my ex's behavior as 'Well, he's sick; that's why he's acting that way.' I blamed myself a lot for how and why everything went down. That reader was also incredibly blunt with me, which is what I needed at the time. I needed to get my act together, and I needed someone to tell me that very clearly and very seriously. That 1-hour reading was better than the years of therapy I'd had to deal with the situation.
It's been over seven years since I got booted from what I thought was going to be my forever home with my forever person. Last I've heard, my ex has no friends and is making no attempt to reach back out to the ones he let go. His parents are rich, so he's probably going to continue living in our old house without learning any lessons about life.
I'm doing better. I have my own house and am finally in a healthy relationship, but I have some heavy scars from that whole experience."
32."We married just after I (then 20F) graduated college and got a good job. He (then 20M) had one semester of college left before graduating. He quit halfway through that semester and neglected to tell me for two months. He left every morning like he was going to class but actually went to his mom's house to play video games with his brother all day. I was working two jobs to support us until he got his degree and a good job. He didn't tell me he had quit until I asked what his grades were looking like and if he wanted help studying for finals. After he confessed, I gave him the option of either going back to school, getting a full-time job, or going back to live with Mommy. He didn't think he could handle a full-time job and didn't want to go back to school, so we parted ways. We were together for nine months."
33."My ex was contacted by a guy from high school she knew who had just inherited his dad's gas station businesses and was loaded. They started talking, and two months later, she was asking for a divorce. She took off in the middle of the night after the divorce with her kid and our furniture and left me with a crap ton of bills as well. The amount of bullshit she pulled on me after we were divorced made me feel like I was the one who cheated."
34.And finally..."We were honeymooning in Hawaii. I told her, 'Your cousin is here; should we meet up with her?' She said. 'Oh, fuck my cousin.' In hindsight, I see that she meant it literally."
Why did you get divorced after less than a year of marriage? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
