Couples That Were Head Over Heels In Love And Later Divorced Share What Went Wrong

Too Much Anxiety

“My ex-husband had a severe anxiety disorder and decided he didn’t want to take his medication anymore. He became worse and worse despite me trying to change what I did and how I talked to avoid upsetting him. One day I came home from a hard day at work (I was the breadwinner) and asked if he could do the dishes because I was exhausted.

He flipped out and left and never came back. He straight up abandoned me. I called everyone he knew, no one knew where he was. I filed a missing persons report. A week later, he called me from his mother’s. She had lied to me when I called her and said she didn’t know where he was – he had gone straight to her place and was there the whole time, leaving me to be worried sick. He said he was too sick to be with anyone and that he wanted a divorce despite my pleas to go to couple’s counseling or anything else that might help.

There is a happy ending though, a few years later I met a fantastic guy who treats me better than anyone else ever has.”

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Out Of Nowhere

“My friend married her high school sweetheart. They’d been together for… 10-ish years I believe, and before they pulled the trigger on marriage, they took a break beforehand to make sure it was what they really wanted. After the break they were still in love, so they got married.

I went to the wedding and it was nice. It was very fun and they seemed into each other.

Four years passed. The marriage still seems to be going smoothly, and my friend, the wife, decided to go back to school and study for a medical degree. Her husband was extremely supportive of the decision and encourages her to go for it.

One week after she started school, he tells her that he wants a divorce.

She’s completely floored and asks him for the reason, but he doesn’t really have one. He just said that it’s over. She offered to drop out of college immediately, go to marriage counseling, and do whatever was needed to fix the marriage, but he just staunchly refused across the board. So she gave him a final warning: she’d do whatever she could to fix the marriage, but once the paperwork was signed, that’d be it forever, period, so she wanted to make sure that he was completely sure it was what he wanted. He confirmed it was. The paperwork was signed, and the marriage was no more.

And about a month later, guess who comes crawling back? Smart gal that she is, my friend tells him to take a hike.

We have a few theories about why he wanted the divorce, but nothing concrete. Last I heard, my friend had gotten engaged again to her new boyfriend of about a year. He’s about ten years younger than her and her family is understandably concerned. The family had a long talk with her fiancé about whether or not he was sure, making sure that he knew what he was signing up for, especially with a woman this much older than him. They’re afraid that she’s just in panic mode because she’s 30 now and doesn’t want her life to slip her by, so she’s latching onto the first guy she finds, regardless of the consequences. Only time will tell now about this situation. I really do hope it works out for her though; she’s been through enough crap and deserves some happiness.”

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Chemicals In My Brain

“We were together for 13 years since she was 18 and I was 21, and we had been married for the last 7. I wanted to split up, she most certainly did not. At the time, I felt like something was wrong with me; I figured I was having a midlife crisis. The last time I ever saw her, she told me that when we first met, I had saved her (she was going through a dark period in her life) and she thought of me as her hero.

Six or seven months later, I woke up and it was like a switch had been flicked in my head and I regretted splitting up so much. Understandably, she had moved on with her life. I was subsequently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and learned that it can affect your behavior. There is a condition called MS personality wherein a sufferer’s loved ones describe their behavior as psychopathic – completely devoid of empathy. Either I was the world’s biggest idiot, or my immune system chewing holes in my brain played a part.

Either way, it doesn’t matter, the outcome is the same. It’s been seven years and I know I will never love anyone else.”

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Not Who I Thought He Was

“When I married my now ex-husband, I was very deeply in love with him and was absolutely sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He and I were compatible on all levels and had a great time whatever we did. I loved his kids like they were my own. It was meant to be…until it wasn’t.

I started noticing that his parenting wasn’t exactly what he promised it would be, especially with my stepson. He would tell him to do or not do something, his son would refuse, and my ex would just cave in and let him get away with it. Every single time. I let it go so many times. Finally, I brought it up with ex that my stepson hadn’t done any of his chores or cleaned his bathroom in two months. My ex said he’d take care of it. And then didn’t. And so on.

This stress, coupled with a very stressful job and a psycho boss at the time, led me into a mental breakdown. I am not proud of who I was during this time. I was angry and lashed out a lot. I recognized I had a problem and went and got help – intense therapy (diagnosed c-PTSD), medications, the whole works. On the surface, my ex seemed to support me. I apologized and did everything I could to make it right.

But it didn’t matter, because he was already banging someone else. He’d go to this woman’s house after work, sleep with her, and then come home before I would get home from work. He’d act like everything was fine, go into the bathroom, arrange to go to her house, and then give me some lie about going for drinks with his guy friends.

When things get hard, there are usually two reactions: pouring yourself into making yourself better and improving your life or running away. I did the former, he did the latter.

I actually took him back once because I loved him and wanted to make our marriage work. I didn’t want to lose our family or our lives together. But not two months later, he was sleeping with the other woman again. He abandoned me, his kids, his dogs, everything, and just walked out. I took care of his kids (they were young adults at that time, 19/24 but not self-sufficient) for a year before I finally put my foot down.

It takes two people to work on a marriage. I wanted to save it, but he just wanted to run away. He never dealt with his own issues that I had no idea about. So it ended. And now that I’m out of it and still in therapy, I am realizing how emotionally and verbally abusive he was. He would gaslight me, set me up to fail, punish me with the silent treatment, yell at me for the most ridiculous crap, and so on. I loved who I thought he was, but that person didn’t exist. The lying, cheating, gaslighting, abusive person is who he actually is.

I’m tearing up as I am typing this because this whole situation messed me up beyond belief and I’m going to need SO much more therapy to heal from it. Meanwhile, he’s still with the woman he cheated on me with and left me for twice. I hope it was worth it for him.”

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Grown Apart

“I was madly in love with my first wife and I still care for her and would do anything to help her. We were married 16 years and then got divorced. It wasn’t any one single event like an affair or something, we just grew into different people. I summed it up in a few quips:

-While she was pursuing a professional image, I’m a counter-culture D-list celebrity in my town. For background, I own a couple of head shops while she is currently a dean at a university. When we divorced, she was already high up in the administration.

-She was pursuing her spirituality, while I’m a skeptic and non-believer, an atheist if you will.

-She wanted to move back to our home state and I’ve made a life in our current location. Since the divorce, she has gotten to go back to our home state where she landed her dream job.

-And the last major reason is she preferred opera, while I liked camping.

We still talk on the phone every few months. After five years of being single, I’ve remarried a woman who is closer in lifestyle to me. It was bittersweet to end a marriage, but we did it with no animosity. It just goes to show that we were better as friends rather than lovers or husband and wife.”

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You Can’t Force Change

“I was married for 20 years (with him for 28), and now divorced for almost a year. I was young, in love with a guy I thought I could fix, and I thought at some point he would change. He had issues, but I was breathlessly in love with him and he made me feel special. Maybe he was immature and reckless, smoked a lot of pot, but I thought he would grow up one day, and he would change. He was everything I wanted but lacked drive and motivation.

As we got older, I tried to set rules and expectations to try and force him to grow up, be better, stop partying, and get home at a reasonable time. But it led to lying, sneaking around and resentment. When I expected him to work, it was one failed job after another. More lies, more resentment. I became the horrible wife who nagged him constantly. He was unfaithful, I accepted it (stupidly), tried to move past it because we were a family and I wanted a baby. Eventually, I got pregnant, expected him to be a responsible father. Again, there was nothing but disappointment. Sadly by then, all trust and communication in our relationship were gone.

We lived for years basically hating each other and miserable in a marriage that should have ended 10 years earlier. We both checked out years ago. I made the mistake of settling for someone I thought I could change one day. Nearly 30 years later, looking at him across the table at the divorce lawyer’s office, I realize he’s the same stupid immature man he was when we met. He never changed, not a bit. I wasted so many years of my life and so much energy in trying to change him and make a marriage work that was doomed from the start.”

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Tinder-Saster

“We met on Tinder. For two weeks, we had the most amazing conversations and found out we were almost an exact match. For almost every situation or idea, we agreed.

On the first date, you could tell that most of her profile pictures were doctored or filtered, and she secretly wore something under her shirt to hide her stomach pooch. But no worries. She was still very cute and pretty, and her attitude was upbeat and positive.

I wanted to play things right on the first date and not sleep with her. She came on so strong to the point of basically making it seem like the date would be a failure if we didn’t seal the deal.

On the second date, she asked me to hang out at her apartment. She has a four-year-old daughter that she allowed to basically audition me as her stepdad. I thought it was a bit uncomfortable but I was nice and playful back because her daughter was just too cute.

We date for a few weeks and things start to creep up. She finds out that one of my co-workers is an ex of mine and we still text as friends. She finds out because she went through my Facebook and asked about all the female friends I had, and I didn’t lie when she asked about that particular one. She took it as if it was an ultimate betrayal. For the rest of our relationship, she would throw that in my face when she was losing an argument. She said I technically was cheating.

I got through this thinking it will be a one time fight though. Three months later, when her lease is up she wanted to move into my house. I still thought things are okay and can be managed so I say what the heck and agree.

Things started to swing badly when she goes through my internet history, my phone, and my e-mails on many occasions and used harmless things she finds on there to say I’m cheating on her. Like an email link of a girls hoodie that I sent my friend as a gift idea for another girl. She believed I bought it for my ex/co-worker and threw it in my face over and over.

She used fights as leverage to get what she wanted. She would say something like ‘I say good morning to the dog before her,’ or I didn’t say ‘I love you right away,’ when I get home from work. She set up these scenarios where if I fail and she can complain to me about it. When she realized she was being crazy, she just threw a tantrum and said she’s breaking up with me and moving out. Then she ‘came to her senses’ but said she will only stay with me if I give something up. First, it was my drinking, then it was video games, then the computer entirely, then I had to start deleting specific women off of Facebook.

She started alienating me from my friends. Everything we do usually involves her, her friends, or her family, and she always made it a point to make me seem like the idiot or a bad person at some point so that her friends and family are always on her side. I can’t even make trips to the hardware store by myself or I get told I’m trying to get away from her. Every menial task she has to take care of I have to ride with her. I was never allowed to stay home by myself or relax by myself. I had to spend time with her.

She wanted to go to the gym every night after work and I had to babysit her daughter. I’m only allowed to babysit and I couldn’t watch TV other than kids shows with her, and I couldn’t play any video games or do anything fun for myself while keeping an eye on her.

Her mom had a stroke and she fought me about letting her move in with us in my house. She decided if she paid for the kitchen remodel, it is both our house and she has a say. She will leave me if I don’t let her mom move in.

Her mom moves in and I become the house handyman. They proceed to take over the house and I’m expected to just sit on the sofa with them and watch HGTV all night and I get in trouble for even putting a baseball game on my phone. Meanwhile, she’s constantly on Facebook or Pinterest. Her mom was selfish as well but it’s a whole story in itself. I could see where she gets it from.

I’m miserable. I’m controlled. I’m yelled at or on trial for everything I do. She wanted to totally rework my house to be her own. She made me sell off most of my stuff in a garage sale. She wanted to paint the fireplace, remodel this, remodel that, take down all my decorations, and put up what she wants because she says I live like an old man.

Things go on like this for a few months.

I told her she needs therapy and that it’s over unless we go to counseling. She cried and said I’m right. She finally agreed to counsel.

Two weeks later, she started a fight with me over grabbing the seat in her Jeep when she took a hard turn. She started yelling at me that if I can’t handle the way she drives, I shouldn’t ride with her. She dropped me off at the house, yelled at me that she’s told me too many times that I make her nervous when I ‘overreact’ in the car.

When I finally had enough and go off on her, she said she’s done and it’s my fault because I didn’t find a therapist in time. I say it’s only been two weeks and a week of it we were flooded in due to a hurricane. Doesn’t matter.

As I come to find out she never planned on going to therapy. Weeks earlier she had plotted with her mother and her deadbeat sister to move out and she already had a house lined up weeks ago. She moves out that weekend. She demanded she gets the refrigerator because she picked it out. Yet I’m stuck with the bill for the remodel on the kitchen and I’m still paying it while she moved out and is free and clear of any obligations.

I have to buy all new stuff because I sold most of my stuff in the garage sale. I have to start working extra hours to afford the bill for the kitchen. She tries to keep in contact to keep an eye on me and pretends she’s going to get back with me, she just needs time apart to get better as a person so she can be better for me. A few weeks later I hear from one of my close friends she’s bad mouthing me like everything was my fault, and that she’s already sending dirty pics to other guys. I confront her about all her lies and she says so what, we are broken up and gets mad at me again, for caring. I drive off and make a pact with myself to never contact her again and to stay away from her.

The worst part was after she decided she was moving out she sent her daughter to stay with her dad, and I never saw her again. We had bonded a lot, and she never let me say goodbye, she just took her and left and I’ve never seen her since.

Still, I put up with so much for so long and they only way I can explain it is between her and her daughter, 50% of the time everything was great and she portrayed the perfect girlfriend. When someone is emotionally abusive you don’t tend to recognize it when you never been through it before and you start to think ‘maybe I am messed up and maybe things are really my fault, maybe I’ll get better for her.’ But a year later and a diagnosis of depression and being happy and figuring things out about myself prove otherwise.”

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A New Attitude

“After 15 years together and 6 kids (the youngest being 2-years-old), she loses weight thanks to surgery, gets noticed by guys more often, and starts sending dirty vids and pics to a guy on Instagram. She stops being a mother to our children and is almost never around. I catch her in her lies and find the evidence on her phone that she was trying to hide. The next day, she leaves our home and a few days later tells me she wants to separate.

A week later, she is on some sugar daddy websites selling her body, gave me some sketchy disease, is still barely a parent and blames me for her mental issues. She tells people I abused her, yet leaves me to care for our 6 kids as a single parent with no job (I left my job to care for our kids). She moves back in after several months because she doesn’t want to pay rent someplace and I can’t stop her from living in our house until we get divorced. I’m the bad guy because I want sole custody of our children, while she hops from one guy to another for the experience and says she doesn’t want a relationship.

She spends more time with her friends and random guys than she does with her own children. She led me on for months about reconciliation and has recently agreed to therapy with me, but has stated she hasn’t changed her mind and probably won’t. On top of all this, my oldest daughter has developed depression and anxiety disorders and now hates her mother. My 2nd oldest daughter seems to be following suit with mental issues from her mother not coming home for days on end. Financially, we are ruined and my oldest daughter has threatened suicide, so I need to care for her more than I am able to.”

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Blind To Trouble

“We were together for over 20 years. She cheated six times in the last eight years of the relationship. I forgave her the first five times and focused on raising the kids right and keeping the family together as I had grown up in a broken home and didn’t want that for my children.

The last time, I got seriously ill and while I was in the hospital awaiting a major operation, she decided to travel to another city and spend time with her fling. That’s when I realized our relationship died the first time she cheated, and even though the kids had a solid family upbringing, it wasn’t healthy to have their parents unhappy even though they were together. Talk about me being a slow learner.

Ironically, the year before she left, she was hospitalized for three weeks. I was by her side every moment I could be which was daily for 6-8hrs, sometimes longer. My daughter overheard her recently talking about it; she has told her new friends that she was in the hospital all alone and no one (specifically, me) came to visit her. There are so many lies I’ve uncovered. I can’t believe I was that blind.

That was in April 2017, I’m much happier now and the kids (now M19, F15) are also seeing me happier…although my health, unfortunately, has not improved.

She has tried multiple times to get back together with me since then. Not a chance of that ever happening.

I feel rather stupid because, in retrospect, I should have ended the relationship the first time it happened. I put my belief in a ‘complete’ family before my own happiness, I’m not sure if it might have been better to end it sooner and have the children have at least one happy parent.”

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Former Best Friend

“I married my best friend. After almost a decade of marriage, she tried to get into graduate school and didn’t get accepted. She started partying and not coming home at night.

She tells me that she blew the neighbor, that she wants a divorce, and that I was the reason she was unhappy. I was willing to work on things but she called the police claiming that I was emotionally abusing her.

It breaks my heart when my toddlers tell me that they are helping mommy by falsely telling people that I hurt them. Someday, my kids will be older and understand. Hopefully.

Now, we are a year into a nasty divorce and custody battle. Her boyfriend moved in with her and our three toddlers within a month of me moving out.”

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Fitting Together

“My divorce story isn’t exciting or interesting. After 10 years together, I realized that I just wasn’t happy anymore. We tried a lot of things to make it work, but ultimately separated and divorced.

With my ex, we tried really hard to fit our lives to each other. With my new significant other, our lives fit together.

I think problems arise when people give up too much of themselves, individually, to be together.

He’s still my absolute best friend and we co-parent our four-year-old like champs. I have no idea why I couldn’t be happy with him- for a very long time, I thought I was broken and just couldn’t be happy, but now know that’s not true. I think it may be that we were just too young (21) and tried too hard and sacrificed too much to make our lives work together when really we personally would probably have been better off individually.”

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