Sometimes you don't get love right the first time, but you'd think they'd get it right the second or third time right, right? Well, these people who married divorcées found out the hard way that there was a reason no one wanted to spend their life with these spouses.
Her “Domestic Abuse” Might Have Been More Domestic Than He Thought
“My wife cheated on me. I ended up meeting someone who was ‘perfect’ and just thought I had hit the karma jackpot. She liked all the same things as me.
When I asked about her past, I’d hear stories of what sounded like abuse – but it was always implied (like ‘I was so scared, I thought he was going to hit me’). Then one night, she went mental on me – started getting mad at me for wanting to visit my daughter who was in the hospital – she wanted to go on a date instead. She started throwing glass at me and it was like rain. She went to get away and she came after me and clawed the crap out of the back of my neck, then yanked me backwards by my collar where I ended up on top of her – I pushed her away and just got out.
She called and started threatening me; since I had ‘hit her’ (in falling on her) my options were to come back to the house or she would call the cops and report me for abuse. I hung up on her and called the cops instead.
By the time the cops showed up, she had bruises on her neck; she self-inflicted them to claim I had done it – just hadn’t called the cops yet – my hands showed no signs of aggressive force – plus the back of my neck earned her a trip to prison
It was at that point I realized how duped I was – I KNEW she was the reason for her previous divorce.”
The Reason Why Her Husband Left Her Made Her Judgmental For Life
“I dated a divorcee for a hot second. She was actually a wonderful lady, but she had some lingering feelings about how things had gone with her ex. The first time this came up was: one night we were at a bar and I ended up in a fairly intense, fun conversation about music with the (male) bartender. She got weirdly upset about this and started dropping lines like ‘Well maybe you just want to go home with him’ and ‘it’s obvious you guys are into it.’ A bit later, when she found out my brother is gay, she got passive aggressive and started saying enough offensive things that I eventually broke up with her.
Turns out her ex-husband left her for a man.”
Her Son Saw The Red Flags Even Before She Did
“My parents are divorced and both got remarried. My mom found it beneficial to attend a ‘divorce care’ group at her church. She ended up going out with the guy who ran the group, and he seemed like a great dude. When I asked her about him, she told me he had been divorced himself two times himself already which was a huge red flag to me, but apparently not to her. Fast forward 12 years and he’s been unbelievably emotionally abusive to her. There was also a point when my brother and I were teenagers where we weren’t allowed to live with them anymore (because he felt threatened he wasn’t the man of the house). She says she’s happy still, which is all I want for her, but it’s pretty frustrating when a 13-year-old can see the red flags my over 40-year-old mother couldn’t.”
He Wasn’t Keeping Quiet About His Ex-Wife’s Secrets
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“About a year after I signed the divorce papers, I met the guy my wife cheated on me with. I didn’t know him by sight, but he’d seen a few pictures of me in my bedroom.
He walked up to me, introduced himself, and then started apologizing for being the one to break up my marriage. I was over it by then, but I was still pissed off enough to say something like ‘Yeah, well, man it wasn’t like you were the ONLY guy she was cheating on me with. I’m pretty sure she was with a dude named Brian the whole time she was with you.’
I knew about Brian from a friend, and plus she’d admitted that there had been others besides the guy I confronted her about. Why he felt the need to apologize, I have no idea. Seemed like a nice enough guy aside from sleeping with another man’s wife. Did I do it for revenge? Not really. It was just a spur of the moment thing, mostly a knee-jerk response to an emotional situation. Sometimes you get to say the perfect cutting remark. Sometimes you think of it in the parking lot after the opportunity is lost. I got lucky and didn’t say something like ‘Ah, that’s OK man’ and regret it for the rest of my life. I used to feel sorry about it because it might have broken up a marriage, but if that marriage wasn’t built on trust, to begin with then chances are the infidelity was going to happen anyway (or again, if you look at it that way).
He got real quiet, apologized again, and then left. A few weeks later, someone told me that he had moved out and was in the process of divorcing her. I’ll never know for sure if it was my telling him about the other-other man that was the tipping point for him, but I like to think it was.”
He Was A Cold Hearted Snake, And She Listened To His Lies
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“I dated a guy briefly after my divorce; he just got half custody of his kids after not seeing them for almost two years. He said it was because his ex was psychotic, apparently, she left him on his birthday and just disappeared for no reason. He went on about how outrageous the child support was that he was expected to pay. He called her a dirty yoga loving hippie and said she was just totally out there crazy. Whatever, lots of guys say this kind of stuff so I sort of just brushed past it thinking he was a little jilted.
He kept on trying to get me to come over and sleep there when he had his kids there. His kids he supposedly hadn’t seen in two years. I kept telling him it was inappropriate because I had never met his kids, and I thought they shouldn’t see some woman coming over who they never met. I said I wouldn’t do it to my kids, so I didn’t want to do it to his kids. He kept insisting they were ‘cool,’ they would just be playing their new Xbox all night.
He kept telling me he wanted to have more children one day and that I seemed like a great woman to have kids with. We had only been going on dates about three weeks.
Then, after I began to get suspicious, I did one google search and found a whole blog written by his ex-wife. It went on and on about how abusive he was and how she was determined to keep their kids from it. She used yoga as a meditative release and talked about it on her blog. Her story just seemed so much more believable, and family members were commenting on it telling her how far she’d come after everything she had to endure. His story was always changing, and he seemed to get visibly agitated when talking about it, but I was never the one to bring it up.
I read in the blog about his vasectomy, and then just stopped talking to him after that. He told me he was ready to have more children ASAP. He was just such a pathological liar, and I feel so sad for his kids. Everything that came out of his mouth was a self-serving lie, and I don’t blame her for divorcing him.
No thanks.”
Seeing His Ex-Wife Happier Made Them Question, Was It Really HER Fault?
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“Many years ago, I found a charming man on the internet. He was divorced, but his ex was a witch. I visited him and went with my ‘I have to explore this’ value, and against my gut feeling, I moved to be with him.
He ended up being an emotionally abusive person. One of the tactics for emotional abuse is isolating the victim from friends and family. What better way to do that than to ‘import’ someone from somewhere else?
Anyway, my first inkling that there were two sides of the story was when we were at his best friend’s house. The wife mentioned that she saw the ex-wife and implied that she seemed like she was ‘doing better.’ She started saying that she told her, ‘I just thought you were…’ and trailed off, quickly changing the subject. I think the ‘I just thought you were’ was finished by ‘a witch.’ But the implication is there. Why was she one before and not now?
I thought of another thing that made me take pause fairly soon in our relationship. I was at a dinner party, and his two best friends told me that I had changed him. ‘He’s so much better than he used to be.’ I was still pretty new to the group, so I didn’t ask any pressing questions and accepted the compliment, but in the back of my mind, I was wondering when I was going to meet the real him.
I’ve been free from him for years. And now that I’m much better without him, I know exactly what happened to that ex.”
This Cujo Ended Up Tearing Their Marriage Apart
“My husband had an engagement that ended before we met, and the reasons always seemed weird to me – something about her trying to get rid of their dog and getting into a huge fight with his mom when she made a comment about the dog thing, and then getting her mom and sister to call and harass his mom about the fight. Big, ridiculous argument that ended with them deciding they weren’t going to work out. They’d been together for four years.
Now I get it. Well, not the part with her mom and sister, but the rest of it. The dog was awful – peed everywhere, was dominant and aggressive (biting/drawing blood aggressive at times), and old enough that he was difficult to train since they hadn’t done anything about it when he was a puppy. The dog now lives with my mother-in-law because it’s not safe to have him in a home with babies. And my mother-in-law is a nightmare, but my husband and his ex saw her multiple times a week whereas we see her once every couple of months.
At one point about a year in we had a big argument where I told him we were heading down the same path as them if he didn’t get his life together, and that if you have the same problems with two long-term relationships in a row you need to consider that you’re part of the problem. And that I was out if he didn’t set serious boundaries with his mom and get some training for the dog.”
His Addictions Were Too Much For Her
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“I’m a divorcee who dated a divorcee. He got wasted on his birthday and told me, ‘I see why your husband left you’ right after I’d given him a $250 watch he wanted.
We planned to go to a strip of bars. I figured we should get an uber so we don’t have to bum a ride. At that point, I was trying to keep him from drinking and driving as much as possible. (Yes, I had reported him to the cops on two other occasions, but I didn’t know his license plate number and, as far as I know, they never caught him). To be honest, I was still hurting from the divorce and was clinging to what I subconsciously knew was a bad situation.
Either way, we went to the bars and met up with friends. He got wasted. I asked the bartenders to cut him off, but he just got other people to buy him drinks. So, closing time comes around, and he tells me he wants to get food with his friend. His friend, who is driving, is only slightly more sober than him. I tell him ‘no way’ and try to get him to uber. I tell him we can order food and just be comfy at home. He’s not going for it. I finally tell him that I do not feel safe getting into a car with that guy. It’s at this point that he starts yelling at me, telling me that I’m killing his buzz, I’m ruining his birthday, and that he sees why my husband left me. It hurt. A lot.
He wound up getting in the car with his friend and leaving me there. I was in a popular area, so it wasn’t hard to find a friend to pick me up. The next morning, he claimed he didn’t remember. I dumped him and asked for the watch back.
I eventually left because, A) I realized he was a rebound that had lasted way too long, and B) he was going to eventually kill someone with his drinking and driving and I really didn’t want it to be me.”
“Just Because You Get A Divorce Doesn’t Mean You Were A Failure”
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“My widowed mom started dating a guy in her Sunday school class who was recently divorced. Quiet but nice. Her friends in the class told her that he was never home, always hunting or at work, but that he was a nice man. Warning her but not scaring her off.
He and mom got married. Still quiet but again nice. Turns out he was depressed. His wife of 25 years had been cheating on him with the same guy for at least half that time. He worked all the time, or went on hunting trips with friends, as he just didn’t want to be at home.
Mom told him that it was too bad he couldn’t retire so they could just enjoy their time together. (He was 50, mom was 53.) He said he could retire, and did so. They spent the next 20 years having a great time, traveled extensively, just enjoying each other’s company. They had a great marriage before he passed away. Missed by all of us.
Sometimes the divorce is 100% the fault of one party. Just because you get a divorce doesn’t mean you were a failure.”
“God, I Wish He Could Change”
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“I just got out of a four-year relationship with a divorcee where the last two years we had been living together. He was honest about being divorced and still getting over it when we met.
His reasons for the divorce were as soon as they got married, she acted like a different person and never wanted to fool around with him. Wouldn’t even mess around with him on their wedding night. Then, even though he was the one who was unhappy and neglected, she was the one that filed for divorce. Then she cleaned him out. Came by their house with all of ‘his’ friends and took everything they owned. This is the story I was told, and I fully believed it. I thought she was such a witch.
Cut to us living together. I went through some health problems that killed my drive and made fooling around absolutely excruciating for me. Our two to ten times a day screeched to a halt. He was not at all understanding, and I ended up giving in and just fooling around with him most days, even though it was so painful sometimes I would cry. Of course, that was my fault too. Apparently crying isn’t attractive and really makes his junk sad. So doing that for months really damaged my idea of intimacy, and I still haven’t completely recovered mentally in that aspect. It was at this point I started to realize that maybe he wasn’t just refusing to fool around for no reason, maybe it was the fact that he doesn’t care to please the woman, or even care if she’s crying from pain. He just wants to get off at least once a day, and it’s not his fault he has such a high drive. He could go cheat, so I should be happy to please him.
Then we have the part where he claims he was the unhappy one but she filed for divorce. Who files for divorce if they’re satisfied with the marriage? It couldn’t possibly be his tendency to constantly be unhappy and blame it on her, or his mental and emotional abuse. It couldn’t be the fact that even his mother warned me not to let him abuse me. It couldn’t be his claims that he does all the work in life and the relationship and that she does nothing. While he sleeps his days away, leaves dirty underwear and clothes were strewn around for guests to step over, leaves dishes to sit and rot, doesn’t take care of his body, and doesn’t make an effort intimately or emotionally or romantically.
Then we have the part where she ‘cleaned him out’ when she left. When I left, he offered to pay me for all the work I did on his house. I invested hours, weeks, months into fixing up his house he neglected. I removed old peeling wallpaper, fixed walls, painted, installed new light fixtures, put on new cabinet hardware throughout, bought very expensive backsplash tile, did some extreme landscaping projects, and the list goes on and on. I said I wanted $1,000, he insisted on $3,000. That is a fair number, doesn’t even account for the labor aspect of things, which I, of course, would never want to be paid for. I also left behind dishes, silverware, rugs, towels, and sheets, curtains, things like that for him. Then what did he tell everyone? That I cleaned him out. I took everything, and also took his money. Never mind the fact that I had to buy a new house, while he sat and didn’t have to change anything because of the breakup. I had to live with friends for over a month because he wanted me and my son out of his house within a week of the breakup and changed the locks, so I couldn’t get my things or pack or see my dogs.
Never again will I date a man who is willing to trash his ex. He also said nice things about her, but he’s such a convincing person that I didn’t think he wouldn’t be telling the truth. He has tons of friends and respect from people in our town as he coaches athletes, myself being one of them. People are incapable of seeing how freaking psychotic he is. His friends are nice, normal people. He preaches constantly about how others are living their lives wrong, and how he only surrounds himself with quality people. Which he does have quality friends, they’re just in a constant rotation because eventually, his ego gets in the way.
God. I wish he would change.”
She Felt Sorry She Couldn’t Listen To His Ex’s Warnings
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“So my mom got divorced from my dad my senior year of high school. She has always been the kind of person to be in a relationship, so she started immediately dating (since my dad cheated on my mom multiple times). She met this guy on Plenty of Fish, who we are going to call Tom. Tom was a successful marketing guy with no kids, a steady income, and was divorced because ‘his wife cheated on him.’ Early in the relationship, my mom gets a message from Tom’s ex-girlfriend. She says that she needs to tell her some things about Tom, but my mom ignores her.
A year goes by and Tom seems normal. She moves in with him and so do we since he has two spare bedrooms. He’s a cool guy who seems nice. He’ll sometimes go through my mom’s phone (she told me), but she thought that all the good things outweighed the bad.
Cut to Election Day, where things aren’t going so well for my mom and Tom since they’re both liberals. They drink and Tom throws a remote at the window. He calls the police on himself. My mom forgives him.
This is where things start to get weird. Tom starts acting crazier towards my mom, mostly via text message. On Christmas Day, she decides that we don’t want to go to his sister’s house because she’s wasted. We open the trunk to his car to get the presents out, and he drives away, with stuff flying out the back. He apologizes. My mom is weary at this point.
Cut to New Year’s where Tom is out of town. She texts him that she wants to break up with him because he’s saying that it’s my autistic brother’s fault that the carpet on the stairs is falling apart. He says ‘get your kids out of my house.’ So the next day, we have eight people come over to move the furniture that’s my mom’s while he threatens us over the phone. That was in January.
Over the next few months, and still to this day, he sends crazy threatening messages to my mom. He also found out where we live so he could ‘take the shared BMW that they owned jointly and sell it,’ even though my mom has been begging him to take it.
She finally gets in contact with the lady’s boyfriend at the beginning of the story. They share stories and she apologizes for not listening sooner.”
It’s Not Me, It’s You
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“My ex of two years was in the process of a divorce when we met. His wife was crazy, and the reason for everything wrong in his life (this should have been my first clue to get out, but I was young). He had kids, and I would go to sporting events for them and his ex-wife would be there the vast majority of the time too. We started to get along, and he hated that. I didn’t get that – wouldn’t it be easier for the kids if she and I had a good relationship? Oh No – we would compare notes on him and it would ruin our relationship! (We never talked about him). My eyes started to open here.
I just feel I need to clarify that I was not friends with his ex-wife. We were friendly and were cordial to each other. We only ever made small talk and conversed about the kids, and my ex-boyfriend was always present during our conversations. He was just stewing over the fact that we didn’t hate each other.
I was using his computer once and his google calendar opened and there was an event on Valentine’s Day the next week. However, he had told me we were not doing anything due to money. So I opened it and the event was ‘Day Ex-Girlfriend Broke My Heart.’ Now this ex of his was prior to his 20-year relationship with his now ex-wife. So I figured out that he never let anything go. Apparently Ever.
A couple months later, our relationship was starting to decline on its own (he went over to a friend’s house without me, in the middle of a planned date night and I didn’t care that he left. I was mad he took the dog though), we got in a fight and he told me I was starting to sound like his ex-wife. To which I responded, ‘If we are saying the same exact things, and are such different people – don’t you think the issue is YOU?’ I realized at that exact moment that he was a narcissistic jerk who was never going to change or grow up. I moved out a week later. I still miss the dog.
That said I miss the kids too. But I admittedly miss the dog more.”