Sometimes marriage isn't for everyone, or you just realize the person you married isn't the person you thought they were. These couples share their cautionary tales of realizing maybe they should've said "I don't" instead of "I do."
She Just Couldn’t Forget Her First Love
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“My ex was engaged to a man with a terminal illness. They were together for many years, but he broke it off ‘for her own good.’ She was abused by her father, and there was a lot of baggage that came with that. We were friends in high school and reconnected over ten years later. She was open with me about everything, so I knew what I was getting into.
With a broken heart, and broken family, she found comfort in an old friend, and what I feel happened was she mistook safety and normalcy for love. She was out of my league, so I tried to give her everything she needed to make her happy. But she was dealing with a lot of mixed emotions. Because of her abuse, she rarely wanted to fool around and thought she was letting me down as a wife, even though I told her I knew this going in and never expected anything and never pressured her one bit.
When she needed space, I gave her space. But when she needed somebody to talk to at first it was me, but I didn’t have the history that she and her ex-fiancé had. She would call him in the middle of the night at his third shift job. At first, I tried to be understanding of it, but it hurt. I knew she still loved him. We struggled, tried separating, it was a roller coaster.
Things were back on the way up while lying in bed one night she asked me ‘Is it worth it?’ meaning all of the ups and downs over the past year. I said ‘Of course it is, I love you. As long as we love each other enough, it’s worth it.’ She looks back at me with a look of guilt, and that’s when I realized, she didn’t. Not another word was said, I got up and slept on the couch. Left for the final time the next morning.
That was eight years ago. I’ve been in a few relationships since but never remarried. At least we didn’t have kids or any jointly owned assets, so our divorce was just a break-up with a little paperwork.”
At Least He Gained A Beautiful Daughter After This Failed Marriage
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“Mine lasted just a little over a year, but close enough. Married my girlfriend of four years right before getting deployed. She didn’t have anything to keep herself busy while I was gone. Ended up getting into illegal substances while I was gone, then I got her pregnant during my two weeks leave in the middle of the deployment. She felt so trapped that she had talked me into agreeing to give our child up for adoption once she was born. She ended up leaving me a week after our daughter was born, and canceling the adoption, taking her back from the adopting parents.
Long story cut short, she got back into the stash, had two more kids with whoever was her dealer at the time, and CPS ended up stepping in, which gave me full custody of my daughter. Not a day goes by when I look at my daughter and wonder what I was thinking, and I’m glad to have this wonderful, crazy, little girl in my life.”
He Thought He WAS The Law During This Marriage
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“He went through the police academy while we were engaged and became a member of the police force the week before we married. When we returned from our honeymoon and he was presented with all his service ‘goodies,’ his power-hungry, violence-obsessed side decided to make an appearance. He became obsessed with having his way. Everything must go and everyone must do as his plan dictated because he was ‘the law.’ This impacted me because I became his property. He also had a nasty drinking problem, which he managed to keep secret while in the academy. I hoped naively that he would reform with the new responsibility. I was wrong.
His favorite habit was to get wasted off cheap drinks and play with his service weapons. When he would go out drinking with his buddies, I had developed a routine of removing the clips from his weapons and triple-checking to make sure no rounds were in the chamber. I would put everything back in place the next morning before he would go to work. He had always been verbally and mentally abusive. I was ‘stupid.’ ‘No one would ever want me.’ ‘I was so lucky that he at least tolerated me.’ He enjoyed practicing his takedown moves on me. He choked me out multiple times to the point of losing consciousness. I was afraid to say a word. He convinced me that I couldn’t call the cops on him because ‘I am the police. They won’t believe you over me.’
The straw that broke the camels back was a night that he went out drinking and came home in the mood for some confrontation. He woke me up demanding to fool around. I refused because he was wasted and reeked of smoke and drinks. In his anger at my rejection, he dragged me from the bed and proceeded to beat me. He had never physically hurt me before. He beat me until the only place that wasn’t bruised and swollen was my face. He was smart enough to avoid places that couldn’t be concealed by clothes and makeup. And then he took his service weapon and pointed it at my head. And pulled the trigger. Because I had removed the clip and bullets, his attempt to shoot me was a failure. Enraged by this, the beating continued until he exhausted himself and passed out on the floor.
I packed a small bag, grabbed my cat, and left. I filed for divorce a few days later, and never went back. My attorney stood proxy for me at the hearing, and I tried to close the chapter on that book. It’s been seven years, and I still have nightmares and difficulty with intimacy. We were married exactly 11 months.”
She Knew It Was Over When He Didn’t Even Want To Go To The Store
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“My Mom met a dude on Monday and began proceedings to marry him on Wednesday. All of us knew there was no way in the world this was going to last. But what did we know about ‘love at first sight?’
He moved in with us shortly after the wedding. Essentially they got married as soon as they were legally able to. First, he and my mom had opposite personalities, and they sure didn’t know that knowing each other all of two weeks. He went on and on about how she needed to grow out her hair because she ‘looked butch.’ Then that escalated to him telling her ‘screw you’ when she didn’t want cake.
His mom babied him intensely. He was this 40-year-old man that jumped anytime Mommy called. His mom wanted my mom to sell her house and land so they could go back to renting one of her properties. She strolled into our home once and began telling him how she didn’t like it. He needed to move back to her house. Now.
He turned our land into a junkyard because he was a ‘mechanic.’ He was a garbage mechanic, and all of his cars were unsafe.
He ‘gifted’ me my first vehicle (AKA the city told him it needed to be off his Mom’s rental property or else). The ball joints collapsed, the timing belt was off, and he left a full jug of oil next to my unsecured battery. Oh, and the driver’s side door didn’t close. The headlights also fell out quite often. I ended up thanking him, and then quietly selling it for $500 because someone wanted the body. This guy was horrified when he saw how this car was put together.
It all came to a screeching end three months later because they ran out of toilet paper, and he didn’t want to go to town to get some.
And my mom gave me crap for meeting my husband over the internet. At least we’ve been together ten years.”
“I Still Think With A Few Small Changes, We Would Be A Happily Married Couple”
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“My marriage lasted just over a year although we had dated for seven years and lived together for three years before getting married. It ended when I found out she was cheating on me with someone she worked with. While she was the one that ultimately made the choices that lead to the dissolution of our marriage, I wouldn’t be being honest with myself if I didn’t point out the ways that I contributed to it.
We got married almost as soon as I finished law school. She had supported us through law school by working as a server in a high-end restaurant where she made friends. At the time, I didn’t realize how much she had come to enjoy the city we lived in and her workplace. When I graduated school, I was offered an amazing opportunity in our home city, so I pushed strongly for it.
When we moved back, we had a lot of friends and family in town and she settled into another high-end serving position. I was working a demanding job that required me to put in 60-90 hours per week to keep up with my caseload. In addition to this staggering amount of work, I had a significant commute each way. Over the course of a year in the new position, I became tired, irritable, estranged from my friends and downright depressed. That said, I’m the type of person that will work myself to the bone if what I am doing is important to me. Of course to her eyes, I was neglecting her and working my butt off to get ahead.
She didn’t realize that the reason that I was working like a madman every day and neglecting my health and happiness was that I rationalized that it was short-term so I could provide for us easily afterward and that I got through every single day of it by remembering that I was doing it for her. But I never told her. I’ve forgiven myself and her for the rest, but I’ll never forgive myself for that simple mistake. I assumed that she would understand. It’s a terrible thing to have accomplished a lot of difficult things to be undone by simple mistakes.
Finding out that she was gone rocked me to my core. I quit my high-end job. I went backpacking through Colorado to figure out who I was again. In good time, the guy that she cheated on me with cheated on her and kicked her out of his house. I talked to her once or twice and got the impression that she was unhappy. But I thought about it and her happiness is no longer my responsibility, and I don’t think I’m the person that could help her move forward anyway. It’s not that I don’t blame her for what she did; it’s that the only choices I have to atone for are my own and that’s enough of a burden without carrying enmity for her for the rest of my life.
All-in-all, I came out the other side a stronger person, a more compassionate person, and a happier person. But not a day goes by that I don’t remember what that cost me. To this day I still think with a few small changes, we would be a happily married couple. But life goes on and finds new ways to surprise you.”
“I Never Deserved Any Of It, And No Other Human Being Does Either”
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“I was 17 when we met; he said he was 25. We met in college, in a Psychology class of all things. We dated for five months and married four weeks after I turned 18. I found out he was actually 32 about six weeks before the wedding, but he explained that away with ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t go out with me if you knew my age, and you’re beautiful.’ I bought it hook, line and sinker.
He was never perfect. He preyed on my insecurities and naivety. I was book smart but had no common sense. He hit me once before the wedding after the invitations were sent out. Of course, he immediately apologized and told me it would never happen again, he was just stressed because of the wedding. Yeah right.
I couldn’t call the cops or ambulance after the incident because he took the phones and locked them in a drawer. When I did go to the police, it was my word against his, and there was nothing I could do.
The final straw was when he held me down after six weeks of marriage and violated me, telling me over and over you can’t ‘violate’ your wife. Took another month to figure out how to leave and put my plan in motion. Moved 400 miles away, started over, and then believed him when he said he went to detox and recovery. A ‘helpful’ relative gave him my phone number after he supposedly got out of detox/rehab. He was a smooth talker and had a lot of my family convinced that he had changed. There was some more second chance talk from some of my family than from him. I had already begun divorce proceedings but put them on hold when he came to live with me. We were only together another five weeks before I was gone again.
Less than two weeks later, I had a weapon put to my head, an ashtray thrown across the room at my face, and security had to remove him from my job twice. Had to get the police involved to get him out of my rent house, then disappeared again.
Safe now, and have been 21 years since then, and am now married to the love of my life.
No matter what bad decisions I made, I never deserved any of it, and no other human being does either.”
She Left Her Entire Life Behind Because It Just Wasn’t Enough
“We expedited the marriage because she was pregnant, and I loved her already, so I wasn’t concerned about it. I was working crazy hours so she could stay home with the baby, and our schedule started shifting so we didn’t spend as much time together. She had postpartum depression, and started playing online role-playing games all night, and met a guy who didn’t work and lived off of his mother, so he had all the time to talk to her. Long story short, she kissed our daughter, gave her to me, and ran off with him.
Fast forward over a decade, and we’re fine as friends now. The karma is time and lifestyle haven’t been kind to her, and our daughter would rather be with me, and trust me more.”
She Might’ve Been The Right Person, But At The Wrong Time
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“I was in grad school. Her conservative parents hadn’t let us live together until we were married. We got married as soon as she graduated undergrad and got her first ever job.. Her parents were rich, and she didn’t have to work. She became a teacher and we moved to where she was teaching since I only had a year of school left. I had a four-hour-a-day commute to school and was working full time on campus, so I think I slept from midnight to 4 a.m., five days a week. Come the weekend, I would crash and recover. Meanwhile, she wanted to go out and enjoy life, freedom, her own money, all that. She started going out with her girlfriends, then a guy joined the group.
The hardest part was that I was in my last year of grad school and couldn’t devote any attention to it. In the end, though, I found out she was lying to me about trying to work on our relationship, so there wasn’t anything to fight for.
I think we’re both better off now. I know she married the guy and they had a kid, or maybe some kids. I remarried, I’m financially better off, I have a great son. I hope she has the same.”
One Minute He Was All, “I Do,” The Next It Was, “I Don’t”
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“We were together for seven years, living together for five years before he proposed, a total surprise to me, we hadn’t discussed it. Got married a year later, seven months after that he started withdrawing and acting depressed, so I tried to get him to talk about what he was feeling. He said he couldn’t stand to be around me and hated me – then moved out two weeks later, divorced six weeks after that. I still wonder what happened, we haven’t spoken since he called to confirm he didn’t want to do counseling and just wanted a divorce instead.”
Maybe She’d Be Better Off Going Down Her Own Path
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“We had been dating for about three years when we came to a crossroads. Both of us finished school. I was thinking about what job offer I wanted to accept and where I’d have to move. He was having a freak out about not being together. So he convinced me to get married. It wasn’t that hard. I was apprehensive about moving to a strange town and marriage seemed like a better idea.
After marriage, I went to work. He decided he wanted another degree. Then about six months into his new studies, he gets recruited for a job 1,000 miles away. He took the job without telling me, but we packed up and moved.
Now he’s working, and I’m working. But he’s working at a job he’s excited about and I’m working at a crappy, low-paying job because it’s the only thing I can find.
Then he gets headhunted by another company. We move again. Only now we are living in a rented trailer because it’s the only thing we can find on short notice. He’s working 12-hour days, and I’m stuck at home. No job, no car, no friends.
Truthfully, I wasn’t the best of marriage partners. I’m going crazy stuck at home all day with no car and no company except the TV. When he does come home, after working a 12-hour day, he’s exhausted. I’m giving him crap about not getting out of the house. He starts hanging out with his work friends. Probably to avoid me.
He starts cheating with the women at work. No idea how many other women there were, but I know of at least two.
I know about these women because by now I’ve started to develop a circle of friends. Mostly wives of the people he works with. They tell me.
When I confronted him, he told me that he just didn’t realize how hard marriage would be.
I took the car and drove home. Left him in that trailer with no car.
Some months later, he asks me to file for divorce. I told him no way. He messed it up. He could file and explain the grounds to his attorney and the judge. He sent me the divorce papers in the mail.
He called me about ten years later and apologized for being such a butthole.”
“Know The Person You’re Marrying, It’ll Save You Heartache In The Future”
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“We were together for about two years before getting married and had already lived together due to my parents’ house being foreclosed. We got married and things were great. No issues. I was going to school and working full time. My wife starts a new job somewhere and suddenly starts texting this guy daily who worked under her. During this time, I was getting roughly four hours of sleep if I was lucky and was under a lot of stress at work due to a promotion. So naturally, what free time I got, I’d play games to help with stress. I guess she didn’t like that I had a hobby and she didn’t. I told her I had felt uncomfortable with how much they were texting. She wanted me to meet the guy, but it only angered me about the situation and created a bigger rift between us.
Four weeks after all this in September 2014, she said she was unhappy and was going to stay with a friend to decide whether she wanted to stay married or not. Most people would beg and claw and say no don’t go, but I’m the type to give people space when they need it. A week later, she texts me that it’s over and she’ll be getting her stuff. For the next month, I slept on the carpet because I didn’t have enough money for a bed. Worst months of my life.
About six months later, she broke down while we were changing the car insurance. Turns out, the guy was mentally and physically abusive. She was pregnant and he forced her to get an abortion because his family was religious and they weren’t married. Dumb old me had helped her through it all because I still loved her. She dumped him and I moved into her apartment. It lasted roughly four months after I dropped $3,000 on a seven-day trip to Disneyland. She let me know she still loved him. So, I saved money and left.
It’s late 2015, months after I moved out, and she says she was pregnant and the doctor gave a pretty familiar date of conception. I was shaken at first finding out I was going to be a father. I looked past all of the horrible months I’ve been through and had her move in. My baby boy, Mycah, was born March 1, 2016. Happiest day of my life. Becoming a father was everything to me. Even the hardships of being a new parent with so much responsibility could keep me down.
Five months ago, the guy texted her requesting a DNA test. Claiming it was his baby. That they were intimate at a party during the dates of conception. She was adamant she knew it was mine and said he wasn’t even at the party. I finally said let’s get it so he’ll leave us alone. Took a DNA test. I wasn’t worried. I knew my little boy was mine. He was too perfect. I finally got an email about the results. I opened it at work outside my office. Results read that I was 100 percent not related to my son. I collapsed. Right now marks three weeks of me moving out. I know it’s nothing similar to what other parents have felt, but I feel like I lost my child.”