50 People Reveal The Exact Moment That Made Them Divorce Their Spouse

A cheese plate. I went over to my friend’s house to visit him after he’d had surgery and he had a cheese plate for us to snack on with some goat cheese. I said “Omg, I love goat cheese!” and my friend looked at me like I was crazy and said “I know? You mentioned it the other day so I got some.”

I realized that my friend had listened to something I had said, noted it, remembered it, and gone out of his way to do something nice for me. After he’d had brain surgery, no less.

My husband had never, ever put in anywhere near that much effort for me. He still didn’t even know what flavor ice cream I liked after ten years of marriage.

So I left. And that friend and I are coming up on our first anniversary.

The day my two-year-old said 'shut up, b**ch' to me. I had endured ten years of abuse in my marriage, but hearing my innocent child repeat his father’s words was enough for me. I called a lawyer the next morning

He was so selfish for years and made excuse after excuse for it. But he always put me last. I was ready to leave him, but we made one last big push to make it work. We did a lot of things together that I had been wanting forever. One of them was getting SCUBA certified. On our first big dive (with a group) after certification, he jumped out of the boat while I was still getting ready. The dive leader screamed at him and shamed him for abandoning his dive partner. Warned him how unsafe it was for both of us, and just really laid into him. Finally I get into the water and we begin our descent. We get to 30’ down and I can’t get my ears to clear. I signal to him that I need a moment to get acclimated before going any deeper. He sees what’s happening but just takes off, leaving me behind. I went back up to the surface because now I’m basically just alone in the middle of the Caribbean and can’t catch up with the group. At some point the dive leader figures out what happened and lost his s**t on my husband. Refused to let him get back in the water because leaving your dive partner in a potentially life or death situation is apparently a no-no. Really made me wake up to the truth that he would never be there for me. Not ever. Not even for 2 minutes while I adjusted to the water depth. He would always choose his own selfish interests and leave me to figure it out on my own. Left when we got home.

One Saturday I said to my then husband, "we should take our daughter to the zoo. It's such a nice day." I His reply, "I work all week. I don't feel like it."

I worked all week too. And I was the one that picked her up and dropped her off at daycare every day. Basically I was a single mom before my divorce. I did everything with my daughter by myself. So I thought, if I'm going to be a single mom. I'm going to do with without the useless lump sitting on my couch. Best. Decision. Ever.

When one friend privately tells you they are concerned for your health and safety, you dismiss them and adamantly defend your spouse.

When five friends individually tell you they are scared for you, then you start to listen and to accept an uncomfortable truth.

He was very abusive, sexually, physically, mentally, and financially. But the final straw was when I found out he had lied about having a deceased child. He had told me all about his son who had passed away aged 4. He had told me his full name, birthday, death day, favourite toys, how he died, who the mother was, his PIN for his bank card was the child's "birthdate" which fit with the age of the child, and he even had a tattoo for the supposed child. He even had a conversation with me on a fake facebook profile he created for the fake mother. The day I found out that child never existed, and was created for sympathy, was the day I realised I had truly married a sociopath. I finally found the real facebook profile of the "mother" who told me they dated when they were 14 for just a few months and she said, and I quote "why does he keep telling people this! We don't have a child, dead or alive!" He stuck with the lie to almost the very end, until i looked at records and confronted him that this child has no birth or death record. (I found out about 6m into the marriage that he had a diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder, otherwise frequently called sociopathy, but that was what made me acknowledge just how dangerously twisted he is)

I went to my mother's house a few days later and my ex husband had diarrhea, so he became stuck on her toilet and I got to speak to her alone for the first time (he never left me alone), we planned my escape and I left later that day with my 9 month old baby. I thankfully have not seen him since that day, I moved house 10 times in 6 years, and changed my daughter's name along with getting sole custody and a protection order, I travelled to 3 different towns to get my court documents signed by the required witnesses, so he has 3 documents with 3 different towns on it, none of which that I live in. I had my address concealed by the courts on all the paperwork including the divorce.

He got his second DUI with our daughter in the car. I filed 3 days later. You can f**k up your life and you can f**k up my life but never hers.

For years I was the only one putting ANY effort into our life goals or raising our kids.  I felt like he was my 3rd (most idiotic) child since I did everything for him, up to filling out employment paperwork and making his Dr.s appointments, while not receiving any kindness or acts of love in return.   

A month before our 5th anniversary I told him that if he wanted to do something, he would need to plan it; I was exhausted.   

You see, every year I did SO MUCH for our anniversary; I booked the same honeymoon suite we’d had on our wedding night at the same romantic bed and breakfast. I’d arrange for a babysitter, research and make reservations at a different fancy restaurant each time, PACKED HIS BAG (usually buying him new clothes too), packed my bags (obviously), bought gifts, made sure he was off work early, etc. EVERYTHING, HONEY. 

I reminded him a week ahead of time that I wasn’t planning anything this year.  

I woke up the day of our anniversary knowing he had made no plans. Would he throw something together last minute? Give me a gas station gift? Offer another back rub that turned into coerced sex? Who knows? I said I wasn’t planning anything so I waited.   

He came home from work and complained about not having good food for dinner; so we went grocery shopping.    

In the check out line, at 8pm, he turned around with a surprised f*****g look on his face and said “s**t, today is our anniversary, isn’t it?”   

HE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER until that very moment. GOD I felt so small, SO INSIGNIFICANT. So very used and discarded. 

And then I felt every ounce of hope and love I had left for him disappear. It simply evaporated. gone.   

“Yes, it is” was all I said. He turned back around after laughing and saying “lol. we both forgot.”   

Nope. We didn’t. You did, again, like always. And I had the obvious realization that we’re not in an equitable relationship, I’m just your full-time mommy that you get to f**k.  

I was NOT treated like a loved and wanted human being at all.  I left him after I got my ducks in a row about 6 months later. 

Was married for 5 years. The last 2.5, he was physically abusive. I kept blaming myself, trying to be better… if only I didn’t do____ he wouldn’t do this. I’ll be better, and it will go away. The last night it happened, my 4 yo child tried to protect me, and he went after her. Something came over me, I saw red, I kicked his a*s, and filed for divorce the next morning. In retrospect, I should have filed the morning after he abused me, physically or otherwise the first time. And that is my advice to all others out there. Your abusive spouse will not change. Cut your losses and get out as soon as you can.

I was the problem in the marriage. We were young when we married and I wasn’t done being a careless partying person. Looking back, I was such an a*s. My partner didn’t deserve that at all.

Made a poor financial decision which almost led to us getting evicted. He did not tell me until he “figured it out”. However, he discussed the matter with people at work. He also had extreme anger issues, and drank a lot. The final straw was when my 7 y/o told me he no longer felt safe with him, and did not want to be nice to him because of how mean he was to me.

I finally realized that my kid was watching

He told me 'it was time to get over' my miscarriage the day of my follow-up appointment when my OB said the procedure was successful. AKA, four days later

After two DUIs, multiple relapses, and a separation we decided to work things out. I had to take my friend out of town to buy a car and told my husband I’d be home “around 6.”

I was very excited to be early and surprise him. As I turned down our block at 5, I noticed his car coming down the block. Stopped one house early and tossed something in the dumpster.

I waited momentarily till he pulled into the garage then drove up to the dumpster. It was a beer can he tossed. He was drinking and driving with our kids after all of that.

Came in and immediately tossed him out.

I went on a weekend trip with my mom to a town on the coast that has a casino and outlet mall. I’m notoriously frugal, so my mom enticed me with a free hotel room. Cool, that just leaves food. I gave myself $20 to spend at the casino and had zero plans to buy anything at the mall. Well, that $20 turned into $860 (edit: the additional $840 was gambling winnings). So I paid for our hotel room and food, and bought some wardrobe staples at the outlet mall. I went home with $230 remaining, less my gas money. Not too bad, right?

Well, my ex-husband flipped out when he saw that I had bought some clothes. He started yelling about how we needed to put together a budget, because “our” spending was out of control. But a reminder: I’m very frugal. It was his 4-6 lattes a day, breakfasts and lunches out, and iTunes addiction, plus the $60/each he gave his 3 kids each week to buy their lunches at fast food places instead of the school cafeteria that were bleeding us dry. Never mind the random expensive stuff his kids regularly asked for. But despite that, he just wouldn’t stop yelling at me about needing to budget and he had me backed into a corner, physically. He would not listen when I pointed out that I actually made a profit that weekend.

He stormed out to go pick up the kids from their moms, so I decided to distract myself to calm down. I broke out my laptop and created a spreadsheet on Excel to chart expenses and analyze where we could make cuts, etc. Logged into our bank account online to start charting the spending for the last 6 months and what do I see? $600 in ATM withdrawals and a credit card charge of over $900 to a very classy establishment named The Boom Boom Room, all on the first night I was gone. The ATM he used (thankfully, our bank’s so no fees) was located near the club.

I decided to just input the charges on my little spreadsheet along with everything else, and gave it the header “Strippers”. He was taking his sweet time coming home (he took the kids out to eat, budget be damned), so I put together a basic budget and highlighted non-essential expenses to “discuss” and try to find ways to cut down. I broke those expenses down by mine, his, and ours, which definitely confirmed the source of the problem.

That night, after he’d returned home and the kids were sleeping, I broke out the laptop and pulled up my spreadsheet. It took a minute, but he eventually saw the “Strippers” entry. He immediately denied it, said we must have been hacked. So I said “great, then we need to shut down the cards, notify the authorities, and request help from the bank.” He soon caved, and claimed that he’d called his buddy to go out and the buddy chose the location (which he thought was just a bar), and the buddy was going to bring a guitar he was selling for $600 cash. He took out money, but then his buddy stood him up. By then, he was drinking and got conned into buying really expensive booze for the girls flirting with him, who he wasn’t tipping at all, as he didn’t realize it was a strip club. He gave the club his cash to pay part of the bar tab, then charged the rest. Sure, uh huh. Right.

He tried to play victim and say that he was just so embarrassed about being tricked that he snapped when he saw I spent money - he panicked, thinking we’d go into the negative.

Like, dude, you went to a strip club. Own it - I don’t give a c**p if you go to one. What I do care about is not setting boundaries on what you’ll spend, then refusing to take accountability when you over do it. And to then corner ME physically while you scream at ME after YOU screw up? Hell no. We’d been having problems already, but that flipped the switch for me. I moved out a week later and our divorce was finalized a mere 9 days after we filed. Screw those mind games.

After years of his alcoholism and constant belittling, the last straw was his confession that he had done something terrible to our daughter.

Emotional neglect over several years. She promised we would have kids and made excuse after excuse why it would never happen. Didn’t support me emotionally. Made me feel like less of a man for showing any emotion at all. I buried it all. One day on my way home from work, 20 hour shift, completely exhausted. I started falling asleep at the wheel, hit the rumble strip, woke up, looked at the barricade in the median on the freeway and was ready to die, so started accelerating toward the barricade. Last second I slammed on the brakes, turned, and avoided collision. I sat there for a moment wondering why I wanted to die, and realized I had been in a one way relationship for years, and all of the reasons to leave flooded in. Took a while to muster up the courage to go, and she acted so blindsided by it when I left.

Found a true partner, and am now happily remarried. 😊

Being pushed down the stairs so hard that I had splinters up and down my arms from trying to catch myself on the wooden rails. Multiple broken ribs that time. My brand new laptop I just got for school smashed on the sidewalk. Found crack in his tool belt in the shed. All within about 48 hours

Edit: thanks for the kind comments and messages guys. Guess I’ll add this as well, after I left he ended up with a new girlfriend very quickly who was also into d***s and according to his daughter, absolutely batshit. She caught him cheating on her, and waited in his bed for him to get home after seeing the other woman. She had a gum (edit: gun), and shot him. It only went through his hand though, so I really wonder if he learned his lesson or not

One night, after manifesting another argument, he threw his ring at me screaming for a divorce (for the second time), and left the house. That night, I got the BEST nights sleep I’d had in months. Called our marriage counselor and my therapist the next morning to get their take; both conversations were less than 5 minutes long and each said it was over. He was shocked when I served him papers 🤣🤷‍♀️

When I borrowed his tablet, I looked thru his messages and saw one where he asked his female friend to spend the night with him on a business trip. And that was just the tip of the iceberg with his cheating. I filed for divorce a few months later after getting all my ducks in a row.