What was the event that led to your divorce? Was it preventative?

AvacodoCartwheeler · 2024-09-18T16:00:14+00:00

I kinda thought about this a lot over the last year... my answer might not be what you are expecting though.

I think the exact moment when our relationship ended happened on our way home (an 8 hour drive) after visiting family. Her Mom had died about a year prior and she was still very messed up about it. I had been there for her the best I knew how to be and pushed that she needed to also talk to someone about it, she would never even consider it. She was mean and she was distant and at the time of this drive home I'd begun to become more and more resentful of how she acted and treated everyone in the family. We had gotten into some fight as we were leaving and didn't speak for several hours of the ride home. Then she tells me we need to do couples therapy because we are getting into more and more fights and she doesn't know what to do.

I had been inviting, begging, and then later demanding she go to therapy and actually work through her loss, then later still accepting 'this' as the new normal in our marriage... and here she was, requesting we go to therapy as a couple. Instead of excitedly agreeing, or even just agreeing... I told her "Go work on yourself first."

She doesn't even remember this conversation, and neither of us remember what the fight was about, but I am 100% sure that was the exact moment she mentally gave up. Our relationship actually got better after that - we stopped fighting. She mostly just went with the flow.

If I ever truly failed her as her Husband that was the moment it happened. The moment that led to divorce was her banging another dude though - it was unrepairable after that.

ChartOne9250 · 2024-09-18T15:47:16+00:00

Maybe my whole situation is fixable, but only is she wants to fix it as well. My wife and I have been married for 11 years and together for 13 years. We have 2 beautiful kids and a house were building equity in a great neighborhood. I have the life I have always wanted. But I see that now through her telling me a couple weeks ago that are marriage is not fine. I feel I am to blame as I feel I have been taking advantage of her care. I have not all the time put her needs above mine or the kids. The is something she agreed with and that I don't assert myself in the bedroom. I have low t and am seeing a doctor to hopefully fix that problem. She has not cheated on me but did say she flirted with another guy and liked it. She cried as she spoke of this to me because she said it scared her of how much she liked it. I was not giving her the attention she needed. We are not divorced and are seeking counseling soon. I have hope and faith this will fix are marriage but the last few days she has been just cold to me and not approachable. I try to talk to her but get one word answers most of the time and to get any response out of her is a chore. Not to mention she is always on Instagram instead of communicating with me. I feel I am trying to be better before we seek counsel but I do not see it reciprocated. I feel we have both enabled each other in the ways we have ended up. She is a career women who is also doing school online to further her career. I have no doubt she will be making 6 figures soon. I am not as ambitious as her and can admit that. I do not make nearly the same amount of money she does and maybe that is a reason our marriage is fizzling. I would hope not but I do not know. All I know is that she said there are "things" she wants to tell me but only in front to a counselor. I am not sure what that will be but I know it won't be good. This whole thing has just made me realize how codependent I am. I am scared to live alone. It will be too lonely and will shatter my will to live I feel. Yes, I will have joint custody of our kids but it will never be the same again.

masterof-xe · 2024-09-17T06:51:20+00:00

Yes, if I had better communication skills with my ex. Actually listened and did not blow her off. Put her needs about my own.

Sadly too much resentment built up and she left me.

Brief-Strawberry-899 · 2024-09-17T04:03:37+00:00

After separating from the military we’ve struggled to find our place in the regular world and when I finally decide upon a career path after only a year post separation but still holding down good paying jobs I had to divert too much attention to learn my new career in an academy. She couldn’t handle three weeks of not getting 100% of my undivided attention, but still getting attention and shit done around the house. And complaining about not putting in enough effort to keep the romance alive even after doing exactly that with no acknowledgement from her whatsoever.

Chazilla80 · 2024-09-17T01:24:21+00:00

The expectation that I needed to change as a person after being married combined with filling voids thinking it would make it better, and infidelity. It is definitely preventable, but I don’t believe so in my situation.

Top-Pop-2624 · 2024-09-17T00:22:00+00:00

Infidelity. She could have by not cheating.

Staff_Horror · 2024-09-17T00:03:17+00:00

I mean there were so many but the one that “broke the camels back” was this. My ex didn’t work and I was putting in an above ground pool in our backyard. Multiple weeks spent working all day, coming home, making dinner for the girls and then spending til 10-11 outside digging, moving dirt, levelling ground etc. I was working 6 days a week at the time and then coming home and doing all this because she wanted a pool. I was finally ready to put the pool up and I unboxed the one she had bought and the pump had a giant crack in it. I asked her if she could drive the ten minute to the store to return it and I could take a quick break. She started whining and making excuses about it and I said fuck it, I’ll go. Her dad was there and looked at me and said “she’s just like her mother” and that was it. I was done.

Emotional_Lettuce251 · 2024-09-16T22:27:26+00:00

My stbxw had zero ability to handle conflict maturely. She also created conflict regularly. It could be over literally anything and everything ... no matter how mundane. We've been married for 20 years, and I can't think of a time any of our arguments/fights were about something that was truly important (finances have always been fine, I've always been gainfully employed, bills/mortgage always paid on time, no addiction/gambling problems, no infidelity, no abuse - aside from the emotional abuse I believe I endured from her, I was at home and present with the kids each night, etc., etc.). However, it was always something with her. I seemed like she just made things up to be mad about.

Then she would be extremely disrespectful and sarcastic when we would attempt to talk about these things.

Her go-to was giving me the cold shoulder. Sometimes I'd get home from work, attempt to give her a hug/kiss and I just get the "limp-fish" treatment from her. I'd ask her what was wrong, and she would tell me "Nothing is wrong". I'd respond with "Well, when I attempt to show you affection and you don't return it then it makes me think something must be wrong". She would just say, "I told you nothing was wrong!". So I would tell her that I was just going to give her space until she felt like being kind to me. This would upset her and she'd tell me "I'm not being unkind to you".

Then she would go days, weeks, or even months without speaking to me. On a few different occasions she went over a year without speaking to me. She would then tell me that I was the one that had been ignoring her.

It was total madness. It was like trying to talk sense to somebody from an alternate universe. On a few occasions I lost my cool and said some extremely mean things. Mind you, you often said very mean things to me.

On top of all of this, she was highly critical, rarely chose to be happy, and was a perpetual busy body. Her "to-do" lists were literally endless. EVERYTHING was on lists ... all the way down to "Take a shower!" (which she did at least 2x per day). She had plenty of time to prioritize phone calls to her friends and family (which would be on the list). Plenty of time for her monthly book club and meet up with old school friends (on the list). She would wake up at 4:30 AM every morning to work out (on the list) ... so HAD TO go to bed by 9:00 PM (on the list).

What was never on her lists? Me

We never spent time together because she was so busy and/or so tired.

We went to loads of couples counseling and she was always able to convince the therapist/s that our marriage situation was in the state it was because WE "needed to work on communication". Of course, every single therapist automatically assumed that I, the man, was the poor communicator. So the focus was always on what I needed to do better, what I needed to do differently, what I needed to do more of. Rarely did any of my concerns even get discussed. When they did, it somehow would get turned back into it being because I needed to do a better job communicating. I felt like I was constantly being gaslit during these sessions and it was making me crazy. Meanwhile, my stbxw would leave the sessions feeling validated.

Then, one day, around December 2017, my stbxw said, "I'm done with this roller-coaster". She totally checked out.
We continued going to therapy and it wasn't doing a single thing because she was never being challenged to change her behavior. For the next 7 years she basically acted as though I didn't even exist.

In November 2023, SHE filed for a divorce.

streetsmartwallaby · 2024-09-16T21:02:03+00:00

Severe postpartum depression leading to mental breakdown. Chose (recreational) drugs and alcohol over prescription drugs and therapy.

R_u_k_u_s · 2024-09-16T19:31:19+00:00

I had a vasectomy 12 years ago, and I found used pregnancy tests in my wife’s side of the bathroom two years ago.

I never found out the details/truth—maybe I didn’t want to know it. I tried to look past the affair and reconcile. But my head was too screwed up from her treating me like her secretary/maid for years and then ultimately cheating on me.

I’m not proud of it, but I returned the favor. That didn’t help me feel better either. The only thing that helped was separation. Even though I dreaded separating at the time, I’ve healed so much since that happened nearly a year ago.

The divorce should be finalized in a month or two, and I’ve never felt better in my adult life.

randomly421 · 2024-09-16T19:25:33+00:00

She's a bitch and no.

Cowboy8040 · 2024-09-16T18:33:15+00:00

Married for only 10 months before she filed. Suffered her second miscarriage 7 months into being married. Became very depressed and emotionally distant. She has bipolar depression and drinks heavily, which was a big problem for me. I asked for counseling after we lost the baby, shot down. Asked for counseling when she dropped the D bomb on me, shot down.

Divorce should be finalized sometime next month.

ninjaxams4 · 2024-09-16T18:06:09+00:00

Her affair. She begged me to stay and I did my best to move past that, still got brought up on occasion however and I was ultimately unable to. Pretty sure I have some pstd from that time in my life. Had nothing but the best intentions for my family.

She claims that I’m unable to give her the love she needs because of that trauma so shes had enough. Could be interested in someone else unofficially, who knows. Probably better off because shes never valued me or anything I’ve ever done.

loveischemicals · 2024-09-16T18:03:24+00:00

There were 3 things I asked for in our marriage:

Be honest and consistent in your communication
Respect my personal and interpersonal boundaries
Don’t financially sabotage our family’s future

She had a decade-long pattern of deliberately doing the opposite of those things. I gave chance after chance for her to redeem herself and grow… but she eventually decided it would be easier to leave and start a new relationship with somebody else who wouldn’t ask anything of her at all.

Upset_Sky_8485 · 2024-09-16T17:37:55+00:00

So many things.. I'll be filling soon, so not divorced yet. Here's the basics: Married almost 6 years; two step kids; dated off and on since I was 17. I'm 50 now.

Less than a year in: her sister dies. She never really recovered from this.

We were going to marriage counsellings, her idea. She thought we (I) could use it, having never been a parent/step parent before. Her intentions were good, but as a genx male, my opinion of therapy is: fucking useless. That's aside the point... back on track.. it was a half hour session. Foolishly, we left the kids in the car, locked with keeps, a/c on. Oldest was 14. We didn't think much of it. Some do-gooder called the cops, dcfs got involved. She'll never be able to file for full custody of her youngest. We fucked up. Our mistake. Were both genx and didn't consider how pussy the world has become, but I'll stfu about that.

Covid happened. Not trying to start some political debate here. Covid affected a bunch of shit in life. Mostly all negative affects. Period. So there's that stress and changes to adapt to then.

IVF. We shouldn't have tried. Wishful thinking on my part. We were both in our mid 40s. Lots of $ spent, long needle injections, trips out of state. Two miscarriages. My swimmers are shit. There's a reason I never had kids before. The point being: the two miscarriages helped neither of our moods. It was me that wanted to do IVF.

Uh, she does a 23&Me test... her real dad shows up (some text email whatever) "I'm your real dad." "No, piss off." Turrrrns out... yep, real dad. So that was drama. He's drama (btw, eat a dick, Mike).

Her dad (the one she grew up) got pancreatic cancer and passed away last year.

We moved to a small-ish town for the kids to go to a better school system at the beginning of the marriage. The teenager couldn't take it socially (I get it. I loath people by default. Total misanthrope. Big social issues), and drops out and gets a GED. So there's one less reason to live in this area. A year later, the other kid starts going to grade school in the town his dad lives in. I pretty much knew with the way things were going, the attitudes and personalities in play.

There was also a hysterectomy (ovaries still there) she had, that of course, changes a woman. Not blaming, just stating hormonal changes as a factor.

But wait, there's more!: I'm far, far from perfect but... also take into account she's got a shit abandoning mother, and her dad-not-dad was fairly shitty too. Lots of childhood trauma issues. Me too, but not nearly as many, and her shit was worse. Anyway, so about 2 years in, after many of my comments (probably mostly negative) like "The boy is 5 years old, why are you still trying to have him not sleep in his own bed? Wtf?". This helicopter bullshit is all trauma induced. She buys a pullout bed/couch thing in the living room, starts sleeping out there, and the cant-cut-the-cord sleeping next to the kid proceeds, up until he's about 9 fkn years old. The wife did the same thing with the older one, until she was like 8 years old. Craziness, IMO.

Hoarding... my grandma was a hoarder. I loved her, but she was a somewhat crazy hoarder. My wife has some mild hoarding tendencies, and I could not deal with it for 6 years. The older kid is also showing hoarder behavior. I could never get a handle on it, and always came off as the asshole when I expected anyone else to care about working hard AF, and nobody giving a piss about picking up the house. A side note about just some of the hoarding: who the actual fuck needs 2 refrigerators and two freezer chests for a family of 4? Hoarders. That's who.

Frivolous spender. About 15 years ago, she filed for bankruptcy. She's not... bright with the maths whatsoever. Buys useless shit all the time, largely to supply kids with endless toys, trinkets, and other bullshit that piles up and never gets used... or buys excess food for the 4 fridge life. I stress out every time she has groceries delivered (I work from home, she does not), as I'm challenged with trying to find places to put the new (uneeded) food, as it's a competition for space... or throwing out old shit that gets buried due to... hoarding.

I'm only scratching the surface of my frustrations of 33 years of knowing this woman. I still love her, made a huge mistake getting married and attached to kids. I'm a fool. Plain and simple. To circle back to your posts question: the youngest kid going to school in the town his dad lives in was the nail in the long overdue coffin. FML

Recent_Ingenuity6941 · 2024-09-16T17:37:40+00:00

She became hyper focused on alcohol and wanted me to never drink again. No issues on my side with it she just wanted a husband that didn't drink I guess. Made her look bad or something. Her and her family really cared about what people thought of them. Drank the entire time we dated and about 6 months into the marriage she started being really weird about it. Stuff like made a calendar where she would put a day I could drink and then put a number on how many lol. I finally agreed to quit drinking (3-4 months, somewhere in there) and the golf course wrang up NA beer as normal on the bill. Next thing I know I'm locked out of the house and she filed because I "lied to her". She refused to meet or speak with me and that's all she wrote. Divorce was never even mentioned in our household.

Eversion28 · 2024-09-16T17:28:28+00:00

1000 little events over time. Read “This is how your marriage ends” by Matthew Fray

Tryin_Real_hard · 2024-09-16T17:21:19+00:00

It was really a culmination of events and life that lead to me leaving. The last straw was coming home from 14 hours of working two jobs, because she wouldn't work one, and her asking to see my phone because our bedroom was dead and she thought I had to be cheating. I said, "fuck off" and went to bed. I was too exhausted for her bullshit and then she stopped talking to me. The next day I packed a bunch of stuff and left.

ExtensionAir9675 · 2024-09-16T16:30:39+00:00

Cheating and lots of lies and other bad thing...i prefer my self respect over anyone else..i kept my dignity as a man and am proud.. no regrets.. i miss her ? Yes. Do i want her back? Not even in my dreams😂

ElFrijole · 2024-09-16T16:24:58+00:00

It was 20 years of events 5 years into the marriage I caught her cheating and it seemed like every few years after 8 in total. I always wanted a marriage like my parents through thick and thin. Gave her everything she wanted. Eventually sex became less and less seemed like a chore for her. I spent lots of time alone in my gaming room and life in general one day 5 months ago she started on me saying I was cheating and I just had enough of the narcissist and controlling behavior. No less than two weeks after I left she was staying at a motel with someone. I am way happier and just wish I had made the decision to leave a long time ago. Life's too short not to be happy.

deludedhairspray · 2024-09-16T16:08:14+00:00

She wanted to have an open relationship with a "friend" of mine and kept nagging me for it in indescribably disrespectful ways. "We're going to have sex sooner or later anyway, so you can just say yes now" - but also "but you're the love of my life and us two are the most important" - she kept at this madness for a while, it triggered my first manic episode (I've since learned that I'm bipolar), it turned out she had cheated on me already 10 years earlier over a good period of time and in very sneaky manipulative ways - so I ended up sectioned for psychosis after a months of this clusterfuck going on - broke up with her there in a spectacularly horrible fashion, so public opinion now is I'm the idiot, and no one really talks about her infidilety, and some don't even believe it to be true, even though she admitted it to me and is now living with my "friend". They're so happy! That's about it. Life sucks.

kellyjj1919 · 2024-09-16T16:06:12+00:00

There was 1 event, that started a chain reaction of problems.

She had a repressed memory of a sa pop to the surface

jgoodstein · 2024-09-16T15:59:58+00:00

Opioid Abuse (multiple times) and all of the baggage it drags along with it.

whirlevh · 2024-09-16T15:37:56+00:00

No single event, everyday during our short 9 months marriage, daily disrespect, gaslighting, contempt and verbal abuse, even though I was very keen to not match her verbal abuse or answer it, I kept my mouth shut the whole time as it was of no use. One day I just couldnt take it anymore.

OliveLeast261 · 2024-09-16T15:21:21+00:00

her narcissist mother who drove her against me and her spinelessness, fueled by greedy father.

jimsmythee · 2024-09-16T15:20:06+00:00

The one event. The final straw the broke the camel’s back. After the birth of our second daughter, she turned to pills- narcotics, muscle relaxers, mood stabilizers, and sleeping pills. Talking whole hog in 18 months. Followed by more disasters. A stint in rehab, got clean and then relapsed again and again. More disaster, usually when she’d crash.

And then she got yet another DUI , and this time the kids were in the car when she crashed. She did jail time and had $7500 in DUI fines. She refused to work and she and her mom practically screamed at me “find a way!” To pay it.

That’s when I borrowed a few grand and filed for divorce. Best thing I ever did.

Jimi5A1 · 2024-09-16T14:57:40+00:00

Miscarriage in 2018. She’s become a different person because she still hasn’t resolved the trauma and refuses to go to therapy for years.

Jenova66 · 2024-09-16T14:32:25+00:00

Having a kid

JustAnotherBoomer · 2024-09-16T14:27:41+00:00

The event was terrible!! And here it is; we got married.

DudeforRighteousness · 2024-09-16T13:57:36+00:00

Years of growing apart.

Neither of us operating by the Holy Spirit.

Her having severe mental issues, medicated, but still very deep issues.

Dead bedroom. No intimacy. She was not capable of being romantic. Didn’t even like kissing.

I wasn’t as gentle and understanding as I should have been.

Me turning to porn, further driving me away from God’s will for my life.

I lived under a spirit of anger (gone now thanks to God.)

There was no physical or verbal abuse….but we were both miserable people.

I’m different now. She is the same as far as I can tell.

Melodic-Grapefruit-4 · 2024-09-16T13:52:01+00:00

A culmination of things. I honestly should have left the first time I** mentioned divorce.

HawkThua01 · 2024-09-16T13:49:23+00:00

Married to the wrong person who crulely used out my inexperience regarding relationship.Never had Gf before and since than either...looks not gonna happen either

cowboy-Jim · 2024-09-16T13:40:54+00:00

100% preventable if she was smarter.

Pro-IDGAF · 2024-09-16T13:31:58+00:00

once a woman decides she isnt getting what she wants “wants” from a relationship, there is no stopping. they’re a bit selfish and illogical that way.

Heavy_Guitar_4848 · 2024-09-16T13:26:01+00:00

Getting married was the event.

Apprehensive-Cost496 · 2024-09-16T13:07:17+00:00

Exw decided to move on and find another partner without telling me 1st. Discovered it and nuked her and Old Man Balls AP into orbit.

Was it preventable? It's hard to say. My exw cheated on her ex-fiance (didn't know that) so I think this is a core issue for her that has never been resolved rather than put in the work to make the marriage rock solid. As for me, I'm loyal to a fault and have never even thought to cheat and loved my family more than anything in the world. But, I learned to some people that means nothing and they prefer to chase their "feelings" no matter who else it hurts. Oh well....

Outrageous-Quail5891 · 2024-09-16T12:53:39+00:00

She cheated, started a new relationship with her boss before I even knew about the affair (which was less than 2 weeks after it happened) and did not want to try anything to try and fix our marriage. My story is here on reddit, feel free to read it.

Was it preventable? Don't know... Maybe if she expressed things 6 months or more before the affair, but once the AP became of interest, nothing else mattered. Still, she acted like we have a good marriage.

vwaldoguy · 2024-09-16T12:44:47+00:00

In my case, I think it was the culmination of continually growing apart over a course of years. In hindsight, it absolutely could have been prevented. I could/would have changed many behaviors over the years to keep from getting to that point. But it really felt like the frog in the pot of steadily increasing water temperature. I didn't realize I was being burned until it was too late.

Antique-Key-4368 · 2024-09-16T12:44:28+00:00

I went fishing for an hour after work on a Friday. It was completely unavoidable. A man has to fish sometimes.

Title	What was the event that led to your divorce? Was it preventative?
Author	SmartRepair688
Upvotes	11
Comments	97
Date	September 16, 2024 12:30 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1fi3d7h/what_was_the_event_that_led_to_your_divorce_was/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/what-was-the-event-that-led-to-your-divorce-was-it.1530519 https://theredarchive.com/post/1530519

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