Relationships are hard, and that goes double for marriages, when the pressure put on by that piece of paper, family expectations, and children can make a decision to go or stay tougher than ever.
These 17 people made the choice to go, and if you’re curious what made them pull the trigger, they’re dishing on the straw that broke the camel’s back below.
17. Insult to injury.
It was pretty much the Emma Thompson storyline from Love Actually – peeked into a jewelry bag at what I thought was my Christmas gift, on Christmas morning got a goddamn Nook, instead.
I was confused until a week later, via Facebook snooping, I saw his “friend” showing off the gift. Shortly before that, I’d seen suspicious footprints all over our floor and he denied anyone had been in the house.
Edit because people are asking about the footprints: We had light-colored hardwoods and it had been raining a lot so there were dirty footprints around the front door and pine needles all over the doormat.
We only entered and exited through the garage. The worst part…there were children’s footprints, too. She brought her kids.
Bonus reel: When I was moving out, I found a note from a child thanking him for the Christmas gift — a motherf**king Nook. HE BOUGHT ME THE SAME GIFT AS HIS SIDEPIECE’S CHILD.
16. What is wrong with that man?
My husband was cheating. I found out, and instead of immediately dumping his a$$, I said, Let’s try to work this out, but you have to dump the girlfriend.
His response: “But what if you and me don’t work out?”
DIRECT F**KING QUOTE. And THAT was the final straw.
15. It all worked out in the end.
She cheated. I tried to make it work. She blew up at me one night 6 months later threatening divorce because I was being friendly with a waitress at a bar (she was with me at the time, wasn’t being secretive or flirting).
I took her up on the threat, told her I was done. Drove down to the bar after we got home, got the waitresses number, went to see my lawyer the next day, got papers filed, f**ked the waitress, and we ended up in love and are happily married now, and far more happily married than I ever was before.
Big shout out to my ex-wife for pushing me towards this wonderful woman.
14. She moved fast.
Probably when I returned home and found all the furniture, food and my wife missing.
Another hint was the empty bank account.
13. You don’t need that in your life.
I’ve mentioned it before. She found out I was going blind after three years of marriage and that sorta broke what was left of a failing relationship. She was gone three months later. I had to stop driving and move to where I walk to work to stay employed.
I moved into an empty apartment with a sleeping bag. I look back at that time and am pretty amazed I didn’t lose my s**t worse than I actually did.
12. The ultimate “went out for cigarettes.”
I came home from work. There was a note on the table.
She had dropped our two kids off at her grandparents, told them she was going to the mall, and left the country.
11. Not about the pizza.
We’d been struggling financially for a long time having barely recovered from job loss, eviction, and homelessness. We bought two pizzas at Aldi, one pepperoni for me and one supreme for her. She ate her pizza some night that week, I hadn’t eaten mine yet.
One day later that week, I’d been thinking about my pizza all day at work. I’d been living on a diet mostly of ramen noodles, pasta and sauce / butter, etc. and I was really craving that pizza. When I got home from work, I found my pizza was gone. Despite having other food in the apartment (chef boyardee, ramen, whatever else) and despite knowing that the pizza was earmarked for me (after all, she had an entire pizza of her preferred type for herself), I found that she had eaten it anyway because she “wanted it.” I was practically heartbroken. That pizza and her eating of it was symbolic of every decision she had made that showed a total disregard for me – every job she quit when we couldn’t afford it for stupid reasons (and there were many), every makeup purchase she made when we didn’t have enough money for food, every flirty text she sent to other men on our shared laptop knowing I’d see it next time I opened the computer.
That was the last crack in the dam. I asked for a divorce a short while later and while we split relatively amicably, I will forever attribute our incompatibility to her lack of consideration for others.
It actually still puts a horrible feeling in my stomach just thinking about that stupid pizza.
Edit: I appreciate all the awesome comments I’ve gotten here and the offers of pizza. I now have all the pizza and love (through an awesome girlfriend) I want. I encourage you to visit r/randomactsofpizza and offer up a pie to someone there to celebrate true love on my behalf!
10. It has a happy ending.
After 20yrs of marriage I realized that I could never be anything she needed. I wasn’t spiritual enough, didn’t make enough money even with working two full time jobs ( > 120K a year), didn’t know Jesus like she did and that every bad emotion was caused by something I either did do or didn’t do. I grew up with a mom that did this and it wAs frightening to see that I recreated my childhood to the tee.
I spent 3 months on a personal journey of finding my own happiness. Every day I said good morning to her, made her coffee I cleaned the house daily when I got home ( she doesn’t work or clean or cook ) , cooked dinner and cleaned afterwards. I stopped coming to her for any affection. I spent daily time listening to her rant about Jesus, church and anything going on with her. I decided to no longer approach her for physical affection; no trying to hug her, touch her, no more s*xual advances.
90 days is how long it took for her to come give me a touch on the arm that ended in a hug.
Enough of the rant.
Final straw.
Sitting in bed one night and she is going on about me not being as in love with Jesus as her friends husband. She ask me what I am thinking….. Full anxiety in my chest as I Actually think I am going to tell her the truth. I am a grown man and I am afraid to speak out loud because I fear the consequences. I remind myself that there is nothing to loose anymore. I had already given up on s*x, physical touch and knowing she doesn’t even care about me in any way other than what affects her. I take a deep breath. My hands are shaking. My stomach is churning. I speak. ” Your moods affect me” She looks at me is disbelief. What did you say to me? “Your moods, affect me” Like a cartoon character, I swear her face just turned into this menacing joker stare. “Why would you say that to me? You asked me. “BUT Why would you say something so aweful to me? I say it again more bolden “your moods affect me”.
She looks at me angrily. She yells “That’s what victor said to me” ( her 2nd husband of two years.) She then proceeded to berate me for an hour about how much of a hurtful person I was for saying that.
In 20yrs of marriage we Never talked about her first two marriages and I never brought it up after she told me her side of the story, ever.
That night it occurred to me that it took me 20yrs to say something it took Victor 2. Her moods affect those around her and its awful.
That night I drove to the airport for work and thought that I should kill myself (my first suicidal thought in 47 years of life) because I could never leave her because she convinced me over the years I was an awful person and I was lucky to be with anyone. She was doing me a favor I was told.
I filled for Divorce. I wrote her a loving letter announcing my Intentions and had my three daughters read it so they know exactly my thoughts. Even though I shared the letter with each daughter separately, They all said the same thing. “Why did you wait so long?” “Why did you let her do this for so long?” Good Question.
I now sleep on a couch in my office. I live on less than $10 dollars a day for food and gas. After three months I have never felt or slept better in my life.
I actually have hope again.
9. I’d say that’s fair.
We had our problems, but the final straw was probably when she slept with some other guy. In Australia. Using my money to buy the air tickets.
She also tried to make me pay for the divorce.
8. Happier now.
I’d had suspicions for months. She operated a small, unprofitable business from our home which I was bankrolling. Her “business partner” was around all day and all night, despite my vehement protests that he gtfo at night when I was home from work.
Eventually I set up my phone as a recorder whilst I was at work and found the evidence I was looking for after two or three days – her saying “Come, let’s have s*x, and please pretend to be interested this time”, after a long and boring argument between the two of them.
I immediately turfed her out and we divorced within months, and not too long after she moved in with him. He proceeded to beat her mercilessly and she took him to court. Now he’s back at home living with his parents and she’s engaged to somebody else. The one thing I did find out after the divorce was that they’d been sleeping together for years before I found out. I’m much happier now then I ever was when she was around.
EDIT – didn’t wish the beating upon her and was just sad to hear about it after.
7. Like a ton of bricks.
First wife
I just don’t know what happened. I was in it forever, and I thought she was. I was working two jobs, (engineer and part time mechanic) and somehow she got it in her head that I was cheating. I wasn’t. Not even close. After hours I was often hard to reach since I was on the assembly floor, or at the mechanic job with no phone, but I think her sister was putting ideas in her head.
Her sister was married to a real POS, (Think Jersey Shore) and we paid their mortgage at least once. I think she got uneasy one Fri. night and spoke to her (this was before r/relationships existed) and got the idea to wake me up at 1:00 AM to discuss (pure torture) and then move out on Sat morning.
Hit me like a ton of bricks. My mother used to disappear and suddenly I was an 8yo kid wondering if he would ever see his mommy again. After 3 days she wanted to move back, and I wouldn’t let her. She was trying to scare me, but that one thing and now whenever I looked at her I saw my mother (think Livia Soprano) and wanted nothing to do with it.
6. You’ve gotta draw that line.
Him being cruel to my son (not his son, my son from a previous marriage).
That’s something you can’t accept.
5. Sweet justice.
I was at home with our newborn and he didn’t come home one weekend. He finally came home at about 3 am on Monday and promptly passed out without saying anything. I checked his phone ( I know, I know) and there were pictures of his best friends girlfriend on his phone.
He claimed it was ok to spend time with her and get pictures from her because she and her boyfriend were swingers. He doesn’t know that it’s not how that works. In a moment of rage I forwarded the pictures to his best friend.
I found out they were not swingers when the guy got angry about the pictures and smashed the windshield of his girlfriends car. I took the kids the next day and moved out.
4. You don’t need that in your life.
I came home early from work because of a migraine. Found him in bed with my best friend.
Oddly, I was more hurt by her behavior than his. Broomed them both that day.
3. A big ol’ nope.
He came running at me to push me down the stairs, while he was holding our baby.
Still to this day, claims it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made him so mad.
2. Yes, please.
I had been in hospital the night before and they had planned to do surgery for suspected appendicitis. It turned out not to be so acute so the surgery was cancelled and I was discharged and instructed to rest.
By that morning,I hadn’t eaten for almost two days. Husband comes to the hospital to pick me up. He sat in the car about a block away with the engine running waiting for me to walk to where he was.
He called his work to say he was taking the day off to look after me. In reality, he spent the day in bed or playing PC games.
There was no food in the house and he refused to go grocery shopping because that was my job. By now I’m super hungry and still in pain from the niggling appendix. I asked if he could sort dinner for us. He pretty much picked a fight with me over that. I said I didn’t need this in my life and he responded, “Well we can get a divorce if you want!” I said, “Yes please. I’ve actually been thinking about that for a while.”
1. A two-way street.
TL;DR Wife wanted an open marriage that only worked one way.
We’d had problems for years, on both our ends. The final straw was opening up our marriage in year 6, on her suggestion.
Despite sitting down for hours and discussing rules, she slept with one of her friends less than 24 hours later. While allowed, it surprised me how fast it happened.
I didn’t take it as well as I thought I would. (I’m a pretty logical guy so I really thought I could make it work in my head)
Anyway, she kept sleeping with this guy for months, and it took months for me to find a girl that was okay with our relationship (Call her R).
R and I went on several dates, got along pretty well, but my wife was getting jealous. The night R and I were going to finally sleep together wife got enraged and ‘forbid’ me to, because “she wasn’t ready for that step yet.”
I gritted my teeth and bared it, despite her still sleeping with her friend and it causing me a lot of stress. In my mind, once things had ‘been balanced’ we would be in a better place.
The final straw came the night R and I were texting and R sent me a topless pic. I casually mentioned it to the wife.
The resulting argument was cataclysmic. She went off on R, called her a bunch of names, forbid me from ever SPEAKING to her again (keep in mind, still haven’t actually DONE anything with R), and also refused to alter her current friends with benefits situation AT ALL.
This crossed (in my mind at least) from open marriage to “I’m cheating and you just have to deal with it.”
I clearly remember walking into the bathroom during this argument and staring at myself in the mirror and thinking “I can’t be a man that is okay with this. I can’t live this life.”
I left the next morning, after sleeping on it, her not budging on the whole thing, and my opinion not changing either. Funny thing…she didn’t want me to go and actually begged me to stay, but STILL wasn’t willing to give up her friend.
Every relationship is different and so is every person’s line in the sand, so only you know what would be too much for you to take.
If you’ve ended a long-term relationship, tell us in the comments how you knew it was time to leave.
