Reddit user Lewis-the-lemon recently asked, "People who divorced after only one year, what happened?" and the answers were super heartbreaking. Here's what people had to say.
NOTE: There are mentions of domestic violence, abortion, and abuse.
1. "I found messages from her to two different men she knew, trying to convince them to come to where we lived and kill me. I also found out that she was cheating on me as well with someone local."
2. "She pressured me to open up the relationship so she could date women. I did the work of wrapping my head and heart around being in a one-sided poly relationship and actually got to the point of being happy for her. Then she caught feels for one of them and decided she didn't want to be married to a man anymore. It was especially horrible because the relationship was very happy up to that point, and she pulled this shit at a time when we happened to be working very closely on a project I couldn't bow out of."
3. "We got pregnant on our honeymoon because my husband accidentally threw my birth control away. My doctor's appointment was two weeks away, and he wouldn't use protection. Fast forward several months, and he was screwing our neighbor because I 'got fat.'"
4. "He pushed me into a pallet fire and set me up to be sexually assaulted so he could 'catch me in the act.' Cool, cool, cool."
5. "One night she came home from shopping. ... I kissed her hello. It was a rather innocent peck on the lips. She tasted strongly of semen. The next night, I read some of her phone messages to a girlfriend of hers, laughing about how she still had the guy's stains on the jacket she was wearing...which was a gift from me. We were together for a decade but married for six months."
6. "We were living in a suite in his parents’ basement, a state over from where my family lives (about an hour away). My parents were going away for a week, and for a few of those days, my husband was going to a training session for his new job. I didn’t want to be by myself with my in-laws, so I decided to stay at my parents’ house and catch up with my friends. The first night, I invited my friend and her brother over. He arrived first (she got off work at 11), and we sat on the couch watching a show about dinosaurs. After about 45 minutes, I heard the garage door open…it was my husband, LIVID. He was all, 'AHA I KNEW MY DAD WAS RIGHT AND YOU WERE A CHEATING FLOOZY!!!' He left, did some donuts on the front lawn, then called the police and said I was trying to kill myself, so a whole squad of cops showed up and wouldn’t believe me that I wasn’t suicidal (although by this time, I wasn’t too far off)."
"Over the next few months, he cooled down and told me to go get an apartment and a dog, and he’d join me soon. I got the apartment, and we went to weekly therapy sessions, after which we’d go on dates, parting tearfully and with plenty of making out. I could barely wait for him to join me in our new home.
But then…the last weekend of October is the social event of the season, the Halloween Loop. I went with a different friend, her fiancé, and his brother (who I’d never met and didn’t know was coming). We ran into my husband and his friends. They were not unfriendly to me, but it was a little awkward.
On Halloween night, my husband said he’d made his decision and that I should meet him outside his work. I packed a bag, optimistic that I was going home. But he, a human ice cube, said we were getting divorced and never speaking again. I was so confused. What about the dates, the apartment? He said that was before he caught me on a date on the Halloween Loop.
So that was the end of that…until five years later, when he suggested we get back together, and I laughed at him."
7. "I got divorced after only one year. There were a number of different issues, but the main thing was that he hadn't been honest with me about his desire to have children. I told him upfront when we were dating that I did not want children, and he said he was fine with that. As soon as we got married, he started pressuring me to have a kid. I wasn't going to do that, so I called it quits. When all was said and done, I asked him why he had married me knowing he wanted children and I did not. He thought I would change my mind."
8. "He expected me to return to work almost immediately after a medically necessary breast reduction and put his marijuana addiction over helping me with bills for a month so I could heal properly. He spent $650 on MJ that month instead of helping his wife. He complained as soon as I got home from the hospital about how he was 'not okay' with having to take care of me. I was in the ER one day, and they had to keep me overnight for observation (and a possible blood patch) after a lumbar puncture caused some complications, and he came to see me for not even 10 minutes! He left because the chair was uncomfortable, and he wanted to go sleep in our cozy bed that I bought (just like I bought almost everything else to turn our apartment into a home). He also stopped going to therapy and returned to his porn addiction while arguing that lust is 'in his blood.'"
"He would always trade one addiction for another and drove under the influence. I was not okay with that. I'm much happier knowing I'll never have to deal with that kind of behavior again. I believe that most of it was due to him being blinded by addiction (which he denied), but you can't help someone who refuses to help themselves, and I gave WAY too many chances. I even became a licensed peer support specialist to try and help him. Instead, I used what I learned to build myself up and develop the confidence to leave."
9. "I call it my starter marriage. He grossly misrepresented who he was. He was willing to move mountains for us until we were us. Then he turned controlling — to the point where he changed how my keys were on my keychain. This was back when all cars and homes had keys. He refused to mow the lawn and would fight the tickets he got for it by arguing that the base allowed 12”, and it was only 11.5". He would eat everything in the house, leaving me no food, and then complain that he couldn’t lose weight. His gift-giving went from diamond earrings before marriage to a muffler in the box after marriage. The muffler is part of car maintenance; it’s not a birthday gift. The final straw for me was when he got mad at our kitten for being a kitten, and he threw him across the room. If he does that to an animal, what will he do to a tiny human? I left at seven months. We didn’t even make it a year."
10. "He cheated. He's still with her 12 years later, so now that the initial pain has long since faded, I can't even hate — clearly, they had something genuine, and at least I didn't waste more time with a guy who wasn't meant for me."
11. "There were red flags prior, but I agreed to get married so I could get onto his health insurance. I wanted to leave my toxic job. He quit his job within two weeks of marrying. He stayed unemployed for a couple of months and wrote fanfiction. He started amping up his paranoia about me cheating. He stopped letting me go with him to see our friends. One incident that sticks out is him yelling at me because I referred to him as 'Big Brother' in a text to a friend. Another was driving dangerously because he was upset that someone liked the new Star Wars movies. I tried talking to my mom and a few mutual friends about the abuse, but they told me that I was overreacting. I told him that I wanted a divorce about six months in. I had no other place to go. He kept me from sleeping for two days until I relented."
"He threatened to ruin my life. At that point, a switch flipped. I decided that I could pretend to be happy for a few months while making an escape plan. I still lost a lot of friends over it all."
12. "My ex was abusive, mentally, and verbally abusive. He was also very controlling and tried to cut me off from my family. The final straw was when he told me to my face that he was abusing me and trying to push me over the edge so that I would unalive myself. He didn't want actually to do the killing, but he told me that he was excited to find my body. That was Christmas Day 2002. I left him that day and never looked back."
13. "In one night, my beautiful life unraveled into a real nightmare — I found a three-pound block of dope stashed in my winter clothes. I confronted my husband and he proceeded to confess to the following — he had been an accessory to murder, he had been running drugs for almost the entire time we’d been together, and he was cheating on me. He topped it off by hitting me (the first and last time). You only get to do that once."
14. "I found out everything I knew about my husband was a lie. I thought he had a job; he did not. I thought he was paying the rent because he forced me to quit my job and said that he would handle it as long as I stayed home handling the kids. He had no job, so he was paying no rent, and I found this out when I opened the door one day to an eviction notice. Then, other things slowly came to light. Like cheating. Literally every single thing he ever told me was a lie, and I found out way too late."
15. "She cheated on me a week after we got married, and she didn't tell me. I saw her after she went out with her friends, and she had her ring on her other finger. Then a week later she texted me that she wanted a divorce and I haven't seen her since. Obviously, there are always two sides to a story, and I was on a lot of meds and recovering from a serious traumatic brain injury, so I don't really blame her; we both rushed into it, and I'm glad it didn't go any farther."
16. "I was married at 20. We had been together since we were 13 and friends since age six. We were more than just high school sweethearts. Five months after being married, I got pregnant, and he wanted me to get an abortion. I refused to do so, and he didn’t like that. So he started causing an argument every day. I’d get home from work and it would be an argument about how my shoelace was tied the wrong way."
"I got sick of this after three months and left to spend a few days with my sister. A few days turned into a few weeks, and a few weeks turned into two months before he finally reached out to me and asked to get together to talk. We did; he apologized and said that he had started therapy and that he wanted to start over with me again and welcome our baby into a loving home. I took the chance.
One month later, six months pregnant, he got home late from hanging out with a friend. I was lying in bed but was on his side as mine was feeling uncomfortable, and he got mad. So mad that he punched not only me but my stomach so hard I thought I was going to lose the baby. Luckily, my sister is an emergency contact, so I was able to quickly dial her without him knowing, and she heard him yelling at me (very harsh words) and came racing over. It was hell to get me out, but we did. We went to the ER and all was fine, thankfully. Eight years later, I have a beautiful, almost 8-year-old boy.
I haven't talked to him since court. My mom gave him the divorce papers. We went into court to deal with parental stuff, and ever since then, he's been MIA. My boy doesn't and most likely will never know who his true father is, and though he was horrible to me, it breaks my heart for my boy. I'm thankful I ended up finding my husband now, and he's the best dad. ... Moral of the story: Never think you know someone."
17. "I moved temporarily to earn my master's so I could help us make a better life for ourselves. A few months later, out of the blue, she sent me a Facebook message informing me that it was over. I never did get a straight answer for why (probably another person), but if your spouse thinks Facebook Messenger is an appropriate vehicle for ending a marriage, 'why' doesn't really matter. Good riddance."
18. "The first sign happened our first night home from the honeymoon. He said he was going to sleep on the couch because he'd be more comfortable there, and that's where he slept nearly every night. He all but ignored me unless he had a work function for me to attend. Half an hour after I got home from having abdominal surgery, he asked what I was going to make for dinner. The final straw was when he yelled at me for spending $8 (yes, eight) on a pair of shoes for my grandfather's funeral; then he spent $800 on a single golf club the next day. There were lots of little things on a daily basis that let me know that he was perfectly happy with me being miserable. I grew my first hints of self-respect during that year and decided I was worth more."
19. "He lost his job and became paranoid that I, who was working, was cheating. My job was about a 20-minute drive away, but if there was traffic and it took me 30 minutes, I was interrogated about my whereabouts. All of this took place maybe three months after we got married. We weren't married much longer after that."
20. "I was with her for ten years. I knew she had bipolar disorder and had been hospitalized before. She had been on her medication our entire relationship. After getting married, she said she felt 'safe' to go off her meds. I didn't like the idea, but her doctor went along with it and weaned her off. Within two months, she decided she hated me, that I had been manipulating her for a decade, and that she was now a Jesus-loving conservative. She left to join an evangelical megachurch. We had been married for almost exactly 11 months when we separated. The divorce was finalized last month."
21. "We had been dating for a while. It was good. Both our families were pressuring us to make it official. So, eventually, we caved. She is lovely, but she wasn’t MY partner. She was a fantastic partner for someone else. I did find my person later on, and we’ve been happy for over two decades. We would likely have broken up anyway, again we were good to each other just not really for each other. But we had extra steps thanks to family pressure."
22. "Looking back, we were already on the verge of an abusive relationship. Once we got married, he'd always say ... 'You knew who you chose to marry.' I.e., 'I want to move back to my hometown, and you know who you married.' The reasoning the other way around didn't hold up for him, obviously. He used physical violence against me two months after we married when I fought this argument for the first time. I left after four months. He was convinced I wouldn't leave once the papers were signed and everything escalated. He was wrong."
23. "His controlling side came out as well as did his 'Only what I want sexually matters' side, and I had to pull a knife out one evening to get him to stop. He also threatened to stab my friends, who were playing the role of my security guards when I was on campus after I had left him."
24. "We dated for three years before getting married. After getting married, everything changed and became more real. We were both 20 years old, very naïve about our future, and didn't really think it out. It was gradual, ... but at some point, I realized that we wanted very different things in life. Although we were compatible, we would hold each other back from our future plans. It's been 30+ years. I still talk to him — well, as much as you do on social media. I would never be able to live the life he leads now and be happy. He would never be able to live the way I live now and be happy. It was inevitable that we would divorce. I have never held on to any resentment towards him — just the sober awareness that we didn't think things out in a realistic way, so I took the blame. He married the right person the second time around, and I married the right person the second time around."
25. "I really suspect he only married me to go on the honeymoon. Shortly after we got married, he developed an allergy. To what, I don't know, but I know it was real. He was unable to work due to his allergy. He had to take medicine. Then, he was diagnosed with COPD. He started taking medicine for that and was feeling better. I started talking about him going back to work, and suddenly, he was sick again. He confessed, right before Christmas, that he had stopped taking the medicine due to finances."
"His mother was a huge issue in our relationship. Prior to marriage, I thought we were on the same page. Whenever his mom treated me badly, he would acknowledge that her behavior was wrong. After we were married, right around Christmas time, he actually said to me, 'We're married now. There is nothing you can do about it, so just get used to it and deal with it.'
He was lazy. I would work all day, come home, and no household chores would be done. He would leave as soon as I got home to go to the store to get food for dinner.
The final straw was one night when I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back to bed, I saw his phone lit up. Thinking someone was trying to call him, I looked at his phone. I found out he had been texting and messaging other women. I confronted him about it, and he said they were his online friends from some of the games he played on his phone. I told him if he can't talk to his 'friends' in front of me, something is wrong. I told him I wanted to go to marriage counseling in November of that year. I brought it up again in December; he said he wasn't going and wasn't doing anything wrong. I looked at his phone, and he was talking badly about me to his female friends. I waited until after Christmas to tell him I wanted a divorce. His parents and brother came over to our place for Christmas and would only speak to me if I spoke to them.
We were divorced almost a year to the day after we were married. He moved back in with his parents, and one of his 'friends' moved into their house to be with him. I met a great guy right after my divorce was finalized. I don't have any contact with my ex-husband, and I'm not sorry.
26. "We got married in June; she filed for divorce in December. We got married due to us having a surprise child. We were not compatible, but I didn’t fight it. I was working three jobs while she was going to school and I was expected to completely take care of the household (dishes, cooking, cleaning, laundry). I was averaging 3-4 hours of sleep (mostly on lunch breaks) and wasn’t there for my kid. That was 16 years ago. One of the best days of my life was getting divorced."
27. "I was 19 and she was 18. She became pregnant, and her family was very conservative. It was basically a shotgun wedding. Neither of us had much in the way of life skills. We barely knew each other. I also had some undiagnosed mental, neurological, and physical problems. Long story short, I could never hold a job, and she wanted to stay home with the baby. We were living below poverty, and I was too proud to ask for 'handouts.' While I was never abusive, I was definitely negligent of her emotions and needs. I was too in my own head trying to figure out what was wrong with me. One day, I came home, a lot of stuff was gone, and divorce papers were on the coffee table. It took a long time, but I've been able to apologize to her. We're not what I would call amazing friends, but we get along. I was dealing with a lot of shit and eventually went on disability — I don't consider it an excuse, though. I was an asshole."
28. "I knew he had an anger problem, and by the time the wedding arrived, I had considered canceling it, but my friends and family talked me out of it, saying, 'he's just stressed out.' So I went through with it, and he hit me for the first time right after the wedding — like, I still had my dress on. My family talked me out of leaving that day. A couple of months later, he got pissed at me while driving and nearly killed us both by driving off a cliff. I started planning my exit and left in month five."
29. "We were both really young and didn’t even have driver's licenses. I was pregnant, which is why we were allowed to marry without parental permission. I quickly matured and was working three jobs. He laid on his ass and acted like a 16-year-old who wasn’t married with a kid. I was younger than him and working so hard to support us on our own, and ultimately, I began to look at him as just another mouth to feed. I told him that I and the baby were going to visit my mom. He took me to the bus stop, and I never looked back."
30. "We were married for six months. I married the wrong person. I knew it during the engagement, but I felt like I was in so deep with all of the wedding arrangements that it was too late. I've struggled with self-esteem for most of my life, and I felt that I needed to settle just because he wasn't a total asshole like the exes I'd had in the past. He was a nice enough guy, and we had been friends since high school. We were together romantically for four years and had been together since I was 22. I felt at the time that getting married was what I was 'supposed' to do at that point. Live and learn. I have no feelings about it or him. It was essentially like having a glorified roommate. There was no passion, no spark at all at any point, really. ... I'm glad I divorced after six months rather than forcing it for 20 years."
"To be honest, I suspect he felt the same, considering his only 'fight' against the divorce was 'please don’t' and one couples therapy appointment. I guess I wasn't moving it along fast enough because although I requested the divorce, he ended up filing the paperwork."
31. "She was addicted to prescription drugs. No one knew, and all she did was open credit cards in my name and stock up on prescription pain pills. She didn't even fight or go to a lawyer; she just signed off on the divorce papers."
32. "She went out for girls' night and met a new friend named Nicole at a bar. She started texting her a lot and then going to hang out now and then. We had a baby at home, and she kept trying to hang out with this girl from another town over with no last name, whom I was not allowed to meet. His real name was Wesley."
33. "We were married four months. It was the only time I ever cheated on someone, and I still regret it wholeheartedly. I could have just ended it, but I was so immature. I grew up uber-religious, and my mom wouldn't let us just move in to try it out because then we'd be 'living in sin.' So we got married, and I moved across the country to live with him. He would work 10-12 hour days, come home, watch Top Gear for two hours, and go straight to bed. Saturdays were spent with his friends. Sundays were spent with his family. We never had one-on-one time. Sex was spare and terrible. I was left on my own for five days a week, essentially, so I started playing League with friends from back home. I got introduced to one of their buddies. We would play and talk for hours and really hit it off. My husband found my chats one day while I slept. I didn't even deny it. I just bought a ticket to fly home. I ended up paying for the divorce, which is fair."
"We didn't share any assets, so I was able to write my own divorce decree in a couple of hours. My mom was going on a cruise to Alaska with her bestie, so I flew with them because the port was in WA, and so was my then-husband. I met with him to get his signature in front of a notary. We sent it to the court from there. He and I went to get lunch together after that. We admitted we both weren't ready and were glad to end on amicable terms. Now I'm with the love of my life, and he went on to have a more open dating life."
34. "We had been together eight years by the time we got married, and I realized I had been pushing for an engagement I didn't even really want. His mom dictated our whole wedding, and once we were married, I realized he was never going to grow up into a real partner, so I divorced him within a year. It was a hard lesson in the sunk cost fallacy, but I'm really glad I made that decision."
35. "I came to find out that she was trying to separate me from my friends and family so she could control me like her mom controls her dad. The signs were all there, and I just overlooked them. We were divorced after six weeks."
36. And finally, let's end on a story with a happier ending..."A girl I went to school with got married while still in high school. Her parents were addicted to drugs and abusive. She and an older male friend (18) decided to get married to get her out of her situation. He offered her parents money if they signed a marriage agreement for her at 16. They never acted like a married couple or slept together (he is gay), and they got divorced a little over a year later as soon as she was 18 — but continued living together as roommates. Nothing went wrong; that had been the plan the whole time. No idea where they are now."
Why did you get divorced after less than a year of marriage? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.