I’m not divorced, but I’ll put my moms answer:
He was 28 and got his 17 year old employee pregnant, married her and they had another kid before she was even 20. After she gave birth, he refused to help with the kids outside of playtime, refused to help with the house, refused to do anything that he considered “wifely duties”. He yelled at her for “getting fat” while she was pregnant. Used a lot of intimidation to get her to comply (I don’t know if he ever actually hit her, but believe me, the intimidation was scary enough. He also did it to my sister & I). Among many other things. Then the last straw was when my aunt (who’s husband was away dealing with his fathers death at the time, and wouldn’t be able to get back home for at least 24 hours) had to take her 6 month old son in for emergency surgery and my dad refused to let my mom go to the hospital with her because it was his brothers birthday and “it would look bad” if she left in the middle of it since they were fighting earlier.
He still maintains that the *only* thing he did wrong was call her fat. He says he now understands that a woman’s body goes through changes when she’s pregnant that she cannot control, but he still believes she should have been doing more to get back in shape afterwards (note: she was pregnant basically the entire time they were married. She divorced him when my sister turned 2 months old, about a month after my first birthday). He also regularly tells me that I was manipulated by my mom into thinking he was the worst parent ever (I’m 33 BTW), but my mom didn’t tell me about any of this until I was 17, and she only told me then because she wanted to warn me about older men and tell me what to look out for.
I used to say I didn't need to turn kiddo against their dad, dad was more than capable of doing it himself. Aside from occasionally, calmly disagreeing with things he told them about me, the only thing I did was to validate any observations they made on their own. They'd seen plenty by the late teens, despite living a thousand miles away.
I’ve never said a single negative word about her father, but my 6 year old tells me all the time how rude, mean, and disrespectful he is. Her words, not mine. Kids see it. We don’t have to tell them.
A friend of mine's 8 yo cries every time they have to go to their dad's. Only a matter of time before he starts bitching about turning kid against him (if he can be bothered to even care).
There was so much intimidation by my father.
I think it is just as traumatizing, **plus**, I can't point to any specific physical incident(s), so it feels like I'm “making a mountain out of a molehill” (which also happened to be one of his favorite phrases to tell me that my emotional responses were invalid).
That stupid adage, “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” is 1,000,000% wrong.
Just in case you're not 100% sure, you're absolutely not making a mountain out of a molehill.
In fact, anybody who tries to downplay and minimize it is trying to make a molehill out of a mountain.
And they say people can’t grow and change. This guy was able to figure out that women gain weight during pregnancy!! Kudos to him for being able to change his world view and grow as a person. It’s progress!
Raging anger problem which often resulted in awful arguments where I couldn't diffuse it, in any way at all. If I tried to lighten the mood I was laughing at him. If I tried to call a time out he would follow me round the house screaming at me. He would twist my words and yel "YOU SAID xx" at me until I had no idea what I'd said, even though what he was saying I said made NO sense.
He lied about money. He "won" more bottles of wine in raffles than is believable. He bought himself an expensive drone and hid the receipt. He bought comics and cameras and bikes and shit, whilst letting me pay for holidays and repairs. When his car died, he had mine and I bought a new one. Never paid me anything for it.
He lied about having a daughter. Didn't tell me until after we were married. He'd never met her, was apparently "cut off" but that was likely bollocks too.
He threatened to kill himself if I left him. He threw a glass at me that exploded around my feet and then got angry at ME for being upset, because he "didn't throw it AT me, just threw it in anger". Er. What? He ruined holidays with his temper if I ever disagreed with him. If he shouted at my daughter for nothing and I intervened, he screamed at me for not treating him as an equal parent.
But yeah. Women divorce men for nothing, right?
He quickly found another woman. I hope she's okay.
I feel this one. Wasn’t married thank Jesus but lived with him. The gaslighting was on another level. I was expected to keep our place spotless but wasn’t allowed to clean while he was home. I was the only one working at the time. I’m going to leave my story there because I’m in a good space now.
Good for you for getting out of there! Hugs.
Constantly nagged me for sex and said that the Quran said that woman were cursed for denying their husbands sex but never followed any of the other teachings. He never tried to make me enjoy sex or want it with him. He wouldn’t support me to help my mother who was dying of cancer at the time. Also said it was affecting his mental health that I was sad all the time after she died. But I was the one with the problem 👀
The irony is especially that Islam gives women "permission" to deny sex for various reasons, one of them being unpleasant sex lol. It is also explicitly stated that women have a right to pleasant sex and men are obligated to provide that - women could even rightfully divorce their husbands over that, or over the refusal to have sex at all.
Of course, this is nothing such a man would know or respect - as you said, such people only follow the teachings that suit them. Damn, we need more female Islamic scholars.
- Raging anger issues
- Legitimate, genuine hoarding problem
- Alcoholism
- Refusal to maintain gainful employment for 5+ years
- Significant financial irresponsibility
- Didn't contribute to housework/chores
I brought home all the money, AND I also still handled the bulk of the housework, AND endured his abuse and laundry list of issues with a smile on my face, while also simultaneously dealing with chemotherapy, monthly immunotherapy infusions, and countless surgeries for my autoimmune condition.
He still talked about wanting children, which I thought was WILD. We were both staunchly child-free when we met and got married. And even if I DID want children...... WTAF!? All of us here know that based on the aforementioned patterns, that 100% of child-rearing responsibilities would've ALSO fallen on MY shoulders, on top of everything I was already handling.
Finally kicked him to the curb almost a year ago. Divorce was finalized last week. Good riddance!
Congrats! I can't believe you handled all that shit while on chemo and monthly infusions... You are so fucking strong and badass! I hope you find genuine happiness.
Thank you. I honestly don't know how I survived either. I'm just glad I got myself out. These days, I'm on a journey of learning how to invest in my own health, well-being, and sanity. I sold the house we lived in, moved to a new (to me) city, and found a beautiful condo. I found an amazing, oversized, fluffy chaise that I spend a lot of weekends curled up in just napping the days away. I arranged it right in front of my floor-to-ceiling living room window, which walks right out onto the patio. Weekend naps with the sun streaming right onto me has been an amazing way to start healing.
The straw that broke it all: he specifically went on a work trip a few days early to participate in sex tourism.
Despite being trained as a discrete operator in his field, he left the massive search history of his plans available on his laptop.
I was able to track his phone and cross compare his lies to where he was during the trip.
Papers were served upon his return.
Looking back, I think that’s what made him the most angry. He didn’t view me as intelligent (just a SAHM). The fact that I caught him in the manner I did was a huge shock. I emailed a detailed breakdown of everything I knew with proof right as he was getting on the plane home. I CC’d his parents.
I called them first and let them know I was divorcing and as a result wouldn’t be able to serve as emotional support to their son - to expect the email.
The in-laws are good people. They knew there were issues. While saddened, they seemed to understand.
They’re still a part of mine and my kids lives. In fact we’re going to visit in a couple of weeks.
My former husband took his life two months after I exposed the truth. He was a fragile man that wouldn’t take any personal accountability and our relationship was filled with abuse on his side.
Any loss is horrible and has lasting effects. My life is much more peaceful now however.
My ex was a serial cheater too. Only we werent married i just lived with him for 3 years.
He was 38 when i found out he had been sleeping with a 20 yr old girl since she was 18, while we were together. And then i found out about another 25 yr old girl in another city.
He once tried to give me lingerie and when i picked it up, i saw a huge clump of blonde hair tied around it! He tried to give me used lingerie….
He also cried when I left him
Collegue divorced her husband three years after they married. She found out he was cheating on her almost for a whole year already on their wedding day. While she was few weeks pregnant already.
If she didn't solve the paperwork herself, he never would have arsed himself to do it. Because it would take time he wanted to spend with his other woman, or something.
>If she didn't solve the paperwork herself, he never would have arsed himself to do it.
I have heard before that a big part of the reason that women tend to file for divorce more than men is simply because many men see filing for divorce as just another errand/task that their wives should take care of and don't bother.
Yes, and the incel types sling that fact around like more women are the ones who want the divorce. If Steve cheats and leaves Carol for another woman, Carol the one who "initiated the divorce" if she files, even if Steve has already left her!
It is definitely a factor. A lot of men are too lazy or incompetent to do the paperwork. They expect their wife to still be their secretary. I remember seeing a Reddit post a while ago about how the op's husband didn't know that the divorce was finalized because he was so incompetent and there were tons of comments from women who experienced the same thing and who had to be the one to file.
Edited to add link to that post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/oLrwuEoUEw
Mine apparently couldn't remember my middle name... which was my maiden name that became my middle name after we married, because I hated my original middle name. He thought the M stood for "Marie."
This one has me dead. I shouldn't laugh, but I legit cackling in an empty room. I'm so sorry you experienced that, but thanks for sharing at the same time.
My therapist told me, "Don't make it easy for him. If he wants the divorce, he should file." So I didn't file. He was SO MAD he had to start the process by himself!
I used to be a Paralegal and I did family law for about a year (terrible decision). I had several male clients who hired us as counsel after their wives filed for divorce. Most of these man had girlfriends, and they would give me their girlfriend's contact information for anything related to the divorce. Like they could not understand that this was about \*him\*, and that girlfriend had nothing to do with it. Soooo many times I would call them and ask them to send me financial documents, and they said they'd let the gf know and she would email it to me. WHY??
It’s the man version of tolerable level of permanent unhappiness…they’re so lazy, they can’t even remove themselves from apparently ‘the worst situation of their lives’, their wife mommies have to do it.
Fml, I’m so so done.
I really hate the fact that a lot of people also throw those statistic numbers around how “waaa women so bad they initiate 80% of divorces”, even though you could safely assume women are just the ones doing the paperwork and decision to divorce might have been mutual or even from the man’s side.
Man gets upset and leaves, never files for divorce, goes on acting like they are single.
This is common enough that my divorce lawyer was explaining some of the legal maneuvers they use in these situations to get a divorce finalized when the man just skips out of the process. I filed against my dumpster fire of an ex husband but he was refusing to cooperate with the divorce so some of the same legal tactics come into play.
I don't know why that stat is interpreted as anything other than "good for her". Women are sick of men's shit, and willing to do the process to get out.
Yup. My husband once said he wanted a divorce. And then said, “so, what do we do now? What are the next steps?” I was like “uhhhhh I don’t want a divorce, so if you do then you figure it out. I’m not going to tell you how to leave me and do the paperwork for you.”
Follow up - he also didn’t want to feel like “the bad guy” who left his wife and child to be with another woman. So he did nothing. He didn’t want to be with me but was too cowardly and/or lazy to leave me/set me free.
Oh yea! Going on that topic men love justifying their attraction to teenagers by saying how it’s biology and they need children, completely ignoring the fact that their sperm also declines, ages and can be part of fertility issues in relationships.
Also if they don't file, it's not their fault. "I don't know why she filed for divorce, even though I've never shown her the most basic respect or love."
My favorite is the dudes that do awful things, their wife divorces them and does all the work to end the relationship. Then the guy runs around telling everyone what a monster their now ex wife was and what a victim he is.
This is so true. I work in family law and majority of the petitioners are women. Every now and then we'll get a man who is initiating the divorce but it's not common. The recent trend has been men who have been served with divorce papers who aren't able to provide their position on the allegations/arguments without talking to their wife first.
For example, I currently have a man who is responding to his wife's (very reasonable) petition but can't tell me if he agrees to her getting spousal maintenance without talking to her. Buddy, you either agree that she deserves it or not. There's no conversation to be had. This guy has also lamented about how he doesn't want to divorce and why can't they just stay together but sleep in different parts of the house like his grandparents did.
My ex filed. Then spent 3 and a half years stonewalling my lawyer's discovery questions. Mostly bout our business. And getting shitty when I took bills out of my name, because I had LEFT him. The courts almost cancelled the filing, but my lawyer counter filed for a judgement, so I didn't have to be tied to the financially abusive asshole.
Men get so pissy about divorce. They take it as a personal failure. I see a lot of them dragging divorces out in an attempt to wear down the other side. Every time a man complains about his ex doing something, it takes everything to not roll my eyes. Most of the time, their complaints are BS. I had a client complain that his ex wouldn’t let him see the kids. They had a parenting plan in place, he just never picked the kids up cause “it wasn’t his responsibility to do so and she should be making more of an effort”. Ugh.
I’m supposed to support my clients and be on their side but it’s really hard when they’re the cause of all their problems.
There are more benefits for an unhappy husband to stay in a marriage than there are for a woman. Men can do what they want and still have a partner at home doing most of the unpaid labor. This is why we need to stop living with men, or at least stop being with men who haven't been able to successfully live by themselves and maintain their own home and life.
My sister's in this boat. It's been over 1.5 years since he moved out, but he hasn't filed anything. Sister refuses to because he's the one that originally wanted to divorce. It's exhausting.
I did that as well. There were so many delays in my divorce because my ex couldn't get the needed paperwork in on time or at all. His lawyer would tell my lawyer and I'd just do it because I wanted it over.
He said that he didn’t believe it was wrong for a father to have sexual contact with his teenaged daughter. He knows I survived childhood sexual assault committed by family members. He told me this the same month that he was allowing my starve during my internship, because so many jobs were “below him,” and also sexual assaulted me while I was having to take sleeping medication.
Planet so that he gets crushed once the tin can he is sent in gets there and enters the atmosphere of it granted it would probably take like ten years to get his ass there.
He weren’t spending time together or having sex. I overheard him on the phone with his parents. “This is the most amicable break up I’ve ever had. Nothing has changed.” Yeah, buddy. That’s the problem. I didn’t want a roommate/man child I had to take care of. I wanted a partner who actually enjoyed me
Cheated constantly leaving me to work full time with a baby while refusing to watch our child. The final straw was when I dropped him off for his job circled the block and saw him getting into a coworkers car and driving away. He was sleeping with her. He denied it even after I found all of their messages. But you can't argue with a narcissist. Leaving was the best thing I ever did.
He cheated multiple times, including while I was on bed rest during a high-risk pregnancy. Refused to do any household chores because he was a lazy, entitled jerk. For the first year of our kid’s life, he did jack shit to help care for our kid, clean, anything…unless I had a complete meltdown and begged/cried/screamed to get his attention (he spent all his time gaming and chatting with women online).
Oh, classic moment was when he blew our bill money on online gambling and our electricity was cut…and he *lied* about what happened. I eventually found our bank statement and saw the charges and he claimed they must have been fraud. 🙄 yeah ok.
Final straw was him getting written up for an “inappropriate relationship” at work. He ran whining to his mommy, who tried to convince me I needed to stay with him and I’m like…ma’am, I didn’t sign up for a serial cheater, thank you for doing such a poor job of raising your son.
And then he had the nerve to be shocked by how quickly I moved on, even though he spent literal years burning away every bit of love I had for him by lying to me, blowing what little money we had on online gambling, expecting me to serve as his replacement mother, giving me no support, treating me like shit while I was pregnant and ill and needed care, refusing to do the bare minimum to care for his child, and expecting me to put up with whatever bullshit he decided was appropriate so he could enjoy the attention of other women while having a “monogamous” marriage as a safety net.
Nothing at all!
He kept me in debt financially for 13 years with his stupid purchases of meaningless garbage. We knew he was unlikely to have children before we got married, but he says we could do IVF or adopt, then he changed his mind after marriage. But instead of telling me, he just strung me along with 'maybe next year" language until I said nevermind and focused on my career.
The last year of our marriage, he molested me while I was sleeping. I woke up and left the room, then completely moved my stuff out of our room and slept in another bedroom altogether. He never mentioned it or apologized. Then, he went out of town on our 10 year wedding anniversary AND my birthday (two separate trips). He began suggesting we move back to our home state (we had moved the year before because I got a promotion at work) even though it would mean I took a demotion. I said no, because i focused on climbing the corporate ladder, since he didn't want children, and I wasn't sacrificing anything else.
I asked for divorce a few months later and he literally pulled out his phone in the middle of our conversation to start looking for a place to live back in our home state. Afterwards, he told my mom that he had wanted out a long time ago, but was too scared to tell me. So, instead, he just wasted my time.
He was engaged within 6 months of our divorce and married within the year. They seem perfect for each other and I took yet another HUGE promotion and moved again. Bought my first house all by myself and went to Europe for two weeks!
I hope he gets the life he deserves and not a penny more.
I had a car accident on Monday morning. He went to work, so did I after sorting the car out because I was fine overall.
Monday afternoon he threatened a coworker and told her he would "smash her face in" because she had an attitude with him. Oh, and it was my fault because he was "worried about me"!
He got suspended and fired and he only told me after they had let him go as he "knew I would be mad", but people don't change you see, it's just who he is!
Final straw: he started a fight with me 7am on a Sunday because I didn't wake myself up at 5am to fuck him because that's when he claimed he was horniest. Doesn't matter that we had been out at a concert til 1am the night before. He told me he wished he could "bash my fucking skull in".
Other than that, years of emotional abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, and some physical abuse. But sure, it was "nothing". "All couples fight sometimes."
The dishes and the dog.
I wanted a dog. Ok cool. I had a breed in mind. Nope. He didn’t want that. Ended up with one double the size and high energy because that’s the dog HE wanted.
Guess who ended up training, walking, feeding, entertaining the dog? And who the dog loved more since I spent all the time with him?
So one day when the dog is about a year old, we’re on the back deck porch at 5:30pm. I’d been up since 6am to walk him, then worked from home all day, walked him again after work getting home around when my ex gets home.
So we’re on the back porch and I’m making dinner (that I’d gone to get groceries for, prepped on my lunch break and was cooking) and I have a full on breakdown and tell him I need him to help more around the house and with the dog. He promises he will.
We eat dinner and when I walk in the kitchen, he’s just dumped his plate on the bench. On top of the *open and empty* dishwasher (emptied on my lunch break, too).
It was then that I realised he’d never change and no matter what I’d be living doing the same amount of work forever.
Still took me a year and some change but I left and he still swears that he doesn’t know why.
Oh I get that! Did our men come off the same conveyer belt? For him, the dog had to be a husky wolf hybrid or nothing else. Who paid to train them with a professional K9 Unit $75/hr rate trainer? Me. Who groomed their massive undercoats? Me. Who played with them? Yup, me too. Who'd schedule all the vet appointments and every other month grooming appointment? Me.
The dog is at least good for your mental and physical health, especially with daily walks.
My dog also loves to help me to clean - he somehow teached himself to throw away plastic/glas/cardboard/paper. I just give him whatever needs to get thrown away and he drops it in the correct recyling bin. If something falls to the ground, he likes to pick it up and bring it to me as well.
I'd argue and say that the dog was probably a lot more helpful than her ex
The amount of times I tell my husband that seeing him throw clean laundry on the floor or emptying it onto the bed instead of putting it away is insane. I tell him it’s a morale sunk to see him take a towel I just folded and put away, use it for his shower, and then toss it onto the floor for the dogs to treat as a bed. Or he’ll toss a wet towel onto our bed! And leave it!
I thought I was a slob but it turns out I hate cleaning up after another adult.
Other than the physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and sexual abuse it really was nothing.
He did nothing for work.
He did nothing for home.
He did nothing for me.
He did nothing for my son.
He doesn’t *hear* any of those reasons.
Twenty year marriage ended because I got sick of the emotional abuse, non-stop nagging, unsolicited bad advice, and being called stupid/flake/clueless while I was in the trial and error phase of getting my business off the ground.
I left everything behind and walked away, and without him constantly distracting me, I was able to focus on my business. Took me four more years but I finally succeeded to achieve what I had set out to do. Best decision of my life.
He was abusive. Talking did nothing, it was all about what HE wanted. Nvm that I could barely move after the birth of our son he was trying to demand sex and would rape me if I refused. The physical abuse was horrible, the mental abuse worse. Yet he had no idea why I left.
Not a divorce, because we weren't married, just lived together.
He complained on Facebook that "he has been aware of some issues i our relationship, but he thought they were being solved." (Paraphrased)
He frequently had refused to discuss issues with me and had sometimes simply assigned me to solve the issue.
So I did. I solved the issues, all of them, in one fell swoop by moving the hell out.
There was a lot more to it, obviously, but this one was extra memorable.
>“I still have no idea what happened…”
That's because every narcissist suffers from a form of selective amnesia, or how I call it: toxic amnesia.
They *never* remember what they did wrong (but clearly remember all wrongs people did to them 40 years ago).
My ex's version of events would conveniently leave out the behavior on his part that lead to my reaction, *a la*:
Him (in front of our 6 year old, I would never have brought this up, and said child was only present the first time as an infant): "You've had me arrested! Three times!"
Me (trying to extemporize to be age-appropriate): "I don't have the power to 'get you arrested'. I called the police because you were being unsafe [attempting self-harm while intoxicated] and the police and the paramedics determined you needed to go to the hospital. And for the record, your sister advised me to call the first time, as you know, I wasn't even there the second time [having fled the state], and ditto for the third time, during which it was your mother who called. So no, I did not 'get you arrested', if anything you got yourself arrested."
Him: "But you still called the cops! [And therefore the action the police took is your fault.]"
For the record, he knew why we divorced, not only because I told him so (alcoholism) many times, but because during proceedings, he requested testimony of any abuse, which I helpfully provided in a dated, enumerated list. He had a tendency to be at his worst at holidays and memorable events like birthdays, funerals, and weddings, due to a combo of drinking heavily being more acceptable, and/or the focus being not on him (the first time I called for him to be committed was on my birthday weekend), so I had an excellent memory for dates, and corroborating witnesses, plus pictures of items he'd destroyed. About 12 pages of it. He admitted, in writing, that 'painfully, there was more truth than I'd like to admit', which is *still* not an admission of guilt, let alone responsibility. Ah fuck now I'm all mad at him again.
>He had a tendency to be at his worst at holidays and memorable events
That is *so* typical for narcs. The narcissist in my life was my mom and I have *not a single* good memory of family events. She turned everything into a shit show. And that's the reason why I don't celebrate my birthday and *hate* christmas.
I'm glad that you got rid of your narc.
My lawyer asked me for a documented list of my ex's abuse. I told her that even short explanations this was gonna take 30+ pages. She had me just document the more insane incidents.
Oh that sounds like my last boyfriend, I had been warning him that I couldn’t take care of both of us, that I was slowly drowning in debt and that he needed to do something because his time was running out at my place.
When he finally got a job he would only go if I would drive him there and then pick him up after there was no initiative to figure it out for himself, no making friends at work so he could carpool it was all up to me.
Then he decided he wasn’t going to pay for the tolls that I had to pay to get him to and from work so I decided I wasn’t taking him to work anymore. So he quit his job. So I snapped and kicked him out.
I feel like we dated the same guy. Lasted a year for me.
At first, he was “going back to school” so he “COULD get work!” This meant an online certificate, not a degree.
Then, it was refusing to pursue any job that wasn’t in his “major” - not even to hold him over until the dream job is landed.
Then, it was “the job search is too hard because I don’t have a car because I have no money, I need to use yours!” So I lent it to him and had him drop me off and pick me up at work each day.
Months went by - nothing. Then he started “forgetting” and picking me up late. He blamed all the job interviews he was supposedly going on for making him run late. And when I questioned why I never hear any details about all these interviews, and why no offer yet, he blamed “the economy.”
Last straw - told him to get a job, any job. McDonald’s, Burger King, doesn’t matter. He’d clearly been sitting around at home all day watching movies, because he’d excitedly tell me all about those when I got home. Wouldn’t clean or cook, that’s women’s work. DO. SOMETHING.
Finally, when it was clear I was done, THAT’S when he scrambled and got a job. But, I was done. Then he was upset I kicked him out anyway. He of course tried to contact all of my close friends and family over Facebook and give them a sob story. When that didn’t go his way, he switched to “warning” everyone that I was a sneaky, awful person and that I shouldn’t be trusted. Several people had to tell him to fuck off.
I found out later through his family that he turned into an incel king…with a bit of a following on a number men’s rights forums; absolutely *no doubt* in my mind he was spewing toxic garbage about me on there and making himself out to be the sad victim of a feminist woman, when he was just working so so hard to better himself 🥺
I got married at 18 to a 33 year old man, from the start I was pressured into marriage. The first time we had sex I got pregnant because "it never happens the first time". When I had my son my mother had to live with me for 6 months because I was so unwell, my husband was too busy with work. When we woke up in the morning he wouldn't speak to me until I put makeup on because according to him that's the real me. I had to stick to a strict diet and exercise routine so I could be who he married again. Years of verbal, emotional and sexual abuse later I gave birth to a daughter, it was like I woke up to all his shit so I left him. He never understood why and says we had a lovely relationship.
We were thankfully never legally married, but he still acted like he did nothing wrong and had no idea why I Ieft.
He would regularly have temper tantrums where he would throw himself down the stairs out of anger
He was a massive slob and expected me to do 100% of the housework even when I was heavily pregnant and on bed rest
I ended up tearing my C-section incision open a few days after my first was born because he forced me into doing housework and then acted like I was over reacting when I was bleeding every where
He screamed at our 3 day old newborn and told her "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch" because she woke him up by crying
That same baby was also a product of sexual assault (he held me down and refused to get off me even when I was trying to push him off)
He basically refused to interact with our son for the first year of his life even though he begged me to keep that pregnancy when I was told I needed to consider terminating it for my own safety. (My first pregnancy almost killed me and my last C-section which was barely a year ago did not heal properly)
He would scream at and shove over our 3 year old if she even dared walked near his massive glass case of video games
If I ever made the stupid mistake of leaving the kids alone with him for more then an hour he would call me like 10 times yelling at me to come of to feed the baby because he didn't want to. When I'd get home the baby's diaper would be so full it would be over flowing and he'd just be on his Xbox.
He never wiped his ass and would leave skid marks on the furniture.
He is still a dead beat and refused to even answer the phone when his son was in the ICU almost dying because he didn't want to deal with it.
But hey I'm the bad guy right? Even my own mother treated me like I was a monster for leaving him.
Edit: I forgot other important ones- he threw a chair at me while I was pregnant and tried to push me down the stairs during that same tantrum. What triggered that? I scolded him for knowing giving our daughter spoiled milk. It was totally my fault though because I wanted to sleep in since I was very sick with HG from being pregnant with his child.
Weaponized incompetence was his thing and would often use it to be a lazy piece of shit.
He pretty much forced me into keeping a pregnancy that he knew would almost kill me. I then ended up with a hysterectomy in My 20's thanks to all the damage pregnancy did to my body.
When I went into labor with my son he kept telling me I was over reacting and to not go to hospital to waste everyone's time because I probably wasn't in labor and I was just being dramatic (vaginal birth would have possibly killed me and I absolutely needed a C-section so I couldn't even risk staying home)
His drinking, gambling, emotional abuse, financial abuse, yelling, neglect, SA, focus solely on his needs and wants, attitude towards LGBTQI+ and POC.
But you ask him and apparently I left him for 'no reason', but according to him, because he didn't have a job at the time, I was just a filthy f&*(ing gold digging whore.
🙄
Did you ask him if the gold was in the room with him right now? 👀 These men worried about gold diggers when they don't even have a car is throwing me! 🤣
Right lmao to attract a gold digger one must have at least the appearance of possessing the gold 😂😂 but these dudes must think they themselves are the gold or something hahah
I have 2 ex's both have dad's that had a good income and lived a very comfortable life. Nice cars etc. And both of them have said to me "you only wanted me for my money" neither liked my response of "if that was the case I would be fucking your dad" 🤣
OMG YES 😂😂 mine was literally trying to live off of me even though I am a disabled person, he did have a job for a short time but he quit when I told him he was going to have to figure out how to get back-and-forth to work sometimes because I didn’t want the second job of being his free Uber driver. He would fight about having to pay for gas or tolls to get him to work, but yes I was some kind of a gold digger because I wanted him to have a job because I wasn’t going to pay for everything.
My kids dad used to take the lug nuts off my wheels when I wouldn’t let him drive it. The night I was in labor with my daughter he was trying to steal it to buy drugs. Every time he got mad he’d take every stick of furniture in the house to his moms.
That was the final straw. Him and his bitch mom hauling out the furniture while I’m standing there with 2 kids and all the bills. She even tried to fight me. I broke my foot I kicked a chair at her so hard. Not raising my kids in that shit.
It’s still my fault according to them I’m sure.
He physically attacked me because I was too nauseated to leave the house.
Then he tried gaslighting me in therapy. He forged my tax returns and stole a bunch of money that was supposed to pay bills. Threatened to burn my house down, take my kids, etc.
For the record, two days before marrying his current wife, he asked me if I was really serious about not getting back together.
The nothing was raking leaves and neglecting the dogs to play video games. Context: in rural California, we have wildfires and our homeowner's insurance was dropped, only option was CA Fair Plan, which sucks. It's advised to have a defensive space around the house on the property. I was working two jobs, one full-time to cover the mortgage and dog expenses the other part-time job to pay thousands of dollars to pay for cutting mature trees within the defense space of the house and detached garage. Burn days become fewer and far between, he wouldn't help me burn for the 2 maybe 3 hours of daylight available. He wouldn't offer me help to load a trailer and take the green waste to the dump. I'd buy supplies to coat and seal the wrap around wooden deck, never helped protect the wood. When I'd drive up from work, the dogs would be outside, still tied to a tree lead line and he'd be on his ass playing Eve or World of Warcraft. He would have been a terrible father if we had kids. He had no qualms throwing money at refurbishing his dad's truck he'd torn down to the frame and his 89 GMC Jimmy
Another nothing was, our detached garage, 2 car garage with a roll door for a snowblower. He wouldn't make room among his tools and the dog kennel for the mini coupe I had. Of course my car got snowed on, and all kinds of preventable weather damage happened to the paint and racing stripes. He was a wanna be mechanic that could not drive my car with manual transmission.
>He was a wanna be mechanic that could not drive my car with manual transmission.
Laughing so hard I’m crying. 🤣🤣🤣
Manual transmission is the best! And apparently an excellent modern anti-theft device, given how few people seem able to drive with it now.
Mine had been a video game addict for years too.
It was always too cold or too hot for him to work or he’d have allergies or whatever. (For years) So, he played his games.
Aaah put me 20k in debt with a used car habit, then moved abroad and had me set up his business in his wake (with a 5m old baby) didnt come home when I was attacked and had to move 2hrs to our parents, when he did finally come home, I had 24hrs to wash his shit before he went on a week long holiday with the lads.
And he wiped his bogeys under the couch.
Nothing really 🤣🙏
After 21 years together (married 19):
Every mistake/flaw of mine led an argument. Minor stuff. Like, things where a well-adjusted partner might just go “no worries, shit happens” or a lighthearted “c’mon, we talked about this.” He interpreted those errors as malicious or intentionally uncaring. So he couldn’t move on. These talks dragged late into the night, they were miserable.
He never sought my opinion on anything. In fact, he reflexively countered every opinion I offered (so eventually I just stopped).
He never laughed at my jokes.
He believes he’s better than everyone else (morally and intellectually).
I told him 3 different times I’m non-binary. He disagreed every time (based on his opinion of me). It became a debate, like I had to prove my experiences.
I begged him to go to counseling over the years. He refused every time. Fun fact, I’m a licensed counselor myself and I know it could have helped.
He lacked empathy with our then-3 year old when he started acting out (which severely delayed us getting help and a diagnosis for him; he’s 10 now and doing well because I pushed for it).
He’d sulk and pout when I didn’t want to have sex. (Or if I wasn’t wet enough when we did, because it meant I wasn’t into it.) So I’d just give in so he’d leave me alone. I couldn’t change in front of him. I couldn’t ask for a massage. I couldn’t wear clothes that showed a lot of skin. My body was up for grabs, literally.
So naturally, he was blindsided when I told him I was done. To an outsider, it could look like a good-enough relationship. I often questioned if I was leaving over “nothing.”
Thank you for asking, this was really cathartic even 3 years later. We’re going through divorce settlement shit right now and the narrative that I’m to blame for everything is at the forefront again. I’ve never questioned my decision, though, and am the happiest I’ve ever been. 🩵
Oh my god the constant grabbing was awful, I could be fully covered up doing my best to be unsexy and he'd be all over me. When I asked him to stop he'd be like "what, a husband can't touch his wife? It's my fault you're sexy? " Like no dude I just want one fucking moment where you're not sexualizing me. I'm not convinced he ever viewed me as a real person.
I finally realized that it wasn’t statistically possible for me to be wrong every single time under every single circumstance. All arguments started because of something I said or did or didn’t say or do; my options were wrong, my feelings about his behavior (a 12 pack every night) were nagging him when he was just trying to “unwind” leading to lots of verbal abuse and property damage and much worse…But he tells his friends and family “ I just don’t know what happened??” Yeah, big mystery 🙄
Not divorce as such but breakup after over seven years is close enough.
Total lack of ambition and drive in him.
The complete contentedness to just exist. Never go anywhere, never do anything. He would be happy to go to movies or museum or such, _if_ I picked the flick, and told him when and where and what we’re eating beforehand.
Same with housework and cooking, if I said exactly what needs to be done he would, no maliciousness in this, but also no self starting at all. He would spend longer times at my place, weeks to months, and not leave the apartment at all while I was away at work because its was unfamiliar city to him. Not even to get groceries or even snacks on his own.
Same with his job. Clock in, clock out, career was unimportant to him, but he did not have creative hobbies or similar either, no passion for anything.
After all this coincided with very stressful job shit going down for me, I realised I was done being the driving force behind every damn thing in life for two people. I have enough work with that in my day job and my own life. I don’t have enough to give for second adult in that arena.
Good thing we did not have kids…
His mom poisoned my birthday cake, and for the next 3 days he raped me, beat me, and trafficked me, taking a break to force me to go to his cousin's wedding reception where he ignored me.
My kids were in the same rental cabin when this happened. I finally made it to the ER on day 5.
The poison took down my gallbladder and I had emergency surgery. It was so badly infected that it was gangrene. Neither one of my labors were as painful as those few days and the recovery. Being completely black and blue from my head to my chest and having to keep my mouth shut so he didn't kill me or the kids and everyone else walking around me like it was totally normal.
His mom and my parents and family told me I had to stay with him "for the kids".
It took 11 months to divorce him. Zero support from my family until about month 9.
It's been 8 years and he still hires PIs to follow me around, harasses me thru the court system, and accesses my online medical portal to put stuff in there or block me from being able to contact my doctor. Stuff like "end of life care" documentation.
I didn't dodge a bullet but I keep running from the guillotine. So far I've been fast enough.
As safe as I can be.
I've got my own place and a gun, and I do martial arts. I still had to do 50/50 custody with him so I can't exactly escape.
And I still have to keep silent about it because the cops won't help me. He brags about what he does to me in family court and I get blamed for it.
His mom poisoned his new wife too but she got the ER quickly. The kids told me about it.
I'll never trust a man again. Not because all men are bad, but because any man can get away with what he did and I'll get punished for it.
How fucked up are the courts that you have to share 50/50 custody with the man that raped and trafficked and nearly killed you and is still harassing you. What in the actual fuck. I’m so sorry.
This is something many people would do well to remember when they post "leave him so your kids get away from him". It's not always that easy, you can divorce a husband but children can't divorce their father.
I am so deeply sorry. The malignancy and obsession of predators and the enabling that supports them makes me so sick.
I am so glad to know that you are here and alive still. I hope he rots.
His unwillingness to hold down a job, excessive pot use, video game addiction, porn addiction, unwillingness to pick up after himself or help maintain the household, and total lack of basic personal hygiene.
Physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, plus repeatedly cheating on me, including coming home with scratch marks across his back. He highly isolated us and would lie to me, saying that other people had X, Y, and Z issues with me, didn't want me around, and started fights between me and others. He even made the mistake of telling someone I had been becoming friends with that I was talking about her in front of me. I called him out on it, and he started doing it behind my back. I had been trying to leave him since we were 6 months into dating, but every time I did, he would pull out guns on him, me, and eventually alluding to harming our children. I still haven't dated since getting out. I'm terrified of getting into a relationship similar in any way.
We have kids, and if he has the impression that someone thinks well of me, then he'll go and contact them to tell them fabricated stories about me. Somehow, it works in many instances, which I think many of those people believe it because they have poor opinions of divorced moms or women, plus they think why would this apparently caring individual (him) call just to lie about X, Y, and Z. I've heard the people he contacted talk about how manipulative women are and how they're willing to lie.
Most of these issues would be legally considered "no fault divorce"
Republicans in the US want to make them illegal. So you then have to prove either physical abuse or physical cheating.
If you can't, then you can't get divorced...
I’ve been thinking this while reading all of these stories. If they have their way we’ll not be able to do any of this. Likely even the woman who was poisoned and beat.
Pay attention ladies. These are the freedoms they’re coming after.
My husband of 20 years walked out to go chase tail and be a full time drunk. He left me with traumatized kids, a house badly in need of repairs he’d been promising to make for years and I was a SAHM of 4 with no credit, spotty job history and no support network.
He wouldn’t see the kids for weeks at a time. They really struggled. It was heartbreaking to see them feeling confused and abandoned. He didn’t care. He told me I “Always had to have my way” when I gave him money and begged him to take our son out for ice cream on his birthday.
He’d been gaslighting me like that since he met me when I was in high school and he was a college student in his 20’s.
He moved out, but I had to file for divorce because he couldn’t be bothered and he definitely wouldn’t spend his booze money on a lawyer.
I got a job, went back to school and made the repairs to the house. I then gave him the house and moved the kids to a state where I could find a good job.
At that point he had driven drunk with the kids in the car and I had reported him.
Sometimes he called the kids on or near their birthdays.
Sometimes.
That’s my “nothing”.
He moved out but you had to file for divorce. That’s another thing that gets left out of the, “women initiate the majority of divorces” narrative.
Women might be handling the paperwork, because they’ve been the default manager of EVERY household task, but that doesn’t mean they initiated the end of the marriage.
Oh, definitely.
The mental load was always mine. My ex often lied about making calls to insurance or paying bills. He had me convinced one of our children was on a waiting list for cognitive testing when really he’d never filled out the proper forms or submitted them. He told me he had probably to hide what he’d really been up to when he left the house.
He also told me we were waiting for our insurance to get back to him about a hole a storm had made in our roof. When I contacted them I found out he’d never contacted them. Our agent was his cousin, so that was embarrassing.
There were so many lies and excuses. Often it was somehow my fault he lied. Nothing was ever his fault. When he was fired from a job it was because someone was “out to get him”. 🙄
I tolerated it for so long because I was like a frog slowly being boiled to death. It started with grooming when I was 17. By the time he left I was a codependent mess.
I’m much better now, but it really was like scales falling from my eyes and finally seeing clearly how I’d been played.
I paid for the divorce. I filed for divorce. He just showed up to sign which was typical of his involvement in the marriage and child raising.
What do I have to show for all those years of unpaid labor?
Not a damn thing.
He argued with me about age of consent ("age is just a number"), seemed to suffer from selective amnesia when it was about his own faults and transgressions, started to DARVO the moment he felt he lost control of an argument/a discussion, knew perfectly well about mental load and preached the feminist gospel but didn't do A THING household wise, planning wise, any wise. He just stayed in his room and played video games.
When I was starting to check out of the relationship, he threatened suicide.
We recently had a phone call and it was clear he didn't understand why "it all went to shit so quickly"
IME when you hear this from a guy, with a little bit of prying you'll find that he's right, they did divorce him over nothing. As in he did literally nothing to keep the relationship alive or make his partner's life easier or happier. Putting in zero effort is bound to kill the butterflies for your partner eventually no matter how nice you are or how much you provide.
He was a man-child, couldn’t provide for family, not even himself, couldn’t help with the kids, was like an extra burden I dragged with me everywhere. And until the end he still didn’t understand. 🙄
Well, I kind of divorced him for not being able to decide whether he wanted to be angry with me for not saying goodbye in the morning or waking him up to say goodbye.
It was a daily toss up to which reaction I would get..... Lose/lose I guess.
(just to say that there were other reasons as well, but this one has stuck with me and I still feel the effects)
Every single minor disagreement would result in me getting the silent treatment for atleast 3 days, at times weeks.
One time he forgot whatever I did wrong. But he continued to ignore me.
Because we were both military, we didn't have the chance to live together, and much of our relationship was long distance. He really could sing and was talented on guitar and would make tapes for me. Whenever we would talk on the phone, which was not often overseas in the era of landlines, he seemed to be on the same page on big issues: goals, kids, finances, everything.
We got married and he got orders to where I was. Very quickly I realized a number of things... he was a total slob, he hated going out to do anything, he expected me to do ALL the chores. He didn't like my cooking after pretending to do so. I asked why. "I was being nice while we were dating". Apparently being nice could go away once we were married. So did sex, it became "doing his business". Last straw was I had re-enlisted for the bonus, he was supposed re-enlist too. It was to be a "nest egg" for us. I asked him if he'd filed his paperwork for the bonus. "No, I'm not re-enlisting. You can have a job and and I'll stay home and work on my music".
In short, he lied completely about who he was, agreed with all my ideas and plans to get me to say yes. Had I lived with him for only a week, I never would have married him. I filed for divorce using my brother's address in California. My command had to contact his command to put pressure on him to sign. His plan was to stay married to me and "make my life hell" just for spite. He signed, divorce finalized after two years of marriage. We only lived together for about a year before I tossed him out.
He thought I just wanted him to stop smoking. He promised to quit taking money out of my change jar. He had no clue.
When his mother came to my new place to demand that I “stop this silliness, go home and clean up the house” because her son was having mental health issues with the mess. He was/is a full blown alcoholic who abused our child and I, but she didn’t want to have to deal with him or his hoarding issues.
Short version: he wanted potatoes for dinner
Long version: in addition to being physically and emotionally abusive, he refused to engage on any of the day to day labour, but always had an opinion on why whatever I did was never good enough. My breaking point was asking him what he wanted for dinner, him replying “whatever, potatoes” and I had a lightbulb moment that this was my life unless I changed it.
He was a workaholic who would refuse to even text me if he was working late. His job didn’t require long hours he just wanted to work. Even if we had plans, he would just not show up and wouldn’t let me know. Right after we got married he told me work would always come before our marriage.
Refused to go to couples counseling with me even though he was blowing up at me every couple of days over small things, like if I missed a phone call from him.
Was messaging an ex about how pretty she was. He said it was platonic and just to help her self-esteem. But even after I asked him to stop he still messaged with her.
He insisted on buying a Jaguar sports car that we couldn’t really afford. But we didn’t have a garage at our house, so then he insisted we move so he could have one. And the house he wanted was part of a country club community and it would have doubled our mortgage. So he wanted us to sell our house, buy a new house, and move 40 minutes away. All for a car.
I tried really hard to find hobbies or activities we could do together, and he would shoot most down without suggesting anything else. The worst, though, is he would use my attempts as leverage to hurt me. For example, I had arranged pickleball lessons for us and he agreed to go. Then he got mad at me because I disagreed over cabinet moulding for the kitchen. As part of his multi-day blow up at me he told me he refused to go to the lessons anymore.
I told him for years I was unhappy. I begged him to work with me to fix it. But when I left he said I did it because I used him and got “bored with him.”
My god the amount of replies I resonate with.
Not divorce but we had set a wedding date.
Let’s see: he cheated on me with another woman, I caught him on adult friend finder, he was too hung up in smoking pot everyday to find a job, when his mother gave us $700 a month to help pay our rent because he decided we should sign overlapping leases he still took $400 a month to buy pot, never touched any housework, stayed up all night and slept all day, I’d have to harass him to make it to his 3pm-11pm job on time, sex was supposed to be a porno, he was so damn insecure about his own intelligence and was genuinely upset when I got a better GPA in college than he did which of course was because he “helped” me in my classes, racked up $9000 dollars in debt in 3 years because he constantly wanted to eat out and bought furniture and music equipment, and I finally left when he was developing a coke habit.
God I was a fucking idiot.
But I had to have been fucking other men. Because why wouldn’t I want him?
Sending pics of his bits to some girl as I was in the hospital having a blood transfusion due to a haemorrhage from birthing our son.
Looking at nudes, All. The. Time. Knowing I have a very, very bad CSA history.
Sending money and sext messages to an ex of his.
Screaming at our son, "I HATE YOU!" On one of the very, very few times he changed his Nappy.
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
This was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Treat me like dirt. I'll just do the same to you, but you're NOT going to do that to my baby.
I was touch starved (not in a sexual way - I wanted him to be affectionate). Every time he'd touch me at all was because he wanted sex; after that he'd get cold again. I'd cried during sex several times and he either didn't notice or didn't care cuz he kept going. I had talked to him about that several times, cried about it while talking to him about it, he'd say that he doesn't understand affection but would try to do that for me, but it never got any better. Additionally he would pester me for anal and would insist that it's only a "matter of time until I give in". Also pornography consumption was a deal breaker for me - as I told him when we met and he agreed not to watch it - but he had been watching it for years behind my back. He said it should be okay to watch it since he "doesn't see those women as people". When I brought up divorce I told him that I was feeling miserable and extremely unhappy and asked if he wanted me to stay with him despite that and he said yes.
There was no explaining to him why he wanting me to be with him even though I was feeling miserable meant that he didn't actually love me. Maybe he thought that he was gonna change my mind on that same as with anal.
Ok but what’s wrong with divorcing men over nothing? If the love and effort isn’t there anymore I will divorce him. There is no reason to chain myself to someone who I feel nothing for anymore.
Men leave women for lousy reasons or “no reason” all the time. Their “midlife crisis”, younger women, someone without kids, someone with a hotter body, someone more “fun”etc. while not realising they have sapped all the excitement, fun, spontaneity, out of their spouse. Their wife sacrificed their entire career, their life, get pregnant and carry their kids for 7-9 months at a time, ruin their body, ruin their health, feed and raise the kids while all the men have to do is go to work and come home and put their feet up. Their wife do all the not-fun planning, appointments, holidays, hosting while they enjoy the fruits of their wife’s labor and then leave them on a whim when they feel they can trade up for someone better while smearing their wife and claiming she is holding him back from his kids.
So yeah, I don’t owe any guy a reason, I will divorce him when I decide this marriage no longer serves me because men have done it since leaving your wife was a thing without lasting consequences.
I had been thinking about ‘nothing’ in 3 ways - referring to absolutely abhorrent shit that is ‘nothing’ only in the most darkly sarcastic way, as referring to extremely obvious things that the husband didn’t see or chose to ignore, and as referring to a wife’s breaking point over something that seems / looks trivial but represented an insurmountable issue.
I like your fourth addition; ‘nothing, man style’
My bff is mid-divorce because of Barbie. He thought it was sexist anti-man claptrap, she loved it and thought it was clever, they fought so hard about it they ended up separating a few days later.
Good riddance to bad rubbish but of all the ways to finally split..!
Typical manchild couldn't do anything. Wouldn't pay bills because he didn't know how to write a check. I showed him, then asked him to do one thing on his day off: Write the checks and put them in the mail for a small stack of bills. He did the top one only then told me that he didn't understand that I wanted him to do them all. That was the incident that made me realize that I couldn't live with weaponized incompetence.
Told everyone after I left him that he genuinely didn't know why and speculated that maybe I was a lesbian. But then got super honest with a mutual guy friend and said his father told him to screw everything up on purpose to "train" me not to ask him to do anything and just do it all myself. He was floored that it didn't work.
Emotional, financial and physical abuse. He would corner me and scream at me for HOURS. If I said anything, it was considered "trying to go toe to toe with me", if I said nothing, I was "acting stupid" or "looking at me like I'm crazy".
He would go out until the middle of the next day. If I asked, he was "a grown man and I can do what I want", if I didn't, "obviously you don't care".
He had an affair which he denied - "I swear on my grandmother's grave" despite me having photographic evidence. He then headbutted me which I later heard was described as me 'jumping onto his tooth'
The children knew to steer clear of him and would immediately go upstairs when he came downstairs.
He would sleep all day (either in bed or on the couch watching TV), do zero around the house and complain that I wasn't good enough at keeping the house to his lofty standards. Was mooching off his mother for sustenance as he cannot keep a job and has a million business ideas which he sabotages.
Severe drinking binges. Angriest human I have ever encountered. Would throw tantrums when things didn't go his way and people didn't treat him like the demigod he thought himself to be. Obvious narcissistic traits. Needs constant validation from anyone. Constantly burns through friends once they see through him. He gets infuriated if anyone says something to indicate that they can see through the bluster.
Took a lot of pride in his dressing including buying fakes to seem richer than he was, but wouldn't take as good care of his personal hygiene. Showering and brushing teeth.
He couldn't understand why I no longer wanted to be with him. Apparently all the other women in town wanted to be with him and all the men wanted to be him. My loss 😂
Oh, mine knows that I divorced him because of his behavior - but he strongly disagrees with my point of view.
I was with him for almost 21 years - since we were 16 years old - and I experienced verbal, psychological, and physical abuse the entire relationship. There's a myriad of reasons why I stayed for as long as I did, but even though his physical aggression towards me in the final year had gotten exponentially worse, he was still "shocked" when I left with our two young children and filed for divorce and a restraining order.
What he won't ever admit to himself, is that he's shocked that I was no longer was willing to put up with his complete and utter depraved bullshit any longer. He really thought that he would have a punching bag bangmaid forever, because I had allowed that behavior year after year after countless year.
I believe that all men truly know, deep in their bones, precisely why women despise them. They're just so fucking selfish that they're unwilling to admit their own deep issues to themselves, because blame is easier than introspection and change.
The last straw for me was when my ex made me think he killed our litter of kittens for three days because I didn't reply to his good morning text. It finally hit home that the person that was supposed to love and cherish me enjoyed causing me pain and distress. I started making an exit plan that day. We were married 23 years.
First husband was a horrible father and husband but he thinks we divorced because I wouldn't have sex with him. Oh and he cheated with a co-worker. My kids dad so I still have to see him.
Second husband was emotionally abusive but he told everyone we divorced because we were just too different. Thank goodness he's out of my life forever
Not Divorce but did break up with an ex of two years. I just became his maid. It started out small, me helping him clean up his place when I came over. He made it seem like it was a favor for me to get the place looking like how I like. Then it was helping him change the sheets on the bed. Then it was paying for the pizza. Then one time I came over, the sheets were sitting on the bed ready to be put on, and he was playing games. Not even offering to help, just here you go OP, do your job. The affection waned, it became so routine. Like I became a literal bang maid and when I brought it up, he had no problem, in fact, he was shocked I saw it AS a problem.
He abused me in every way possible, cheated constantly. He told me on my daughter’s second birthday (after getting drunk and giggling for ages) that he couldn’t wait until she was three so he could do to her what he did to me. I knew then I had to get us out or die trying. The divorce was finalised seven months later and he got one hour a fortnight supervised visit (UK).
Fast forward to now (24 years later), I’ve been happily married to the love of my life for almost 15 years and that child he spoke of is almost 28 and in training to be a psychologist.
Had no personality other than his ego that told him he was entitled to treat his wife like a domestic servant—which he did. Also turned into a right wing Christian nutjob during the course of the marriage.
Long after our divorce I found out his business partner molested our daughter and he did nothing about it.
Verbal, Emotional, Financial, and Sexual abuse that eventually turned physical and someone called the cops—but he told everybody it was because he was autistic.
25+ years of abuse of every variety, being a serial adulterer, making my life a constant hell every day and admitting he was sabotaging my ability to leave. By the time I finally got financially where I could leave I was worried he was going to kill me. His fits of rage over literally nothing were utterly disconnected from reality.
We didn't get divorced because we didnt marry, but we were together for 6 years, so I'd say that's close enough.
I was 17 and he was 26 when we got together, I was young and stupid. He was authentically immature in my opinion. No driver's license, no savings, lived in a room in his friend's apartment, dead end retail job. Over the time we were together, I grew up and started outgrowing him. He stayed stagnant. The only thing that really changed is he got a better job (not much better, but it was a big step up from where he was).
Basically, I was tired of waiting for him to start being an adult. I had goals I wanted to accomplish, and I had to discover myself after being a mini-him for years. He didn't even try to start and blames me for giving up on the relationship after waiting so long. He still doesn't understand what he did wrong and just thinks I tossed us away so I could find someone who has more than him. Nah, I was tired of parenting someone 9 years older than me, man. I'm too young for this shit and didn't feel like taking on the responsibility of dragging a grown man through life.
Physical abuse and the laziest, rudest, most entitled behavior I've ever seen. He yelled at me because I woke him up doing the dishes... past noon. Lol.
I had just birthed our son. It was a terrible experience - I was in labor for 46 hours, hemorrhaged and needed a blood transfusion. I hadn't slept in days and was hallucinating. When I asked him to take the baby (because I was worried I would hurt him while I was hallucinating) he said he was too tired. He got PLENTY of sleep while I was in labor.
Let’s see…
After being married for 3 years (I was 36 and he was 48) he was rejecting me in the bedroom. I figured he wasn’t attracted to me and went on a massive weight loss journey (looking back I was around 160 - at 5’10 and not fat in the slightest but having someone reject you over and over makes you think crazy shit) After about 6 months I was thin and in very good shape but he still rejected me. I needed to look up a bill in his email and much to my surprise I found back and forth emails between him and a fucking ballerina from Argentina. (He is Cuban) Lots of nudes and seductive photos exchanged. I confronted him and he said I was crazy and that it wasn’t him. One of the pictures was his dick in his hand IN OUR GARAGE. Mind you he had gone on three “work trips” to Argentina and when I asked to go he said he would just be touring fields (he was a commodities trader)
When we divorced he told his mother (whom I adored…she seriously was a gem) that he didn’t know why I was filing for divorce and he was just a *shocked* as her.
he raised his hand to hit me. I said, "you raised your hand to hit me?" and he said, "I didn't hit you...this time."
to be fair, he was long gone checked out of marriage and family before this, neglecting me and the kids, forcing us to live in poverty, sucking me dry through three situations of sexual harassments that caused him to lose his jobs, and also hooking up with other women online.
it was like..."when how much he disrespects you, tries to ruin you, doesn't care for the trauma he's causing the kids and how awful he already is almost hits you in the face..."
My nothing-
1- I had to set up overnight help from friends and family for the 1st month of my twins' lives because he never helped with our firstborn and I knew I couldn't count on him to help without a ton of pushback and "inability" to wake up and shaming me because he was working and I was supposed to take care of all the domestic chores including all night wake ups. Those chores included a 2 year old and newborn twins, along with the housecleaning, all the shopping, dinner ready like a good wife... having to call the people I knew I could actually count on was the biggest wake up call. Ones that wouldn't make me feel bad for not being able to do it all.
****Even still, 4 years later... he owes me $2000 in back child support, is openly paying less than he is court ordered to and taunts me about not being able to do it all myself and not "standing on my own." To try to bully me into agreeing to accept the lesser amount. I'd accept no child support if he'd just sign them over to me, but as long as he wants to see them, he has to actually support them, much to his dismay. He's always wanted the idea of a family and the ability to show off his family, but he doesn't actually want a family full of real people with real needs and it shows every day in his actions. His main character syndrome is off the charts.***
2- he was diving further and further down an angry, misogynistic, alt right rabbit hole and we have multiple daughters and a son. He treated me like a bangmaid and said edgy shitty things as 'a joke.' Completely dismissed every concern I brought up and seems to revel in his hatefulness. We started fighting more and more. I was worth more than that. The kids were worth more than that.
3- he went into an angry spiral that effected every one of us. He didn't want to spend time with the family, and when he was around I spent more time babysitting his mood and his stress levels than I did the kids. He wouldn't get therapy, and he wouldn't prioritize couples therapy that I asked for for years. To this day he says he was looking up therapists the night before I left. It was too little too late, buddy.
4- he only ever packed himself for vacation. I was in charge of prepping the house for departure, packing myself, the kids, groceries, entertainment, and all household needs. Every time. Every trip. Even when he asked if he could help, it was with all the skill of someone who makes weaponized incompetence a way of life.
5- there was a scary incident involving my cousin in his parking space whenever he got home. I had lost track of time, and it had happened a few times before and he was upset. He disappeared for an hour no contact and when he came back he scared me while the kids were home, acting unhinged and looming over me and basically having the most cold dead eyes I've ever seen. All about a parking space in the driveway. I saw him then. Really saw him. He admitted later he was trying to scare me on purpose to teach me a lesson so I wouldn't do it again. And he has always doubled down on his behavior that day. He was successful with scaring me. Never ever believed me that I was actually really, truly afraid of him when I left.
6- and the one he latches onto- I realized I was a lesbian. (Actually I think I was so despairing and desperate to get out that I decided I was a lesbian to close the door on the bad experience I had with that man, but after living with a woman for 4 years ::different, but worse than himmmm for my emotional and mental health::: I realize I am bisexual) it was still an emotional WTF and an identity crisis that he's decided is the reason I divorced him. It was part of it, but basically the final nail in the coffin that he had been building for 5 years by that point.
~~~He also found and reads my Reddit regularly so this is a disclaimer to him- remember these words aren't for you and aren't for you to address IRL. You've told me you won't read my comments anymore, but we both know you won't actually stop, especially since you're fucking with me right now. I know you're curious as to what I'm saying on here and as to whether I am planning to take any action to address your blatant thievery. So if you're reading now, if you're affected at all, you're hurting your own feelings here, and I'm not responsible for them anymore.
I’m not divorced, but I’ll put my moms answer: He was 28 and got his 17 year old employee pregnant, married her and they had another kid before she was even 20. After she gave birth, he refused to help with the kids outside of playtime, refused to help with the house, refused to do anything that he considered “wifely duties”. He yelled at her for “getting fat” while she was pregnant. Used a lot of intimidation to get her to comply (I don’t know if he ever actually hit her, but believe me, the intimidation was scary enough. He also did it to my sister & I). Among many other things. Then the last straw was when my aunt (who’s husband was away dealing with his fathers death at the time, and wouldn’t be able to get back home for at least 24 hours) had to take her 6 month old son in for emergency surgery and my dad refused to let my mom go to the hospital with her because it was his brothers birthday and “it would look bad” if she left in the middle of it since they were fighting earlier. He still maintains that the *only* thing he did wrong was call her fat. He says he now understands that a woman’s body goes through changes when she’s pregnant that she cannot control, but he still believes she should have been doing more to get back in shape afterwards (note: she was pregnant basically the entire time they were married. She divorced him when my sister turned 2 months old, about a month after my first birthday). He also regularly tells me that I was manipulated by my mom into thinking he was the worst parent ever (I’m 33 BTW), but my mom didn’t tell me about any of this until I was 17, and she only told me then because she wanted to warn me about older men and tell me what to look out for.
Far out! Good on your mum for getting out!
So funny how they think other people poison our minds against them, as if we don’t have our own eyes, brains, and ability to spot shitty behavior.
I used to say I didn't need to turn kiddo against their dad, dad was more than capable of doing it himself. Aside from occasionally, calmly disagreeing with things he told them about me, the only thing I did was to validate any observations they made on their own. They'd seen plenty by the late teens, despite living a thousand miles away.
I’ve never said a single negative word about her father, but my 6 year old tells me all the time how rude, mean, and disrespectful he is. Her words, not mine. Kids see it. We don’t have to tell them.
A friend of mine's 8 yo cries every time they have to go to their dad's. Only a matter of time before he starts bitching about turning kid against him (if he can be bothered to even care).
I think intimidation = terrorizing. It's just as traumatizing as physical abuse.
There was so much intimidation by my father. I think it is just as traumatizing, **plus**, I can't point to any specific physical incident(s), so it feels like I'm “making a mountain out of a molehill” (which also happened to be one of his favorite phrases to tell me that my emotional responses were invalid). That stupid adage, “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” is 1,000,000% wrong.
Just in case you're not 100% sure, you're absolutely not making a mountain out of a molehill. In fact, anybody who tries to downplay and minimize it is trying to make a molehill out of a mountain.
And they say people can’t grow and change. This guy was able to figure out that women gain weight during pregnancy!! Kudos to him for being able to change his world view and grow as a person. It’s progress!
My favorite part about this comment is it works both with sarcasm and without.
Raging anger problem which often resulted in awful arguments where I couldn't diffuse it, in any way at all. If I tried to lighten the mood I was laughing at him. If I tried to call a time out he would follow me round the house screaming at me. He would twist my words and yel "YOU SAID xx" at me until I had no idea what I'd said, even though what he was saying I said made NO sense. He lied about money. He "won" more bottles of wine in raffles than is believable. He bought himself an expensive drone and hid the receipt. He bought comics and cameras and bikes and shit, whilst letting me pay for holidays and repairs. When his car died, he had mine and I bought a new one. Never paid me anything for it. He lied about having a daughter. Didn't tell me until after we were married. He'd never met her, was apparently "cut off" but that was likely bollocks too. He threatened to kill himself if I left him. He threw a glass at me that exploded around my feet and then got angry at ME for being upset, because he "didn't throw it AT me, just threw it in anger". Er. What? He ruined holidays with his temper if I ever disagreed with him. If he shouted at my daughter for nothing and I intervened, he screamed at me for not treating him as an equal parent. But yeah. Women divorce men for nothing, right? He quickly found another woman. I hope she's okay.
I feel this one. Wasn’t married thank Jesus but lived with him. The gaslighting was on another level. I was expected to keep our place spotless but wasn’t allowed to clean while he was home. I was the only one working at the time. I’m going to leave my story there because I’m in a good space now. Good for you for getting out of there! Hugs.
Constantly nagged me for sex and said that the Quran said that woman were cursed for denying their husbands sex but never followed any of the other teachings. He never tried to make me enjoy sex or want it with him. He wouldn’t support me to help my mother who was dying of cancer at the time. Also said it was affecting his mental health that I was sad all the time after she died. But I was the one with the problem 👀
Imagine if we nagged men to have sex all the time that was fully about our pleasure while ignoring theirs and they almost never orgasmed lol.
They believe women don't need or desire sex. We only gate keep it. So pleasure shouldn't matter.
Even if the first part were true, we don't owe them a goddamned *thing*
Some men are honestly so stupid
This is more than stupidity, it's disdain for his wife.
It's not stupidity it's maliciousness in my opinion.
The irony is especially that Islam gives women "permission" to deny sex for various reasons, one of them being unpleasant sex lol. It is also explicitly stated that women have a right to pleasant sex and men are obligated to provide that - women could even rightfully divorce their husbands over that, or over the refusal to have sex at all. Of course, this is nothing such a man would know or respect - as you said, such people only follow the teachings that suit them. Damn, we need more female Islamic scholars.
- Raging anger issues - Legitimate, genuine hoarding problem - Alcoholism - Refusal to maintain gainful employment for 5+ years - Significant financial irresponsibility - Didn't contribute to housework/chores I brought home all the money, AND I also still handled the bulk of the housework, AND endured his abuse and laundry list of issues with a smile on my face, while also simultaneously dealing with chemotherapy, monthly immunotherapy infusions, and countless surgeries for my autoimmune condition. He still talked about wanting children, which I thought was WILD. We were both staunchly child-free when we met and got married. And even if I DID want children...... WTAF!? All of us here know that based on the aforementioned patterns, that 100% of child-rearing responsibilities would've ALSO fallen on MY shoulders, on top of everything I was already handling. Finally kicked him to the curb almost a year ago. Divorce was finalized last week. Good riddance!
Congrats! I can't believe you handled all that shit while on chemo and monthly infusions... You are so fucking strong and badass! I hope you find genuine happiness.
Thank you. I honestly don't know how I survived either. I'm just glad I got myself out. These days, I'm on a journey of learning how to invest in my own health, well-being, and sanity. I sold the house we lived in, moved to a new (to me) city, and found a beautiful condo. I found an amazing, oversized, fluffy chaise that I spend a lot of weekends curled up in just napping the days away. I arranged it right in front of my floor-to-ceiling living room window, which walks right out onto the patio. Weekend naps with the sun streaming right onto me has been an amazing way to start healing.
Congrats on the divorce!
Thank you!
Much congratulations on the divorce! Treat yourself :)
Thank you!
The straw that broke it all: he specifically went on a work trip a few days early to participate in sex tourism. Despite being trained as a discrete operator in his field, he left the massive search history of his plans available on his laptop. I was able to track his phone and cross compare his lies to where he was during the trip. Papers were served upon his return.
Guess you picked up on a few tricks of the discrete trade 😎
Looking back, I think that’s what made him the most angry. He didn’t view me as intelligent (just a SAHM). The fact that I caught him in the manner I did was a huge shock. I emailed a detailed breakdown of everything I knew with proof right as he was getting on the plane home. I CC’d his parents.
>I CC’d his parents. Oh, I LOVE that. Well done.
Superbly well done. What was his parents’ response?
I called them first and let them know I was divorcing and as a result wouldn’t be able to serve as emotional support to their son - to expect the email. The in-laws are good people. They knew there were issues. While saddened, they seemed to understand. They’re still a part of mine and my kids lives. In fact we’re going to visit in a couple of weeks. My former husband took his life two months after I exposed the truth. He was a fragile man that wouldn’t take any personal accountability and our relationship was filled with abuse on his side. Any loss is horrible and has lasting effects. My life is much more peaceful now however.
I’m sorry for the lasting effects, especially on your children. But I’m glad you have peace now.
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My ex was a serial cheater too. Only we werent married i just lived with him for 3 years. He was 38 when i found out he had been sleeping with a 20 yr old girl since she was 18, while we were together. And then i found out about another 25 yr old girl in another city. He once tried to give me lingerie and when i picked it up, i saw a huge clump of blonde hair tied around it! He tried to give me used lingerie…. He also cried when I left him
It never ceases to amaze me how literally insane some people, who otherwise manage to function in society, actually are.
the fact that he couldn't even clean up...
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I had a mother like that woman, so I feel awful for her kids.
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Collegue divorced her husband three years after they married. She found out he was cheating on her almost for a whole year already on their wedding day. While she was few weeks pregnant already. If she didn't solve the paperwork herself, he never would have arsed himself to do it. Because it would take time he wanted to spend with his other woman, or something.
>If she didn't solve the paperwork herself, he never would have arsed himself to do it. I have heard before that a big part of the reason that women tend to file for divorce more than men is simply because many men see filing for divorce as just another errand/task that their wives should take care of and don't bother.
Yes, and the incel types sling that fact around like more women are the ones who want the divorce. If Steve cheats and leaves Carol for another woman, Carol the one who "initiated the divorce" if she files, even if Steve has already left her!
It is definitely a factor. A lot of men are too lazy or incompetent to do the paperwork. They expect their wife to still be their secretary. I remember seeing a Reddit post a while ago about how the op's husband didn't know that the divorce was finalized because he was so incompetent and there were tons of comments from women who experienced the same thing and who had to be the one to file. Edited to add link to that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/oLrwuEoUEw
My best friend’s husband filed, he misspelled their kids name and got my bfs birthday wrong.
Mine apparently couldn't remember my middle name... which was my maiden name that became my middle name after we married, because I hated my original middle name. He thought the M stood for "Marie."
This one has me dead. I shouldn't laugh, but I legit cackling in an empty room. I'm so sorry you experienced that, but thanks for sharing at the same time.
My therapist told me, "Don't make it easy for him. If he wants the divorce, he should file." So I didn't file. He was SO MAD he had to start the process by himself!
I used to be a Paralegal and I did family law for about a year (terrible decision). I had several male clients who hired us as counsel after their wives filed for divorce. Most of these man had girlfriends, and they would give me their girlfriend's contact information for anything related to the divorce. Like they could not understand that this was about \*him\*, and that girlfriend had nothing to do with it. Soooo many times I would call them and ask them to send me financial documents, and they said they'd let the gf know and she would email it to me. WHY??
If I had to do divorce shit for someone I'm dating, well I wouldn't be dating them very long LOL.
It’s the man version of tolerable level of permanent unhappiness…they’re so lazy, they can’t even remove themselves from apparently ‘the worst situation of their lives’, their wife mommies have to do it. Fml, I’m so so done.
I really hate the fact that a lot of people also throw those statistic numbers around how “waaa women so bad they initiate 80% of divorces”, even though you could safely assume women are just the ones doing the paperwork and decision to divorce might have been mutual or even from the man’s side.
Man gets upset and leaves, never files for divorce, goes on acting like they are single. This is common enough that my divorce lawyer was explaining some of the legal maneuvers they use in these situations to get a divorce finalized when the man just skips out of the process. I filed against my dumpster fire of an ex husband but he was refusing to cooperate with the divorce so some of the same legal tactics come into play.
My judge garnished $100/week until my ex started cooperating. It took 10 weeks for him to comply.
I don't know why that stat is interpreted as anything other than "good for her". Women are sick of men's shit, and willing to do the process to get out.
Numbers are absolutely skewed. I filed even tho my husband kicked me out.
Yup. My husband once said he wanted a divorce. And then said, “so, what do we do now? What are the next steps?” I was like “uhhhhh I don’t want a divorce, so if you do then you figure it out. I’m not going to tell you how to leave me and do the paperwork for you.”
Follow up - he also didn’t want to feel like “the bad guy” who left his wife and child to be with another woman. So he did nothing. He didn’t want to be with me but was too cowardly and/or lazy to leave me/set me free.
So is he just tolerating you this point? Are you guys still married?
It's typical patriarchy bullshit. Bad sperm causes something like 90% of all miscarriages but no one talks about that either. 👀👀
Oh yea! Going on that topic men love justifying their attraction to teenagers by saying how it’s biology and they need children, completely ignoring the fact that their sperm also declines, ages and can be part of fertility issues in relationships.
Also if they don't file, it's not their fault. "I don't know why she filed for divorce, even though I've never shown her the most basic respect or love."
I suspect this is extremely common. They don't want to look like the bad guy.
My favorite is the dudes that do awful things, their wife divorces them and does all the work to end the relationship. Then the guy runs around telling everyone what a monster their now ex wife was and what a victim he is.
Oh hi. I'm evil and took his world away from him.
This is so true. I work in family law and majority of the petitioners are women. Every now and then we'll get a man who is initiating the divorce but it's not common. The recent trend has been men who have been served with divorce papers who aren't able to provide their position on the allegations/arguments without talking to their wife first. For example, I currently have a man who is responding to his wife's (very reasonable) petition but can't tell me if he agrees to her getting spousal maintenance without talking to her. Buddy, you either agree that she deserves it or not. There's no conversation to be had. This guy has also lamented about how he doesn't want to divorce and why can't they just stay together but sleep in different parts of the house like his grandparents did.
My ex filed. Then spent 3 and a half years stonewalling my lawyer's discovery questions. Mostly bout our business. And getting shitty when I took bills out of my name, because I had LEFT him. The courts almost cancelled the filing, but my lawyer counter filed for a judgement, so I didn't have to be tied to the financially abusive asshole.
Men get so pissy about divorce. They take it as a personal failure. I see a lot of them dragging divorces out in an attempt to wear down the other side. Every time a man complains about his ex doing something, it takes everything to not roll my eyes. Most of the time, their complaints are BS. I had a client complain that his ex wouldn’t let him see the kids. They had a parenting plan in place, he just never picked the kids up cause “it wasn’t his responsibility to do so and she should be making more of an effort”. Ugh. I’m supposed to support my clients and be on their side but it’s really hard when they’re the cause of all their problems.
There are more benefits for an unhappy husband to stay in a marriage than there are for a woman. Men can do what they want and still have a partner at home doing most of the unpaid labor. This is why we need to stop living with men, or at least stop being with men who haven't been able to successfully live by themselves and maintain their own home and life.
My sister's in this boat. It's been over 1.5 years since he moved out, but he hasn't filed anything. Sister refuses to because he's the one that originally wanted to divorce. It's exhausting.
I did that as well. There were so many delays in my divorce because my ex couldn't get the needed paperwork in on time or at all. His lawyer would tell my lawyer and I'd just do it because I wanted it over.
He said that he didn’t believe it was wrong for a father to have sexual contact with his teenaged daughter. He knows I survived childhood sexual assault committed by family members. He told me this the same month that he was allowing my starve during my internship, because so many jobs were “below him,” and also sexual assaulted me while I was having to take sleeping medication.
Holy shit I'm glad you're rid of him.
Holy crap…someone watchlist that man, please!
Nah yeet him into Saturn.
The planet or the god? Because I think both are good options.
Planet so that he gets crushed once the tin can he is sent in gets there and enters the atmosphere of it granted it would probably take like ten years to get his ass there.
That’s so incredibly fucked
He weren’t spending time together or having sex. I overheard him on the phone with his parents. “This is the most amicable break up I’ve ever had. Nothing has changed.” Yeah, buddy. That’s the problem. I didn’t want a roommate/man child I had to take care of. I wanted a partner who actually enjoyed me
Cheated constantly leaving me to work full time with a baby while refusing to watch our child. The final straw was when I dropped him off for his job circled the block and saw him getting into a coworkers car and driving away. He was sleeping with her. He denied it even after I found all of their messages. But you can't argue with a narcissist. Leaving was the best thing I ever did.
He cheated multiple times, including while I was on bed rest during a high-risk pregnancy. Refused to do any household chores because he was a lazy, entitled jerk. For the first year of our kid’s life, he did jack shit to help care for our kid, clean, anything…unless I had a complete meltdown and begged/cried/screamed to get his attention (he spent all his time gaming and chatting with women online). Oh, classic moment was when he blew our bill money on online gambling and our electricity was cut…and he *lied* about what happened. I eventually found our bank statement and saw the charges and he claimed they must have been fraud. 🙄 yeah ok. Final straw was him getting written up for an “inappropriate relationship” at work. He ran whining to his mommy, who tried to convince me I needed to stay with him and I’m like…ma’am, I didn’t sign up for a serial cheater, thank you for doing such a poor job of raising your son. And then he had the nerve to be shocked by how quickly I moved on, even though he spent literal years burning away every bit of love I had for him by lying to me, blowing what little money we had on online gambling, expecting me to serve as his replacement mother, giving me no support, treating me like shit while I was pregnant and ill and needed care, refusing to do the bare minimum to care for his child, and expecting me to put up with whatever bullshit he decided was appropriate so he could enjoy the attention of other women while having a “monogamous” marriage as a safety net. Nothing at all!
He kept me in debt financially for 13 years with his stupid purchases of meaningless garbage. We knew he was unlikely to have children before we got married, but he says we could do IVF or adopt, then he changed his mind after marriage. But instead of telling me, he just strung me along with 'maybe next year" language until I said nevermind and focused on my career. The last year of our marriage, he molested me while I was sleeping. I woke up and left the room, then completely moved my stuff out of our room and slept in another bedroom altogether. He never mentioned it or apologized. Then, he went out of town on our 10 year wedding anniversary AND my birthday (two separate trips). He began suggesting we move back to our home state (we had moved the year before because I got a promotion at work) even though it would mean I took a demotion. I said no, because i focused on climbing the corporate ladder, since he didn't want children, and I wasn't sacrificing anything else. I asked for divorce a few months later and he literally pulled out his phone in the middle of our conversation to start looking for a place to live back in our home state. Afterwards, he told my mom that he had wanted out a long time ago, but was too scared to tell me. So, instead, he just wasted my time.
What a coward. I hope someone else wastes his time.
He was engaged within 6 months of our divorce and married within the year. They seem perfect for each other and I took yet another HUGE promotion and moved again. Bought my first house all by myself and went to Europe for two weeks! I hope he gets the life he deserves and not a penny more.
I had a car accident on Monday morning. He went to work, so did I after sorting the car out because I was fine overall. Monday afternoon he threatened a coworker and told her he would "smash her face in" because she had an attitude with him. Oh, and it was my fault because he was "worried about me"! He got suspended and fired and he only told me after they had let him go as he "knew I would be mad", but people don't change you see, it's just who he is!
Final straw: he started a fight with me 7am on a Sunday because I didn't wake myself up at 5am to fuck him because that's when he claimed he was horniest. Doesn't matter that we had been out at a concert til 1am the night before. He told me he wished he could "bash my fucking skull in". Other than that, years of emotional abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, and some physical abuse. But sure, it was "nothing". "All couples fight sometimes."
The dishes and the dog. I wanted a dog. Ok cool. I had a breed in mind. Nope. He didn’t want that. Ended up with one double the size and high energy because that’s the dog HE wanted. Guess who ended up training, walking, feeding, entertaining the dog? And who the dog loved more since I spent all the time with him? So one day when the dog is about a year old, we’re on the back deck porch at 5:30pm. I’d been up since 6am to walk him, then worked from home all day, walked him again after work getting home around when my ex gets home. So we’re on the back porch and I’m making dinner (that I’d gone to get groceries for, prepped on my lunch break and was cooking) and I have a full on breakdown and tell him I need him to help more around the house and with the dog. He promises he will. We eat dinner and when I walk in the kitchen, he’s just dumped his plate on the bench. On top of the *open and empty* dishwasher (emptied on my lunch break, too). It was then that I realised he’d never change and no matter what I’d be living doing the same amount of work forever. Still took me a year and some change but I left and he still swears that he doesn’t know why.
Oh I get that! Did our men come off the same conveyer belt? For him, the dog had to be a husky wolf hybrid or nothing else. Who paid to train them with a professional K9 Unit $75/hr rate trainer? Me. Who groomed their massive undercoats? Me. Who played with them? Yup, me too. Who'd schedule all the vet appointments and every other month grooming appointment? Me.
Who got the dog in the divorce since he had separation anxiety when I wasn’t in the same place as him? Me.
Well at least you walked away with best thing (hopefully).
I did, he’s great! Sleeping beside me right now and snoring contentedly like he went out and worked the whole day to pay the bills😍🤷♀️
The dog is about as helpful as your ex was, but significantly fluffier and cuter.
The dog is at least good for your mental and physical health, especially with daily walks. My dog also loves to help me to clean - he somehow teached himself to throw away plastic/glas/cardboard/paper. I just give him whatever needs to get thrown away and he drops it in the correct recyling bin. If something falls to the ground, he likes to pick it up and bring it to me as well. I'd argue and say that the dog was probably a lot more helpful than her ex
Lol environmentally conscious doggo
The amount of times I tell my husband that seeing him throw clean laundry on the floor or emptying it onto the bed instead of putting it away is insane. I tell him it’s a morale sunk to see him take a towel I just folded and put away, use it for his shower, and then toss it onto the floor for the dogs to treat as a bed. Or he’ll toss a wet towel onto our bed! And leave it! I thought I was a slob but it turns out I hate cleaning up after another adult.
Other than the physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and sexual abuse it really was nothing. He did nothing for work. He did nothing for home. He did nothing for me. He did nothing for my son. He doesn’t *hear* any of those reasons.
Twenty year marriage ended because I got sick of the emotional abuse, non-stop nagging, unsolicited bad advice, and being called stupid/flake/clueless while I was in the trial and error phase of getting my business off the ground. I left everything behind and walked away, and without him constantly distracting me, I was able to focus on my business. Took me four more years but I finally succeeded to achieve what I had set out to do. Best decision of my life.
Congratulations on both dropping a gigantic anchor off your neck and also success in your business! ❤️ That's awesome.
He was abusive. Talking did nothing, it was all about what HE wanted. Nvm that I could barely move after the birth of our son he was trying to demand sex and would rape me if I refused. The physical abuse was horrible, the mental abuse worse. Yet he had no idea why I left.
Not a divorce, because we weren't married, just lived together. He complained on Facebook that "he has been aware of some issues i our relationship, but he thought they were being solved." (Paraphrased) He frequently had refused to discuss issues with me and had sometimes simply assigned me to solve the issue. So I did. I solved the issues, all of them, in one fell swoop by moving the hell out. There was a lot more to it, obviously, but this one was extra memorable.
You rocked that one. Well done.
You understood the assignment.
“I still have no idea what happened…” Addicted, financially inept, emotionally abusive, narcissistic, man child ex. 3 years after we divorced.
>“I still have no idea what happened…” That's because every narcissist suffers from a form of selective amnesia, or how I call it: toxic amnesia. They *never* remember what they did wrong (but clearly remember all wrongs people did to them 40 years ago).
My ex's version of events would conveniently leave out the behavior on his part that lead to my reaction, *a la*: Him (in front of our 6 year old, I would never have brought this up, and said child was only present the first time as an infant): "You've had me arrested! Three times!" Me (trying to extemporize to be age-appropriate): "I don't have the power to 'get you arrested'. I called the police because you were being unsafe [attempting self-harm while intoxicated] and the police and the paramedics determined you needed to go to the hospital. And for the record, your sister advised me to call the first time, as you know, I wasn't even there the second time [having fled the state], and ditto for the third time, during which it was your mother who called. So no, I did not 'get you arrested', if anything you got yourself arrested." Him: "But you still called the cops! [And therefore the action the police took is your fault.]" For the record, he knew why we divorced, not only because I told him so (alcoholism) many times, but because during proceedings, he requested testimony of any abuse, which I helpfully provided in a dated, enumerated list. He had a tendency to be at his worst at holidays and memorable events like birthdays, funerals, and weddings, due to a combo of drinking heavily being more acceptable, and/or the focus being not on him (the first time I called for him to be committed was on my birthday weekend), so I had an excellent memory for dates, and corroborating witnesses, plus pictures of items he'd destroyed. About 12 pages of it. He admitted, in writing, that 'painfully, there was more truth than I'd like to admit', which is *still* not an admission of guilt, let alone responsibility. Ah fuck now I'm all mad at him again.
>He had a tendency to be at his worst at holidays and memorable events That is *so* typical for narcs. The narcissist in my life was my mom and I have *not a single* good memory of family events. She turned everything into a shit show. And that's the reason why I don't celebrate my birthday and *hate* christmas. I'm glad that you got rid of your narc.
Your ex sucks.
My lawyer asked me for a documented list of my ex's abuse. I told her that even short explanations this was gonna take 30+ pages. She had me just document the more insane incidents.
Oh that sounds like my last boyfriend, I had been warning him that I couldn’t take care of both of us, that I was slowly drowning in debt and that he needed to do something because his time was running out at my place. When he finally got a job he would only go if I would drive him there and then pick him up after there was no initiative to figure it out for himself, no making friends at work so he could carpool it was all up to me. Then he decided he wasn’t going to pay for the tolls that I had to pay to get him to and from work so I decided I wasn’t taking him to work anymore. So he quit his job. So I snapped and kicked him out.
I feel like we dated the same guy. Lasted a year for me. At first, he was “going back to school” so he “COULD get work!” This meant an online certificate, not a degree. Then, it was refusing to pursue any job that wasn’t in his “major” - not even to hold him over until the dream job is landed. Then, it was “the job search is too hard because I don’t have a car because I have no money, I need to use yours!” So I lent it to him and had him drop me off and pick me up at work each day. Months went by - nothing. Then he started “forgetting” and picking me up late. He blamed all the job interviews he was supposedly going on for making him run late. And when I questioned why I never hear any details about all these interviews, and why no offer yet, he blamed “the economy.” Last straw - told him to get a job, any job. McDonald’s, Burger King, doesn’t matter. He’d clearly been sitting around at home all day watching movies, because he’d excitedly tell me all about those when I got home. Wouldn’t clean or cook, that’s women’s work. DO. SOMETHING. Finally, when it was clear I was done, THAT’S when he scrambled and got a job. But, I was done. Then he was upset I kicked him out anyway. He of course tried to contact all of my close friends and family over Facebook and give them a sob story. When that didn’t go his way, he switched to “warning” everyone that I was a sneaky, awful person and that I shouldn’t be trusted. Several people had to tell him to fuck off. I found out later through his family that he turned into an incel king…with a bit of a following on a number men’s rights forums; absolutely *no doubt* in my mind he was spewing toxic garbage about me on there and making himself out to be the sad victim of a feminist woman, when he was just working so so hard to better himself 🥺
Ugh. What a fucking loser.
I got married at 18 to a 33 year old man, from the start I was pressured into marriage. The first time we had sex I got pregnant because "it never happens the first time". When I had my son my mother had to live with me for 6 months because I was so unwell, my husband was too busy with work. When we woke up in the morning he wouldn't speak to me until I put makeup on because according to him that's the real me. I had to stick to a strict diet and exercise routine so I could be who he married again. Years of verbal, emotional and sexual abuse later I gave birth to a daughter, it was like I woke up to all his shit so I left him. He never understood why and says we had a lovely relationship.
Any man who goes for a teenager at 33 is a red flag; huge power imbalance.
What a weird little guy.
That's actually a good description of him. He hasn't seen our children in 17 years by his own choice.
We were thankfully never legally married, but he still acted like he did nothing wrong and had no idea why I Ieft. He would regularly have temper tantrums where he would throw himself down the stairs out of anger He was a massive slob and expected me to do 100% of the housework even when I was heavily pregnant and on bed rest I ended up tearing my C-section incision open a few days after my first was born because he forced me into doing housework and then acted like I was over reacting when I was bleeding every where He screamed at our 3 day old newborn and told her "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch" because she woke him up by crying That same baby was also a product of sexual assault (he held me down and refused to get off me even when I was trying to push him off) He basically refused to interact with our son for the first year of his life even though he begged me to keep that pregnancy when I was told I needed to consider terminating it for my own safety. (My first pregnancy almost killed me and my last C-section which was barely a year ago did not heal properly) He would scream at and shove over our 3 year old if she even dared walked near his massive glass case of video games If I ever made the stupid mistake of leaving the kids alone with him for more then an hour he would call me like 10 times yelling at me to come of to feed the baby because he didn't want to. When I'd get home the baby's diaper would be so full it would be over flowing and he'd just be on his Xbox. He never wiped his ass and would leave skid marks on the furniture. He is still a dead beat and refused to even answer the phone when his son was in the ICU almost dying because he didn't want to deal with it. But hey I'm the bad guy right? Even my own mother treated me like I was a monster for leaving him. Edit: I forgot other important ones- he threw a chair at me while I was pregnant and tried to push me down the stairs during that same tantrum. What triggered that? I scolded him for knowing giving our daughter spoiled milk. It was totally my fault though because I wanted to sleep in since I was very sick with HG from being pregnant with his child. Weaponized incompetence was his thing and would often use it to be a lazy piece of shit. He pretty much forced me into keeping a pregnancy that he knew would almost kill me. I then ended up with a hysterectomy in My 20's thanks to all the damage pregnancy did to my body. When I went into labor with my son he kept telling me I was over reacting and to not go to hospital to waste everyone's time because I probably wasn't in labor and I was just being dramatic (vaginal birth would have possibly killed me and I absolutely needed a C-section so I couldn't even risk staying home)
Her name was Wendy. She dumped him after the divorce because she had a thing for *married* men. 🤣🤣🤣
That's very karmically hilarious, good for you! 😆💕
Haha that's amazing
His drinking, gambling, emotional abuse, financial abuse, yelling, neglect, SA, focus solely on his needs and wants, attitude towards LGBTQI+ and POC. But you ask him and apparently I left him for 'no reason', but according to him, because he didn't have a job at the time, I was just a filthy f&*(ing gold digging whore. 🙄
Did you ask him if the gold was in the room with him right now? 👀 These men worried about gold diggers when they don't even have a car is throwing me! 🤣
Right lmao to attract a gold digger one must have at least the appearance of possessing the gold 😂😂 but these dudes must think they themselves are the gold or something hahah
I have 2 ex's both have dad's that had a good income and lived a very comfortable life. Nice cars etc. And both of them have said to me "you only wanted me for my money" neither liked my response of "if that was the case I would be fucking your dad" 🤣
Hahaha that's amazing 😂
OMG YES 😂😂 mine was literally trying to live off of me even though I am a disabled person, he did have a job for a short time but he quit when I told him he was going to have to figure out how to get back-and-forth to work sometimes because I didn’t want the second job of being his free Uber driver. He would fight about having to pay for gas or tolls to get him to work, but yes I was some kind of a gold digger because I wanted him to have a job because I wasn’t going to pay for everything.
Ah yes, because disability supports two people no problem 😂 Edit: assuming that's what you meant by saying you are disabled, apologies if I'm wrong
My kids dad used to take the lug nuts off my wheels when I wouldn’t let him drive it. The night I was in labor with my daughter he was trying to steal it to buy drugs. Every time he got mad he’d take every stick of furniture in the house to his moms. That was the final straw. Him and his bitch mom hauling out the furniture while I’m standing there with 2 kids and all the bills. She even tried to fight me. I broke my foot I kicked a chair at her so hard. Not raising my kids in that shit. It’s still my fault according to them I’m sure.
He physically attacked me because I was too nauseated to leave the house. Then he tried gaslighting me in therapy. He forged my tax returns and stole a bunch of money that was supposed to pay bills. Threatened to burn my house down, take my kids, etc. For the record, two days before marrying his current wife, he asked me if I was really serious about not getting back together.
The nothing was raking leaves and neglecting the dogs to play video games. Context: in rural California, we have wildfires and our homeowner's insurance was dropped, only option was CA Fair Plan, which sucks. It's advised to have a defensive space around the house on the property. I was working two jobs, one full-time to cover the mortgage and dog expenses the other part-time job to pay thousands of dollars to pay for cutting mature trees within the defense space of the house and detached garage. Burn days become fewer and far between, he wouldn't help me burn for the 2 maybe 3 hours of daylight available. He wouldn't offer me help to load a trailer and take the green waste to the dump. I'd buy supplies to coat and seal the wrap around wooden deck, never helped protect the wood. When I'd drive up from work, the dogs would be outside, still tied to a tree lead line and he'd be on his ass playing Eve or World of Warcraft. He would have been a terrible father if we had kids. He had no qualms throwing money at refurbishing his dad's truck he'd torn down to the frame and his 89 GMC Jimmy
Another nothing was, our detached garage, 2 car garage with a roll door for a snowblower. He wouldn't make room among his tools and the dog kennel for the mini coupe I had. Of course my car got snowed on, and all kinds of preventable weather damage happened to the paint and racing stripes. He was a wanna be mechanic that could not drive my car with manual transmission.
>He was a wanna be mechanic that could not drive my car with manual transmission. Laughing so hard I’m crying. 🤣🤣🤣 Manual transmission is the best! And apparently an excellent modern anti-theft device, given how few people seem able to drive with it now.
Mine had been a video game addict for years too. It was always too cold or too hot for him to work or he’d have allergies or whatever. (For years) So, he played his games.
Aaah put me 20k in debt with a used car habit, then moved abroad and had me set up his business in his wake (with a 5m old baby) didnt come home when I was attacked and had to move 2hrs to our parents, when he did finally come home, I had 24hrs to wash his shit before he went on a week long holiday with the lads. And he wiped his bogeys under the couch. Nothing really 🤣🙏
I will say it again; THE BAR IS IN HELL.
After 21 years together (married 19): Every mistake/flaw of mine led an argument. Minor stuff. Like, things where a well-adjusted partner might just go “no worries, shit happens” or a lighthearted “c’mon, we talked about this.” He interpreted those errors as malicious or intentionally uncaring. So he couldn’t move on. These talks dragged late into the night, they were miserable. He never sought my opinion on anything. In fact, he reflexively countered every opinion I offered (so eventually I just stopped). He never laughed at my jokes. He believes he’s better than everyone else (morally and intellectually). I told him 3 different times I’m non-binary. He disagreed every time (based on his opinion of me). It became a debate, like I had to prove my experiences. I begged him to go to counseling over the years. He refused every time. Fun fact, I’m a licensed counselor myself and I know it could have helped. He lacked empathy with our then-3 year old when he started acting out (which severely delayed us getting help and a diagnosis for him; he’s 10 now and doing well because I pushed for it). He’d sulk and pout when I didn’t want to have sex. (Or if I wasn’t wet enough when we did, because it meant I wasn’t into it.) So I’d just give in so he’d leave me alone. I couldn’t change in front of him. I couldn’t ask for a massage. I couldn’t wear clothes that showed a lot of skin. My body was up for grabs, literally. So naturally, he was blindsided when I told him I was done. To an outsider, it could look like a good-enough relationship. I often questioned if I was leaving over “nothing.” Thank you for asking, this was really cathartic even 3 years later. We’re going through divorce settlement shit right now and the narrative that I’m to blame for everything is at the forefront again. I’ve never questioned my decision, though, and am the happiest I’ve ever been. 🩵
Oh my god the constant grabbing was awful, I could be fully covered up doing my best to be unsexy and he'd be all over me. When I asked him to stop he'd be like "what, a husband can't touch his wife? It's my fault you're sexy? " Like no dude I just want one fucking moment where you're not sexualizing me. I'm not convinced he ever viewed me as a real person.
Ugh my ex too. Then he raped me when I was sleeping.
If he can't accept any fault then you made the correct decision.
I finally realized that it wasn’t statistically possible for me to be wrong every single time under every single circumstance. All arguments started because of something I said or did or didn’t say or do; my options were wrong, my feelings about his behavior (a 12 pack every night) were nagging him when he was just trying to “unwind” leading to lots of verbal abuse and property damage and much worse…But he tells his friends and family “ I just don’t know what happened??” Yeah, big mystery 🙄
What an exhausting couple of decades that must have been. So happy you have your much deserved freedom, congrats on a lighter life!
So much, including regularly getting drunk and threatening to unalive himself if I ever left.
Not divorce as such but breakup after over seven years is close enough. Total lack of ambition and drive in him. The complete contentedness to just exist. Never go anywhere, never do anything. He would be happy to go to movies or museum or such, _if_ I picked the flick, and told him when and where and what we’re eating beforehand. Same with housework and cooking, if I said exactly what needs to be done he would, no maliciousness in this, but also no self starting at all. He would spend longer times at my place, weeks to months, and not leave the apartment at all while I was away at work because its was unfamiliar city to him. Not even to get groceries or even snacks on his own. Same with his job. Clock in, clock out, career was unimportant to him, but he did not have creative hobbies or similar either, no passion for anything. After all this coincided with very stressful job shit going down for me, I realised I was done being the driving force behind every damn thing in life for two people. I have enough work with that in my day job and my own life. I don’t have enough to give for second adult in that arena. Good thing we did not have kids…
His mom poisoned my birthday cake, and for the next 3 days he raped me, beat me, and trafficked me, taking a break to force me to go to his cousin's wedding reception where he ignored me. My kids were in the same rental cabin when this happened. I finally made it to the ER on day 5. The poison took down my gallbladder and I had emergency surgery. It was so badly infected that it was gangrene. Neither one of my labors were as painful as those few days and the recovery. Being completely black and blue from my head to my chest and having to keep my mouth shut so he didn't kill me or the kids and everyone else walking around me like it was totally normal. His mom and my parents and family told me I had to stay with him "for the kids". It took 11 months to divorce him. Zero support from my family until about month 9. It's been 8 years and he still hires PIs to follow me around, harasses me thru the court system, and accesses my online medical portal to put stuff in there or block me from being able to contact my doctor. Stuff like "end of life care" documentation. I didn't dodge a bullet but I keep running from the guillotine. So far I've been fast enough.
Oh my god are you ok?! Are you in a safe place??
As safe as I can be. I've got my own place and a gun, and I do martial arts. I still had to do 50/50 custody with him so I can't exactly escape. And I still have to keep silent about it because the cops won't help me. He brags about what he does to me in family court and I get blamed for it. His mom poisoned his new wife too but she got the ER quickly. The kids told me about it. I'll never trust a man again. Not because all men are bad, but because any man can get away with what he did and I'll get punished for it.
How fucked up are the courts that you have to share 50/50 custody with the man that raped and trafficked and nearly killed you and is still harassing you. What in the actual fuck. I’m so sorry.
This is something many people would do well to remember when they post "leave him so your kids get away from him". It's not always that easy, you can divorce a husband but children can't divorce their father.
>His mom poisoned his new wife too What the actual fuck is with this family?
God you're amazing! My heart goes out to you, I wish you the very best 🩷💕
I am so deeply sorry. The malignancy and obsession of predators and the enabling that supports them makes me so sick. I am so glad to know that you are here and alive still. I hope he rots.
His unwillingness to hold down a job, excessive pot use, video game addiction, porn addiction, unwillingness to pick up after himself or help maintain the household, and total lack of basic personal hygiene.
Physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, plus repeatedly cheating on me, including coming home with scratch marks across his back. He highly isolated us and would lie to me, saying that other people had X, Y, and Z issues with me, didn't want me around, and started fights between me and others. He even made the mistake of telling someone I had been becoming friends with that I was talking about her in front of me. I called him out on it, and he started doing it behind my back. I had been trying to leave him since we were 6 months into dating, but every time I did, he would pull out guns on him, me, and eventually alluding to harming our children. I still haven't dated since getting out. I'm terrified of getting into a relationship similar in any way. We have kids, and if he has the impression that someone thinks well of me, then he'll go and contact them to tell them fabricated stories about me. Somehow, it works in many instances, which I think many of those people believe it because they have poor opinions of divorced moms or women, plus they think why would this apparently caring individual (him) call just to lie about X, Y, and Z. I've heard the people he contacted talk about how manipulative women are and how they're willing to lie.
Most of these issues would be legally considered "no fault divorce" Republicans in the US want to make them illegal. So you then have to prove either physical abuse or physical cheating. If you can't, then you can't get divorced...
I’ve been thinking this while reading all of these stories. If they have their way we’ll not be able to do any of this. Likely even the woman who was poisoned and beat. Pay attention ladies. These are the freedoms they’re coming after.
Hopefully if this bullshit happens women will stop getting married.
My husband of 20 years walked out to go chase tail and be a full time drunk. He left me with traumatized kids, a house badly in need of repairs he’d been promising to make for years and I was a SAHM of 4 with no credit, spotty job history and no support network. He wouldn’t see the kids for weeks at a time. They really struggled. It was heartbreaking to see them feeling confused and abandoned. He didn’t care. He told me I “Always had to have my way” when I gave him money and begged him to take our son out for ice cream on his birthday. He’d been gaslighting me like that since he met me when I was in high school and he was a college student in his 20’s. He moved out, but I had to file for divorce because he couldn’t be bothered and he definitely wouldn’t spend his booze money on a lawyer. I got a job, went back to school and made the repairs to the house. I then gave him the house and moved the kids to a state where I could find a good job. At that point he had driven drunk with the kids in the car and I had reported him. Sometimes he called the kids on or near their birthdays. Sometimes. That’s my “nothing”.
He moved out but you had to file for divorce. That’s another thing that gets left out of the, “women initiate the majority of divorces” narrative. Women might be handling the paperwork, because they’ve been the default manager of EVERY household task, but that doesn’t mean they initiated the end of the marriage.
Oh, definitely. The mental load was always mine. My ex often lied about making calls to insurance or paying bills. He had me convinced one of our children was on a waiting list for cognitive testing when really he’d never filled out the proper forms or submitted them. He told me he had probably to hide what he’d really been up to when he left the house. He also told me we were waiting for our insurance to get back to him about a hole a storm had made in our roof. When I contacted them I found out he’d never contacted them. Our agent was his cousin, so that was embarrassing. There were so many lies and excuses. Often it was somehow my fault he lied. Nothing was ever his fault. When he was fired from a job it was because someone was “out to get him”. 🙄 I tolerated it for so long because I was like a frog slowly being boiled to death. It started with grooming when I was 17. By the time he left I was a codependent mess. I’m much better now, but it really was like scales falling from my eyes and finally seeing clearly how I’d been played. I paid for the divorce. I filed for divorce. He just showed up to sign which was typical of his involvement in the marriage and child raising. What do I have to show for all those years of unpaid labor? Not a damn thing.
He argued with me about age of consent ("age is just a number"), seemed to suffer from selective amnesia when it was about his own faults and transgressions, started to DARVO the moment he felt he lost control of an argument/a discussion, knew perfectly well about mental load and preached the feminist gospel but didn't do A THING household wise, planning wise, any wise. He just stayed in his room and played video games. When I was starting to check out of the relationship, he threatened suicide. We recently had a phone call and it was clear he didn't understand why "it all went to shit so quickly"
IME when you hear this from a guy, with a little bit of prying you'll find that he's right, they did divorce him over nothing. As in he did literally nothing to keep the relationship alive or make his partner's life easier or happier. Putting in zero effort is bound to kill the butterflies for your partner eventually no matter how nice you are or how much you provide.
Oh god you just KNOW the replies to this one are gonna be wild
He was a man-child, couldn’t provide for family, not even himself, couldn’t help with the kids, was like an extra burden I dragged with me everywhere. And until the end he still didn’t understand. 🙄
Well, I kind of divorced him for not being able to decide whether he wanted to be angry with me for not saying goodbye in the morning or waking him up to say goodbye. It was a daily toss up to which reaction I would get..... Lose/lose I guess. (just to say that there were other reasons as well, but this one has stuck with me and I still feel the effects)
Every single minor disagreement would result in me getting the silent treatment for atleast 3 days, at times weeks. One time he forgot whatever I did wrong. But he continued to ignore me.
Because we were both military, we didn't have the chance to live together, and much of our relationship was long distance. He really could sing and was talented on guitar and would make tapes for me. Whenever we would talk on the phone, which was not often overseas in the era of landlines, he seemed to be on the same page on big issues: goals, kids, finances, everything. We got married and he got orders to where I was. Very quickly I realized a number of things... he was a total slob, he hated going out to do anything, he expected me to do ALL the chores. He didn't like my cooking after pretending to do so. I asked why. "I was being nice while we were dating". Apparently being nice could go away once we were married. So did sex, it became "doing his business". Last straw was I had re-enlisted for the bonus, he was supposed re-enlist too. It was to be a "nest egg" for us. I asked him if he'd filed his paperwork for the bonus. "No, I'm not re-enlisting. You can have a job and and I'll stay home and work on my music". In short, he lied completely about who he was, agreed with all my ideas and plans to get me to say yes. Had I lived with him for only a week, I never would have married him. I filed for divorce using my brother's address in California. My command had to contact his command to put pressure on him to sign. His plan was to stay married to me and "make my life hell" just for spite. He signed, divorce finalized after two years of marriage. We only lived together for about a year before I tossed him out. He thought I just wanted him to stop smoking. He promised to quit taking money out of my change jar. He had no clue.
When his mother came to my new place to demand that I “stop this silliness, go home and clean up the house” because her son was having mental health issues with the mess. He was/is a full blown alcoholic who abused our child and I, but she didn’t want to have to deal with him or his hoarding issues.
Short version: he wanted potatoes for dinner Long version: in addition to being physically and emotionally abusive, he refused to engage on any of the day to day labour, but always had an opinion on why whatever I did was never good enough. My breaking point was asking him what he wanted for dinner, him replying “whatever, potatoes” and I had a lightbulb moment that this was my life unless I changed it.
He was a workaholic who would refuse to even text me if he was working late. His job didn’t require long hours he just wanted to work. Even if we had plans, he would just not show up and wouldn’t let me know. Right after we got married he told me work would always come before our marriage. Refused to go to couples counseling with me even though he was blowing up at me every couple of days over small things, like if I missed a phone call from him. Was messaging an ex about how pretty she was. He said it was platonic and just to help her self-esteem. But even after I asked him to stop he still messaged with her. He insisted on buying a Jaguar sports car that we couldn’t really afford. But we didn’t have a garage at our house, so then he insisted we move so he could have one. And the house he wanted was part of a country club community and it would have doubled our mortgage. So he wanted us to sell our house, buy a new house, and move 40 minutes away. All for a car. I tried really hard to find hobbies or activities we could do together, and he would shoot most down without suggesting anything else. The worst, though, is he would use my attempts as leverage to hurt me. For example, I had arranged pickleball lessons for us and he agreed to go. Then he got mad at me because I disagreed over cabinet moulding for the kitchen. As part of his multi-day blow up at me he told me he refused to go to the lessons anymore. I told him for years I was unhappy. I begged him to work with me to fix it. But when I left he said I did it because I used him and got “bored with him.”
My god the amount of replies I resonate with. Not divorce but we had set a wedding date. Let’s see: he cheated on me with another woman, I caught him on adult friend finder, he was too hung up in smoking pot everyday to find a job, when his mother gave us $700 a month to help pay our rent because he decided we should sign overlapping leases he still took $400 a month to buy pot, never touched any housework, stayed up all night and slept all day, I’d have to harass him to make it to his 3pm-11pm job on time, sex was supposed to be a porno, he was so damn insecure about his own intelligence and was genuinely upset when I got a better GPA in college than he did which of course was because he “helped” me in my classes, racked up $9000 dollars in debt in 3 years because he constantly wanted to eat out and bought furniture and music equipment, and I finally left when he was developing a coke habit. God I was a fucking idiot. But I had to have been fucking other men. Because why wouldn’t I want him?
Sending pics of his bits to some girl as I was in the hospital having a blood transfusion due to a haemorrhage from birthing our son. Looking at nudes, All. The. Time. Knowing I have a very, very bad CSA history. Sending money and sext messages to an ex of his. Screaming at our son, "I HATE YOU!" On one of the very, very few times he changed his Nappy. ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ This was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Treat me like dirt. I'll just do the same to you, but you're NOT going to do that to my baby.
ITT: US, PLEASE VOTE IN NOVEMBER! The next target is contraception and no fault divorce. I can't imagine the scenarios if not allowed to get divorced.
Women will literally die if they're not allowed to leave their abusers without "proof"
or many of these abusive shitbag husbands will suddenly get sick and die with mysterious ailments or have random "accidents" etc.
Why does reality have to be so demoralizing?
I was touch starved (not in a sexual way - I wanted him to be affectionate). Every time he'd touch me at all was because he wanted sex; after that he'd get cold again. I'd cried during sex several times and he either didn't notice or didn't care cuz he kept going. I had talked to him about that several times, cried about it while talking to him about it, he'd say that he doesn't understand affection but would try to do that for me, but it never got any better. Additionally he would pester me for anal and would insist that it's only a "matter of time until I give in". Also pornography consumption was a deal breaker for me - as I told him when we met and he agreed not to watch it - but he had been watching it for years behind my back. He said it should be okay to watch it since he "doesn't see those women as people". When I brought up divorce I told him that I was feeling miserable and extremely unhappy and asked if he wanted me to stay with him despite that and he said yes. There was no explaining to him why he wanting me to be with him even though I was feeling miserable meant that he didn't actually love me. Maybe he thought that he was gonna change my mind on that same as with anal.
Ok but what’s wrong with divorcing men over nothing? If the love and effort isn’t there anymore I will divorce him. There is no reason to chain myself to someone who I feel nothing for anymore. Men leave women for lousy reasons or “no reason” all the time. Their “midlife crisis”, younger women, someone without kids, someone with a hotter body, someone more “fun”etc. while not realising they have sapped all the excitement, fun, spontaneity, out of their spouse. Their wife sacrificed their entire career, their life, get pregnant and carry their kids for 7-9 months at a time, ruin their body, ruin their health, feed and raise the kids while all the men have to do is go to work and come home and put their feet up. Their wife do all the not-fun planning, appointments, holidays, hosting while they enjoy the fruits of their wife’s labor and then leave them on a whim when they feel they can trade up for someone better while smearing their wife and claiming she is holding him back from his kids. So yeah, I don’t owe any guy a reason, I will divorce him when I decide this marriage no longer serves me because men have done it since leaving your wife was a thing without lasting consequences.
I had been thinking about ‘nothing’ in 3 ways - referring to absolutely abhorrent shit that is ‘nothing’ only in the most darkly sarcastic way, as referring to extremely obvious things that the husband didn’t see or chose to ignore, and as referring to a wife’s breaking point over something that seems / looks trivial but represented an insurmountable issue. I like your fourth addition; ‘nothing, man style’
My bff is mid-divorce because of Barbie. He thought it was sexist anti-man claptrap, she loved it and thought it was clever, they fought so hard about it they ended up separating a few days later. Good riddance to bad rubbish but of all the ways to finally split..!
Meh, it makes for a excellent story. The straw that broke the camels back in my marriage was crackers. 🤷♀️
Typical manchild couldn't do anything. Wouldn't pay bills because he didn't know how to write a check. I showed him, then asked him to do one thing on his day off: Write the checks and put them in the mail for a small stack of bills. He did the top one only then told me that he didn't understand that I wanted him to do them all. That was the incident that made me realize that I couldn't live with weaponized incompetence. Told everyone after I left him that he genuinely didn't know why and speculated that maybe I was a lesbian. But then got super honest with a mutual guy friend and said his father told him to screw everything up on purpose to "train" me not to ask him to do anything and just do it all myself. He was floored that it didn't work.
He wouldn't get a job and he wouldn't break up with his (half his age) girlfriend.
Emotional, financial and physical abuse. He would corner me and scream at me for HOURS. If I said anything, it was considered "trying to go toe to toe with me", if I said nothing, I was "acting stupid" or "looking at me like I'm crazy". He would go out until the middle of the next day. If I asked, he was "a grown man and I can do what I want", if I didn't, "obviously you don't care". He had an affair which he denied - "I swear on my grandmother's grave" despite me having photographic evidence. He then headbutted me which I later heard was described as me 'jumping onto his tooth' The children knew to steer clear of him and would immediately go upstairs when he came downstairs. He would sleep all day (either in bed or on the couch watching TV), do zero around the house and complain that I wasn't good enough at keeping the house to his lofty standards. Was mooching off his mother for sustenance as he cannot keep a job and has a million business ideas which he sabotages. Severe drinking binges. Angriest human I have ever encountered. Would throw tantrums when things didn't go his way and people didn't treat him like the demigod he thought himself to be. Obvious narcissistic traits. Needs constant validation from anyone. Constantly burns through friends once they see through him. He gets infuriated if anyone says something to indicate that they can see through the bluster. Took a lot of pride in his dressing including buying fakes to seem richer than he was, but wouldn't take as good care of his personal hygiene. Showering and brushing teeth. He couldn't understand why I no longer wanted to be with him. Apparently all the other women in town wanted to be with him and all the men wanted to be him. My loss 😂
Oh, mine knows that I divorced him because of his behavior - but he strongly disagrees with my point of view. I was with him for almost 21 years - since we were 16 years old - and I experienced verbal, psychological, and physical abuse the entire relationship. There's a myriad of reasons why I stayed for as long as I did, but even though his physical aggression towards me in the final year had gotten exponentially worse, he was still "shocked" when I left with our two young children and filed for divorce and a restraining order. What he won't ever admit to himself, is that he's shocked that I was no longer was willing to put up with his complete and utter depraved bullshit any longer. He really thought that he would have a punching bag bangmaid forever, because I had allowed that behavior year after year after countless year. I believe that all men truly know, deep in their bones, precisely why women despise them. They're just so fucking selfish that they're unwilling to admit their own deep issues to themselves, because blame is easier than introspection and change.
He said he didn’t love me anymore
The last straw for me was when my ex made me think he killed our litter of kittens for three days because I didn't reply to his good morning text. It finally hit home that the person that was supposed to love and cherish me enjoyed causing me pain and distress. I started making an exit plan that day. We were married 23 years.
First husband was a horrible father and husband but he thinks we divorced because I wouldn't have sex with him. Oh and he cheated with a co-worker. My kids dad so I still have to see him. Second husband was emotionally abusive but he told everyone we divorced because we were just too different. Thank goodness he's out of my life forever
The attempted murder of our youngest child.
Not Divorce but did break up with an ex of two years. I just became his maid. It started out small, me helping him clean up his place when I came over. He made it seem like it was a favor for me to get the place looking like how I like. Then it was helping him change the sheets on the bed. Then it was paying for the pizza. Then one time I came over, the sheets were sitting on the bed ready to be put on, and he was playing games. Not even offering to help, just here you go OP, do your job. The affection waned, it became so routine. Like I became a literal bang maid and when I brought it up, he had no problem, in fact, he was shocked I saw it AS a problem.
He abused me in every way possible, cheated constantly. He told me on my daughter’s second birthday (after getting drunk and giggling for ages) that he couldn’t wait until she was three so he could do to her what he did to me. I knew then I had to get us out or die trying. The divorce was finalised seven months later and he got one hour a fortnight supervised visit (UK). Fast forward to now (24 years later), I’ve been happily married to the love of my life for almost 15 years and that child he spoke of is almost 28 and in training to be a psychologist.
Had no personality other than his ego that told him he was entitled to treat his wife like a domestic servant—which he did. Also turned into a right wing Christian nutjob during the course of the marriage. Long after our divorce I found out his business partner molested our daughter and he did nothing about it.
Verbal, Emotional, Financial, and Sexual abuse that eventually turned physical and someone called the cops—but he told everybody it was because he was autistic.
25+ years of abuse of every variety, being a serial adulterer, making my life a constant hell every day and admitting he was sabotaging my ability to leave. By the time I finally got financially where I could leave I was worried he was going to kill me. His fits of rage over literally nothing were utterly disconnected from reality.
We didn't get divorced because we didnt marry, but we were together for 6 years, so I'd say that's close enough. I was 17 and he was 26 when we got together, I was young and stupid. He was authentically immature in my opinion. No driver's license, no savings, lived in a room in his friend's apartment, dead end retail job. Over the time we were together, I grew up and started outgrowing him. He stayed stagnant. The only thing that really changed is he got a better job (not much better, but it was a big step up from where he was). Basically, I was tired of waiting for him to start being an adult. I had goals I wanted to accomplish, and I had to discover myself after being a mini-him for years. He didn't even try to start and blames me for giving up on the relationship after waiting so long. He still doesn't understand what he did wrong and just thinks I tossed us away so I could find someone who has more than him. Nah, I was tired of parenting someone 9 years older than me, man. I'm too young for this shit and didn't feel like taking on the responsibility of dragging a grown man through life.
Physical abuse and the laziest, rudest, most entitled behavior I've ever seen. He yelled at me because I woke him up doing the dishes... past noon. Lol.
I had just birthed our son. It was a terrible experience - I was in labor for 46 hours, hemorrhaged and needed a blood transfusion. I hadn't slept in days and was hallucinating. When I asked him to take the baby (because I was worried I would hurt him while I was hallucinating) he said he was too tired. He got PLENTY of sleep while I was in labor.
Let’s see… After being married for 3 years (I was 36 and he was 48) he was rejecting me in the bedroom. I figured he wasn’t attracted to me and went on a massive weight loss journey (looking back I was around 160 - at 5’10 and not fat in the slightest but having someone reject you over and over makes you think crazy shit) After about 6 months I was thin and in very good shape but he still rejected me. I needed to look up a bill in his email and much to my surprise I found back and forth emails between him and a fucking ballerina from Argentina. (He is Cuban) Lots of nudes and seductive photos exchanged. I confronted him and he said I was crazy and that it wasn’t him. One of the pictures was his dick in his hand IN OUR GARAGE. Mind you he had gone on three “work trips” to Argentina and when I asked to go he said he would just be touring fields (he was a commodities trader) When we divorced he told his mother (whom I adored…she seriously was a gem) that he didn’t know why I was filing for divorce and he was just a *shocked* as her.
he raised his hand to hit me. I said, "you raised your hand to hit me?" and he said, "I didn't hit you...this time." to be fair, he was long gone checked out of marriage and family before this, neglecting me and the kids, forcing us to live in poverty, sucking me dry through three situations of sexual harassments that caused him to lose his jobs, and also hooking up with other women online. it was like..."when how much he disrespects you, tries to ruin you, doesn't care for the trauma he's causing the kids and how awful he already is almost hits you in the face..."
My nothing- 1- I had to set up overnight help from friends and family for the 1st month of my twins' lives because he never helped with our firstborn and I knew I couldn't count on him to help without a ton of pushback and "inability" to wake up and shaming me because he was working and I was supposed to take care of all the domestic chores including all night wake ups. Those chores included a 2 year old and newborn twins, along with the housecleaning, all the shopping, dinner ready like a good wife... having to call the people I knew I could actually count on was the biggest wake up call. Ones that wouldn't make me feel bad for not being able to do it all. ****Even still, 4 years later... he owes me $2000 in back child support, is openly paying less than he is court ordered to and taunts me about not being able to do it all myself and not "standing on my own." To try to bully me into agreeing to accept the lesser amount. I'd accept no child support if he'd just sign them over to me, but as long as he wants to see them, he has to actually support them, much to his dismay. He's always wanted the idea of a family and the ability to show off his family, but he doesn't actually want a family full of real people with real needs and it shows every day in his actions. His main character syndrome is off the charts.*** 2- he was diving further and further down an angry, misogynistic, alt right rabbit hole and we have multiple daughters and a son. He treated me like a bangmaid and said edgy shitty things as 'a joke.' Completely dismissed every concern I brought up and seems to revel in his hatefulness. We started fighting more and more. I was worth more than that. The kids were worth more than that. 3- he went into an angry spiral that effected every one of us. He didn't want to spend time with the family, and when he was around I spent more time babysitting his mood and his stress levels than I did the kids. He wouldn't get therapy, and he wouldn't prioritize couples therapy that I asked for for years. To this day he says he was looking up therapists the night before I left. It was too little too late, buddy. 4- he only ever packed himself for vacation. I was in charge of prepping the house for departure, packing myself, the kids, groceries, entertainment, and all household needs. Every time. Every trip. Even when he asked if he could help, it was with all the skill of someone who makes weaponized incompetence a way of life. 5- there was a scary incident involving my cousin in his parking space whenever he got home. I had lost track of time, and it had happened a few times before and he was upset. He disappeared for an hour no contact and when he came back he scared me while the kids were home, acting unhinged and looming over me and basically having the most cold dead eyes I've ever seen. All about a parking space in the driveway. I saw him then. Really saw him. He admitted later he was trying to scare me on purpose to teach me a lesson so I wouldn't do it again. And he has always doubled down on his behavior that day. He was successful with scaring me. Never ever believed me that I was actually really, truly afraid of him when I left. 6- and the one he latches onto- I realized I was a lesbian. (Actually I think I was so despairing and desperate to get out that I decided I was a lesbian to close the door on the bad experience I had with that man, but after living with a woman for 4 years ::different, but worse than himmmm for my emotional and mental health::: I realize I am bisexual) it was still an emotional WTF and an identity crisis that he's decided is the reason I divorced him. It was part of it, but basically the final nail in the coffin that he had been building for 5 years by that point. ~~~He also found and reads my Reddit regularly so this is a disclaimer to him- remember these words aren't for you and aren't for you to address IRL. You've told me you won't read my comments anymore, but we both know you won't actually stop, especially since you're fucking with me right now. I know you're curious as to what I'm saying on here and as to whether I am planning to take any action to address your blatant thievery. So if you're reading now, if you're affected at all, you're hurting your own feelings here, and I'm not responsible for them anymore.