People Share Their Most Disturbing 'I Now Understand Why They Divorced You' Moments
Considering that nearly 50% of U.S. marriages end, it's hard to assign 100% blame for a relationship's implosion on either party to a divorce.
Sometimes, there are simply issues with compatibility and both people end up strangely satisfied with going their separate ways.
Just because your first marriage ends in divorce doesn't mean you're the problem, though. People grow and change and get second chances, and many who have been through divorces find healthier, happier relationships in the aftermath.
But sometimes one person was actually 100% to blame for a divorce, and that person is basically destined to die alone.
If you're dating a divorcee, that doesn't mean it'll end in disaster. Still, be wary of the warning signs that signal your significant other might have been the problem in their marriage.
Here are a handful of Reddit users who found themselves in serious relationships with divorcees – and soon realized why their marriages fell apart in the first place!
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Wildly Possessive Stalker
I didn’t marry him, but my ex-boyfriend was divorced and he made it seem like his ex-wife was a total nutcase. He said that he gave everything to her and even quit his job to move to Georgia with her (they both previously lived in Minnesota).
He said he had paid for all of her bills and makeup and clothes and even paid for trips and she took a different guy with her on a lot of them, leaving her husband behind.
The marriage ended when she went on a trip to New Orleans with her friends and didn’t come back.
About a couple of weeks into our relationship, he began to get EXTREMELY possessive over me.
I figured it was because he had been through so much stuff with his last relationship, so I tried to overlook some of it, but it got so intense that he printed out a list of rules that I was to obey, which I obviously refused to accept.
I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without telling him, and he had to have visual evidence of my work schedule. It was ridiculous. So, logically, I broke up with him. But he was relentless.
He kept showing up at my house and work and it was just embarrassing. Finally, I threatened to get a restraining order and he left me alone.
A few months later, I got a Facebook message from this random woman who was asking me if I’m okay. I’m like, "yeah, why?" Like, who are you, you know? It turns out that she was the “crazy ex-wife,” except that they were never really married.
They were dating for a bit, and when she refused to let him pay her rent, he BOUGHT THE HOUSE FROM THE OWNER and would not accept her rent money. He bought a lot of trip tickets and used his key to go into their house to put them on her coffee table.
She never went on any of the trips. She moved, but he found her apartment and would leave love letters in her mailbox. He threatened her friends on Facebook, forbidding them from “stealing her” from him.
Finally, she got her OWN restraining order and moved far away.
#2 Time-Troubled Workaholic
I noticed it when we had a kid. My husband has always been a workaholic. It didn't cause too many problems when it was just us but was a lot harder to manage once we became parents.
It's easy to feel like you are doing all of the work and I started resenting my husband.
My husband and his ex-wife had two kids close in age. She was essentially a single parent to them throughout the day. He did cut back his hours slightly when our relationship started to suffer and even that was a lot.
I understood why the divorce happened. I considered it at points during the relationship.
#3 A Doggone Stubborn Boyfriend
My husband had an engagement that ended before we met, and the reasons always seemed weird to me.
It was something about her trying to get rid of their dog and getting into a huge fight with his mom when she made a snarky comment about the dog thing, and then getting her mom and sister to call and harass his mom about the fight.
Big, ridiculous argument that ended with them deciding they weren’t going to work out. They’d been together for like 4 years.
Now I completely get it. Well, not the part with her mom and sister, but the rest of it.
The dog was awful -- he peed everywhere, was very dominant and aggressive (like biting/drawing blood at times), and old enough that he was very difficult to train since they hadn’t done anything about it when he was a puppy.
The dog now lives with my mother-in-law because it’s not safe to have him in a home with babies. My mother-in-law is a nightmare, but my husband and his ex saw her multiple times a week whereas we see her once every couple of months.
At one point about a year in, we had a big argument where I told him we were heading down the same path as them if he didn’t get it together, and that if you have the same problems with two long-term relationships in a row you, need to consider that you’re part of the problem.
I also said that I was out if he didn’t set serious boundaries with his mom and get some training for the dog. Fortunately, it was apparently a wake-up call, because that was 7 years ago and neither is an issue.
#4 Using His Ex As An Excuse
My ex of about 2-ish years was in the process of a divorce when we met. According to him, his wife was crazy and the reason for everything wrong in his life (this should have been my first clue to get out but, I was young).
He had kids, so I would go to sporting events for them and his ex-wife would be there the vast majority of the time too. We started to get along and he HATED that. I didn't get that.
Wouldn't it be easier for the kids if she and I had a good relationship? No, he was worried we would compare notes on HIM and it would ruin OUR relationship! We quite literally never talked about him. My eyes started to open here.
I was using his computer once and his Google Calendar opened, and there was an event on Valentine's Day the next week. He had told me we were not doing anything due to money being tight (which of course was his ex's fault).
So I opened it and the event was "Day Ex-Girlfriend Broke My Heart." Now this ex of his was prior to his 20-year relationship with his now ex-wife. So I figured out that he never let anything go. Apparently ever.
A couple months later, our relationship was starting to decline on its own (he went over to a friend's house without me in the middle of a planned date night and I didn't care that he left. I was mad he took the dog, though).
We got in a fight and he told me I was starting to sound like his ex-wife. I responded, "If we are saying the same exact things and are such different people, don't you think the issue is YOU?!
" I realized at that exact moment that he was a narcissistic jerk who was never going to change or grow up. I moved out a week later. I still miss the dog.
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