Losing love is hard. Getting divorced is even harder, as in your mind, that individual was going to be the one you spent the rest of your life with. It's difficult to put yourself back out there, but many divorcees are able to find the strength to move on and find someone else that makes them feel whole.
However, people on the other side of that relationship sometimes notice there might have been a real reason they were divorced in the first place, one they didn't share with you up front. That might have been the thinking Reddit user, r/psxpetey, had, who asked:
People of reddit who married divorcees, at what point did you realize there might be a reason the other person divorced them?
50. Save yourself!
When he grabbed me by my hair and nearly ripped it off my head. He was mad because I had told him I was worried about him hanging out too much by himself and not leaving his room anymore. After I left his apartment I texted him letting him know it was over. mermaidhairdontcare
49. Did y'all 'play' safe?
When a fellow fraternity brother informed me my then girlfriend had slept with fourteen guys in a span of two weeks, all of them were told that we had broken up and were unaware of the others. I was across the country at my grandmother's funeral/spring break. thelostcanuck
48. Calm down Ben...
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Looking back, I think I had the first inkling when I was reading Gone Girl and found myself relating to it a little too much.
To clarify, the crumbling marriage fake diary entries. Not the sociopathic mind games. imhereforthemeta
47. Cheers!
When I kept hoping he'd slip up and start drinking again so I'd have an 'excuse' to leave. :(
46. Hands Off!
The time I picked up her laptop to keep it from falling off the bed and she screamed and grabbed it from me and said "That's my personal property, you have no right to touch that!" robots_and_cancer
45. Um... That's not Creepy....
She had a mannequin. Not just any mannequin though, it was wearing a sweatshirt she took from me, and one of my hats. It was also in her closet. When I asked her about it, she told me it was "In case I missed you too much, I could still hold you." I broke it off the next day. Algorn120
44. Drowning...
When my alcohol spending overtook my food spending. dragon_bacon
43. Ice Queen....
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Where I felt like I was the only one showing affection and the only one trying. Where I felt lonely even in the presence of her. Pretty sad feeling to invest your all into someone and receive nothing but a cold look back. REDDIT
42. Breaking up is the gift!
He didn't give me a birthday present. Not a card or a cake or anything. That's when I realized he didn't care about me. Currently in the process of breaking up (we live together). jell_bell
41. Numb to You!
He would always say the meanest possible things when he was angry... Like, insecurities and secrets that I would share with him during close moments he would later use against me whenever he was mad. I realized it was over when his insults didn't hurt me anymore... I had no feelings left to give. Not even sad ones, let alone ones of happiness or love. TitzMcGhee
40. European Break Up!
When, shortly after taking me on a romantic trip to Europe, he came downstairs one morning and calmly told me to grab my things so that he could drop me off at my folk's place. He mailed the rest of my stuff to my mother. area--woman
39. Out of Excuses...
It was pretty simple. I just found myself making more excuses not to be with her because i found I enjoyed time without her more than with her. Jrspike
38. Change in thought...
When I realized that I don't miss her anymore and started to look at other girls
Also I started to think more about her bad things, only things I dislike, no more "hey, I love her because of that," more like "I hate this at her."
Having a long distance relationship makes things different. I rarely looked at other girls, but suddenly started to think "wow this one is cute and that one is hot" => change of mindset. scorer433
37. Border Jump!
When he left to another state without telling me. I had absolutely no clue before that. GimmeMuchosMangos
36. Take A Bow...
When she admitted she didn't even bother asking off work to come see me in my play. It was her learned helplessness, her inability to try. At some point, she had stopped moving her life forward so that our life together could get started.
Almost 5 years later, I'm engaged to someone else. She's my best friend and we've got our stuff together. Break ups suck, but they happen because they're supposed to happen. Fenris447
35. Make 'Them' Sob!
When I realized I was doing all the work in the relationship. I'd make a date, and he just won't show up. The worst was on my birthday. I sat on the park bench for 2 hours waiting and he didn't even have the decency to call me. I must have looked pathetic sobbing alone on a park bench but I was really distraught. VicieuxRose
34. Damn That Pokemon!
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We stopped having sex. Everything irritated me and other men started to seem attractive again. I wanted to explore new things, travel, do something different then the day before. He wanted to sit inside, watch football, and play pokemon. An entire year went by and this was still our routine football, pokemon, eat, sleep. I needed more. weare_stardust
33. Blackmail?! WTF!
When he blackmailed me with personal photos if I tried to leave. You really can't look at someone the same once that happens. It lingers in the back of your mind. glitchinthedark
32. No Air.
When it feels like you're trapped when you're around them. Similar to being claustrophobic. dripberg
31. You were in Shock!
When I was dying in the hospital, and our daughter was stillborn, he said he couldn't come to the hospital because he didn't want to miss classes. It should have ended there, but I was young, stupid, and honestly thought he was the best I deserved. It lasted 2 years until I packed a suitcase and ran. Lost everything except what I could carry. Glocksnkittens
30. Two Wrongs!
When I realized that we might never have a sexual relationship and that I would put him under a lot of pressure to do things he didn't want to do if I stayed. It was a mutual but very painful decision. xyxthris
29. Bored Now.
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When I wasn't angry anymore. He was still cheating and lying but I just ran out of angry. I was tired. biglebowski55
28. Sex is a MUST!
Biggest red flag was that I didn't want to have sex with him anymore.
That has happened more than once... I think I'm just terrible at recognizing when a relationship has run its course. My body has to pretty much shut down sexually before I realize. pastacountess
27. Girl BYE!
Two days ago. He snapped at me on the ride home after my abortion. I was ashamed and exhausted. He was annoyed the appointment had finished early and interrupted his nap. catland
26. Just Shut Up!
The point at which he said he didn't know that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Also the part right after that, where he said he was in love with my best friend.
Luckily, best friend is awesome and never felt the same way towards him, so I was confident things would never happen, but still... pretty crappy to hear that out of your boyfriend's mouth. jaiex
25. Ah, See, It's The Claws.
I had my wife cheat on me... ended up meeting someone who was "perfect" and just thought I had hit the karma jackpot. She liked literally all the same things as me.
When I asked about her past, I'd hear stories of what sounded like abuse - but it was always implied (like "I was so scared, I thought he was going to hit me"). Then one night she went mental on me - started getting mad about me wanting to visit my daughter who was in the hospital- she wanted to go on a date instead... started throwing glass at me and it was like rain... I pushed her away and just got out.
She called and started threatening me; since I had "hit her" (in falling on her) my options were come back to the house or she would call the cops and report me... I hung up on her and called the cops instead.
By the time the cops showed up, she had bruises on her neck; she self inflicted them to claim I had done it - just hadn't called the cops yet - my hands showed no signs of aggressive force - plus the back of my neck earned her a trip to prison.
It was at that point I realized how duped I was - I KNEW she was the reason for her previous divorce.
I think this question implies any divorced person is flawed - that isn't fair - if you ever dated and broke up with someone, you are in the same exact boat - divorce just often gets messy because there is legal follow up.
24. Always Listen To The Best Friends
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I briefly dated a divorcee. Till a common friend told me he was still married and often used that as a sympathy card to get women.
I'll clarify- This guy is 26. He got married very young to a woman 7 years older than him and apparently instantly regretted it. He had been building up the marital troubles story for a while now and recently started telling everyone at work he got a divorce.
I work with him and had no reason to doubt it. Unfortunately for him, I am good friends with someone in his university circle who knows his wife very well. When I found out, I confronted him and he started claiming he was in love with me and hadn't had the courage to ask his wife for a divorce yet but would do it soon. Pretty much the exact same line he had used on another girl a few weeks ago.
23. You're Not As Clever As You Think
I realized at the very beginning when he started arguments for no reason and slept away from home within the 1st month of the marriage.
22. Fun Times, Indeed
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Sounds like an ex from years ago. He'd pick a fight with me out of nowhere. One time he backed me in a corner demanding to know why I never took the bus. (What???)
Next thing you know, there's a knock on the door and it's one of our friends coming to pick him up. Usually they were going to a movie or something, but I was never told he had made plans ahead of time. I also was told I couldn't go with them because they were going to go to a bar afterward and I was only 20. Not sure why I still couldn't go to the movie. One time a friend who was even younger than I was went with them.
Every time this happened, he'd pick up a girl at the bar and bring her home. Not even go to her place, but bring her back to our place. And I wasn't allowed to be mad because he'd say he thought we were broken up over that fake argument he dragged me into before he left. Fun times.
21. Ghosts of The Past
I dated a divorcee for a hot sec. She was actually a really wonderful lady, but she obviously had some lingering feelings about how things had gone with her ex. The first time this came up was: one night we were at a bar and I ended up in a fairly intense, fun conversation about music with the (male) bartender.
She got weirdly upset about this and started dropping lines like 'well maybe you just want to go home with him' and 'it's obvious you guys are into it'. A bit later, when she found out my brother is gay, she got weirdly passive aggressive and started saying enough offensive things that I eventually broke up with her.
Turns out her ex-husband left her for a man.
20. Stalkers On The Rise
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Well I didn't marry him, but my ex boyfriend was divorced, and he made it seem like his ex wife was evil. He said that he gave everything to her, 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 couples 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 weeks into our relationship, he began to get EXTREMELY possessive over me. I figured it was because he had been through so much 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, 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 get a Facebook message from this random woman who is asking me if I'm okay. I'm like, yeah why?? Like, who are you, ya 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 her/his 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.
So yeah, this still creeps me out because sometimes I get a feeling that he's stalking me, but I know it's probably just paranoia.
19. It's Always About The Other Person
Didn't actually marry the divorcee I dated, but came close. Fortunately, I realized beforehand that she was completely selfish. Everything was always about what she wanted and she found subtle ways to de-value anything I wanted or that was good for me.
She also had been hiding a bad temper from me (which came out finally toward the end). After the breakup, she tried spreading lies about me to all our mutual friends to make herself look better. Fortunately most of them were aware enough to realize what she was doing. Definitely dodged a bullet.
18. Sometimes, It's Obvious
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When I woke up at 3am to pee and she was in the living room texting some dude. Kinda went downhill from there. t1me4change
17. Who's To Blame?
It took me a year and 8 months to leave him. He was emotionally and verbally abusive. He became angry easily. He would make hurtful "jokes" and then say I was being too sensitive and that he's just a blunt person so deal with it.
16. Four's A Crowd
Probably the first weekend when she had a threesome I wasn't a part of...
15. Red Flags
My parents are divorced and both got remarried. My mom found it beneficial to attend a "divorce care" group at her church. She ended up going out with the guy who ran the group and seemed like a great dude. When I asked her about him, she told me he had been divorced himself 2 separate times himself already which was a pretty huge red flag to me, but apparently not to her.
Fast forward 12 years and he's been unbelievably emotionally abusive to her. There was also a point when my brother and I were teenagers where we literally weren't allowed to live with them anymore (because he felt threatened he wasn't the man of the house). She says she's happy still which is truly all I want for her, but it's pretty frustrating when a 13 year old can see the red flags my 40+ year old mother couldn't.
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14. Netflix and Chill Out
When we both stopped caring about date night, each other and fighting over who should wash the dishes. The house was a mess and we were both eating delivery food every single night since everything was dirty.
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13. All The Little Things Added Up
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My ex of about 2 years was in the process of a divorce when we met. His wife was crazy and the reason for everything wrong in his life (this should have been my first clue to run but I was young . . . eh, ya live and learn). He had kids, and 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 her and I had a good relationship?? Oh no - 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 - which he had told me we were not doing anything for due to money (which of course was his ex's fault . . . ). So I opened it (OK, shouldn't have been snooping) and the event was "Day ExGirlfriend 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 staring to decline on its own (he went over to a friends 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 exwife.
To which I responded "If we are saying the same exact things, and are such different people - dont you think the issue is YOU?!" I realized at that exact moment that he was a narcissist who was never going to change or grow up. I moved out a week later. I still miss the dog.
TLDR - a million little things finally connected in my mind and I realized he was narcissistic and manipulative. 7 years later and I would still love to sit down with his ex wife and hear her side of the story.
12. Finally Free
Short and to the point; I got full custody of my kids, she got probation and a 3 year no-contact order, that is a very long story. My girls are absolutely thriving and happy, she's moved somewhere we don't know where but we don't care. We never have to see her or hear from her, the girls went through a mountain of fear and the granddaddy of all emotional roller coasters on the way to being freed from her and excited about what's next forever. I met the most amazing woman alive and I wake up daily with a smile.
So the ex convinced the dude she was cheating on me with she had a hysterectomy, which she didn't, and ended up pregnant. The reasoning behind that I'll never know. Funny thing about that is I had a vasectomy, so she had some explaining to do, but I already knew deep down, I just didn't want to go into the life sucking process of divorce. I ended up broke and living with my folks, but now things are great. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
My kids still pseudo stalk her on social media, and I guess she's got one baby now and is pregnant again. Good for her. Hope she's happy, we are.
11. Bad Dog
My husband had an engagement that ended before we met, and the reasons always seemed weird to me - 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 four years.
Now I completely get it. Well, not the part with her mom and sister, but the rest of it. The dog was awful - peed everywhere, was very dominant and aggressive (like biting/drawing blood aggressive at times), and old enough that he was very difficult to train since they hadn't done 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. And my mother-in-law is anightmare, but my husband and his ex saw her multiple times a week whereas we see her once every couple of months.
10. Any Way To Get The News
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I dated a divorcee for quite some time. She never told me she was divorced, which really wouldn't have bothered me. I ended up finding out about her past from one of the several people she was cheating on me with.
9. Bye Now
That sort of happened with me. I got to the home of a date, and a dude my age answered the door. He introduced himself as her ex-husband. I figured he was just there to pick up the kids or babysit or something, but turns out he lived there because they couldn't afford two households plus kids.
Shortest dinner date ever.
[username deleted]
8. Didn't Want It To Be Anyone Else, For That Matter
I'm a divorcee who dated a divorcee. He got drunk on his bday and told me, "I see why your husband left you" right after I'd given him a $250 watch he'd been wanting
I eventually left because a.) I realized he was a rebound that had lasted waaaaay too long, and b.) he was going to eventually hurt someone with his drinking and driving and I REALLY didn't want it to be me.
7. Working Day And Night
When we had a kid. My husband has always been a workoholic. 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.
6. But Isn't 3rd Time A Charm?
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It took me years. I was husband number 3. I should have known that someone who gets married 3 times by age 35 probably has a few areas for improvement.
5. Pretty Wacky?
I recently dated a girl that had just come off a marriage with a man. She wanted to try women and we went out a couple times and started dating. In bed she was very aggressive. I told her to stop and she kept on.
I eventually broke her off of me and locked myself in the bathroom, calling the cops and waiting till they arrived. Apparently she had a criminal record and her husband had divorced her for attacking him when he would come home from work.
[username deleted]
4. Past Actions Speak For Themselves
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Probably the part before she was divorced and came on to me and hooked up with me. Should be no surprise that we are now divorced as she also cheated on me.
Yeah I should have known better.
3. Brian Broke A Brain
About a year after I signed the divorce papers (divorced my ex-wife for cheating on me), I met the guy she'd cheated on me with. I actually didn't know him by sight, but apparently he'd seen a few pictures of me- like the ones in my bedroom.
He walked up to me, introduced himself, and then started apologizing for being the one to break up my marriage. I was pretty much over it by then, but I was still pissed off enough to say something like "yeah, well, man it wasn't like you were the ONLY guy she was cheating on me with. I'm pretty sure she was with a dude named Brian the whole time she was with you."
He got real quiet, apologized again, and then left. A few weeks later, someone told me that he had moved out and was in the process of divorcing her. I'll never know for sure if it was my telling him about the other-other man that was the tipping point for him, but I like to think it was.
EDIT: Yes, there was a Brian (not his real name, although it hardly matters). I knew about Brian from a friend, and plus she'd admitted that there had been others besides the guy I confronted her about. Why he felt the need to apologize, I have no idea. Seemed like a nice enough guy aside from the sleeping with another man's wife thing. Did I do it for revenge? Not really. It was just a spur of the moment thing, mostly an knee-jerk response to an emotional situation. Sometimes you get to say the perfect cutting remark.
Sometimes you think of it in the parking lot after the opportunity is lost. I got lucky and didn't say something like "ah that's OK man" and regret it for the rest of my life. I used to feel sorry about it because it might have broken up a marriage, but if that marriage wasn't built on trust to begin with then chances are the infidelity was going to happen anyway (or again, if you look at it that way).
2. Rotation
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Wow, sounds like my ex-wife. Marry a guy, cheat on him... I was #3 and learned my lesson. #4 threw her for a loop though, he cheated on her before she got a chance and that messed her up. It was so satisfying to watch her completely lose it because she had never been on that side of the table. Every other time she had a guy lined up and now she's single and has no idea how to function by herself.
1. It's Over
Woo, okay. Story time. So my mom just got divorced from my dad my senior year of high school. She has always been the kind of person to be in a relationship, so she started immediately dating around (since my dad cheated on my mom multiple times). She met this guy on PoF, who we're going to call Tom.
Tom was a successful marketing guy with no kids, a steady income, and was divorced because "his wife cheated on him". Early in the relationship, my mom gets a message from Tom's ex girlfriend current boyfriend. She says that she needs to tell her some things about Tom, but my mom ignores her.
A year goes by and Tom seems normal. She moves in with him and so do we since he has two spare bedrooms. He's a cool guy who seems chill and really nice. He'll sometimes go through my mom's phone (she told me), but she thought that all the good things outweighed the bad.
Cut to Election Day, where things aren't going so well for my mom and Tom since they're both liberal. They drink and Tom throws a remote at the window. He calls the police on himself. My mom forgives him.
This is where things start to get weird. Tom starts acting crazier towards my mom, mostly via text message. On Christmas Day, she decides that we don't want to go to his sister's house because she's drunk. We open the trunk to his car to get the presents out and he drives away, with stuff flying out the back. He apologizes. My mom is suuuper weary at this point.
Cut to New Years where Tom is out of town. She texts him that she wants to break up with him because he's saying that it's my autistic brother's fault that the carpet on the stairs is falling apart. He says "get your kids out of my house." So the next day, we have eight people come over to move the furniture that's my mom's while he threatens us over the phone. That was in January.
Over the next few months, and still to this day, he sends crazy threatening messages to my mom. He also found out where we live so he could "take the shared BMW that they owned jointly and sell it," even though my mom has been begging him to take it.
She finally gets in contact with the lady's boyfriend at the beginning of the story. They share stories and she apologizes for not listening sooner.
Tl;dr: my mom dated a normal divorcee who turned out to be a complete psychopath.
[username deleted]