It's in your mental calendar. Every year, the month approaches, then the week, then the day. It's a break, a splinter in your timeline. There was you before the moment, then there was you after that moment. Everything you once were ceases to be, for better or worse, and you have to figure out how to move on from there.
Reddit user, u/flyin_italian, wanted to know about what that moment was when they asked:
What is the event that separates the "B.C. and A.D." of your life?
Let's Get It Right Out Of The Way
Before College and After Debt.
Two completely different lives.
Arguments Are Not Talks
Alcohol.
I lived roughly 15 years of my life drunk as hell, to the point where I have no memory of huge chunks of time.
Two years ago, after months of "talks" (arguments) with my wife, I put down that bottle of vodka and haven't had a sip since.
I'm much more clear-headed, I lost about 20 lbs. pretty quickly, and I've been told that my sober personality is much more laid back, and much less assholey, than my drunk-ass personality.
I'll never go back.
Hands Up For The Divorce Beard
Giphy
My divorce.
Grew a beard, got an entire new set of friends and life has just been better.
Life Comes To A Stop And You Need To Pick Up
Epilepsy diagnosis.
Kicked me out of the air force and paused my aerospace engineering studies. Caused me to meet my soon to be wife.
You Only Have One Dad
Before and after: the death of my father.
He was my best friend.
F*ck cancer.
I'm with you on that, friend. My dad's been gone for just over a year now. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Grueling five-year fight.
Watched the big, strong man that was my dad slowly waste away. F-ck cancer.
Pretending Is Easy
Moving out of my home state.
It's easy to pretend to be an adult when you have family near by.
It's difficult when they live 3000+ miles away.
It's There Forever
before & after my Mom's suicide
Literally about to post exactly this... I feel your pain man.
Life Was "Nat 20's" After That
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This is going to sound really nerdy, but the night I DMed my first game of Dungeons and Dragons really turned my life around.
I've met so many wonderful people and made so many great friends. I've found a new outlet for my creativity. I've laughed until I couldn't breathe. I've connected with people all over the world. My life took such an unprecedented leap in quality because of the night I foolishly decided that I could DM because I listened to a podcast about it.
The Grass Is What You Make It
I don't know what my acronym would be
I was 43 years old in a loveless marriage and I was out cutting the grass. Mowing the lawn is something that doesn't take a huge amount of concentration so its possible to zone out and think about things that are happening in your life.
I was very unhappy and so was she and I think both of us felt trapped because of everything we had was obtained since we first met. I knew if I left I would take a huge financial hit and at my age there would be no way I would ever be able to make up the loss by the time I was ready to retire.
I was about three quarters of the way done when it began raining. I kept on cutting and I surprised myself by beginning to cry. I looked around and at that moment realized that the house and everything in it wasn't worth feeling like this for the rest of my life. I mourned my marriage and all my stuff and kept cutting and crying.
When I was done I put the mower away, dried off and started moving on with my life.
Its been twenty years and I now have a small house and a small yard. I still cut the grass but never in the rain.
Love is crazy. I've finally come to that conclusion. And marriage, you take your life in your hands and just throw caution to the wind in hopes of survival with that step.
When love falls apart, things can get real messy, real fast. And I've always been stunned by people's behavior when love subsides.
More often than not, it's like they become different people. Sometimes people are beset by tragedy and grief and sometimes people smile wide and move on. It's a coin toss.
But my favorite post divorce personality has to be the sudden super villain. Oh honey watch out for them!
Redditor u/hyperyog wanted to hear all the tea from the divorcees out there by asking:
Divorced Redditors, what is the craziest thing you or your former spouse did after divorce?
I once had a friend who burned her ex's house down when he wasn't home. He had started seeing someone almost immediately, so she thought, lemme set their sparks. Yeah, she wasn't well. Whatever happened to just a quick goodbye?
Swiped
dean winters crying GIF by MayhemGiphy"She removed the retaining clips for my windshield wipers, but put the wipers back on the arms. First storm after I got my car back from her, driver side wiper flew off the car on Interstate 40. Good times."
Sicko!
"He wrote suicide notes and put them in my kids backpacks for them/me to find. Then he turned off his phone and went to a coworkers house to play crib and have drinks.. all the while knowing I would be freaking out searching for him thinking he was in danger or worse. Thankfully my kids didn't see the notes and didn't know what was going on. This was just one of the many, many crazy things he did. Two years out and he just recently stopped showing up at my work and driving by my house at night."
A Sad End
"Died of a drug overdose. To be fair, her drug addiction was the reason for the divorce, so maybe that isn't too crazy."
"That's so incredibly difficult to have gone through. I unfortunately know the depths of this kind of pain, and while I'm sure the circumstances surrounding it are different, the loss that still happened is a tragedy. My condolences."
Bye Girl
"Stalked me for 5 years. Would make fake social media profiles to try to follow me (which I would block endlessly) and would try to find where I worked so she could talk to me. This lady cheated on me with 7 different men 2 months after we were married. I kicked her a** to the curb and made her sign the court papers."
"When we had our day in court she cried in the judges office while I just wanted to get this crap done. After, my dad was with me and he threw 50 dollars at her and told her to "change your freaking last name." Good guy Pops. I haven't seen or heard from her in about 5 years, thank goodness."
- Letharos
Take it All!
skin care spinning GIF by Primal Life OrganicsGiphy"I had an ex-boyfriend go through my apartment and take back every gift he had given me that he could find. Then he went in my bedside table and took the condoms. And the vibrator he had given me."
See now, when I'm out... I'm out! I don't want to see you, hear from you or know you. I wish you well in life, but please live it far from me. Anyone agree? Clearly not the people here. Let's continue...
For the Boy
bicycling father and son GIF by NETFLIXGiphy"All I wanted was custody of my son, I gave her everything else except one of our cars. She fought me through 5 hearings, I won. She never came to see him again."
Dangerous Woman
"My ex cheated on me the week my mom died in the hospital. She spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with me. She would call my old work and make fake accounts trying to message me on FB. It was insane. She later sends a certified letter explaining she was sorry that she did what she did and that she aborted our child."
"Wanted me to meet her somewhere so she could apologize face to face. She already married some other guy that she had children with and was still trying to get in touch with me. I never understood her."
- orstius
Be Gone
"After years of telling me she wanted a child, that she wanted to be a mom, that her life's dream was to be a stay at home mom, she got pregnant with the first guy she slept with while we were getting divorced and put the kid up for adoption even before it was born. This was a long-standing thing with her, she always wanted something (car, house, dog, cat, marriage, etc) and the second she got it she immediately hated it."
The "Actor"!
"Called me and pretended he had been hit by a car while we were talking. He even tried to voice the crowd that had gathered around his "body." God-awful acting, but pretty funny listening to him try to mimic a woman's voice. Points for trying to be inclusive, I guess."
"I think he was trying to get me to re-live my trauma of being on the phone with a friend who actually HAD been hit by a car while we were talking. Too bad he didn't realize that hearing the real thing is worlds different than hearing a dumba** try to act it out."
Money Blues
"I was sending 600 dollars a month to support my daughter because she's the only thing I give a sh!t about. My ex texts me and tells me I need to be sending 1200 a month because she's broke and can't pay her bills and I should feel guilty about it. She left me for another guy while I was on deployment I told her to go screw herself--call my lawyer."
Pop Off
Tom Hanks Drinking GIF by The Good FilmsGiphy"Took the sodas from the fridge as he walked out the door. Dumfounded."
See, I blame Alanis Morissette and her "Jagged Little Pill" album. All I'm going to say is... the secret song. I think she gave people ideas. (I love that song) Y'all, seek therapy if you can't shake people. When it's done, let it be done.
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