A marriage doesn’t fall apart overnight, but sometimes, looking back, you can pinpoint certain moments that irrevocably changed things for the worse.
It could be things that were said.
Below, divorced men and women share the spoken words that convinced them their marriages were over.
1. “I have a new client who can only meet in the evenings.”
“After 12 years of marriage and a career that never had required working in the evenings, my husband announced that he would be gone several times each week to service a new client. And ‘service’ he did ― in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel.” ― Marcy M.
2. “If you leave me, no one will ever want you or love you again.”
“If I had to pinpoint when it felt over for me, it was a time when we had been fighting and I brought up divorce. I wanted him to say, ‘Don’t leave me because you are amazing and I love you,’ but instead he said, ‘If you leave me, no one will ever want you or love you again.’ That sort of nailed into my head that he thought nothing of me; that he didn’t believe I had any redeeming qualities that made me a worthwhile person. My ex had been abusive. Despite all the other issues our marriage had, that was the moment that changed everything for me. I never looked at him the same again.” ― Eden S.
3. “I hate you!”
“My ex made verbal fighting an Olympic sport, but one day during a fight over something I can’t even remember, she yelled, ‘I hate you!’ ― and I knew she meant it. There’s no coming back from that four letter word.” ― Bill F.
4. “How did you find out?”
“This was the point when I realized we were past pretending like his infidelity wasn’t going to happen again. It was affair six or seven by that point, and there really was no emotion left. Instead of denying, he simply wanted to know where he screwed up in trying to hide it from me.” ― Kasey F.
5. “I want a divorce. I’m sick of being alone.”
“I sent these words to my husband in a text less than one week after what would become our final family vacation. Despite being unhappy in my marriage, largely because of a work-related living arrangement that separated us geographically, I was altogether unprepared for what would follow later that month. Unknowingly, I had given my husband the justification he needed to leave me, which he did later that month. Though I firmly believe it’s better to be alone than trapped in a bad or empty marriage, life after divorce can be difficult and the road to happiness long. Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it, sometimes a lot sooner than anticipated.” ― Stacey F.
6. “I’m leaving. ”
“On Christmas Eve, shortly after my father had died and while my mother lay in a coma, my spouse of 23 years looked across the living room at me and nonchalantly said, ’I’m leaving.’ I was caught so off guard that I actually replied, ‘Oh, good, are you going to Target because we need some more hooks for ornaments?’ Then came the words that made it pretty clear. ‘No, Lee, I’m leaving you. I don’t want to be married to you. Not now. Not ever. Not even a little bit.’ (OK, I got it, but what about the hooks?)” ― Lee G.
7. “I’ve known I was gay since I was 8. I’ve never been attracted to you.”
“My ex didn’t say it in those exact words, but he said both things were true after I found evidence suggesting it was the case.” ― Juliet J.
8. “I can’t live like this.”
“I said it. I was in a cycle that involved being cheated on, lied to about it and then made to feel crazy. I had a 2-year-old and a newborn at the time and starting over seemed scary and almost impossible, but I came to the realization that nothing could be as bad as staying in that relationship.” ― Lindsay L.
9. “I married a piece of sh*t.”
″I asked my wife if she could name one thing wrong that she had done in our eight years of marriage and her answer to me was, ‘I married a piece of sh-t like you and tolerated your loser children.’ I knew there was no hope to save our marriage in that instant.” ― Matt S.
10. “I don’t love you.”
“I was running on the treadmill after work, when the little voice inside my head screamed ‘YOU DON’T LOVE HIM.’ I was so jarred I had to stop the treadmill. When I got home that night I told him that I didn’t love him. That I wanted to love him, that I knew I should love him, but that I didn’t. And I couldn’t live a lie.” ― Amy J.
The words that ended my marriage
-