People Are Revealing The Moment They Considered Getting A Divorce, And Some Of These Are *Not* What I Was Expecting

From what I hear and from my observations of married couples — it takes a lot of work, love, and patience for something like a lifetime commitment to work.

Sometimes things don't work out and married couples go their separate ways. Other times, a spouse might be considering a divorce but instead, chooses to work things out with their partner. I asked the BuzzFeed Community what things made them consider a divorce — whether it actually ended in one or not. Here are some of the answers.

1."We had been struggling with infertility, and I had recently had a miscarriage. He told me he didn’t want a baby anymore, but he did want to go to swingers clubs. I made plans to leave and get divorced, but we ended up talking. The infertility stuff had gotten really intense and we had lost our spark. It took a long time and a lot of therapy, but years later we are still married and happy(ish)."

—Anonymous

2."He walked in the door after a long day and said, 'Feed me!' No 'hello,' nothing, just 'feed me.' What a jerk."

—hooverdyson70

3."My husband abused me by creating a fake Instagram account he used to call me slurs and insults. I found out a week before our wedding after he isolated me and threatened to kill himself if I didn't stop talking to my friends. I reconnected with my high school best friend and now have a plan to divorce my current spouse. I just want to be happy."

—Anonymous

4."We got married — I was 27, he was 30. First time for both of us. Everything was great. We had discussed having kids, went for it, I got pregnant right away. Then, one night when I was in my second trimester of pregnancy, I come into the bedroom to find him absolutely sobbing, and he proceeds to explain that he has a teenage son he never told me about. It's a whole mess that happened to him when he was 17, and the kid had found him and reached out to him on social media. He had no parental rights and has never even met the kid. I was ready to bail, made him leave, and called my mother."

5."My wife constantly spends money so irresponsibly that it consistently puts our financial viability at risk. When we first moved in together, we each had our own bank accounts and a joint account from which our share expenses were paid. It worked great in the beginning because we budgeted, had our direct deposits split between our accounts and the joint one, and put all our bills on autopay from that joint account. Then she started borrowing money from that account. Then the overdraft fees started to the tune of thousands of dollars a year. Then when she lost her job, I took on the majority of the financial responsibility so she could go back to school and finish her degree. Now she has a degree, has a job she loves, but continues to not contribute financially at all to the continuing enterprise that is our household."

"The joint account is gone. We talk about how much of a struggle it is for me to bear the lion’s share of the financial burden, but then she tries to make me feel like shit for asking her to contribute. She’s constantly asking me for money to cover her expenses, like her car payment, gas, etc. The newest thing is she’s tied my account as payment in multiple disparate apps she uses. And anytime I try to talk to her about it, she tries to lay a guilt trip on me.

When we first got together, I said all I ever want is a partner. We’re not partners anymore. I would leave, but we have a son together, and his well-being is my only priority. Even if I paid child support to her, I’m terrified she’d waste the money leaving him to suffer. I’m not wealthy by any means. The most valuable asset I have to leave my son is my corpse rendered to that state by any means other than my own hand and the resulting life insurance policy. At this point, all I can hope is that he can cash that in as soon as possible."

—pault17

6."My ex opened one of those credit card offers in the mail and applied for the card with me as the primary and him as the secondary without telling me. Never told me he had it, hid my card when it came. Subsequently ran up a $20K bill. I found out when it hit my credit report and I tried to file it as fraud the company investigated and told me all the charges were made on his card. This was the start of my very lengthy, very expensive divorce."

7."My husband's friend made a pass at me and when my husband found out, he believed his friend over me — his wife and mother of his three kids. It broke me."

—Anonymous

8."Something had felt off for a while, but he assured me everything was fine. Eventually, I found out he had been skipping work to have sex in our basement with a 19-year-old he met through an internet ad. Through the whole ordeal, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is now on meds. Even though it was traumatic, it led to a stronger marriage and better mental health for both of us."

—Anonynous

9."After 9 years of infertility, IVF, and a very difficult pregnancy, I had given birth to twins via c-section. I had an allergic reaction to the povidone-iodine they put all over you to prevent infection. I was tomato red with blisters across my entire mid-section after having major surgery. I was in a tremendous amount of pain and the on-call doctor refused to give me any more pain meds than the typical amount."

"I begged my husband to talk to someone through tears and advocate for me. His response was, 'The doctor said no, so what could he do?' Both my parents passed away while I was pregnant, so I didn't have a support system and I had two newborns, so I stayed with him. If it had been any other surgery or if my parents had still been with me, I would have left him. Your partner should be there for you in your weakest moments no matter what. I know if the roles were reversed, I would have gone to the head of the department and anyone else I needed to rather than watch him suffer needlessly."

—dartharcais

10."My partner played constant video games. As in, every free moment. The second he sits down on the couch, the games come on. I couldn't watch my own shows, and couldn't have a moment without video games in the background. No quiet downtime. He'd wake up an extra hour early and immediately start playing games. Pair that with constant job-hopping and not holding down a steady supportive income and it had me questioning our future. We have thankfully made things work, and I have worked very hard at my job to start earning more money and have become the primary breadwinner. It's working alright."

—Anonymous

11."My husband and I had just had our first baby. The experience was traumatic for me, but I loved my son. When we got home from the hospital, my husband turned into someone I’d never met. I just experienced an emergency C-section after 28 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing, and he wouldn’t stop leaving me at home alone to go do random stuff. Before my son, my husband had been the absolute most supportive man I’d ever met, so this was super confusing to me. After a few weeks of this, along with him refusing to help at night, I told my friend I was going to leave. I thought I was better off just caring for my son alone since I was pretty much doing that anyway."

"She convinced me to go home and tell him how I felt first, so I did. He cried and told me about his fear of being a father and how he felt useless because I seemed like I knew what I was doing. I definitely didn’t, I just wasn’t given a choice but to figure it out. It took about a year, but we worked it out. Still married with two kids and one on the way. Our experience inspired me to become a certified perinatal mental health therapist. He’s THE best father, does housework, cooks meals, and loves us well. I’m thankful I stayed, but it felt very difficult at times during that first year."

—Anonymous

12."My husband kept talking to his mom. I know what you’re thinking. Sounds terrible of me to say that, but give me the benefit of the doubt. His mom married two guys who have gotten drunk and beat him up, she kicked us out on the streets with no warning all because she was upset that I called the cops on her child molester boyfriend who just got out of prison and held my baby which she gave him permission to even though we didn’t. She walks around and talks crap about my husband and her own son, and she tried to take my baby from me. Eventually, we moved states away and he realized she wasn’t a nice person. I get that it’s his mother but still toxic is toxic."

—emarshall12346

13."I am 45 and we’ve been married 20 years. He is a workaholic, yet he constantly complains about his job. He is often miserable and vents about almost every aspect of his job yet when I tell him to consider changing anything about how he does something or even the leaving job itself he gets upset. He often works 12-hour days and logs in on the weekends, not that it’s required in any way, just because he rationalizes it is necessary. His misery is a dark cloud over the relationship and at the same time I know I am nowhere near being a top priority in his life, nor is our marriage. To be honest I stay for health insurance and financial stability because I’ve become disabled and I don’t know if I could live off my benefits and Medicare."

—Anonymous

14."I knew my marriage would be ending when my mother called to tell me her cancer had returned and had spread. I managed to hold back the tears during the call but began weeping in earnest once the telephone call ended. I went to my husband for comfort and told him the sad news. Instead of hugging me, he began talking about his job, which he absolutely knew was a source of contention between us for years."

15."I was already having doubts and wanted to push the wedding back a year, wanting to elope as I was an immigrant with no friends of family in the country. However, the wedding went ahead as he wanted, with 100 guests: 95 of the guests were people he knew, and only 5 were there for me. Three days after the wedding and during our mini-moon, he told me he never wanted to get married, and that I had manipulated and forced him into it. That he would happily have never gotten married and never wanted to. I spent the night crying and seeing if I could get an annulment in Scotland. Turns out I couldn't — not without getting myself deported! Within months, COVID hit so I was stuck with him for another two years. When the borders to my country reopened I was able to leave him and move back home. Just waiting on my final divorce papers to arrive in the mail any day now!"

—Anonymous, 40

16."After the difficult birth of our third child, my husband picked an argument over the fact that I wanted to ride home in the back seat with the baby. It spilled over into a shouting match in front of our respective parents at home. I understand that he was worried and stressed — we were in the middle of prepping our house for sale, our families were experiencing tension, and I was coming home from the hospital sick — but that fight nearly broke our marriage. I held on to my anger about that night without talking to him about it for almost a year, and if the pandemic hadn’t come along, I honestly think I would’ve left."

17."Before we were married my ex used to write me love letters and wanted to be with me all the time. Once the ring was on my finger I must have fallen off the 'pedestal' because he started to avoid me. He would work late to avoid having dinner with me and was just never home. He wouldn't speak to me for months and then all of a sudden he would ask me out to dinner as if nothing had happened. I put up with this behavior for far too long and would always forgive him. The last time he did this to me the 'silent treatment' lasted eight months. I refused to forgive him which resulted in divorce."

—Anonymous

18."My ex had a spending problem that became apparent after about five years of marriage. I made about $30,000 more a year than he did. I worked hard and paid off the debt, then after 10 years he did it again AND then he became verbally abusive. His ego grew and grew! By this time he was no longer able to work due to a disability that he concocted, and somehow started receiving disability. Again I bailed him out of debt. Then I retired early and started my own business. I didn’t make a lot of money, but I made what we needed to live. Then he got himself in debt again, this time I bailed. I was so tired of the constant put-downs and lack of empathy of any kind."

"He was so mad at me and made all kinds of accusations against me and even hired a private investigator to check me out. He swore that I must be having an affair — which I wasn’t. He constantly told me how he was going to get everything in the divorce and I would have to pay him alimony. Luckily for me, he was very codependent, so he attached himself to a woman who needed a green card and married her immediately after the divorce was finalized. I thought I was free but the verbal attacks and harassment lasted almost for another year. Now I’m finally happy and living a normal life. But, I actually feel sorry for his new wife, she seems like a nice person."

—Anonymous

Were you ever considering a divorce? If so, what was the reason? If you feel comfortable, share your story with me in the comments below.