Divorced Men Reveal The Final Straw In Their Marriages

“The last straw in my marriage wasn’t a fight or an argument. It wasn’t even a misunderstanding or miscommunication. The morning routine in our house was hectic and hurried. My wife usually tried to fix the kids and me a little something to eat while I loaded the car or gave the dog a quick walk before we all left the house together. Most mornings, my wife made me a fruit smoothie, which I always appreciated. I’d slam it down in mere seconds so I wouldn’t have to take it with me in the car. One day, as I was chugging my breakfast, I coughed up a huge wooden shard that went from my smoothie cup to the back of my throat. I gagged as I removed it from my mouth. At first, I had no idea what it was… until I saw a wooden spoon sitting on the counter, its end having been shredded by the blades of the blender. I held it up and showed my wife. She just shrugged. The car ride to work was quiet and I mostly thought about how little my wife cared about me.” ― Bill F.

The divorce attorney letters

“My wife asked me to recycle some papers of hers, and as I was going through them, removing our names and addresses, I came across correspondence between her and a divorce attorney, which had been going on since the start of our marriage. In the letters, she was formulating the best plan to get the most money she could from me in support, and one of the letters mentioned a secret brokerage account she had. In that letter, she had asked her attorney when she should transfer stocks from our joint account to her personal account. After the shock wore off and I wiped away my tears, I went out into the very cold night for a long walk, realizing that I had been completely duped and blindsided and the chances of moving forward with our marriage from here were very small.” ― Matt S.

The open-marriage dealbreaker

“The thing that put an end to my marriage was when my then-wife was texting with a female love interest on our couch while completely ignoring me. I had asked her several questions and tried to make conversation, and she simply failed to respond. We had decided to open up our relationship as she was becoming more curious about women, which was fine. But I wanted it to be hierarchical nonmonogamy. Clearly, I wasn’t her main preoccupation anymore. We had a lot of other issues to work out. If we weren’t going to cherish one another, it seemed to me we wouldn’t do the hard work necessary to get us back on track.” ― Philip T.

The yearlong doghouse

“The last straw for me came after sleeping on the couch for a full year. I began having panic attacks, waking up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, in a cold sweat, and thinking I was going to have a stress-induced heart attack. I knew then that I had to make a change or I might end up dropping dead.” ― Steve R.

The phone call