Divorced People Reveal What Really Ended Their Marriage Of Over A Decade

When it comes to long-term relationships and marriages, generally it seems like the longer the relationship lasts, the more of a "sure thing" it seems to be. If a couple has already been together this long, surely they can work through anything!

But there are some offenses that are far too big to overcome, and much less obvious to anyone on the outside looking in, the little things can hugely and hurtfully add up over the years.

Curious, Redditor sakillya asked:

"Divorcees who were married over a decade, what ended your marriage?"

Small But Unresolved

"Letting all the small things get swept under the rug instead of working through them."

"Ignoring major red flags because of love."

"We were totally different people after 10 years of growth."

- Square-Heat-3758

"This is a big reason in my divorce as well."

"I used to pride myself on the fact that 'My wife and I never fight!' And I found myself enduring things that I was unhappy about 'BeCaUsE i LoVe HeR!'"

"But yeah, sweeping the problems under just made them linger. Resentments build up. Eventually, no matter how strong it is, the dam breaks. And it all comes FLOWING out."

"I was amazed at how open my emotions had become, and not just with my wife. I spent my marriage hiding from my feelings to keep the peace, and now I wanted to actually feel something again."

- malogan82

An Insurmountable Tragedy

"After twenty-one years of marriage, and twenty-five years as a couple, she became an alcoholic. Childhood traumas she wouldn't deal with made her become drink-dependant for the last three years of the marriage and pushed me to breaking point. Mainly because she refused to admit there was a problem."

"We divorced, which she did everything she could to drag out and make acrimonious. My children (now grown) came and lived with with me."

"She died of liver and multiple organ failure within four years of the divorce. While highly stressed at the time, the whole thing makes me sad now."

- ArithonUK

Gambling And More

"I got tired of seeing our money being spent at the racetrack, treating his friends to drinks at the bar, and he was extremely verbally abusive to me when he drank, and his mistress. We had a real trifecta of reasons."

"14 years married, I got the house and the mortgage."

"He married the mistress, that marriage lasted two years, and then he wanted to 'come home' and he promised 'he'd do better.'"

"By then, I was sooo happy he was gone, I thought it was pretty funny. He didn't appreciate being laughed at."

- Any_Assumption_2023

Poor Coping Strategies

"Our daughter was diagnosed with a terminal illness."

"I discovered my partner was trying to start a new replacement family on the side."

- RetroDadOnReddit

"This reads like one of those two-sentence horror stories. I’m so sorry this happened to you."

- velociraptorbreath

To Be Young Again

"My parents were married for 25 years when my mom was in a fairly serious car accident, started taking classes at the local college for the first time, and then was diagnosed with breast cancer, all within six months."

"The youngest sibling was 16, and the rest of us were out of the house. My dad decided he wanted to be a kid again and cheated on my mom with his friend's wife."

"They didn't actually divorce until 15 years later (so they were legally married for 40 years), but they were separated, living apart, and dating other people. They kept trying to get back together every couple of years, but one wanted fewer responsibilities, and the other wanted to be taken care of."

"It was really difficult for my siblings and I to reconcile the man we looked up to so much was the same man who broke our family. The relationship between us and our dad has never recovered." 

- duchess_of_fire

Hung Up On The Past

"My wife's and my marriage was pretty good. Not perfect, but divorce didn't cross my mind."

"She got involved online with a guy she knew from her childhood. She got emotionally entangled and couldn't give it up."

"29 years married, and it ended in a matter of months. She's been married to him now for two years. I'm now engaged and will be getting married next year."

- 3liter3

Just Roommates

"I was married for almost 13 years, and we got divorced because we just fell out of love, and it was time to move on. We were basically just roommates."

- dickey1331

"This is so sad and one of my fears. Marrying someone I’m madly in love with, and years go by, and we fall out of love. I don't know."

- No_Anteater8156

"The phrase 'never stop dating' exists for this reason. Never assume just because you’re married, you’re set for life. People love to date and be dated, so why stop after a piece of paper is signed?"

- fuzzyfoot88

Predictable, But Still

"'It’s not working anymore, we are just too different.'"

"While this is very true, it wasn’t anything new. It wasn't surprising."

"We were married for 16 years, together for over 20, and had known each other for 31 years by then. She had known me for 15 years when we got married."

"Oh, it also turned out she was having an affair for at least a year and a half when we signed the papers."

"So I have a slight hunch that the real reasoning was that she simply found someone better."

- _Bearded_Dad_

Too Much Sleep

"I was married for seven years. I worked full time, went back to school, did all the housework, and still found time to be a good father and husband. Eventually, the stress broke me."

"The woman was addicted to sleep and playing on her phone. I guess she thought cooking once a week and sex whenever I wanted would be enough, but turns out stress is a real boner killer."

"Now our 10-year-old constantly complains about how all her mom does is sleep. Breaks my heart. I know there are underlying issues, but she refused to get any kind of help."

- Imokaywithbooks

No Longer A United Front

"We stopped being teammates and started feeling like opponents."

"And the shift was so quiet, we didn't notice until it was a war."

- MohammadAbir11

The Pain Of Cheating

"Together nearly 23 years, married for 18. Found out at Easter she was cheating on me. The emotional trauma is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my life, and both my parents and brother died."

"I eat half a meal a day, I’ve lost 30 lbs in 2 months, I can’t focus at work (I’m lucky to be able to take a three-month stress leave), I wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 AM with panic attacks and dry heaves, I start shaking randomly, and I can’t concentrate on any distractions like podcasts, music, video games or tv shows."

"Getting out and walking or talking with friends is the only thing that helps."

"Every cell in my body wants to get as far away from her as possible but we have three young boys I’m not leaving, and a house that was intended to be my inheritance before we 'bought' it from my mom (a home that's been in the family for 70 years) so that’ll be an expensive legal battle."

- Farklegruber

Pure Avoidance

"We had children. It triggered his latent avoidant tendencies, and he avoided me for half a decade before I was finally able to drag the truth out of him: he never wanted to be married, never wanted to be a father."

"He stayed out of obligation and duty, but he was miserable, and he took it out on me. Never the kids, just me."

"You can feel sympathy for someone while also being betrayed on such a fundamental level that you never want to see him again. Sometimes I miss the man I married... but he never really existed, he was a mask for a guy who really ended up being a jerk."

- cloistered_around

"My ex once told me, 'I didn't plan to get married, it was just the expected thing so it happened, and then kids were expected so we did that, and then I looked around and realized I was married with kids without having ever thought about whether I actively wanted this.'"

"He then blamed me for being hurt by that. I don't feel sympathy for him, though; his avoidant tendencies put me through h**l."

- hazyandnew

The Worst Of Traditions

"Infidelity. He met a woman through work and started up an extramarital affair."

"I found out through mutual friends that he got caught cheating on her three months after they were married."

"I wish I had known before I married him that his dad regularly cheated on his mom and his brother regularly cheated on SIL. Family tradition of infidelity."

- NotoriousLVP

Mental Health Advocacy

"Her bipolar finally got the better of us."

"I supported her through the many episodes, suicide attempts and overspending, even the first cheating. It was still 'us vs. the disease.'"

"But when she stabbed herself in the stomach in front of our nine-year-old son, (drug induced psychotic break during another affair with an alcoholic , it’s a long story…) I knew I had to pull the plug."

"On the bright side, she hit rock bottom after that and rebounded with some help from me and her family. She is marginally better now, even if I suspect she’s off her meds again and things won’t end well."

- Pippin1505

Worth It

"20 years. She upgraded to her husband three after years of out-of-control spending."

"I put my foot down, she hit the road. Fortunately, the next guy married her less than two years later, getting me out of many remaining years of 'income equalization.'"

"I should really send him Christmas cards."

- dswpro

From subtle changes in the relationship to resentment building to insurmountable big issues and offenses in the relationship, there are countless ways that a relationship could come apart at the seams, even if the couple has been together "forever," and we all thought that nothing could shake them. We're all human, after all.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/