Marriage is extremely difficult. After all, promising to spend the majority of one’s life with another person is a pretty major commitment. It’s understandable that not every attempt at it is going to work out in the long run. But when marriages come to an end, it isn’t always for the reasons that we might expect. Sometimes, people get divorced for completely absurd, bizarre, and downright ridiculous reasons. Don’t believe me? Try reading the shocking stories below and see for yourself.
1. A Bicycle Built for Two
I’m a divorce attorney. I once had a client come to my office wanting a divorce from her husband. The reason she gave for wanting the divorce was that she had recently seen him wearing bike shorts and, as a result, now felt that she could never be intimately attracted to him again. That was probably one of the weirdest cases I’ve ever taken on…
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2. Be Careful What You Wish For
After seven years of marriage, without the knowledge or permission of his wife, a husband started trying to convince their nanny to join them for a threesome. He kept telling her that his wife would be really into it. He was a Wall Street guy and she was a physician, and the nanny had been with them since their first kid had been born, four years earlier.
The nanny finally made a move on the wife, who initially told her it was totally inappropriate. But a few months later, all of them got a little wild together one night and finally had the threesome of the husband’s dreams. It soon turned into a regular thing. The husband was totally happy—until the wife made a truly stunning announcement.
She told him that she and the nanny were in love with each other, and that she was leaving him for the nanny! During the custody proceedings for the couple’s children, the husband tried to argue that the nanny was an unlawful immigrant, which was ridiculous. In the end, the wife got primary custody. Three years later, the wife and nanny are still together, though they have now hired a new nanny for the children. Good luck beating this one!
3. Surprise Ending
One client of mine once told me that she wanted a divorce from her husband because she had bought him a $3,500 pet dog as a surprise gift and, when she sent him the picture of the dog, he responded by saying, "This kind of impulsive nonsense is why our family is poor." She was extremely hurt by this and immediately left him.
4. All Aboard for Crazy Town
I’m a lawyer. In court one day, I overheard a woman who wanted to divorce her husband because he “liked taking pictures of trains.” At first I didn’t see what the big deal was, but she went on to explain that he had been doing this for many years and basically spent the majority of his spare time on this bizarre hobby of his.
5. The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side
I had two couples come to me together with a strange demand. The couples had been friends for nearly 15 years. Husband A decided he liked Wife B more than Wife A. Wife A decided she likes Husband B more than Husband A. The reverse was also true, and Husband B preferred Wife A, while Wife B preferred Husband A. The couples had nearly identical assets in terms of value.
They came to me all together, and I drafted two sets of paperwork. Two default judgment hearings were set on the same day. The judge signed all the papers the same day. A week after that, they all went to a justice of the peace and remarried. The husbands swapped houses and they all went about their lives exactly as they had the week before, but each slightly happier.
6. Getting Territorial
One couple that I am close to was in the process of filing for divorce recently. Papers were served and lawyers were involved. But, as one of his reasons for why he felt that things were irreconcilable, the husband put down that it was because she would always poop in his bathroom. I’m happy to say that they eventually worked through that issue and are still together.
7. Back to Square One
I've been working at a family firm for more than three years now and I have seen and heard some truly crazy stuff during that time. For example, we once handled a divorce for an older man in his 70s. He had been cheating and wanted to be with his mistress. Two years go by, and then he comes back in to divorce the mistress…because he's been cheating on her with his first wife.
8. She’s Got This in the Bag
During their honeymoon, the wife asked her new husband to buy her a Gucci handbag and the husband told her that he couldn't afford it because he had just spent more than $200,000 on their wedding and honeymoon. She was not happy about this and, as a result, she immediately filed for divorce upon their return home from the trip.
9. All You Need Is Love
My brother, who’s a physician, once told me a story that he had heard from one of his patients. Apparently, this patient had gotten divorced because, as soon as he and his girlfriend got married, the wife began bugging him about quitting the meds he had been taking for depression and anxiety. She claimed that her love should "be enough" for him. He eventually followed her advice.
Not long after, she decided that she wanted a divorce for a truly savage reason. She claimed that he "wasn't the same guy she married."
10. TV Always Knows Best
I’m a divorce attorney and the craziest reason that I’ve ever seen for someone wanting a divorce was to avoid prison. This guy came in saying that he was going to be indicted for many things. The list would have been impressive if it wasn't also sickening. So, he wanted to marry his accomplice because he saw on TV that your spouse can't testify against you without your permission.
Well, his accomplice had cut a deal with the authorities. He just needed to get this pesky marriage to his current wife out of the way…
11. I’ll Drink to That
I’m a lawyer. A man once came into my office and filed for divorce because he couldn't stand listening to his wife make the "aah" sound after every drink she took. Yes, that was literally the only reason he gave. Apparently, it really annoyed him and got to him over the years. He had decided that there was no other choice but to leave her.
12. Documenting His Stupidity
I oversaw maybe five divorces in my day. I had this one client who, after I met her soon to be ex-husband, bluntly stated, "Do you see how stupid he is? That's why I want to divorce him! If I had known how stupid he was, I never would have married him." The guy fired his lawyer once a month and constantly tried to file obviously fabricated or altered documents when he was between counsel.
Eventually, we settled the case very favorably for my client, since he couldn't find anybody who was willing to take his case. He was also looking at some serious charges by the end of it for all of the fake documents he created. I loved that case because it was so entertaining to witness. It was just such a circus, even though my client was very reasonable.
13. Bringing Home the Bacon
This sounds ridiculous and hard to believe, but I promise you that it really happened. I once dealt with a woman who came to me wanting a divorce. Why did she want it? Because her husband was never at home before 5:00 in the afternoon and this upset her very much. She didn't seem to understand that he had a job…
14. Food Fight
My friend is a lawyer who deals with divorces on a regular basis. She once told me about a client who came to her and wanted to divorce her husband because he took one of her French fries while they were out for dinner together. I am not joking. It was hilarious to hear about. Let’s just say that a very salty lady was in a fried relationship.
15. An Unholy Situation
This was big gossip at the church I went to. One of the more prominent members of the church had filed for divorce because his wife was battling stage four ovarian cancer. His claim was that she was "unable to perform" her marital duties as a result of the illness. She passed shortly after the divorce. People were enraged when they found out about this. He quickly became a social pariah and left the church.
16. Her Stance on Immigration
My friend's wife divorced him because she found out that he was born outside of the United States, which she had not realized while they had been dating. She felt very betrayed and for some reason angry when she discovered this fact. That would have to be the most ridiculous reason for a divorce that I’ve ever heard of...
17. This Is Just Awful...
I know of someone who got a divorce because she “couldn't stand the sight” of her husband anymore. It’s actually a very sad story. I was in the service at the time. I showed up at a recovery unit, just to report in. I overheard the woman saying this to a chaplain while he sat there right in front of them. He was in a wheelchair and the majority of his skin was covered in burns. He showed no emotion while listening to this. Poor guy!
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18. What Are You Trying to Hide?
The wife asked a judge for annulment of her marriage because, almost a year into the marriage, they still hadn’t slept together yet. The husband has been avoiding it for almost a year. Later on, the court found out the reason he had been doing so. Apparently, he didn’t want her to find out that his private part was very small…
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19. No Way to Soften This One Up...
This happened to a good friend of mine. Her brother, Kevin, married a woman that started using Snuggle fabric softener. Kevin ended up having a crazy allergic reaction to the Snuggle, but his wife refused to stop using it because she liked it so much. Even when he washed his own clothes without it, just being around the smell caused a severe allergic reaction for him.
Some of his allergic reactions were so extreme that he needed to be hospitalized. Nevertheless, she still refused to stop using Snuggle on her clothes. So, after a little while, they realized things were not going to get better and eventually got a divorce. In other words, I know a couple whose marriage ended over a fabric softener…
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20. A Hair-Brained Scheme
I remember that one of the main reasons that my mother gave my father for why they needed to get a divorce was that he always bought expensive shampoos. She broke this news to him in all seriousness and she fully believed it. I always knew that my parents had their issues, but I never expected their relationship to end over a hair product…
21. Save the Last Dance for Me
I’m a divorce lawyer, so I’ve seen a lot of strange things. I once dealt with a case where a woman was leaving her husband because she found a bunch of secret photos of him dressed up as a ballerina. Apparently, he had a whole secret hobby that she never knew about, and she did not approve in the slightest when she found out about it.
22. Animal Instinct
Former paralegal here. I worked for a small firm and we once had a woman come in to file a fault divorce, claiming that her husband was to blame. She filled out the paperwork but didn’t put a reason down. Unfortunately, we do need a reason to be provided for a fault divorce, ya know? So, my boss and I sat down with her and ran through a bunch of the more common reasons.
Harmful to her? No, he never raised his hand to her. Harmful to the kids? No, he was a great father. Cheating? No, he was always faithful. Addictions? No, he never drank or used any bad substances. Still has a good intimate relationship with you? Yep. Money trouble? Nope. So what was the problem, then? Apparently, the dude couldn’t quit looking at adult videos.
But that’s not the end of the story. Because it turned out that the videos the dude was hooked on were specifically videos involving goats and other farm animals. She brought in hundreds of pages showing his internet searches and saved files. It wasn’t even people with goats, it was just goats with other goats. He also liked to watch mules be bred. It was strange, to say the least.
We called him the GOAT now around our office, as in the grossest of all time. The weirdness of this case has always stuck with me to this day. After all, it isn’t every day that a marriage breaks up because the man has an unhealthy obsession with an oddly specific farm animal. I’m betting this guy isn’t allowed near petting zoos…
23. The Height of the Conflict
The most ridiculous reason for a divorce that I’ve ever heard of was the one that involved my friend’s parents. His mother left his father because she was tired of having a husband who was “too short.” To be clear, he was the exact same height at this time as he had been when they had first started dating. Yet, somehow, she never seemed to have noticed his height until now…
24. Missing in Action
I once had a woman call in and say that she needed an annulment of her marriage because she “couldn’t find” her husband and hadn’t seen him in years. I corrected her that it would be a divorce, not an annulment. She told me that they never consummated the marriage, so it couldn’t be a divorce. I told her that this hasn’t been the law in a long time, and she fought me on it.
She kept insisting that it must be an annulment, and she would not even entertain the idea that this was not how things worked anymore. Eventually, I got frustrated and asked her how exactly she intended to prove to the judge, with evidence, that her marriage was never consummated, and that got her upset enough to hang up on me.
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25. Ruining Your Special Day
My stepfather once had a client who wanted to divorce her husband even though they had just gotten married very recently. Her reason was that, no more than 30 minutes after their wedding ceremony ended, she had found him in a compromising position. How compromising? He was sleeping with one of the bridesmaids. That story completely shocked me when I first heard about it.
26. I Get the Message
I know someone who chose to divorce her husband because, in her own words, she never really loved him and she just used him to get pregnant. They have three kids together. She kept on urging him on to buy a brand new house in one of those cookie cutter neighborhoods. Her plan was to divorce him, take all three kids and the new house, and make him pay for it all.
She also expected to have him pay child support on all three kids going forward. She went to the lawyer and asked him to initiate the process without the husband’s knowledge. Her lawyer wasn't comfortable with this at all, considering he had all their financial information and saw that the husband was making just enough for all five of them to get by on.
Before the husband was able to sign the papers to buy the new house, the wife’s lawyer "accidentally" left a message on his phone instead of hers, going over the final draft of the divorce. Thanks to this message, he avoided having his life as completely ruined as it nearly became. Also, where I live, both parties have to be aware of the divorce according to the law.
You can't just sneak attack on your spouse, like this woman was attempting to do. They have to have at least some knowledge of it in order for it to be legitimate. Even if one spouse just straight up shouts, "I'm gonna divorce you!" That would count. So I don't think the lawyer is in a situation where he could get in trouble for doing what he did.
27. A Strange Affair
A guy I know once wanted a divorce because he had caught his wife having an unprotected affair with a dealer. She then threatened to take her own life in front of their daughter and proclaimed that her affair was “a cry for help.” Oh, and I forgot to mention that the guy was me. Someone help me, please!!!
28. The Eye of the Storm
I once heard of a woman who divorced her husband because she no longer wanted to share a house with his 16-year-old son, who she claimed looked at her repeatedly with “disrespectful eyes.” I guess it’s hard to be a good stepmother when you know your spouse’s kid doesn’t like you, but this still sounded pretty ridiculous…
29. Hitting the Jackpot
I remember seeing a thing one time where a man won the lottery and his wife immediately filed for divorce so that she could get the proceedings of the lottery win as part of her settlement. This plan backfired on her, big time. In the end, the judge confirmed the divorce, and not only did her husband get to keep all the lottery money, but she actually had to pay a bunch of money to him!
30. Wisdom Teeth
I was once involved in a case where a woman wanted to divorce her husband over the fact that he would always squeeze his toothpaste directly into his mouth instead of onto his toothbrush. I couldn’t deny the weirdness of this habit. If you ask me, this is why it doesn’t hurt to live with someone for a while before you marry them!
31. Mechanical Errors
I once had to visit a client after she was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. She thought that she and her mechanic, who she delusionally believed was her boyfriend, were two halves of the reincarnated Jesus Christ. For this reason, she wanted to divorce her husband in order to marry the mechanic...
32. A Slight Miscommunication...
My cousin divorced her husband because she was gay. She always was and always had been, but she still got married to a man in order to appease her fanatically religious parents. Under the circumstances, she didn’t want to admit that this was the reason she was filing for divorce. Instead, she completely blindsided the guy with the outrageous reason she put down.
She claimed that she dated the first guy that fell in love with her. They got engaged after like six months, had the whole white wedding shebang, and got married quite young. I think she was just 21 at the time. Six months after the wedding, she tells him basically "Thanks for playing along, now here’s the divorce papers and I'm running off to another state with my lover, who was the maid of honor by the way."
He was not playing along. He had no clue.
33. Out to Lunch
This may sound ridiculous, but my father once divorced a woman simply because she had made his sandwich wrong. Well, she made it with an end piece, which he didn’t particularly like. So he literally divorced her over it. The man has been married and divorced a whopping seven times, though he never bothered to marry my mother…
34. The Old Man Is Snoring
I once knew a woman who divorced her husband because he was constantly snoring too loud while he was asleep. This snoring made it difficult for her to fall asleep at night. That's it, that's the main reason. Other than that, the couple had no issues whatsoever within their marriage. Nevertheless, she felt that the snoring could not be ignored and it was enough reason for a divorce.
35. Revealing His Secret
There’s a really young dumb couple divorcing because the husband flipped out one night, throwing stuff at her until she locked herself in the bathroom. That’s when he revealed his dark secret. It turns out he had secretly married someone else years ago to get into the United States. I think he’s a citizen now, but I’m not sure. Either way, this wife had no idea until he blurted it out during this fight.
So I don’t know what will happen to him if they can prove that his immigration was fraudulent during the divorce hearings, now that this story will be made public as the reason for their divorce. There’s way more crazy stuff about this guy, but I don’t know all the details. Suffice it to say he’s a lunatic.
36. Giving Him the Cold Shoulder
In divorce court one day, the judge asked the wife what her reason was for wanting to divorce her husband. The wife said, in an aggressively angry tone, "He left the refrigerator door open on two separate occasions." I looked at the guy and just said "I’m sorry" with an expression of sadness and sympathy. It must suck to get stuck with a crazy person…
37. Living Lavishly
I’m a life coach. I once knew a man who insisted that he needed a divorce because his wife was "always wasting money." He gave me a list, with receipts, of all the things that she had wasted money on. The list included: French fries from Wendy's, an oil change for her car, basic groceries, and vet bills for their pet dog.
38. Family Friendly
I work at a divorce court and, one time, a high school friend came in with her stepmom and ex-boyfriend from back in high school. Bear in mind that this was more than 12 years after we had graduated. When I found out why they were there, I was stunned. Apparently, the stepmom was finally divorcing the dad…because for the past 14 years, she’d been cheating on the dad with her stepdaughter’s boyfriend.
The entire interaction was super weird for me to watch. I wasn’t actually helping them due to the conflict of interest, but I was nevertheless sitting in the clerk’s booth right next to them as the guy flirted with both of them and then gave the court all the gruesome details of what had happened between them over the years.
39. Ascending to the Higher Realms
I left a woman because she lived on the 11th floor of an apartment building that had no elevators. What type of person moves into a place like that? I truly don’t get it. I just couldn’t see a good future for myself if I had chosen to spend the rest of my life with someone who had such poor judgement. I have no regrets.
40. A Happy Medium
I once knew a man who divorced his wife because she had spent $42,000 on psychic hotlines. Notably, she then wouldn’t accept any of our settlement offers, and I continuously asked her lawyer to provide counter-offers. In the end, she got a terrible deal for her side. Shouldn’t her psychic have warned her about how the case would turn out??
41. Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
I am a divorce attorney. I once had a client come into my office and file for divorce because each and every morning his wife would ask him how he takes his coffee. For seven years. In all that time, she never paid enough attention to his answer to learn how he liked his coffee and she legitimately never remembered. He was very hurt by this.
42. It’s Curtains for You!
A woman once tried to divorce her husband because he didn’t help her put up a shower curtain. I would have to assume that this must have been a straw that broke the camel’s back type of situation, though. Even by the standards of crazy people, divorce would seem like a pretty excessive reaction to something as unimportant as that…
43. It’s All in the Game
Lawyer here. One of my craziest divorce cases that always sticks out in my memory is the one where the husband and wife both played some sort of online role-playing game. It was sort of like the Sims I think, but a little more elaborate and adult. I don't know anything about online games, but that was the gist of it as far as I can tell.
The wife got heavily involved with the game, spending something like 10 hours a day on it. She refused to reduce her daily playing time, no matter what her husband said. What tipped things over the edge? He set up a fake profile/avatar and went online to stalk her in the game. He found her avatar sleeping with some random guy's avatar.
To be clear, nothing unfaithful ever happened in real life. Neither of the members of this couple were exactly oil paintings to look at, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, this fictional affair in the game was enough for the guy to initiate a fairy acrimonious divorce. In all my years in this field, I don’t recall ever having another case as bizarre as this one.
44. Getting Schooled
As a hopefully soon-to-be-former divorce attorney, I've seen tons of crazy reasons for people to get divorced. Some of them are stupid, and some of them make perfect sense. I had one person get divorced because his wife was a teacher and he found out that she was secretly having indecent relationships with a whole bunch of her students.
45. Sounds Like a Pinhead to Me
I once had a client who wanted to divorce her husband due to the fact that he allegedly loved his pinball machine collection more than her. Also, it turns out that some pinball machines can be worth a truckload of money, as she discovered during the proceedings. Maybe if she had known how much his machines were worth, she wouldn’t have been so quick to walk out on him…
46. Home Sweet Home
Divorce lawyer here. One client of mine filed for divorce because he owed his bookie $70,000. He didn't actually want to leave his wife, but he figured he would get half the house in the divorce. His plan was to then sell it and pay off his debts. He had already blown through their entire life savings gambling. He was the worst guy ever.
47. Third Time’s the Charm
My wife divorced me because I reported her for domestic assault. She works in childcare, so it was absolutely imperative from her perspective that she controlled the narrative. Apparently, I am a liar, the officers are all liars, the children are liars, the baby gate smashed itself over my back, and the video of her doing all these things is also lying.
48. Paper Trail
My boss just got divorced. His wife was going around and telling people that one of her reasons was the amount of toilet paper he used. She was a super coupon clipper thrifty lady, and would listen out by the door when he went to the bathroom to see if he was using “too much TP.” Apparently, she felt that he was. And the rest is history!
49. Not His Cup of Tea
I do marriage therapy. I once had a client who had been a soldier stationed at Guantanamo Bay. He met a local while he was serving there, and they fell madly in love. They decided to get married so she could come with him back to the United States once his tour was complete. They were both very excited to start their new lives together.
In their new home, she was working on cooking American dishes for him, and was making spaghetti one evening. He comes home from work while she's making it. He watches as she puts the meat in, puts the canned sauce in, and then pulls an unlabeled bag out of the freezer and adds it to the sauce. I ask them what was in the bag. I still can’t believe the answer. It was so disturbing that it’s unforgettable.
At this point in our session, she's hysterically crying in her broken Spanglish. She's trying to explain that she didn't know any better. Through the hysteria, he informs me that her mother and grandmother had told her that if she wanted to keep her man, she needed to put her menstrual blood in his food. It was so hard to keep my composure when I heard that.
I was trying hard not to gag from laughter. Apparently, this is a very serious superstition in her family’s culture. They both described that they were madly in love, but he just couldn't let this incident go. They ended up getting a divorce over it. Having done this job for 14 years, I have found it 100% accurate that truth is stranger than fiction.
50. Liars Liars Everywhere
My brother’s first divorce happened after an utterly chilling incident. His wife had tried to drown their kids. She claimed that someone on the TV had looked straight at her and told her to do it. Oh, but his bad taste in women didn’t stop there. His second divorce was because his wife left him for her lifelong best friend's sister. A few years later, she left her new wife to come back to my brother. They are getting married again in October.
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Sources: Reddit,
