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September 26, 2020 | Scott Mazza

Crash And Burn: These Messy Marriages Unraveled In Horrific Ways


All good things come to an end—but bad things end bitterly. No one expects to get divorced when they walk to the altar, and they certainly don’t expect their marriage to completely unravel in a matter of months. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to these brides and grooms who made the rash decision to say, “Yes.” From nightmare weddings to horrific honeymoons, these messy marriages will have you thinking twice before putting a ring on it.


1. Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

Two months after our wedding, he told me that I was “too fat” and that he would no longer be getting intimate with me. Heartbroken, I lost 75 pounds in three months by doing it the wrong way. Then he made a cruel revelation. He told me he was already seeing someone else. That was the end of that…although he seemed surprised my parents would no longer pay his bills.

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2. The Proof Is In The Footage

This is a true story. It was my wedding day. I’m happy, nervous, exhausted, and expectant. I’m waiting for my bride to come walking down the aisle when I get a ping to my phone. I look…and it’s a private, homemade video of my wife-to-be with another man. I went through with the ceremony for show, but never signed the papers after.

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3. Till Debt Do Us Part

A friend was on her honeymoon when her new husband’s credit card started getting declined everywhere. Turns out, he had tens of thousands of credit card debt she didn’t know about…and other things. He told her his debt was now her debt, and he wouldn’t agree to a divorce until she paid off his debt. It took years. And then she made a dark discovery.

As it happened, the reason for his massive debt was that he had another family, and they lived just down the street.

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4. In Sickness And In Health

One of the final straws for me—and there were multiple, of course—was when I had surgery on my nose, sinuses, and throat. He stayed at my place that night and the next day so he could “take care” of me. All he actually did was whine and complain about how he couldn’t get comfortable enough anywhere to play on his laptop.

He also said that I was taking up too much space in bed, because I needed three pillows to keep me propped up in a sitting position so I wouldn’t choke while I slept on all the gross stuff coming out of my nose and down my throat. He then told me that since it was my place, I would have to get his meals ready and pretty much do everything for him like I was hosting a guest.

I had to kick him out the next day so I could actually recover from surgery instead of catering to him. He was baffled by how upset I was, because to him the surgery obviously wasn’t a big deal since I was released on the same day. I knew then, though, that if anything more serious happened, it would probably be some other reason why he couldn’t be there for me. I divorced him soon after.

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5. A Horrific Second Impression

I had a friend who married one of the most horrible people I’ve ever met. The weird thing was, he was so charming at first, but within the first three months of them being together, we all started to notice a few things and we decided none of us liked him. One day, though, we made a discovery that made our blood run cold.

We saw hand-shaped bruises on her arms. Well, literally the next day they were at the courthouse getting married. We had a small gathering shortly after, which he ended up turning into their wedding celebration, bachelor party, whatever he could to make it all about him. He drank a lot, and then basically attacked her in front of all of us. Over something so small.

She told us they didn’t have their rings yet, but they would get them soon, and he walked over to her and started strangling her for “embarrassing” him. She ended up breaking down and realizing that for the entire four months of their relationship, and nine days of their marriage, he had progressively gotten more and more hurtful, and she made a mistake.

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6. Dr. Jekyll And Mrs. Hyde

My new wife changed the second I said, "I do." She instantly became controlling, manipulative, and would lie about anything to get her way, and then double down when she got caught. The marriage lasted about 10 months. Before we got married, she was considerate, kind, and sweet. Apparently, that was just all for show.

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7. You Can’t Change Him

I had two good friends who were brothers, and they were party animals. They went drinking at bars all the time, slept with different women every weekend, just the whole kit and caboodle. Their idols were frat boys back in the day and any character from the movie Animal House. They just loved that whole bachelor lifestyle, and to be honest, I was a bit jealous of the fun they were having, since I had been in a longer-term relationship for many years.

Eventually, the younger brother settled down and got engaged to a really nice girl. When that happened, something broke in the older brother’s mind, and he suddenly was in some sort of "race" to get married before his younger brother. But it’s not like he changed his life around. Instead, he kept living the bachelor lifestyle, and then one day just announced to us all he was engaged to be married.

Then he dropped the real problem: He and his fiancée had set a wedding date that was just six months before his younger brother. Keep in mind, too, that none of us ever met this girl before we found out he was engaged. When we did meet her, our jaws dropped. It was clear he had not been open with her about his lifestyle.

She was a very prim and proper lady. Very shy, quiet. They worked together, so she only knew the professional side of him. Over the months leading to the wedding, his partying kept going. He was cheating on her with one-night stands, but she was totally oblivious. Our group of friends told him he needed to tell her what he was doing, but he refused.

Eventually, I was nominated to be the one to tell her before it was too late. I met her for coffee and told her how he was cheating on her and everything else he was doing. She was generally taken aback, but that meeting did NOT go well. She told me to my face that she was still going to marry him and that she could change him.

I left with a clear conscience after that. Fast-forward to their wedding day, and it is an absolute mess. He is drinking before the reception even starts and passes out in a corner sometime after dinner. As I am leaving, I say goodbye to his bride, and I can see it in her eyes. The very definition of regret and “Oh my God, what have I done.”

They ended up being together for exactly one year. Her final straw was when she really wanted to go out for a special brunch for their one-year anniversary. She made plans at a fancy place. He told her he was going out to party the night before but would be home in time to get some sleep before their anniversary started.

Well, he ended up hooking up with some girl he picked up at the bar, and when he finally made it home the next afternoon, his wife had packed her bags and left. I felt bad for her at first, but then I remembered how I put everything on the table with her and yet she still married him. I've never seen or spoken to her again.

The worst part? My friend ended up repeating his pattern. However, he is on his fourth marriage now, but does seem to have finally settled down this time.

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8. Forget You

To be honest, I didn't really want to be married to her. However, she was determined to get married by age 24 regardless of who it was with, and at the time I had significant difficulties saying "No." I was working 60+ hours a week in a kitchen to help pay for everything, and I was struggling with my mental health at the time.

We grew further and further apart emotionally. Then I found out fewer than five months into the marriage that she had been unfaithful to me for at least a year—so while we were planning the wedding, she had been sleeping with other people. Then it took an even darker turn. She told me that during this time, she had had an abortion because she didn’t know if I was the father.

When I found this all out I basically had a breakdown and tried taking my own life. I also spent a few years after this blaming myself for the breakdown of my marriage and her behavior. I’m in a much better place now, without her.

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9. There Goes The Honeymoon Phase

It wasn't my marriage, but I am involved in the story. Basically, my ex-girlfriend's boss left his wife ON THEIR HONEYMOON, because she and him were having an affair while I was dating her. They had the wedding and flew off to Bali, but he was sneaking off into the bathroom to send my girlfriend intimate pictures of himself while he was there.

I saw one of the pictures and confronted her. She admitted to it and messaged him back to tell him that I had found out. My understanding is that he basically came out of the bathroom, told his wife, "I think this was a mistake. We shouldn't have gotten married,” got on a plane, and flew home. He left her there on her own. On their freaking honeymoon. With no explanation.

So I think the marriage lasted all of about three days. This all happened about 10 years ago. She was my first girlfriend from high school, and we had been together for 10 years, so I was 24 at the time. I'm actually fine about it now because we were unhappy and it really wasn't meant to be, and I'm happily married. Still, the boss and my ex were having a full-blown affair and had been sleeping together for several months before his wedding.

He would also send her just generally intimate and lovey-dovey messages about how much he missed her and how much he wished it was her there with him instead of his wife.  However, the message that I happened to see, which blew the whole thing wide open, did include a picture of his nether regions, as well as a bedroom picture she had sent him in return. And that’s not the end of the story.

A couple of weeks later, my friend called me with a message. You see, I had told him what happened and he had told someone, who had told someone who actually ended up knowing the “wife” in this situation and had told her. This is how she learned the truth of why her husband stiffed her on their honeymoon and never told her why.

Through that same chain of people, she got the message back to me requesting that I call her so we could talk. I had actually met her a couple of times before through my ex and her work but I barely knew her. So, I called her. She invited me over and we had a long talk. I told her everything I knew from my side. She hadn't learned any of this until she had heard it through that friend, so it was pretty rough.

I moved on quickly, but they had a really rough and messy divorce. However, I did run into her a few years ago, and she was remarried and seemed very happy. As for the two offending parties: They did start dating publicly, which I think caused a lot of drama and friction in their personal lives. Hugely so at their work with the other employees, as you can imagine. I heard they broke up after a few years together.

Also, my wife just reminded me of another detail, since I've told her the story before. My ex was invited to the boss’s wedding, but I wasn't; she said it was because they were trying to do it on a budget. I found out later that at the wedding, my then-girlfriend got really wasted and upset and started causing a scene. It was apparently bad enough that the best man had to get her in the back of his car and leave the wedding early to take her home since it looked like she was about to spill the beans in front of everyone.

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10. Full Disclosure

My marriage ended with one phone call. My (former) buddy called me to tell me he got herpes from my wife. I was in Afghanistan. For what it’s worth, I did not contract it. My buddy called to warn me. I'm retired now and remarried happily to an amazing woman who somehow tolerates me, and I’m actually thankful that my friend confessed and told me. It was the right thing to do.

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11. All’s Well That Ends Badly

On our honeymoon, she didn’t want to do anything but fight, so I left two days early to be with my dog. Then she stopped wearing her ring and refused to tell people she was married, referring to me as her boyfriend instead. The final straw was when my grandpa was passing and she said, “I wish he’d just hurry up and die already. I’m tired of this apartment being so depressing all the time”

I made it four months in all before filing for divorce. We were together for about a year, give or take a little, in total. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice the red flags. The relationship seemed relatively normal right up until we got married. She had her share of issues (bad childhood, severe anxiety, all of that stuff) but I was dumb and thought I could fix them.

If there were red flags, why did I marry her? Well, I had just had a really bad breakup with my girlfriend of four years a few months before meeting my first wife. We had made plans for our future—marriage, kids, the works—and the breakup really messed me up. I was insecure and afraid of being alone, so I probably would have married anyone. Young, dumb, and unaccustomed to heartbreak.

Did I keep the dog? Of course. I may have gotten rid of the wife, but no chance in heck was I getting rid of the dog. We took her and moved her far away, and now she’s got lots of people around all the time to spoil her and fatten her with treats. She recently got a little brother. Things are better now. I took a few years of being single and just learning who I was and wanted to be. I’m happily remarried, and this time it’s stuck.

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12. Instant Regret

Before I met my girlfriend, she was dating a guy for about seven years or so. Due to family pressures, tradition, and everything like that, she went and got married to the guy...it unraveled instantly. Like, they went home in separate cars because she said they both realized it was a mistake immediately. She lived with her cousins for six months because she was too scared to tell her parents.

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13. Open Season On Open Marriages

My friend got trapped in an awful marriage that ended quickly once this happened. So, one day really soon after the wedding, the husband suggests an open marriage. For some reason, the wife agreed, but mostly because she didn’t want to disappoint her husband and wanted to fix the relationship. Well, this turned out to be a big mistake—but not for her.

Fast forward three months into the open marriage...the husband gets jealous because she finds a hot guy, and it turns out the wife likes the guy better than her husband. They lasted six months in total.

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14. The Family Man

My older sister’s marriage lasted about 40 days. She didn’t think anything was wrong—until my little sister came forward with a disgusting allegation. She said he had been molesting her for the last four months. Sadly, that wasn’t all. When the authorities took him in, they found a video of me getting dressed on his phone.

I thank God every day that my little sister came forward when she did because he was grooming me to be his next victim. He was sentenced to 12 years and has no contact orders with everyone in my immediate family.

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15. Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Married

My brother experienced this. He had a wedding on the beach, and everyone was drinking a lot and it was super casual. Part of the “joke” of the wedding was that when the officiator asked if anyone had any objections, everyone had an objection. And…it became pretty clear that no one was joking. They yelled terrible stuff at the two of them for a good two or three minutes before he yelled something back like, "Screw you, I'm marrying this woman regardless."

It was crazy cringey to witness, but he told me after, "You know, I had half a mind to call it off right then as I listened to what they were saying and realized everyone was probably right." It ended a few months after that.

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16. When The Cat’s Away…

We weren't officially married, but I was planning a wedding with my ex-fiancée, and I did most of the work. On top of that, I’m a nurse, and my father was dying of cancer on the other side of the United States. Between work and time off to care for him, I wasn’t in the house much for a few months as my dad had taken a turn for the worst. Later, I found out the dark truth.

I discovered that she had been sleeping with her ex-boyfriend both when I was working night shifts and when I was in California caring for my dying dad. I broke it off just two months before the wedding and lost a lot of money in the process. I still can't believe that evil witch cheated on me while my dad was passing.

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17. Stay-At-Home Husband

Not me, but my brother. He got his first serious girlfriend during his senior year of college. He was doing a lot of different stuff with her and told me that he was really happy. I told him that I thought that was great, but that he needed to remember to take things slow since it was his first relationship. A week later, he bought a ring.

Everyone in my family attempted to talk him out of it. Everyone. But I knew my brother was going to do whatever he wanted, so I just said "Sure." They rented a house, bought furniture, moved in, got married…and after a month, they got divorced. I think it was soon enough to get an annulment, but I'm not sure. What broke them up was so small and so big at the same time.

The main thing was that my brother wanted to move out of our hometown when he was finished with college. His wife, however, was completely fine never leaving. I mean, I don't even think she was going to school, and she would just sit at home all day and not do a whole lot else. Didn’t want to broaden her horizons at all. So, that was that.

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18. A Slap In The Face

My friend’s marriage didn’t last through the reception. The groom got wrecked and slapped her child from a previous relationship…before hitting the bride in the face. The groom was a truck driver (long and short-haul) so he and the bride didn’t spend a ton of time together over their relationship. She didn’t know he was like that.

His actual attack on her happened behind closed doors and was kept pretty hush-hush until the next morning to save face. Still, she went out and filed for an annulment the next morning. This all happened about 10 years ago, and I’m no longer in contact with the bride, but last I heard she was doing better and had moved on.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the groom had also racked up several thousands of dollars in debt in the bride’s name during the relationship that she didn’t discover until things started falling apart.

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19. Momma’s Boy

Two years into our marriage, his mom asked to move in and I said I’d leave if she did. He let her anyway, and I left. I know that sounds horrible on my part, but let me explain. Their relationship was repulsive to me and I despised her as much as she despised me. She talked bad about me to her son all of the time, and she always needed him to rescue her because she never learned how to be a functional adult.

I am positive she would sleep with him if it wasn’t illegal. I think it’s been three or four years since then, and they still live together. It was just one of those moments where I thought, if he doesn’t stand by me now, he never will.

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20. The Father Of All Jerks

When I found out that I was pregnant, I was certainly a little nervous and didn’t know that I wanted it. But my husband’s reaction made my blood run cold. While I was waffling, he simply stopped talking to me for several days. He then pressured me into having the abortion when I realized I did want to keep it, then we divorced.

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21. Getting Her MRS Degree

My male cousin went to a very conservative Church of Christ university where the women who attend there are infamous for trying to get married right after graduation. The girl he was dating was no different. They got married six months after they graduated with a HUGE Southern wedding: 10 bridesmaids, 250 guests, at least 7 different wedding showers, a band, and open bar AT THE REHEARSAL DINNER, etc.

So, they get married and are divorced four months later…because she was cheating on him the entirety of their relationship. They slept together just once on their honeymoon and fewer than three times after that. Some people want a wedding and not a marriage. Of course, that witch kept ALL the wedding gifts they received, even the ones from his family.

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22. Do As I Say, Not As I Do

My ex was manipulative and found every excuse not to meet my friends or limit my time away from my family. Long story short, we ran into one of my good friends in the mall and they seemed to hit it off really well. I was happy because I was like, yes, I could finally have a double date, because that’s what my friend suggested.

But when we got home, she mentioned that she didn’t like his job. Even though he was one of the nicest and funniest guys in the world, that was it. I saw that she just purposely kept me away from everyone! And that made me so angry. She ended up cheating on me with some guy out of the country, which was the final straw.

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23. Behind The Veil

I attended a wedding a few years ago that wasn’t over-the-top extravagant, but is what I want if I could ever save up enough money—beautiful venue, open bar with local beers, great food, and tastefully decorated. But don’t judge a book by its cover. A couple of months after, we heard through our friends that he’d been cheating with one of the bridesmaids in the year or two leading up to the wedding.

Apparently, he had this idea that nothing he had done had real repercussions or harmed anyone, so he didn’t see the big deal.

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24. Fool Me Twice, Shame On You

My ex was with a woman for five years, and they were married for 2-3 months. She had cheated on him and got caught before the wedding, but they somehow managed to work it out. She had also pressured him into the marriage by giving him money and saying, "If you don't come back with a ring, it's over." Great start, I know.

So, two to three months into the marriage, he had noticed that she was acting shady again. Excusing herself to the bedroom randomly with her iPad, and going to her girlfriend's house (she's straight) at any given hour to have sleepovers and hangout. Well, one day she left to go to her girlfriend's as usual, and he found she had left her iPad this time, which she usually kept closely guarded. Then he saw messages he wished he could unsee.

He found exchanges between her and at least three different men, and one message from her to the man who bagged their groceries, saying that she was pregnant. My ex cannot have children. The other two men she had cheated with were a co-worker and the security guard at the local mall. She was just the very definition of indiscriminate.

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25. The Phone Call That Ended It All

We unraveled one week after getting married. Exactly seven days. I heard him in the bathroom with the shower on, but he was talking on the phone. As if the shower was loud enough so that I couldn't hear him. Anyway, I grabbed the phone and ran...I mean RAN out the back door to the other side of the pool, so no matter which way he came toward me, I would move the opposite direction.

No surprise it was a girl. She told me he had never mentioned he had a wife or was seeing anyone. They apparently had been dating for months. He told me a lie of how he kept trying to end it with her but SHE was possessive and wouldn't leave him alone and kept calling. I was 19 and stupid, so I stayed with him, but I knew at that moment I had made a mistake in marrying him.

Thank GOD we didn't have children. But, we stayed together for four years and I endured more than any woman ever should.

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26. More Than Just Cold Feet

Sitting across from the courthouse and waiting to go in to marry him, I knew it was the wrong choice. I thought. “You are going to look back on this moment and remember that you KNEW it was the wrong thing to do.” I certainly did. We only got married because I was living with him, and my whole family wouldn’t speak to us as we were “living in sin.” Well, we showed them.

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27. For Richer Or Poorer

We got married, everything went well. Went on a beautiful honeymoon too, also went really well. But when we came home from the trip, there was a Foreclosure notice posted on the house door. Suddenly, I realized he hadn’t been honest with me at all about his financial situation—but that wasn’t the worst part. His response? "Now it's your problem, too."

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28. Just Divorce The Whole Man

We got married by mail, a double proxy, which is only available from one US state. We’re both military. I actually knew before we got our marriage certificate that it wasn’t working because he became insanely controlling after we moved to Germany together. He would scream at me when I’d ask him to go on road trips on the weekends to see the adorable little German towns.

He would scream at me in front of all of his friends—my friends were never even invited over. He did not allow me to have access to my own money, which went into our joint account. And when I would buy something I felt I needed on Amazon, he’d scream at me, too. For what it’s worth, I would usually just buy soaps; I have very sensitive skin and can’t use the shampoo/body wash combos that are made for men.

He would scream at me over the littlest things, like how I folded our towels after they dried. The final straw was when we went on our “honeymoon” to Greece. He brought two guy friends along. He refused to sleep with me, and even told me he really didn’t want to be intimate with me at all anymore, and then he publicly humiliated me by screaming at me in a very public venue around a lot of strangers.

He of course was cool to his friends, and they went swimming while I sat in a beach chair and cried. I just knew it. We made it about four months before I moved out.

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29. A Lot Can Happen In A Year

Six months in. I was pregnant already, and he did not make good on multiple plans we made together. That’s about when I found out that he was secretly using substances, and that it was affecting his job. Then I found out he had been cheating on me our entire relationship. We separated nine months into the marriage; we were divorced just before our first anniversary.

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30. The White Widow

My oldest sister has been married five times. The first one was at 19, and they divorced because they were young and not ready to be married. The second marriage, she wasn't sure if she wanted to be married, and despite my mom advising her to walk away, she got married anyway. He cheated, she left. Her third marriage lasted 10 years, but they fought a lot. He was a doctor, she's a nurse, and they were two intelligent people who couldn't talk to each other about their problems. But her fourth one hurt the most.

The fourth husband was my favorite. He was kind-hearted, and the most loving and supportive spouse you could ever hope for. Well, I think she got bored and met someone while she was on a work trip. She sent us an email saying that her and her fourth spouse were starting to feel like they were just "friends" and she was moving to New Zealand to start a new life.

She wasn't fooling us; we knew there was a new dude. About six months later, she announced she had a new boyfriend, and a year after that we saw that they had been married. The kicker in all of this is, during my wedding, my very sweet English grandmother said to her. "Oh, I do hope that your marriage to (fourth) works out."

This upset my sister, but I don’t blame my grandma for pointing out her revolving door of husbands. I wish I could invite her fourth husband back into our family, we really miss him and his family.

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31. Mom And Dad Know Best

My first marriage lasted three months. She just kept allowing her parents to come over whenever they felt like it by giving them a key, and they came in and started taking anything they thought I shouldn't have. They took my $80 bottle of Crown Royal. They tried to take my gun I was going to use for work. They took one of my TVs.

I also had pots and pans and a knife set that cost me darn near $1,100, and they took all but one pan and left my knives. The worst thing they ever took, though, was really embarrassing. They kept coming in when no one was home…and took condoms from the bedside drawer.  Like nope. Boundaries. Plus, she was so sheltered her entire life that she didn't know how to live without anything.

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32. Lace And Lies

First I caught her sneaking out of bed at night to get online. As a computer guy, I ended up finding the name she was looking for. It was on a military installation. Well, I had friends in the building where she worked, and I tied the name to a co-worker of hers. I knew it was something more than just working together.

Well, one day I saw her stuffing something in her purse in the closet. She straight up told me she was going to his house, as she didn't think I knew or suspected anything. I called her out, we argued. I demanded that she show me what was in her purse, because I had a bad feeling about it. Its contents destroyed me. It was lingerie I bought her, which she was taking to go screw another guy. That ended us.

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33. An Open Book

Mine only lasted 18 months. I was a pushover, she drank too much. We were different, but it was working out for a while. A year in, my dad passed and I lost my job in the same week. Obviously, I was super stressed out. We took an RV trip vacation to get moving, process things, and create some fun couple moments.

Two weeks into the trip, she said she wanted an open relationship. I said I'm dealing with a lot right now, but I will think about it because we love one another. Later that same day, she said. “Let’s make a baby right now.” I said, “Shouldn’t we talk about the open thing before having a baby?” Her reaction was utterly cold-blooded.

She exploded. Told me I was denying her intimacy and was a horrible person, all that.  Well, we got home and she wanted to download Tinder together because that would be fun or something. I said that sounded like the opposite of fun. Warning signs always exist, but people make choices. Her choices turned “She’s fun” into “She’s unstable and destructive to herself and others.”

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34. The Sins Of The Father

My cousin was pressured into marrying the guy who knocked her up. They were both 21 at the time. When their son was a couple of months old, she was making dinner for her and her husband, and asked her husband to feed the baby, who was crying. He said, "No, I'm busy." What was he doing that was so important? Playing WOW.

They separated when their son was about four months old. She's now happily married to someone else, and that man adopted her son, partly because the biological dad wanted nothing to do with him.

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35. Competitive Dating

I've got two friends heading down a horrible road. They were married to each other, one of them cheated, nasty divorce. Now they are both in a race to see who can prove they moved on first and get married to other people ASAP. All their social media posts are about how the person they are now with is "The One" and "their true love."

If one of them posts a picture with their current partner, you can bet that within an hour the other one will post a picture. I can't wait to see how it ends.

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36. Mr. Wrong

We’d been married eight months when he punched me in the face. There were warning signs before, sure, but he had never, ever gotten physical before that. It was like me becoming his wife flipped a switch in him. To add insult to injury, he was completely gobsmacked when I filed for divorce that afternoon. Good riddance.

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37. Don’t Sleep On This One

I had a hysterectomy two days after we got back from our honeymoon. My (now ex) husband was in the room with me overnight because, well, shouldn't my husband be the person taking care of me? Except he yelled at me the entire night that my moaning in pain was bothering him and keeping him awake when he was trying to sleep.

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38. The Photo Finish

On our honeymoon, my husband was showing me something on his phone…but I also happened to see undressed photos of men on his camera roll, too. It was too much for me, no matter what his explanations. We never even ended up moving in together.

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39. You Can Choose Your Family

I almost knew things were over when his mother compared me to the family dog in her wedding speech, and his dad made a prejudiced joke in his. I knew it was over when I asked my husband to support me in talking to them about their behavior, and he told me to “stop making him choose between me and his mother.” No going back.

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40. A Stranger In Your Bed

A month after we got married, he wanted to re-enlist. I was against it, but he convinced me it would be for the best, and that I would be able to finish nursing school and we would be financially stable. While he was away for training, I was boxing up our apartment because we were about to get stationed over in Germany.

As I was packing, I came across documents from his prior service. When I read the papers, I was chilled to the bone. They talked about a previous marriage that I knew nothing about. When he called later that day, I asked him about it and he completely flipped. He became so full of rage that never went away after that.

I tried to talk through it and understand why he kept the marriage a secret. His answer always changed. I just never could understand and he seemed so uninterested in helping me. I was so unsettled, and I filed for divorce a month later. Later on, though, I found out that he had been married three times before me. You think you know someone.

Messy MarriagesPexels

41. That Will Take Years Of Therapy

It was my first marriage, and we had a fight on our wedding night. He refused to talk to me and slept on the couch. Big Red Flag. Being young and stupid, I stuck it out for another four years. At the end, even my therapist told me that divorce was my only good option. She had met him and told me that after the first session with him. He was mean and dismissive of anything that related to me.

Messy MarriagesPexels

42. Grounds For Divorce

Besides the narcissism, random violence, and violent outbursts, it was her strange punishments. Her last one doomed her. My crime? I forgot milk on the way home from work, so she didn't talk to me, not one word, for a week. PURE BLISS, for a week. When she asked if I was ready to apologize, I handed her the divorce papers. "Why?" "Because you rob me of solitude but provide me with no companionship."

Messy MarriagesPexels

43. A Turkey Of A Marriage

We were already not speaking at this point in our relationship. It was Thanksgiving. I knew she wasn't going to bother, but I made a turkey and whatever goes with turkey for my then eight-year-old daughter. I had the turkey out on the counter to rest after roasting. My beloved bride walked in, calmly threw the turkey in the kitchen trashcan, and walked out.

I had to take my kid to a freaking Golden Corral for Thanksgiving. That was it. I was done.

Messy MarriagesUnsplash

44. The Cloud Never Forgets

I was working on a mother-daughter scrapbook as a Christmas present for my new wife. As I did it, I was going through her Google photos account and looking for pictures of them together. That’s when I came across a selfie she took with some dude laying on her. Confirmed her second affair. Knew it was over the moment I saw it. That has messed me up pretty good.

Messy MarriagesUnsplash

45. Home Sweet Home

Her: "I can't live in this house anymore. It's not in a major city." Me: "We're less than an hour away from one. Also, I inherited this house. It costs me nothing but upkeep. Also, I pay every bill. You work six hours a week and have one class. Where do you get off demanding anything?" Her: "Buy me a new house or we're done." Me: "Get the heck out of my house."

Messy MarriagesUnsplash

46. The Huffy Housewife

I supported us working full time with a one-hour commute (each way) through a carpool. She complained about having to pick me up at the carpool stop after work because “it was happy hour” at the bars. But that wasn’t even the worst part. I later found out that she cheated on me constantly, which really ended things for us.

Messy MarriagesFlickr

47. One Mistake And Done

He casually invited his parents along on our honeymoon and told them we’d pay for it. AND they not only accepted, they were SO EXCITED and immediately wanted to take over planning it. Obviously, that wasn’t the only awful thing he did. Eventually, I found out he was cheating on me, and I fast-tracked the divorce before there were any kids or assets involved.

Messy MarriagesPexels

48. Too Big To Fail

I worked at a company where two employees were engaged. After they married, she sent out an all-users email advising us of her name change. Then, almost exactly a year later, she sent another one that notified us she was changing it back. Apparently, right up to the wedding, she was seeing someone else on the side whenever she could.

It seems that both she and her fiancé knew it was a mistake, but it was one of those enormous weddings and her father was paying out just a huge load of money. They were even having dance lessons for when the bride and groom have the first dance, that kind of deal. The whole thing was like a super-tanker that couldn’t be stopped, so they had their day and split up soon after.

Messy MarriagesPexels

49. A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Lies

I had some friends who got married and then quickly divorced within a year. It turns out, she had major doubts but went through with it anyway, then cried for the whole honeymoon and told him she had made a huge mistake. They posted all these normal pictures of them looking happy in Hawaii, but it came out later what a miserable nightmare the trip was.

Messy MarriagesPexels

50. Time To Get Over HIM

My cousin was married after a really quick relationship. His family had money, and I think she wanted a nice life. A few months later, though, she was in a horrific car crash that killed her nine-year-old sister, their grandmother, and left her with severe injuries. Like, it shattered most of her face, and she may have broken a hip and her back too if memory serves.

She was in a medically induced coma when her sister’s funeral occurred. Less than a month or two after she gets out of the hospital, her husband—they were married about six months at this point—says to her, “You need to get over the accident.” Well, that was certainly the end of that. I was really proud of her for leaving him.

Messy MarriagesPexels

51. Buyer Beware

The guy I married went instantly from being fun and adventurous to an absolute psycho. He stopped using my name and would just call me “wife” even after I asked him to stop. He started insisting that I didn't need other friends and would say, “Aren't you done with that?" when I would want to meet up with other people socially.

If I hung out with a guy, then I was cheating in his mind. I even caught him going through my phone to find "proof" when there was none. There were two incidents, however, that lead to the bitter end, and they’re terrifying. First, I woke up to him standing over me and calling me horrible names while I slept.

Then at a concert, he FREAKED OUT and had to be dragged off of me because I talked to an old male acquaintance for five minutes. That one left bruises, and I left him.

Messy MarriagesUnsplash

Sources: Reddit,


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