A Reddit thread has gone viral after asking 'Divorced people - looking back to when you got married, were there signs that your marriage wouldn't last?'
Commenters opened up about experiences of irregular sex, never working out how to explain the mental load to their partner, the opinions of friends, 'the canoe test' and more, with many others agreeing that they'd had similar issues themselves.
Here are some of the most discussed responses...
'All my friends thought I was making a mistake.'
'We married because we got pregnant. Shouldn't have done that.'
'I got married at the courthouse downtown. Immediately after signing the papers and being pronounced married, we walked outside to leave. My new husband spent the next hour and a half talking to his buddy and texting while I walked behind them. They then dropped me off at home and left. It didn't last long.'
'I'd say mine was when I was more interested in watching Men In Black on the TV in the hotel room than I was in getting ready for my own wedding.'
'We went canoeing with a recently engaged couple and not 10 feet from pushing off they had already flipped the canoe and were yelling at each other. And these were both avid outdoorsy people, not their first time canoeing. They were both miserable the rest of the trip. At that point we knew they just weren't right for each other. Their marriage wasn't ever all that happy yet lasted 5 years. I really think the canoe-test is a good way to judge a relationship; how well you work together and how you handle inevitable disaster.'
'It was too easy. He was too laid back. We never fought. I felt like a soul-sucking villain for asking him to share housework equally or discuss why he didn't want to have sex with me. He pulled away and became very secretive while I tried to figure out what was going on. he announced he was miserable and it was my fault. I asked to attend counseling. He refused. Separating.'
'One of my friends made a point to catch me right before walking down the aisle, and said, "I parked close, in case you wanted to run. Like seriously-- I'm parked RIGHT THERE." Should have f*cking left.'
'When I said sex once a month wasn't enough for me and she said, "Yes it is."'
Interestingly, another similar Reddit thread received almost 9,000 responses after one user asked, 'Divorced people of reddit, what was the final straw?'
'My husband was cheating.' I found out, and instead of immediately dumping his ass, I said, Let's try to work this out, but you have to dump the girlfriend. His response: 'But what if you and me don't work out?' DIRECT F*CKING QUOTE. And THAT was the final straw.'
'I came home from work. There was a note on the table. She had dropped our two kids off at her grandparents, told them she was going to the mall, and left the country.'
'It was pretty much the Emma Thompson storyline from Love Actually - peeked into a jewellery bag at what I thought was my Christmas gift, on Christmas morning got a goddamn Nook, instead. I was confused until a week later, via Facebook snooping, I saw his 'friend' showing off the gift. Shortly before that, I'd seen suspicious footprints all over our floor and he denied anyone had been in the house.'
'I came home early from work because of a migraine. Found him in bed with my best friend. Oddly, I was more hurt by her behaviour than his. Broomed them both that day.'
Probably when I returned home and found all the furniture, food and my wife missing. Another hint was the empty bank account.'
'She found out I was going blind after three years of marriage and that sorta broke what was left of a failing relationship. She was gone three months later. I had to stop driving and move to where I walk to work to stay employed. I moved into an empty apartment with a sleeping bag. I look back at that time and am pretty amazed I didn't lose my shit worse than I actually did.'
'Him being cruel to my son (not his son, my son from a previous marriage). That's something you can't accept.'
'We had our problems, but the final straw was probably when she slept with some other guy. In Australia. Using my money to buy the air tickets. She also tried to make me pay for the divorce.'
'We'd been struggling financially for a long time having barely recovered from job loss, eviction, and homelessness. We bought two pizzas at Aldi, one pepperoni for me and one supreme for her. She ate her pizza some night that week, I hadn't eaten mine yet. One day later that week, I'd been thinking about my pizza all day at work. When I got home from work, I found my pizza was gone. That pizza and her eating of it was symbolic of every decision she had made that showed a total disregard for me. That was the last crack in the dam.'
'She wasn't religious when we met. 10 years later she told me I was going to hell for believing in dinosaurs.'
'When I found an abortion follow up appointment letter. We hadn't had sex in over a year.'
