16 People Divorced In First Year Of Marriage Share Why

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4 days ago

We recently wrote a post where people who got divorced in their first year of marriage revealed the shocking reasons why. In the comments, more readers shared their stories, which range from devastating to absolutely shocking. Here's what they had to say:
"We were together for seven years before getting married, so I thought it was a sure thing. About six months after the marriage, he started getting distant. One night, I asked what was wrong. Completely blindsided me by saying he couldn't do it anymore, and he wanted out. He moved out shortly after claiming we had grown apart and weren't the same people. It turns out he was with a woman from his work; they married two years later and have a kid now."
"I was in my early 20s and had a young child from a previous relationship when I married my high school sweetheart. I broke up with him in high school because he cheated. I never felt the same about him. He had never gotten over me and pursued me consistently. Against my better judgment, I gave in because marrying him seemed to make sense. He proposed, probably a month after I agreed to be his girlfriend. He went out of his way to care for my daughter and me. After marriage, he flipped a switch."
"I married the Mormon missionary who baptized me. Moved from California to Tennessee, where his mother refused to let go of her 'baby.' I was pregnant after one month of marriage. His mother convinced him that he didn't love me and needed to divorce me. She had us over for dinner, where she tried to convince me to give our son up for adoption to his only sister. My dad flew out to Tennessee and packed my Ford Ranger up and drove me back to California."
"She was emotionally cheating on me with a friend for about 10 months and had had multiple physical affairs I never knew about. We'd been together five years, living together for three, and had a house together. We got married last June, then in September, our mutual friend, with whom she was having an emotional affair, gave her an ultimatum of either leaving me for him, or he would break things off. She freaked out and wrote me a letter about how she had been having this emotional affair since our engagement, six months before the wedding, and it was going strong, but she wanted to be honest with me and tell me herself. ... I decided to stay with her and give couples therapy a chance because I was raised that you don't just give up on a marriage. After all, a situation gets difficult, or someone makes a mistake. Through that, though, she ultimately confessed that she had several physical affairs in the past five years."
"I had just turned 21, and he was 31 when we first got together. We were together for four years, and it was alright (in hindsight, there were tons of red flags I ignored). We rushed the marriage because I needed health insurance. We were already engaged, but I had doubts that I chose to ignore because of health insurance. We had a little court wedding, and that night, he started laying out 'rules' for how a wife *should* act. I knew then I had messed up badly. Four months later, I filed for divorce."
"He was a Navy corpsman stationed out of state. When I called in the wee hours to tell him I was taking our infant son to the ER, a sleepy woman answered. I heard her tell him, 'It's your wife. Tell her, don't call here anymore.' When he came home, the top picture in his wallet was a strange baby girl. I found out that it was his daughter. He had started a new family near his post. I was done."
"I was older, 36, previously married, and had a child. He was younger, 30, and never married. After a few dates and starting to have strong feelings, I had a conversation like, 'It's early and probably too soon, but it's pointless to go further if you want to have children. I'm not having any more, my tubes are tied.' He reassured me that he would be happy with me and my child. Fast forward, we get married within a year of dating, and then after a couple of months of marriage, he asks me to have my tubes untied. Um, no, that's why I told you that from the start."
"We met in college and stumbled through years of an on-and-off, mostly long-distance relationship. I was young, hopeful, and maybe too eager to become a wife. We hopped from state to state, chasing fresh starts, but everything shifted once we landed in Texas. That's when the distance between us wasn't just about geography anymore. He started pulling away, blaming stress from his new job. His phone was always off. When I asked why, he casually turned it on like I was overreacting. When I questioned the woman who kept calling, he brushed it off: 'Just a colleague,' he said. She even vouched for their 'friendship,' managing to convince me I was out of my mind for doubting it. Still, something felt off. Marriage — once the topic we danced around with excitement — suddenly became a conversation he avoided like the plague. When I finally threatened to leave, he flipped the script."
"I asked for a divorce exactly a year later when his drinking became his only priority, and his family made excuses for it. In our year of marriage, he lost his job, drove drunk with my child in the car, and told his mom every 'bad' or 'wrong' thing I did so she would yell at me for her son. It got so toxic, I felt like the only good thing I could do was walk away."
"I knew it was a bad idea. His horrid mother had pushed us until we married after canceling a wedding that she had taken over. My parents were shell-shocked that I still married the guy. It was over as it began, but we stayed married for nine years. Again, my mother-in-law pushed us to stay together, have a kid, etc. We were so young that neither of us realized that his mom just wanted to dominate our lives."
"It all started in January when I met my ex. I wasn't looking for love — just something new, a shift in my routine. But he had this way of making everything feel alive. We clicked instantly. Conversations felt effortless, like we'd known each other in another life. By March, we were practically inseparable. It was fast — too fast, according to some. But to us, it felt right. We got married in June, in a small ceremony with just our closest people. There was so much hope at that moment. We really believed love could carry us through anything. But by September, the cracks started to show. Living together uncovered more differences than we anticipated — how we communicated, handled stress, and what we each wanted out of life. What used to feel exciting started feeling like constant friction."
"We were together for four years before getting married, and there were so many signs I should run for the hills and moments I would think, 'You don't want this; leave now!' We were both previously married and were trying to blend our families. We decided to get married before our actual wedding. I didn't tell my parents or friends, which is unlike me because they knew everything. On our wedding day, I knew I should walk away, but I didn't."
"My ex-husband and I had an on-and-off relationship for several years. We shared a child and later married simply because he had nowhere else to go. On our wedding day, after we exchanged vows and kissed, he told me he loved me — for the first time. I brushed it off at the time, but once he moved in, I realized he had a severe alcohol addiction. [Eventually], I knew I had to leave. I left a few months before our two-year anniversary."
"When we married, I knew she was pregnant but didn't care. We both agreed that the child would be mine because she wanted nothing to do with his dad. After we married, every day while I was at work (I found out from a friend later on), she would see the child's dad while the kid was in daycare. Then, while I was at home with the child, she would say she had school. Yes, she did some college at night, so I didn't second-guess it. After a while, my friend finally told me what she had seen. I asked my wife about it, and she said nothing was going on. The next day, I found her moved out of our place and into his. This was all within four months of being married."
"I married my first husband when I was 21, and he was 22. We had dated for less than one year. He was in the army and was getting stationed in a new base, and he didn't want to go without me. So romantic, right? Even though I knew it was a rash decision, I did it anyway. About three months after we got married, he cheated on me with our neighbor's 15-year-old sister, who was visiting for the summer. I did not find out about it until three months after that, when I stumbled upon love letters she had written him, complete with naked pictures taken inside my house."
And finally...
"I had a lot of fun in high school. I played football and was very social. However, college was a difficult time. My parents' finances collapsed, and my mom committed tons of fraud on me — a whole other story — and I became super serious and lost touch with my best friends. Shortly after college, I met a very nice girl and someone I would have never pictured myself as being with when I was growing up — quiet, reserved, and kind of dull — but that's what I kind of became. People my age were getting married, so five months in, I proposed. It felt…okay. We went to different schools but were from the same town; both of us were known. When the time came to line up the wedding party, I reached out to my old friends, who were excited for me, but there were clear 'what is he doing?' vibes. Nothing felt right, except that this event brought my old friends back into my life."
Wow. If you went through a divorce in your first year of marriage and feel comfortable telling your story, share in the comments. Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.