14 Young Divorcées On Why Their Marriage Fell Apart So Early

1. “We started dating in eighth grade and never broke up. So by the time we turned twenty-two, we figured…. we should probably just get married. It was kind of something we passively fell into, instead of a conscious choice.”

–Robert, 27

2. “We just fell out of love a lot earlier than many other divorced couples fall out of love.”

–Bryan, 28

3. “He was unfaithful, and at first I thought I could forgive him. But then I started holding it over his head during every argument, and couldn’t get rid of the bitterness I felt towards him. It destroyed us.”

–Alana, 32

4. “He had and still has a serious gambling problem.”

–Marcus, 30

5. “We got engaged in college and got married less than a year after being out. And even though that works for a lot of people, it didn’t work for us. We were in such puppy love during school, and once we graduated, we were so distracted planning the wedding that it wasn’t really real life that year. After the wedding, when it was time to live in the real world, we didn’t really know how to do it together. And we never figured out how.”

–Maggie, 26

6. “She cheated on me after we had only been married for 8 months. I figured if she had already done it that so quickly, there wasn’t much hope for us, so I filed for divorce.”

–Simon, 29 

7. “Everybody around us was getting married and we just felt like it was our turn. We grew up in a small town and that’s the way it still works here. But I think we both knew, in the back of our minds, that it wasn’t gonna work out. But we were both too afraid to say anything so we just did it.”

–Harper, 28

8. “I was ready to settle down and even though he loved me, he wasn’t ready. I didn’t give him any sort of ultimatum and never tried to guilt or force him into proposing to me. But he knew that’s what I wanted and that I would probably move on from him if he didn’t feel the same way. So he proposed and we got married, and then a couple years into it he had a meltdown.”

–Katherine-Grace, 30

9. “We both wanted kids going into it and after being married a couple years, I said I was ready to start trying but then he started having second thoughts. And we tried and tried to sort it out but I was too certain about wanting kids and he was too certain he didn’t. We had no chance.”

–Gerri, 31

10. “I didn’t wanna marry him. But I was almost 30 and was scared I was running out of time.”

–Jade, 35

11. “We were both in love with the idea of being in love.”

–Chris, 33

12. “I fell in love with someone else and I couldn’t help it and I still have a crushing sense of guilt for leaving him. But I’m also really, really happy with this new person, happier than I’ve ever been. It’s a weird feeling.”

–Claire, 32

13. “I still love her very dearly and I still believe she loves me very dearly, we will always be close. But my job kept taking me out of the country more and more and eventually they asked me to move overseas for 3-4 years and she told me she couldn’t come with me.”

–Shane, 31

14. “We both needed to figure out how to make tough choices and sometimes be selfless for the other person, and we never did. But we’re both now remarried and still on good terms with each other. And at least now we know that a large part of being married involves thinking about a relationship instead of just yourself.” 

–Sophia, 34