My spouse of half a decade UNEXPECTEDLY INITIATED divorce PROCEEDINGS with no clear

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Summary: A shocking turn of events as my spouse of half a decade unexpectedly initiated divorce proceedings without clear reasons, leaving me devastated and confused.  
Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, divorce, relationships, marriage, heartbreak, unexpected, separation, breakup, emotional, devastated, confused, love, support, advice, coping, moving on

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My spouse of half a decade unexpectedly initiated divorce proceedings
with no clear reason, but I accidentally listened in on
a surprising discussion with his buddy that unveiled the truth.
My partner, thirty two years old and I, a thirty
year old woman, got married five years ago. We'd been
dating for a round two years and I was head
over heels in love with him, so when he asked

(00:22):
me to marry him, I didn't think twice before saying yes.
My husband was an actor struggling to find work back then,
and I'm a surgeon, so I pretty much covered all
the household expenses. I didn't mind it at all, since
I wanted him to go after his dream and was
more than happy to take care of all the bills.
He barely made half of what I did and would

(00:43):
only be cast as an extra in most scenes, but
he never gave up. Recently, he landed a minor role
in a full length film, and I was thrilled for him.
He has around ten to fifteen minutes on screen, but
even that's a massive deal for him, and I was
thrilled about it. This happened a couple of months ago
and they're supposed to start shooting for his role in
a few weeks, but then everything fell apart from me.

(01:06):
Five days ago, when all of a sudden, my husband
served me with divorce papers. I was completely blindsided, since
I'd never even thought that he'd be asking me for
a divorce. He seemed pretty happy with me, and so
was I with him, so this was really sudden for me.
He told me that he just didn't feel the same
way about me any more and wanted to devote more
time and energy to his career now that he was

(01:28):
finally getting serious offers. It was just the beginning for him,
and he wanted a fresh start so he couldn't be
bogged down by the weight of his past life, which
apparently included me. I couldn't believe that he was saying
all of this to me, especially after all that I'd
done for us, all the sacrifices I'd made, and all
the times I'd made sure to put his dreams above

(01:48):
myself that led to this. Eventually, I think I must
have cried for hours that day and literally begged him
to give our marriage another shot, but he was done.
He told me that there was nothing that I could
any more and that he just didn't have any feelings
for me, which is why it would be in our
best interest to separate now. Then he packed up his
stuff and left me broken hearted. That was five days back,

(02:11):
and I was absolutely lost. For the next four days.
I didn't even go to work, that's how depressed I was,
and just kept wishing that i'd wake up from this
bad dream. Then yesterday I received a call from my
husband asking me if I could drop off some of
his more formal clothes at his friend's house where he's
living right now, since he has to attend a meeting tomorrow.

(02:32):
I agreed readily, since that would give me an opportunity
to see him in person and I could try to
convince him to come back once more. I guess I
was feeling pretty desperate, so I did what I had
to and head it over to his friend's place. Once
I got there, I realized that the door was open
and I could hear the sound of my husband and
his friend talking inside. I was about to knock and enter,

(02:53):
but then I heard his friend ask him why he'd
even married me in the first place if he didn't
have any intention to stay with me. That caught my attention,
and I decided to stay silent so that I could
eavesdrop on their conversation and get some answers. At least,
it seemed to me that they had already been talking
about me, and I just happened to walk time, well,
the right time for me, but yeah. Before answering his

(03:17):
friend's question, my husband let out a laugh and then
went on to say that the only reason he'd married
me was so that he could use me to get
ahead in his career. Other than that, there was no
love for me in his heart, and over the years
he cheated on me countless times with random women he'd
met on setter parties. I almost let out a gasp,
but I somehow managed to control it because I wanted

(03:38):
to hear more of what my dear husband had to say.
He continued talking and revealed that he'd met me through
a friend of his who told him that I was
the daughter of a really reputed dentel surgeon, which was true.
My dad is one of the best dentists in the state.
And my husband also knew that a really popular actor
just so happens to be a frequent client of my dad,
since he'd heard about it from a couple of friends

(03:58):
of his on the inside. Now I can't take names
for obvious reasons, but that's also true. Gradually, all the
puzzle pieces started to fall into place for me. As
he went on talking, he explained how he'd asked me
out as a last ditch effort to make his acting
career work, and the fact that I was pretty rich
and easy to manipulate was just a cherry on top.

(04:20):
So for five years he pretended to love me while
waiting for an opportunity to interact with my dad's famous client.
The opportunity finally presented itself at my dad's fiftieth marriage
anniversary party around five months ago, when he finally invited
a lot of his friends and of course his most
popular client, who also happened to be a close friend
of his. I had no idea how but my husband

(04:44):
had managed to speak to him at the party and
even impressed him by turning on the charm, and ended
up exchanging numbers with him. My dad's client had been
there for only half an hour, since he was really
busy otherwise, but even in that half an hour, my
husband had managed to get his number. As much as
I do to test him Now, I have to admit
that my husband can be pretty charming when he wants to,

(05:04):
so I wasn't surprised that he managed to pull it off.
But the fact that this is the reason he wasted
five years of not just his own life with me,
but put me through unimaginable heartbreak, yeah, I couldn't handle it.
To top it all off, I was the reason he'd
even landed this role in the first place, because the
director of this film signed him at my dad's client's advice.

(05:26):
So this was all thanks to me, and yet I'm
the one who's been cheated on and is now supposed
to get divorced. I really felt like walking in and
punching him in his face, but I kept my calm,
walked back to my car, and drove back home. This
was in the afternoon yesterday, so I had plenty of
time to rage and come up with a plan to
get back at this selfish monster. I came back home

(05:47):
and tried to meditate for a while because I felt
furious and was scared hurting him physically if I didn't
bring my emotions under control. So I did everything to
divert my attention and come up with a plan to
destroy him otherwise whis The only thing I could think
of doing was asking for the actor's phone number from
my dad, calling him up and demanding that my husband
be fired from the film, but I wasn't sure if

(06:09):
that would work, since this was a professional thing, and
I didn't know if they'd even care about what I
had to say. My dad's client had known me since
I was a college student, and we weren't particularly close,
but he knew me better than he knew my husband, obviously,
so eventually I decided that it was at least worth
a try, and ended up calling him in the evening.
After talking to my dad. I hadn't yet told any

(06:31):
one about the divorce, not even my family, since I
believed I could still turn things around, and this was
the first time I was about to acknowledge it, so
I felt nervous as hell. His assistant put me through
After a few calls and after a bit of uncomfortable
small talk, I finally blurted out what I wanted him
to do, and didn't stop talking until I told him
everything I had to say. I explained to him that

(06:52):
my husband had been cheating on me and had essentially
used me in my dad's contacts to land a role
in a film, and if there was any justice in
the world, he would use his influence to have him
fired from the film. I said this all in one breath,
and I'm sure he felt as uncomfortable with this confession,
if not more. There were a few seconds of silence
before he said that he'd look into it, and then

(07:13):
hung up after I thanked him. Now, obviously I was
pretty embarrassed by what had happened, but it was done.
I could only wait to hear back from either him
or my husband, so that's what I did. I think
Around two hours later, at ten p m. In the night,
I received several frantic calls from my husband, and that's
when I realized that he must have been fired already.

(07:34):
I couldn't believe that this was happening, and sent a
thank you text to the man who made it happen.
There hadn't been any contract, and it was just a
verbal agreement anyway, so it wasn't much of a hassle
for him anyway. He texted back and even wished me
luck for the future. So that was incredibly sweet of him,
and that actually restored my faith in humanity. I ignored

(07:55):
all of my husband's calls and texts, turned off my phone,
and went to sleep without a care in the world.
In fact, I think I must have had the best
sleep of my life so far, and I'm not even exaggerating.
But then this morning, a few hours after I woke
up and was about to leave for work, I heard
my husband screaming for me from right outside the door
and begging me to open up. I had no intention

(08:18):
of letting him in and told him that I needed
to go to work, so he needed to leave. He
wasn't ready to budge, and kept requesting me to speak
to him just one last time before I decided to
cut him out of my life. After a while, it
got kind of boring, so I let him in and
told him not to waste any more of my time.
He fell straight to his knees and started groveling, saying

(08:39):
that he'd made a mistake and that I was the
only woman he'd ever loved, so I needed to give
him one more chance. But now I was aware of
just how great an actor he was, so I didn't
feel sorry for him in the least. I let him
sob for a few minutes and then asked him how
that acting gig in the film was working out for him.
I'd made sure that it sounded like I was mocking him, because,

(08:59):
let's be real, that's exactly what I was doing, and
I think he must have looked surprised for a second
or two before he stood back up, letting the reality
sink in. Once he'd finally figured out that I'd been
the one behind him losing out on the opportunity of
a lifetime, he went berserk and started screaming in my
face about how I'd ruined his life and that he
was going to make me pay for it. I didn't

(09:21):
hold back either, and yelled right back, saying that he'd
been the one who ruined five years of my life
and that he deserved this and even worse. We must
have been screaming at each other for around five minutes,
but then he finally seemed to break down because he
knew that no amount of screaming and shouting was going
to bring back what he'd lost, not the role and
definitely not the good life he'd been leading with me,

(09:42):
and he had nobody else to blame for it but himself.
I almost felt sorry for him, But then, even while
he was crying, he made sure to warn me that
he'd take away everything in the divorce and make sure
I ended up on the street. Now, those were some
bold words, and any sympathy I felt for him vanished
immediately when he said that. I told him as politely

(10:02):
as I could to get the hell out of my house,
and he obliged, still crying but continuously calling me cuss
words under his breath. I decided to skip work once
again to day, since what had happened was really heavy
and awful, so I'm just not in the right state
of mind at the moment. A I t a for
ruining my husband's career right before it took off, because
he'd been using me for years and had even been

(10:24):
cheating on me. Update one. I finally told my friends
and family about the divorce, and they were just as
blindsided as I was when my husband had first told
me about what he wanted. But then I explained what
I had overheard at his friend's house, and they were
all so disgusted that they even told me that what
I'd done in retaliation was nothing in comparison to what
he'd done to me. My dad was obviously livid that

(10:47):
his son in law had used me and him to
get what he wanted. He wanted to go over to
his place and knock some sense into him with his fists,
but I managed to calm him down somehow. I'm glad
that most people agree with the fact that what I
dodd was totally justified, because what he'd done to me
was beyond cruel. He basically ruined my faith in men
and marriage forever, so I think he deserved to have

(11:10):
his hard work taken away from him. If he'd invested
years in his career, then even I had invested several
years in a crap load of money in our marriage,
So if he could single handedly ruin our marriage, then
I don't think me single handedly ruining his career should
be that big of a deal to him either, but
I guess it is. For whatever reason, he feels that
he was robbed of an opportunity because of me, and

(11:32):
keeps pestering me online to take back what I said
and somehow help him get the roll back. I keep
blocking his accounts, but unfortunately he's desperate enough to keep
creating new ones, so I'm considering going off of social
media altogether. I don't know why exactly he feels entitled
enough to even text me after what he's done. But
I think after a while he'll realize that he's done

(11:52):
for and there's no going back from this. I guess
whatever he'd said about ruining me and the divorce was
just nothing more than words, after all, because both of
us know quite well that he's not actually capable of
doing literally anything to me. Update two. I blocked my
husband on social media and deactivated my account a few
days back, but now I guess I have to change

(12:13):
my phone number as well. Since last night, I've received
around seventy to eighty spam calls from several different numbers,
and it's getting on my nerves. Every couple of minutes,
my phone starts buzzing relentlessly, and it's always some new number.
I don't know how he's doing this, but I know
it's him who's doing it. I even called him to
make him stop, and even tried to warn him, saying

(12:36):
that these little stunts would definitely affect the settlement. Obviously
I was bluffing. There's no settlement. I don't owe him anything,
but I was still trying to use it as leverage
so that he'd stop bothering me, but he was hell
bent that he had nothing to do with any of this.
I could tell by his voice that he was lying,
but he kept denying it, and that was even more

(12:56):
frustrating for me to deal with. Towards the end, when
I I was about to cry, he implied that the
calls might stop by some miracle, and the miracle involved
him getting his roll back. I actually ended up screaming
some select curse words at him through the phone as
loud as I could, and then turned it off. I
still haven't turned it back on, and I'm using my
laptop to access the internet right now. I'll only turn

(13:19):
it back on after I can get a new number,
and hopefully then he won't be able to drive me
nuts because he won't even be able to get to me.
As for the divorce, I think every one knows that
I'm not going to contest it, and we're supposed to
appear in court in a few days. I don't know
why he's misbehaving with me in spite of the fact
that we're supposed in just a few days, and he
knows very well that I can mess him up if

(13:40):
I want to. Lucky for him, I don't really want to.
I did what I had to, and now I just
feel like letting this whole thing go peacefully and without
putting up a fight any more. I don't think holding
on to this rage and letting myself be bothered by
his existence will ever allow me to truly move on
from this episode. So I just want to be done now.

(14:00):
I don't care what becomes of him, whether he succeeds
in the future or fails. I just don't care and
don't want anything to do with him any more. Now
up date three. So the day after tomorrow, my husband
and I were supposed to appear in court, and a
freaking course, he couldn't just let that happen without doing
something insane and psychotic. I changed my numbers and so

(14:20):
he couldn't get to me any more since my social
media accounts were deactivated as well. I was so sure
that I had him beat this time and he'd just
have to give up. But I guess I underestimated just
how psycho he is. I was on my way back
home last evening and was about to get into my
car when my husband came out of absolutely nowhere and
got into the seat beside me. Then he proceeded to

(14:42):
lock the doors of the car from within before I
even had time to react. As soon as I realized
what was happening, I grabbed my purse to get my
pepper spray out, but I was too late, since he'd
already taken it away from me and tossed my purse
to the back seat. I was terrified and was ready
to apologize or whatever it was that he wanted me
to do at that moment. He spoke to me really calmly,

(15:03):
which scared me even more, and told me that he
didn't want much from me. He just wanted me to
call my dad's actor client up, take back whatever I
told him, and make sure he gets the roll. I
thought that was easy enough, but my phone was in
my purse, so I told him that I needed it
to make the call. Now. I'm not stupid, but my
husband sure is. As soon as he handed me the purse,

(15:27):
I grabbed my pepper spray and I think I emptied
half of it in one go. I could barely see
anything because my eyes were watering and stinging so bad,
but his condition was even worse than mine, and he
was literally spluttering for breath. After getting sprayed, I unlocked
the doors, pushed him out of the car and left
him coughing on the ground before driving away. I only

(15:48):
managed to get out of the parking lot and a
few yards away from my work place before I got
out of my car, since I was struggling to see
anything and definitely couldn't drive back home in that condition. Thankfully,
a cab pulled up for me, and the driver seemed
to be the helpful kind as well. He realized that
there was something really off and offered to drive me
to the nearest and I said yes without thinking twice.

(16:10):
The next two hours were a blur for me, honestly,
because I was still really shaken up from what had
happened to me back in the parking lot. I knew
that my husband was crazy, but this was way more
than what I'd bargained for. I could hardly even believe
that I'd been happily married to this man for five
years and he was the one putting me through this
crap now. Thankfully, he was placed under arrest since he

(16:32):
hadn't been able to get away from the parking lot
because of how bad his condition was. When they brought
him in, his face was still red and slightly swollen,
and I'm glad that he was in pain. Once I
pressed charges against him, I left, but instead of going
back home, I headed to my parents place instead. Honestly,
I just didn't feel safe by myself any more and

(16:53):
haven't been out of the house ever since I came here.
My parents have been really kind and have been looking
after me like i'm their looks girl again, so that's
some consolation for me. My dad's promised me that he's
going to make sure that this man gets a befitting punishment,
and I'm not going to stop him this time. Some
men need to learn that they can't just push women
around and get away with it. Update for Hey there,

(17:17):
it's been a few weeks since the last update, and
I'm happy to inform you guys that my husband was
sentenced to three months in prison and a hefty fine
for what he'd done to me. I wish he'd had
to face more time, but it's all right. This seems fair.
As for the divorce, we were able to fast track
it and it's going to be finalized way sooner than
usual divorce cases given the circumstances. He's also not entitled

(17:40):
to any compensation at all, so hooray for me on
that as well. I've sold the house in even my car,
so that there's no way he can ever track me
down again. I've also started working at a newer and
better hospital which is a lot closer to my parents place,
so it's more convenient for me to travel back and forth. Yeah,
I'm still living with them, since they absolutely refuse to

(18:02):
let me go back to living by myself, even though
my husband literally can't get to me any more, at
least not right now. But I'm actually sort of happy
that they're keeping me close because honestly, I still haven't
recovered from the shock of it all. I've begun therapy
to deal with my emotions, but of course I'm going
to take time to heal and can't just expect everything
to go back to normal in a day or two.

(18:24):
In spite of my best efforts to push him out
of my mind, I still find myself looking back at
the years that we spent together. I can't believe that
it was all just lies and nothing more than that,
because some parts really did feel sincere. Every time I
find myself thinking about him, I actively forced myself to
remember what happened afterward, and the incident in the parking lot,
and that seems to bring me back to the present.

(18:47):
I know these wounds won't heal so soon, but I'm
taking one day at a time, and hopefully I'll be
all right some day soon. And I swear that day
couldn't come soon enough