10 Reasons People Divorce After Less Than A Year Of Marriage

10 Reasons People Divorce After Less Than A Year Of Marriage
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It's hard to count the number of celebrity couples who rushed into marriage then promptly filed for divorce just months later.

But that doesn't only happen in Hollywood. We all know someone (or have a friend who knows someone) who walked down the aisle only to divorce not long after. What happened, you can't help but wonder. They divorced so quickly, they had to have had some doubts, some understanding that there were problems in the relationship -- and if that's the case, why did they go forward with the marriage in the first place?

Many short-lived marriages begin because couples assume things will change for the better once they're wed, says Terri Orbuch, a therapist and author of Finding Love Again: 6 Simple Steps to a New and Happy Relationship.

"They think, once things settle down, once he gets a job or we live together, things will change. He will not do this or that. She will be different," Orbuch told the Huffington Post. "They assume the problems they're having are a result of them not living together, the stress of planning a wedding, or not being settled or fully committed yet, when it's the core relationship between the two people that's the problem."

"They just might be incompatible," Orbuch explained, "When it dawns on them, that's when you see couples divorce."

This question of why couples divorce after mere months of marriage was at the heart of an Ask Reddit discussion Tuesday. Read the 10 most revealing responses from those who were married briefly below.

1. "I'll spare you the sob story: We were together for four years. I had reservations but due in part to some past issues with my family, I went ahead and married him. He was all I really had and I relied on him too much. When I wanted to wait (he was seven years my senior) to marry, he told me how much he loved me, and how it would work because we belonged together. I believed him because I loved him. Six months in, he cheated. It was the first time in our entire relationship. We tried to work on it afterward but he forgot our first year anniversary because he was out with her yet again. I asked for a divorce and was finalized this past December."

2. "I went through with the wedding because I loved her, obviously, and I thought she loved me. I mean, she 'proposed' to me, albeit in a messed up way: She guilt tripped me into proposing. (Yep, I'm an idiot.) What happened after we married? She became a different person. She was never home when I was and always with friends. She stopped paying rent and other bills. I had to pick up the slack. She got 'mugged' so I gave her my credit card so she could get necessities like gas and then she goes and spends thousands on irrelevant junk. When she left me, she keyed my car and told me she had met a guy at a bar a while back. We were together for over eight years before we married and all that happened just a few months in. I shouldn't feel loss after she left me, but it still hurts a year later."

3. "I married him because I felt so happy to be part of a big loving family since my own is deeply dysfunctional and abusive, and I've mostly cut them off. He had been saving for years to buy a home before we met and was happy that an extra income would get him to that goal sooner. We agreed to start trying for a baby about six months after the wedding -- nevermind that he didn't have sex with me anyway or care about fulfilling my needs in that department in other ways. This situation didn't change, and he would sometimes harangue me about why I wasn't pregnant yet ... I finally left when he yelled and swore at me, calling me names in the middle of a crowded restaurant at a friend's toddler's birthday party. The best I can figure out, he got cold feet on the home-buying and baby-having front after the wedding and just never had the guts to actually enunciate that. He just passive-aggressively undermined everything and became increasingly bitter and nasty."

4. "My ex-husband and I had been best friends for seven years. According to everyone we knew, we were soul mates. We finally started dating, then moved in together. We were madly in love and after a year or so, we said our 'I dos.' One month after we were married he went out drinking with some friends. He tried cocaine...and that was it. He became a severe alcoholic and drug addict. He drained our accounts, stole every penny, destroyed our house, violently threatened me and finally disappeared. Then he overdosed and spent months in rehab only to continue his habit the minute he got out. This sounds like a trashy love story, but he was actually from a wealthy, upper-class family and very well educated. His behavior was a complete shock to all of us. We were only married eight months from 'I do' to our day in court for our divorce. He is still a junkie and it still breaks my heart to this day."

5. "Long story short: she started loving someone else. That was the worst 90 days of my life.

6. "My ex-husband thought that our marriage certificate gave him license to treat me like property and do whatever he wanted. He blatantly disregarded my feelings because I was 'stuck' with him. Wrong. It was definitely a shitty situation, but I learned a lot. Like, if a guy stalks you and sabotages your PC in order to get a date, he's probably not fit for dating. (I was 18 at the time, what can I say...)"

7. "Our problem was an underlying incompatibility that I wasn't fully aware of until later. I'm not overly affectionate and she very much needed that. Every time our relationship would get to a point where she was ready to make a split, we'd cross another milestone (saying 'I love you,' moving in, getting engaged, getting married) and she'd be back on cloud 9 without a worry in the world. I didn't know about this roller coaster she was on until it was far too late. By the time we separated and sought counseling she was already checked out. She unintentionally gave me a dose of my own medicine by not being responsive to communication or intimacy."

8. "We were really young, really dumb and didn't know what we wanted. Well, she did -- and it was someone else. Unfortunately, in the time we were together, she found ways to sever my ties with a lot of really good friends and ruin chances of making up with them."

9. "I was married for almost eight months. We were together for three years or so beforehand. I was going through a lot of problems in my own little world (my close friend/boss of four years dying, my parents splitting up) and we were paying for everything ourselves. I told myself things were wacky because we were both under tons of stress. She lost her job two months after the wedding and refused to look for other work (before, she was making almost twice as much as me per hour). So there I was, trying to support us on $8.75/hour. She always drank a lot, but she started drinking even more. She got mean and nasty and everything just spiraled out of control. She just moved out in April."

10. "I met my ex through Facebook. He was from Scotland and I'm from California. We were both young (23 at the time) and wanted to carry on our relationship for more than a few weeks at a time. It was expensive to keep flying halfway across the world, so we decided to take the plunge and marry. It wasn't until after we were married that I found out he thousands of dollars in debt with the Bank of Scotland before he moved here. Not only that, he was spending a lot of time driving around in my car to pick up high school girls while I was working. Of course, as the oblivious and dedicated wife, I didn't believe when people were telling me he was cheating; even when it came from the women who were sleeping with him. Needless to say, we got a divorce. Pro tip: Don't marry someone just because they're from a different country. The novelty wears off after a while."

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Before You Go

Young Celebrity Divorcees
Jane Levy(01 of20)
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The "Suburgatory" star filed for divorce this week to end her seven-month marriage to actor Jaime Freitas. She is 23 years old. (credit:Getty Images)
Anna Camp(02 of20)
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The "Pitch Perfect" star is currently divorcing her husband of three years, Michael Mosley. She is 30 years old. (credit:Getty Images)
Jessica Simpson(03 of20)
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Simpson divorced Nick Lachey when she was 25, after three years of marriage (and one reality series). (credit:Getty Images)
Ashlee Simpson(04 of20)
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The younger Simpson sister divorced Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz when she was 26, after over two years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Zooey Deschanel(05 of20)
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The quirky "New Girl" divorced Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard at 32, after roughly three years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Olivia Wilde(06 of20)
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Wilde divorced Italian filmmaker Tao Ruspoli when she was 27, after eight years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Avril Lavigne(07 of20)
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Lavigne divorced Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley when she was 26, after three years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Scarlett Johansson(08 of20)
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Johansson divorced actor Ryan Reynolds when she was 26, after two years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Reese Witherspoon(09 of20)
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The Oscar winner divorced husband Ryan Phillippe at 31, after seven years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
LeAnne Rimes(10 of20)
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The singer was 26 when she divorced husband Dean Sheremet after seven years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Drew Barrymore(11 of20)
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Barrymore is twice divorced: She split from Jeremy Thomas at the age of 20 after just a few months of marriage; she also divorced comedian Tom Green after a year of marriage, at 26. (credit:Getty Images)
Kate Hudson(12 of20)
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Hudson divorced her husband, Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson, at 27 after six years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Katy Perry(13 of20)
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The pop princess divorced Russell Brand at 27, after a sole year of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Britney Spears(14 of20)
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The famed singer divorced Kevin Federline at 24, after two years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Jamie-Lynn Sigler(15 of20)
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The now-pregnant actress divorced her husband/manager, A.J. DiScala, at 24 after two years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Angelina Jolie(16 of20)
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The world's most beautiful woman is also twice divorced: She split from Jonny Lee Miller at 23 after three years of marriage, and divorced Billy Bob Thornton at 26, also after three years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Katie Holmes(17 of20)
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Holmes divorced Tom Cruise at 33, after over five years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Kim Kardashian(18 of20)
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Yet another star who's twice divorced, Kim split from Damon Thomas at age 24 after almost four years of marriage. She finally got her much coveted divorce from Kris Humphries at 32, after just 72 days of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)
Nicole Kidman(19 of20)
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The Aussie actress was 33 when she divorced her husband of 10 years, Tom Cruise. (credit:Getty Images)
Uma Thurman(20 of20)
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The "Kill Bill" femme fatale is also twice divorced: She divorced Gary Oldman at 22 after two years of marriage; and actor Ethan Hawke at 34 after six years of marriage. (credit:Getty Images)

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