Heartbreaking Moments People Knew Their Marriage Was Really Over

Well, divorce isn't exactly a modern invention. Allow the nerd inside me to tell you its story. Ancient Roman law already recognized the possibility of ending a marriage, and by the classical period, divorce could be initiated by either spouse. Centuries before modern family courts existed, couples could already reach the point where staying married no longer made sense.

One of the earliest famous Roman divorces involved Spurius Carvilius Ruga, who reportedly divorced his wife around 230 BCE because she could not have children. His case became notable because divorce was still relatively uncommon at the time, and Roman writers later remembered him as the first man to divorce his wife for this reason.

Roman marriage did not remain a fixed institution. By the time of Cicero, either husband or wife could initiate divorce in the developing Roman system, although women’s legal position depended on the type of marriage and their relationship to their husband’s authority.

Divorce was therefore already something couples and lawyers had to consider when entering marriage.

Modern divorce laws developed very differently across countries. Malta, for example, became the last country in Europe to introduce divorce legislation in 2011. At the same time, there are countries where it’s still illegal.

The Philippines doesn’t have any kind of divorce law, while Vatican City also doesn’t provide a general civil divorce system, making them quite the unusual exceptions in the modern world.

Filipino couples can pursue legal separation or seek to have a marriage declared void, but those procedures do not function as a general divorce system that can just end a valid marriage.

Divorce remains common across Europe, although rates vary significantly by country. There were roughly 1.6 divorces per 1,000 people across the EU in 2023. Latvia had the highest rate at 2.8, followed by Lithuania at 2.5, while Slovenia recorded 1.0 and Croatia 1.1 divorces per 1,000 people.

The U.S. numbers also show why the familiar idea that “half of all marriages end in divorce” does not tell the whole story. The Census Bureau found that the divorce rate among women aged 15 and older fell from 9.8 per 1,000 in 2012 to 7.1 in 2022, while the marriage rate remained relatively stable.

Numbers can tell us how often marriages end, but they do not explain what happens inside them. Decades of relationship research by Dr. John Gottman found that about 69% of relationship problems are “perpetual,” meaning they come from lasting differences between partners instead of problems with one simple solution.

Gottman’s research also identified four destructive interaction patterns: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling, this last one being characterized by emotional and physical detachment. The point is, one bad argument can’t automatically end a marriage. Instead, repeated negative ways of handling conflict can bring you closer to the problem.

But of course, not every troubled marriage ends after explosive arguments. Long-term research by Gottman and his team also identified emotional disengagement as a dysfunctional pattern, marked by a lack of positive emotions such as interest, affection, humor and empathy during conflict. 

In the end, there are different timelines for divorce, and it depends on the patterns each couple displays during their relationships.

The end of a marriage can also involve a subtle psychological shift rather than one dramatic incident. The American Psychological Association notes that separation and divorce can initially bring loneliness and a disrupted sense of identity. This emotional impact explains why deciding to leave could feel less like one single decision and more like recognizing that the relationship has changed.