1.

“Her parents never liked me to begin with, they thought she deserved a lot better. I was the guy that wore flannels and she wore high heels, the more I think about it the more I kind of agree with them. It was our second year of marriage and her dad convinced her to go back to school to become a nurse and I was doing construction at the time. One day, nine months into her going to school, she sat down at the kitchen table with her parents and called me in the room and THEY began to tell me that our goals were changing. THEY DID. She said maybe two sentences. It was an awful moment.”

— Darrel, 29

2.

“I got into an unhealthy relationship when I was 18; his entire family grew and sold drugs and I was so naïve. It wasn’t until I was 25, got out of our hometown with him, and started to get my degree in Sociology, that I realized he was doing the same thing as his family. There was no way I could raise children being married to someone who was growing drugs at his mommy’s house and then selling them to her. No way.”

— Erica, 32

3.

“His mom was an enabler. He never once learned how to even make his own Thanksgiving meal, or pay his taxes because she would do everything for him. One night he got really drunk and I called his parents to ask for help because I needed them to take him out of the house because we was being belligerent, and then his mom proceeded to tell me it was MY fault because I LET him drink too much.”

— Brooke, 33

4.

“Her parents always urged her to be with someone more successful than me; it was their friend’s son. They grew up being the kids of people who paid too much money for golf, and I grew up working from the age of 12. One day our financial problems caused us to have a fight in the morning, and later that night I came home to her in bed with the guy her parents always compared me to. So shitty.”

— Rick, 27

5.

“Her family was a hot mess. I came from a very loving family; we always got along and loved to spend time together. Her family on the other hand, they hated each other. Every holiday there was a fight and it was a mess all of the time, we had two kids together and it was our oldest daughter’s fourth Christmas when her family started a fight that ended up her mother slapping her face. I continued to offer her to just go to my families, but she refused, she kept wanting to be around the dysfunction and I just couldn’t do it.”

— Tom, 36