Grief-Induced Split

"Dear Thomas, I'm leaving you. I'm sorry — you can't talk me out of it. I still love you, but I just can't be with you anymore. Losing our daughter was hard on me too, yet I'm trying to move on. Your life didn't end, so why can't you live it?"

— Gabrielle, Neverending Nightmares

Everyone deals with grief and loss in different ways. Traumatic experiences can change someone so fundamentally that their relationships are affected, be it with their partners, family, friends, or others. Bereavement is stressful, even before the potential shifts in interpersonal dynamics, pain, and the seeming indifference of life as it carries on around the mourners.

While usually taking the form of a divorce in the aftermath of Outliving One's Offspring, any impactfully tragic event can strain a relationship to its breaking point. The tragedy and ensuing split often form a character's Dark and Troubled Past, providing reason for a character's anti-heroic broodiness or even a villain's Start of Darkness.

Despite the prevalence of this trope in fiction, research has shown that in Real Life, "divorcing after the death of a child" is no more likely than it is for parents of living children. The false idea was first popularized in a book that cited no sources for its assertion, cementing itself as "truth" long before researchers could refute it. Most marriages that break up following their child's death had underlying issues already, with many couples saying that the tragedy actually strengthened their relationship.

Related to Went Crazy When They Left and the platonic tropes Losing the Team Spirit and We Were Your Team. Contrast Relationship-Salvaging Disaster, where the horrible event brings a couple closer together, and Babies Ever After, where the birth of a child creates a perceived happy ending for a couple.

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Example subpages:

• Live-Action TV

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• 7 Seeds: Botan suffered a miscarriage as a result of a car crash, destroying her marriage.
• 365 Days to the Wedding: George split from his wife because their son died in a surfing accident.
• The Kindaichi Case Files: In "Doll Island Murder Case," Makoto reveals that his twin sister was run over by a truck when they were five. As part of his father's mental breakdown, the man had his son present as a girl. Following more unfortunate deaths on their island similar to his sister's, Makoto's mother had her own breakdown and moved away with her son.
• The Lost Village: The Driver's trauma stems from causing his young daughter Misato's death through his own negligence. His wife then left him and he lost his house.
• Maria no Danzai: Following the death of their son Kiritaka, Mari divorces her husband Taiichiro as part of cutting all ties to her previous life. She assumes an entirely new identity to embark on a vengeance-fueled quest to end the bullies that killed her son.
• Monster: Grimmer's brainwashing left him unable to emote properly. His failure to grieve outwardly when his young son died destroyed his marriage.
• Mushishi: In "Cotton Changeling," it's revealed that the mushi Victim of the Week, a mother named Aki, had been married once before to a wealthy retailer. Their son, his heir, died in an accident at less than a year old. This caused the couple to divorce. Her enduring desire to be a mother led to her raising clones of the parasitic watahaki as her sons, not realizing the mushi killed her real fetus in order to do so.
• Ojamajo Doremi: Aiko's parents divorced after her mother suffered a miscarriage, resulting in Aiko and her father moving out of Osaka. They get back together at the end of the series, totaling eight years of divorce (four before the series and four during).
• One Piece: Señor Pink's beloved wife Russian hated pirates, so he told her he worked at a bank. She learns the truth after their infant son Gimlet dies while he's away on a raid, then leaves him out of a combination of grief and anger. Unfortunately, she gets caught in a landslide and ends up in a permanently vegetative state. Pink never moves on from his lost family.
• Oshi no Ko: After Ai Hoshino is brutally murdered in her own home, her grief-stricken manager and Parental Substitute Ichigo abandons his family, forcing his wife to take over his company and raise Ai's twin children on her own.
• Penguindrum: Ringo's parents Satoshi and Eriko divorced in the wake of her sister Momoka's death. By the time the series takes place, both have made peace with Momoka's death and moved on.
• Pokémon: The First Movie: The additional prologue "The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin" expands on Dr. Fuji's backstory. He is yelled at and receives a divorce letter from his ex-wife-to-be. She is divorcing him due to his attempts to resurrect their daughter Amber. She painfully and repeatedly tells him that he can't bring their daughter back, and watching him try is too much to bear.
• Steins;Gate: The Time Travel basis of Steins;Gate causes an odd variant. After witnessing the repeated death of his best friend Mayuri, Rintaro is faced with a Sadistic Choice: Either he successfully saves Mayuri at the cost of his Love Interest Kurisu's life, or he gets to be with his dream girl but loses his best friend. When Kurisu hears of this, she insists Rintaro save Mayuri instead, accepting their split and her death in order to save Rintaro from suffering further trauma from Mayuri's deaths.
• Stretch: Keiko and her boyfriend broke up after she miscarried.

Comic Books

• Twenty Ninety Nine Unlimited: Gerald Bernardson's daughter Anthea died of a rare genetic condition she inherited from him. Driven by guilt and anguish, he became an Evilutionary Biologist so single-mindedly obsessed with genetic purity that he didn't care when his marriage collapsed.
• Aquaman: Black Manta murders Aquaman's young son, Arthur Curry, Jr. His wife Mera holds him accountable for their son's death, accusing him of prioritizing adventuring over his fatherly duties. Aquaman is asked to leave his son's funeral because of how upset his presence makes Mera. Their split is ultimately subverted, Mera eventually choosing to reconcile with her husband and cope with their shared loss together.
• Birthright: In the year since Mikey's disappearance, his parents' marriage has crumbled. Since he disappeared while alone in the woods with his father, the man is wrongly Convicted by Public Opinion of killing him. In truth, Mikey had become Trapped in Another World.
• The Flash: Ashley and Hunter Zolomon were a Happily Married couple who joined the FBI under Ashley's father, Derek. Unfortunately, Hunter's error in judgement on a case resulted in the suspect crippling him then gunning down his father-in-law; in response, Ashley filed for divorce, and he was let go by the FBI. Heartbroken by both the death and the divorce, Hunter tried to move on by getting a job in Keystone City. After an accident gives him time-traveling powers and makes him insane, transforming him into supervillain Zoom, Ashley drops her FBI career to come to Keystone City and take over his former profiler position to help reform him. She makes it clear that she still loves Hunter, regrets leaving him, and swears that she'd help him and never leave him again.
• Flashpoint (DC Comics): In this alternate reality of the normal DC universe, Joe Chill's robbery of the Waynes in Crime Alley goes from tragedy to spectacularly wrong when his bullet strikes and kills a young Bruce Wayne. Overcome with grief, Thomas transforms into an even more ruthless Batman, while Martha's sanity shatters, turning her into this reality's version of Joker. While they may still be married on paper, it's pretty clear the two are no longer together.
• The Judas Contract: Slade's side job as a mercenary resulted in his son Joseph's kidnapping. Though he and his wife Adeline save Joey's life, the boy is rendered mute when one of his captors slashes his throat. In her grief, Adeline shoots out her husband's eye, files for divorce, and takes the kids.
• X-O Manowar: Aric and Sanna's son developed leukemia from exposure to the Manowar armor's radiation, dying not long after. Sanna blamed Aric for his death, putting an end to their relationship and leading to Aric leaving Earth entirely. By the time he returns, she's moved on and started a new family.

Fan Works

• Alysanne, Lady of Winterfell: Tommen and Fenella Lannister's relationship collapsed after they lost three children to the Shivers.
• Beautiful Monster: Drew decides to tell Charlotte he wants a divorce on the same day as Angelica's funeral. However, it's implied that their marriage was already suffering beforehand; Angelica's death was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
• Better Bones AU: Pinenose and Owlclaw split up as a result of their kit Weaselkit being killed in the battle against the Dark Forest.
• Bluey Capsules:
  • Charlie's murder causes the demise of her parents' marriage. Her mother Emilie moves to Las Vegas, leaving behind her husband and remaining daughter.
  • Boss and Ivy divorce after their three children go missing.
• Earth-27:
  • Julie Madison and Bruce Wayne were engaged to be married, but their relationship could not survive the death of Bruce's son Jason.
  • Tom Manning and his wife Patricia divorced after their son Joshua was killed in Khandaq.
• Empath: The Luckiest Smurf: In the novel, Papa Smurf sent his infant son Empath to be raised in Psychelia for fear that the other Smurfs would treat him badly because of his psychic powers. Empath's mother, however, left Papa Smurf following their son's "death", blaming him for the tragedy. They reunite briefly during the Only Fatal to Adults plague when Empath's mother passes away, leaving her second son Brainy in the hands of Papa Smurf.
• Equestria: Civil War: Thunderbolt loses his daughter during the Changeling Invasion. He and his wife Wind Chime divorce, as they are too grief-stricken to live with each other anymore.
• Eyes on Me: In I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Helen breaks up with her girlfriend Maya on the same day as Maya's mother Whitney's funeral. However, it's stated that they'd already been drifting apart for a while.
• Eyes Wide Open All the Time: Aki and Rin's relationship ended after Aki's miscarriage of their son. Nevertheless, they still care about each other.
• Fairytales: In the decade after losing two of their three children in quick succession, Cinderella grows apart from her husband. Not even the grandchildren from her surviving son can break through her grief, which only improves when her presumed-dead son returns with his wife Belle.
• In the Muppets fanfic The Great Desire, Gonzo and Camilla get married, only to divorce following their daughter Isabella's premature birth and subsequent death. They later reunite and have a second daughter.
• In the Bob's Burgers fanfic The High Cost of Living, when Louise is killed in a hit-and-run accident, Linda leaves Bob both out of grief and because Bob previously told Louise in a fit of anger that he wished he wore a condom the night she was conceived.
• How to Break a Family: Mr. and Mrs. Read divorce soon after their daughter D.W. is kidnapped. It being a Solomon Divorce, Kate is raised by their father and Arthur by their mother.
• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic Langsyne, Magnus reveals that he had a son whose mutations were such that he would never pass for human. When the boy became sick, Magnus refused to take him to the hospital, as that would reveal the secret. His wife left the night their son died.
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest Rewrite: The loss of Mina's son Quincy to miscarriage caused her and her husband's divorce, as he blamed her for the tragedy.
• Legacy (Total Drama): Lindsay and Tyler's marriage collapses, "irretrievably stricken," after their 7-week-old son dies of SIDS.
• The Legend of Genji: In the wake of his dear friend Korra's untimely demise, Mako threw himself into his work, causing his marriage to crumble.
• Necessary to Win: The reason for Saki and Teru's parents' separation is revealed to be the death of their foster sister Mizuho during a tankery match. Teru was faced with saving either Saki or Mizuho, saving Saki because she feared Mizuho was already dead. In Chapter 28, their parents officially divorce.
• Owl's Hell That Ends Well: Phenex and his wife are separated after their daughter Phoebe was murdered by her own siblings and Phenex slaughtered their remaining children in rage. It's hinted that the latter is what really tore apart their marriage.
• The Harry Potter fanfic Parallels brings Harry to an alternate dimension where he and Voldemort both died when he was hit by the Killing Curse as an infant. Though James and Lily's troubled marriage briefly improved while she was pregnant with a second child, James blamed Harry's death on his wife's Muggleborn status and left after the birth of their daughter.
• Pokémon Crossing: After Frank's Croagunk died, he and his boyfriend Rooney broke up. It's implied that he never got over her death and ruined all his relationships because he was unable to cope.
• Shadows Over Hell: In Chapter 32, Stella leaves her husband Stolas and their palace after their daughter Octavia dies. For her, the home reminds her too much of their daughter, while he can't bear to leave it for the same reason. She returns later, Octavia being found alive, but they'd had an Awful Wedded Life to begin with and are hinted at divorcing anyway despite having mended some bridges.
• The Tale of Two Sunsets: After Sunspot broke the news to his wife that their daughter has been irretrievably sucked through a mirror while at Celestia's school, she blamed him for the tragedy. Solstice then left not just her husband, but all of Canterlot behind forever. No amount of bits or legal changes can soothe Sunspot's anger toward Celestia for what he sees as her destruction of his family. In the present, he's a bitter Jerkass and Solstice's whereabouts remain unknown.
• Unfamiliar and Hostile: A flashback reveals that Eda and Raine broke up after the Tragic Stillbirth of their child. Ultimately subverted in that they reunite.
• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
  • Crocker's older brother Poindexter was Driven to Suicide after being raped, resulting in his parents blaming each other for it and splitting up.
  • Utonium and Nehru divorce after Bliss disappears. While it's not been stated if they get back together following Bliss and Bunny's rescue, Utonium does hold Nehru's hand and call her beautiful when they meet up.

Films — Live-Action

• 1408: After the death of their young daughter Katie, Mike abandons his wife Lily and travels the country as an author chronicling stays in supposedly-haunted locations. Following the events of his stay in the titular hotel room, which include being tormented by visions of his daughter, the theatrical cut ends with Mike and Lily's reconciliation. (He does not survive in the alternate endings.)
• The Accidental Tourist: After Macon and Sarah's twelve-year-old son was murdered, Macon seems to have lost the ability to care, making Sarah leave him. However, when she learns he is dating Muriel — and is getting better — she wants to reconcile. Macon considers it but ends up rejecting her to return to Muriel.
• Accidents Happen: A car crash during a rainy drive home caused by bickering children leaves the Conways' daughter Linda dead and son Gene a brain-damaged paraplegic. After the Time Skip, it's revealed that the parents have divorced.
• Alita: Battle Angel: The death of Ido and Chiren's Delicate and Sickly daughter Alita at the hands of one of Ido's patients led to their messy divorce. Using the cyborg body intended for their daughter, Ido repairs an amnesiac cyborg girl and names her Alita. Chiren isn't thrilled when she discovers this.
• American Renegades: Matt became estranged from his wife following the daughter's death in a car accident, as his wife had been the one driving.
• Barry Lyndon: Barry dotes on his son Bryan, gifting him the horse he wanted before he's old enough to properly manage it. Bryan's death from trying to tame a horse by himself causes Barry and his wife to go their separate ways.
• The Broken Circle Breakdown: Losing their seven-year-old daughter Maybelle to cancer destroys Didier and Elise's marriage. Both losses prove too much for Elise, who's Driven to Suicide.
• Butt Boy: Russel's baby disappears while at the park one day. Nine years and zero closure later, he's become an alcoholic and his ex-wife is expecting a child with her new man. Not even rescuing their son from Chip's rectum is enough to repair their relationship, a bitter pill that Russel accepts.
• Cake (2014): In the time since losing their son in a car accident, Claire and her husband Jason have separated. She still refers to him as her husband, but he lives elsewhere and there's no indication of interest in getting back together.
• The Call of the Wild (2020): The film's Adaptation Expansion gives John Thornton the tragic backstory of having gotten divorced from his wife in the wake of their son's death.
• Children of Men: In both the book and film versions, Theo and his wife split following the death of their child, but the cause of death is different. In the book, it was because he accidentally ran his daughter over when backing out of the driveway, while in the film, his son died during a flu epidemic.
• Clara: Isaac and his ex-wife lost their son at a young age, which caused their marriage to collapse. He still hasn't made peace with the loss by the beginning of the film.
• Cold Pursuit: Nels's wife Grace leaves him following their son's death, angry at her husband's perceived lack of grief. What she didn't know was that he had been plotting a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the drug cartel responsible for their son's murder.
• Collateral Beauty: After losing their six-year-old to a rare cancer, Howard and his wife separated so that they could process their grief.
• The Crossing Guard: Five years ago, Freddy's daughter was killed by a drunk driver. He's since wallowed in alcoholism and strip clubs. This led to his wife leaving him, in the present having moved on and remarried.
• The Crowd: John's spiral of grief following the death of his daughter results in his firing and inability to keep further jobs. The strain this adds to his marriage culminates in his returning home from securing a new job to find his wife Mary leaving. The trope is ultimately subverted, as she loves him too much to leave.
• Dark Was the Night: Paul and Susan separated after their son Tim died in an accident while Paul was minding him. Susan tries to get Paul to stop blaming himself for their son's death.
• Dead Man Walking: Earl Delacroix reveals at a support group for parents of murdered children that his wife filed for divorce due to differing ways of grieving their son's death.
• The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Eleanor and Conor's relationship suffers and breaks after the death of their infant son. The films follow their splintering marriage, grieving, and attempts at reconciliation.
• Fearless (1993): Carla survives a passenger plane crash, but her son Bubble doesn't. Her husband is more concerned with securing financial compensation than helping his wife through her grief. She kicks him out and is relieved about it.
• First Reformed: Toller is implied to have gotten divorced because his wife blamed him for convincing their son to join the military, where he was killed in action.
• The Force Awakens: Han Solo and Leia Organa, the Official Couple from the original trilogy, split up some years prior due to the grief of their son turning to the Dark Side, with Han returning to smuggling while Leia led the resistance against the new First Order.
• Full Circle: Julia accidentally kills her daughter by attempting an Impromptu Tracheotomy when she's choking. She separates from her husband in the immediate aftermath, moving into a new house on her own.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): After losing their son Andrew as a result of the 2014 San Francisco kaiju attack, Mark and Emma Russell started drifting apart, with Emma moving to China with their surviving daughter Madison while resuming her work as a MONARCH researcher.
• Half Light: Five-year-old Thomas drowns after his workaholic mother is too busy to play with him. This destroys her marriage, with her blaming herself for his death.
• Hostile: Flashbacks show that Juliette and Jack's relationship ended after she miscarried their child.
• House: Horror author Roger and actress Sandy's young son Jimmy disappeared while playing outside, just a short distance away from where his father was doing yard work. In the present, Sandy has amicably divorced Roger, moving on with her career while Roger still hasn't written another novel and hounds the federal investigation agencies for nonexistent updates on their son's case.
• Indiana Jones: Between the events of Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, Indy and Marion's marriage has broken down following their son's death in Vietnam.
• The International: Wexler's marriage fell apart after his daughter committed suicide.
• The Invitation (2015): The film is centered around a party thrown by Eden and her new husband David, a first for her estranged friend group since the accidental death of her and protagonist Will's son Ty two years earlier. She had met David at a grief counseling group following Ty's death.
• The Keeping Hours: Mark and Elizabeth divorce, guilt-riddenly blaming each other for their son Jacob's death in a car accident. They reconnect when Mark discovers Jacob's ghost, who wants his family to go back to normal, including his parents loving each other again.
• Labor Day: A string of miscarriages followed by a stillbirth leave Adele depressed, anxious, and agoraphobic. Her husband Gerald eventually leaves her and moves on, which she understands.
• Let There Be Light (2017): Sol's son David died of cancer, causing him to reject Christianity and become an outspoken atheist. It's presumed that the death led to his divorce from his Christian now-ex-wife Katy, but they reunite after he is encouraged by a hallucination of his son to let God's love fill him.
• Love on the Run: Colette's marriage ended after her young child was struck and killed by a car.
• Manchester by the Sea: While drunk one night, Lee forgot to put the guard in front of the fireplace, causing a house fire that claimed the lives of his three young children. He and his wife Randi divorced, then he moved out of town.
• The Marrying Kind: Florence and Chet have a rough marriage, with the biggest stressor having been the death of their son Johnny, who drowned in a lake. After all the ups and downs, their families suggest divorce. Ultimately subverted, as after they finish narrating their relationship history to the judge presiding over their divorce, they decide to try again and not blame each other when things go wrong.
• Minority Report: John's wife, Lara, left him after their son was kidnapped and never found, as she blamed him for the tragedy. Thanks to Agatha's intervention, Lara realizes she still loves John and eventually frees him from prison. They reconcile after John proves he is innocent and in the end are expecting a new child.
• My Name is Khan: Rizwan's stepson Sameer is killed by Islamophobic bullies in the wake of 9/11 because his stepfather is Muslim. Rizwan's Hindu wife Mandira walks out on him, placing the sole blame on his surname for her son's death.
• Ordinary People: Beth and Calvin lose their elder son Buck, Beth's favorite, in a boating accident. The ensuing trauma and grief that land their remaining son Conrad in the hospital after a failed suicide attempt bring to light Beth's coldness and inability to love. After the final time Calvin confronts her over this, she packs her bags and leaves.
• Orphan: Although Kate is a recovering alcoholic and her husband Jon is an adulterer, the stillbirth of their daughter is what drives their marriage to the brink and kicks off the plot of the film. After additional manipulation from their Replacement Goldfish Esther, Jon threatens to take the kids and leave. Downplayed in that the couple never actually splits up because Esther murders Jon before that can happen.
• In The Other Woman (2009), Emilia and Jack separate after losing their newborn daughter Isabel to SIDS; Emilia takes the loss especially hard since she cannot have more biological children, further compounded by strained relationships with her stepson and Jack's ex-wife. Emilia eventually confesses to Jack she blames herself for Isabel's death, believing she accidentally suffocated her when she fell asleep holding the girl; Emilia also believes Isabel's death is a punishment for being with Jack while he was still married. Their relationship gradually improves, especially when Emilia learns Isabel did die of SIDS rather than anything she did, and the ending implies that she and Jack will get back together.
• Penny Serenade: The death of six-year-old Trina, Julie and Roger's beloved adopted daughter, sends Roger into a deep depression. Julie is about to leave her husband when a call comes about a two-year-old boy who's available for adoption. The pair then resolve to rebuild their marriage with a new child.
• Pieces Of A Woman: Sean and Martha split after their child dies within minutes of birth and both fall into depression, with Sean falling back into substance abuse and infidelity.
• Rachel Getting Married: Abby detached herself from her family after her young son Ethan was killed in a wreck caused by her daughter Kym driving while high. In the present, both she and her ex-husband have moved on to new relationships.
• The Rebound: Sandy and Aram fight and break up after learning that her pregnancy is ectopic, as the tragedy brings to the surface Sandy's lingering doubts that the two of them could truly be happy when she's fifteen years his senior.
• The Saddest Music in the World: After her son died, Narcissa became an amnesiac, forgetting both the boy's existence and her marriage to Roderick. When he encounters her again, she's Chester's girlfriend.
• San Andreas: Ray and Emma divorced after their daughter Mallory drowned while out rafting with her father. He blamed himself for her death and walked out on his wife and remaining daughter.
• Saw IV reveals through flashbacks that John Kramer fell into grief when his then-wife Jill Tuck suffered a miscarriage of their soon-to-be-born son Gideon, to the point of cutting social ties with almost everyone. Downplayed in that while he and Jill ended up divorcing, this didn't mean that they necessarily broke up, as John still cared for her.
• Seabiscuit: Charles's wife leaves him after the death of their son in a car accident, forcing him to travel to Mexico in order to obtain a divorce. Fortuitously, he meets a woman there who he eventually marries.
• Sinners and Saints: Riley and his wife divorced in the wake of losing their young son to leukemia.
• The Son: Olivier and Magali divorced after their young son's Accidental Murder in a robbery five years ago. In the present, she informs him that she's pregnant and intending to marry again.
• Suicide Room: Beata and Andrzej's marriage deteriorates as their son Dominik grows increasingly depressed and shut-in, culminating in their divorce after Dominik commits suicide.
• Syriana: A split is in process, as Woodman becoming Married to the Job because he can't cope with his son's death is slowly destroying his marriage.
• An Unfinished Life: While Einar is a widower in the original novel, his wife in the film adaptation left him due to his Excessive Mourning over their son's death in a traffic accident.
• Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael: Roxy left town fifteen years ago after giving birth to a girl, though nothing else is known about the baby. In the present, Roxy's ex-fiancé reveals that their daughter was born three months premature and died as a result, causing Roxy's departure.
• Widows: Veronica and Harry's happy marriage crumbled after the death of their son Marcus, who was shot by police while talking on the phone with his father.
• Wild: Cheryl destroyed her marriage by using heroin and casual sex to cope with her mother's death. It's at this point that she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail as something of a purification ritual.
• Wind River: Cory and his wife divorce after the death of their daughter, Emily. He encourages his ex-wife and son to stay on the reservation, but she wants to leave as soon as possible.
• Young Adult: Mavis's miscarriage is implied to be the reason for her split with Buddy, who has moved on and found new love in the decade since then. She hasn't done either one.

Literature

• Angle of Repose: Susan and Oliver's relationship never recovers after the death of their youngest daughter Agnes, who drowned in the river while Susan was rendezvousing with her lover, Oliver's friend Frank. Oliver never forgave his wife for Agnes's death.
• Christine: Dennie and Leigh start dating officially after Arnie and his parents' deaths, but there is too much grief and trauma between them, and they drift apart. Leigh eventually marries someone else, while Dennie remains single.
• Daddy's Little Girl: The murder of Ellie's teenage older sister Andrea destroys their family, with a big factor in their parents' divorce being blaming each other for their daughter's death.
• The Edge Chronicles: Quint and Maris being forced to abandon their first child was what led to their marriage falling apart.
• Far Cry: After Heather dies while on holiday with her friends, her parents Ruth and Simon are torn apart by grief and blame each other for her death, culminating in their divorce.
• The Fault in Our Stars: Discussed when terminally-ill Hazel worries that her parents might divorce after she dies of cancer.
• Fire & Blood: It's implied that Aegon II and his sister-wife Helaena didn't have the best relationship to begin with, her being well aware of his many affairs, though they did have three children together. Their relationship goes completely down the drain after their eldest son Jaehaerys is horrifically murdered in front of Helaena, who had been forced to choose which of her sons would die (the assassins killed the son she didn't choose). Divorce is extremely rare in Westeros, but Helaena stops sharing Aegon's bed and shuts herself in her room most days, while Aegon spends much of his time drinking and plotting revenge. When Aegon is bedridden with serious wounds for half a year, Helaena never once visits him. She eventually kills herself, possibly from finding out her remaining son had also died.
• Gone with the Wind: Although Rhett and Scarlett's marriage has just been going through the motions for almost a year, it's the death of their daughter Bonnie that puts the final nail in the coffin (and most literary analysts feel that as their child, she represents their marriage, and as such, her death indeed represents its end). Rhett outright tells her, "When she died, she took everything."
• Hannah Swensen: Prior to Coconut Layer Cake Murder, Brian and Cassie Polinski had separated for a time after their baby died, eventually reconciling. During their split, Brian had a one-night stand with Darcy Hicks and unknowingly got her pregnant. When Darcy confesses to Cassie that her unborn baby is Brian's, Cassie can't bear the thought of another woman giving her husband a child, so she murders her.
• "Home Burial," one of Robert Frost's longest poems, details the strain on a couple's marriage after the death of their young son. Heatedly arguing on account of their clashing forms of grieving, the wife makes to leave the house while her husband implores her to stay.
• Interpreter of Maladies: Shoba and Shukmar in "A Temporary Matter" break up at the end, unable to get past Shoba's miscarriage.
• Jude the Obscure: Jude and Sue love each other, but Victorian society shuns them for being together without being married. Making society's opinion of them worse, both were married and left their loveless marriages for each other. The murder-suicide of Jude's son from his marriage and Jude and Sue's two children, caused by the misguided belief that the children were responsible for their parents' ostracism, results in the dissolution of their relationship. Sue believes their deaths were deserved punishment from God for living in sin with Jude, and both go back to their loveless marriages.
• Just After Sunset: In "The Gingerbread Girl," Emily takes up running to deal with the grief of losing her daughter to cot death. The unhealthy degree to which she pushes herself in this new hobby leads Emily and her husband to agree on a trial separation, whereupon she moves to her father's summer home in Florida.
• Love Letters to the Dead: Laurel's mother left for California prior to the start of the novel, after the death of Laurel's older sister, May. Though she returns to town later, it is unclear if the move is permanent.
• The Lovely Bones: Abigail abandons her family and moves to California in the wake of her daughter Susie's murder. In the novel, she is gone for eight years, whereas the time period is shorter in the film adaptation.
• The Neapolitan Novels: Though Enzo has had feelings for Lila since they were young and their relationship is the longest-lasting of any that she's had, the disappearance of their four-year-old Tina proves an insurmountable tragedy. As Enzo leaves, he tells Lila's friend Elena to take care of her.
• The Passage: Wolgast's marriage dissolved after the death of his baby daughter.
• Pretty Girls: After Julia's disappearance and murder (though her body is not found for decades), her parents, Sam and Helen, split up. They remain on good terms, though, even sleeping together sporadically (a fact which Helen's new husband seems both aware and somewhat accepting of).
• In the Star Trek Expanded Universe novel Q-Squared, there is an Alternate Universe where Jack Crusher is alive. It is his son Wesley, instead, who's died as a toddler. Jack and Beverly divorce as a result.
• The Ring: The protagonist of Spiral, Mitsuo Ando, is traumatized by the loss of his three-year-old son Takanori, who drowned while they were playing at the beach. His wife filed for divorce soon after. S reveals that Ando gets both his son and his wife back, and that he and his wife have a little girl.
• Room: Once Jack and his mother escape from Room, it's revealed Ma's parents divorced during the time she was missing. The fact that Ma's father accepted that his daughter was most likely dead but her mother never gave up hope for her daughter's return is implied to be the biggest reason for their split.
• The Shadowhunter Chronicles: Robert and Maryse Lightwood's marriage has been strained ever since Maryse found out that Robert cheated on her a while back, though they tried to stay together upon the birth of their third child, Max. But then Max is killed in City of Glass by Sebastian Morgenstern, and the relationship goes down the drain. In City of Heavenly Fire, Robert announces that he and Maryse are separating.
• She's Not There: Caroline and Hunter's marriage broke down after their daughter Samantha went missing from their hotel room during a family vacation to Mexico fifteen years ago.
• Sing You Home: At the start, Max and Zoe are driven to divorce largely because of their fertility struggles and multiple miscarriages. They had spent ten years trying unsuccessfully to have a child, compounded by Zoe's polycystic ovary syndrome and Max's genetic condition that makes miscarriages more likely. Eventually, Zoe manages to conceive and carry a seemingly healthy pregnancy thanks to in-vitro fertilisation, but devastatingly miscarries at her baby shower. Their marriage quickly breaks down, with Max being unable to bear the thought of going through it all again and Zoe still desperately wanting a child.
• The Stories of John Cheever: In "An Educated American Woman," Jill and George's marriage collapses following the death of their young son Bibber, who catches pneumonia while Jill is away working.
• Swan Song: Sister was a Drunk Driver who caused her young daughter's death in a wreck. Her husband told her he never wanted to see her again, and she was committed to a sanitorium. By the present, she's become a crazy bag lady in New York City suffering from Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
• Thalia's Musings: Eros's disappearance culminates in Hephaestus and Aphrodite's long-overdue divorce.
• Two Little Girls in Blue: Norman Bond's ex-wife Theresa moved across the country to California, filed for divorce and got remarried after their twin sons died at birth. It's hinted that there were already problems in their marriage and that the death of the twins was the final straw, with Norman recalling Theresa saying that "maybe it was for the best" the twins didn't live shortly before leaving him (presumably because it would've made the divorce harder).
• Ugly Love:
  • As Miles and his girlfriend Rachel were driving home from hospital with their newborn son Clayton, their car crashed into a lake and Clayton drowned. Rachel was furious with Miles for saving her over their son. They attempted to salvage their relationship, but Rachel eventually left. Her "Dear John" Letter explained that every time she looked at Miles, it reminded her of Clayton, and she couldn't bear the pain anymore.
  • Clayton's death led to his grandparents splitting up, too, as Miles and Rachel were step-siblings. Rachel's mother divorced Miles' father and moved back to Phoenix with her daughter to support her, with Rachel saying it was too hard for her stay after Clayton died.
• Under Suspicion:
  • I've Got You Under My Skin: Downplayed then defied by George and Isabelle Curtis. Twenty years ago, the couple were all but separated in part due to their struggles to have children, with Isabelle suffering four miscarriages in a decade. George started an affair with Betsy during this time, but couldn't bring himself to leave his wife when Betsy wanted him to. When Isabelle revealed she was pregnant with twins, George realised he still loved her and wanted to fix their relationship, breaking up with Betsy. George and Isabelle went on to have a happy family. It turns out Isabelle was aware of George's affair, but decided to forgive him because they'd both been through a lot and George chose her.
  • The Cinderella Murder: Keith had been in a long-term relationship with Susan, but was also having an on-off affair with Madison for around two years, with Madison hoping it could eventually become something more. After Susan was murdered, a devastated and guilt-ridden Keith permanently broke off his affair with Madison and made it clear he always saw her as lesser than Susan. He was also disgusted with Madison for taking the film role Susan had intended to audition for, especially given the director was a suspect. Twenty years on, Madison still holds out hope of rekindling things with Keith, but comes to realise he isn't interested at all and regards their affair as a mistake.
  • All Dressed in White: Sandra and Walter were Happily Married for over thirty years, but divorced after their daughter Amanda's disappearance. They didn't approve of the other's way of handling the tragedy. Walter wanted to believe that she'd run away to start a new life — unable to bear the alternative — and never liked her name being mentioned out of guilt. Sandra was convinced she didn't leave of her own free will and that something terrible happened to her, devoting herself to discovering the truth. Walter felt Sandra had become obsessed with the case, while she felt he had given up on Amanda. Sandra eventually left Walter, saying she couldn't cope with his response anymore and that they needed to grieve separately in their own way. After Amanda's body is found and her murderer is caught, it's strongly implied they will get back together, as they never stopped loving each other.
• Feigned in the Epistolary Novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. Eva addresses her letters as if she were writing them to her ex-husband Franklin, who'd left her and taken custody of their daughter Cecilia after their son Kevin murdered multiple classmates in a school massacre. However, the true situation is far different. In reality, Cecilia and Franklin were the first and second deaths in Kevin's murder spree.
• The Westing Game: Mr. Westing and his wife Crow divorced after their daughter Violet's death. Her mother had pushed her to marry a corrupt politician instead of her at-the-time boyfriend, causing a despairing Violet to commit suicide on the eve of the wedding. Crow also turned to alcohol then religion as a means of coping with the loss of her only child.

Theatre

• Elisabeth: The titular character undergoes this thrice, breaking up with her husband in stages. Her fairytale romance is immediately sunk by her Knight Templar mother-in-law, whose meddling indirectly results in the death of Sisi's oldest daughter Sophie. This first tragedy drives a deep wedge between Elisabeth and her husband Franz Joseph. The second tragedy comes when Death reveals to her that Franz gave her syphilis he contracted from a sex worker, causing Elisabeth to give up court life and wander the world at the cost of emotionally neglecting her only son Rudolf. The final tragedy is Rudolf's suicide, which finally gets Elisabeth and Franz Joseph to admit that they are too different to ever reconcile. Although they are royalty and as such cannot divorce, Sisi spends so much time away from Franz Joseph that they are functionally separated. Despite their differences, Franz Joseph never stops loving his wife.
• I and You: Caroline's parents split up from the stress of their daughter's probably-terminal illness that has caused her liver to fail. She hasn't seen her father in months and is bitter because she sees how much her mother misses him.
• Next to Normal: Diana and Dan's son Gabe died as a toddler sixteen years prior, though he continues to live on in her hallucinations and cast a shadow over the family's lives. Near the end of the show, Diana leaves her husband, recognizing that though they love each other, they need to come to terms with their long-buried grief on their own.
• Giacomo Puccini's opera Il Tabarro features a downplayed split leading to adultery, as Giorgetta has turned cold toward her much-older husband Michele since the death of their little boy a year earlier. Now, she is having an affair with the young stevedore Luigi.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed Origins: Khemu's death destroyed the marriage of his parents Aya and Bayek, as their grief led them both to being too obsessed with revenge to devote time to each other. Although it's clear they still love each other, it's equally clear that their relationship will never recover. By the end of the game, they go their separate ways for good, only keeping in contact regarding matters of the Hidden Ones. In Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, you can obtain a letter Bayek sent to Aya in his elderly years, which confirms that even though he still adores her and is nostalgic about what they once had, they never got back together.
• The Boogie Man: Keith and Helena suffer the loss of their five-year-old son Tod before the events of the game. Helena moves to divorce Keith, feeling that he hasn't been able to accept their son's death because he's spent so much time taking care of her.
• Control: In a late-game hotline call, Zachariah Trench reveals that his daughter Susanna died of a paranatural cause after something came home from work with him. His wife Kate refused FBC intervention and civilian doctors were useless. Kate left him after Susanna's death, so the FBC was all Trench had left.
• Criminal Case:
  • Criminal Case: Pacific Bay: "Case 58: The Sting of Death" features couple Karen and Frank, who lost their eldest daughter when she was hit by a car. This drove Frank to hit the bottle and Karen to leave him. A second tragedy striking in the form of their remaining daughter falling comatose from meningitis brings them back together.
  • Criminal Case: World Edition: The reason for Ingrid's frostiness is revealed in "Case 49: Day of the Dead." She had given birth prematurely, resulting in the baby's death. She became an Ice Queen, while her husband Ramon turned to the bottle. Marina convinces Ingrid to make amends with her ex-husband, allowing them both to grieve properly. From this point on, Ingrid's hair reverts to its natural blonde and she swaps out her cold wardrobe for a sunnier look.
• Destiny 2: Centuries ago, Commander Zavala once found love with a Human doctor, Safiyah, and adopted a son, Hakim. As Zavala was an immortal Guardian and Safiyah was a regular Human, he was always going to outlive her, but when a Fallen raid slew Hakim at seventeen, their grief (Zavala blamed himself, and Safiyah wanted to move on) and their different duties (Zavala to the Iron Lords reclaiming Earth, Safiyah to other settlements needing her expertise) drove them apart. Safiyah ultimately came to terms with Hakim's death and died at peace, but Zavala never did and continued to visit her grave and the graves of her descendants asking for forgiveness.
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Valsirenn and her husband Earl Leythen became estranged following the death of their daughter to illness. While Valsirenn doubled down on her research in the aftermath, Leythen lost his faith in the Psijic Order they were both members of.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code: Torvit, the disgraced former Judge that Joshwa meets in the Prologue, regrets forcing his daughter Dita to follow in his footsteps as a Judge, which she neither was cut out for nor wanted. She panicked in battle and abandoned her troops to their deaths, causing ostracization and being Driven to Suicide. Torvit's wife left him both due to blaming him for Dita's death and the shame Torvit brought to the family.
• The Evil Within: Sebastian and Myra separated after their daughter Lily died in a house fire. Myra became obsessed with the idea that her daughter was kidnapped and the fire was staged to cover it up. Sebastian's belief that she was clinging to denial led to their estrangement.
• .hack//G.U.: Kaede's real-world identity is a 28-year-old nurse named Kyouko Kaga. She got divorced four years ago as a result of her son dying in a car crash caused by her own carelessness.
• Hades: In the backstory, Persephone's strained relationship with Hades reaches its breaking point when their son Zagreus is stillborn. Unable to bear life in the Underworld anymore, she runs away to go into hiding on the surface. Because of this, she is unaware that Zagreus was saved from death by the intervention of Nyx; his goal throughout the game is to reunite with her and repair the relationship between his parents.
• Heavy Rain: Ethan Mars loses a son in a car accident, leading to his divorce, depression, and the eventual kidnapping of his other son by a serial killer two years later.
• Hidden City: "Guises of Evil" reveals that Mr. Black used to be married, but his sorceress wife left him after he "lost" their daughter (he actually took the girl, who had anomalous powers like her mother, to the scavengers and had her locked up in a special cage but told his wife that the daughter got lost in the fog). She didn't just leave him, either. She set him on fire, almost killing him, then disappeared after declaring herself a widow.
• The Idolmaster: Chihaya's little brother was killed in a car accident almost a decade ago. Her parents have blamed each other for his death ever since, fighting frequently. During one of Chihaya's rank up promotions, she breaks the news that they've decided to divorce.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: In 2004, Ellen suffered a miscarriage that drove her into a deep depression that her husband could not bring her out of, despite his best efforts. She did not contest his divorce filing a year later.
• Life Is Strange 2 features a cameo from David Madsen from the first game. It reveals that if the player chose the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending, her death caused her mother Joyce and David to divorce. Ironically, in a save following the other ending, the death of Joyce (and most of the town) seems to have brought David and Chloe closer, to the point she acknowledges him as her father.
• The Long Dark: It's implied in the early game that Will and Astrid had a child that died young, which caused their divorce. Astrid's made more of an effort to move on from the tragedy, while Will's developed something of a drinking habit.
• The Lost Crown: Nanny Noah and Bob Tawny's friendly relationship, seemingly an unrequited crush on his part, is revealed to be far more tragic. They're actually Amicable Exes who divorced after their young son Cole drowned at the beach.
• Lost Judgment: Ehara's wife cut contact with him after their son Toshiro was Driven to Suicide by bullies. The only reason she hasn't filed for divorce is all the paperwork that entails.
• Murder in the Alps: Roberto Fiore died eleven years before the events of Unforgiven; his mother Irene soon left his father Rinaldo in her grief. When Rinaldo discovers that Roberto was accidentally killed by his best friend Flavio Riva, he murders Flavio to avenge his son while hoping that doing this gives him a chance to win back his ex-wife whom he still loves.
• Neverending Nightmares: The "Final Descent" ending reveals that Thomas Smith's daughter Gabby had died earlier in the game, which Thomas hasn't been able to move on from. This eventually causes his wife, Gabrielle, to leave him.
• OMORI: It's implied that Sunny's Disappeared Dad left the family after the sudden and tragic death of Sunny's older sister Mari, though it's ambiguous whether either parent knew that he accidentally killed her.
• Oxenfree: Alex's parents divorced after her brother Michael drowned. Over the course of the game, Alex has the option to befriend her new stepbrother Jonas.
• Paranoiac: Yuriko Saeki gave birth to a stillborn son, devastated not only by the loss but also by the lack of support from her husband and family as she grieved. Descending into postpartum depression and paranoia, her husband left her.
• Silent Hill: Downpour: Protagonist Murphy Pendleton's son Charlie was killed by Patrick Napier, a pedophilic neighbor. His wife Carol leaves him, placing the blame squarely on Murphy's shoulders, despite neither of them having known Napier was a child molester.
• Slender: The Arrival: Charles and his wife Diane split up some time after the disappearance of their young son Charlie.
• Spate: Bluth's grief over his daughter's death led to his addiction to absinthe, ultimately resulting in his wife leaving him. In the good ending, he mends his relationship with her.
• The Spectrum Retreat: The player gradually encounters the memories of what led to protagonist Alex's placement in the "Hotel California"-esque Penrose Hotel. His son Robin died after Alex and his wife Maddie were unable to keep paying for medical treatment, spiraling Alex into a depression that resulted in divorce. Maddie then had him committed to Penrose to put an end to his grief-laden Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• State of Decay 2: Among the recruitable player characters in the Heartland DLC are Mutually Exclusive Party Members Vic and Isaac, bereaved husbands who recently lost their daughter. Isaac left because he felt Vic would never stop blaming him for the girl's death.
• To the Moon: In Impostor Factory, Lynri is shown to have a rare neurological condition that can deteriorate rapidly at any time. It does so halfway through her first pregnancy, forcing a decision of whether to give birth prematurely and save herself or carry her son to term and die sooner. Her husband Quincy convinces her to save herself, but their sickly preemie Tobias does not survive. She leaves Quincy, despite his best attempts at convincing her to stay, and never bonds with anyone again.
• The Trader of Stories: Seems the case after Fryme begins suspecting her husband Kesaj of infidelity in the wake of their son's death, as he disappears shortly thereafter. In truth, he was spending time helping Reyle, the mother of his son's child following a One-Night-Stand Pregnancy. His vanishing wasn't due to grief, but rather a fatal accident in the underground tunnels.
• Undertale: Asgore and Toriel lost both their children in one night — their adoptive child to illness, and their son who was killed by humans when he tried to take his sibling's body back to their village to fulfill their Last Request to see the flowers there again. Asgore, beside himself with grief, declared war on humanity on behalf of his kingdom and made it law that any human who came there would be killed. Toriel, disgusted and horrified by this (especially since their adoptive child had been human), left him.
• What Remains of Edith Finch: Sam and his first wife Kay divorce after the accidental drowning death of their son Gregory in the bathtub during the time that Kay left to take a phone call. We're shown some hints that the marriage was already having problems and Gregory's death may have just accelerated the breakup.

Visual Novels

• No Case Should Remain Unsolved: The ex-teacher and his wife divorced after their child died.
• School Days: The "Forever" ending involves Makoto and Sekai calling it quits on their relationship after witnessing Kotonoha throw herself off the roof.

Webcomics

• Cyanide and Happiness: In this 2009 strip, the K-I-S-S-I-N-G rhyme continues beyond its normal ending, detailing how a miscarriage causes Johnny and Marissa's marriage to end in D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
• The Friendly Winter: Da-Jeong's mother abandoned her and her father a decade prior to the story, unable to deal with the fact that her disabled daughter will always look less than nine years old.
• Something*Positive: Scotty's parents divorced amicably after his death, remaining friends even after starting new relationships.

Web Original

• Atop the Fourth Wall: Harvey's son Charlie died, and his wife left him soon afterward.
• Dark Simpsons: In the "Murder at the Simpson House" minisode, Homer and Marge's marriage falls apart due to Groundskeeper Willie killing their children and not finding passion in their matrimony anymore, ending with Marge saying goodbye to Homer in their wedding videotape.
• Dice Friends: Jordan's marriage fell apart after her twin children were killed in an accident.
• Etra chan saw it!: In "I was sleeping on an empty bus when somebody sat next to me...," Kuroki is stalked by a woman carrying a doll who insists he's her baby's returned father. At the end, it's revealed that the woman had a mental breakdown long ago after her child died and her husband left.
• Secret Histories (Mashed): Case 05 reveals that Wily's son, the future Mega Man, suffered a serious accident that left him barely clinging to life. The resulting grief caused Wily's wife Symmetra to walk out on him.

Western Animation

• Masters of the Universe: Revelation: In the aftermath of their son Adam's death, Randor and Marlena's marriage crumbled. Adam's return gives them the opportunity to make amends, and by the end, they've fixed their years-long estrangement.
• Tarantula!: Echo reveals in the final episode that he lost his infant daughter to cystic fibrosis, causing him and his wife Jean to divorce.

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