Basic Trope: A tragedy leads to a couple breaking up.
- Straight: Alice and Bob divorce after the death of their son Charlie, pushed apart by their grief.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob divorce after Charlie's death, but so does every other couple they meet who suffered the loss of a child.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob don't divorce after Charlie's death, but grow permanently distant from each other.
- Justified: Alice and Bob had long since fallen out of love, only staying together for Charlie's sake. They divorce shortly after his death.
- Inverted: The untimely death of their friend Dave causes Alice and Bob to realize that life is short, so they finally act on their feelings and become a couple.
- Subverted: Alice and Bob separate for some time after Charlie's death, but they eventually reconcile and become a stronger couple for it.
- Double Subverted: Alice and Bob reconcile after a trial separation following Charlie's death, only to realize that their relationship isn't salvageable and that it's better they break up permanently.
- Parodied: Every couple attending Dave's funeral service is handed divorce papers instead of a funeral program.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob become an on-again, off-again couple following Charlie's death.
- Averted: Alice and Bob remain a strong couple despite the tragedy of Charlie's death.
- Enforced: The producers want Bob written out of the show, so Charlie's death is used as an excuse to break Alice and Bob up.
- Lampshaded: Alice laments that divorcing Bob in the wake of Charlie's death comes as no surprise, as it's what anyone would expect to happen.
- Invoked: Evil Matriarch Carol wants her son Bob to divorce Alice, so she kills her own grandson Charlie to bring relationship-ending grief to the couple.
- Exploited: Alice has wanted to break up with Bob for awhile now, and does so after Dave's death, citing how couples break up after a tragedy.
- Defied: Despite their already rocky relationship, Alice and Bob decide to enter both grief and couples counseling to work through their problems with the intent to weather the tragedy of Charlie's death together.
- Discussed: Alice tells Bob that divorce after the death of a child isn't as common as media might have him think, and that it's only really likely if the couple had preexisting problems.
- Conversed: Bob fears that a couple on his favorite TV show will split up in the episodes following their friend's death, only for Alice to dismiss the idea as Cliché and overdone.
- Implied: Alice reveals to her new friends that her son Charlie died some years ago. When the conversation turns to spouses, she says that she's been single for a couple years.
- Deconstructed: Alice and Bob divorce after Charlie's death, which damages their relationship with their remaining children, who blame their parents for causing extra pain while they're already grieving the loss of their brother.
- Reconstructed: While Alice and Bob's children blame them for divorcing in the wake of Charlie's death, the pair know that splitting up was ultimately the best move because they grieved in contrasting ways. The ability to process their grief properly resulted in a healthier upbringing for their remaining children.
- Played For Laughs: Alice breaks up with Bob following the death of her houseplant.
- Played For Drama: Alice and Bob divorce after Charlie's death due to their contrasting ways of handling grief, only for them not to grieve properly for their son or their relationship for the rest of their lives. Neither one finds happiness again.
- Played For Horror: Charlie's ghost does not accept that his grieving parents divorced in the wake of his death. Feeling that the only way for them to reconcile would be if they joined him and became a family again, so he tries kill both of them.
This page separated from Grief-Induced Split in the wake of great tragedy.
