I Divorced My Ex After He Didn’t Buy Me a Latte — Hear Me Out

Jen McMorrow
ILLUMINATION
Published in
7 min readJan 14, 2022

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A man carrying one to-go cup of coffee
Photo by Sorin Gheorghita on Unsplash

When you talk to friends and family as you are going through a divorce, many will ask, what was the moment you knew? They expect huge answers — fists through walls, screaming matches, or discovering infidelity. My story is a latte.

I know that deciding to divorce over a latte sounds trivial, especially if you have never been in an emotionally abusive relationship. These relationships thrive on petty toxicity and incidents so small you feel crazy even trying to address them. Here is the story of the latte that ended my marriage.

We were driving home from my parents’ house, and my ex asked to stop for groceries. It was still early in the pandemic, and we had lots of food at home, so I tried to persuade him to skip the stop and eat the food we had. Public places still felt incredibly risky. We compromised that I would stay in the car since he was only grabbing a few items.

I did notice this trip seemed to be taking longer than expected, but I didn’t think much of it until he got back to the car. He had two grocery bags and a Starbucks cup. I don’t remember saying much, I just continued on the short ride home, but I will never forget the sense of clarity I got at that moment.

I imagined his trip through the store. At some point, as he picked up his bananas and bread…

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Jen McMorrow
ILLUMINATION

Freelance writer based in Raleigh, NC. I write on my healing journey and related topics such as love, dating and relationships, wellness, and mental health.