The Car Accident and Divorce Link

 If you marry someone, then you probably think you’ll live together with them forever, or at least till death parts you, as most wedding vows indicate. Sometimes, that’s precisely what occurs. You’ll stay with the same person for many decades and have a happy and fulfilling life together.

Many times, though, marriage ends in a separation or a divorce. The fairytale ending never materializes. Sometimes, people grow apart, and they want different things. If that happens, you’ll have to hope you can part under relatively peaceful terms.

Marriages can end for many different reasons, but we’ll talk about one in particular right now: car crashes. You may not connect the two concepts in your mind, but they link up more than you might realize.

How Can Car Crashes Cause Divorce?

Car accidents can cause divorce in some instances because they’re stressful. Let’s say you’re in the car one day, and another vehicle hits you. It’s a T-bone collision caused by the other vehicle running a red light. They’re clearly at fault, and you sustain serious injuries.

You can collect money from the other driver’s insurance company, but you end up paralyzed. You can’t move or feel anything from the waist down. You must take months to learn how to use a wheelchair.

In the aftermath, your spouse might say they’ll support you and stay with you. At first, they try. They modify your home to accommodate your wheelchair. They go with you to support groups, and they drive you to and from physical therapy.

However, you’re not intimate with them like you were before. Your sex life tapers off because you can’t do many things you could previously. You sink into depression, and you know your spouse no longer likes your life together.

In time, you might find that you and your spouse can’t live together anymore. You can’t work at the same job that you once could, and that makes you angry and bitter. You struggle against those feelings, but you can’t completely contain them, and you find yourself saying hurtful things to your spouse.

Eventually, you two give up on the marriage. You no longer love each other, and you mutually agree to go your separate ways.

That might sound farfetched, but if something like this happens to you, it can impact your relationship immensely. It’s the rare marriage that can last through something so traumatic.

Maybe You Caused the Accident

You might also hit a vehicle with your car. You caused the accident, and your insurance doesn’t cover all the money you need to pay the other driver. If you seriously injured them and you consumed alcohol before driving, maybe they sue you in civil court for depraved indifference or similar charges.

If something like that happens, the other driver might take every penny you have. Perhaps you felt like you had plenty of money in the bank beforehand, but now, you’re nearly bankrupt. The court might continue garnishing your wages to pay the other driver for many years to come.

These financial pressures can easily ruin a marriage. You might try to make things work with your spouse, but eventually, it becomes apparent that they blame you for your family’s state. They file for divorce and take the kids with them.

Again, the car crash directly caused the divorce. You can trace the timeline back to that one incident and the mistake you made that you can’t take back.

A Car Crash Might Reveal Infidelity

A car wreck can also reveal marital infidelity. Maybe you hear that your spouse got in a car accident. You feel natural concern as you rush to the hospital.

When you get there, though, you find that your spouse sustained injuries along with a friend who was in the car. You always thought your spouse and this friend had a platonic relationship, but now you realize that’s not the case.

You confront your spouse and ask why they met with their friend during a lunch break from work and didn’t tell you about it. Your spouse admits they had an affair with that friend, and maybe it has gone on for some time. You decide to file for divorce because you feel hurt, embarrassed, and angry.

Again, a car accident caused this breakup. These scenarios aren’t as unusual as you might think. Sometimes, a car wreck can end a marriage the moment two vehicles collide. The breaking glass might signal a marriage imploding as well.