This week, Brad and Ange split. The news broke the internet. People swore that love was dead. Jennifer Aniston memes flooded Twitter, Buzzfeed, Facebook. Social media in general had a complete meltdown. News channels ran it as a lead story. Chelsea Handler weighed in, saying Brad needed to ‘self-medicate’ with booze and weed simply to deal with his batshit crazy lunatic of a wife.

If this is the first you’ve heard of it, you’re either on a digital detox or are simply living under a rock somewhere. Because people, the world’s most beautiful couple splitting is just not supposed to happen.

But when it comes to break-ups, everyone – someone – has their tipping point. What was Angelina’s? Wild allegations have run rife, from Brad getting hot’n’heavy with his Allied co-star Marion Cotillard… to stories that he got pissed and abused his kids on their private plane enroute from France to LA.

My money’s on the private plane story, not least because Marion Instagrammed an impassioned and quite believable denial of any bumping-uglies action she and Pitt may have indulged in. We all find speculation irresistible of course, but in reality none of us know what prompted Ange to file for divorce and primary custody. Maybe she was over Brad’s getting high, maybe she was bored, maybe she always wanted to be the old lady who lived in a shoe and had a few too many children. Maybe life started imitating art after they played a miserable married couple in the 2015 movie By The Sea.

Whatever it was, the tipping point is always – but always – there.

My tipping point was discovering my ex had an affair. I’ll never forget the moment I found out. Suddenly, in a whoooosh, all the injustices and crap I’d put up with for years (for, er, ‘love’) propelled me to the edge of the cliff and with a burst of pure, unadulterated relief, I fell over the edge. No more putting up and shutting up. No more ‘but maybe it’ll get better’. No more ‘BUT I LOOOOVE HIM!’ Just buh-bye. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya. New life. Never to be with that person again.

If you were the one left out in the cold, chances are you didn’t even notice your ex was edging towards his or her tipping point. Maybe you were blindsided. Maybe it came as a massive shock. Maybe you thought everything was going A-OK and you were in love and would be until the end of time. I know this is the case for many of you, because I read every single letter that comes through the very busy Letter To My Ex mailbox.

It sucks to be at the mercy of someone else’s tipping point when you think – or have been made to think, which is even more cruel – that everything, up to that moment, is fine.

And I think, from what I know and what I’ve read and experts I’ve talked to, that once someone hits their tipping point and goes over that edge, there’s usually no going back.

So whatever motivated Ange to file for divorce, I’m calling it: she ain’t going back for no one.

Do you agree that everyone in relationships has a tipping point at which they will leave, for good? Have you experienced this ending a relationship? Or, if you were the one blindsided, do you know what your ex’s tipping point was? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments.