From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbe torn apartbe torn apartif a marriage, family etc is torn apart, it can no longer continue because of serious difficulties The play portrays a good marriage torn apart by external forces. → apart
Examples from the Corpus
be torn apart• He was torn apart as health and social security secretary and suffered demotion before resigning.• Parents who objected were torn apart as heretics.• The spaceship would be torn apart by infinitely strong forces.• He would be torn apart by the difference between the gravitational force on his head and his feet.• In practice instruments could not survive such a journey; they would be torn apart by the increasing gravitational field gradients.• We have players in the league whose families, let alone countries, are torn apart by war.• Before their lives were torn apart, they were a happy family.• The political structures were torn apart until the very foundations were rocked. 