If you held off on divorcing because you didn’t want to lose your home or life as you know it
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Anonymous
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…but you ended up divorcing anyway, how do you feel about your life now?
My marriage is not a stable or kind one. My spouse does not treat me in a way that most people would think a partnership should look like. My spouse can be downright cruel, inflexible, and cold. I can support myself and my children on my own. But I’d lose my home that I worked my entire life to have. I’d probably lose my friends as we’d have to go to a different school. I’d be alone and probably would have zero interest in dating for a very long time. I know a lot of people stay in unhappy situations because the logistics are too difficult to separate. But if you decided to do it, do you have regrets? Are you happier now that you can breathe? |
Anonymous
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I was staying in such a relationship for fear of what you describe, and because I thought my children would be better off in an intact home.
Turns out his chill and general poor treatment coincided with him having and then covering up an affair with one of my closest friends. Now I am getting out. It’s as awful as I imagined. But being in a safe separate home every night without him has made my life so, so much better every day. Sometimes poor treatment is sending us a louder message we are struggling to hear. |
Anonymous
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I stayed because I couldn’t imagine risking a situation where I wasn’t there all of the time to protect the kids.
And then out of nowhere he filed and I got served without warning. Anything can happen and your life can turn on a dime even if you think you’re making the active choice to put up with whatever just to maintain a status quo that feels better than the unknown. You have less control than you think. Now I’m fighting for custody with this cruel, scary person, and where I’ll live, what I’ll do, and what will happen to us is all totally unknown. Right now I want you to hurry and do anything you can to protect yourself. Imagine he files tomorrow, in a week, or in a month, and work back from there. Documents are easier to get than you think so don’t panic about those. If you have an expense coming up that would come out of marital assets, buy it now. Do start attorney consults right this minute. Mine were rushed to meet a filing deadline and I wish I’d had more time and not been forced to react. |
Anonymous
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Definitely talk to a lawyer.
I was like you, but plus explosive rage, berating, gaslighting. I stubbornly clung on for the kids. My ex filed. My life is 3000% better than I possibly could have imagined. I ended up being able to buy him out of the house. I kept the friends, too. Many of ours have seen his true colors separately. Short of physical abuse with clear evidence custody will be 50-50. At first that was a hard adjustment, but I have flexed my work schedule so I think my time with the kids is about the same. He also does not take all his time with the kids because he doesn’t really want it. I am so much happier and thriving in every way. My health was terrible when I was with him, we never had s*x, I was in a huge life rut… turns out all my health issues were stress from the bad marriage, and younger men are incredibly sweet and great in bed. I am truly grateful for this experience. You have to embrace it and psych yourself up to handle it. You probably are a lot stronger and more resourceful than him, which is why you’ve stuck with him so long. |
Anonymous
This is what happened to me! In my mind "he would never" until he actually did (and was...) I'm sorry you went through this with kids. Mine are grown but I was still terrified to upend my life. I had worked my entire life but with his encouragement I had stopped working a few years before he ran away because "we don't need your income". After decades together I believed he actually wanted me to find something more meaningful to do with my time and pursue interests I had placed on the back burner so he could travel extensively for work and build his business (and carry on affairs for years!!). That was a cold hard slap in the face and it was scary AF to find myself at my age without my career to fall back on. And yet....I'm so grateful to him for pulling the plug. I decided to work on why I had decided to stay with someone like him for so long with whom I shared zero emotional or physical connection. His behavior has been awful so I wanted to look at all the red flags I ignored. We had an amazing physical connection when we first met. That fizzled pretty quickly. I now see I spent decades assuming that if there had once been a connection it had to still be there somewhere. Reader: it was not there. The divorce process has been torture. My mild mannered considerate husband (lol) became an absolute monster and unleashed such venom and anger towards me while running around with "the love of his life".He refuses to settle the divorce and has used every stalling tactic possible. But I have never been happier in so many other ways and all the things I thought I couldn't live without were very poor substitutes for a loving, healthy relationship. There is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. He's furious that I have rebuilt my life without him. I can't get those years back so I don't beat myself up. I've done tons of therapy. I'm not interested in playing blame games or living in regret. Losing your home and life as you know it feels absolutely terrifying and overwhelming until you're actually in it and working your way through it and you can start to see that those things were not a good tradeoff. Financial stability, a nice house, nice clothes and nice vacations do not make up for the hell of being married to the wrong person. You deserve better, and better doesn't have a price tag. |
Anonymous
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It is so easy to remain complacent about remaining in one’s comfort zone but keep in mind that the easy way is not always the right way.
Sure there will be initial changes to your lifestyle if you choose to leave your miserable marriage however is your house really worth sacrificing your quality of life for?? At what cost to your happiness is your house totally worth it? Only you can ultimately decide if moving, switching your children’s school, etc. are worth your future happiness. Deciding something like this is NEVER easy ➕ you have my utmost sympathy. Good luck. |
Anonymous
These posts make a huge amount of sense! 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 |
Anonymous
Life is better. You live in a different space. And that is ok. |
Anonymous
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The abuse was too much. I knew my kid would not want to know that I was treated in such a way.
I'm so happy in a 1-bedroom. I can finally see my friends again. Kid is fine too. They even said that the other parent was crazy. |
Anonymous
It seems to me that women are the most concerned about maintaining that pre divorce lifestyle? Why? Don't you have the confidence to bounce back. I knew my standard of living was going to take a big hit when my ex filed for divorce. But I also used that as an opportunity to challenge myself and have a even better standard of living. It only took 5 years for that to happen. Today I am wealthier and happier. And we have 50/50 custody, and I pick up the kids on her days to drive them to their activities etc... It seems to be that women are very scared about the unknowns instead of seeing it as an opportunity. |
Anonymous
As a woman who was sexually harassed in my two highest paying jobs - you’re an idiot. What I have learned in my life is that my success doesn’t depend on my effort alone. It also depends on how my co-workers receive and value my work and respect me (or not). It was damned hard for me to be successful while literally being chased around a table by a lecher donor in one job and then having to constantly remove an assigned associate mentor’s hands from my body parts in another. And that was before I had kids. After I had kids, my ability to be successful in my career was hampered by the fact that my ex took no custody of the kids and was frequently late to visitation without notice. I could no longer travel for work, because I had no one I could rely on for childcare for weeks at a time. That said, I was not scared of the unknown: I kicked my ex-husband out, knowing that I would be poorer and my career would suffer, but at least my kids and I would be safe and free from his abuse and manipulation.TBH, though, I could not have made that decision without knowing that I had family members who could act as a safety net for me and my kids. Without that I doubt I would have been so brave. I recognize that is a privilege many women don’t have. Women frequently suffer economically in the workplace for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with their ability or |
Anonymous
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People have this magical idea that when you get divorced, you have this great sense of freedom and you can finally breathe but the truth is that’s not going to happen with the kids are grown up because coparenting is very stressful. It’s difficult and you’re basically trading one set of problems for another set of problems. Your situation does not sound that bad to me.
I divorced after 10 years but I knew I wanted to divorce immediately so I literally waited 10 years. I did not wait 10 years because of how my life was or because of the house I waited 10 years for the kids would be more independent because I could not leave them alone with him when they were little. I still don’t feel that free because the coparenting is very intense. Kids have a lot of activities. There’s a lot going on. It’s constant communication so, no, I can’t breathe better I’m counting down until they go to college. That is now eight years away. |
Anonymous
I’m a mom who had to move closer to my child’s college because of their SN. They still need a lot of support as young adults |
Anonymous
But you can get rid of the annoying coparenting relationship when they are adults. That is what the countdown is. By the way, I moved out when I was 16 years old, finished high school at 17, and finished college one month after my 21st birthday. I expect my kids will be very self-sufficient by the time they’re 18 years old of course that’s different for special needs people and I will be around but the point is I will not be free of my ex-husband until they are adults. I will not feel free until then until then I am bogged down with where I have to live, how much money I have to earn, and constant negotiations all the time due to a divorce. |
Anonymous
| Every situation is different, but contrary to PPs, divorce vastly reduces the amount of interaction and therefore conflict for most people. After the hard part is over there should not be constant conflict in the coparenting relationship. If too much coordination causes conflict then reduce whatever requires coordination. If you can’t do that switch to methods of communication that are less conducive to conflict. Minimize contact. Talk to a therapist to learn how to avoid taking the bait or entering into conflict. No matter how unreasonable or abusive your partner is, you don’t have to respond. Yes the fights can still hurt but when you are divorced you can walk away and quickly get back to your baseline. |