Is divorce my final ruin? (Millennial edition)

[Anonymous]

You need to focus on friends, family, your health and your loved one.

You are looking for external rewards and validation and it will kill you.

Find happiness and meaning in simple things like a hike in the woods, reading, doing a puzzle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to focus on friends, family, your health and your loved one.

You are looking for external rewards and validation and it will kill you.

Find happiness and meaning in simple things like a hike in the woods, reading, doing a puzzle.

NP, doing a puzzle doesn't take off the anxiety of a partner blaming you for taking out what they deem a "meaningless degree"

[Anonymous]

Blah blah blah. This is not a generational thing, OP, this is you thing.

[Anonymous]

older millennial here. graduated with $97k in student loan. Signed up for public service work. Loans were forgiven in 2021. Married with HHI of $310k. We are working towards decent pensions and will both be TSP millionaires in another 7-8 years. We have not purchased a home yet. we also don't want kids. we have prioritized travel and life experiences over home ownership and kids. But we have great savings. marriage isn't amazing, but it doesn't suck either. we recognize that together we've built something respectable and enjoyable.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why all this is just a millennial problem. I agree, the boomers are hoarding jobs and resources, there is not doubt about that. The younger of the silent generation and older boomers created all this, and now hoard everything while the rest of us scramble and wait. But as a Gen X who had teens in high school during the pandemic, and witnessed horrible mental health, including multiple suicides and fentanyl deaths, scraping by to pay for college, and being way underpaid, I just don't see why we're better off. One thing I would never ever do is take on penalties for early withdrawal. That was just a dumb mistake that is not exclusive to millennials, but rather just the uneducated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No judgment please, so step aside Gen X.

Elder millennial here who was sold (literally) the American dream. You have no other choice but to go to college and you will take out exorbitant loans. Marry in the Midwest by mid-20s. 3 kids by early 30s. On the back of highly taxed retirement withdrawal, somehow put a down payment on a decent home and now house and student loan poor. No chance for college savings for kids.

Add unhappy in marriage, blaming one another for ending up in *this* place. From coming to age in the era of 9/11, graduating college in an economic recession, attempting hope in Obama era to be shattered with Trump. Trying to raise a young family and being slammed with a pandemic. Everything has been terrible, silver lining coming only in the love I have for my kids. Dark cloud over everything post-Nintendo in the basement with my siblings - 1995.

Will a divorce be the final straw? Are elder millennials f**ked forever or am I the special kind that was hit with it all?

You sound clinically depressed and might benefit from therapy and medicine. I mean that kindly.

Don’t go down the “our generation had it so tough.” Gen X and Boomers lived every day with the threat of global nuclear annihilation. The Greatest Generation survived a Great Depression and two world wars. The things you’ve had to deal in your life are nothing.

Stop blaming others for your unhappiness. If you do, you WILL end up divorced and this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Anonymous]

I’m an elder millennial who’s had a rough go of it too, but I recognize that challenges and trauma are not unique to one age group or generation.

I’m very sorry OP. Divorce sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No judgment please, so step aside Gen X.

Elder millennial here who was sold (literally) the American dream. You have no other choice but to go to college and you will take out exorbitant loans. Marry in the Midwest by mid-20s. 3 kids by early 30s. On the back of highly taxed retirement withdrawal, somehow put a down payment on a decent home and now house and student loan poor. No chance for college savings for kids.

Add unhappy in marriage, blaming one another for ending up in *this* place. From coming to age in the era of 9/11, graduating college in an economic recession, attempting hope in Obama era to be shattered with Trump. Trying to raise a young family and being slammed with a pandemic. Everything has been terrible, silver lining coming only in the love I have for my kids. Dark cloud over everything post-Nintendo in the basement with my siblings - 1995.

Will a divorce be the final straw? Are elder millennials f**ked forever or am I the special kind that was hit with it all?

You sound clinically depressed and might benefit from therapy and medicine. I mean that kindly.

Don’t go down the “our generation had it so tough.” Gen X and Boomers lived every day with the threat of global nuclear annihilation. The Greatest Generation survived a Great Depression and two world wars. The things you’ve had to deal in your life are nothing.

Stop blaming others for your unhappiness. If you do, you WILL end up divorced and this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

threat of global nuclear annihilation? really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't even understand what the issue is. Can't pay for college is the biggest issue looming ahead? Don't sweat the small stuff.

+1. Send your kids to a State U. Cash flow as much as you can, then have them take out loans. You can continue to help them out with the loans.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you currently work? That might be the thing that is missing that would help out your situation.

Can't guess how old your kids are, but things will get better if they are in the preschool years.

Not sure you need therapy, but maybe talk with a financial planner to see if there is a way to work this out - married or not.

[Anonymous]

I cannot relate, OP.

My husband is a war refugee who clawed his way up to wealth.

All my close friends have had life-altering diagnoses (cancer, grand mal epilepsy, cancer, cancer).

They are all grateful for what they have, frankly. They have all come close to death. So have I (medical fluke when I gave birth).

Maybe you need a real crisis to make you realize you're a lucky, privileged, person.

Maybe you also need to get yourself to a psychiatrist to see if you're depressed.

If your spouse is verbally mean and berates you, well then, you either shut him up or divorce him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No judgment please, so step aside Gen X.

Elder millennial here who was sold (literally) the American dream. You have no other choice but to go to college and you will take out exorbitant loans. Marry in the Midwest by mid-20s. 3 kids by early 30s. On the back of highly taxed retirement withdrawal, somehow put a down payment on a decent home and now house and student loan poor. No chance for college savings for kids.

Add unhappy in marriage, blaming one another for ending up in *this* place. From coming to age in the era of 9/11, graduating college in an economic recession, attempting hope in Obama era to be shattered with Trump. Trying to raise a young family and being slammed with a pandemic. Everything has been terrible, silver lining coming only in the love I have for my kids. Dark cloud over everything post-Nintendo in the basement with my siblings - 1995.

Will a divorce be the final straw? Are elder millennials f**ked forever or am I the special kind that was hit with it all?

You made bad choice after bad choice.

I went to a state school. 1 kid, in my late 30s. Starter home at 30 that we stayed in until I was 45.

Did you never read a book of a newspaper growing up? It was clear to me from the time I was in junior high that having kids was incredibly expensive and made you terribly vulnerable. And having multiple kids stretches people very thin.

Kids are the ultimate indulgence. Don't have any until you have money in the bank and a rock solid marriage.

Your own choices led you to this place. If you were smart you would figure out how to be back on the team with your DH to tackle some of these issues.

[Anonymous]

Lol the hope of Obama slashed by Trump. Please explain to us how you are going to explain this in the narrative of woe about your divorce to your kids. I am an 85 millennial and think this is a troll post . . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are all %&$Woles. While I'm not in this posters shoes, I'm a first generation college student, student loaned mom who moved to dc to do good. No PP, I couldn't call on my parents for help with loans or down payments, so my partner and I pieced together what we could, and we do...ok. We get by but we aren't getting ahead. I'm just glad we aren't buying under these new interest rates.

I also think there's a huge untapped UGH/GRIEF/TRAUMA whatever people are comfortable calling in about parents of young kids during the pandemic. Maybe I should start a new thread or ask some journalist to do an investigative operation, but the untapped marital and work stress of the pandemic on working moms who are the breadwinners has to be a trauma no one has read into (and I don't use trauma lightly).

I thought it was roses all the way for WOHMs? They have bad marriages? And are hardly scraping by?

[Anonymous]

When you are on the precipice of divorce, it feels like everything is ruined. Because you failed, because the dream didn’t work out, etc.

But things can be better on the other side. So if the marriage is truly over, make this the difficult year of divorce. It is not the end, not for you & not for your kids. It will be hard, but you can get to a better place afterwards.

Or maybe you’ll get there & still be unhappy & say, “they sold me a bill of goods that divorced life would be better…” it’s like that saying, “wherever you go, there you are.” If you make changes in your life but don’t change your outlook, it doesn’t really matter. See the old SNL Adam Sandler tourism skit - “you can go to Italy, but remember, you’re still YOU in Italy. If you were depressed at home, you’re going to be depressed in Italy.”