Divorce in Early 40s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are not great reasons to put your kids through the trauma of a broken home. There are a lot of polite lies about this (“better to see mom happy!”) but the reality is ugly. Dad’s rotating new girlfriends, blended families, lack of stability shuffling btw houses.

Facts ^^.

Put the kids first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not great reasons to put your kids through the trauma of a broken home. There are a lot of polite lies about this (“better to see mom happy!”) but the reality is ugly. Dad’s rotating new girlfriends, blended families, lack of stability shuffling btw houses.

So, how do you have sex with someone, you are not interested in? This is like waiting for a bomb to explode, him or me meeting someone and divorce becoming ugly…. Also, once we are together for 20 years, I would owe him alimony for life ( VA law).

This is no small thing -- see a lawyer about whether or not a post nup could protect you from this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but in this situation I would stay. And get individual and couples therapy. And make him do more work on the home

+1 It seems that the main issue in your relationship is communication. Therapy may help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tried to wait it out. I was in a very different situation and had been forced out of my equal paying career and we had a literal $1m difference between our salaries, with ex as the high earner. He was originally just tense, grouchy, etc like yours but slowly that evolved into mean and then clearly mentally ill. And the little he did with the kids dwindled down to nothing because his job always came first.

I thought I could make it until at least the oldest was 18. But then DH filed out of the blue after a major promotion that made our split assets and savings look like nothing.

If you can I would try a post-nup and I would also think about whatever I could do to avoid upsizing any real estate holdings. We had just bought a new, more expensive house before exDH filed and it will never sell and most of my liquidity is stuck in it.

How much is your house? It’s hard to believe with $1M difference in salary, he has no other holdings… I heard of you are together for 20 years or more in VA/MD, and your partner makes at least twice more, you would get alimony for life.

Not in VA and 12 years. I’m in a state where standard alimony is for 33% of years married. House has a lot of equity but if it is split it isn’t enough for me to buy another house in the market I’m in because of how fast prices have gone up. We used a lot of our investments to buy this new house because with STBX’s new salary it was going to be easy to replenish those accounts in 1-2 years. Haha, famous last words.

Qualifying for a mortgage is impossible unless I have 6-12 months of documented alimony payments. Rentals are rough in my market and to get less space than we have now and shared bedrooms for the kids (which they don’t have now) it’s still more expensive than a mortgage. The tragedy is that our old starter house was almost paid off but its equivalent a decade after we purchased it, is now be out of reach for me because house prices have increased so quickly. The reality is that I will have to go to a neighborhood that is so-so bordering on dangerous if I want to keep the kids ~45 minutes in traffic to friends and activities, and I’m trying to accept that.

Am currently struggling to negotiate a right to geographic relocation to accommodate this and a future where we might need to live with my parents in a lower COL area.

Good luck, Op. I want you to try for a post-nup. And I’m sorry you are in this situation. It’s an impossible one and challenging to explain to outsiders who really only see a sliver of your life and might perceive your DH as a “nice guy” and not understand what you’re dealing with.

[Anonymous]

Me meme. I I I. I doubt that you are as flexible and tolerant as you believe.

[Anonymous]

1. Therapy for yourself first.
2. If he's a good dad, then perhaps you both can negotiate/settle custody amicably.
3. I would caution waiting because if you are already not talking to each other when you're in the house, your kids as they get older will pick up on the tension, if they haven't already. That is not healthy. If you can turn this into a low-conflict parenting marriage, that's one thing, and I would have gone for that in my situation, but there was abuse in mine, so it wasn't an option. But if you are fighting on and off, your kids will notice. Then it's better to settle apart. You can make it so you see the kids most days.

[Anonymous]

Speak to a lawyer … Divorce.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely consult with a lawyer and get their advice. Too late now but why did you marry so quickly?

Get a sense of what you’d likely owe him in alimony. Will he split custody 50/50? Who would buy the other out of the house?

You can try for a postnup but why would he go for it? Talk to a lawyer so you have a better sense of what your new financial picture would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but in this situation I would stay. And get individual and couples therapy. And make him do more work on the home

+1 It seems that the main issue in your relationship is communication. Therapy may help.

I’ll try to suggest it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Therapy for yourself first.
2. If he's a good dad, then perhaps you both can negotiate/settle custody amicably.
3. I would caution waiting because if you are already not talking to each other when you're in the house, your kids as they get older will pick up on the tension, if they haven't already. That is not healthy. If you can turn this into a low-conflict parenting marriage, that's one thing, and I would have gone for that in my situation, but there was abuse in mine, so it wasn't an option. But if you are fighting on and off, your kids will notice. Then it's better to settle apart. You can make it so you see the kids most days.

Thank you, I am already in therapy. I don’t think it’s just the communication… for my 40th birthday, I wanted to go out of country to resort, kids were 1.5 and 5, but he wanted to do Airbnb since it’s more exciting and fun… We had two little kids, relaxing at the resort would be the right option… and it was for my birthday… anyways, I couldn’t get him to agree to an all inclusive, so we ended up not going. For my big promotion at work, I organized a party, when I asked my hubby to help, he said that I am not allowing him to eat and acted like a guest versus a host… while I was organizing games, etc. When my youngest daughter was having anaphylactic reaction, he argued with me about calling 912 hoping Zyrtec would work, he only apologized a year later… when I am sick and stressed bc of work, he won’t comfort me, so I feel like I have lots of responsibilities and zero help or consideration for my well being…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will be paying tons of alimony

It’s really unfair, since I am the one who supported him thru college and we took care of kids 65/35%. Kids always need mom, at least when they are 3 and 7, and they are both girls.

Welcome to the table! It’s been this way for men always. Why should it be any different for women?

Because men are usually not the ones who take care of kids in addition to building their career. As I mentioned it is 65% on me to take care of kids on a daily basis. I am the one who keeps track of their activities, schedule their activities, do 70% of pick up and drop off, sleep with them and take care of them when they are sick… My husband is not a stay home dad… he has been going to college and then building his career, while I was taking care of kids 65% of time and advancing as well…

DP.

This does not make any sense. You chose a man who earned much less than you did. You got into this with your eyes wide open. Now you have what you wanted ( kids), and you want to eat your cake and have it too.

You knew there was a chance your marriage would end in divorce and still chose to have kids with someone you'd have to support if the marriage ended.

If money is that important to you, marry at your income level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Me meme. I I I. I doubt that you are as flexible and tolerant as you believe.

+1. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but in this situation I would stay. And get individual and couples therapy. And make him do more work on the home

+1. And sell the vacation house and hire more help. After all, you won't be able to keep the vacation house if you divorce.

There are so many downsides to divorce in this case and not many advantages. Your kids are very young, and you and this guy will still be in conflict while co-parenting as exes. You will have less money and less time with your kids.

Additionally, you will end up with no sex or with sex with a guy who is 10 times worse than the one you divorced (their wives divorced them for a reason too). Read a few more threads on here, and you will see that you have it good compared to a lot of the women thinking of divorce. Your DH will be an angel compared to your dating pool when you leave him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Therapy for yourself first.
2. If he's a good dad, then perhaps you both can negotiate/settle custody amicably.
3. I would caution waiting because if you are already not talking to each other when you're in the house, your kids as they get older will pick up on the tension, if they haven't already. That is not healthy. If you can turn this into a low-conflict parenting marriage, that's one thing, and I would have gone for that in my situation, but there was abuse in mine, so it wasn't an option. But if you are fighting on and off, your kids will notice. Then it's better to settle apart. You can make it so you see the kids most days.

Thank you, I am already in therapy. I don’t think it’s just the communication… for my 40th birthday, I wanted to go out of country to resort, kids were 1.5 and 5, but he wanted to do Airbnb since it’s more exciting and fun… We had two little kids, relaxing at the resort would be the right option… and it was for my birthday… anyways, I couldn’t get him to agree to an all inclusive, so we ended up not going. For my big promotion at work, I organized a party, when I asked my hubby to help, he said that I am not allowing him to eat and acted like a guest versus a host… while I was organizing games, etc. When my youngest daughter was having anaphylactic reaction, he argued with me about calling 912 hoping Zyrtec would work, he only apologized a year later… when I am sick and stressed bc of work, he won’t comfort me, so I feel like I have lots of responsibilities and zero help or consideration for my well being…

Those are pretty lame examples of why you should divorce. Sure, be annoyed. But I wouldn’t blow up my kids lives over things like this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not great reasons to put your kids through the trauma of a broken home. There are a lot of polite lies about this (“better to see mom happy!”) but the reality is ugly. Dad’s rotating new girlfriends, blended families, lack of stability shuffling btw houses.

So many people are saying they knew at 40, went thru it at 60 and wish they did it earlier….

Eh, they have know way of knowing it would have been better. Lots of problems come from divorcing in your 40s with young kids. If you are in a relatively conflict free marriage and they are a good parent- it’s better for your kids to stay married. Perhaps not better for your dating life- but which is more important?