Tell me what divorce will be like

[Anonymous]

Separated for 18 months. Kid is actually doing better now than he was in marriage. Dad wasn’t that involved and continued to be a weekend dad.
I have become calmer and more self assured and less worried about things.
I have a babysitter and a friend to help me out in a rut.
It is hard but at least I don’t have anyone undermining me.
We have become more amicable with my ex.
Haven’t gone thru formal divorce yet thought.
I don’t date but i am older and out of shape, so.
I honestly don’t understand about the “damage”. Son had a few questions but they were mostly related to his his life is going to be. He was mostly upset about lack of videogames it seems (eyeroll).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait a year to date? Would people give a man the same advice? I doubt it. Good luck and don’t stay lonely and celibate for a year, get out there!

Lawyer will say wait a year to date because adultery is a crime in many states and cause for an at-fault divorce and a bitter ex can hire a PI to prove it and you are basically screwed if they want to go to war.

Funny, my lawyer didn’t say that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are worried about dating? I would be worried about my kids

I am about to be divorced - as in, papers are signed and filed, STBX has bought a new place and will move out soon, and we are about to tell the kids - and yeah dating is the farthest thing from my mind now. Breaks my heart to think of the bomb we're going to drop on the kids. Think it will be a surprise because we have not had any overt conflicts in front of them.

Trust me when I tell you they know more than you think and may not be surprised or shocked. That said, this will permanently mess them up. Be sure they are in therapy. Even if they think they are fine, the amount of damage you and your ex are inflicting on them can not be overstated. And staying together would likely be worse.

Interesting you say this. My friends kids actually wanted them to divorce as they were all unhappy and the tension /conflict was palpable. They had a pretty amicable separation as both were more than done with the marriage and they had been living pretty separate lives for awhile. Even with all that, 2 of the 3 kids spiraled down after the divorce and were really impacted by it. They are about 7 years out now and everyone is fine but there were 2-3 really, really rough years for everyone. My friend says that despite how much better it was for her, she probably would have stayed until the kids were out of the house as seeing the impact on them was far worse. She also realizes though that they could also have been messed up if she had stayed with all the dysfunction in the house.

[Anonymous]

Divorce is expensive. We did ours through mediation, agreed on everything, and only hired lawyers to review and I still paid out over $10k when it was all said and done. If you sell the house, there are closing costs, if you keep it, there are costs to refinance. If you move, there are moving costs, security deposits, you have to buy some furniture, etc.

Your kids will be hurt by this. I don’t know that they will be any more hurt by it than if you stay in a dysfunctional marriage, but you will need to face the fact that this is going to shape them and how they view relationships. You need to get them in to therapy, which is another cost. If your ex disagrees, he can also prevent them from getting it.

Dating is a mixed bag. I don’t know what problems you are having in your marriage, but you can assume that any future dating partners are going to carry similar baggage. It’s easy to find dates as a single mom. It’s hard to find a quality, long term committed partner. Most men who will understand your situation will also have kids, which means their custody schedules may not match, so you have limited free time. They may have high amounts of child support and alimony they are paying to their former spouses, and that can Be limiting and a stress if you eventually decide to be committed long term. They may have a crazy ex spouse who will be problematic for you.

Blended families have an extremely high divorce rate.

All that said, I love my new life. I love the independence, the freedom to date, the freedom to not date. The freedom to parent as I please, the freedom to be 100% myself.

[Anonymous]

I left an abusive marriage. I started dating right away, because I was scared, alone and codependent at that point. I hadn't been touched much my entire marriage. That was a big mistake, because I didn't know who I was anymore or what a good relationship looked like. I dated a lot of jerks and put myself in a lot of bad positions. But the experience from it helped me understand why I picked a wrong partner to begin with.

That only came with therapy. I have a clearer picture now of who I am, how I ended up with a jerk and that I didn't have good boundaries at all to begin with. I also am learning to stand on my own two feet again for the first time in almost a decade.

My divorce was awful, I couldn't move on until it was done. It was $130k and I was fighting for my life. I married a maglinant narcissist.

What I think you should focus on to take away some of that yearning to start something new is to try some activities you never thought you'd try or always wanted to try. Rock climbing, yoga, join a sport league. Enrich your life and forget about dating until you're out of the weeds here. Make your life a life you really want to live without anyone else first. And do that now, you don't have to wait until you decide to divorce.

Good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Divorce is expensive. We did ours through mediation, agreed on everything, and only hired lawyers to review and I still paid out over $10k when it was all said and done. If you sell the house, there are closing costs, if you keep it, there are costs to refinance. If you move, there are moving costs, security deposits, you have to buy some furniture, etc.

Your kids will be hurt by this. I don’t know that they will be any more hurt by it than if you stay in a dysfunctional marriage, but you will need to face the fact that this is going to shape them and how they view relationships. You need to get them in to therapy, which is another cost. If your ex disagrees, he can also prevent them from getting it.

Dating is a mixed bag. I don’t know what problems you are having in your marriage, but you can assume that any future dating partners are going to carry similar baggage. It’s easy to find dates as a single mom. It’s hard to find a quality, long term committed partner. Most men who will understand your situation will also have kids, which means their custody schedules may not match, so you have limited free time. They may have high amounts of child support and alimony they are paying to their former spouses, and that can Be limiting and a stress if you eventually decide to be committed long term. They may have a crazy ex spouse who will be problematic for you.

Blended families have an extremely high divorce rate.

All that said, I love my new life. I love the independence, the freedom to date, the freedom to not date. The freedom to parent as I please, the freedom to be 100% myself.

I was hesitant to chime in since I don't know OPs situation and don't want to encourage or discourage divorce. But regarding dating, and assuming she's fit and attractive, this is exactly the truth, especially the underlined part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorce is expensive. We did ours through mediation, agreed on everything, and only hired lawyers to review and I still paid out over $10k when it was all said and done. If you sell the house, there are closing costs, if you keep it, there are costs to refinance. If you move, there are moving costs, security deposits, you have to buy some furniture, etc.

Your kids will be hurt by this. I don’t know that they will be any more hurt by it than if you stay in a dysfunctional marriage, but you will need to face the fact that this is going to shape them and how they view relationships. You need to get them in to therapy, which is another cost. If your ex disagrees, he can also prevent them from getting it.

Dating is a mixed bag. I don’t know what problems you are having in your marriage, but you can assume that any future dating partners are going to carry similar baggage. It’s easy to find dates as a single mom. It’s hard to find a quality, long term committed partner. Most men who will understand your situation will also have kids, which means their custody schedules may not match, so you have limited free time. They may have high amounts of child support and alimony they are paying to their former spouses, and that can Be limiting and a stress if you eventually decide to be committed long term. They may have a crazy ex spouse who will be problematic for you.

Blended families have an extremely high divorce rate.

All that said, I love my new life. I love the independence, the freedom to date, the freedom to not date. The freedom to parent as I please, the freedom to be 100% myself.

I was hesitant to chime in since I don't know OPs situation and don't want to encourage or discourage divorce. But regarding dating, and assuming she's fit and attractive, this is exactly the truth, especially the underlined part.

I'm not either PP but a friend said something similar to me during a difficult time in her marraige and I think of it often during difficult times in mine. Barring significant issues of abuse, addiction etc - EVERYONE is going to have some issues. She basically said to me look, I ultimately decided that J (her DH) is going to bother me, but so would someone else, and frankly the potential risks of divorce are simply not worth the potential rewards, at least not at this point.

Of course that's not true for everyone.

[Anonymous]

If your income is in the top 1% and you think you won't have extra money to burn you have a spending problem somewhere along the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Separated for 18 months. Kid is actually doing better now than he was in marriage.
I honestly don’t understand about the “damage”. Son had a few questions but they were mostly related to his his life is going to be. He was mostly upset about lack of videogames it seems (eyeroll).

The concern is - do you really know what's going on inside his head? It is not uncommon for kids to be so worried and anxious they shut down and refuse to talk about it, or to be “taking cover” when parents are angry or depressed, or to feel protective thus keep silent to shield parents from additional worry.

I'm a child of divorce and my mom had no idea what was going on inside my head. Huge anxiety, fear of abandonment, feeling like I'd done something wrong to cause daddy to go away, etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting you say this. My friends kids actually wanted them to divorce as they were all unhappy and the tension /conflict was palpable. They had a pretty amicable separation as both were more than done with the marriage and they had been living pretty separate lives for awhile. Even with all that, 2 of the 3 kids spiraled down after the divorce and were really impacted by it. They are about 7 years out now and everyone is fine but there were 2-3 really, really rough years for everyone.

What was the nature of the downward spiral, and what, if anything, could have been done to mitigate it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorce is expensive. We did ours through mediation, agreed on everything, and only hired lawyers to review and I still paid out over $10k when it was all said and done. If you sell the house, there are closing costs, if you keep it, there are costs to refinance. If you move, there are moving costs, security deposits, you have to buy some furniture, etc.

Your kids will be hurt by this. I don’t know that they will be any more hurt by it than if you stay in a dysfunctional marriage, but you will need to face the fact that this is going to shape them and how they view relationships. You need to get them in to therapy, which is another cost. If your ex disagrees, he can also prevent them from getting it.

Dating is a mixed bag. I don’t know what problems you are having in your marriage, but you can assume that any future dating partners are going to carry similar baggage. It’s easy to find dates as a single mom. It’s hard to find a quality, long term committed partner. Most men who will understand your situation will also have kids, which means their custody schedules may not match, so you have limited free time. They may have high amounts of child support and alimony they are paying to their former spouses, and that can Be limiting and a stress if you eventually decide to be committed long term. They may have a crazy ex spouse who will be problematic for you.

Blended families have an extremely high divorce rate.

All that said, I love my new life. I love the independence, the freedom to date, the freedom to not date. The freedom to parent as I please, the freedom to be 100% myself.

I was hesitant to chime in since I don't know OPs situation and don't want to encourage or discourage divorce. But regarding dating, and assuming she's fit and attractive, this is exactly the truth, especially the underlined part.

Except for the assumption that all the problems that make it "hard to find a quality, long term committed partner" reside in the available men and not in the single mom...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorce is expensive. We did ours through mediation, agreed on everything, and only hired lawyers to review and I still paid out over $10k when it was all said and done. If you sell the house, there are closing costs, if you keep it, there are costs to refinance. If you move, there are moving costs, security deposits, you have to buy some furniture, etc.

Your kids will be hurt by this. I don’t know that they will be any more hurt by it than if you stay in a dysfunctional marriage, but you will need to face the fact that this is going to shape them and how they view relationships. You need to get them in to therapy, which is another cost. If your ex disagrees, he can also prevent them from getting it.

Dating is a mixed bag. I don’t know what problems you are having in your marriage, but you can assume that any future dating partners are going to carry similar baggage. It’s easy to find dates as a single mom. It’s hard to find a quality, long term committed partner. Most men who will understand your situation will also have kids, which means their custody schedules may not match, so you have limited free time. They may have high amounts of child support and alimony they are paying to their former spouses, and that can Be limiting and a stress if you eventually decide to be committed long term. They may have a crazy ex spouse who will be problematic for you.

Blended families have an extremely high divorce rate.

All that said, I love my new life. I love the independence, the freedom to date, the freedom to not date. The freedom to parent as I please, the freedom to be 100% myself.

I was hesitant to chime in since I don't know OPs situation and don't want to encourage or discourage divorce. But regarding dating, and assuming she's fit and attractive, this is exactly the truth, especially the underlined part.

I'm not either PP but a friend said something similar to me during a difficult time in her marraige and I think of it often during difficult times in mine. Barring significant issues of abuse, addiction etc - EVERYONE is going to have some issues. She basically said to me look, I ultimately decided that J (her DH) is going to bother me, but so would someone else, and frankly the potential risks of divorce are simply not worth the potential rewards, at least not at this point.

Of course that's not true for everyone.

Who gets divorced just because their spouse "bothers" them? Really? Personally I am divorcing because the situation is untenable, and I don't really GAF about who I date after. Do people truly divorce just because they are a bit bored?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait a year to date? Would people give a man the same advice? I doubt it. Good luck and don’t stay lonely and celibate for a year, get out there!

remarried man here - yes, in fact this would be the advice a man (with kids) would receive. I have given this advice myself in fact. I waited a year before I dated - focused on my kid, in that time, building a home, and creating a lifestyle and an environment where DC would thrive and to minimize any sense of loss. When I started dating, I dated a number of women over a period of about 2 years before meeting my amazing 2nd wife. Had I not taken that time to focus on myself, my kid, etc. I would have been been a complete mess in terms of relationships.

[Anonymous]

Unless there is abuse......the grass is always greener. Do everything to work it out since you have young kids. Very few men want to take on a new family, no matter how hot and rich you think you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless there is abuse......the grass is always greener. Do everything to work it out since you have young kids. Very few men want to take on a new family, no matter how hot and rich you think you are.

Unless he just wants your money.