If you held off on divorcing because you didn’t want to lose your home or life as you know it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Maybe your situation wasn’t that bad. After my divorce, I had to coparent and talk to my ex maybe twice a week. That was an extremely worthy trade off for not having to walk on eggshells in your own house 24/7, for being able to see my friends and family, and for getting medical care when I needed to.

It was that bad. I moved 6 times in 8 years across three states. I worked full time. I did ALL of the parenting. I was not alllowed to go the grocery store or spend any of my own money despite earning six figures. The emotional abuse was out of control. It was not a marriage. There was zero affection or sex for 7 out of 10 years. Here is the thing: the controlling aspect does not stop after a divorce with an abuser with 50/50 custody. Had I known this, I probably would have stayed. I don't find it easier. It is just as bad in a different way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious before you all had kids with these monsters, did you even think about how you were bringing kids into crappy marriages?

Hah. May your smugness come back to bite you.

The short answer, as you likely already know, is that people change. Or they can no longer keep on the mask after a few years. Or they have mental health breaks. Or mid-life crises. Or they snap.

Seriously. My ex's financial success went to his head which happened after we had kids. He's that guy who has to let you know he has GROUP ONE BOARDING. The guy I married and had kids with was happy to be able to afford a plane ticket in Economy.

lol did we divorce the same guy?! Have had this exact convo!

OMG there's an epidemic of these guys. But thanks to my legal fees which I charge to my airline credit card I now have GROUP TWO boarding! So there! My therapist and I have talked about this a lot, and you're totally correct - that GROUP ONE behavior came home with him, too. She has helped me see that we were heading in totally different directions - the luxury life wasn't what I was seeking and the more I looked inward to work on myself, the more he seemed to crave that external validation. Looking inward isn't pretty but I sure am a lot more at peace than I was during my marriage to GROUP ONE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

I have been a SAHP for 15 years and 50 so of course I’m worried about what my career would look like and what kind of salary I could earn. And women don’t have pay parity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Maybe your situation wasn’t that bad. After my divorce, I had to coparent and talk to my ex maybe twice a week. That was an extremely worthy trade off for not having to walk on eggshells in your own house 24/7, for being able to see my friends and family, and for getting medical care when I needed to.

It was that bad. I moved 6 times in 8 years across three states. I worked full time. I did ALL of the parenting. I was not alllowed to go the grocery store or spend any of my own money despite earning six figures. The emotional abuse was out of control. It was not a marriage. There was zero affection or sex for 7 out of 10 years. Here is the thing: the controlling aspect does not stop after a divorce with an abuser with 50/50 custody. Had I known this, I probably would have stayed. I don't find it easier. It is just as bad in a different way.

I’m sorry for your situation but if you knew you wanted divorce immediately and then stuck around and procreated with this fellow, you beed to look inward about your choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious before you all had kids with these monsters, did you even think about how you were bringing kids into crappy marriages?

Hah. May your smugness come back to bite you.

The short answer, as you likely already know, is that people change. Or they can no longer keep on the mask after a few years. Or they have mental health breaks. Or mid-life crises. Or they snap.

Seriously. My ex's financial success went to his head which happened after we had kids. He's that guy who has to let you know he has GROUP ONE BOARDING. The guy I married and had kids with was happy to be able to afford a plane ticket in Economy.

lol did we divorce the same guy?! Have had this exact convo!

OMG there's an epidemic of these guys. But thanks to my legal fees which I charge to my airline credit card I now have GROUP TWO boarding! So there! My therapist and I have talked about this a lot, and you're totally correct - that GROUP ONE behavior came home with him, too. She has helped me see that we were heading in totally different directions - the luxury life wasn't what I was seeking and the more I looked inward to work on myself, the more he seemed to crave that external validation. Looking inward isn't pretty but I sure am a lot more at peace than I was during my marriage to GROUP ONE

Now I'm wondering exactly how many times my husband has been married before?? It's like they are all off the same assembly line. Exact same thing. Financial success, went to his head, entitlement, needed external validation. I would have had NO PROBLEM flying first class and staying in luxury hotels but he took his girlfriend instead of me, probably because most of the time if he took me our kids would have to come along too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious before you all had kids with these monsters, did you even think about how you were bringing kids into crappy marriages?

Hah. May your smugness come back to bite you.

The short answer, as you likely already know, is that people change. Or they can no longer keep on the mask after a few years. Or they have mental health breaks. Or mid-life crises. Or they snap.

Seriously. My ex's financial success went to his head which happened after we had kids. He's that guy who has to let you know he has GROUP ONE BOARDING. The guy I married and had kids with was happy to be able to afford a plane ticket in Economy.

lol did we divorce the same guy?! Have had this exact convo!

OMG there's an epidemic of these guys. But thanks to my legal fees which I charge to my airline credit card I now have GROUP TWO boarding! So there! My therapist and I have talked about this a lot, and you're totally correct - that GROUP ONE behavior came home with him, too. She has helped me see that we were heading in totally different directions - the luxury life wasn't what I was seeking and the more I looked inward to work on myself, the more he seemed to crave that external validation. Looking inward isn't pretty but I sure am a lot more at peace than I was during my marriage to GROUP ONE

We have a lot in common! Yes to everything you wrote. Though I’m still in group 6 you don’t even warrant a seat…boarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Maybe your situation wasn’t that bad. After my divorce, I had to coparent and talk to my ex maybe twice a week. That was an extremely worthy trade off for not having to walk on eggshells in your own house 24/7, for being able to see my friends and family, and for getting medical care when I needed to.

It was that bad. I moved 6 times in 8 years across three states. I worked full time. I did ALL of the parenting. I was not alllowed to go the grocery store or spend any of my own money despite earning six figures. The emotional abuse was out of control. It was not a marriage. There was zero affection or sex for 7 out of 10 years. Here is the thing: the controlling aspect does not stop after a divorce with an abuser with 50/50 custody. Had I known this, I probably would have stayed. I don't find it easier. It is just as bad in a different way.

I’m sorry for your situation but if you knew you wanted divorce immediately and then stuck around and procreated with this fellow, you beed to look inward about your choices.

He forced the pregnancy. I said I did not want to. So you can stop judging now. We agreed no kids: he “changed his mind.” I was off the pill for 2 days due to illness.

Sex once years later and never again. I was geographically trapped for eight years could not leave in a different state.

I did not choose to procreate. In fact, I had told my parents right before that I was leaving at the end of the month after the forced encounter wearing me down until I acquiesced, even though I said I did not want to get pregnant.