Tell me what divorce will be like
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Anonymous
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Why do you want a divorce, op? You say your special needs kid is a huge handful. Why not spend more time with him? I'm serious. You mention your working hours, and I'm wondering if you are using work as an escape? I'd say this if you were a man too.
Why not spend some time working on your marriage? Again, I'm being serious. Know that if you divorce, you may not meet anybody you want to be with. You can probably find a friends with bennifits, but if you want more, it may not happen. Men don't typically care how much a woman makes. Men aren't lining up to be dads when they have no legal authority for a child that they can't legally adopt. The courts don't care about stepparents. Be aware that there are people who can be cruel to a person with a disability, no matter how mild and they can rationalize it as "tough love" "helping him grow up" "giving you a break" all types of nice sounding words. How will you evaluate the men you date to know how they will treat a child who by your own words is a "huge handful?" Conversely, how will you evaluate men who may have your kid's best interests at heart but they are telling you things you don't want to hear? My mom has a saying that "a child's greatest special need is his/her mother". The older I get, and the more moms I meet, the more I think I agree with her. How will you have time to date if you are so busy at work and taking care of your kids? Again, I'm being serious. Don't think that you are so awesome men will just stand by waiting for you to meet for coffee or a drink when you have 20 minutes to spare. No woman is, at least not if they are interested in healthy men. Since you have children, you do need to be aware of the nasty men out there who have an unhealthy interest in children, both sexually and otherwise. They are always up for a quick drink since they aren't really interested in you as a woman or a person. Since you want to date (and yes, I'm the poster that suggested it on another thread) try dating your husband. Do things together and really enjoy each other in every sense of the word. If you don't go to church, do that, I love sitting with my husband at church. He is appropriately affectionate and I always love that. The added bonus is that we either hear something we like, or we hear something we can make fun of. Either way, it gives us even more to talk about. That's always a good thing. |
Anonymous
Look at it this way. You thought you had problems with one spouse. Second marriage or partner you have to deal with their kids that you rather not spend time with. Unwanted guests around the holidays stealing your child's time and space. Exes that won't go away, or who are intrusive because they still have bad feelings. Finances that are still supporting kids for years to come. When you want to go on vacation your new partner won't go unless their kids are invited. Doesn't matter if their kids have different breaks from yours they insist you can't do it separately. Vacations end up being a nightmare. These are just a few of the problems. Trying to work out a 1st marriage is always best unless of course it's impossible. |
Anonymous
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Divorced for two years from a serial cheater who had no desire to reform, and it's hard but I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Kids are not "unbelievably messed up," but they also aren't untouched by the whole situation. My therapist says that research shows it takes about two years for kids to get back on the same emotional footing as their peers with married parents. That assumes the adults handle themselves well. It is longer if the parents are feuding. One one hand, that's a big chunk of their childhood. On the other, sometimes the check is in the mail on the divorce and you just need to pull off the bandaid. You have a lot going for you in terms of career and income, which helps. Being younger also helps. I wish I'd left after the "first" affair (which was just the first I learned of). At any rate, good luck. |
Anonymous
yeah, it is extremely naive to be "oh, my kid is fine, no problem!" |
Anonymous
Ok so ... there's no rule that women (or any divorced person) needs to find a second partner or second marriage. If the first marriage is miserable and dysfunctional, you get out of it for that reason. Do I hope that I might meet someone better? Of course. But if you told me right now, "you will never have another relationship with a man again" I would STILL divorce. |
Anonymous
| Seriously check out StepTalk.org ...it’s completely turned me off from looking for a LTR until DCs are in College |
Anonymous
I took my parent's divorce just fine. It was the dating and remarriages that had a lasting effect. |
Anonymous
Those people cheat. People who don't hate their marriage and are bored cheat, which is why no one actually has the "open marriage" conversation that the idiot wife did on the other thread. If everyone who was bored got divorced, the divorce rate would be 90% |
Anonymous
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The ink is barely dry on my divorce papers, so I'll offer my perspective:
1. I love not walking on eggshells in my own home. My days are more calm in that regard. 2. Life has been very chaotic. In my case, I have the kids almost 100%, work a demanding job, and just bought a fixer-upper house. I'm totally overwhelmed. 3. I'm haunted by my relationship with my ex. I'm completely over him, however, we divorced because he cheated. I cannot seem to get over the lies and betrayal. I have a lot of emotional work to do. 4. Finances are tighter, but at least my ex reliably pays child support. 5. I worry a lot about my kids. They don't understand what happened -- too young to understand infidelity. My ex doesn't make much of an effort to see them, which is heartbreaking because they are such awesome kids. 6. I feel a twinge of embarrassment over being divorced. It feels like a huge life failure. But my close family and friends (and even my ex's family) know the circumstances and see that my ex is going through a bizarre midlife crisis. Having a support system is everything. 6. Due to 2 and 3 above, I haven't even considered dating. I hope to get there one day, but I'm just not ready yet. |
Anonymous
My lawyer didn't say that either. DCUM's legal advice is awful! All that happens is that the spouse (me) that had the affair can't get spousal support. Other than that, we split everything 50/50 and went 50/50 on custody. He gives me #1,000 a month in child support. He wanted to keep all the savings, but the court really didn't care that I cheated, as long as I was not expecting alimony. He fought, I admitted to the affair, and we still ended up exactly where we were in our first meeting with the mediator. Could have saved 10K had he not fought so hard.... FWIW....I am a woman and I am the one that cheated, ended my marriage, and got remarried 2 years later with my AP. |
Anonymous
| From the outside looking in, OP, it seems that you are in a world of denial if dating is what you are asking about here. |
Anonymous
This. Kids are prone to telling adults what the adults want to hear. And adults are prone to accepting it. Kids are just not mature enough to predict how they will feel in the future and often the kids don't know the whole story. For example, I thought my parents'divorce was the right call because they fought so much, but several years later I found out about my mother's affair and was devastated at her poor character and all the lies I realized she had been telling us. Another example, as a teenager I never thought about how my own children would have to divide up grandparent time, but as an adult I really struggle with doing the extra travel and feel sad that my kids are getting less. I'm not saying kids' opinions are worthless, but you have to look at them in context. Dating is the least of your problems, Op. You seem in denial of that. |
Anonymous
SN take a toll on your life. By the time my "free" time comes, I either want to crawl into bed and be grateful no one is yelling for me. Or open a bottle of wine and then crawl into bed. I'm not capable of making intelligent conversation and it's just too hard. I just want to be a lump on a log. Lumps are not good dates.
But I have dated a few men. The ones that I'm interested in are engaged fathers. That's a positive trait to me. That usually means we see each other once or twice before we acknowledge that this has no hope of going forward because neither of us has the time or the energy. I dated a guy who lived 1/2 mile from me because he was convenient. A relationship should not be built upon convenience. We were at different places financially. DCUM will say money doesn't matter. But in the course of getting to know each other, the questions about kids would come up. "Where do your kids go to school?" Mine is in private. His response was "that's over $10K a year". My response was "something like that". When school closed for snow, I would take my kids away---we either went skiing or to Florida depending upon where I could get a flight. I WFH and have the flexibility to work wherever. He could not grasp just going skiing or to the beach on the spur of the moment. Dating is ridiculously hard. I go out with my girl friends a lot because they get it. They're in the same boat. We often joke that all the good men that we would want to date are still married. |
Anonymous
No, that is not what the women of DCUM write. Quite the opposite.
The vast majority of people lack the ability to fly to Florida because school is closed for snow.
And you make it harder by not accepting that most available men can’t fly to Florida just because. |
Anonymous
I have seen him before and after. He is becoming more relaxed, less high strung, more cooperative. Ideally I would love therapy for him but we had some pretty bad experience so maybe later. |