Separation & Divorce - Need Insights

[Anonymous]

Reconciliation doesn't seem to be an option at this point. I'm looking for suggestions for handling the separation/divorce. My question to those who have "been there, done that" is if you had it to do over again, what would you do differently? TIA!

[Anonymous]

Do you have kids?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't have bought into as much of the "divorce cheerleading" way of thinking about it. There are soooo many articles online about how great everything will be, "children are resilient", everyone will be much happier, blah blah blah. Turns out, pretty much every single thing was much more difficult than I expected and looking back, I feel very naive. One of my kids is finally turning a corner, the other one has a ton of emotions about it (despite therapy) and really resists custody changes even though two years have passed, and I have not met anyone new.

So, basically, I would have taken the finances and logistics more seriously, done more research and had more realistic expectations about the difficulty children sometimes have in adjusting, and not been dumb enough to think I would meet a better partner soon afterwards.

[Anonymous]

Don't leave thinking you will find someone better. Leave because the current situation just.cant.work
Would you still leave if you knew you would never find another partner again?

[Anonymous]

I think the only thing I'd have done better is put up firmer boundaries in regards to my ex-MIL. She was too involved in giving her opinions and it took exDH longer to work out how we were going to break up because of that.

[Anonymous]

I wasn't prepared for the person I'd been with for 13 years, who I had always fundamentally believed was a decent guy, to turn into a raging asshole. We had always had a pleasant existence. Our initial break-up was sad, but not angry or spiteful. Then, when it came time to deal with all the practical concerns--housing, cars, furniture, etc. he was a complete prick. He did his best to hurt me in every way possible. And to actually screw me out of money/property. I was so taken aback, as were our mutual friends. No one would have suspected it based on his personality. (and it was his idea first to split!) I ended up just wanting to get away from the new pain he was causing me as soon as possible and so I got royally screwed on the "settlement" aspect of it. I guess I wish I could have just known that, despite the fact that he and I had said we were going to handle the breakup "like friends" that it's not necessarily true. Maybe I could have been more emotionally prepared and stood my ground on some things.

Good luck to you. Some of its very hard. And then you get through it. Ask yourself which is worse... the acute pain caused by divorce or the long-term chronic pain of an unhappy marriage.

[Anonymous]

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Meet with an attorney well in advance of doing anything so you can make sure you have your ducks in a row (e.g., secure copies of relevant financial documents). Even if things start out cooperative, don't expect it will always be that way, don't rely upon promises that the other person will treat you fairly, etc.

[Anonymous]

If you're female, don't assume you'll get primary custody. A lot of women assume this, wrongly.

[Anonymous]

I thought my ex would continue to be a good father, and would not remarry for a while. Oops. New wife, new baby, and another on the way. It has been really hard for my (our) kids. They actually like the baby, but when they are over there, they just don't have their father's full attention like they used to, and new wife is preoccupied with her toddler and her pregnancy. Ex is not a bad guy, but he is overwhelmed emotionally, logistically, and financially, and just can't handle being a good parent to all three and a good husband to his new wife. So it has been very hard on our kids to experience that, and I end up doing a lot more of the parenting emotionally as well as logistically. We had a relatively even split before the divorce, so I was quite surprised to find myself in this situation.

The lesson: Don't think you know how your ex will behave in a divorced parenting relationship, even if he has been a good father and fair to you in the past. He can marry whomever he wants and have more kids and you have ZERO say over this, but you will be picking up the pieces.

[Anonymous]

A lot of my thoughts have already been expressed.

One of the difficult things I -thought- I was prepared for turned out to be even more difficult in reality. i.e., one of the reasons I stayed in a horrible, self-esteeming killing marriage for as long as I did was because I couldn't bear the idea of not being with my precious (elementary-aged) child every day, every bedtime, every Christmas morning.

Ultimately we divorced, and I found that saying 'bye' to DS is even more gut-wrenching that I had imagined it would be. Sometimes I just sat in my dining room and sobbed. And no amount of new hobbies and distractions ever really takes that away completely.

[and before anyone jumps in with armchair psychology, I "handled it" beautifully and said all the correct therapy words and if you knew me IRL, you'd describe me as a hands-off kinda mom who practices a lot of benign neglect parenting on purpose. DS has always felt the opposite of (s)mothered, if anything, but I ache inside, privately]

[Anonymous]

I waited too long to get myself into therapy. That hour a week where I could vent/cry/talk through issues with a trained professional was my salvation and made be a better mother and a better advocate for myself. I waited too long to seek out that help and so those first few months I constantly felt like I was failing at everything and I was beating myself up all the time. Once I set aside time every week to just take care of me, I turned a corner and felt like I was starting to get a handle on everything. It wasn't magic and it wasn't instant but it made an important and lasting difference in my life at a time where I needed that difference.

[Anonymous]

I counted on a lot of support from my family and friends, which didn't really materialize. People helped in the first few months, and they were still my friends etc., but they weren't really interested in providing much logistical support long-term. There was definitely a feeling of "you made your choice, so you better learn to handle it."

As for my family, my in-town sister ended up moving for grad school, and my own parents dropped a huge bomb on me by getting divorced soon after. So they were preoccupied with their own lives and not very helpful, plus I have to deal with separate visits, split-up holidays, etc. It depresses me to think that my children and grandchildren (God willing) will be having the same experience some day. It has been eye-opening, to say the least.

All of this has been financially hard as it has required much more paid childcare and outsourcing household stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wasn't prepared for the person I'd been with for 13 years, who I had always fundamentally believed was a decent guy, to turn into a raging asshole. We had always had a pleasant existence. Our initial break-up was sad, but not angry or spiteful. Then, when it came time to deal with all the practical concerns--housing, cars, furniture, etc. he was a complete prick. He did his best to hurt me in every way possible. And to actually screw me out of money/property. I was so taken aback, as were our mutual friends. No one would have suspected it based on his personality. (and it was his idea first to split!) I ended up just wanting to get away from the new pain he was causing me as soon as possible and so I got royally screwed on the "settlement" aspect of it. I guess I wish I could have just known that, despite the fact that he and I had said we were going to handle the breakup "like friends" that it's not necessarily true. Maybe I could have been more emotionally prepared and stood my ground on some things.

This was exactly my experience, except the marriage lasted 17 years. I went with a milquetoast attorney at first, and then after a few months when I realized that I was in danger of being stuck with a ton of debt and possibly losing custody of my kids, fired her and hired a "bulldog." OP, if your current spouse has controlling tendencies, be prepared for him/her to turn into a raging asshole. The controlling person gets WAY worse when he/she realizes that control is being lost. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if any of the PPs are children of divorce? I'm a child of divorce and i could have told you pretty much all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering if any of the PPs are children of divorce? I'm a child of divorce and i could have told you pretty much all of this.

I'm the PP who has become a child of divorce shortly after my own divorce. The truth is, some of my friends did try to tell me, but I was in denial and did not want to hear it. It was just too hard and I had too much on my plate day-to-day. Now I try to tell people, and it makes them not want to talk to me at all.