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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This isn't hostile. We've been together 22 years and I've totally fallen out of love with him. I've tried for two solid years to make things better between us, including going to marriage counseling by myself, getting on anxiety medicine, losing 40 pounds, and becoming really attentive to my body and general physical health, getting a new job and making a very good salary to contribute even more so to the family. He is not willing to do any extra work and typically just tells me I'm the problem. We live a relatively "good" life with our three kids but it's passionless and lonely. I'm tired. I am 42 and I do not want to wait until I'm 52 to have the courage to leave and maybe have a second chance at love. My kids have been my world, and I have lost myself in that world. I'm coming alive again and realizing that I need to be more than just my children's mother, especially as they grow and become more independent. I know certainly that once they are off to college, we will have very little left between us. We both adore our children. I am a wonderful mother and he is an absolutely wonderful father

What do I need to truly consider or plan for if I initiate a divorce? I do believe I can find happiness on the other side of this.[/quote]

This sounds like a classic midlife crisis. I'd be VERY careful with this assumption that the grass will be greener. I say this as a divorced man whose wife acted on the impulses you're describing -- I ultimately decided to divorce her when she got lost in limerance with another man (as part of some counseling in which her therapist urged her to "self-actualize" and did some things I could never forgive and retain my personal dignity. It's now five years later. These are the things that happened in those five years:

1) Our kids, who were young teenagers when this happened, chose to live with me. Yes, on paper, it was 50-50, but I was the one who kept a home in the town where their high school was. She moved 10 miles away for distance and to "find herself" (her affair fizzled out). I tried to encourage the kids to follow the custody schedule, but once they're in their mid-teens, they're going to kind of do what they want. It didn't help that they deduced what their mother had done.

2) Despite them living with me, it strained our relationship because I refused to discuss their mother's actions with them. It wasn't appropriate to do so, and whatever was happening between me and my ex should have nothing to do with them; the last thing I was going to do was play any role in alienating them from their mother. However, they're teenagers, and in the absence of information, they filled in a lot themselves. Yes, I had them in counseling and even did some sessions with them. But my refusal to given them any details (including about some things I didn't even know or wish to know) did drive a wedge between me and my children for a while.

3) We're both poorer. Her probably moreso than me. The divorce was somewhat contentious. I discovered papers she'd left laying around the house in which she was basically planning to avoid work to drive up child support and alimony by being underemployed. I had no choice to hire a lawyer because the best piece of advice I got was to approach this like it was the rest of my financial life -- which it was. We hired a PI and documented her affair and leveraged that into a settlement. I still offered to pay alimony for many years, mainly to reduce the chance of her being a financial burden on my kids when they launch as young adults. But there was a lot of money wasted and opportunity cost that could have been avoided had not done some of the things she'd done. But I'm behind on retirement savings now, still have debts because I ran deficits for years. She ended up actually being underemployed, partly due to circumstances beyond her control (i.e., Covid), but also because she never really liked working full time. I don't know what she's going to do when the alimony stops. Child support already stopped because the kids are older than 18 now.

We're both in relationships now. I'm happier than I've ever been, so there's that. I'm getting remarrried as an empty nester and we're equal partners in all ways. Her guy seems nice, I don't know much about their relationship (and don't care) but don't think they'll remarry (or if she even wants that). We cooperate for the most part on kid stuff, but I know they don't like the prospect of separate households for holidays, etc. as they start their own lives and families. We did that to them, and it really wasn't fair.

I'm only telling you this because your generalized unhappiness as you describe it is really a cliche and you probably need to be told to snap out of it. Could you find love again? Yes, absolutely. However, you'll also cause a lot of pain to yourself and the people around you, mainly your children, that will never fully heal.

Proceed with caution.

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