Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to get therapy - not my thing.

Thanks for letting us know why you're getting a divorce

OP, if you're actually serious, you'll need to grieve. You'll also want to look at how you contributed to the divorce. He may have yelled when talking about finances but, at a minimum, you allowed that and tolerated it for howeverlong. And, if you're willing to be honest, I'm sure you'll find plenty of ways you could've done better by yourself in this marriage.

Unless you plan on being single for the rest of your life, you'll need better skills than you currently have to make a better relationship next time. Go to therapy. Group, private, church, whatever... do your own work. Part of processing grief is understanding what really happened to you, and you're not thinking clearly if you're still blaming it all on him.

Not going to lie. It gets ROUGH, but it will not last forever. I had a spectacularly bad/expensive/humiliating divorce, found myself on welfare, etc. A few years later I am happily remarried, a homeowner, doing well in my career, and kids are doing pretty well.

I wish there were a way to explain in an age-appropriate way that I could not remain married to their dad, who was sleeping with escorts and women he was meeting on Tinder. I think they’re still sad about it and I do my best to help them understand that it just could not work. But that is the hardest part.

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t hard. It was always unhappy and stayed too long. Many years. The decision was easy. The process was annoying but not hard. No emotions.

But in retrospect, staying til college (and finding a sex partner) would have been easier than logistics of coparenting. It is almost worse—and I had an emotionally and financially abusive marriage. There is no freedom in a divorce with kids with shared custody.

Woman (no cheating)

Agree. And kids having SN amplifies this ime.

Try a Gottman therapist, OP. It is evidence based.

https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/

Having a SN kid is very stressful for a marriage. Divorce and going back and forth is devastating for kids who already have it harder. Try to work on the marriage and on coping skills that are not yelling/withdrawing.

Anonymous wrote:Curious why you are anti therapy?

She had one “highly traumatic” session with the couples counselor. IME people who call an hour discussion with the counselor “traumatic” are pretty histrionic and problematic themselves. OP doesn’t want to address her own issues.

Curious why you are anti therapy?

Anonymous wrote:Abuse was really taking me down. All else was easy compared to that. I only took my personal things. I don't move with furniture and wouldn't want anything we owned together.
I was able to breathe at my own place. Didn't have any good memories from the marriage.

You sound like my ex who cheated multiple times for years and then left with just his items of addiction. If you can't remember any good parts of the marriage, then that's on you. Most people can see the positives and negatives that transpired. I mean you married the person so at one point you liked them.

Following a lengthy marriage to an emotionally distant person, I found that therapy, exercise, and copious amounts of intimacy via a FWB situation did it for me.

Abuse was really taking me down. All else was easy compared to that. I only took my personal things. I don't move with furniture and wouldn't want anything we owned together.
I was able to breathe at my own place. Didn't have any good memories from the marriage.