Dealing with Divorce Catch-All

ShynDarkly wrote:

It feels awful to congratulate someone on such a move Antichulius, but I feel its worthy and everyone in this thread understands the intent of it when I say it. I know for me progressing to that point was a huge step, and while it brought pain, it was also a huge weight off my shoulders at the same time.

Yeah, a good divorce (or just separation) is a big improvement from a bad marriage, so congratulations are in order. It might be hard now, but in the end you're likely to both be happier.

Thank you all. The good feelings of the day didn't last. I feel pretty crappy about the whole thing right now, but I still know it's the right step. It just sucks. And I'm sure there's going to be plenty of good and plenty of bad days in the month-ish before I move out and certainly more as I'm adjusting to a new life-arrangement and helping our kids through the transition. But in time, the balance will swing to more good days than bad.

Man, the emotional roller coaster is so real. Some days I feel almost a euphoric hope at the chance for a new life free from the constant emotional drain of my marriage. Some days I feel like I’m throwing away everything on a gamble. Some days I feel utterly despondent that nothing in my life will ever be better no matter what I do.

I finally got back a bit of drive a few days ago and got myself a therapy appointment. Dunno about the new therapist—but I’ve only got 3 free EAP appointments so it’s not much to be able to shop around. But boy did I feel a strong draw to just go back to my old (and expensive) therapist. I think in the end, I will go back because I know that relationship works for me. I just need to try out the free and prove to myself (again) that it’s worth the money to go back to the one that works.

I do finally have a firm move-in date for the town house I’m getting—and an aim to be fully moved within a week. And having made that decision has really made these past few weeks and the several more remaining very hard. My wife and I barely talk anymore (not that we were before, but it’s so palpable now) and when we do it’s only because she needs something from me or she needs to know something relating to the separation, like whether I’ll keep mowing the lawn after I move out (no, I won’t…).

This is so taxing. But at least it’s taxing with a direction. Which is more than I’ve had in years.

You will wake up one of these days with the firm realization that, while this really sucks now, you are going to be okay. My divorce followed the five stages of grief like clockwork, but you know, what you feel is what you feel, and the order you feel it in is the order for you.

But this is a process now, and you will get to the end of that. And maybe go through a weird list of re-evaluating each thing you like, do, shop for, etc., asking yourself, "Do I actually like this, or was I just doing this because of the relationship where I lost myself?"

And slowly you will find yourself again. And slowly you will like yourself again.

And you will wake up, and realize you're going to be okay.

Feeling extremely fragile today. This all just sucks—so much.

Just needed to say it somewhere.

Its gonna take time. Id say it took me a solid four years to really get over and fully accept my divorce. Six years later Im in a much better place and dont really ever get emotional or think much about her at all. All I can say is, youve chosen a path forward, stick to it, keep looking forward as much as you can. Accept that there will be bad days and regrets, just part of the process.

Antichulius wrote:

Feeling extremely fragile today. This all just sucks—so much.

Just needed to say it somewhere.

I don't have any great advice, but you're a good bloke and I've really appreciated our interactions on here over the last few years. I'm pulling for you.

Roo wrote:

You will wake up one of these days with the firm realization that, while this really sucks now, you are going to be okay. My divorce followed the five stages of grief like clockwork, but you know, what you feel is what you feel, and the order you feel it in is the order for you.

But this is a process now, and you will get to the end of that. And maybe go through a weird list of re-evaluating each thing you like, do, shop for, etc., asking yourself, "Do I actually like this, or was I just doing this because of the relationship where I lost myself?"

And slowly you will find yourself again. And slowly you will like yourself again.

And you will wake up, and realize you're going to be okay.

All my love for you, Anti <3

This is beautifully written and important to hear. Thank you for sharing, Roo. Still kind of in the middle of this process myself and will keep these words in my back pocket.

It’s just as important (or even more so) to recognize days when I feel at peace and hopeful for the future. That’s where I am today. I know I’ll be down again (probably soon), but it’s good to acknowledge the up days when they come.

It has been almost three years since we separated. My Divorce should be final in two months. My ex and I are working well together in co-parenting the kids, and I am finally working again. The only relationship that is super strained is that between me and my mother who thinks I should be much less willing to try to make things work with my ex for the sake of the kids. I've come to realize that she and my ex are very much the same type of people. I married my mother. I'm that guy. Oh well. . I fear that my relationship with my mother won't survive this. I hadn't talked with her outside of surface stuff for the last half year because I just couldn't take it. I finally felt at a place where I could talk with her. I felt that I had grown enough and was in a stable enough position to deal with her and not have it be a bad interaction. I was wrong. 10 minutes and I cut it off. I left feeling deflated and sad. Then I realized that she will never accept me for who I am and how I do things. And she doesn't need to. As much as I want her approval, I don't need it. And that was freeing. She told me that if we were going to make it work, that I would have to change, because she's too old to. And that's what I did in my marriage that caused so many of the problems. No more. Going forward I have a much better sense of who I am and what I need to make things work with someone. I have a head start on that with my new partner. We work very hard on our communication and things are so much better off than I was with my mother or my ex. Thank goodness. Also, this is tough stuff. I am here mentally hugging all of you. Take care and be kind and honest to yourselves.

Just need a venting place for a moment:

Spoiler:

I am so beyond frustrated right now. Depending on which old-timey psychologist you subscribe to, it’s like my wife’s subconscious is surfacing to find every possible way to try to sabotage me moving out.

Two in particular: Last week she got up in the night, fell, and got a concussion. Her second—the first was from a car accident 6+ years ago and still plagues her with challenges. But she was unable to do much and needed me to basically take over. And then today, I was supposed to go to dinner with a friend, but she sliced her finger open with a crafting blade and ended up 4+ hours in the ER while I canceled my plans and took over at home.

I get that these aren’t purposeful actions, but dang if she isn’t unconsciously trying to guilt my caretaker side into not leaving. Which isn’t working. It’s only making me more ready to be out from under all this.

I’m fine to step up with the kids at any time—it’s pretty clear they’re leaning on me right now, but I’m feeling nothing for her recent pain or struggles. It’s just not in me any more.

But what’s worse than all of this is that when I talk to my best friend and my mother—the two in my life who know the most of all of this—both of them make sure to share the focus of the conversation to include how my wife is doing and whether she will handle it okay. And I’m just sick of it. Your -my- friend and -my- mother, can’t you just be unabashedly on my side when you talk to me? Let me set the tone as to whether or how we talk about my wife—and stop saying things that set me up even further to be the heartless one abandoning her at such a hard time for her…!

I already feel crappy a lot of the time—I don’t need help stoking that particular flame.

I honestly want to just lay out for them my experience day-by-day for a decade as I’ve been slogging through a swamp of being ignored, minimized, forgotten, taken advantage of, etc etc etc all while trying over and over to fix things, and thinking -every- -single- -day- that this might be the day I finally have some value in my marriage, the day I finally feel actually cared about. Only to be disappointed. Again and again and…. for more than 10 years—more than 3,600 individual days. And I stayed and took it all. Because I believed I wasn’t worth anything more than that. Genuinely. I believed daily misery and crying alone in bed was the BEST my life would ever be. Because I wasn’t worth it to anyone. Not even to myself.

But hard, hard work and some lengthy therapy started to turn me around. And now, I feel my value and I’m no longer willing to subject myself to being treated like this. I deserve to have people in my life who care about me. Starting with myself. And my self care demands that I get out of this toxic relationship.

So, dang it if I couldn’t just use a few unabashed, shameless cheerleaders to rally with me as I’m actually trying to make something real and meaningful out of my second chance at life. And not to hold vigil for my wife at every turn.

I get it—it sucks for her.

But ya don’t get it—it has sucked for me, for years.

Ok rant over….

Thx for this place to unload…

That sux, man. You need people unabashedly in your corner.

Felix Threepaper wrote:

That sux, man. You need people unabashedly in your corner.

And she needs to find her own people to help her.

Anti-

It is ok to feel that you need some allies. Everyone needs support, especially going through this type of situation. I think what you stated in your text- let your friend and mom know what you need. They have known her for 10+ years I assume as well and it is human nature to connect the change that is happening to her as well. You are right though... these are your people and it might go better if you lay it out directly for them. They might not even know how that impacts you right now. I know when I went through my divorce, others didn't really know what I was thinking and what I needed because I didn't vocalize my needs very well.

Just an observation. Know we are here to lend an ear and have been in your place. It is a weird feeling to know your own wants after years of suppression. It is something that will get you to a better place though. The road to it sucks, but it is great once you get there.

I would say you may need to harden your heart a bit and tell your soon-to-be-ex that she's an adult and needs to deal with some of this stuff on her own.

Thanks all, was just really nice to have space to get that all off my chest with people who listen.

I was gifted the following poem today. I was reading an article about Sylvia Plath on Brain Pickings and they decided I needed a poem and it turns out I did. As I was reading, through tears from my own oft-broken heart, I thought of everyone here and so I wanted to share this with you. I have never been divorced myself, but I've always thought that's primarily because I've never been married. I admire all of you who have made that commitment and I keep up with this thread because I care about you all. You all have my love and support.

LOVE AFTER LOVE
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Yeah, that's it right there, with what I meant in my post above.

I still remember my first post-divorce trip through a supermarket, thinking, "What's the food that just *I* like again? I'm sure I can recall my own favorite food...right?" For me, that was my symbol of how much of a stranger I had become to myself.

Been myself for sixteen years now. (signed the first step divorce papers sixteen years ago almost exactly.)

I just re-read the thread on here, in which everyone was speculating about whether I made it to Greece, and just exactly how much sex was going on.

Roo wrote:

I just re-read the thread on here, in which everyone was speculating about whether I made it to Greece, and just exactly how much sex was going on. :)

SO MUCH!

First night in my new town house. It’s nearly 11 and I’m still up with one of my kids who can’t sleep, the other just barely asleep like 10 min ago. I barely got my bed moved today, but no time to even put a sheet on it yet. I’m with the kids because they need me. But dang if this isn’t the worst night ever. Kid tears, but they’re trying to hold them back. Town house that’s too warm. New beds, new sounds, way too many stupid box elder bugs. Up way too late. And I just want to unpack a sheet and a blanket so I can actually get a few hours of sleep myself. But I’ll stay up as long as it takes. And at least this is the start of a new chapter.

You are a good parent. It will be remembered.

Thanks Nevin. I really hope so.

It is hard to realize in the moment, but someday this will be a distant memory. Your kids will be much older, you will have a good relationship with them, you will feel like almost a different person. This. Will. Happen.

Special moment tonight:

Turns out my new apartment complex is only a few miles from a big, city-firework show. And my unit had a perfect 2nd floor window view of the show. I didn’t even know it was happening, but when I heard the fireworks and noticed we could see them, I brought my still-awake daughter (who’s still struggling to get to sleep) and we cuddled up and watched the whole show together from the hallway floor. It was her first big show ever, as her sensitivity to noise basically nixed it in years past. But from inside the house, it was great. And just a wonderful moment together.

Stupid allergies. Pollen must be getting in the house again.

I hate cleaning up my wife’s emotional messes with the kids. This week she was “too busy” for the kids to sleep at her place more than once every four days. And tonight, my kids had huge missing-mom breakdowns while talking to her on FaceTime, including grabbing the phone and hugging it to try to hug her and coming to sit in my lap to have some physical contact for their feelings. But she had nothing to comfort them with other than, you’ll see me tomorrow (while she was staring past her phone to the computer screen beyond).

I suggested that she could just make the 10 minute drive and actually hug the kids goodnight since they clearly needed it. One might think that she didn’t suggest it first because she was respecting my place, but the actual truth is that she just didn’t think about it until I mentioned it. And then, it was on me to care for the kids and help them feel through their sadness while they waited for her.

Just needed to gripe about it a minute. I just hate watching my kids get hurt by her inept emotional relating.

EDIT: And now I’m dealing with calming the kids after she got them all riled back up an hour and a half after bedtime started and then all the tears when she left. Going to be a long, long night.

That's really frustrating, I'm sorry to hear that.

That sounds like a nightmare. I'm sorry. No kid should have to deal with that - it's not their fault that one of their parents seems to be a douche canoe.

It was, in fact, a long night. But in the end, I got both kids through their larger-than-them feelings and eventually to sleep. I pretty much spent the first part of the night on the floor between their bedrooms where they could see me and know they weren't alone. I'm super tired this morning, but I'm feeling good about helping them through with understanding and patience.

Vent incoming: My 15 year old son keeps telling me that he's really tired of his mother telling people I abandoned my kids. "It's obvious to anyone who knows you that it's not the case," he told me. I'm glad he knows better. Now to see if my daughters feel that way. Considering I cut down my in studio work days to make sure the kids have a parent present at all times when they are home, I don't see how she can even say such things. I think her narrative falls apart if she has to admit that I actually parent them. She also accused me of not contributing anything to their care. I'm paying 500$ a month for tutoring for my son. I'm paying another $400. a month on after school care for the girls. I have bought most of the groceries in the last 4 months. She does pay the mortgage (1600$) but that's because she asked me to move out. I guess I could contribute to the utilities. I am living at her place three days a week which is wreaking havoc on my anxiety and depression. Sigh. At least the kids know I'm there for them.