Husband was slow dumping me for eighteen months but he claims it was "sudden".
If you do reply to this, please do so as if you are gently trying to explain to Marianne why she needs to let Willoughby go 😆 bonus points for Austenian tone! My story sadly is one of incredible male audacity that I didn't realize broke me down over time. --
First meal prep I've managed in a decade btw. I have to thank so many of you, the solidarity and sisterhood has brought me to tears here. I moved to a new country for love and now I'm single and alone here but I'm not! I've built such a beautiful community in my new town and online because I was encouraged to reach out to the sisterhood even in a new language because it really is universal!
As it went, I followed him from city to city as each new job he got had some problem or another with it. I was more than a decade into my career when he was just starting his because he couldn't figure out what he wanted. By the third move in five years (and more than thirty in my life because my dad did the same thing), I realized I wanted to put down roots, build a village.
Hubs would chastise me when I said I wanted to switch companies from remote to something local because I "needed to prove to him that I could stick with something", which I never understood and now realize was projection because I was the one who supported him for years.
So when he found yet another job in yet another country with more money I told him to go and try it for the probationary period because I wasn't going to drop 10 grand and leave the nicest flat and funniest little village ever if he couldn't promise me we wouldn't move again in a year. He found a roommate and went off, promising to look for a flat for us in the new country because he had to have me there even if he couldn't promise he would stay. We had been long distance before and it had worked fine, but now he was coming up with excuses as to why we could only meet infrequently.
When we did, I wasn't allowed to bring up any topics like emotions, money, or anything that didn't relate to his "honeymoon feeling". When we were apart I had to schedule these topics with him and he would usually just push them off anyway. So he wanted constant bliss and absolutely nothing that required the emotional regulation skills I now see he doesn't have, as I handled that for over a decade.
He promised he would make his decision about staying or going after four months, but "company leadership" was moving his extra training back another six months. So finally at the year mark I asked him if I am moving there or what. He said he couldn't see the future. I sat with him for hours to come up with a tree of options: more studying, different job, etc etc. Around this time he was blowing up more and more because I had learned in therapy how to regulate myself and had stopped regulating him and it freaked him out how little control he had.
At Christmas I had a come to Jesus with him and told him if he didn't get into therapy within six months I was done, which was terrifying because I was raised fundamentalist and that was the absolute worst thing you could do. He said he understood and agreed to it. We talked like normal when he went back to work for a week and then he started only calling me for like five minutes before bed after a day or two of no contact and said he couldn't understand why I would be upset at that when at least he was remembering to say goodnight.
It was a Monday when I asked him about trading in the car because he crashed mine one morning and just left back to work, with no talk of fixing or replacing it. He blew up and said "you know you're not allowed to talk about these topics while I'm in a work week! Nothing is ever good enough for you. Always wanting to spend money!". {For context he said we only needed to own one fork, spoon, knife, bowl, plate, cup each and I was ungrateful if I wanted more}.
For the first time in twelve years I didn't hear from him for an entire week. Then he sent a WHATSAPP message asking for a divorce. "It's suddenly clear to me that we handle things too differently and I don't believe having the emotional component to a relationship is necessary but you do."
Ladies if I can in any way get reassurance that I'm not the only one who didn't realize I shrunk myself in pursuit of his love... I didn't even realize how small and how much I stopped believing in myself or that I didn't see he was pulling away (we had such nice visits). I can at least claim some pride that I accepted his request for divorce and was impeccably professional and neutral.
He apparently didn't tell his family or friends it was happening but said I had asked for a break. He said we could "take our time even if it takes a year or two to finalize". I got us divorced in ten weeks and didn't realize it would shock him because we walked out of the courthouse and that mothafucka turned to me and asked if I wanted to go have sex. "Now we can start a better relationship" (meaning of course as he said previously that, "I make money and your job is to handle the emotional parts of a relationship", except now he wouldn't even have to contribute financially!).
And even though I have multiple degrees, putting that man in my rearview mirror will always be the proudest moment of my life.