Remembering the good times makes me cry yet he hurt me at every turn.
I’ve posted here before, but I’m having a particularly bad day.
I’m 59F my soon to be ex-husband is 57. Married for 31 years. He wasn’t willing to give up gambling which put us in financial trouble when we should have been looking forward to retirement.
I was stupid and let him bully me into him always handling the bills for years despite his on and off gambling through our whole marriage. He liquidated his IRA and insisted we pay off the mortgage which we did. That was 3 years ago. Now we have a 200k mortgage again.
He gambles on online apps, buys cigars compulsively and has spent thousands of dollars buying coins for online games. He hid most of this from me and gaslit me into believing it was because we were both making less money than we used to. I never stopped working and still have a decent job.
I never had the guts to demand he let me take over the bills. I was too afraid of him getting angry at me like he always did when I tried to get involved in the bills and his spending. It was emotionally draining.
I supported him when he left his long time job 4 years ago and wanted to pursue something less stressful. He got fired from that one job and the 3 others that followed. He drank and gambled more heavily from that point on and tried to start liquidating my IRA. I realized if I let him do that I would never be able to retire. That’s when I finally woke up and filed for divorce last month.
He’s currently unemployed and not putting much effort into getting a job.
He’s treated me badly through most of our marriage and has narcissistic tendencies. It’s like he’s just waiting for the payout he’ll get from the little equity we have when we have to sell our home.
So why do I feel sorry for him? I have been crying all day today. I am the one who filed for divorce. I’m still going through with it, but it’s just so hard. Is this normal??