r/Divorce

I am just about at my wits' end in trying to get my divorce finalized. Yes, I am in the vast minority because I am a college-educated male trying to divorce my college-educated wife. Apparently that only happens like 10% of the time, but that's neither here nor there.

This entire process has been me conceding little bits here and there, just trying to get this finalized. Her family is backfilling her bank account to cover all of her attorney fees, while I am slowly bleeding dry with my attorney. We are 5 days away from what is supposed to be hearing to settle the divorce, and yet she continues to not give an inch on shit that doesn't even matter.

She never wanted a divorce because I was her doormat and gave her everything she ever wanted, and clearly she doesn't want the gravy train to end. It just sucks that she ends up holding all of the cards and I have to concede away nearly everything, one little bit at a time.

/rant

Has anyone had a "in home divorce" basically? We can't afford a divorce, 2 apartment and child care but we are miserable. I was thinking of turning my gym in the basement into a bedroom and living in there and then basically have a typical parenting schedule and do life separate etc...

Has anyone tried this? Did it work? Did it fail?

In my search for a divorce lawyer in Vancouver, I'm seeing so many blatant fake reviews for firms and the lawyers in the firms. I'm talking about reviews written with the same idiosyncrasies and by reviewers with only 1 review in their histories.

Would you hire these firms? I personally wouldn't for anything else but it's been so hard finding a competent lawyer who won't bleed you dry with extravagant charges.

Long story short; im getting a divorce

We have a house together, 4 cats (one mine), a pig, and a dog. Yes a pig.

My soon to be ex-wife doesn't want to sell the house and doesn't have the financial ability to "buy me out"

I proposed a split of 3/4 all cash and fluid assets and 1/3 of the house (when sold). She likes this more than selling the house of buying me out of the house.

Is this something I can do? Like a contract that says she gets the house in the divorce but I get a portion of the house when and if sold?

Thank you in advance

My ex moved out 10 months ago and took a smart TV that was still connected to my Alexa account. I recently discovered that every announcement made in my home had also been playing on her TV for months.

My kids confirmed it. When my oldest tried to record proof, my ex took her phone and told the kids not to tell me.

This isn’t an isolated incident. During our separation, she inappropriately accessed my work cellphone to read messages between my family and me, created fake accounts to gain access support discord servers and has even snuck into our oldest child’s room at night to read messages between us (waking her up and clearing notifications)

I contacted Amazon and removed the TV, which also removed me from our shared Prime account and purchased content. Since our agreement was that she’d share Prime while I kept her in my Apple Family, I removed her from that too.

Now she’s screaming in the court app that I’m making the kids unsafe cause she can’t track them thru Apple family and that I’ve upset the kids cause they can’t access her music library. (The kids remain on the family)

I feel like we need completely separate digital accounts. Did I overreact?

i wanted to flair this infidelity because legally, it is. and part of me feels guilty. i am 22 f, been married for a little over a year now and have one child. i need to know if anyone else is in the same boat.

i began seeing someone shortly after i told my husband (soon to be ex husband) that i wanted the divorce. my reasoning for wanting a divorce being his mom was too much involved and i felt as if i married her, he is not an attentive father or an attentive husband (goes to work comes home drinks and sleeps), turns every talk about how i am feeling into an argument, insecure, and an addict (kratom in place of hydrocodone and percocet). i had been over my husband for about a year now, havent slept with him or wanted him near me.

now to the story of the hour. i meet this guy through my close friend, and it just so happens he is her brother. started chat via instagram, began hanging out on husbands night shifts. its been a four day ordeal, and i have loved getting to know this man. and to preface, i have been honest and told him i like this guy and want to get to know him better. now he is being extremely petty about things and getting his mom involved.

if there is anyone else going through this or has been through this, can you please help me out. i dont want to stop seeing this new guy, i also dont want my soon to be ex husband causing issues between us. what do i do, how do i go about this, and why am i feeling so much guilt?

I really feel like ending my life. I have nothing to look forward to.

My ex wife insisted on committing a crime that left me injured and needing a round of steroids. In steroid psychosis I initiated divorce but completely botched the proceedings. I took a suckers deal for 2k instead of proper representstion. The abuse was never formally acknowledged by her lawyer and a detail about public assistance was incorrect, I was on snap and I believe medicaid. If there is abuse that results in injury is that grounds to reopen mediation or the divorce decree?

My wife and I are separated but still living together because we have young children and we’re trying to figure out the logistics of everything.
I know I have responsibility for why our marriage got to this point. I cheated, I broke her trust, and I’ve owned that. I’m not looking for people to tell me I was right or to excuse what I did.

The problem is that living together has become incredibly toxic.
I don’t start the arguments. Most days I’m actually trying to keep to myself, stay calm, and avoid conflict. I’m also currently at home taking care of our young kids, feeding them, taking care of them, doing household responsibilities, etc. I’m trying to be present for them while everything between us is falling apart.
But she’ll ask what’s wrong, I’ll say nothing because I don’t want to argue, and somehow the conversation turns into the affair and everything I’ve done in the past.
I’ve been called a loser, insecure, told that I make her unhappy, told that I’ve “lost her,” and told that our daughter may resent me someday. When I try to defend myself, I’m told that I don’t get to talk back because of what I did.

I understand why she’s angry. I really do.
But at this point, it feels like anything I say or do gets turned into another argument about the past. If I give her space, I’m giving her the cold shoulder. If I try to be affectionate, I’m ignoring the fact that we’re separated. If I get upset, I’m manipulating her. If I defend myself, I’m making excuses.

We have young kids in the house, and I don’t want them growing up listening to their parents constantly fight.
I’m trying to figure out how to live under the same roof without continuing this cycle.

I’m not asking how to win her back. I’m not asking whether I was wrong for cheating. I know I was. I’ve spent a long time trying to take responsibility for it.
I’m asking how you create boundaries with a separated spouse when you still live together and have children.
How do you respond when the conversation turns into insults or the affair gets brought up again?

Do you just walk away? What if they follow you and keep arguing?

How do you divide household responsibilities when you’re separated but still sharing a home?
And most importantly, how do you protect the kids from the conflict while still functioning under the same roof?

I’m not looking to bash my wife or make myself out to be a victim. I know I have things I need to own. I just don’t know how to keep living like this without constantly being pulled into another argument.
I don’t want another war every day.
I want to be able to co-parent peacefully, even if our marriage ultimately doesn’t survive.

Extra information: We both agreed to move states into a new house while i guess trying to repair the marriage, but now i see it was only one sided.

My wife wants to get divorced. She doesn't want to try therapy. We have been together for 10 years total. I love my wife, but i know that I have hurt her deeply with my actions the past few years. I have made changes however it may have been to late in the process. So I am trying to wrap my mind around getting divorced at the age of 63. Any help or answers?

Anyone here’s going through a divorce alone? All my family and friends are in my home state wife field for divorce and wants to stay where we’re at. We have been here for 2 year we have a little girl together. She said I can have 50/50 so every other week. But like on holidays it’s just her and I sometimes, wife doesn’t do Co-parenting like holidays together etc. I don’t have the mental capacity to even try and making new friends or even talking to any girls. My options are stay here get 50/50 be alone. Do things alone with my daughter or go back home where I would get her Durring the summer, every birthday, alternate major holidays.

So the headline says it all. I have three adult children, two of whom still stay at home. I had to leave our home due to the verbal abuse I received for not bringing in any income whilst I did a Masters. But it started way before then, when I was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. He was abusive to the kids, but as he said, he was the only one with a job and could put food on the table, so it was not for moving. Things had calmed down after I left, as he stayed out most nights and the kids didn't see much of him. A few weeks ago he met an artist who has no home; she lives in her art studio. Their relationship is being conducted from the comfort of our home. All the kids have said that they are uncomfortable with this situation and he says that he doesn't care. He's happy for the first time in years.

I have written a letter to her which I want to post to her studio; the kids are worried that their Dad will go nuclear if he finds out, as he is prone to do. I am a Buddhist, and err on the side of wanting to do things peacefully, but I'm concerned for the kids who are depressed about the situation and want to leave home. I want to act. I have recently gotten a small flat with enough bedrooms for everyone, so my question is - do I move the kids out and just leave the woman in ignorance or do I let her know the massive inconvenience and costs that her actions have created? The kids are 16 and 19 so not little children, but they have already been through so much change with our separation and being left with the "evil parent" whilst I was homeless. The divorce is taking a while, it galls me to think of the two of them in my home, using all the things I bought, wedding presents and such. AAAARGH !

My husband (43m) and I (42f) have been together 12 years and married for 8. We have a toddler.

We'd always faced issues with intimacy and communication. I had a normal sex drive when we met, he was less interested in physical intimacy and struggled to discuss the issue. I took this personally at first, but tried for years to learn to talk through it and become more connected with him in this way. I mentioned many times that I did not have a problem with porn if he used it, he claimed he "didn't really" use porn and just had a low libido. This was allegedly a lifelong issue and he had "no real interest" in sex. I also suggested opening our relationship early on, after noticing him looking at other women. He was adamant that he wasn't comfortable with an open relationship. Despite this (I know, I know) our relationship was otherwise very good for the first several years, but for roughly the last 5 years, my husband became increasingly emotionally unavailable. Communication basically disappeared. If I tried to talk about our relationship or my feelings, he would shut down, give one-word answers, or act like there wasn't a problem. Over the last few years, he's shut me down by implying that I am toxic, problematic, and essentially bullying him. I can see now looking back at emails and my journals, as well as his own recent admissions, that I was not the problem.

Eventually I stopped trying and we basically became roommates/co-parents. Our bedroom has been dead for years.

Two weeks ago, I discovered that he has been abusing his prescription stimulant medication and going on days' long porn benders. Usually once a month or more, for years and years. More recently these episodes included interacting with and talking to other women on dating websites. He as anonymous, but the women were local. He never met anyone in-person. Although this is a horrible betrayal, I believe him on this point as we live in a very small town and I would have heard about it. Obviously, I was furious and the situation blew up. I told him I was leaving him and have decided to divorce. It sounds like he has struggled with compulsive sexual behavior since childhood, and he does have other addiction issues that he has largely overcome, prior to meeting me.

This isn't a "should I stay?" situation. He knows I'm not changing my mind and says he doesn't expect me to. I've disclosed all of this to enough close friends, and a more wholesome version to my family, that I wouldn't go back on that decision even if I wanted to.

We are still living together for practical/financial reasons, plan to file soon, and because of the waiting period and our plans to repair and sell our house in the spring, we'll likely be cohabitating for a while.

Here is where things get tricky... Since everything came out, we've been having incredibly open conversations about our marriage, his betrayal, what happened between us, and how both of us feel. I honestly think we're communicating more openly and kindly than we ever have in our entire relationship. He has been mature, honest and remorseful. And we've started having sex again for the first time in years.

It's been amazing. Not just physically, but the combination of sex, affection, vulnerability, honesty, and finally feeling emotionally connected to him after years of deprivation is incredibly intense. I know how absurd that sounds considering I'm divorcing him for betraying me.

My rational brain is saying, "This is probably a terrible idea. You're going to make the separation harder. Stop sleeping with your soon-to-be-ex husband."

But another part of me thinks: the marriage is ending either way. Neither of us is pretending this means we're reconciling. After 5+ years of feeling lonely and emotionally neglected inside my marriage, I'm suddenly getting this strange little window where we're actually talking, being kind to each other, acknowledging what happened, and enjoying each other's company again. I don't want to give it up right now.

I'm also only 14 days out from discovering the betrayal, so I recognize that my emotions and nervous system are probably completely haywire. I have my first therapy appointment with a new practitioner who specializes in this kind of thing in a few days.

*** I am physically safe, from STI and in other ways. for a number of reasons I won't get into here, I am not concerned about this negatively impacting the terms of our divorce. I have the upper hand there and have sound legal advice and representation. I am not concerned about this being just another layer of manipulation on his part.***

Has anyone experienced this weird period of closeness/intimacy with an ex while separating or divorcing? Did it actually help you get closure, or did it make detaching significantly harder?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who understand why this feels good but will still tell me the things I probably don't want to hear, if necessary.

From the point of realisation, to the conclusion you want it and to the actual execution of the decision, how long did it take you? What were your steps, what held you back and what pushed you beyond the treshold?

Met my wife when I was 22. A pair of rings, four kids, and 24 years later, I overhear our 17 year old say "Dad might not be the best in the world, but he doesn't deserve to be cheated on." (She later informed me that she really didn't love me for most of our entire relationship, she just thought she did.) (It's her *married* boss at work.)

She threw me out almost immediately, and had a lawyer calling me within days. I have my car, and a motel room for a month or so and I am struggling to get back into an apartment. Even if I am able to put myself back into an apartment, I am 46 years old. I had a very long career with Google, I gave it up so that we could move somewhere better to raise our kids. I stayed home with the kids for quite a while, did gig work and other things in order to help raise the kids because it seemed the most important thing to do.

So now I basically don't have jack or shit to offer another human being, and won't likely have anything to offer someone ever. I'm not trying to jump into something right now, but just looking at the reality of the situation, I am somebody who can't stand being alone and really doesn't do well without the support of a partner, facing a reality where I probably won't ever have one again and I don't know how to get over that. I'm not one that likes to be super free with my emotions, but the concept is actually kind of terrifying.

Any advice?

Edit: I should also point out that within about 36 to 48 hours of me finding out about the affair, I ended up contracting double pneumonia. I also experienced kidney failure, and a handful of other severe and life threatening medical emergencies all at the same time and spent 22 days in the ICU. so she didn't exactly throw me out when I found out she was cheating, she threw me out while I was intubated in the hospital. no, she did not visit.

3 years ago my wife felt she was done being a partner to me. She had concerns over how I treated her. They weren’t entirely unfounded, I had room to grow and mature. Perhaps my poor qualities were not equal to the degree she despises me for them.

With years of therapy, books, online programs and friends, I have grown and improved as a husband. Our relationship only got worse though. In March I moved out. I’ve built a comfortable life around friends, kids and hobbies. She’s turned down my effort/ requests to build connection and try to improve our relationship.

I thought after 5 months apart I’d reached a point of acceptance that our relationship is over. Therapy focused on getting me there. Today I told her that I am ready to move forward with getting a divorce. She seemed a bit sad, but accepting. Then when I left, I just wanted to hold her and cry. I didn’t. I just walked away and cried in the car and at home. She was my support and my rock for over 20 years before she had enough of me. It hurts like hell right now.

I’ll be sad today. Tomorrow I’ll start back on the road to acceptance and growth.

My parents are going on their first year of divorce and I feel conflicted about some things I feel I can't really share with people around me.

A bit of backstory that might help set the stage for the why and how.

I left home when I was around 20 and moved about 1 and a half hour away with my then girlfriend in pursuit of higher education after earning a vocational degree. During this time, my sister got into acting and performance art for her education.

I have always had some problem with being social and I wasn't that good at keeping contact with my parents and family at home, but I would get visits and we would visit them maybe 5 to 8 times a year.

As I was nearing the end of my new education run, my sister announced she would move to a neighbouring country for her master degree, leaving our parents as empty nesters, though they still cared for two cats and a dog.

Long story shortened, I finish my education, my girlfriend becomes my fiancé and now my wife, I end up taking some crapy job due to COVID still going, my sister finishing her master and finding someone and deciding to stay in that country.

Fast forward further to 2 years ago, I learn that my sister who visits home when she can as been put in the middle of fights and arguments between our parents, our dad struggling with pain from surgery and our mom growing restless at home. I come to find out they managed to bottle up their issues as long as one of us lived at home, but it all came boiling to the surface once me and my sister left home.

I feel guilty for not having done or even known how bad it was for my sister, basically being put in the middle of this and wished I could have done more, but I think I couldn't have done much either.

Nevertheless, our mom moved out and they ended up divorcing, she stating she couldn’t take being his emotional punching bag and him feeling blindsighted by it. At the time, I was shocked as I always saw my parents marriage as a decent one up until the divorce. My sister has been an ear piece to both and has started putting clear lines about them gossiping to her about the other up until the divorce

The bigger issue came 4 months later when our mom announces she is seeing someone. Our mom have always been a biker, not anything special, just enjoying long bike rides when she could. She had apparently met and talked to this new guys for for a couple of years (our dad had suspicions of cheating, but mom has denied this)

As much as I don't think or wish our mom would cheat on our dad, I must say I feel some resentment for her seemingly moving on so fast with this new guy. She did something similar when they lost a dog and within 2 months, she wished to get a new one. I feel like she moves on too quickly, but that might just be me.

Our mom has been hounding both me and my sister to accept her new boyfriend, to meet his kids and so on. A few weeks ago, she officially quit her job and is moving in with him (I think) which is fairly close to me and my wife. I have little interest to meet her boyfriend's family to be honest, her moving on so quickly and the constant asking for us to meet and accept him as a part of her life is difficult and feels so pushy by her, as if it should be a small hurdle that should have been past long ago.

My sister has no love for our mom or her new boyfriend, her sparse trips home has her now wanting to avoid our mom and honestly, I don't blame her.

On the other side, our dad has been busy with building and relying on friends and family for emotional support. For me, I received a generic text maybe once a month. I felt that he didn't want to talk to me while our mom over shared and asked too much, a dynamic they've always had but amplified since they split.

I have taken contact with our dad and told him recently I wish for more contact with him, not just simple text but calls or even an invitation to come visit as previously, he had been busy for when I was close by and asked. It might slowly get better, but that's where we are now.

I guess I just feel resentment towards our mom for moving on so quickly with someone and pushing me and my sister to accept him and mourning the lack of contact from my stoic dad. I felt like we were a solid family but now, the four of us are so spread out and separated, I feel like I've lost the feeling of family that was so important growing up.

TL:DR; parents marriage fell apart after both me and sister moved out, sister became the ear piece for both despite barely being home, mom moved on too quick for me and my sister's comfort, dad shut himself away until recently and I mourn the sense of family we once were, despite being in my 30s.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this.
I think I’m desperately looking for answers because nobody around me can explain what happened.
My husband and I were together for over two years before we got married.
It wasn’t an easy journey because his family never accepted me.
I actually turned him down several times because I knew what his family were like and I didn’t want to spend my life fighting them.
His family made it clear they wanted him to marry within the extended family rather than marry me. They openly opposed our relationship from the very beginning, and I never truly felt accepted by them.
Despite all of that, he fought for me.
He begged me.
He begged my family.
He begged everyone around us to let him marry me.
He constantly told everyone I was the love of his life and that we’d get through anything together.
Before we got married, he left what he described as an abusive and dysfunctional family home. He had nowhere to live and was effectively homeless.
My family took him in without hesitation.
My mum fed him.
Gave him somewhere safe to stay.
Helped him rebuild his life.
Treated him like one of her own.
I stood beside him through one of the hardest periods of his life because I loved him.
We genuinely built everything from nothing together.
That’s why this hurts so much.
I genuinely believed that no matter what happened in life, we’d face it together because that’s exactly what we’d done from the beginning.
Even our wedding should have been a warning.
Guests had been waiting since around midday.
His family didn’t arrive until around 9pm.
The imam actually left because they were so late and had to be chased back.
Nobody from my family complained.
We were just happy everyone had finally arrived.
Then came our walima.
That became another horrible memory.
My father actually left because of how upset everything became.
His family refused to allow my family onto the stage.
An argument started over us having three additional guests.
While I was sitting on the stage as a bride, members of his family were calling me “fat” and “ugly.”
His brother swore at me.
It was humiliating.
Despite all of that, my husband still chose me.
That’s why what happened next feels impossible to understand.
We were only married for ten weeks.
I’m not pretending our marriage was perfect.
Yes, we argued.
But our arguments weren’t about cheating, abuse, money or anything major.
Most of them came back to his family.
They’d say hurtful things about me or disrespect our marriage, and I’d become upset because I felt he didn’t stand up to them enough.
Looking back, I also now realise I was pregnant during that time, although neither of us knew it.
In hindsight, my emotions were probably much higher than normal and neither of us understood why.
Despite the arguments, he never swore at me.
He never called me names.
He never intentionally tried to hurt me.
In so many ways he was an amazing husband.
That’s why what happened next makes absolutely no sense.
The Friday before he left, we had one of the biggest arguments we’d ever had.
At one point he packed a bag and said he was going home.
He didn’t even make it out of the front door.
Instead, we sat down and had the deepest conversation we’d ever had.
He asked me if I even wanted this marriage.
I admitted that during arguments I’d sometimes say “divorce,” but I told him I didn’t actually want one.
The truth is I wanted reassurance that he’d fight for us.
Looking back, I know that wasn’t a healthy way to communicate and I regret it deeply.
He cried his eyes out.
He asked me if I even loved him.
I cried too and told him,
“Of course I love you.”
He then said something I’ll never forget.
He said he was selfish because he didn’t want to lose me.
He said he wanted this marriage to work because he loved me more than anything.
He swore by Allah, by the Qur’an and by the Prophet ﷺ that he wanted this marriage and couldn’t imagine life without me.
We both cried.
We held each other.
We made up in what genuinely felt like an unshakable way.
We were intimate.
We ate together.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms.
If someone had asked me that night whether my husband would leave me the next day, I would’ve laughed.
I genuinely believed we’d got through the worst of it.
The next day I went out with a friend.
When I came home, something didn’t feel right.
My husband works from our utility room, and it’s somewhere I rarely go because it’s full of his work things.
For some reason I had a gut feeling something wasn’t right.
I asked him if everything was okay.
He told me there was nothing wrong and swore there was nothing to worry about, but he was visibly shaking while saying it.
That immediately made me suspicious.
I went into the room.
I saw two bags packed.
I opened one.
His clothes were inside.
The paperwork for our flat was inside too.
I asked him,
“Why have you packed all of this?”
He told me it was from the argument the day before.
But it didn’t look like someone who had angrily thrown things into a bag.
It looked properly packed.
That became our main argument.
He picked up the bags and walked out.
I asked him,
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to divorce me?”
He replied,
“Yes… I will divorce you.”
He actually stuttered saying it.
Throughout our entire relationship he never even used the word “divorce.”
He always called it “the D word” because he believed divorce was so serious in Islam that he didn’t even like saying the word out loud.
That was the first and only time I’d ever heard him actually say it.
I simply asked him whether he would swear by Allah that he meant what he was saying.
He refused.
That gave me hope.
I thought he was emotional and would come home once he’d calmed down.
Instead I saw his location at the train station.
I rang him.
I begged him not to go back.
He kept saying,
“You wanted distance. You wanted this.”
I kept saying,
“No. Please come home.”
He got on the train anyway.
That was the last time I heard his voice.
After that he blocked my number.
Changed his number.
Turned off his location.
Cancelled our tenancy.
Cancelled our household bills.
And never came back.
A few days later I found out I was pregnant.
I managed to tell him.
He never replied.
He never asked if it was true.
He never asked for proof.
He never asked how I was.
He never asked about the baby.
Instead, a few days later I received Islamic divorce papers.
They weren’t from a mosque.
They weren’t through an imam.
They were simply typed up.
He issued three talaqs in one sitting.
He never paid my mahr.
One of the conditions of our marriage was that if we ever reached breaking point, we would involve mediation before divorce.
None of that happened.
There is one thing that haunts me more than anything else.
His email account was briefly still logged into one of my devices before he signed out.
During those few moments I saw that he’d created a folder called **“Harassment from ex wife.”**
Inside were my emails.
My voice notes.
My messages.
Recordings of me crying my eyes out, begging him to speak to me and trying to understand what had happened.
Seeing that absolutely broke me.
I wasn’t trying to harass him.
I was a terrified wife who had gone from sleeping in her husband’s arms one night to watching him disappear the next.
I wasn’t sending those messages out of anger.
I was desperately trying to reach the man I’d loved for over two years.
To see myself labelled as an “ex wife” within days, and for my cries for help to be filed away as “harassment,” is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
The hardest part has been his family.
They never wanted this marriage.
When my parents rang asking if he was there, they denied knowing where he was, despite us having reason to believe he’d gone back to them.
When they were told I was pregnant, they ignored it.
I rang his father crying and begged him to help save my marriage.
I even said I’d kiss his feet and my husband’s feet if it meant saving my family.
I was told I wasn’t welcome there and they wanted nothing to do with me.
When I asked whether I should contact the police because I couldn’t find my husband, I was told to wait another day or two.
Then the divorce papers arrived.
Based on everything I’d experienced over more than two years, I genuinely believe his family had a significant influence after he returned to them. They had opposed our marriage from the beginning, and from my perspective everything changed after he went back.
What I cannot understand is this…
How does someone spend over two years fighting everyone to marry you…
Leave the family he described as abusive…
Accept help from your family when he had nowhere to go…
Cry in your arms…
Swear by Allah, the Qur’an and the Prophet ﷺ that he loves you more than anything…
Sleep in your arms…
Tell you he wants to save the marriage…
Then within 48 hours leave, disappear and divorce you?
I keep blaming myself.
Did the arguing finally become too much?
Did I push him too far?
Was Friday his last attempt to save the marriage?
Or had he already made up his mind?
What hurts me most isn’t even just the divorce.
It’s the silence.
Even if he no longer wanted to be married to me…
Didn’t I deserve one final conversation?
Didn’t I deserve an explanation?
Didn’t I deserve enough respect to hear it from my husband rather than receive a piece of paper?
And then I think about the pregnancy.
Even if he had stopped caring about me…
Did he not care about his own child?
Did he think I was lying?
Why didn’t he even ask?
I’ll probably never know.
I loved this man with everything I had.
I stood beside him when he had nobody.
I believed we’d always face hardship together because that’s what we’d always done.
The husband who held me, cried with me and promised me the world on Friday is not the man who abandoned me on Saturday.
I genuinely don’t recognise him anymore.
I don’t know whether I’m looking for advice, answers or simply for someone to tell me I’m not going crazy trying to make sense of all of this. 💔

For those of you focusing on self-care and turning your life around after divorce, like improving your sleep, eating better, exercising, getting sunlight, etc., how did you get yourself to actually do these things consistently?
How do you make yourself go to bed when you intended to, instead of staying up for another two hours? Get up at the time you planned, get outside and get some sunlight, meal prep and consistently eat healthy meals, and go to the gym regularly?

I've been doing some or all of this off and on, and I genuinely want to do these things. But I've had a hard time turning them into regular habits rather than something I do for a while, and then fall out of again. I'm also pretty tired after the past couple of years, which doesn't help, but I think my biggest issues are consistency and follow-through.

For those of you who successfully made this kind of lifestyle change: what made it stick? Did you rely on discipline, routines, accountability, starting very small, some kind of mindset shift, or something else?

My husband and I, 27M and 26F, (together a total of 6 years, 4 years married) have had a rough relationship since we got married. We fight - we’ve both said horrible things to each other, and he’s punched so many walls. I’m generally avoidant and dismissive. He’s defensive and blames me for everything. We don’t eat meals together or spend time together, like at all. I’ve lost sight of why we ever got married in the first place. We haven’t had a good stretch that lasted more than 2 days… in years.

We’ve been in couples counseling for 2 years on and off (with three different counselors!). I’ve been living in the spare room for over a year and things keep getting worse and worse and worse. He doesn’t seem to have basic respect for me anymore.

I fantasize about my life after divorce. I feel like I’ve already grieved my life - I’m okay with selling the house (he wants to keep it), I’m okay with him taking the 2 cats, I’m okay taking nothing but my clothes and just… starting over. Excited even. But it’s so hard to pull the trigger. Like I just should just pick a random weekend and move out? And immediately file for divorce? And get on my own health insurance?

It’s hard because we’ll have conversations in our weekly couples therapy where we both agree to do better, and we both have hope that things can be built anew - and then 2 days later I say something he perceives as being slightly wrong (or me having a “bad tone”) and the flood gates open to going right back to hostility, put-downs, and threats of divorce… at which point I just walk away and basically refuse to talk to him outside of therapy. And in that way I’ve put off the divorce decision week by week the last 6+ weeks of doing this intensive (and expensive) couples therapy.

I’m just scared. I’m scared of the financial implications of the divorce (losing all of our savings).

I’m scared to lose all the relationships with my in-laws, and I know he will run my name thru the mud and that’s so embarrassing.

And I’m scared of what people will think. I’m scared of disappointing my family, and I don’t want rumors about me at work.

And I’m scared to be alone. Back in a one bedroom apartment, and beholden to keep my full time job because I need the money and the insurance.

I’m just tired of living in limbo. My life rn is miserable and full of fear and turmoil. But I really just don’t know if it’s time to pull the trigger😭 or keep working thru the therapy. Sorry if this is more of a rant, but I’m just so lost