r/DivorceHelp

My husband and I have been married for almost 25 years. We met while he was going through training at a military base. I was recently divorced. It was a whirlwind relationship and I got pregnant. We got engaged, I miscarried but he stuck by me. I always felt second in our relationship. I could tell my husband had his heart in another place. He was in a relationship before me and they never really broke up. They were both in the military and their assignments took them places that didn't align. I had NO idea how much this would effect my life 25 years later. I got pregnant again quickly. We got married. I have been a SAHM for all these years. Our kids are still living with us (23f) and (21m).

I have a lot of anxiety and self esteem issues I wish I worked through during our marriage. I have put a tracker on my husband's phone without his knowledge, when he found out I told him it was to keep the entire family in contact (kids were just getting their licenses), he didn't seem to care. I was truly worried but deep down. I always thought my husband would find his way back to "her". My husband and his previous partner are from the same area in the country and she moved back around the same time we had. It sounds like she had a great relationship with his family. My mother and sister in law both visited her when she and her family were in the same location where my sister in law lives (touristy area). It killed me to hear how great she was and how wonderful her family is. I thought my husband was still in touch with her. I checked his emails and text messages and I found a draft email a few years old to this woman professing his love for her and that she was his "soulmate". I had a breakdown. My husband never sent the email. I sent an email to this woman to leave my husband alone and I never heard from her. It's been eight years since that happened.

The last two years I've felt my husband pulling away more. I secretly went on GLP-1 and lost a ton of weight and got myself back to where I was when we first met. It cost a fortune. He never knew because I handle all of the finances. I acknowledge I have a spending problem but I attribute it to my anxiety. I tried therapy and it hasn't worked. I wanted marriage therapy for both of us but he's so shut down he is doing it on his own.

I guess I should also mention that I did have an affair when our children were young. He stuck by me. But I do feel that he had this emotional pull from this other woman, I never felt I had all of him and his love. He never raised his voice to me. I acknowledge that I haven't been fair to him or his family. He seems so done with me and I know what I've lost. I guess my question is, how could I possibly try to get him back if he's unwilling to try marriage counseling or he refuses me when. I try to show affection. I know I'm flawed. I know I didn't treat him well. I have so much regret. My kids keep asking me why we're splitting and I can't tell them the truth because truthfully, I'm ashamed. I hate myself for not appreciating what I had all along. I hate that my husband always loved another woman more and I could never be his person. I hate that over half my life was spent with him and I never did more. I guess this is more of a vent. Thank you for listening.

tldr: My husband loved another woman all of our marriage. He now wants a divorce after 24 years of marriage. I know I made mistakes and I hate myself for them. I am still resentful of my husband's love for this other woman he spent time with over 30 years ago. Is there anyway to get him back? He seems so done with me.

My husband (M35) told me (F33) that he loves me more like a friend than a wife, and because of that we are separating after 7 years together and 5 years of marriage.
I genuinely feel like I could die from this. Nothing makes sense. My body and my mind both seem to reject the idea that this is really happening.
Of course we had problems. I had even thought about divorce myself at times when I was unhappy or frustrated. But deep down I was always convinced that we would work through everything and stay together in the end.
Apparently, over the last few months, he realized that he had been fighting with himself to keep our marriage going, and that he just couldn’t make himself feel differently anymore.
And I know that I don’t want to stay married to someone who doesn’t love me as a wife. I know that logically. But I still love him. So much.
We built a whole life together, and I truly believed he was my person and that we would grow old together. Now suddenly I am supposed to imagine a life where he isn’t my husband anymore, and my brain just cannot process it.
I feel physically sick. I keep crying. I keep thinking that maybe this can’t really be happening, and then I remember what he said and it hits me all over again.
For anyone who has gone through something like this, how did you survive the first days and weeks? How do you eventually accept that the person you thought was your forever person no longer wants the same life with you?

I’m going through a divorce after 12 years of marriage, and honestly, I feel like I’m falling apart emotionally.
He was my first boyfriend, my first love, and the person I’ve spent most of my adult life with. We have two children together, and even though I’m the one who initiated the divorce, I’m struggling more than I ever imagined.
I feel so emotionally attached to him. Part of me knows why I made this decision, but another part of me feels like I’m losing my entire world. I feel lonely, sad, confused, and broken. Some days I feel like I’ve lost my purpose in life because I don’t know who I am outside of this relationship.
I’ve also been stress eating, and I feel overwhelmed trying to process everything while still being there for my children and figuring out what my future will look like.
I never imagined that after 12 years, I would be starting over. The thought of building a new life, being alone, and accepting that our family will look different is terrifying.
I guess I’m looking for some hope from people who have been through something similar.
For those who went through a divorce after a long relationship, especially when you were the one who initiated it but were still deeply in love with your spouse, did things eventually get better?
How long did it take before you started feeling like yourself again? Did you eventually stop feeling so attached? How did you deal with the loneliness, the grief, and the feeling that you had lost your purpose?
I would really appreciate hearing your honest experiences. Right now, I just need to know that it’s possible to get through this and feel happy again.

I feel like a failure and a loser. My life has been stripped from me. My STBEX told a mutual friend of ours she no longer loves me, has been checked out for a while and is no longer attracted to me. She also admitted she was just looking for a reason to end things. I have a 14 month year old with her.

I’ve done a lot of the things in the relationship that were unhealthy and not a sign of a good husband. But she also did the same and controlled me and tried to force me to be the person she wanted me to be. Not who I really am. I’ve had 10 people who all knew me and her all say the same thing. Idk how you deal with her. You’re a saint.

On Friday we separated and I got most of my stuff from the house. She is taking the divorce very lightly and acting like nothing is bothering her she actually even acted happy with a mutual friend of ours and was even making jokes about pursuing a trainer at her gym. Apparently today she was a bit more serious and quiet.

I still need to figure out child custody agreements. Because I’m a first responder I can only get my daughter at max every Wednesday night and every other weekend Fri night- Monday afternoon.
The idea of not living with my daughter is killing me.
She is also making lies about me that she knows are incorrect just to drag my name through the mud and is threatening that I won’t be able to be involved in my kids life if I don’t pay her house mortgage and child care even though I won’t be living there

How did you guys deal with this? Does it get better and if it did when did it start? I want to drink and take other substances to numb the pain but I won’t. It’s a battle in my head that I’m waging.

TLDR: i have a 14 month old who I love dearly and and a STBEX that is completely over me. When did things become better? When were you able to live again not in constant agony or like if your brain was going to rip in half? Did your exes ever realize that you weren’t that bad and wanted you back?

TL;DR: husband and I are financially incompatible - divorce? What, if anything, can help?!

My husband of 12 years really is terrible with money. I was pregnant with our oldest (we now have 3 boys ages 12, 10, and 6), and he didn’t open his mail. So, he got a wage garnishment due to not paying his student loans. It took half his monthly salary. And I was trapped at home with our babies living in a nice home but in a dilapidated rust belt town with limited resources, terrible childcare options, one car, and no ability to get a job. I stressed about getting groceries and diapers for our baby boys. It took him a year before he was able to get the garnishment stopped and somewhat under control. We worked through it and were eventually able to buy a house in that town and another car. We were able to get a couple of credit cards and actually had a nice chunk of money in our savings account. It felt great! We tried for a third and as soon as we found out we were pregnant again, the pandemic struck. Had our baby, who was and still is an absolute joy! Then 6 months later, when he was 41, we discovered that he had a large aortic aneurysm in his heart. He underwent open heart surgery. And then we decided we needed to move out of our home and the town we didn’t really love and so I could have more opportunities to get a well-paying job with health insurance in case something terrible happened with his health…so we moved out of state. It was hard. We couldn’t afford to buy a new home in the place we moved to. So we’re renting now and have been for 4 years. The move wasn’t fully reimbursed by his new job, so we put the expense for Pods on my credit card and used another one of my credit cards for other expenses - they were not joint credit card accounts - just in my name. And he had some other credit cards he was using too. The cost of living in our new area is about twice as much as our old town…and our boys are older now and want certain shoes and to participate in extra curricular activities. But, we cashed out his retirement account when we moved here in the thought that it would help us pay off our credit card debt ( it was about $27,000 after the fees that we had available to us). Unbeknownst to me, he did not disclose that on our taxes for that year (2022). So last year, we get hit with a $16,000 bill from the IRS and this year we got hit with a $6,000 bill from the state. So I stopped paying my two credit card bills that were in my name only so that I could get the tax lien off of our record. After about 3 months, the state tax lien was satisfied. So I made arrangements to start repaying my two credit cards minimum payments again. It turns out that one of them didn’t actually go into repayment despite the plan I made. And now I have a lawsuit from the credit card that is incredibly stressful. I’m writing a letter to the court and am calling their lawyer to try to make a minimum repayment plan. It makes me sick to my stomach. I had decent credit before marrying my husband. I’ve never had a lot of money but I always paid my bills and got an extra job if there was something I couldn’t afford but needed or wanted.

Since marrying this man, though, instead of my life getting easier and being able to afford more things and take our kids on vacations, I’m spending my free time haggling with creditors and “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” so to speak. I thought marriage was supposed to make life easier and better.

My husband and I were such good friends in undergrad, where we met. He was actually married then, but we were just friends - no interest. Then he moved for grad school and we lost touch for years. Reconnected on Facebook in 2011 and he was finalizing his divorce. We went on a roadtrip to California and definitely fell in love. It was a beautiful story. He told me he had been found medically incapable of having biological children while we were dating.

But I’m just wondering if I was bamboozled and should divorce this guy or in the very least separate our finances after getting these credit card and tax bills repaid?

TLDR: divorce my husband for our terrible financial situation?

Summary: need advice on if separate finances actually make sense or if divorce is the better option.

Good morning,

I am in a predicament. My ex husband lied saying he was filing the divorce last year. I signed papers and everything. Trusting him. Haven’t heard ANYTHING for 6 months… I call the office, and say they have no one under our names.

So he never filed the divorce. He’s military. Is he profiting from being married bc I am NOT receiving any of that.

I messaged him. Threatening him basically to go to his sergeant bc he has LIED. He went last Monday to do the whole paperwork. Showed proof…

It’s a no fault divorce. We have no kids. I don’t want anything but to be divorced.

I'm going through a divorce and want to get some perspective from people who've been in a similar spot.

We've had one mediation session, but we ran out of time before getting to the actual mediation/negotiation portion — it was mostly intake and information gathering.

My wife has not reached out to schedule a second session, and it's been a while. She wants to squeeze the most out of me financially.

If I take the initiative and propose a settlement offer, could that work against me ?

Has anyone else had the other party go silent after the first mediation? How did you handle it?

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated. I'm trying to figure out whether to push forward or just let the process play out.

Hi. I m based in colombo mount lavinia. I need an affordable divorce attorney. Would appreciate your help 🙏

Just found out my husband of 10 years has been cheating on me while I was pregnant. Also going to “spas” to meet with prostitutes. Give me the best advice you have. Im confronting him tomorrow. I’m a SAHM.

My (34F) husband (38M) of 12 years (4 years married) randomly blindsided me one day and asked for a divorce out of nowhere claiming we “argue too much”. This made no sense to me because I felt we had a very loving relationship with lots of happy times. We had just got back from a vacation two weeks earlier and were still going on date nights every Friday and Saturday and still intimate with each other right up until he decided to make this decision out of nowhere. When I asked him to go to counselling with me, he refused. He’s an alcoholic but says he’s not. Yet he gets wasted drunk every weekend and he says he just likes having fun with his friends.

He told me he was depressed, numb and broken and had demons in his head. He blamed me for his unhappiness and said he needed to leave the marriage to find his happiness. He also said he hates he is balding, hates his job, has a fear of death and aging, and recently took out a $30,000 line of credit behind my back for his mom who has gambling issues. He said he couldn’t tell me about it because he knew I would say no. His alcoholic father stopped talking to him because we wouldn’t let him live in our house after he got out of jail and my husband blamed me that his dad doesn’t talk to him anymore.

My husband decided to separate from me and wouldn’t even let me work on anything or fight for me. He had been going to the bar til 3 am with a single girl from his work and claimed they were just friends but I was suspicious. I recently discovered a couple months later that they are in fact in a relationship now and my heart is broken. I don’t understand how he could do this to me and just move on so easily. It feels like he discarded me like trash. We had a great life together and I don’t understand why he is choosing to purse a life with her instead of me. What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I enough? I don’t know how to get through this and I am heartbroken. Looking for people who have gone through this and for some advice please and thank you!!

My wife and I of ten years will be divorcing. She is from a different culture, different religion, different mother tongue, however she speaks English fluently, almost better than me and I am native. We have two boys (8 & 6) with our oldest being autistic and younger neurotypical. Both boys have very very different needs and they do not play together, rarely acknowledge one another and both in need of ALL our attention. We also lost a daughter to trisomy 18, 2 years ago. My wife is devout to her religion, I consider myself agnostic. The agreement was that I 'accept' the faith which I did. Also to learn about the faith, which I did. Five years into the marriage I decided this faith is not for me and did my best to continue in the marriage. It is proving to be far too challenging. We married late when I was 42 and she was 33. I am an independent man, living on my own since I was 19 years old sometimes living with friends in times of need. My wife has always livd with her parents, and when we married she wanted to continue living with them while she raised our children. Her culture and her own upbringing was always around family and extended family, which I thought was very nice and knew was very different than mine- she also has two siblings, one who also lives at the house with us. I learned that she relied heavily on her parents for support (cleaning, cooking, feeding the babies, financially etc.) I kept my rental and sub-letted, while 'living' with all of them. I supported financially with everything I had. Now I have two jobs and trying to start my own business. She works part-time at the same job that she had when we met 16 years ago. She earned her Masters degree while we were married, I earned a BA just before we married ( we met at University). Yes I did my education very late! Her mom has been very sick for over a year. I am trying to be considerate and compassionate during these circumstances. However, at times I have been an asshole in expressing myself and very likely emotionally abused her. I have a history of confrontation in past relationships and come from divorced parents. I was her first - she's never been in a relationship before I also got sober during our marriage and have been 7 years clean from poly-substance abuse that started when I was 12. Coffee is my last drug of choice.

She wants an uncontested divorce and custody of both children and will not consider for a moment, giving me custody of one child. My argument is that she struggles to look after herself in nearly every way. I'd prefer not explain all the ways because it is almost impossible to imagine, but to give some context without exaggeration, I do 90% of domestic duties- laundry, bathroom, kitchen, changing bed sheets, garbage (including her parents and sister). They are all very loving people and very supportive of our children, but very different in how they live compared to what I am use to, which is 'picking up after yourself'. She also chooses to have both boys sleep in our bed, she breast fed one of them until 5 years old the other 3. The straw that broke the camels back was that denial she lives with stating that she has "limitations". So therefore, no effort on her behalf when it comes to finances and domestic duties are required and that I should be doing everything that I am currently doing. I obviously disagree.

While we have been separated for over a years I still financially support them with everything that I have, which is not much. I have offered to raise one boy, either one, with a little more preference towards my younger as we play sports together and connect like father and son. Let me clear, I connect with both and it will still be difficult regardless. We would still always keep in touch and allow one another to see each child anytime. I understand that this sounds like "I'm breaking them up" which is in fact true, but they will always be brothers- both have very different needs. I strongly believe they would both benefit from having one parent's continuous, undivided attention and recreationally having time together throughout their future. My autistic son, as beautiful as he is, still non-verbal, not toilet trained and a flight risk needing 100% attention which we both provide. My other son, is involved in so many activities, sports and like any 6 years old, wants all of our attention. Its a crazy situation and just to conclude- I get what I deserve. I wanted different and certainly got it. Now Im trying to do what's best for both my boys without damaging them anymore than I may have already- any thoughts? questions are welcome too- thanks for reading

I got divorced 10 years ago.

My at the time husband and I had been separated for a couple of years- not legally separated- and at the end of our marriage my husband had gotten into an accident at work.

My ex husband is whom filed for divorce.

During the early stages of the Divorce proceedings, a private investigator contacted me asking me some questions about my husband.

It turns out that my ex had received close to a million dollar in a personal injury settlement and that the person sued had to pay some of that money out of her own pocket, past what the insurance had covered, and she had hired the investigator to see if there was fraud involved.

During the divorce proceedings, my ex husband was turning in financial documents, claiming he was on workers comp, had to pay for his (not mine) minor son, had credit card debt, and had received no settlement.

Later as he turned in the workers comp paper work, he also turned in a document from a lawyer stating that yes he was about to receive a settlement, but that it was solely for "pain and suffering", nothing else.

Being in New York State, this automatically ment that i could receive nothing from his settlement money.

I received nothing in the divorce.

Last summer, 9 years later, I was at the court house looking up my divorce case because I was looking for the name of a lawyer, and I decided to also look up my ex husbands personal injury case- it was also handled in the same county.

As i was scrolling in the courts files, looking inside the case, I noticed documents that looked very familiar, yet slightly different as I looked closer: it was the documents from the settlement agreement that my ex had turned in in the matrimonial case: they had different dates on them than they did in thr divorce case. They also had different break down. I did nog see a mention of the full amount being for "pain and sufferering".

What I did see was that hos case had been paid out before and during the divorce proceedings. Not after.

The documents my ex submitted to divorce Court were forged.

The divorce was decided upon-financially- based upon wrong information.

Can I re-open the divorce case today and request to have the financials recalculated and possibly get compensated for the amount I could/should have been compensated for 10 years ago?

How did you break it to your partner that you want a divorce? And how did you break it to the family? How was the process of moving out?

I don’t know what to do. I feel trapped. I’ve been with my spouse 13 years and it always been toxic. But the negativity and horrific treatment against me is magnified when I have littles to look out for. I have. 3 year old a two year old and a baby on the way. I know from a psychological perspective it is easier on children to recover from a divorce at this age. There will be affects of course but their ability for recognizing time development and processing long term memories is not fully developed. Now would be better than 3/4 years from now. However with baby on the way and the fact I am in the middle of grad school it seems like an impossible feat to take care of all these littles by myself. We had it all mapped out how to support each other. It’s my suspicion that my he would just do weekends, that is also easier for littles because it allows them to maintain a more stable routine than 50/50. I do have family support if I need it, to some extent. I don’t think k my parents would be willing to watch the newborn. Also how devastating to be with a newborn all alone or right after a trauma of this magnitude. I’ve been putting up with this behavior for this long, I will probably just continue he to because getting out is two hard. But it breaks my heart that my daughter will think this is the norm. Hearing fighting to this extent has traumatic effects at on children’s brains. I am too smart and stable to stay but the logistics for leaving seem unrealistic.

So I filed for divorce in October of 2024 I have no way of getting the papers to him and he has been paying me anything for his son who lives with me

I left marital home due to abuse and I was afraid all the time due to threats.
Post that I filed for divorce but opposing counsel seems to delay the process.
They are not answering emails etc for final agreement.
I have not contacted my spouse. One of my friend suggested you should try to build talking terms with spouse without discussing legal paperwork, but stuff like bills of other logistics.
Now most of the bills were in my name which I am paying selling my assets every month, my STBX does have 2 utility bill in her name which she is not paying. She also has not renewed car tabs.
Should I reach out to her. I know the utilities company will call if bill not paid for months but should I ask her if she needs to build talking terms and make divorce more amicable.

Earlier I made no contact as I was super scared of fake threats she use to give. But I am much more confident now.

Location: WA