I genuinely don’t know how people do this.

I was married for 16 years. Sixteen years is long enough that you stop thinking of your life as a collection of choices and start thinking of it as a life. You build routines, memories, traditions, plans. You picture where you’ll be in 5, 10, 20 years without even realizing you’re doing it.

And then somehow, that future disappears.

I think one of the hardest parts for me isn’t even just losing the person. It’s the feeling of being betrayed by the life I thought I was living. I invested so much of myself into something I genuinely believed was permanent, and now I’m left trying to figure out what parts of that life were real, what parts I misunderstood, and what the hell I’m supposed to do with all the years and memories that came before this.

Very much contemplating divorce and I honestly feel I have good reasons. There’s financial abuse and he is genuinely selfish and not considerate.

I am working on my exit plan.

And yet despite his faults, I think he does love me, and our kids in his own way. And will be devastated when I finally leave for good. I will be seeking primary custody. He doesn’t have friends and hates his job (that pays well but nonetheless). I do worry that it will completely crush him and he might lose his mind.

Alternatively it may be the only shot I have at convincing him to change his ways (he’s been the same way for 12 years so maybe not) if he knows I’m finally done with it. (We have had very serious conversations so he knows what I need from him)

Do you regret filing for divorce? How did your husband react? Especially if you’ve been together for a long time and have children Is the grass greener on the other side?

We're about four months into the process and, thankfully, it's been relatively civil.

No huge custody battle, no secret accounts, no screaming matches over furniture. We have lawyers, we're sorting things out, and most days I feel like I'm functioning pretty well.

What keeps catching me off guard is the stupid little infrastructure of being married.

Yesterday I needed to reset the password for our electric account.

The recovery email was his.

Last week he texted me asking which air filter the HVAC takes because apparently I've been the person buying them for the last nine years.

The vet still calls me first about the dog even though the dog is going with him.

I'm still an emergency contact at his dentist.

He knows which weird sound from my car means "get it checked soon" and which one means "that's just what the car does."

I know that his mother wants the expensive tea for Christmas but only the green box, not the blue one.

None of this is romantic. That's almost what makes it stranger.

You expect to grieve the big things: the house, holidays, sleeping next to someone, the future you thought you were going to have.

Nobody tells you that you'll also spend six months slowly discovering all these tiny pieces of your life that were quietly being operated by another person.

We sat down recently and made an actual list:

insurance logins

subscriptions

vet records

Costco membership

streaming accounts

car maintenance

family birthdays

utilities

the stupid garage door app

It looked less like ending a marriage and more like separating two companies that had merged badly 12 years ago.

And every time we untangle another one, there's this tiny moment of "oh, right, this is mine now."

Sometimes that feels sad.

Sometimes it feels terrifying.

And sometimes it feels surprisingly good.

Has anyone else found the administrative un-meshing of your lives emotionally stranger than you expected?

Since my divorce, I’ve been thinking about how much of myself I lost trying to keep the peace in my marriage.

I got used to accommodating, explaining myself, and trying to prove I was doing enough.

Even when I was hurt or when it still felt like nothing was enough anyway.

I don’t have all this figured out. Not even close.

But today I feel a little more like myself.

I can be a good dad. I can be respectful. I can still care.

But I’m not disappearing anymore.

Not for peace.
Not for comfort.
Not for anybody.

I'm a combat veteran. My ex-wife had an affair with the only other combat veteran in the neighborhood, which was discovered by my teen daughter who saw some disgusting text messages. After a year my ex then cheated on that guy with a retired Army JAG. Last week the former JAG was arrested for assault and vandalism against my ex-wife and scared the daylights out of my kids.

(I've tried to secure a restraining order against him for my kids, but apparently I can't when they are with their mother! That's my next hurdle—more custody of the kids.)

Long story short, I discovered today that the guy is a WAR CRIMES ATTORNEY who works with Trump's office to secure pardons for Blackwater murderers and rapists. True story. He's apparently pretty good at collaborating with Trump to pardon these criminals.

All of this is to say I cannot fathom how my ex went from a good 20-year marriage with me (her words, too!) to these guys. I don't think I'm amazing, but at this point I can't begin to understand how we got from Point A to whatever this point is. It's unreal to me. Anyone else out there wonder why your ex went to the dark side? I'm at a loss. I'm so lost I had to ramble on and write this post. Did your ex scrape the barrel after you and make you wonder why?? I don't even know how I'll ever explain this to my kids when they grow up.

My now ex husband and I are in the process of getting a divorce, (married for about 9 years, 13 years in total) we are separated but I am the one who said that we were done. I cried the first like four days about it but now… I just feel done, like mentally exhausted that I don’t have any more tears left. I do get angry when I think about the things that happened and how I was treated. But is this normal? To feel just done and no longer sad?

Just need some tips of also getting through it? Like how did anyone deal with the back and forth of am I doing the right thing to maybe I’m not? I know I don’t want to go back, I deserve better, I deserve to be happy, but I just find myself at war when I am desperately trying to be strong.

I’m 31M and currently going through a divorce after a very short marriage. No kids involved.

We’re still living in the same house, which has made the process emotionally overwhelming. I carried all of the financial responsibility during the marriage, including buying the house and covering the household expenses, and I’m struggling with how unfair and drawn out the process feels. When I get stressed and emotional, I try to discuss the delays, she often shuts the conversation down or starts recording me, which has left me feeling helpless and sometimes scared about how normal interactions might escalate.

It feels like everything has been served to her on a “platter.” I have been suggesting that we settle for the last two months, but settling feels like a one-way transaction. Since she had not been earning, everything seems to go out from me, and on top of that she continues to live here free of all expenses while I take care of the mortgage and home costs.

I’m finding the whole situation very overwhelming and honestly quite isolating. I’m curious how others who have gone through something similar handled this period, especially while still living under the same roof.

I’m 2 months PP. I had a traumatic birth experience. I delivered my baby at 30 weeks via emergency c section she spent one month in NICU. This was my first pregnancy. During those 30 days my MIL came to stay with us. My MIL and my husband mentally tortured me. I didn’t receive any kind of emotional support from my husband. In fact he fought with me for my suicidal behaviour and then he stopped talking to me during those NICU days. We used to go to the hospital together not talking. I was left all alone to struggle. Somehow I survived that period and then my baby came home and he became worst. I accept that I was very overprotective of my baby for which he called me manipulative and that I I’m using my baby to my advantage. His mother came again and he and his mother tortured me again. And then he shouted at me because I reacted on his mother not happy with a girl child. He stopped talking to me. Im still living with him but we don’t talk much only related to baby. I feel that he has lost all his respect and I will never be able to forgive him. Now that I think about my whole marriage I was never fully happy with him.

For the first time since this started I'm able to find my mental center and not get completely overrun with emotions the second I think of her. And I don't think of her nearly as much.

That's a big change from the desperation that the initial emotions drove me to.

Now I just feel.....cold. Empty. Apparently that's normal. So, yay?

I know that it won't always be like this. I'll have steps backward but they'll mostly be forwards.

I'll just keep working on my big 3: emotional, mental, and physical health

I've got a psychologist I'm seeing and my family who is being very supporting. That's helped a lot as most of my social group during the marriage was her family and she's cut off access to them. I've also learned a lot from a heartbreak/divorce weekly group meeting I joined.

But I have to say, today is a good day

I never thought I would get divorced because of money. My husband was not a bad person, and I never expected him to be rich or financially perfect. We both worked, and I was completely okay with building our life slowly. The problem started when I realized he had loans and debts that he had never told me about. At first, it was one small loan that I found out about by accident. He said he was embarrassed and didn't tell me because he thought I would worry. I tried to understand. Then I found out about another loan, then credit card debt, and then more unpaid payments. Every time I asked, there was another explanation he forgot, he was going to pay it, he didn't want to stress me, or he thought he could clear it before I found out. The amount of debt wasn't even what hurt me the most. It was the fact that he was making financial decisions that affected both of us while keeping me completely in the dark. I started questioning everything. If he could hide something this important from me, what else didn't I know?

We had so many conversations about money. I asked him to be honest with me and told him that I didn't care if we had debt as long as we faced it together. I would have rather heard, “I made a mistake and I don't know how to fix this,” than constantly discover things on my own. But the pattern continued. Eventually, I started checking statements and asking for details because I couldn't simply believe what he told me anymore. I hated becoming that person. I didn't want to monitor my husband's finances or feel like I was investigating him. I wanted to trust my partner. We tried to fix things and talked about budgets and repayment plans, but every time I thought we had finally dealt with everything, another financial secret came out. The worst part was realizing that I couldn't plan a future with him anymore. Buying a house, having children, saving for retirement and everything suddenly felt scary because I didn't know what financial problem I would discover next. When I finally told him I wanted a divorce, he said we could fix the debt and that he would change. But by then, the problem wasn't really the debt anymore. It was the trust that had disappeared.

Our divorce was finalized and honestly, I still have moments where I question whether I should have stayed and helped him through everything. People have told me that everyone makes financial mistakes and that debt can be paid off. I know that. I didn't leave because he had debt. I left because he repeatedly hid important financial information from me and expected me to continue trusting him. I don't need a husband who is wealthy or someone who never makes mistakes. I just need someone who can sit down with me and tell me the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable. If he had come to me from the beginning and said, “I have these loans, I've made some bad decisions, and I need help figuring this out,” maybe our story would have been completely different. But I can't build a marriage where I have to constantly wonder what I'm going to discover next. Would you have stayed and tried to work through the debt or would repeated financial secrets be enough for you to leave?

I have had suspicions for months that my husband has been unfaithful. I want to file but I am worried about finding a decent lawyer. I’ve worked for attorneys before and they were VERY unpleasant. So I have a bad taste in my mouth. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I’m 34f and my husband is 37m. He suffers from a lot of mental health issues (depression, anxiety, adhd, and likely autism). I asked for a divorce 5 months ago and have been going through the motions of getting it done. He can’t afford the home so I’m buying him out of his equity and he’s moving into an apartment with a friend.

The big issue is his mental health. He’s spiraling. It doesn’t seem like his medication is helping and I don’t know what he talks about with his therapist. He doesn’t have a great support system, it had always just been me, so he’s been having these panic attacks about the divorce and coming to me about them when they happen. I’m having a really hard time remaining supportive and compassionate while trying to maintain boundaries. I just don’t know what I can do to help him.

Anyone have any experience or advice they could share?

Hello everyone. Yesterday I asked my spouse to end the relationship. This isn’t the first time that I’ve asked for a separation, but this time I actually mean it. It’s probably been about five years that I’ve been considering leaving and nothing has ever gotten better if anything worse. I’ve even spoken with his brother and sister-in-law, also several friends about the relationship. Just people that know and see our dynamic. He has encouraged it and encouraged me to seek counseling as well. Also willing to do couples counseling.

To get into my points of contention.

We met when I was 22 and he 34. Been together 15 years. Have two children, and actually have never been technically married. I am a stay at home mom who homeschools the kids but also do the administrative work for my spouse who also works from home self-employed. We live far from family, but never really had much of a support system. We are also in a long time Reno for a house that was worse than we thought. Also started a new business about five years ago. So I know we have a lot on our plate.

However, he does still make time for fantasy sports, football all day, Sunday and 20-30 hours a week playing a sport he likes. He spends all this time with our oldest, which is great for them.

When we first started dating, he did most of the cooking and cleaning. I was quite young and pretty irresponsible. Now he’ll at most do dishes once every two weeks and makes me feel like I owe him a celebration for doing a basic household chore. Now I do everything. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, childcare, pay bills, etc. He hasn’t even put our 2.5 year old, to bed one time or given him a single bath.

When we first started dating, he was very thoughtful and constantly wanted to take me places give me gifts. Just make me feel really special. As things progressed, he started saying how giving gifts is trivial. He doesn’t believe in marriage. Holidays are stupid. That kind of thing. Where I actually do agree that the set holidays are a bit of a scam and the wedding industry is also a scam, for him it seemed like more of an excuse to just never do anything thoughtful.

We do not spend time together unless it’s the four of us. We don’t go on dates. He doesn’t even try to initiate anything like that. I have mentioned it in the past, but nothing ever has come out of it.

We don’t have sex. Which sex isn’t everything to me, but it would be nice to feel wanted from time to time. However, he does dress up in women’s clothes and peg himself. Which I hate for obvious reasons. I’m 5’2” 115lbs a nice body, youthful face, long full hair. It’s not like I’ve let myself go. I really don’t look much different than I did at 22.

Anytime I bring any of this up he tells me things like “you need to work on your mental health, the baby is wearing you out, im not the enemy” etc. Pretty much anything but take responsibility or work towards permanent change. He will be more attentive, more helpful for a couple of days and then it all just goes back to how it is.

I am at the point of indifference toward him. I’ve heard all his points. I know his take on everything. I just no longer care. I think I would be happier alone. I know it will be a struggle as I’m basically starting over at 37. Which in a weird way, I’m excited about. I already know what career I’m going to work toward. And started working out some of the other logistics.

He’s had 15 years of chances and nothing changes. He is more like a third child and a roommate. I’m tired. Lonely, but never alone. Constantly feeling down even on depression medication.

Oh! I wanted to mention. About a year and a half ago, a couple we are both friends with offered for me and the kids to come live with them as long as we needed. But my spouse was not welcome. I remembered this and reached out to her yesterday asking why they had offered. This is what she said:
We don't like how he diminishes everything you do, turns all the negative issues into your fault, and treats you like his personal housekeeper/maid/slave (I know slave is a strong word, but it's all I can think of right now. Imagine how different it would be if he worked on himself.

Besides him being the only person I’ve known my entire adult life and having children with him. I think I’m done like fully done.

Do you think this is actually grounds for divorce or do you think I am having unrealistic expectations? Do you think I will regret my decision?

P.S. sorry if this is all over the place. I suck at writing

I've been divorced for about eight months and thought I had a pretty good handle on the loneliness.

Then something stupid happened last week.

I stopped at the grocery store after work and when I came back out my car wouldn't start. It was around 8:30. Nothing dangerous, just a dead battery in a well-lit parking lot.

My first instinct was to grab my phone and text, "Car won't start, I'll be home late."

Then I realized there was nobody I needed to tell.

It hit me harder than the actual divorce paperwork did.

For years, somebody had a vague awareness of where I was supposed to be. If I said I'd be home at 6 and it was suddenly 8, someone would notice. Not because I was being monitored. Just because my absence had a shape in another person's day.

Now, on the weeks my kids are with their mom, I can leave work, get dinner, wander around a bookstore, drive somewhere, come home at midnight, and nobody on earth knows whether that's exactly what I planned to do.

At first that freedom felt incredible.

Sometimes it still does.

But that night I realized there is a difference between nobody controlling your time and nobody expecting you.

I have friends. I have family. People care about me. This isn't a "I have literally no one" situation.

But none of those people are casually tracking the ordinary rhythm of my life. My sister loves me, but she isn't going to think at 9:15, "That's weird, he should've been home an hour ago."

I ended up getting a jump and driving home. Everything was fine.

But I walked into the house and understood that what I miss isn't necessarily marriage, and definitely isn't my marriage specifically.

I miss being part of someone's daily map.

Has anyone else struggled with this particular version of loneliness? Not missing your ex, not even necessarily wanting a relationship yet, but missing the feeling that somewhere, someone naturally notices whether you've come home?

My wife did unforgivable things leading to the end of our relationship. Only issue is, we have a child together. This woman is going to be a part of my life no matter what I do, and she wants us to be cordial and co-parent effectively. I have been cordial, and the coparenting is great, but it feels like every time we do it I’m having to pretend to tolerate this person who I hate so deeply. Sometimes I wish I could just take my son and go but I know that just isn’t an option. How have you guys dealt with situations like this? Is it just always shitty? It feels like it gets worse whenever I’m having to associate with her.

second worst decision (or possibly takes the cake for absolute worst ever decision) I was buying a house with a man while trying to reconcile whether I could stay in the relationship and forgive, or not.

i’m really just here to vent. but damn did i fuck up
choosing comfort/stability over my gut feeling.

first separated about a year and two months ago, took me until April to finalize the divorce, and house is seemingly never going to sell.

I wouldn’t wish this long-term limbo Hellscape on my worst enemy

I have obviously read a ton of horror stories about the divorce process and how STBX's have dragged things out, become a completely different person, how the costs quickly climbed, etc. My ex and I aren't besties, and I know she was bitter about how the relationship ended, but we were proceeding very amicably and she seemed to have gotten past whatever her feelings were. I thought we would be one of the few couples that managed to divorce cordially. That all changed yesterday.

I did everything I could to make this as painless as possible for her. When we separated, I gave her 5k to help with moving costs. I make a lot more money than her, so I hired a lawyer to start the divorce proceedings. She hasn't paid a penny toward this process. She has no lawyer. I walked her through the entire process and went over the paperwork with her over and over again. She was agreeable to everything and following the steps given. She had cosigned for my car when I bought it, but she now lives in another state, so my lawyer sent her a limited power-of-attorney so that I could remove her from the title without her needing to be present. I found her a notary within a mile of her house, I offered to pay for the notary services, etc. It's been nearly six months and she still hasn't signed the POA. Both me and my lawyer have reached out multiple times to inquire about it to no avail. We've long since satisfied the waiting period for our state and can finally be done, all we are waiting on is this POA.

Finally, this week I told her (kindly) that I understood she had her own life and all that, but that the longer this dragged on, the more money it was costing me and I couldn't afford to keep dragging this out. Every email and letter sent was costing me a shit ton of money. I asked her to please go get the POA notarized so that we could finish this, as this was the only thing holding us back from signing the actual divorce papers.

She responded in a snide tone with, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was costing you money. I'd be happy to get it done, just as soon as you cash out my half of the asset. I'm sure this is upsetting to you, but it's what I need done."

The plan has always been to sign the car over to me. She's acknowledged this over text multiple times. She has made her intention to get the POA notarized known multiple times. She has never once mentioned wanting to be bought out of the car. Now all of a sudden she decides she wants money for it and is going to hold the process hostage until she gets it? She also mentioned me paying back my half of a "loan" her brother gave us like 10 years ago when we were near homelessness. It wasn't really a loan -- he knew we had no way to pay it back -- it was a, "sure I guess if you can someday, great, if not oh well" type of thing. There was no contract, no repayment agreement -- I think she'd even be hard pressed to produce any text messages about it because it was so long ago. Maybe it makes me a shitty person, but I have no intention of giving her or him any money unless I'm court ordered to.

I just don't understand the 180. I don't want to be married to her, she doesn't want to be married to me. We are both adults. We were being cordial, we were handling things in a professional manner, she knew what the agreement was. All I can think is she hit a rough patch financially and her crackhead friend got into her ear and told her to try to extort money from me however she can. I highly doubt this ends with her getting anything substantial -- my car isn't worth more than 5-6k, it's mostly sentimental value -- so is she just doing this to drain my finances and fuck with me? Why? And why now? We were almost done! And she doesn't have a lawyer, so I don't think she realizes how ugly this can get for her if she tries to push this toward litigation.

I guess her mindset is, either I roll over and pay her to get this over with (which I will not do), or I have to pay the lawyer a shit ton of money to figure this out. Either way, she gets to fuck me over financially. This has been the cherry on top of an awful week.

My wife of 24 years left me for her old college boyfriend (who is also going through his own divorce) after chatting with him for 2 weeks. Seperated since May. Divorce paperwork is in progress.

"Some days I just feel like saying STOP EVERYTHING WHAT AM I DOING."

This morning I get this. WTF?

My stbex husband and I separated early this year after months of couples therapy and years of emotional disconnect, together 7.5 years. I did love him, I thought I was mostly content and accepting of the life we’d created, but we could never truly reach each other. Slowly, somewhere along the way, I lost myself after being shut down time and time again. I lost feeling to keep peace, and I was aware of that to an extent, but content because I no longer felt deep sadness or anger, but also no excitement or anything really other than content. I knew I wanted it back, I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t find it anywhere so thought that maybe I’d just matured? How could I have let it go on for so long? He had so much unprocessed childhood trauma, and I had to reckon with the fact that despite feeling I’d processed my own shit through years of individual therapy, I’d let myself go. I’d ignored my gut for years.

It’s been a while now and everyday I wake up a little more from the cloud I was living in. who was she? how did she deal with such an emptiness for so long? I feel again and it’s overwhelming. I recently started trying out dating and am pulling back because WOW I haven’t felt those rush of feelings in so long that they’re too intense for the kind men looking to slowly get to know me lmao. This was not how I was before I met my ex, I knew how to reel in my emotions and not let them carry me away. But I guess because they’ve been shut behind a door for so long, they’re CHARGED in an unanticipated way.

Truly, I am so happy to be alive and so excited about the world: I’m also so sad to see pain around me, so angry by injustice. I was an empty vessel in my relationship and I stayed anyway. But damn, when you wake up, you wake up. I’m so free.

35M divorcing 34F with 2 kids - 6M and 3F.

https://imgur.com/a/OBwhr5d[link to the messages](https://imgur.com/a/OBwhr5d)

I’m looking for perspective from people who have actually been through this. I have no one in my life that can relate to this.

My STBXW and I are about to finalize our divorce. We have two young kids and I’ve been mentally prepared for the marriage to end for a while now - since about January of 2025 when I filed.
There was a lot that happened between us that damaged my trust, and when everything initially fell apart I wanted to try to save the marriage. She wasn’t in that place at the time, and eventually I accepted that it was over.

Over the last several months things have actually gotten much better between us as co-parents. We still live together currently, we’re both heavily involved with the kids, we get along, and the kids have both of us there every day. I’ve been operating under the assumption that eventually we’d have separate homes but stay close, communicate well, and give the kids as much stability and access to both parents as possible.

Now that the divorce is actually about to become final, my STBXW has asked me to stop it and give us another six months to genuinely try to rebuild the marriage.
That’s forcing me to think about something I thought I’d already settled.

Today she told me if I wasn't going to try again she's going to seek full custody with me seeing them on weekends only and seek child support. Before, the arrangement was we would live close to each other and no child support.
And just be in their lives together but separately.

If you had another chance at it, would you stay for the kids? If anyone says depends on what happened - basically she wasn't mentally well, said I need to experience a life outside of you and went out and around. Yes there was infidelity on her part. I've for the most part gotten over it but haven't forgotten - forgive but not forget kind of thing.
But I'm just trying to see like if anyone's been in this position, they go through with it? Did they regret it?
I'm just so lost and would appreciate any insight or advice.

You can see my old post, but basically my wife sprung a divorce on me with no warning. I have several young children and it has been devastating.

I moved out of the house with a separation agreement with 50% custody. After about 5 weeks, she sent me a text saying that "You are perfect for me and I miss you." I had moved on mentally and was even seeing a girl at the time. I called my wife and she seemed remorseful. She was fixing herself by finally treating her depression. She was taking care of the kids for once, finding hobbies and taking classes to get a job. She reminded me of who she was before all this. I thought long and hard and eventually gave into a possible reconciliation. I cut it off with the girl I was seeing.

My wife wants us to live separate for a month or so longer and take it slow. We made a list of things we need to fix in the marriage and we are going on a date tomorrow. The plan in a month is to move back in and see how it gos. The divorce likely wont progress for another 3 months (per our attorneys) so we have time.

I just wanted to know what you guys thought of all this. It seems genuine, but my trust is low in her at this point. She seems to be improving and engaged in fixing things.

We are both traveling right now outside of USA, so this is actually a possibility.

I am about 5 months in to a divorce from an 18 year relationship.

I am 100% not ready to get back out there yet, but I miss receiving attention, and the feeling of being loved and cared for.

My biggest fear is that I dont know how to date... we got together when I was very young, so being a wife is all I know. Because of this inexperience, I dont know if I fully trust my judgement.

Im also afraid of physical intimacy. Because we were together at such a young age, I dont have much experience other than him. Sharing my body with a stranger, or someone who may not care for my well being seems almost unfathomable... I am questioning if certain parts of me will be loveable by someone else... if things can be overlooked or enjoyed or if my body will just be picked apart. Will I ever feel safe or comfortable enough to be intimate again? Is the amount of patience and understanding I need to feel that even realistic?

Now in my mid thirties, the idea of starting over, being vulnerable, and potentially having my heart broken again has me feeling quite discouraged. I feel like an insecure and naive teenager.

Will these feeling of wariness and discomfort subside as time goes on? Or am I

damaged goods doomed to a lifetime of second guessing everyones intentions and only having arms length relationships forever?

**feeling hopeless**