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Surprise Divorce
Thundyrkatz
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Hello H&A, So, I am looking for some perspective from any of you that have gone through this process.
Last week my wife of 14 years asked for a divorce. This was a complete surprise for me, I thought everything was going great with our family. We have an 8yo & 5yo and life has been good. We never fight, there is no issues with money or cheating or anything.
She claims that shortly after having our youngest, 5 years ago, she started to fall out of love with me and has been fighting this on her own since then. I will admit that I am not the most romantic or passionate person. I am extremely loyal and caring and I think I am a great husband, friend and father.
She says she has been looking for the right time to divorce me for a while. The tipping point came when I mentioned I was going to go for a new job, this would have been a risky move, but could have had a big payoff for us. Without going into a lot of detail about the job, my wife felt that if I took the job, she would be locked into the relationship for 2 or 3 more years until I got my feet back under me and the job was secure. She decided it was now or never and dropped the hammer.
So, we are getting a divorce. We are amicable and are doing a collaborative divorce to keep the costs down and try to stay as friendly as possible and sty good parents for the kids. We have never hid things from each-other anyway, so this is happening.
So here is the advice part... I don't want to be divorced, I still love my wife and family very much. I want to fix this. She is 100% committed to this process and is not interested in doing anything to try to fix our marriage at this time. Has anyone managed to save their marriage after divorcing?
We will still be in close contact as we co-parent. My plan is to not be a sad sack and to use this time to be the best Dad that I can be. I have a nice safe apartment lined up and am moving out in a few weeks. We are very civil to each other in the house (so long as I don't try to convince her to forget this). I plan to work on me with this new free time (when she has the kids). Redevelop some friendships, get involved in the community and stay healthy.
I am hopeful she will see, after a while, that being divorced is not everything she hopes it will be and that maybe trying to work out our problems is worth while.
Last week my wife of 14 years asked for a divorce. This was a complete surprise for me, I thought everything was going great with our family. We have an 8yo & 5yo and life has been good. We never fight, there is no issues with money or cheating or anything.
She claims that shortly after having our youngest, 5 years ago, she started to fall out of love with me and has been fighting this on her own since then. I will admit that I am not the most romantic or passionate person. I am extremely loyal and caring and I think I am a great husband, friend and father.
She says she has been looking for the right time to divorce me for a while. The tipping point came when I mentioned I was going to go for a new job, this would have been a risky move, but could have had a big payoff for us. Without going into a lot of detail about the job, my wife felt that if I took the job, she would be locked into the relationship for 2 or 3 more years until I got my feet back under me and the job was secure. She decided it was now or never and dropped the hammer.
So, we are getting a divorce. We are amicable and are doing a collaborative divorce to keep the costs down and try to stay as friendly as possible and sty good parents for the kids. We have never hid things from each-other anyway, so this is happening.
So here is the advice part... I don't want to be divorced, I still love my wife and family very much. I want to fix this. She is 100% committed to this process and is not interested in doing anything to try to fix our marriage at this time. Has anyone managed to save their marriage after divorcing?
We will still be in close contact as we co-parent. My plan is to not be a sad sack and to use this time to be the best Dad that I can be. I have a nice safe apartment lined up and am moving out in a few weeks. We are very civil to each other in the house (so long as I don't try to convince her to forget this). I plan to work on me with this new free time (when she has the kids). Redevelop some friendships, get involved in the community and stay healthy.
I am hopeful she will see, after a while, that being divorced is not everything she hopes it will be and that maybe trying to work out our problems is worth while.
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I recommend you go to counseling to help you work through the emotion, and to help you with your perspective and goals regarding moving forward.
I strongly recommend you hire a lawyer as well in recognition only that divorce is a messy, legal procedure which does not help families, and by hiring a lawyer you will have someone to help you guide the process to ensure you and your children get the best options, regardless of eventual outcome. Think of it as letting yourself process the emotional part of this while you hire someone who frees you up to do that by looking after the future of you and your kids when navigating the divorce.
Edit: re: helping the relationship.... it's gonna be hard if she doesn't want to, now or later. Your plan on just making your you and your kids stay emotionally healthy and such seems solid, and if she does see things differently, maybe you will still be open to it? But it's important to recognize that in all likelihood, getting re-married to the same person after a divorce isn't something you should be planning for, imo.
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It sounds like you have your priorities in order, and that's super important. You're going to get a lot of opinions from family, friends, coworkers, and people on the internet about what to do: where to draw your lines, what to hold fast on, what to give away, and so on. People around you will have strong feelings about the divorce, and with the best of intentions may try to get you to act on those feelings, instead of your own. Keep track of what's really important to you, and don't let yourself get talked into spending energy on things you don't care about.
For me, my priorities were getting it over with quickly and with as few bad feelings as I could manage, so I didn't insist on as much as I might have if I'd been prioritizing a perfectly even split. We had a truck, for instance, that some folks thought I should've fought with her about, but I was fine with the other car and denying her the truck would've dragged things out and made the whole thing more bitter. So I let that go.
Your priorities are probably very different than mine were, given that you have kids and we didn't, but make sure they're your priorities. Don't fight other people's battles by proxy.
My sympathies; this part sucks, and hard. Take care of yourself.
This here? Don't do this. Don't pine. This will help nothing and no one, hurt you, and be a general, painful waste of your time. Don't hold out hope she'll change her mind no matter what you do. If she's said in no uncertain terms that she's not interested in fixing it then consider that to be that and do what you need to do to move on as cleanly as you can.
You won't be over this tomorrow and there's no need for you to be. You should feel your feelings, but do what you can to find the closure you need in the divorce process.
I appreciate all the support and advice of everyone about protecting myself and moving on. I fully intend to do that. We are just a week into the process here and decoupling our lives is complex.
I am still looking for any feedback from anyone that managed to maintain a positive relationship with their ex.
Wife and I have been married 15 years, 16 in June, we also have an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old.
In 2019 my wife filed for divorce, totally understandable, as I had been fighting PTSD and depression for a long time and had been a terrible husband.
She had a lawyer, I did not, was served by the Sherriff the divorce papers. I did my part and sent it all in to the courts to be finalized, I did put on the paperwork that I wanted to attempt marriage counseling. She on the other hand was done and put that she did not want to attempt to repair/fix our relationship.
The courts took a long time to process everything and during that time I worked on myself. Got help for my depression and PTSD, this helped me be ok with the fact that our relationship was over.
While I became a better me, this also helped her see that there was a chance that our relationship was salvageable.
She ended up going through her lawyer and court to have the divorce proceedings stopped.
We have now been together almost another 2 years and our relationship is better than when we first were married.
But please, take this with a grain of salt, work on YOU! Not your relationship with your wife. Nothing you can do will change her mind; she has to make that decision on her own.
I'm here for you brother. Anything you need please don't be afraid to ask. I'm not shy about sharing my troubles in life, been through too damn much to be worried what other people think.
― John Quincy Adams
At the very least, I hope that we can be friendly. Because of the kids, we will be interacting a lot, and I don't want to have the Hollywood version of hateful divorced parents for my kids to grow up with. So, anyone that has been able to remain friends with their ex would be helpful to hear from too.
You have posted this in Help & Advice, so I will give you some help and advice.
It's over. She has decided this, and you can't override that decision.
It's 100% a shitty suck ass thing that has happened to you
It's quite possibly completely unfair and you've done nothing bad to cause such a sad outcome.
It's almost certain that an element of the pain that you're feeling is because you don't deserve to be 'punished'. You're feeling that if only you'd done more of x or less of y or been better at z then you wouldn't be losing the relationship that you value so much.
Please. I'm begging you: please do not fall into that trap. I did, for years and fucking years. The net result was many wasted years of misery and black depression, plus being an asshole to people who cared for me. I'm still not done apologising and I'm nowhere near making up for the lost time. In short: do not think like this.
This has happened. It's a goddamb shame. You had your chance and it's gone, or maybe she had her chance and that's gone, but whatever it was, she's spent a long time thinking about this, and she's through to the other side.
Spend the weekend drinking vodka and listening to Leonard Cohen if you gotta. But come Monday morning you have to adjust yourself to life as a guy who is no longer in a direct relationship with that woman and never will be again, and relates to the world on that basis.
However, I can not just move on with my life and never see her again. We have kids, and we will be part of each others life for a long time to come. We are still friendly and pleasant to each other. She claims that she still cares about me. She has no romantic feelings towards me any more, but she wants me to be happy and well. She is hopeful that this divorce will make us both happier then what she believes we were together.
I can't turn off my feelings towards her, though I can respect her space and her decision. I'm sure that the feelings of unreciprocated love will fade over time. Its only been less then 2 weeks for me.
So, I get it. We are not getting back together. But we are not fully split up either. So, what is the best path towards having a productive co-parenting environment. I can't imagine that the only option going forward is some Hollywood version of a bitter husband and a hateful shrew of a wife sniping at each other through their increasingly maladjusted children.
ultimately it sucks that my kids are from a broken home, its the last thing i ever wanted for them. but if you're willing to put a front on it for you're kids sake you can minimise the damage you do to them and having constant access to them will keep you from coming apart at the seams too. as far as i'm concerned given the shitty circumstances we've done the best we can for them and fwiw they are both happy and well adjusted, much more so than the kids of other divorced parents i know.
I completely agree though, this whole thing sucks, I wanted much more for my kids. It sucks that one party can upend the whole family unilaterally.
This is a traumatic event in your life and just make sure that you treat it as such and take care of yourself.
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I was in a not dissimilar position to you. Making a marriage work day in day out is hard and having kids puts incredible stress on a relationship, particularly those early years. I did my best (which retrospectively could have been a lot better), but ultimately it wasn't good enough in her eyes and the damage was done. When she was offered the chance to pretend she was 25 again she took it.
All in all day on/ day off isn't a bad arrangement at all. It's not normality, but it's close if you squint. You still see your kids basically all the time (and can be 100% focused on them when you have them), but you now have that pressure valve when you have no responsibility for anyone but yourself. If you can put yourself back together and long term find someone else it won't be a perfect nuclear family, but it won't be a disaster either. You may find it preferable to a dead marriage in a bunch of ways.
Like it or not you and your ex are shackled together until the kids leave home now. No-one can afford war, least of all your kids. Keep things amicable and push to see them as often as possible. Personally I like the shortest possible time between visits, even week on/ week off would suck. I can tell you the kids feel the same, 3+ days without and I feel miserable and they always tell me how much they've missed me.
Hey ZeroCow, I am in NH. We were initially looking at the collaborative divorce, but it looks like we won't need that. We are in agreement on most points and should be able to just have the lawyers draw up the paperwork. Both of us want to do this for the least amount of trauma, money and time as possible. We both have lawyers though.
I really appreciate your perspective Manji. Having babies was rough on our relationship. I feel like we had drifted apart as a couple as we had focused so hard on being parents. The sad news for me, was that we were going to have a great year this year to really rebuild our relationship but Covid hit and that brought new stress and isolation. Work from home for my wife, home school issues and canceling of virtually all our plans. However, it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel for this summer to pick up our plans, but it was too late.
This is how I feel too. We have kids, we are together, like it or not. Its worth it, in my opinion, to be as friendly as possible as we all learn how to live and prosper in this new family format. Its reassuring to hear that you found success too.
You have no idea how much this means to me.
Because to most people it's like this huge character flaw if you can't. Not everyone can be a hero.
I am able to most of the time but shit's hard
Beneath the facade I'm a goddamn mess. I doubt I'll ever get over my wife betraying me and the prospect of dying alone while she enjoys a life of sofa cuddles and romantic getaways just eats away at me. Sometimes my resentment bleeds out despite my best efforts. For the most part so long as my replacement is steered clear of as a conversational topic (which everyone has long since learned to do) I'm able to keep overt displays of misery to my own time though. The kids are old enough to understand this sucks for everyone, no-one wanted this and what's most important for everyone is we pull together as a family.
They had a couple kids, nice house in the suburbs. I don't know the particulars, but he was easily the big breadwinner and kept the house and she moved out and they split the kids. Since then a few years later he's met someone and remarried. Not sure what happened to her, he was my pal from high school and I was never particularly close with her. Apparently the advise of the counsellor to just make that clean (but still shitty) break was the best thing, because well, it was a clean break and they were able to move on.
So yeah, doesn't sound like that's what you want to hear, but it's not the end by any means. It's not anything that people want to go through but it's absolutely something people can get through relatively unscathed and come out the other side of all the better.
Oh and holy shit, if I can tell you one thing and one thing alone, do not look at this through a lens of "fair / unfair". Dad died years and years ago and mom still laments how it wasn't fair that he passed. It sure ain't about fair or unfair it's just life and that's what happens. Don't be my mom, pining and lamenting this thing for a decade, because it's fucking terrible and I can tell you it sure as shit hasn't done her any good. It's pretty easy for me to just say that, and you're the one who has to resolve that, but wow, holding on to that for a period of time will just ruin you in my experience.
I found this true even as the kid in the situation, where family on either side asked me about what was happening and how I was, but with a little bit of an agenda. My performance in school slipping would get chalked up to this by my teachers, talking to my friends at school about it was not the best resource. I remember filliping through the book fair rag and picking out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Girls-Guide-Parents-Divorce/dp/159369488] to my moms surprise. I desperately wanted any information that wasn't being cushioned or filtered because it felt deeply false.
Every situation is unique and I'm sorry you are going through this. As not-a-parent, I can only offer that small bit of advice.
But for you this is fresh, and has just been sprung on you. She may expect you to be in the same headspace as her, it's ok not to be. But best make sure you keep this in mind, she may not be callous or cold, but just more detached from the situation as she's much more mentally ready for it.
It sucks, it sucks a lot. But you have to be prepared to accept that this isn't going to change, and plan your childrens and yours life accordingly. Good luck.
@Nosf your story is pretty much what I am going through. She is 110% done and that is the end. Its a super poopy end, Its extremely unfair, especially for our kids that truly have no choice in all of this. However, fair & unfair are meaningless. The fact is, it is happening, and a clean break with the best life we can provide our kids going forward is the best outcome. The good news is that we are in agreement on everything and this will be minimally expensive and no one is trying to get back at the other.
As I look into the future, no more tears clouding my eyes, I think this will be a better situation. I am starting to more clearly see all the little ways that I and we have not been happy, the concessions we made to assuage the other, and could be happier apart. Between you and me, I am a little upset that she made this decision on her own and never tried to find help to try to save the marriage, I thought we were partners, married and in this together. But we are human, and its easy to point fingers and say shoulda coulda, it does not change anything and its not productive.
So, my plan going forward is to give her space, no pining, I have a new life ahead of me as a single dad of two awesome kids who need me now more then ever to be happy and healthy and well.
Thanks for everyone's advice. I'm sure I'll be back with new questions as I figure out this new reality.
I just had a 13-year marriage end over the summer (no kids involved thankfully), and I can confirm that the progression of feelings you've had in just a week sounds pretty familiar. We'd both known things weren't good, that we were more roommates than partners and had been for a while but it was still a blow when she said she was done and wanted to divorce. Initially we talked about continuing to live as roommates so that we didn't need to upend everything right away/sell the house/etc, and at first I did have feelings similar to yours - "maybe she'll change her mind"
As the weeks passed though, I realized I didn't really want that? We decided to sell the house after all, the market here is/was too hot not to, and we're now about 6 months out, I have my own apartment, and I feel better than I have in a very long time. I didn't realize just how much the stress of a failed relationship was weighing on me until that weight was gone. As you say, both of us were making compromises on what we really wanted, to keep the other from being miserable and the end result was neither of us were truly happy.
If nothing else, this should give you space to figure out what you really want, who you really want to be.
My son is a happy well adjusted kid even though his mother and myself have been split for 9/10's of it. We treat eachother with respect and kindness and he sees that.
I wish you luck in these early days, they're the hardest but it gets easier.
I'm sharing that to say this; seek out a therapist if you don't have one. The emotional ups and downs are going to continue for longer than you might expect. Even with things going my way legally, I was still a mess for longer than I would ever have thought possible. Having a therapist definitely helped.
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@capt howdy I am sorry to hear that your marriage went off the rails too! It is painful to discover that the person you loved has changed in ways that are no longer compatible with you. We can't control the actions of others and humans are prone to being poopy to each other. Especially to those we are closest to.
I see the logic of a therapist, and I definitely see that I am not perfect and could use some help. I have tried therapy a few times in the past and its been generally worthless. A lot of me talking and them nodding and not a lot of help. I mean, I can do talk therapy with my friends for free!
Before you really give up, try finding a better therapist. It can be a lot of work, but there are definitely psychologists out there that do more than just nod at what you say and you can find one. Just realize you may have to see a few people before you find someone that clicks. Also, do a pre-interview with someone before doing a full visit and try to ask about how they do their therapy. Hopefully you can figure out if it's worth seeing that person.
Take care of your health so you can take care of others. That is both physical and mental.
I provided a lot of emotional support for a close friend of mine throughout their divorce. I second the suggestion for therapy. I was happy to help, and I'd do it again; but it took a lot out of me. It also led to some crossed wires, which, combined with my own trauma, culminated in my having to distance myself from that friend for awhile. (Thankfully, they understood and we're fine now.) Definitely lean on your friends for support, but see a therapist too. Some things definitely benefit from professional detachment.
edit, much later: removed batsignals. Sorry 'bout that :redface:
For example, my parents divorced when I was 3, and my dad gradually drifted away and was gone by the time I was 7. This was because he was an alcoholic and was too ashamed to meet me or my mother even when he was sober. But his mental health issues were kept secret from me, so I thought he just didn't want to see me.
Having divorced parents was never a problem for me, but thinking that my dad wanted to abandon me was.
As said before, kids are resilient and a happy home with split parents is far and away better than an unhappy home with both.
So, when I answered my kid, I did not want to throw his mother under the bus. So I said, that I was sorry the relationship ended as well. That his mother & I had tried, even though he may not have seen that (which is a lie, we never worked on it because she kept it bottled up until she couldn't take it anymore. I would have sought help to try to fix things but was not given that option).
I followed up with the truth though... That my relationship with him was not ending. That while things would be different, that did not mean they would be bad. That me may see less of each other every day, but we would have lots of chances to talk via facetime, his text, or on line gaming and that the time we were together would be even more valuable.
So, to your point. I don't want to keep things from the kids, but i don't want to paint my wife as the bad guy. I also don't want saddle them with information they can't understand and don't need to know.
The family therapist loves the mental health improvement the kids have made since she moved out of state. Last year our oldest froze up in the store and couldn't even choose what clothes he wanted because he was afraid of choosing wrong and upsetting her. This year I suggested a shirt and he flat ass looked me in the eyes and said "That's lame dad, I'm not wearing that". Big improvement.
Though it doesn't sound like Thundyr's relationship was toxic, just not....loving(?) anymore. To which I say good for you. If you two can keep this civil and venom free, Gods be praised and how I envy you.
Edit - I know you don't want to saddle the kids with information, but be aware that could cause more distress for them. My oldest went through a rough patch I couldn't figure out. Eventually he let me know it was because he didn't know how the divorce was proceeding and he was worried the judge might make him live with her. I was able to calm him by letting him know that at his age that decision is his to make in the court's eyes. Settled a lot of anxiety for him.
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I am trying to convince them that talking about their thoughts is helpful. Letting your fears bounce around in your head magnifies them to a huge degree, the second we share those fears they become instantly manageable. This time is full of new things that are unknown, but they are all manageable. Different in lots of ways for sure. But we can count on each other. So that seemed to help. 1 problem at a time.
Also, you are correct, my wife and I get along very well, she just no longer loves me or enjoys my company. Which is excruciating for me, but pretty meh for her! how fun!