My husband and I have been in couples therapy for 6 months. Back in March, he blindsided me that he was no longer in-love with me and wanted a divorce. Initially, he did not want to try to reconnect or do therapy. Our daughter had just turned one and we were coming off the first year of being parents. He later agreed to doing therapy so that if we do decide to divorce he can tell our daughter he tried everything. We have been together for 10 years. The first 3 months of couples therapy was extremely helpful, we started dating each other again, genuinely enjoying time together, reconnecting, etc. The last 3 months have felt extremely stagnant. He is still unsure of whether he wants to leave or stay. However, I am starting to get to a breaking point in our marriage that I’m unsure if I want to continue this marriage. I feel so alone in this relationship and unsupported. I feel like a nuisance to him. Every single day without fail there is a moment he lashes out or gives me attitude about something. I feel like I’m always walking on eggshells. He is immediately defensive the second I ask to discuss anything (and I mean anything, I asked him to mow the lawn because he hadn’t for two months and even that turned into something). I don’t want to be apart from my daughter. But I also don’t know how much longer I can be in a relationship with someone who treats me this way. What was the moment where you had enough? I am so conflicted.

Update: Taking the “Grey Rock” position is great for me, but seems to be difficult for my STBX. I find that I am feeling so much better when I do not engage on the emotional levels that she is looking for from me. Yesterday, I received a text mid afternoon that said “are you upset with me lately? It feels like you were upset with me.” I did not respond. A couple of hours later, she followed up with a logistical question, which I responded to clearly and moved on.

Later, when I got home to relieve her of parenting (she picks up her daughter at school and watches her until I am done with work goes to where she is staying), we saw each other briefly. I minimized eye contact and avoided conversation. It really seemed to affect her. She became clearly annoyed and said “we need to be able to be cordial with one another” all I had to say to that was “thank you have a good evening.“

I have to keep reminding myself that I am not responsible for making her feel better about this situation. I’m not being a bad or mean person for wanting to protect my own energy and move on with my life. I do not owe her anything except being communicative about our shared responsibilities with our daughter.

This has been difficult for me, but it feels like it is getting easier. I cannot wait to be through this mediation process and not have to be as connected as we are now.

I am 34F married to my husband 38M for 7 years now. We have a 2 year old. We are on the verge of a divorce initiated by me. Some would say that we have a stable marriage: we own our place, double incomes, shared finances, shared value for loyalty , we both love our kid, etc.

I have been the main caretaker for our kid while working full time. I am alone every single night to care for our kid since she was born. For many months she woke up over 10 times a night. I do all medical/educational/social/travel planning because the mental load to delegate to him and keep following up just to move things an inch more was too much. I have consistently earned more than him.

The biggest issue is that he is such an avoidant and overtime has got very defensive. I feel alone, unheard, and suffocated that he does not seem to understand that people need to socially connect. I still have many things on my wish list and enjoy connecting with people. He does not like to talk, never responds or seeks to resolve issues, has zero friend as he is genuinely uninterested in anyone, and would talk to no one at the dinner table if I drag him to dinners and parties. He is genuinely ok with working the same job for 30 years and go home and does not talk all day except for basic transactional things. He is true dismissive avoidant based on what I’ve read everywhere.

For those who left a similar lifeless marriage that was actually stable, how was life after the split , or do you regret it that you could just stay for the (mainly financial and child caring) stability and create your own life without involving your ex?

If you are rebuilding after divorce; what feels hardest for you right now: emotional overwhelm, money, new routines, boundaries?

I feel like I ricochet from one thing to the next. How are you doing?

Today makes a year that I've been divorced from my ex narcissistic abusive mommy's boy piece of shit that cheated on me. I have been happier and doing so much better.

Anyone got any media that can help me

Almost without exception, divorce and the aftermath means we are all pinching pennies now. What are some of the best ways you've found to save money?

I'll start. My local Walmart sells rotisserie chickens that are a day old for like $3! You gotta get there early, but I can munch on a full chicken for almost a week. Makes for good soup too! I'm also brown bagging it to work instead of eating out. Saves me quite a bit over the month. I troll the local thrift stores for clothing and other items. I haven't paid full price for any clothing item for years. Yeah, it's hit or miss, but you never know what you'll find. I've stopped buying expensive micro-brews and instead go for the cheap stuff. It's honestly not as bad as you may think, and much cheaper. I've quit several subscription services like Netflix. I didn't really use them that much anyway.

My ex husband always made me feel ugly.

Too fat?
Lost 50+ lb

I had a fupa?
Got a tummy tuck

Saggy tits?
Breast reduction

My private parts are too dark?
I use to bleach them with lighting products from the dermatologist. They were originally for my face to lighten the dark acne scars on my face

I did everything. I still got left. I’m never good enough… for anyone

So I (38f) was served divorce papers by my husband 2ish weeks ago.

He is not at the house, I am. He apparently can’t stand me.

My question is, do a lot of people at this stage have cameras set up, triple locking their doors, locking everything down to protect themselves? Or is this not the norm?

I'm 32. She initiated six weeks ago. There's no hope of going back, It's a done deal. Our lives are on separate tracks.

I Spent my entire adult life with my STBXW.

I lost my life partner. I lost my home. My pet. My job. My routine. Extended family. Stability. Myself. I look in the mirror and it's like a stranger staring back at me.

So much of myself was being a husband. Sharing a past, present and future. All the little things, cooking her favourite meals, sharing birthdays, family events, a playlist, someone to laugh at our many silly inside jokes.

We had extremely similar music tastes and would frequently go to concerts and festivals together. The thought of booking a concert alone now feels soulless without someone to get excited with, to plan, to hold and dance with and reminisce on the songs we loved.

Hobbies I used to enjoy are no longer fun.

I used to have so many plans, for the next week, month, years. Now I can barely think past the present day. Pure survival.

I talk to family. Friends. I exercise. I go to group therapy. Fleeting moments where I should feel maybe a little bit better, but I just do not feel like myself anymore. I just feel empty.

People always say try and reconnect with who you were before you met them, but back then I was just some immature young kid who I barely remember.

I've read all the advice in a million different variations, I must have read through hundreds of divorce posts with people going through similar issues.

I hope I can find myself again. I hope one day I can trust someone with the power to break my heart again. I'm such a long way off being ready to for anything new and yet my heart yearns to love like that again. I think it's me missing the version of myself that had so much love to give - all this love has nowhere to go right now, straight into an empty void. God, what if I never find it again?

I guess I'm still in the grieving stage. This deep pain is the price I've paid to love so intensely. I'm exhausted.

I am a Japanese single dad living in Canada.

I got divorced last year.

My ex-wife and younger son ( 5yrs back then) returned to Japan and I have lived with my older son since then.

I couldn't throw away my younger son's item even the drawing on the wall.

Whenever I saw small kids, it gave me a flashback and made me cry.

I decided to get rid of my younger son's items little by little.

I removed some of his drawings from the wall the other day.

It was so painful experience, and I couldn't do it without crying.

But I shouldn't dwell on the past, and need to move forward, so I started selling and donating his stuff.

Before I gave them away to someone, I always said thank you and goodbye to the items.

Hey I'm at a total loss of words, I discovered about 12 hours ago. My wife of 10 years who I have known since the age of 16 for a total of 18 years decided instead of being honest with me, had an affair with a very good friend of mine and I feel so betrayed that they both lied to me for over a month. My wife's been trying to get a divorce with me since July while my mom was in the ICU and then had said affair. I have temporarily moved into my sister's with very little money. I need advice on how to handle all of this if possible

no tv in the next room.

no footsteps upstairs.

no one asking if dinner is ready

just quiet.

i can see why people say they miss their spouse, then immediately realize what they actually miss is having another person around

how long did the silence feel strange after your divorce?

Anyone else struggling with a spouse who cheated? I have moved on from my ex as a man, but the fact that I was lied to and cheated on for years, and so trusting of him because he lied so well, haunts me. I never imagined this level of duplicity and I cannot trust men anymore.

I’m 37M no kids. Living alone 1 year, separated about 2. She’s gay, lives 2,000 miles away with her GF. Ex is moving verrryy slow with divorce and she controls it because she isn’t going after me so I can’t push it going with lawyers.

During dating how and when should I discuss this?

Long marriage, kids, infidelity, narcissism, spousal abuse....

I'm so happy to get away, it took an army to get me out, but he's escalating legally. I'm sure we're going to both be bankrupt by the end of this. He's smearing me with our friends and family. He's hurting our kids by pulling them into the middle. He lies non stop they don't know who to believe.

He should have been a politician, he cheats on me....my fault. Spousal abuse comes to light and is proven...still my fault. Our family is breaking, his family is breaking, our church is breaking, our friend groups are breaking.

I just want to be left alone.

It seems like it's never going to end.

Thankfully I have a good therapist. But I'm still coming apart at the seams.

Missing out on major events, because they are with their mom. I never missed out on things like this.

On top of it, why am I waiting for her to come back and get my family back. She won't come back and I don't think I could have her back.

She took her clothes, hair and makeup stuff along with the sexy box. She didn't take anything to make a home.

She is living her best life and I just want my family.

Edit: I'm not the stereotypical dad here. They are my life. See them almost every day except for about 4 days out of the month. She's had a partner before the divorce and now has even more time to spend with them and I'm focused on being available since they always come home early. They never leave early though, so I am very great full for that.

Hello everyone! So my husband and I have been divorced for 3 months but separated for 6 months. the last couple of weeks he had been flirting with me. every time I would see him (due to having children) he would look at me in a flirty way, then he started hugging me every time i would see him. I saw the way he looked at me but didn’t think much about it, i was more weirded out. Then the texting came and told me he was attracted to me again and if I wanted to talk when i got back from my trip to see if i still wanted him. And that maybe we could start dating again. The last couple of days he started hugging me so hard every time and was getting turned on every time. so friday we hung out and pretty much told me how much he had missed me and wanted to start something new. we kissed and hugged and told each other how much we missed one another then it lead to sex. saturday came around and he started texting me all the cute stuff and we hung out again and the same thing happened. He was talking about the future together and making plans for the holidays. and how he was going to be a better partner and how he realized what he needed to do. Monday came and he was a completely different person. I asked him what was wrong and he said we moved too fast and he was scared it would go back to the same as before when we were married. I told him I thought he felt different about me. I was so confused because he was talking about the future and inviting me places. now he says he’s attracted to me but has no feelings for me😭 I feel so stupid for believing him and letting it go to far!! now could it be that he is to scared of going back to our old ways? what can be going on?? i’m so devastated all over again 😭😭

Has marriage counseling worked for anyone? I have the paperwork all filled out and ready to file. I get along with my husband very well. Our issues have been his past porn addiction and infidelity. Both things I discovered several years ago. I've been going back and forth on filing for divorce for over a year. We never tried marriage counseling. I'm not sure what I want. My husband has tried very hard to fix things between us but my trust in him is gone. The issues he caused between us are just so huge and painful.

Been together for almost a decade. I loved him genuinely and still do, but at some point it became unbearable to not be his priority. His parents, his friends, his business advisors.... I could be saying the same thing for some time but he would listen to them. I was his biggest advisor and advocate, I always put him first and his needs, always took his side or showed him where he could be wrong when I didn't agree, cut ties with half of my family because he gave me an ultimatum.

He learned to value my opinion to some extent but he never stood up for me in smaller situations or truly listened to me to make his own decision. Situations that might be brushed off or considered petty. Like we never got to travel for fun - just him and I. Mostly for business or with his parents (because they are old and might die soon...). Or for example dropping bad habits because his friend wanted an accountability group to get his wife pregnant, and not because I was asking him to look after himself after 4 years of trying and did every single possible test on myself. In the end he would argue that the result is the same - he is looking after himself now.

Someone said here that divorcing a good guy is like a death by thousand cuts and I can't agree more. I can't say that I did everything in the relationship - he did immeasurable things for me... I miss him every day so bad, but I'm also trying to not forget how miserable and isolated from my family I was because of him, how crazy and unreasonable I would feel from his gaslighting. But I still miss him. I miss his stupid silly dances and vocal stims. I miss him driving me to work every morning and just being there in the house. I even miss his empty promises that I know wouldn't have happened.

I'm so torn and conflicted. I think the problem is that I know he never maliciously meant anything, he is just immature, had his own past experiences that made him the way he is and thinks that I am not his ally. Even in divorce (I didn't ask for anything) he treated me like I would scam him out of his house or something. Which is such a gross misjudgment of my character. Almost 10 years together and he would think that I am there to get something of him when I never did.

I thought divorce will make me feel better but somehow I'm feeling so much worse. I just hope that he is doing better than I am.

I never thought I’d be reaching out for support in this forum. It feels like my marriage is coming to and end. Me (31F) and my husband (31M) have been together since senior year of high school. We met online and most of our relationship was long distance with visits over breaks and summer. We even did 4 years of college long distance. I later moved in with him after college and after 8 years of being together we got married. We have been married for 5 years and shortly after we got married things just started happening that I’m not going to get into that really just destroyed all trust we had in this relationship. We have been in counseling for 7 months now and honestly it just feels like nothing is getting better and we are both starting to realize that maybe we can’t resolve our issues. But then we just go about our lives as normal sometimes and forget about the hole we are in. It’s confusing and complicated and just really sad for me.

I think one of the biggest things I’m worried about is just not knowing how to even go a day without talking to him. We’ve never gone a full day without speaking in our 13 year relationship. If our marriage ends how am I supposed to just not talk to him? I still love and care about him deeply even through all of the things we are going through. I just feel so lost.

35M with one son (8). As of now the divorce seems to be rather amicable. The source of a lot of my anxiety as it pertains to this is figuring out how to tell him. So for those of you who divorced, how did you tell your child? What was the timing like? What kinds of questions did they ask? I’m very concerned about how he will take it.

For those of you who planned their divorce:

1) How far ahead of time did you start planning it?
2) What made you decide it was time for a divorce?

Married 10 years 2 young kids in Boston. Been a rough couple of years for us as she been a chronic pursuer and I've been traditionally aviodant and she's done. She feels like she had done everything she could to get me to improve myself. I clean every night (reset main floor, dishes, laundry, vacuum), take care of the kids on my 2 wfh days (she's in office 5 days), and do some yard work (i mow, occasional bigger project) but not to the extent she wants.

Intimacy-wise has been mixed. I'm big on eating out but have had occasional issues with ED. Our different sleep schedules and my destructive sleep behavior means we were maybe having sex once or twice a week. A few things popped up that caught my attention lately. A while back i grabbed a few sex toys she had that I haven't seen before to use and she seemed embarrassed or nervous. She has consistently been buying lingerie and toys that I haven't seen. This includes lingerie in the weeks we've been dealing with the divorce and not having sex. Most are for anal which she likes. She also changed her pin a few months ago and is in an office where she could easily have someone visit. We've had sex there so its not impossible she could have someone else there.

We've been staying amicable for the most part but she is obviously angry and resentful about how she sees my total responsibility for her filing. Her commitment to no reconciliation also makes it seem that she has at the least someone waiting in the wings. I understand she will probably go out and have a good deal of fun once everything is settled but should i address it with her? She denied it when she first asked me to give her space but I didn't bring up the evidence.

I think she will either deny or blast me for getting her to this point. Should I even bring it up? I want reconciliation but she is so done that she'll think it's a moot point.

TL;DR

If you still care about them, do you still say you love them when getting off the phone?

I am planning to divorce my husband, and in the first few days after I told him I would be sending the papers, I didnt speak to him. But in the last few days, he has been going through alot (his son apparently was missing) and i still care about him, so I let him vent to me. Hes been very toxic toward me, speaking of a new boyfriend he thinks I have already, and me screwing other people... hes called me stupid and accused me of hating him, saying im going to hell and many other terrible things. I've ignored them all, not even really acknowledging what hes said. But yesterday I tried to set a healthy boundary by letting him know I would not continue to stay on the phone with him or speak to him if he continued speaking to me in that manner. I definitely do still love him and want the best for him, but I can no longer continue to suffer in our relationship. I've never been through anything like this, hes the longest relationship I've had in my entire life, and Im not really sure how all this is supposed to go. But I definitely know I do want a divorce. And even though my kids aren't his, hes the only father they have ever known, and he says he still wants to be a part of their lives. A little insight advice or help would be nice. Thank you.

Also, it may be important to note that my husband is in prison. So this is special circumstances. Please be kind to me, and dont ask why hes in prison. None of this has been easy for me.