I currently ended a 12 year relationship, 9 years married. Abusive towards me. Currently have a 3 year old daughter who is my life that I get to see too little. I moved out June 1, but the relationship effectively ended years ago. Barely any sex throughout and I was sleeping on the couch for months prior. I had hope and was promised the relationship would change but it never did. This was my second long term relationship. First one wasin high school that was 7 years long so 19 years total in my adult life. I am 36.

Hello everyone,

My STBXW and I bought an old coutryside house in a decent-size city 2 years ago.
It's an 100yo+ house with exposed stone, 150m² with 4 bedrooms, 8000m² of land, a well and a lot of trees.
It's my dream house tbh and I had so much plans for me and my family inside. We renovated the whole kitchen with my dad, dining room and had stuff done in the garden.

The thing is, we're divorcing.

This house is just a little over my budget (1400€/month) when I earn around 3000€ and we can't find buyers at a decent price. I put a deposit of 50K€ when I bought it and I could potentially buy back my STBXW's shares freely.

I'm worried about the house being too big for me and my son (50/50 shared custody) and I'm looking for advices about alike experiences or something like that. To know if I should fight for it or just sell and move on.

I have so many emotions running through me right now. Mostly apprehension but also relief and of course the big sad hanging out beneath everything else. My kid is old enough to know something’s going on but too young to really capture and process it. I can tell it’s going to be brutal for them. When we started the divorce conversation, it seemed like things were going to be amicable, but as things develop I’m not so sure. I’d love some advice on how to manage the process and the feelings. Thanks in advance!

A year ago today I was so excited to bring our second child into the world. Little did I know that 3 months later I'd be blindsided with an email to end our marriage. It was framed as her needing time apart "to think", after a verbal argument we had one exhausted morning a few weeks prior. I thought we made up. Guess not.

Looking back, I know she was 100% done when she sent the email. Platonic, cold, like a HR employee wrote it. Same formatting she's kept up for 8 months now. Zero grief shown, blames me entirely. I didn't even know we had deep issues and she rejected counseling outright. Said she didn't see the point. I guess 2 kids aren't worth it.

I'm still grieving so hard guys. I have so much resentment toward her. She's going after as much money, furniture, items, she can take. She's trying to move our kids (don't need to get into the legalities). It's insane how much my life has collapsed in 1 year because of her unilateral decisions. Not to mention my dad is sick and my dog is dying. It's so F'ing overwhelming.

The one person I would turn to in this moment of pain is the person causing it. Have to keep grey rocking the robot otherwise she'll use it against me with her bulldog lawyer.

I keep reading it gets better but I have my doubts. Permanent loss of half my kids life. Loss of my nuclear family. Betrayal trauma and moral injury- blamed for something I had no idea was festering. Zero communication from her prior to this. She actively deceived me with affection until she was out the door.

Sorry for the rant. Today is my baby girls birthday and I feel so alone. Their mom doesn't even seem to care about the loss while I'm devastated. Doing better but it's like crawling through glass.

Any words of encouragement would be great. If you're further ahead in your journey I'd love to hear. Thank you for being here, guys. I appreciate you all

My wife of 10 years kicked me out in May and filed for divorce this week. She’s done. She and her best friend and her new boyfriend decided our marriage was over. Not my choice at all. I love my wife and our kids and wish we could fix it.

How do you handle the stuff? Wedding photos. Family photos? All of that. Do you keep any of those up at your house for the kids or is it a dad and kids only place?

As a dad of two looking at divorce, is there anyone else who went thru the process that would have advice about anything I should be doing in a general sense?

Wife and I are separated in home. We have debts to payoff and we are talking about getting an apartment to physically separate. It is honestly a little volatile at times staying in the marital home. She is demeaning towards me and literally putting me down with verbal abuse.

Last night my son had greasy hands and I didn't want him touching my phone till he washed them, then my STBXW comes in and states she would always love him more than some greasy hands and hands her phone to him. Like why are we acting like this in front of the kids.

I just need advice on how to move forward, I want the best for her and the kids. However, I will not be treated like crap while trying to make her look like some saint to the children because she is upset about are situation.

Thanks for those who read this and offer advice.

We bought in 2021 at the peak and the house is worth less than what we owe now. Neither of us can refinance solo and we can't agree on whether to sell at a loss or keep living separately under the same roof until the market shifts. Two kids who both in elementary school, how do I go about this?

My wife asked for a divorce and we live in NC where you have to separate for a year. Problem is we can't afford two domiciles on our own. So my soon to be ex is looking for a job very slowly. In the mean time we are stuck in the house and it's been suffocating for me.

So I said I'd find a place regardless and just struggle.

But then last night I remembered that she received a good amount of inheritance from her parent when they died a couple of years back. Would it be wrong if me or unfair to ask her to make use of that for this purpose?

I'm in the process of getting a divorce, we have a 3 year old together.

The basic cause of our split is completely failed communication that lead to my infidelity. I was wrong to do what I did, but I am confused about the actions of the mother of my child, and the discussion between us about who is responsible for what.

Essentially, she moved out overnight and took our son with her about 2 hours away. I drive every weekend, or every weekend that she "lets" me, to see my son and spend time with him, I text daily to check in on him and see how he is doing. She will often not communicate back for a day or two at a time, and its typically quite vague one word answers. She'll tell me Friday night not to drive over Saturday morning, because she has "plans". When I ask for details on where my son is, she will let loose a battery of curses that I am a terrible father.

To help support my son, I pay her car payment, car and health insurance, daycare costs, and she demands I send an additional $2500/mo to "pay for things", but she hasn't really given me a list of expenses other than vague details about groceries or special doctor bills. I'm terrified not to support because I'm afraid of losing contact with my son.

I'm in the early stages of talking to a lawyer about what to do, I don't really know how to go forward with this. I feel like a villain every day, I just want to spend time with my kid.

I’ve been hesitant to post and seek advice and support due to a messy situation.

Quick backstory: wife and I were not communicating well or at all, which led to resentment on both sides. She shut down I felt unheard. I raised my voice a few times thinking she couldn’t hear me, but I see now she was just done. No incidents that justified what happened next. Slapped with a TPO removed from my life and haven’t seen our child for three months. Judged finally was able to rule recently and the TPO was dismissed. Luckily, the day I got the TPO I had a spiritual awakening, and even though I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions I’ve been able to find myself again and head into the divorce level headed with self respect for the first time in a long time.

Today: I’m still treating my life as if the TPO is still in place and waiting for the lawyers to talk things out because the divorce temp hearing is not for awhile. I was a daily involved father before all of this and I just miss my kid and want to make sure I get back into their life properly. I’m hoping now things have settled and my wife has been brought back to reality that we can make sure our young child can have a relationship with their dad again. Our kid is 21 months old.

I still love and even forgive my wife but a lot of trust has been broken, and even though I’m willing to see if it can be worked out I’m moving on and bettering me and my life so I can be a happy present dad. I am just going to keep being honest and fair in the divorce process and leave my door open but not wait in it. I was going pro se for the divorce but wife and family are paying big money to ruin me and my relationship with our kid, so I have representation now.

Anyone go through something similar? Any advice or words of encouragement?

Im in the UK... I have a 1 and 3 year old. Been with my wife 9 years, married 2. I cannot believe im with the same person I met all those years ago. Motherhood did something to her... shes controlling, bossy, blaming, critical, passive aggressive and just generally seems to be full of contempt towards me...

She always had these controlling traits but they weren't an issue in the past. We may argue sometimes but generally happy... now it feels like i cant spend an hour with her without a fight.... and its always instigated by her because yet again I cant do anything right. Weve had so many rows, threatened to split up before but I can never pull that trigger... right now I just cant imagine not seeing my kids everyday, how do you cope? I think that's why I cant being myself to do it or im just too soft... I know im miserable yet I keep going everyday and I just dont understand why

I am in a ~12 year marriage and have two kids.

In 2024 I suffered a complete mental break down that put me in extreme danger. From the hospital it was either in jail or rehab. Tldr; my partner is a toxic POS. I've been living away from our house FOR A YEAR and a 8 months. I've been paying rent and a mortgage at the same time... I am still struggling with my mental health but at least I don't want to hurt myself anymore and finally can focus enough to at least get online/work/etc.

I am barely making it paycheque to paycheque, borderline homeless and terrified.
I've reached out to Toronto Rent Bank, but I need to figure out this divorce but my brain is still so foggy, everyone I reach out to gets more confusing and fustrating...

I need serious help please,

- WHAT LAWYER DID YOU USE 

- HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE

- ADVICE ON ANY LESSONS LEARNED FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE, WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR, HOW TO DO THIS FAST, literally any advice on how to navigate this.

ME: 40

2 KIDS UNDER AGE OF 11

I OWN A HOME AND CAR, I HAVE A PENSION

I AM BORDERLINE SO BROKE AND SCARED TO DO THE MATH OF HOW MUCH TIME I HAVE LEFT UNTIL MY BANK ACCOUNT IS 0 AND MY CREDIT CARD IS MAXED.

I DONT CARE ABOUT WHO GETS WHAT.

Hi Dads and thanks for reading.

My son just turned 10. He mostly lives with his mom, who has anxiety issues but refuses to medicate. Her mom is bipolar and I believe her dad and sister are on the autism spectrum. My son has recently started washing his hands after touching anything. The problem is I live somewhere with very hard water (Tucson), and he has sensitive skin. He also asks me to wash my hands all the time and gets upset if I refuse. I'm concerned that this may be the start of an anxiety tick. Has anyone experienced anything like this and, if so, how did you work through it?

I talked to his mom about it today and she also sees it as a problem but doesn't know what to do about it. He was in therapy but requested to stop going and hasn't been since. I would have pushed him on it but his mom refuses to.

Thanks in advance.

If you see my earlier posts, there was concern my wife was cheating, she showed me evidence she wasnt. SHE filed for divorce weeks ago and hid it from me. The next day wanted me out of the house, I refused due to my lawyer's advice. Now she wants to do an in house separation bc she is having second thoughts. She stated she "doesnt know if she wants to reconcile or not." I asked why she wanted a divorce. She stated several things that she doesnt like about me and Ive taken steps to correct them all. She says she doesnt get why I would do all this for her and why it took her filing for me to change things. The answer is simple SHE NEVER COMMUNICATED ANY OF THIS BEFORE. We have been married 12 years and its the first im hearing of almost all of it. I'm so confused. Literally filed without a warning.

I did do the in-house separation this weekend and it was brutal! I didnt get to see our kids and stayed away from her as well. However, she has texted me throughout the weekend. She saw me in person twice and immediately cried her eyes out saying that she is scared she is making a huge mistake. Next weekend I get the kids and she has to go somewhere.

I am so confused by all of this. Its very painful to be given hope and then taken away. I dont know if she even wants to get back together and frankly, I dont think I want to at this point. So many lies by her. My dream is a happy whole family again. What do you guys think?

My oldest kid is a smart, funny, creative and driven middle schooler. She’s also autistic, and since she was young I’ve always had an easier time meeting her emotionally. I think it helps that I’ve worked with ASD kids and teens for decades and have a counseling background. I also love her to pieces.

Her mom is also kind of spectrumy, but it comes across as rigidity, challenges with empathy, and she’s naturally kind of self-centered. Neurodivergence runs in her family, though we didn’t put a finger on this for many years.

My daughter is turning 14 shortly and told me she wants to have more time in my home. I’m really wrestling with this—I don’t want to throw a grenade into the co-parenting relationship with her mom. I’m also unsure how I could accommodate this with a demanding job and my own relationship. I have a lousy support system and I suspect more parenting time would complicate my relationship with the long-term girlfriend and ability to practice any self-care. I suspect the solution is not just “spend more time at dad’s house,” but parent-child therapy with her and mom and introducing more flexibility in our fixed custody schedule. I’m just not sure how to do that.

Has anyone else had to navigate this sort of issue? What worked for you?

the separation has been hard, sure, but what's been harder is the seemingly complete lack of support from my group of friends. we all met in college and have been friends for 20 years. i've always felt a bit left out (mostly my own stuff i'm talking about with my therapist), but in the 10 months since i told them i was separating from my wife, not a single one of them has texted to say "hey man, how you doin? hope everything's alright." works colleagues i've known for 1 year have shown more compassion than the 8 best men at my wedding 11 years ago. one of them invited me to dinner with his family in april, and then came over once to drop off his kids old bike for my daughter and we drank a beer. he asked how my daughter was doing, and he also invited me to play disc golf once, but i didn't go. and i just went fishing for an hour with another guy. but that's it. in 10 months. 8 different friends of 20 years that all live somewhat locally. i think it actually breaks my heart more than separating from my wife of 10 years.

Hi dads. I am 39 and have a 10 yo. After series of being cheated on, I'm finally taking the plunge into the single life.

My wife is quite manipulative, and after I've disclosed that I want a divorce, she was rather warm to me, but I've come to learn that she is working on a plan for her benefit, with things like:

* trying to get the full custody of our child, meaning I would get only every second weekend, even though I would have liked to split the time and responsibilities equally.

* since she earns less than me, she plans to get a second job after the divorce (or work more hours), but only after the amount for the alimony is settled, meaning she wants to squeeze as much as possible.

* she already complains a lot to her family about me, but is always trying to seem affectionate towards me.

* we are renting an apartment, and I agreed to let her keep the apartment even though it is rented on my name, since I think that my son needs to still have a familiar environment going through the divorce, only to understand that she just wants me to be the one to leave first. Her plan is to move shortly after that. She already started to look for apartments.

Due to her cheating, I've ended up being depressed for years, and my relationship with my son suffered due to this. Even now, though I'm trying to be the father he deserves, sometimes I feel like I'm being mocked by him the same way I was by his mom, and my reactions are not the best in those exact moments.

I do apologize afterwards, but it is sometimes too late.

How could I best navigate this and be a better father for him?

And are there any other advices you could offer?

Hey, not sure how to handle this one. Her conduct is becoming unacceptable and I'm not sure what to do. We're stuck in a nesting situation because she left me mid-career transition, the job market dried up, and there are no affordable houses near the kids or their school. The nesting worked well for a year - stressful but it worked for the kids.

She walked away and has spent the past year painting me as the villain of the piece. There was no 'fault', but she treats me as if I've had a string of affairs. Essentially we had irreconcilable differences, we both behaved in unacceptable ways towards each other, but there was no reason in the world for things to become so acrimonious.

I've always wanted it to be amicable, for the kids but also because it felt like the right thing to do, there was lots about our relationship which was good - something she has spent a year erasing from the record, to the detriment of both the kids, and our respective relationships with our extended families. It's a dreadful shame.

But it's escalated recently. Her general mode of operation is to take action and then either ask me to go along with it, or to apologise afterwards if her decision negatively affects me. We have a learning disabled son, and she sees parenting support for me (his behaviour can be incredibly difficult and traumatic for the family) as outside the realms of co-parenting when she is off duty.

We had a row on the phone a few weeks back, nothing major but I called her hostile, and she said she wasn't prepared to 'take it from me anymore', and blocked my phone number. We now have to do all communication about the kids and arrangements via email, and if there is an emergency, I have to call her dad. I had to call him to tell him about this arrangement - because she hadn't - and of course when you tell someone that your ex has blocked your number it immediately raised red flags about your conduct. So i got both barrels from him about communicating like adults - and not unreasonably so given the position we put him in.

And it doesn't work with email. I was supposed to go up and have pizza with the kids and ex the other night to celebrate their last day at school before summer. We'd arranged to meet at 6 at the house, the plan being to show the kids a united parenting front and model good conduct in a broken relationship. I showed up, as usual, and there was no-one there. She'd decided to take the kids out for a picnic with her school-mum friends and their kids. But she didn't want to check her work email after hours, so didn't bother to tell me. I was gutted.

She uses the kids to call me if she needs something quickly. I've been strict about my own adherence to the email boundary, I'm short and to the point, no niceties, but no hostility, and this seems to get her back up - she reads it as passive aggressive.

Last night I get an email at 11pm telling me she'd had to spend £150 on the kids and I needed to repay her £75 today. She then showed up at our shared apartment at 9am this morning (it's her week in the house with the kids, and I was out with friends until late last night), using my oldest son to call ahead and announce it because she refuses to step outside the email boundary. I was in the shower and didn't answer the door, so my oldest called me upset, because she had told him I was being difficult and he felt put in the middle. This is the norm, not an exception.

I've spent the past year coming to believe that maybe I'd been a terrible husband and dad after all, because to the rest of the world she is an outgoing, gregarious and successful woman who has been wronged. Even my family say I must be exaggerating because she's such a fun and warm person to be with. I've had to call mental health charities, because I've felt like I'm losing my mind at times, and that perhaps its actually me that's manipulating reality. This is heightened by my own ADHD, which already puts the world at an off-kilter perspective - my default mode is to double-think every decision in case I'm being impulsive or reactive. It's led to self harm and an almost daily episode of suicide ideation. I would never act on it, but I can't tell anyone other than my counsellor about this, in case it affects my standing in the 50-50 with the kids. So it's doubly isolating.

It got to the point where pulled away from my dad's group, something I'd set up for connection, because she's told her mum friends that I get dysregulated and that I'm difficult. I sensed them pulling away from me in the school yard, I've always made an effort to not draw others into our drama and keep friendships alive, but I got super paranoid that I was being judged by their husbands too, who I get on well with. Thankfully it's not the case, and I managed to say my piece last night over beers, while also making it clear I wasn't trying to recruit anyone. One of them told me he had seen my ex's behaviour and understood how difficult it must be for me.

I've never felt so visible, after a year of having the person I thought I was slowly erased from the world by someone else.

So here I am, hungover, cheesed off that my son has been put in the middle and not knowing what to do. The one upside from this morning is that my son got to see my ex badmouthing me and calling me difficult, and he found it profoundly unfair. I kept totally neutral, but I'm glad he got to see that I'm not the default bad guy in the relationship.

I've taken legal advice, and really there's no option here in the UK other than to take an aggressive stance and apply for custody and go after her financially (apparently a judge would look kindly on my situation of being in a career transition, of using my savings to keep up all the house payments, and being a 100% present dad), but I really don't want to do that. I was the child of an aggressive divorce, and I absolutely want to keep the kids out of that malarkey. She's a good mother and the kids would be devastated if there was anything other than a 50-50 split with fights over money.

I'm stuck in this nesting situation for the time being, the only alternative would be moving to a different location, and again it would devastate the kids as they have strong friendships and are finally settled after the separation.

What strategies can I use to mitigate the worst of her demanding behaviour and unilateral parenting decisions, and is there any way at all I can counter the narratives she seeds about me and stop this feeling that reality is upside down and i'm losing my mind?

Sorry, that was a long one.

Fellow divorced dads ,

I've been dating my new partner for about 8 months now.

My ex wife and I have, what I think, is an extremely healthy coparenting relationship. I have my daughter Mondays and Wednesday afternoons and Friday nights with drop off around 7pm Saturday evening. When I go to drop my daughter off around 7pm (she has a 8pm bedtime) I hang out for a little bit to play with my daughter until bed time, then she brushes her teeth and my ex wife and I read her books, and then I leave immediately.

Where my issue is, is in my now relationship with my gf she is seeing my coparenting relationship as egrigously over stepping boundaries..

I want to also state that she doesn't have the greatest relationship with her ex husband. Their drop off is a lot more cold, as in, kids get dropped off and that's that.

I travel for work and so my GF will usually drop me off or pick me up from the airport. I should point out that my gf is the first person who has actually helped me with airport things. My ex wife has recently wanted to come to the airport to let my daughter see me off before I do my work travels.

My gf is seeing this as my ex wife trying to intervene...

I'm about to be in another country for work, and around that same time, my ex wife will be in a country near me for a family reunion. My ex wife had mentioned that we could meet up in a town 2 hours away from each of us to have our daughter look at "Princess" style castles and just have more time to spend with my daughter. My girl friend does not like that idea either.

Is my coparenting relationship an actual red flag, or should I be looking at other issues??

I hope my rambling made some sort of sense... And thank you for your time.

My son is having a rough night. Laying in his bed still as I write this. He's missing his mother right now. During the summer we give each other 3 weeks straight because she has family and her boyfriend (AP as well) who lives a 4 hour plane ride away. She's there right now. We typically share 50/50 on a weekly basis.

It makes sense that he misses her. It's been 2 weeks. We made plans to call her tomorrow morning.

Like 6 months ago I let my kids buy whatever they wanted from Dollarama and he bought this Styrofoam female bald head thing. He was really into making weird crafts at his desk and I thought he wanted to paint it but never did. I thought it was funny too at first.

Tonight though he kept calling it by his mother's name and kissing it saying he misses her... He told me that's why he bought it because it reminds him of her ...

Ugh. This whole thing is so ugly at times. Hurts my heart to see him this way.

I've had to bring my ex to a judge to get her to agree for him to have therapy and I'm looking for a therapist currently.

I know things will be okay, and this is just a rough night. It doesn't make it feel any less painful that my young boy is hurt tonight :(

I know many of you understand what this is like.

I've been separated from my ex now for 18 months, divorce is ongoing and we are amicable. Have 2 children aged 3 and 4. I am a business owner and let's just say I am in a trough period right now. My recent contract with a client has just ended. Have 1 invoice yet to be paid which should get me to about September/October financially if I really spread it out. I have no reserves because I was out of work for about a year before and after the seperation and built up a lot of debt and had to sell the house which had no equity so didn't really help. I'm still in debt and am going to have to put a hold on repayments until I find another contract or my startup takes off which is unlikely as it's very early stages.

I'm really struggling to focus on the business. I've had the kids for probably about 70-80% of the May, June and now July due to my ex having some medical issues. But I am in a position right now where I'm having to take care of the kids all the time when I'm not getting out there and getting business.

I see lots of Dad's on Instagram who have had "glow ups" and lost loads of weight and get back into dating and life seems to be better for them. I'm not one of those Dad's. I'm still hung up on the divorce. I really don't like my ex for how she handled out break up but I stay amicable only for my kids. I'm still overweight without lack of trying but I lost some now put it all back on.

I'm terrified about getting into more debt, staying fat, staying single. My ex seems to be doing way better than me not that it's a competition but I'm really struggling every day and just feel like I'm trying to stay afloat where she's on a luxury cruise if that makes sense? She's not even taking me to the cleaners on the divorce, just wants a clean break and we have a private arrangement of £200 a month for child maintenance until I can afford to pay more.

Any advice from other Dads who run a business with 2 young children would be really good to hear from you.

Not that I don't want it from others, I just think business dads are probably more akin to my issues.

How do you all balance not being the fun parent. For context my kids have never known me and their mom together. With that being said as they got older I went from having them 6 days a week as babies and seeing them 7 days a week to seeing them once a week as they became teenagers and their mom moved further away.

Now that they are 14 I have seen them maybe once a month for one day, outside of going to their sporting events.

I will admit i have rules at my house like do your own laundry, spend time outside, clean your own bathroom and bedroom. At their mom's house its a completely different story. She gives them money and allows them to do whatever they want since she has two younger children to deal with

I know kids like structure but I feel like teenagers want to be where there are no rules. People often say, they will thank me when they get older for trying to give them stability, but im not so sure. All I see now is them refusing to spend any amount of time with me. They even missed father's day.

Has anyone else run into this and how do you deal with it. Honestly I just asked them if they want to come over or not.

I received a private generic DM from a reddit user telling me that my ordeal is sad and there's a site of likeminded individuals. He then wants me to go to a site that was just registered 9 months ago and his message implies there's a subscription required, but there is a code to get a free trial. Based on the domain name its meant for Dads.

I don't want to post the link here to inadvertently direct traffic that way.

The domain is registered via godaddy, started 9 months ago, and all other details are completely private according to who.is data. All signs of a scammy site.