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It’s 6am and I woke up and can’t go back to sleep. I just made the decision that screw what he wants about keeping lawyers out of it. He can’t have his cake and eat it too. He wants out for his own health, I’m going to fight for mine. He wants to leave me to fend for myself, I’m going to start now. I’m sorry he has low self esteem. My childhood was no picnic either. I’m the queen of no self esteem but I’m not going around hurting the person I love the most because of it. I’m getting every penny I’m entitled to even if that means hurting him financially. He wants his freedom, I can’t keep him from that but I can keep what’s mine. He has choices, I don’t.

Good! You have to look after yourself. H ain’t going to, he is off running with unicorns and fairies right now.

You can still be kind and cordial; compassionate and caring; all while not being walked all over.

Anger is part of grief. Part of loss. The loss of your marriage, relationship, trust, etc. Find a safe healthy outlet to express your anger/feelings. Go for a run or a walk. Go to the gym and go to town on the punching bag. Dig the garden. Scream into a pillow. It feels better and you won’t blow up at H unexpectedly.

Be strong and keep moving forward. You know: Lighthouse. Best version of you. That inner work.

D

I feel like he needs to be blown up on. I've expressed nothing but grief since the bomb drop. I've changed my ways and validated his feelings, pushing aside my own. But I'm in physical pain and I even ended up in the hospital for crying out loud. I feel like he's out there plotting with his friend on how not to "get screwed" and I'm just supposed to take it and be happy, because he, he thinks I'm going to be so much happier with this outcome. He sees so many great things in the future for me. Why is it so bad to make love and marriage the main focus of your life? Everything else was icing on the cake for me and I had a better chance of accomplishing my goals with him as my husband, because all I want to do right now is crawl into a ball and disappear. I feel like I've spent my entire life being rejected. I'm going to show him that he didn't marry a doormat. All I've heard from him so far is:

I want a divorce
I need to find happiness
I need to be healthy
I love you but I'm not in love with you
I want to keep lawyers out of it

What about what I want?

I had my hopes up till he actually filed. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks this morning.

That’s an excellent question.

Take plenty of time discovering your answers.

Those tenets of your life. Your convictions and values.

Strengthen that which serves. Craft that which you aspire to. Alter/discard that which does not serve.

D

We had a chat yesterday. He says he’s going to do everything to make sure I’m taken care of and I can still lean on him as a friend. I can’t hate him. I’m just so hurt that he wants a divorce. We will still be living together for at least a year or more while he gets ready to take his next step. I don’t understand. If he really despised me he wouldn’t want to be near me let alone sleep in the same bed and be nice to me. He tried to reassure me everything was going to be ok and everything happens for a reason and there was nothing to be scared of. Who does this???

He keeps asking me why make the changes now? That it looks like I'm trying to manipulate him into staying with me. I said what would you do in my shoes? I didn't know what I know now. He told me things yesterday that he had never told me before. How my venting effected his work and his interactions with his helper. That he would go vent to her about me and make her not want to be around him. I had no clue. He would always tell me with a frustrated tone. If I had known it was pushing him away from me like this I would have stopped immediately. And I have stopped. I can only hope that I can make our time under the same roof so much more pleasant that he won't want to leave after all.

He says he's going to take money out of our equity to start a retirement fund for me and that I can still stay here. And he will take care of my health insurance, no idea for how long. Wouldn't that raise the payment on the house? The goal was to pay it off so we wouldn't have to worry about rent or mortgage. Most of my worries were about money and now it looks like he's got way more than plenty of it. If only I could just go back in time and do things differently. I know I brought my problems from my first marriage into this one. Classic bad move.

Good Morning Jo


Decide your changes, whatever changes, for you. Enact them, for you.

A positive, H is noticing the new you. Regardless, you are doing this for you. It will take time for H to believe it.


Sounds like an EA. H was leaning on/reaching out emotionally to her.

H blaming you for spoiling his relationship with his helper is twisted. It’s a workplace! His conduct is/was improper! H should’ve talk with you. Don’t just buy whatever he is selling. He’ll gaslight you, if he can.

Martial problems do not get better by bringing another person into the mix. H stepped out of line.


Monkey branching. A person seeks a new relationship while still in the old one. As in, looking to swing to a new branch, but only once it is firm and secure, until then they hang on to the old branch.

H needs a big dose of reality. To really feel it.


Good on you realizing this. Of course, you cannot change the immutable past, so go forward with purpose. Do differently, do better now. For you!


This sounds shady. H is making some significant financial alterations to your two’s plans and present security. And he is doing so without your input. I’d look into things.

Like most things, details matter. How long your marriage, renting or mortgage, both working or someone stay at home, age, previous debts, prenuptial or not, etc.

Some hard to absorb advice: If you need financial security or protection, get it!


In my opinion, no. You can do more. You can let H feel the reality/consequences of his choices.

Yes, be cordial. Be kind. Give plenty of time and space. Do your inner work. Focus on you. Look after you.

Do implement boundaries on disrespectful behaviours. Do not pussy foot around or walk on eggshells. Be sincere. Stand for your convictions.

Believe nothing H says and only half of what he does. (His actions speak much better than his words. He filed for divorce!)

Be strong my friend.

D

Thank you. The very next day he told me about taking money out of the equity he told me he changed his mind and I agreed. We shouldn't mess with the mortgage and raise the payment to something we both can't afford. We're golden right now as far as finances go. My plan was to pay this house off so we would eventually live rent free. I was open to discussing options with him only because I don't want to push him further away with resisting his wishes.

We seriously have had the best relationship in a long time. We've had talks we've never had before. He's opened up to me about his feelings and I have opened up to him with mine. I've been asking him about his work and praising him on everything he's accomplished, that it's not easy. I did notice the slight glint in his eyes and smirk when I said that. He's complemented me on my achievements too. It would be amazing if there wasn't this divorce knife hanging over my head. But every time I'm convinced we've made progress and he's starting to see I'm not the enemy, he brings up the house. I could see the sadness in his eyes yesterday at the dinner table. We were having a normal conversation. I asked him if everything was ok and he said yes. Not long after he said he had been thinking about the house again all day at work which made my heart sink again. If he's anxious and sad too then why does he want to go through with this? I get that he doesn't want to hurt me but doesn't that mean that he still feels something more than friendship for me? I'm reading all kinds of messed up things walk away spouses are doing to people they've been married to for years and my husband is nothing like that. I even asked him, what if you're still not happy after we're divorced? He said he will be.

It's hard to be upbeat and positive and attractive to him when I keep getting blow after blow. He keeps trying to comfort me when I break down, but he's very sensitive to guilt trips and I'm afraid I'm making him feel guilty so he won't want to be around me, even though he knows he's causing me all this pain and I'm doing my best to deal with it and respect his wishes.

He mentioned me moving back home to another country again. I said again, I couldn't be that far away from him. He said he didn't understand, that if someone said they didn't want to be with him he would just move on. I said you don't understand because you don't have this feeling that your heart is being ripped out if you can't see or be with someone you love. That I miss him even when he's gone for a week. He didn't know what to say to that. That probably didn't help my case or maybe why it's making him sad because he said so himself, he doesn't like to see me cry.

Divorce papers were served and signed yesterday, after we came back from our friends' house. They had a little pool party for memorial day. We discussed what is going to happen moving forward. He will keep paying his half of the mortgage and house will be split 50/50 and he's giving me a sum of money to have for emergencies. Our mortgage is pretty low and my payment will only be maybe $300 more a month than what I've been paying. I don't understand why he said I wasn't contributing equally. He chose to make higher payments to pay it off faster, which is great, it just wasn't in my budget. Utilities aren't that much either. We have solar, barely use any gas or water. It's just the two of us. I'm actively looking for another job. He can live here indefinitely.

I asked what our relationship is going to be like now and it's pretty much going to stay the same. He said he noticed my changes but it's gotta take a lot longer than a month and a half for him to believe they're permanent. Fair enough. He also said that if I met someone else he wouldn't be mad unless he was an A-hole and that of course he would say something. He wants to go to school for engineering and he's not focused on meeting someone right now, but he would be extremely picky if he did look. I said I would be mad if he did. I just want to make it to where he doesn't have to because he finally believes that I've changed and he can fall back in love with me again. He said he will still be my best friend. I asked him if he wasn't feeling stressed anymore now that he saw that I wasn't going to fight him about the divorce and the papers were signed and he said he still is a little bit. Hopefully it's because he's still having doubts and he does have more than friends feelings for me. I told him he can talk to me anytime.

My goal is for him to stop this whole thing before it's finalized.

I'm happy to report that we have made some major progress even though the divorce papers have been filed and there's still one paper that needs to be notarized. He told me that today.

We went to our friends' housewarming party today. They had a tarot card reader and I really wanted to get a reading. She basically told me that my career and finances were going to get better. That I am going through a change but it will all be alright. Including my relationship. I told her that my husband had filed for divorce, and the lover's card was right there front and center. She said it was going to work out.

My husband was curious what she said. I told him I didn't want to tell him because I didn't want to scare him, but he insisted. So I told him. He said he was glad I got a good reading and that it was going to work out. That we live together and we're friends. To which I replied, "just friends?" in a sad tone. He said, "come on, we're more than just friends." I couldn't believe what I heard. I started getting emotional and he put his arm around me and rubbed my back and kissed me.

I have been working diligently to change what made him come to the divorce decision and he's noticed. I'm being more attentive to his needs, and he's been opening up to me and venting to me. He was afraid I was going to fight him about the divorce and how to divide everything and I didn't. Our sex life is better than it's ever been. I have no clue why he still wants to move forward with it, but there's still 6 months before it's final, so hopefully once I start getting more hours at work and he sees that I can be more independent he'll put a stop to it. I know that I caught him off guard with my changes so it's understandable that he needs time to process everything to possibly go back on his decision to divorce. Honestly I'm not afraid he's going to "leave me" anymore, but it sure is nice to have married couple benefits, especially medical. It's going to be super stressful having to find new doctors and paying higher premiums and possibly copays. I've always had medical insurance through the military since I've been in the US, so I have no idea how all the others work.