My wife was never adamant about divorce to me directly. But I did read her journal enough to know that she consistently vented in it that this was a "break up" that "we are done" and other such postings. Back in mid-November she secretly met with a lawyer with the intention of filing for divorce as quickly as possible only to learn our state has a 1 year physical separation requirement. She also learned the financial position she was in given she was the primary wage earner. FYI, our separation date is November 8th.
In January after we returned to the US I agreed to move out because I had a place to go. At the same time we had balloon payments on both mortgages come due. (We have our house and a vacation house.) At that time she started working with a mtg loan officer to try and buy me out. He told her all kinds of stuff that was flat out wrong. She got rather upset when I told her she couldn't and to check with her lawyer. (I'm an ex banker so I know the laws a bit here about mortgages and real estate.) her lawyer told her I was right, because our state is a community property state I had to be on the deed since we are still married. So the lawyer said, no harm in getting me on the loan too. After that she started to soften her stance a little. But only after she started to learn the depths of the financial and legal positions we both were in.
The whole financial issue is getting ready to come up again and I hope it doesn't get ugly given the other positives we have going for us. Suffice to say, if we were to get divorced we would have to sell everything in order to keep at least one of us out of bankruptcy, most likely me. That is truly a really, really sad thing which she still doesn't quite get.
The twist in our financial situation is that if we get divorce and do not sell at least one house I will not be able to support myself, pay any child support and pay my part of our debt obligations. She will be able to barely support herself, possibly pay her part of our debt obligations and have just enough money to provide the absolute basics for our kids but not pay alimony. However if we were to stay together we could easily manage our combined finances. This is something we must straighten out if we stay together.
So finances is just one practical reason for us not to get divorced because divorce will put us both is precarious financial positions. That is a powerful force is making her stop and reconsider everything.
Now thankfully the financial reason is only a very small reason she is possibly coming around, in fact I do not believe she is even thinking finances with our relationship improvements or late. The main reasons are love, companionship, friendship and family.
If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive. - Mother Theresa
