WAS asked for divorce today.

[aNewGuy]

Time is my friend, but at the same time now have 18 days remaining before I must answer her papers, or else they judge can do whatever the judge wants. I feel like at this point, I am going to be forced to participate, or else I may be agreeing by default to things I would not want to agree to.

I feel as though fighting this will do two things at least:

1. It will cost us both thousands of dollars
2. It will cause her to simply want it even more.

I see on here how others have had success by being friendly and helpful to their spouse, but I don't know how to do that when I am reeling from all of this. She wrote me the other day and said that she wants the remainder of her stuff in the house (she only took one day to clean out her belongings and she left a lot of sentimental things behind).

Here's my side of this: I told her that she was welcome to come back for more, but that I wasn't going to just be bringing her her things to work one item at a time whenever she texts me asking for it. She wrote me the other day saying she was sure I had already trashed all of her things. I wrote her back and told her that there was no way I would have done that, that I have not done that, and that she needs to come help me go through things because all of our things are mixed together.

She responded "Ok", but no further response or discussion.


I'm lost in all of this. I want for her to have everything that's hers. I have taken steps to get her remaining belongings as organized as possible, but I just don't want to make the effort to move her stuff out of my house on her behalf. I have made it clear that I want for her to have her things, and I have taken steps to protect and organize her things for her, I just ran out of steam and have not finalized packing up and going through to get anything that may important and mine. I don't really want to finalize all of that for her either.

I'm not sure how to show her love and kindness without simultaneously making it appear as though I actually want to split up, is I guess my problem right now. I'm conflicted as heck, basically.

More than anything, I want to learn how it is that I pushed her away and learn how my own behavior and self-righteousness has contributed to all of this, so that I might become better because of it. I am saddened that she felt the need to get out, it hurts me to think I have hurt her deeply enough (one little criticism at a time, I think) to make her leave a marriage that was once so very loving. We always woke up and told one another we thanked God for the other. We always gave generously of our many blessings to those around us. We always spoke of forgiveness, generosity and laughter. I think my contribution to our downfall was that of being "high and mighty". I am not fully sure, but whatever it was I want to fully and completely eradicate it from my personality and replace it with something much nicer. Really true the saying "The road to h#!! is paved with good intentions."!!

I am working on validation in the context of every other relationship in my life, in other words I am working on listening to what people have to say and understanding them, rather that listening and then spewing out a "fix" or "answer" for whatever they have just told me. It seems to be working in my personal life, I just still don't fully grasp the true meaning.


I want to be a better friend to my friends and to be a better husband to my wife, even though the ship seems to have sailed on that one for the time being.

If nothing else, this extremely painful situation has proven effective at making me realize some things about myself that I never saw before. Like the fact that other people's perspectives are at LEAST as valuable as my own, if not more so.

Today I pray for God to guide my steps, words and actions as He sees fit. For me to be able to hear and respond to what He has to say about all of this. I want to know how to show her kindness and respect by finding the right way to get her reunited with those items she wants but has left behind. And I want to be able to do this while respecting my desire to see her come back home one day to find a loving, forgiving, confident and unyielding husband who is happy with his own life to the degree that she can say whatever she needs to say and not worry about hurting his feelings. One who is strong enough to be her man and accept his own responsibility, while not denying hers, for the way our first marriage turned out. I am old enough now to know that true love is just extremely rare and hard to find - and valuable, too.

Thanks you all for the support. Say a prayer that God will touch my wife and myself both today with the wisdom we both desperately need regarding our situation.