25years mlc 10 years pass I FILE #9 LAST LAP

[25yearsmlc]

Very good points on how marriage is handled legally. Obviously, I think the legal system has tried to run away from making marriage more binding because it involves affairs of the heart. Once you get feelings involved, logic usually goes out the window.

I'm not sure you can ever remove emotion from a marriage or ending one. We think we are being fair, but fairness is something that requires a 3rd party unless somehow both parties agree.

I hear about "amicable divorces" - but I don't personally know anyone who says they had that experience.

I've often said that the problem with marriage these days is that it is too easy to get into, and too easy to get out of. If you made it more difficult you'd see the divorce rate plummet.



For me, divorce was much harder than I expected. Much more expensive and much more personally tortuous, much more gut wrenching to read his pleadings (& it as a no fault divorce!),


So much more painful than I could have guessed...I suspect that for xh, it was also much worse than he expected. I have heard that he looked unwell and and seemed very sad, but I'll never know why or what was happening in his head/heart.

I like to think if xh had known what would happen to his r's with our children that he'd do things very differently. I certainly hope so.

OTOH, I learned things about xh that I could not have known before hand, or without this grueling ordeal.

And now that I know these^^^ things, it's best for me to be without xh. He's capable of great cruelty and deceit.

So it's darn hard to say we should be together.

Somewhat paradoxically, I also know with all my heart that my xh has lost a woman who was loyal and who loved him as no other woman will or could.

(We endured years of poverty so he could pursue a 2nd career in medicine, & we had children while I was in law school and while he was in medical school...the first 9 years of marriage, one of us was in professional school and then he had 5 more years of training, with relentlessly long hours, again.

We buried 3 parents, moved countless times (always for him). I hear women "joke" (not) that they want to "marry a rich doctor". Well, It's easy to marry a board certified specialist physician. It's not so easy to marry a student so poor we lived in a mobile home for 3 years...but I did. And I was crazy about him.

Anyway, as Vanilla said, I loved deeply and I really like that about myself. A lot. And I'm sure I will love again.

That's a big thing to know.



Of course, you'd also see a huge increase in the number of couples that just live together. Which statistically is another contributing factor to the divorce rate. (See the stats on couples that live together before marriage vs those that do not.)

Not to quibble, b/c I think I take your point. Still - I think the factor that binds some couples together more is having similar religious views. They need to have Similar views of the relationship and what it means to work on it, (and perhaps they probably tend not to live together before marriage - though this would be very hard to measure.)

I lived with xh before m. We were married 35 years. Our divorce had nothing to do with living together before marriage.

What is it you suggest couples do for before m? I think attending more pre marriage counseling is a good idea, but you'd both have to have similar views of marriage before hand. Hard to know, but you'd both have to measure progress or the condition of the marriage, the same way. If you reconcile with your wife, I suggest this be a major focus b/c if you don't have the same gauge for measuring, how would you KNOW things are good or bad or so so?

In our case, xh became atheist about 5 years ago (that I know of. Maybe it happened earlier and he did not share that with me).

xh's behavior changed and his poor choices were solidified by losing his faith.

Not sure which happened first, losing his faith and then making selfish choices - or making the selfish choices and looking around to escape guilt by denying his moral compass. Nor am I saying THAT was it. But it was part of why we are divorced now.

It bothered me a lot at the time but in that situation there's just not a lot a spouse can do if the other one decides they no longer believe in God and sort of spring it on you. I think going to church together is a really good thing.

Not sure. But you know what?

Not my problem. Never going to know what went on in him. I can wonder if he was always that selfish and hid it well, with the mask slipping later. Or just changed...

So I'll (again) repeat what Caroline Myss says -

"help me let go of the need to know why. I will never know why. And endless questioning is endless suffering."