My personal feeling is that they have to leave to live that exciting life we are keeping them from so they can process what they are doing and stand to lose.
This is how I've felt too, OwnIt. Thanks for your support here.
My H is running as fast as he can toward this new life; from my standpoint, it seems like he's trying to outrun his hurt, anger, and unhappiness.
I don't think there's any stopping him or slowing him down at this point. He let me know he's been to workshops on how to D and I know he's started filling out the paperwork. I think he's waiting until after January 1 because he signed up for legal insurance through his job, and it doesn't go into effect until then. He said he thinks we can save money and work out an agreement on our own, but then when I tried to communicate with him about said agreement, he agreed to talk and then, when the time came, started yelling about how he doesn't have time for this with his new life and new friends.
I'm not sure how he thinks we'll work out an agreement ourselves if he doesn't want to talk about it. I think what he really wants is to not have to do any of the work the D will require and have everything be over and done with.
I think this legal insurance he'll have will cover mediation, which is what I'd like to do. I think it'll be necessary to have that third party, because I can see him getting angry if I try to ask for anything he doesn't think is fair, since he's all about no one asking anything of him right now. The main issue might be our house, which we rent. I'm assuming he'll be leaving, but I'm not sure what he's assuming. I'm feeling very vulnerable right now, because I'm going to have to depend on whatever the alimony is until I can get a higher paying job, which I really hope will be soon.
Can anyone give me advice on where I go from here as far as communicating with him about his plans/whatever he's imagining an agreement will be? Do I just wait until he actually files and then bring up mediation again? In our no-fault state, if I don't contest the filing, it's automatically finalized six months from the date of service.
