BL42, bttrfly, SteveLW—thanks so much for your feedback.
A D doesn't make a huge difference for me financially.
I definitely don't want to do anything that pushes a D forward. Maybe I am being thick, but I am not sure how I can avoid moving the D along without being passive aggressive or manipulative—and pushing H further away in the process.
H has asked me about starting the paperwork twice and backed off both times after I explained that I have more immediate things to sort out. The most recent time, he said that he would wait for me to reach out first and would not ask me about it again. (But who knows, maybe he will start pressuring me. Again.)
That's why I feel like he's given me the reins on this D. If I simply *never* follow up about starting the legal process, then I come off as standing in his way. Hence my admittedly manipulative fantasy of hiring a mediator who is secretly a MC. SteveLW, I take your point about not using other DBer's experiences as a map for my own. No expectations, no expectations...
I am mentally kicking myself for sort of agreeing to the divorce two months ago—during a text conversation, he was worried that I said that I wouldn't give him the divorce, and I said "That's not what I'm saying, I saying I need more time to process everything." So, I didn't explicitly disagree, but I didn't definitively agree, either. [For context: H referred to the ending of our marriage as a "break up." I said a divorce is a whole different order of magnitude than a break up. And then H freaked out.]
