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Why I'm extra ornery lately = Divorce

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. We have two kiddos as well. My divorce was 15yrs ago. My only tip would be... NEVER discuss the business of your divorce with the kids, now or in the future. It's easy to do when the kids are young but child support goes on and as they get older and teenage issues start to creep in the line blurs. My X was terrible and actually sent my 15 yr old a copy of the divorce agreement, I could have killed her. I'm glad you have 50/50 time, that's the most important thing.
 
That's awful news. I hope your family (families?) is able to get through this with minimal trauma.
 
Divorce is really expensive.
You know why?
Cuz it’s worth it :grinning:

Stay strong brother. You and your kids are gonna get thru this. Keep it amicable, take the high road, and focus your energy on being the best coparents you can be.
 
Been there done that. It’ll get better, might be sooner might be later, but it will. Best advice I can give is to be civil in front of the kids. It’s hard sometimes but it will be worth it and won’t be nearly as hard on them. It took me a few years to get my ex to understand that.


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I can only imagine what you are going through. Like others have said, focus on making things as easy on the kids as possible. Take care of yourself and let us know if you just need someone to sound off too. Best of luck man!
 
hey man, my fiance, together for 5 years, engaged for 6 months, left me just before christmas. She had been going thru some issues of her own, and started having doubts about getting married in early novemeber. this was all going down during hunting season and I had a lot of long, difficult sits this year with everything that was going on going thru my head. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have gotten thru this as well as I did if it wasnt for hunting and my time in the woods... so, cant say I know what youre going thru, because we werent married yet and we didnt have kids, but its been a rough few months so I feel you.. ive been hitting the gym extra hard, spending more time with friends, and just trying to get back out there dating again.. felt like my whole world came crashing down, but now I’m feeling like maybe I dodged a bullet.. Best advice I can give is to talk to friends, and if you can afford it, maybe a therapist.. maybe even a couples therapist to help you guys deal with making it as easy on the kids as possible. As a person who doesnt like to talk too much about his feelings, I can say it has really helped me to talk to people. Stay strong brother.
 
thedutchtouch said:
Thank you all, another good reminder that I'm not special, so don't need to be so scared of having a normal life thing happen. @neonomad thank you that was friggin hilarious and exactly what I needed. My dad put it in a "paying to get out of a bad situation" way when I was feeling sorry for myself financially, I then found this scene from a Bronx tale (not sure if I've seen the movie)
Click to expand...

Great movie. The Mario test is another funny part.
 
Went down this road with my ex five years ago. We have two kids together. We agreed on everything without lawyers, split 50/50 custody, no child support. Never bad mouth the other parent around your kids, it's good to explain to them why you got divorced, always encourage them to be open with their feelings with you. This was something I had to talk with my kids about a lot, with their mom they felt more comfortable, must have been a mother quality and me being more closed and not much of a feelings guy before the divorce. Just love your kids be there and they will be just fine. Keep your chin up man. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
 
WISCO said:
Went down this road with my ex five years ago. We have two kids together. We agreed on everything without lawyers, split 50/50 custody, no child support.
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That's the best way to go. In my case, we had nothing to fight over and could've easily worked out an amicable situation in arbitration(?). Unfortunately her dad convinced her to get a high priced hot shot attorney and that was like throwing a match into a powder keg. He did irreparable damage to our (coparenting) relationship and its taken years to get things settled back down as a result.
 
Very sorry to hear brother, it's tough for sure. I went through it myself about 22 years ago, so I can definitely understand where you're coming from. Though it may not seem like it at the time,things will get better for your over time. Time has away of healing all wounds. Their will be times it will feel like it's not getting better fast enough but it will. For now just try to be there for your kids and make sure they know that none of what your family is going through is their fault. Try to focus your energy on positive outlets and don't let the negatives take you down destructive paths. I promise you that when you come out this and you will, you will be a much better and stronger man and father for your kids.
 
Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement everyone. It's a strange balance for me right now, to be honest most of the time I am feeling great like a weight has been lifted off of me- I am resented for the fact that we had kids when we did (even though she had the option to make her own decisions about her body, thankfully chose not to stop the pregnancy) and the fact that I am male(I know for a fact that she's expressed on multiple occasions the desire to exterminate the human race just so that men don't exist any more/wishes women would figure out how to procreate without men, among other things, so I don't know what took me so long to realize that there's no "fixing" that. (Not meant initially as a vasectomy joke, though one exists there lol. I did get one last year, not because of her pressure, because I don't want more kids, and am glad I did, no more genetic ties with any other women lol). I also don't share these details to polarize anyone against her or anything, I know I'm my own version of difficult, more to shine a light on how I've finally wrapped my brain around the fact that there is no rational solution, so the solution is getting out. In a weird way that makes this whole thing easier, my current annoyance is just how much control she thinks she has over this stage of the process, but that too shall pass. House is getting cleaned today, relator will tell us what it's worth on Wednesday, and I hope to have all the paperwork done with the mediators at the end of the month.

There's times that suck too (particularly when the kids are sad or don't want to say goodbye at school dropoff), but it is what it is, life has bumps and I can get through this. Each day reinforces to me that this was the right decision, I just need to keep my sights on the fact that my kids don't KNOW it'll get better like I do, and like you have all said, keep showing up for them. By next deer season this will all be a memory.
 
thedutchtouch said:
Feels strange making the post, but a few of you have reached out and I very much appreciate that so might as well tell everyone that cares to click on the title. Great community of internet strangers here, I've definitely benefitted from finding this place a few years ago, so here goes.

My wife of 13.5 years married/18 years together and I have separated and we are working through getting divorced. Relatively amicable but still hard annoying frustrating etc. I have 5 and 7 year old girls who we will share 50/50 custody and I'm trying to keep our falling apart house to keep them in the same school/friend groups, my wife moved out to an apartment just after Christmas and is soon to get all of our money lol. My kids are my world and it crushes me to do this to them but I know the future will be better than their life with arguing parents was, the short term just sucks hard.

I don't need any special favors or treatment, just wanted to give a bit more explanation for why I've been more of an irritable jerk lately than my usual baseline (not acting like it's a 0 during "normal" times either).

So yeah, life is hard at the moment, but everyone has their own struggles. I look forward to happiness and all the opportunity that getting out of a somewhat toxic relationship will bring. Sorry that I'm a bit of a snowflake at times and a pitbull at others. I am trying to be more aware and working on being happy by myself. Thanks for reading this.
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Been there. 14 yr marriage, closer to 20 with Mom and a soon to be 15 yo daughter. It gets easier. At least once a week I'm reassured (mostly by my x in some way) that it was the correct decision.....lol.
She got to the point that we couldn't communicate at all. Therapy went south when she was told it appeared she was the one with the majority of the issues. Life is good now. Be happy.
 
I know we've chatted before about how this was looking like it was coming down the road for both of us... I'm there with you, now. Sorry to hear it.
27 years of marriage coming to an end. I moved out two months ago to an apartment.

She's got the kiddos at the house. I stop and visit after work most days. With all of their special needs, she is certainly more fit to provide them with the care they need than I am. She gets the adoption subsidy, and wants nothing from me financially.

It's been amicable so far. The toughest part is she wants to return to Michigan with them, to be closer to family. I've agreed... It would be selfish to stand in the way. The thought of it has brought me to tears a good number of times already, that will be a hard day when it arrives.
 
Man… I don’t have much for advice, I’ve never been married and don’t have kids. I do know what it’s like to have two divorced parents from a fairly young age though. I was 7-9 years old I think? One thing I did appreciate, was them not bad mouthing one another in front of my sister and I. The only other thing I can say, is just let your children know how much they mean to you and that they are loved. One day it will all make sense and they’ll understand it was best for everyone…
I occasionally wonder what it would’ve been like to have the family together, but I don’t miss the verbal arguing and my sister and I holding each other and crying because we didn’t understand why they couldn’t just get along. It taught me some life lessons though, I generally won’t argue with a spouse, granted, you’ll have your differences from time to time in any relationship, but I’ll certainly never have any part of yelling and screaming. I’ll just remove myself from the situation. Keep your head up, the sun will shine again soon.
 
After the day I had I'm in need of a bit of a vent so here goes: got invited to the zoo by some of the kids friends, families that we don't know well but know both my wife and I. I decided to go, invited wife along as kids wanted to see her and we've talked about how it would be good for them for the 4 of us to do stuff together. I drove us, paid for parking and lunch for all of us,etc. (It was my day to have the kids so that was all expected, not complaining about cost just adding context here) Long story short the wife basically complained the entire afternoon about being at the zoo too long (even though our kids, myself, and the rest of the group were having a great time, we'd already had a few people leave early so precedent was there, and I told her I'd drop the kids off if she wanted to get out of there and pay for her Uber back home so literally no obligations to me or them or anyone), and then after she stayed and I brought us back, had the nerve to give me crap in front of the kids about how I'd brought her a large box of her books (that she'd left on a bookshelf at my house), and that I should have brought the bookshelf instead. (I would have brought it today but have no box to put some of her perfume samples and breakable crap in, so left them at my house on the shelves to protect her stuff and brought her books to be of service however I could, you know, carrying 100 lbs of books that she can't lift...) She has no plans on how to get the rest of her stuff out of the house, refuses to talk to me about a plan, and then when I literally do the work for her to bring her things, I am still the bad guy.

I cannot stand unwinnable situations like that, and was on her turf/had already said bye to my kids so I chose to leave. I am sure my children got an earful about how I screwed up and how I'm a bad guy because I slammed the door on my way out. (, I did, but accidentally much louder than I wanted to, not that that excuse holds much water), but it is what it is, I suppose I can't complain bout her being a child when I'm slamming doors. Very disappointed in myself that I let it get to me, I'd done so freaking well all day rising above and ignoring her sulking, and couldn't quite make it the last 15 minutes.

Stay friends for the kids they say, it's easier to coparent if you can get along, they say. Don't we BOTH have to try them, I reply?

Next time will be better, I'll just protect my fun time with the kids for me only, and that'll give me more reserves to deal with her in the other times. And as annoyed as it makes me, I plan to keep being the Neverthanked Moving Service (trademark application pending) because the sooner all of her things are out of my house, the less I have to deal with that aspect of all of this.

I suppose in a way this could all point to symptoms of her not really wanting to get divorced and trying to slow the process down subconsciously or something, but that ain't happening, this was a done deal the second things happened that I won't discuss in an open forum.


Whew. Felt good typing(whining) it out, I think I have a workable plan, just wanted to bounce it off some level headed adults, there's sure to be more here than I've run into today (including yours truly).

Getting divorced sucks, I look forward to BEING divorced.
 
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I don't know the half of it man and I don't need to. If there is any chance of working things out and staying married I would. You said yourself, her way of not really wanting to get divorced. I really don't care if that is an unpopular opinion. I believe marriage is hard work, and worth it. Love is not simply an emotion but a choice. We show our love by choosing to put in the work, choosing to make the sacrifice, choosing to not quit, and always choosing to stay with it. And often we do those things when the other half isn't putting in the same %.

The marriage isn't over until all the paperwork is signed. A good friend of mine got all the way up to her signing the other half of the papers and had a change of heart. He didn't feel loved at the time, and he felt like he was the only one putting in any effort, but he made a commitment in marriage to his wife and he was going to honor it. All situations are different but I can tell you he had plenty of crap to deal with himself, and they are still working through it but they chose to work on it. They are doing a lot better since then.

TLDR; In a world where everyone is saying get a divorce, my worthless voice is saying don't.
 
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