Your situation is bad right now, you certainly have my sympathies. Acer’s onto a truth, though. You are not only good enough, you’re pretty great, and you show that in part by expressing how seriously you took your vows. That’s amazing, and far more commitment than a lot of people who stay married can be arsed to put forth. Missy’s right, too, it’s terribly unfair to you that your wife is trying to have her cake and eat it, too. I’d have to say that you’re too good for her. If she keeps this up, you might seriously consider filing for the sake of your own sanity. If you’re able to get the property separated prior to filing, you may be able to do so without a lawyer.
As with medical care, you have to be your own best advocate. We’ll be here for you.
In some ways, you could just say that if your SO thinks they can do better without you, you can graciously let them try without having to fund that search. By all means be fair separating assets and providing alimony (especially if they are in a financially vulnerable position due to the marriage), but they have released themselves and you from your vows and they can look after themselves.
I won’t pretend that I really know you, but going both by how you’ve not allowed your justifiable bitterness turn to vengefulness and every interaction I’ve read or had with you here, you’re someone I’d be honored to count as a friend, and I have higher standards when it comes to friendship than a lot of people have when it comes to marriage. Whether or not you and your wife have grown too far apart to share your lives, I respectfully don’t believe that there’s anyone for whom you’re not good enough.
FWIW, I’m watching friends of mine go through that hell of ending a marriage. They’re both in their late 20’s, so there aren’t many assets to divide, but it’s still hard. He cheated on her with an old friend of his then told her about it, and now is asking for a divorce. She still wants to be married, but he’s probably not going to come back to her, and though they remain friends, it’s strained. They’re both wonderful people and they’re both good enough for each other, but that isn’t always enough.
it’s my opinion that this is where a lot of MRA’s come from–that transition from bitterness to anger or vengefulness. it would feel really good to have a bit of righteous anger, but that is what MRAs don’t seem to understand–sure, it may feel good, but it’s poisonous. How does it make anything better?
i’d give you a bear hug (with a cephalopod on my head) in a heartbeat
My aunt (a staunch Catholic, and this was many decades ago when that meant something WRT marriage) came to the realization – along with my uncle – that the right thing to do was divorce, despite the fact that they both still loved each other very much. In their case, it had to do with the inability to successfully treat his alcoholism, and financially they needed to protect the equity in the house for the children, not lose it paying for treatments (or lawyers, if anything happened while he was drunk). But the underlying truth is the same: sometimes, no matter how much you love each other, the right thing to do is to legally become individuals again. Protecting the marriage should not ever compromise protecting the people involved.
You’re good people, Japhroaig, don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not. Otherwise we’ll have to have some kind of self esteem raising party for you. If it comes to that though, I’m prepared, I love parties.
A group of us got together to send him a care package a while ago when things were tough, and a bottle of Rumchata was a cornerstone of that…we’ve been joking about it ever since.
So, yes, you do want to party with us and some Rumchata: we’re a fun bunch!
In another thread I posted a story from the CBC about this guy who created a “revenge website” against his ex-wfie. Basically they divorced 15 years ago and he’s spent his whole life since then just trying to make her miserable and afraid using every legal or borderline legal method he can. They guy comes across as a complete psycho, he openly admits what he is doing, his stated goal is to hound her into committing suicide, and he has told their son that he would kill her (i.e., the boy’s mother) without any qualms if it were legal to do so.
So the comments section is largely people being outraged that this guy isn’t being prosecuted for something. What he’s doing is so obviously wrong that its upsetting that it is apparently legal to do so (I’m not so sure about this, but that’s what prosecutors have said up to this point). But a few of the comments are from obvious MRAs, saying things like, “There are always two sides to the story.” Yeah, it’s the old “He said, she said, he devoted the rest of his life to spite even at the expensive of their child.”
Anyway, the reason I’m thinking of this from your post is that there was one comment from someone saying, “He shouldn’t do that, but I can sympathize” and then going on to talk about how badly he was treated in his divorce.
What struck me about that is that he was reading a story about a man trying to ruin a woman’s life after their divorce, and he sympathized with the man because of his experience of his ex trying to ruin his life after their divorce. As a person who had been (according to him, at least) similarly targeted, he sympathized with the life-ruiner rather than the target, because that was how strong his allegiance was in the battle of the sexes.
I don’t really have a point. It’s just incredible how much some people see the world in terms of men vs. women, regardless of the issues.
I hear it helps with little snot monsters )
