Hi all,
A couple of days ago my wife said she wants a divorce. This has really had a bigger effect on me than I expected and I would appreciate any advice on processing things and how to navigate it.
Our relationship had not been roses for quite a while and I had also imagined ending it plenty of times. I think the simplest way I can say it is I didn’t treat her right because she didn’t treat me right, and she didn’t treat me right because I didn’t treat her right.
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You could probably skip this bit as I know the reasons don’t really matter any more but I really thought I was doing everything I could to fix the things I knew of as problems. She hated living in our house because it got cluttered with not enough storage, and she didn’t have her own space for hobbies so I have spent months this year renovating 2 rooms and installing new built in cupboards, and I’d nearly finished a total makeover of a third room.
She said I’m not there for her enough emotionally, but she works a lot of night shifts and my life the last few years has been working my own job full time with a long commute, driving home via picking up our son from care, clean the kitchen, cook dinner, play with him till bedtime then work on bigger projects around the house. I do all the grocery shopping, a huge proportion of cleaning and I have been feeling burned out and I just didn’t have the will to do big romantic gestures the few nights she was home when I felt like I was doing the majority of work to keep our household running.
She was often impatient and critical of things I did. Sometimes I could count the last 4 or 5 things she’d said and every one was critical of something. All of these things made me short with her pretty often and maybe made me distant or abrupt. I fully participated in arguments and bickering. She said I made her feel bad and unhappy over a long period and she made me feel the same.
She says she tried to talk to me about how she felt but I can’t remember her trying or I didn’t get the message somehow. I know if I had understood a problem she had, I would have tried to fix it. I wish we had communicated better or got therapy or something, but she says it is too late to try.
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I know this all sounds bad but there were so many good things about our relationship. I did so many things to show her I cared, made her meals to take to work, bought her presents and flowers, we went to interesting places or just boring places for the fun of doing things together. I always knew that I had someone I could rely on and talk to and confide in and maybe stupidly I thought we’d work things out and be there for each other forever.
What I’m trying to work through now is this sense of loss most of all. I am losing someone I really cared about and needed, who has been with me for half my life. I have all these memories of having fun together and now I don’t know what they mean any more. I don’t know if or how I can get some part of this back in the distant future maybe and what I should do different. I know it’s too early to think about that but my mind is going everywhere and I don’t want to be alone forever. I have only been sleeping a few hours a night and I feel like I’m constantly wired, with a dry mouth like fight or flight is kicking in.
Any advice on dealing with this in the short term while she’s still living here, and in a few weeks or months when she moves out? It feels like it will hurt when she leaves but it hurts just seeing her around the house too.
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**tl;dr**: My wife and I are getting divorced, I need insights about learning from it, dealing with the loss and moving forward.
4 comments
Honestly I don’t think this is reason for divorce you both should consider seeing a couples counselor. Also have you tried offering to let her be a stay at home wife? Since 2 jobs make it harder for you both to keep household together clean and running and have time for romance. If you work fulltime it should be possible especially at the age of 40 I can imagine you both are established. I really empathize with the situation and hope you can save the marriage. My dad always tells me his biggest regret was letting my mom leave him without trying harder to fix things.
Take yourself to therapy. This is a huge, ambiguous grief. And yes, it does sound like the sort of thing that could be salvageable, but it’s not if she doesn’t want to. Therapy can help you become the best co-parent and dad possible, help you grieve, and help you emotionally prepare to date again when you are ready.
Wow I don’t know what to say, sometimes people in their mind think they are doing the right thing. You have indicated that you tried to improve the things she didn’t like, but she was still not satisfied. She might get a serious wakeup call when she goes out on her own. The grass is not always greener, and she might finally see what you were doing to try to make her happy. Giving that she has had enough and just wants to leave, makes me think there is an outside force influencing that decision, but you can’t control her, all you can do is work on you and try to improve your life, so you are happy. That might have been the missing factor, you are not happy either.
My wife and I have been together 40 yrs, married 37. We were where you two find yourselves now. I can tell you it has not been all sunshine and rainbows! In fact, we tried the marriage counseling stuff, and it was there that I declared I wanted to divorce. We both had felt this way on and off at different points in our lives. We have two kids, and that made it a bit harder. The fact was, for different reasons, I never really made it to see a divorce lawyer. So, we just kept moving on, only some of the pressure was off because of course, we’re getting divorced don’t you know, so what is the point of fighting? Weeks go by, then months, which turned into years. We still fight mind you, it’s just we can now do it and still know we love each other. When you argue, it’s called communicating! You just need to learn to fight fair and not be hurtful.
Now here we are, both kids have been on there own for years now and have successful careers. Life with my wife has never been better. We look forward to enjoying our golden year together. It would would’ve been a different story had I ever made it to the lawyers office.
I think our story is more common then you’d think. Going through these rough patches helped to make our bond stronger. It’s said if you break a bone, it heals back stronger. Life has a why of keeping you distracted form one another, kids require more attention, you start feeling like you’re just going through the motions and your sense of self no longer exist! How is there anything left for your spouse? You need to remember, nothing ever stays the same, change is always happening and you are partners in this. You need time away together, time to reconnect and remember what brought you both together in the first place. You need to learn to laugh again. Good luck OP.