Before I start, I should qualify that my husband and I aren’t contemplating divorce. Things have been stressful for us lately for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into here in detail. Suffice to say that we tend to go through waves of discord: for a long time, there will be few disagreements, and the ones that do happen are amicable. Then we’ll have about a one- or two-week period where there seems to be an argument every couple of days until we reach a crescendo, talk it out and then things die down. Right now, we’re at the top of that wave – last night’s argument really cast a pall on this morning, but we’re working through it (both last night’s argument and the issues that cause repeated squabbles about the same things) and will be talking about it more tonight when we’re both calmer.
So on my way to work this morning, I was thinking about my mom and dad and their divorce and how violent and hateful they could be toward each other. Their relationship ended with a “bang” when my mom found my dad cheating with his secretary. I couldn’t help but think, though, that all divorces don’t end so dramatically.
Which brings me to my question - for those Dopers who have divorced, what lead up to your divorce? Was there a defining moment when you just realized you were done, or was it a slower, more insidious process?
I can’t recall an event that clinched the decision. However, for at least two years before the end, I slept on the couch in the living room. He slept in the bedroom, and in fact, stayed there nearly all the time when I was home. We spoke when necessary.
I think it was not too long after my ex-wife told me, “I want a divorce” that I decided that we should probably get divorced.
Edit: I take that back … it was a loooong time after she told me that, that I made my decision, but by that time … it was a moot point.
Well, just to gloss over it: mutual depression from infertility, money issues, me working 3 jobs while she worked part time at 1 because she quit a great job, her deciding to suddenly just take a summer off and be a housewife after I told her to please not do so, her turning down 3 VERY lucrative jobs for various reasons. Finally, I realized that my insomnia was directly related to my unhappiness. What really was the last straw was how she was sick with borderline bronchitis. I stayed home for 2 days, took care of her, made sure there was hot food made, the house was clean, etc. 3 weeks later I got a wisdom tooth removed. She came home with crunchy granola bars. I started sleeping on the couch the following week.
We went through that for years. But I knew I was really done when I realized I wasn’t emotionally invested enough in the relationship, or him, or myself, or my children, to even do that anymore. When I wouldn’t argue with him, not because he was in the right, but because I didn’t care if he thought I was in the wrong all the time. When I didn’t speak up to defend my children when he started in on them, because I hoped my silence would make him cut it out sooner. When I accepted walking on eggshells and biting my tongue all the time as just the way things were always going to be until I was dead.
Things were way more “peaceful” in the house the last year or so of our marriage, but I might as well have been dead already.
Apathy, not arguments, killed my marriage. (Or at least, was the sign I finally recognized that it was dead.) Arguments at least mean you’re still emotionally invested in each other, and counseling may help you to argue more healthily and need to argue less. Once one or both of you truly don’t care anymore, it’s toast.
Oh boy. Swap “hims” for “hers” here and this is the point that I am at right now. Well, except that I have a huge emotional investment in the kids. And in truth, this is my sole raison d’être as far as the relationship is concerned.
If the answer to “Am I better off with him or without him?” is “without,” consider divorce.
Similar questions are “Am I more miserable with him than I think I’d be without him” and “Do I daydream about being alone” (not with someone else–alone).
If children are involved, it becomes more complicated.
I put up with cheating, verbal abuse, reckless spending and general craziness (worse than me even!) for 25 years (15 married). The marriage sucked for at least 8 years leading up to the divorce but I was able and willing to downplay it’s destructiveness on me for the sake of keeping the household together. I seldom fought with my wife, kept my issues with her to myself, and basically tried to live in such a way that would minimize conflict. At some point I’d had enough and was feeling particularly miserable about her dating our daughter’s best friend’s dad. I was making breakfast for the kids (at the time aged 8, 10 & 12) and she came in and said something snotty to me. I ripped her a new one, told her what I thought of her and why, and that I couldn’t stand living with a soul-crushing witch (a term given to me for her by an ex-doper) any more. In 30 seconds I’d terrified my kids, exposed their mother for the slime she was, and had reduced her to tears with no sign of mercy or remorse. After I’d cooled off I realized the kids had to witness the whole thing. I didn’t/don’t want my kids to grow up thinking it’s ok for husbands/wives to speak to each other that way and I also realized I wouldn’t be able to prevent such a display of disrespect from happening again. The following week I filed the divorce paperwork and had moved out within the month.
That was a little over 2 years ago. I get along well enough with the ex now, but I only see her as my kids’ mom–wholly unrelated to me. I don’t even see the kids as products of her and me or as evidence of a time when things maybe weren’t so bad. They’re my kids and every other week they stay with an acquaintance of mine because a legal document says it must be so. If she were to die tomorrow I wouldn’t be a bit sad, but I’d recognize my kids might believe they’ve lost someone important to them. That’d be the only thing keeping me from packing her corpse in dry ice and shipping it off to her brother.
Yeah, it was a long time. I still get a kind of culture shock when Wife 2.0 does something amazingly kind for me without expectation of forgiveness for something or expectation of something nicer in return.
We were driving back from Columbus when I thought that I was through and it was over.
He had been furious on the drive over because of some other driver. He stayed furious the entire time, and then when we got to Columbus he had a temper tantrum while parking. I just stayed quiet the whole time.
We got my futon and put it in the back of the truck. He was spitting with fury the entire time.
The ride back was spent in icy silence. I hadn’t said anything for a couple hours in case he’d take everything out on me - which was rare (he almost never shouted directly at me), but horrible when it happened. I looked out at the passing fields and thought no more.
When we got back home and we were carrying in the futon he dropped it and broke his side. He had another tantrum right there on our front lawn, screaming and hitting the ground. I was shocked into immobility for a moment, then I picked up the entire futon by myself and carried it into the garage. Then I went inside. And left him there.
A few months later he went on a business trip. When he left he seemed happy to be going, and I realised I was more than happy that he went. I was THRILLED.
He was gone for three weeks, but I knew (had always known really) that he didn’t mean anything at all to me anymore, not even really a good friend. I moved out a few months later. He didn’t seem really unhappy with me leaving.
My husband’s first wife came downstairs the day before their 7th anniversary and said “I don’t love you any more” and left with his best friend. That was their end. I know from what he’s told me that theirs wasn’t a perfect marriage, but he did say her declaration blindsided him.
My daughter is halfway to being divorced (there’s a 1-year waiting period in Maryland.) I was out of town when it all went down, but apparently she had been very unhappy for a while - as she put it “I was tired of raising a 17-year-old.” (Her future ex is 35.) She told him she didn’t want to be married to him any longer. He left that night, and came back a few days later to pick up his stuff.
I saw some online posts of his where he whined about how much she hurt him, but he was oblivious to how deeply unhappy she was. Within a week of him being gone, she was her old, cheery, funny self. Even I didn’t realize how bad it was for her. Thank goodness she chose the divorce option, tho. She’d also considered getting pregnant to see if that would help…
I was ready to divorce for several years before we arrived at the mutual decision to do so. It was a series of events that led me to decide I no longer wanted to be married to her. These events correlated to reasons why I wanted to be married in the first place.
For example, one reason I originally wanted to marry her was to have someone to accompany me on world travels. A few years into the marriage her fear of flying became acute, and 9/11 didn’t help matters. She became impossible to travel with, and because we were married I couldn’t expect any other woman to share a hotel room with me. It was looking extrmely unlikely that I would ever see Europe.
That’s just one reason, of course. There were probably 10 things I liked about being married, and they all disappeared one by one.
For me, it was a long time coming, but I finally asked myself if I believed I could be happier outside the marriage than I was in it, and the answer was yes.
Normally, I’d go into the details here, but, as the one time I did, I got an anonymous email linking me to some really hurtful stuff posted about it off-board. . .I’ll boil it down to the thrilling conclusion:
Bagels. I wanted to go for bagels one Sunday. He was a passive aggressive ass about it, dragged his feet while cybering with someone else, and snarked at me when I called him on it. And then I realized that I didn’t even like him anymore, let alone love him. So I said it wasn’t working. He cried, I didn’t. But sudden it was not. If you want more details, the entire effing relationship’s basically posted on here. [sub]Sorry about that, guys.[/sub]
Eh. The end of my marriage has been fairly well documented on these boards. The short version is that we both finally realized that we didn’t love each other the same way after she became unhappy enough to try sleeping with other people. After that experiment, there was no longer anyway to deny that we were fundamentally incompatible (though we still tried to duct tape our marriage back together for a little while after).
I’m much, much happier now being with someone where we’re on the same page. And although I have nothing but the most perfunctory contact with my ex at this point, I’m guessing she’s much happier, too.