Hi everyone!

Throwaway account because my husband knows my main one's name.

I’m 33F and have been married to my husband for 2 years, dated for 7. We have been living together for 6 years.

I’m currently trying to come to terms with the possibility that I need to divorce him, and I’m finding the whole thing much more emotionally complicated than I expected.

For a long time I minimised a lot of things and told myself that my husband is fundamentally a good man who sometimes loses his temper and can be extremely critical and picky about certain things. He has many qualities that make it genuinely difficult for me to see him simply as an abusive husband. He can be incredibly kind, generous and caring. He works hard, takes good care of the people he loves, and my family genuinely loves and trusts him. We both work full time (I actually have 2 jobs), and he contributes a lot around the house. There are many things about him that I admire, and we have had a lot of genuinely good times together. That's part of why I've spent so long minimising the things that hurt me. But when I put everything together, I’m starting to wonder whether I’ve been normalising abuse.

He constantly monitors and criticises the way I do things around the house. I feel like he's always looking over my shoulder to see if I do everything correctly and the way he likes, and if it is not perfect down to the smallest detail, he'll get mad at me. Once, because I forgot to put the plastic lid over the food in the microwave, he broke the microwave door.

Recently, because I hadn’t cleaned the kitchen surface properly after cooking and didn't hang the clothes the way he likes, he told me that I “don’t care about the relationship.” He makes constant little digs at me, saying that I "don't know how to do anything properly."

Once I started crying in front of him because he even corrected the way I was boiling broccoli - he placed the broccoli in a very specific way in the pot, gave me a lecture about how his way of doing things was better (I mean, it's just broccoli...) and how I don't care about anything being done properly, and then left.

And it seems that he particularly enjoys doing this when he has an "audience" - he frequently corrects me in front of our friends and family, and tells them that I don't know how to do anything around the house and that I would be lost without him.

He has been very critical of me since the beginning of our relationship, but I feel that it has become much worse over the last few years.

He often dismisses me when I try to talk about how his constant criticism hurts my feelings, and takes everything as a personal attack.

And there's also the intimidation. Sometimes, when he gets angry with me, he drives aggressively. He has also broken an object during an argument.

Once, during another argument, he got physically intimidating and moved towards me aggressively. And he pushed me. I got scared and told my parents about it. When my parents confronted him about it, rather than acknowledging what had happened, he said that I was emotionally unstable and that I was seeing things where they didn't exist.

One time his mother had a mild stroke. When he came home from visiting her, he told me: “At least my mother having a stroke meant I got one day without having to listen to you.”

I have asked him to consider therapy (I go to therapy myself), but he became angry and said, "My issue is with YOU, not with myself" and "Thank you for thinking I'm crazy."

He was actually the one who suggested that we start couples therapy. But what he does there is essentially what he does at home - he rolls his eyes when I talk about my feelings and says that I'm ungrateful for everything he does for us. Our coexistence in the last few months has been hell.

Until recently I thought I was simply unhappy in my marriage. Now I’m starting to think there may be a pattern of emotional abuse and intimidation.

And for the first time, I’m actually afraid of how he might react when I tell him I want a divorce. I’m not saying he has explicitly threatened to hurt me. In fact, when I mentioned divorce hypothetically, his response was basically: “Fine. Get a lawyer. I’ll keep the house and I hope you move out ASAP.”

Am I right to be taking this seriously?

I have already talked to a lawyer about a potential divorce.

I’d really like to hear from women who have experienced something similar, particularly women who realised only later that maybe what they had been experiencing was abuse.

Hi everyone. I have no love left for my emotionally abusive husband/father of my kids and I want to leave. The last few years, I felt like I had to leave but didn’t want to. Now, I want to.

I have endless notes and lists that are reasons why I should leave. Any one of them would have you going “girl say less and leave”. But for some reason I’ve stuck around.

I’m trying to psych myself up to really get my ducks in a row and leave this man. I’m finding myself trying to think of things that I’m looking forward to without him skulking around sucking all the fun out of it.

Please share what you’re looking forward to when you divorce, or what you have come to appreciate now that you are divorced.

- getting my kids ready for school peacefully and quietly
- having an actual break from the kids when he needs to take them without having to be made to feel guilty
- going out with friends or coworkers and not feeling anxious that I’m going to be embarrassed by his behavior, his long-winded stories, his complete inability to read the room, his hogging the food, his farting and burping…
- celebrating holidays with my kids the way I dreamed of: decorating, telling stories, spending time as a family, buying them lots of presents without being criticized or having to check in first
- strengthening my relationships with my parents and sisters, who have tried to be so supportive and, unlike him, don’t make me feel stuck in the middle
- cooking a meal without getting unsolicited feedback/criticism
- actually getting a fucking project done around the house
- buying all the “dumb, impractical, unnecessary” house things, like seasonal pillows or scented candles
- going back to school so I’ll make more money than him and then I really, really won’t need him
- getting to watch whatever I want without having to wait for him
- having a garage that doesn’t stink of weed
- not having all my money get pissed away on weed, skateboards, and gag gift-type purchases for no one but himself
- not waking up with knots in my stomach about whether im going to be questioned about things before I even get my glasses on
- getting the dang plastic surgery I said I wanted to and saved up for without having to have a discussion about it (goodbye double chin, like my husband you will not be missed)
- freely talk shit about the awful stuff he did and said to my friends without fear of them hating him and trying to keep up “the optics”
- splurging a little on myself and my kids
- actually hanging mine and my kids art on the walls
- sign my little girl up for ballet and swim lessons like she has been begging for
- hopefully moving closer to my parents so they can see their only grandkids more
- plan a girls trip without feeling super anxious!!

Please share yours. This feels very empowering. I catastrophize very hard and it’s kept me here for too long.

I (34F) married my husband (34M) 5 years ago, we now have a daughter that is the center of our world. 3 years ago, we decided to purchase a renovation project, the logic was that I would be able to support us financially for a year as I have a great job and salary while my husband worked on the house renovation.

Fast track to 3,5 years later, I am still the only one supporting financially and my husband has grown cold and distant and downright cruel, he doesn't have any interest in me and spends 90% of our conversations speaking about himself or out daughter and makes it very challenging for me to feel important. It's almost like being a strong, successful person has really affected his ego.

I have taken care of every single bill for the past 3.5 years all while maintaining a high stress job and a life. I found myself playing both roles being primary caregiver, primary (only) earner and still expected to pick up most of the cooking and cleaning and was already beyond exhausted and I see how stupid I was to accepting taking all of this on.

To add insult to injury, In April, I found Instagram messages between him and a random girl he met at a festival, he was very invested in the conversation and asked her about her love life and invited her to join him and his friends on a festival they were attending. I confronted him immediately which he denied having any romantic involvement or interest and reassured me that he loved me and wants to try staying together for the sake of our daughter. Not for our marriage, just for her.

Since then, my curiosity got the best of me and I have, out of all places, found his real intentions in a chat he was having with Claude as a therapist about how he feels trapped in our marriage and doesn't love me and finds me extremely annoying. He's been actively seeking other women and is attracted to other type of girls. He said that since my body changed after being pregnant, he has no desire to he with me and if it wasn't for my daughter he would leave me without a doubt. He also mentioned he did an Acid trip (LOL) and woke up from it thinking he has been on autopilot and woke up in a marriage and life he doesn't want.

He goes on to say that he is not sure what he wants to do, although it is clear from his conversation and says that he can't just leave as he's financially dependent on me.

Reading this genuinely hit me like a bus, I have been unable to sleep and eat properly, I've had elevated anxiety and genuinely just not knowing what to do.

I am worried to ask for a divorce and essentially ruin my daughter's life. I am also worried about staring over at 35. I am worried about making a move I will regret.

I am worried he will claim half of what we've got which is what I've paid for.

I know I’m doing the right thing. I know I’ll be happier. But I feel so selfish. I’m changing my entire family dynamic because I AM unhappy. As someone who’s endured for years to keep the family together it feels so gross.

Hi, I'm posting in need of support and advice. I've been married to my husband for 16 years, together for almost 19. I'm 43 and he's 52. We have a 9-year old son. Our relationship has been tumultuous for a very long time. I've begged him to prioritize his mental health for almost our entire relationship. We've been romantically separated for 5 years but have continued living together because I honestly haven't felt like our son would be safe with him for an extended period of time.

About a month ago, I finally moved out of our marital home. The move had been planned for 5 months and he was aware and seemed supportive. We moved our son to an awesome school right down the street from the place where I moved. Then a few days ago (two days before our son's first day of school), my husband had a complete mental breakdown and seems to be in a manic episode. He has never had a manic episode in the past, to my knowledge, just severe depression, anger issues, and issues with addiction. When he started exhibiting really concerning symptoms, I took him to the psych ER and they admitted him. He now thinks he's there because of me, I'm the one telling them to keep him, and he's mad at me every time he talks to me telling me I'm doing everything wrong (for example, he asked if I had talked to his work and when I said yes, he yelled at me and said that was a terrible idea, when I needed to talk to them so he didn't get fired).

At this point I just don't know what to do. I'm his only family in the state where we live, but I cannot go back to living with him again. I know he's not in a good mental state, but I have run out of compassion for him. I no longer have the energy to be nurturing when I've dealt with so much turmoil over the past 18 years. There is so much resentment. I also probably need to file for divorce but I'm terrified that a judge will say our son needs to live with him 50% of the time. If you're still reading, thanks. Any advice or support you're willing to offer would be great.

Hello everyone,
I am a 29-year-old South Asian woman working in tech in the Bay Area on an independent H-1B, currently separating from my husband of 5 years.
Our marriage was traditional, and from day one, he went above and beyond to project a "perfect couple" image to our families and social circles while completely shutting down in private. Across 5 years, intimacy was practically non-existent and treated with complete aversion. It took years of gaslighting, an agonizing miscarriage through artificial conception, and a massive family blowout to finally accept what was right in front of me: he likely entered this marriage solely to appease his family, conceal his true identity/aversion, and maintain societal respectability at the cost of my entire 20s.
When the truth came to light, the response was extreme defensiveness, pride, and family panic about "what relatives will say" rather than any accountability for the years taken from me.
I am stepping away and moving into my own place this month.
I’d love to connect with any South Asian women in the diaspora who had to navigate breaking away from a marriage built on false pretenses, familial pressure, and emotional neglect. How did you reclaim your self-worth after realizing you were chosen as a shield for someone else's comfort?

Hi everyone,

I am respectfully seeking some insight and outside perspectives. I am a divorced trans woman, separated since December 2024, and my ex-wife and I share two young kids.

For the first year after separating, we were actually very kind to each other and co-parented well. However, during the holidays in late 2025, we hit a rough patch and got into some spiraling arguments. I tried to just let those disagreements go so we could focus on the kids, but tensions escalated.

Things came to a head when she tried to change our custody agreement through a lawyer. Fortunately, a judge recently denied her request. Now that the legal dust has settled, she wants to be "friends" again. But she wants to rehash that old argument from last December framing it as a requirement if we want to be friends.

I'm struggling with this because, to me, friends don't take friends to court. While I want a peaceful co-parenting dynamic for the sake of our kids, I’m feeling intense emotional whiplash and questioning her motives.

15 years ago my husband and I got together after meeting at work. For over a decade we were the office couple and it was endearing. We even got to the point where we worked on completely different pieces of business so while we worked in the same office we had different work.

Fast forward to 5 weeks ago my whole world shattered. He wants a divorce and he found someone else. Now by his words there was nothing physical or emotional. He was just "intrigued" by her and wanted "to close the door with me so he could open the door with her". Once the cat was out of the bag he started staying out late until 1am. He didn't care.

He never told me who she was but I have put the pieces together that she works with us. Why?

1. He was a married man with kids and he didn't have a lot of time to go out and look. I had his location tracked on my phone.
2. I had the weirdest gut feeling something was going on every Thursday night. On Thursdays he would join work friends for an evening of golf. Except golf ends at dusk and he would be out til 10+ pm.
3. Once I knew she existed and the divorce was in flight he would text non stop at our kids soccer games. He was never a texter. Curiousity got the best of me and I saw he was talking to someone in his phone named "A".
4. When his sister asked him who he is dating he didn't want to tell her. She asked him if it's someone he worked with and he said "I'm not telling you the answer to that".

5. There is a girl 20 years younger than him who was part of the Thursday night golf crew named Alyx.

6. Alyx has been with 3 guys in the office. My husband would be 4.

So am I sure it's her? no. I present to the council the evidence. And why do I even care??? Why is this eating me alive?? I was at the office yesterday and I couldn't help but walk past her and smile a shit eating grin as hard as I could. I wanted her to know that I know. I want him to know. They ruined my ability to work and focus on work at the office. I am working home today because it was so hard yesterday. How long can this go on?

Did you tell your husband you were wanting a divorce before you had any final decision made or paperwork?

My husband is military, so I'd have to wait to pursue more about the divorce until we move to his next duty station in a couple months. I've felt like I've wanted a divorce in big and small waves pretty much since I got pregnant for the first time a little over two years ago. It comes and goes, but really I feel like I want to leave him more often than not. He left for 8 days to go to a bachelor party with a friend and it was the EASIEST week of parenting in my life!! I feel like he makes everything harder and worse.

So, did you tell your husband you wanted a divorce before serving paperwork? Or should I just keep this to myself and tell him when/if I have papers ready, etc.?

I (42F) left my ex husband last year. I woke up on my 41st birthday and looked at him and said to myself, I don’t want this for the rest of my life. I want to be happy again. I had tried to leave him multiple times during our more than 10 years together. Of course it’s not always bad that’s why we stay, but it was more bad than good. I felt like he stole my light, my optimism, my joy. And now I feel like I’m going down this depression spiral because I have a beautiful little condo for me and my son, I have a great new job and I am better off financially, and I thought that I was happier (and I am for the most part) but when all of the other big things are taken care of you’re left alone with your thoughts in the small hours that’s when the dark thoughts come.

I want to preface all of this by saying that I have an appointment with a new therapist next week. But I guess I’m having a hard time forgiving myself and grieving for the sad, vulnerable little girl that I feel like I am inside. No one else was going to stand up for her in this situation to make it better but myself. And that’s been my experience this past year while I move on. No one is coming to save you or help you but yourself. If you want something to be done, you have to do it. I don’t mind doing the work but it is so lonely and sad. I feel hurt like why did no one try to help me? I know it’s not anyone else’s job to save me but it makes me feel like no one cared enough and that makes me sad again.

I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve with this post. Someone to tell me, yeah me too? Or maybe just recommendations on how to deal with the emotional fallout of leaving a bad situation with a guy who was a shitty partner and learning to forgive yourself and grieve for the scared lonely woman who just wanted to feel joy again..?

Okay I’m done now screaming into the void! 🤪

I (33F) and my husband(39M) have been married for 14 years. We went to therapy for 3 years over his control issues but he ended that therapy last year saying we didn't need it anymore since he was showing progress.

A few months later, I cheated on him. It was a drunken one night stand with a woman that I have regretted everyday since. I told him soon after and we went back into therapy with the goal of reconciliation.

But lately the conversation has changed.

He says he needs to see me losing weight to prove that I am committed to reconciliation. My weight has been an issue in our marriage for years. After the infidelity, I committed to losing weight for him and lost 30 pounds.

We got into a fight a few weeks ago and he says he needs me to loose 20 more pounds.

It's affected something in me and now I am having panic attacks when he reaches out to touch me. He told me if we arent having sex, I need to sleep on the couch.

He has also said if he isn't getting relief he will look for it elsewhere and will kick me out of the house.

I have been a SAHM for more than 10 years. He doesnt want me working but I know i need to build a financial nest egg to protect myself in case he goes for the separation.

Any advice on how to earn money, without the husband finding out? He tracks every purchase on the debit cards and tracks my location every hour since the infidelity.

My flair says that I am a married woman not looking for a divorce because that is the worst case scenario. We have weekly counseling scheduled and i need to have hope that it will work this time. But I am planning in case it doesn't.

Thank you for any advice.

For those who were long-term SAHM’s, and have had advanced degrees/professional level careers, what was the return process like for you? I have a career that I could feasibly get back into, but it would require taking a lot of time for refresher courses, supervision, and slowly working my way back in. My STBX is demanding that I get basically any job I can, as quickly as possible, so we can split households. I do want to go back to work, but we have two kids with special needs ( so I need a job with flexibility due to their school schedule, transportation, and appointments), also working a minimum wage job in retail isn’t a good long-term solution in comparison to finding a job in a career where I could be making much more.
I would much rather put my already limited free time into a professional level job search, even just for an entry level position in my field again, although it would likely take a little bit longer to find something.

How did you all address this?

I posted here before about my divorce and everything I’ve been struggling with after the end of my 8-year marriage.

I found out today that my ex has already married someone else and apparently the marriage happened before our divorce was officially finalised.

I honestly don’t know how to process that.

I knew he had moved on but finding out that he had actually married her while our divorce was still going through hit me differently.

After eight years together, I was still trying to understand everything and wondering whether our relationship had meant as much to him as it did to me. I even reached out to him recently because I had so many things I wanted to say and questions I never got answers to.

I’m not posting this because I want him back or because I want to interfere in his marriage. I don’t. I’m just struggling to understand how someone can marry another person while they are still legally married and the divorce is still being finalised. I know we were going through a difficult phase and were separated, but emotionally, I was still processing the end of an eight-year marriage. The fact that he was able to move into another marriage while ours wasn’t even officially finalised is something I honestly never imagined.

My close friends and family had been telling me for a long time to move on, go out, meet people and start living my life again. But I kept saying I wasn’t ready. I wanted to wait until the divorce was finalised because, for me, that was the point where I could finally accept that the marriage was truly over. I didn’t feel comfortable starting something new while I was still legally married and emotionally trying to process everything.

That’s probably why finding this out has affected me so much. It made me realise how differently we experienced the ending of the same marriage.

Eight years is a long time. You can be legally divorced and still not emotionally understand how someone who was such a huge part of your life has already built a completely new one.

I guess this is the part where I have to accept that whatever happened between us is truly over, even if my heart is taking much longer to catch up with that reality.

I’m really struggling with this and honestly don’t know what to do with all these feelings right now. How do you move forward when your heart is still trying to process everything? What am I supposed to do from here?

What advice do you have for starting back at square one emotionally and financially after a divorce?

To make a long story short my husband is a cheat and not ambitious. He was also a gaslighter. The weight of finances was on me the majority of the marriage. I even paid his rent before got married when he fell on hard times ( the apartment I was paying for and later found out he was bringing other women).

I even took out personal loans to help him and his family members out.

I got fed up and filed for divorce 3 months ago. He thought I wasn’t serious but now he realizes I am not calling off the divorce I am getting called wicked, he says I am ungrateful and broke his heart.

But now he has refused to help me pay any of the bills. Our lease ends next month so I am making the decision to leave for my peace.

But my credit is trash. I am grateful to move in with my mom but it is going to be an extremely small place for my son and I. I feel like a failure.

When I met my husband my credit was good, never had a missed or late payment, my own car paid off. I now have none of those. I also lost friends in the process because he would flirt with them and I foolishly believed he didn’t do it.

I've been with my husband for 11 years. A few months ago, I made the decision to move out of our home. I now live in my own apartment and absolutely love it, aside from the financial hit and the struggle to complete chores on my own as a disabled woman. There were just too many things that were frustrating me living with my husband. I spent way too much time managing the relationship and trying to make things work. The stress of the relationship was really affecting my health.

Now, we hang out a few times a week. We have a routine of mainly watching shows together, going for short walks when I'm able, and calling over FaceTime in the evening to do the NYT games together. That is basically the extent of our relationship at this point. I've seriously pulled back from begging for any sort of depth or intimacy in our relationship. We haven't had sex in months. Since I've stopped trying, we have no conflict. Just surface level connection.

However, deep down, I'm still disappointed by the fact that he doesn't really care to have meaningful conversations or connect on a deeper level. That he lacks curiosity and initiative. That he always just wants to end the FaceTime call after we finish the games and most of the time, he isn't fully present - he will be watching TV, scrolling his phone on the call, etc. My hope originally was that if I lived away from him, he'd prioritize me better when we actually hang out. I don't feel there has been any real change in that regard.

Every damn time I express my feelings on this particular issue, he becomes defensive. He will immediately justify his actions, be annoyed I brought up my feelings, and typically ends up either walking away or ending the call abruptly. This happened last night and I know that today it will be like it never happened. He will ask to watch a show later, will send me some funny reels, and try to be nice. If I try to bring it up again, it will lead to the same thing, and it's so discouraging.

I'm so fed up with this. The gut punch of being punished every time I express a need is rewiring my brain, and not in a good way. I don't want to believe that bringing up my needs is a bad thing. I've done so much work... soft startup, using "I" statements, etc., and nothing has changed. I want conflict to lead to repair and a deeper connection, at least most of the time. I know deep down this will never happen with him.

I've been telling myself for YEARS that it's time to move on, that I deserve better, but I'm too scared to pull the trigger and actually move forward with a divorce. Since I became chronically ill and disabled almost two years ago, it has made things even harder, because the one area where he shines is practical support. If I ask, he will help me take my garbage out, drive me places, etc. Knowing that I will lose all of that is devastating. All of my friends have moved away and I don't have family support.

I keep swinging back and forth between "at least you have support in certain areas, just try to get emotional support elsewhere", to, "you deserve a partner who can show up for you emotionally". I know I can't keep living like this, but I feel so stuck. I've grown up with trauma, enmeshment, and dysfunctional family dynamics, and our relationship is honestly one of the "best" relationships I've seen in real life. The bar is so low...

I don't want to stay stuck forever, but I'm terrified to take the next step. Does anyone have any advice or words of encouragement?

Hi all and thank you for being here. I’ve been unhappy for quite a while.

Some context—- Been together 10 years and we have a wonderful 5 year old. We bought his childhood home (for a steal from his parents) and my parents moved into the first floor of our house (a self contained apartment). I pay 75% of our expenses. We are both small business owners and his business has been struggling for the past 4 years. About three years ago he finally agreed to marriage counseling, which helped. We had a dead bedroom for nearly 2 years so I hired us an intimacy and relationship coach, who helped us a lot and now our sex is fairly regular.

I told him to schedule 3 individual therapy sessions between end of June and end of August or I would need to take space from him. He desperately needs therapy to help him deal with his anger and self esteem issues. I’ve become his punching bag. Summer is very busy for him so I gave him what I thought was a good cushion. I asked for an update about once a week like “so what’s your plan for meeting with your therapist?” Which would then prompt him to schedule. I fucking hate that I had to do that. It’s now Sept 1 and he has not completed three sessions.

I asked him about this today and the conversation turned very emotional. I told him I’m unhappy and can’t go on like this. He said he “feels like a failure,” and that nothing he does will “ever be good enough” for me and that maybe he should just “disappear.”

To be clear— I have asked him to contribute more to expenses so I can save some money for travel (for all of us), I’ve asked him to attend therapy weekly or biweekly, and I’ve told him I need to feel courted again.

I don’t want to break up our family. Ideally I’d like to try separating for a while so he can work on himself and I can feel less stressed all the time. I just have literally no idea of how to do that. He can’t afford an apartment. I maybe could but it would be very very tight. We have this house which my parents depend on.

I feel like I need time away to settle and work out what I should do. Just logistically I have no idea where to begin.

Could we “separate” while in the same house? Our house is quite large so we don’t need to be on each others spaces. Has anyone done this? How did it work?

Thank you for listening.

I was married to my high school sweetheart for 29 years. He’s a good guy, but I was lonely and unhappy for a long time and I just turned 50 and finally got the nerve to ask for a separation and divorce.

My three boys are adults now and they have adjusted well, as have my friends, but my mom, brother and sister-in-law are not being very supportive.

I’m finally at a place of being happy and having peace after so long of putting everyone else in front of me and I just wanna move forward and I feel like I can’t because I don’t have their support. We all live in the same area and so we do spend time together and it just makes it hard.

I guess I’m just wondering if anybody else is dealing with this and how you’re handling it? I’m so glad to finally be at the place of getting divorced but now this is a whole Nother stress that I hadn’t planned on.

I have a 16 month old and my greatest priority is spending as much time with her as possible but I can’t emotionally bear to be in this marriage anymore. I’m in grad school and will be graduating next Spring and that seems like a natural time to decide if I will end it or stick it out until my daughter goes to school (or at least for another year or so cuz ik I won’t get to see her as much with a custody situation and that kills me). What are the considerations I should be making about this process? Especially the most painful consequences that you don’t know about unless you’ve actually experienced a divorce yourself.

The clown show doesn’t cease to amaze me. Xh is in contempt of court twice, and looking at a 3rd contempt for refusing to pay child support (for which the penalty is jail time per the state law). So he wants to take our divorce judgement to appeals court to “fight it “ instead, which involves $3000 in fees- and he is playing the victim. He otherwise continues to see the kids on schedule (regardless of not paying anything)
. He has always tried to manipulate and skirt accountability, but this is truly a new level.

Good lord.

Does marriage counselling helps? When you have already started living separately and with a history of abuse. What should we be careful about when taking it from a clinical psychologist as couple ?

We have 2 boys who are 11yr and 8yr, 14yrs married, and I am, by all definitions, a single married mother. We had a relatively egalitarian relationship until the kids arrived. I'm the financial breadwinner (double his salary), do the vast majority of the domestic labor, all of the cooking, all of the home repairs/maintenance, manage the finances, etc. My husband isn't malicious or abusive in the general sense, but he is incredibly lazy, avoidant, and perfectly content having an unhappy wife as long as his needs are met. Meanwhile, I'm absolutely exhausted, depressed, and extremely resentful from doing it all alone. I'm tired of having the same fights/conversations around labor equity. Every time I reach a point of burnout and try to get him to step up it becomes a whole ordeal. Typically it ends with him sulking around the house, claiming he can't do anything right, silent treatment, etc, and the entire house feeds off that energy. He will attempt to step up a tidge more to appease me during these windows of time, but as soon as he feels things have blown over we're right back to square one. I've attempted marriage counseling with him twice and both times he's non-participatory and eventually we stop going because he complains non-stop until I give up. At this point, I don't think he'll ever be an equitable partner to me and I'm not even interested in getting him to try anymore.

I know in my heart I want a divorce, and I'm perfectly capable of supporting my kids. I'm already doing it all so ditching him would make my life 10x easier, but I do think it would be difficult on the boys. My work has me traveling 3-4x/yr for an entire week, and each time I come home the kids are miserable and report that dad is a stressed-out mess who yelled at them the entire time, the dogs are worked up, and the house is a disaster. It usually takes me over a week to re-regulate the household. That alone has me very concerned that a 50/50 custody split would be a nightmare for all of us. I also think my husband would be resentful about the divorce and make co-parenting more difficult than it needs to be. Partly because of his little tantrums when I try to get him to step up, and partly because he's insinuated he would do that if I ever left. Given the huge financial differences, i'd likely be on the hook for child support and alimony as well.

I'm leaning towards toughing it out another 10yrs (I'll be 48 then) until the kids are both out of the house and in college barring there is no abuse or infidelity which are automatic divorce for me. I'm almost done funding the kids college funds completely so I can ensure they'll be covered through early adulthood needs-wise, both our retirement accounts will be set, and given that I have a decade to plan I could sell our home (I solely own it) and split savings down the middle to let both of us walk away fully secured for retirement and avoid alimony. This plan keeps the stability in place for the boys, they get to stay in their childhood home, etc. While I acknowledge it's not the best solution for me personally and it's pretty darn nice of me all things considered, it's the kids i'm most worried about protecting. So i'm willing to sacrifice for them long term. Has anyone regretted waiting until the kids are grown? Will my boys resent me later for waiting?

I can't give my daughter the life my husband can afford.

I'm terrified of being alone.

I feel sick about losing the life that I have.

But I also know that I'm miserable now, if I lose it all, will I still be miserable?

I wish I knew I was making the right decision

I’m separated from my husband and in the middle of a very complicated divorce situation in NJ. My biggest concern right now is figuring out whether there is any realistic way for me to keep the house we currently live in.

The house has a mortgage that recently came out of forbearance, and I’m trying to get through the loan modification process. The problem is that my husband needs to cooperate/sign certain paperwork, and I’m not sure he will. If the mortgage situation isn’t resolved soon, the house could potentially head toward foreclosure.

My credit has also been badly damaged during all of this. Because of my current credit and financial situation, I don’t believe I could qualify for another decent rental right now. So losing the house isn’t simply a matter of selling and finding somewhere else to live—I could potentially be left with very limited housing options.

I’m also trying to navigate the divorce, custody issues, and legal expenses at the same time. I’m torn between using what money I have to keep the mortgage current versus preserving enough to retain a better divorce attorney, because I’m worried that making the wrong financial move now could hurt me later.

Ultimately, my goal is to keep the house, if there is any legally and financially realistic way to do that. I’m trying to understand what options I may have regarding the mortgage, loan modification, ownership/equity, and divorce settlement, especially if my husband refuses to cooperate.

Has anyone been in a similar situation where one spouse wanted to keep the marital home but the other spouse was uncooperative? I’d especially appreciate advice from people familiar with NJ divorce, mortgages, loan modifications, or situations involving damaged credit and potential foreclosure.

Three weeks ago I told my husband I wanted to separate. For a multitude of reasons, but suffice it to say he’s an anger management case of a dad and partner who put our child’s safety at risk said I disrespected him for saying I wasn’t ok with the situation, smokes weed all day, has never been a great provider, surprised me after Christmas last year by blowing $8k buying Pokémon cards, and never took me out on dates, like maybe once a year. He always said I didn’t give him any affection and I can’t deny that but I just wasn’t able to for the aforementioned reasons. Finally we are separating, I want it, but he has been very vocal that he does not (I suspect more for losing time with the kids than for me). He’s back in the house for the week because this is very fresh and we’re still figuring it out and bringing our kids back from soccer he sees this oyster bar in town and it was packed. He then tells me while we’re going through a drive through for the kids that he texted his fellow dad buddy to see if he likes oysters, I say “oh do you think y’all will go there together?” And he goes “yeah I think we’re gonna!” Like buddy, your wife is leaving you and you supposedly don’t want her to and you’re planning guys night? I mean I guess I can get wanting a friend to vent to (though we haven’t told any mutual friends yet) but like seriously…what?? Am I crazy or is he an idiot?

My STBXH is 15 years older than me and was my former professor so there is this controlling power dynamic that I’m having trouble shaking.

My ex is a compulsive liar—lies so outrageous that there was even a CPS investigation (he made his own endangerment admissions to a mandated reporter and then told insane lies about me which he has since admitted were untrue). He’s also very manipulative, largely it’s always been his way goes but when something is my way or not what he wanted then he holds it over my head forever and twists the truth, and controlling. I discovered things he did when we were dating, engaged, and married, and severe defamation that made me question who the hell I married and it’s a scary thought. Lots of excessive litigation and bleeding me dry financially as a result.

Anyway, despite all of the horrible things he’s done to me and my family, I still find myself trying to make sure that he’s happy or not mad at me because I’m afraid he will just run to his lawyer and cost me money I can’t afford (she also scares me because she’s very aggressive, sneaky, and also lies). Tips??????