Just wanting to ask in general how everyone who’s divorced found being alone in a home after being with someone so long? I was married for 15 years and we had four sons together, 17y, 14y, 13y and 8y. I’ve never lived on my own before as an adult, I’m 34y now and I had my first son at 17y so I’ve kind of always had my ex around. He has the boys 3 days a week and on the days they’re gone I get so lonely and struggle with what to do as I’ve been a full time mum for so long. Any advice on how to try and enjoy my days off?

The grief comes in waves and sometimes I get really caught up in thinking that it wasn't even really bad. There were just a number of issues that were big issues and going unresolved no matter how much work we put in.

Sometimes it's gutting for me.

I've even told him that I'd still like him to be in my life because I still care about him. We had a good life. He says absolutely not.

Without a divorce I would've grown to resent him in a really big way or I would've kept bringing up an arrangement that every time I brought up, shattered him.

And I was not about to start cheating on him to find satisfaction and joy elsewhere.

We weren't making each other happy unless we were on vacation and I didn't want to stay married for the vacations.

I had to call it.

I just need somewhere to go off.

I guess I just feel like… I don’t know, incredibly alone?

I was the one who got cheated on and now we’re splitting custody and they’re with the new person. It’s fine I guess but than the courts are saying that because I make more I need to give them money for child support. I’m the one who had to get a new job because our kiddo was going to have to start going to daycare. I’d been the primary parent and I’m the one who applied for a new role after hunkering down and getting certified.

I’ve been trying to get back out there but between work and being a parent there’s just not really a lot of room for a social life. I’m barely staying afloat between the commute to work, gas prices and living alone. I tried online dating and I’ve matched a couple of times but each time anyone finds out I’m a dad they ghost. The rest of the time it’s radio silence on that end.

It’s fine like no one owes me anything but damn it kind of makes you feel bad for the thing you love being sometimes. I just feel ugly. It’s hard to get out of bed sometimes when you feel lower about yourself every morning.

I don’t miss the ex. We weren’t in love. I understand. I just didn’t realize how much life would kick your ass when you tried standing back up.

Anyways, I’m sorry I just needed to let this out somewhere.

Had a pretty decent day driving Uber yesterday. Made more than I expected, car didn’t give me any trouble, even got a couple good tips.

My first instinct was to grab my phone and tell my ex. Didn’t even think about it. Just reached for it like I’ve done a thousand times before.

We weren’t even getting along toward the end. Half the time we barely talked unless it was about bills or something that needed fixing around the house.

Still caught me off guard how automatic that was.

It’s been months and apparently my brain hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Anyone else still have those stupid little reflexes?

Over the years I've had friends and colleagues go through divorces, but I've never known what to say when they tell me. I've only every been able to mutter an "I'm sorry," "That must be tough," and "Sorry you're going through this." But I'm not sure if these words are helpful or even appropriate. For example, how should my response change, if at all, depending on whether my friend is the one initiating the divorce vs. responding to it?

My husband told me he wanted a divorce; he had been acting very coldly towards me and responding to conversations (is that what yo would even call them?) with saying “I don’t give a fuck.”.

He recently took a new position where he is making more money than ever and he works closely with his friend. Said friend happens to be divorced as well and I’ve always had a bad feeling about him; as in he has actively encouraged husband to disregard marriage. We have 2 kids, elementary school age. I am the primary caretaker and he is the breadwinner. His demeanor has shifted greatly ever since starting new position.

First husband stops sharing his location with me, which he has done since the inception of location sharing. I even ask him if there is someone else and he denies it. Caught husband and him texting (yes- he has been being secretive with his phone and I worked up to courage to look through it) about husband PAYING for another friend’s HOOKER, who has just had a baby and is going out with said friend group for first time since. I took a screen shot.

I am so beyond disgusted, I don’t even know what to do. I know he has been discussing and planning his “escape from marriage” with this friend - but this? This is the life he is choosing? I don’t even know what to do with this information. I am so filled with hatred and can’t stand the thought of how to deal with my life and him as a co-parent.

& I have nowhere to go. He’s the one that wants the divorce but he wants me to leave.

So my ex wife divorced me last month but 7 weeks ago she started seeing someone new, she has been silent up until the friday before last where she started facetiming me before work really early, evenings the facetime double in length, weekends she started facetiming me multiple times early morning through the day. She has been very chatty, jokey, playful and deep staring at me, being nostalgic. I went to visit the kids this weekend gone and I stopped staying at her house months ago which she kicked off about but she tried to get me to stay multiple times at her house again. I dont know wtf is going on as it was 2 months of silence and then all this. I dont get it as she is seeing someone else but tbh she has been snappy/angry and miserable since we seperated last year and she has no new relationship glow/happiness just miserable.

Anyone else's exe do this after seperation or especially divorce?

I’ve (39F) been officially divorced about a year, we split 14 months ago. I haven’t dated or been with anyone, but I’ve had one sided unhealthy crushes that I’ve worked through in therapy. I was with my ex husband for 16 years. He cheated, I left.

I finally feel like I’m myself again, that I’m on my feet and that I’m going to be OK. I like my life right now, something I couldn’t imagine when this all went down.

There’s someone I am interested in that I met through a hobby. It’s not a crush like the ones I had before, it’s a curiosity. I don’t know him well yet but he seems, maybe, to be interested in me too. I caught a slightly flirty vibe our last conversation.

Afterwards my chest literally hurt. I wanted to throw up. Just the idea of it moving past this initial interest phase feels scary. And I don’t know if that’s because I’m not ready, or because I am and that’s scary.

Regardless of what happens with him (it may not be something either of us ever acts on) I want to unpack this. What was it like for you when you felt ready — did the first mutual attraction freak you out like this?

This is long but I will try to explain the best I can. Last November, my divorce from my ex was finalized. To say that it was a rough ride, is an understatement. He cheated, lost his mind and have never admitted to it, and ulimately his behavior after led to him only getting supervised visits for our two boys. In the last year, he has seen them one time in person and I arranged the visit. He will occasionaly talk to them through text or facetime but there will be days/weeks where he won't reach out at all. He is $6k behind in child support but I don't even care about that. My 9 year old is fine for the most part but as he get older I do fear that it will impact him just as much as it does my 11 year old. My 11 year old is struggling. No behavior issues or scary behavior- just sad. He doesn't understand why he can't see his dad and I don't know how to help him through this. He has good male role models but no on can replace his dad. I am a very present mom but even I have times when I withdraw because I am overwhelmed as a single mom with no co-parenting happening. We have tried counseling but he wasn't struggling with it as much when we did that. I am in the process of getting him signed up again. How do I help him cope with basically grieving the fact that he doesn't get time with his dad? I am so frustrated with my ex because his ego and need to control is overtaking his role as a dad. He also tells them ridiculous lies and blames everything on me. I just want my boys to be happy.

Everything came back on me - I'm the ultimate villain in his eyes on one hand, he's a POS and pushes everyone away on the other. It was like whiplash. And we're in the same house and as soon as I left the room I heard him wailing and he feels like I'm destroying our life. He kept bringing up finances and that his parents hate each other but even THEY aren't divorced. I failed to see the logic there - so we should stay together just because of money and because nobody else is divorced around us? I have a pit in my stomach. On one hand I know this is the right move, but on the other, this is fucking hard and will only get harder before it gets easier and I'm scared. I also do feel for him.

When we started dating he kept saying he wants a tattoo with my lips on his ass. It was a thing for about a year. It obviously never happened.

He now got his new gf/kids step mums lips tattooed on his ass. I have never met her. They are living together. He cant say her name to me. He has done so only once because I sort of forced him. He only bought concert tickets for his 'new family' and forgot to buy a ticket for our son. So he had to say her name.

Its gross to me that he got the tattoo. But I am also hurt? I dont know how to explain it. Why the fuck would he do that?

When your spouse starts calling names, cursing at you, screaming at you, tells you they hate you, tells you that they never wanted to marry you thirty years and 4 kids ago -why do they get to be the happy one? Why do they get to travel, and laugh, and enjoy life? While you are broken. Devastated and hollow. Afraid to sleep because of nightmares. Afraid to have weapons in the house because there are times you’re so low you know if you had an opportunity you’d blow your brains out to stop the pain they’ve inflicted.
No apologizes. No owning up to their deplorable behavior. Just out for a good time behaving like a person less than half their age.

Hi savvy sapiens

Got divorced a few years ago after 15 years. It was a coercive controlled relationship with emotional and financial abuse, that he was very very good at hiding. Among other things,being in IT meant it was easy for him to hack me and stalk me on social media. ( important for later)

I was really glad to move on with my life and moved far far farrrrr away to feel safer. As in different continent. My new life is glorious and I have a truly fantastic man by my side who has helped me process the trauma of my marriage.

I assumed that chapter was over. But lately I found out my ex and his new gf is stalking me on social media. He freely admitted it to a mutual friend, who reached out to tell me.

Only reason I can think of is that I have joined some groups for abuse and have started talking about what he did. I never mentioned his name and since all my accounts are private , I assumed I could do so. I don't know if this is why he is back at it- scared people will learn the truth. But then why is his gf doing it too? It's so weird and creepy. They are in their late 50- mid 60s for god sake ( he was 16 yr older than me- lied about his age, gro0ming etc)

A part of me feels bad for her. He's so so good at playing the nice guy he has 98% of people fooled. Living with him long term almost left me a broken shell of a person. And thats not even talking about the really dark stuff. I am sure he will do this to her too. People like him don't change.

I can't even see her profile or his on fb because I am sure they blocked me. I set all my stuff to highest security settings etc years ago but obviously it wasn't enough. I didn't know her at all so we had no mutual friends.

I don't want to delete my accounts because living internationally, its my way to connect with my friends and family across the globe.

But what do I do now?
Do I blast how glorious my life is, give them the show they obviously want? Do I double down and join more groups and talk about it freely, even thought I am not ready to?

I wish they would just leave me alone 😔

Any advice would be appreciated.

Now that I'm starting to come out of my fog regarding my STBXH's behavior, I'm really starting to see how many instances of reactive abuse he engaged in with me. Here is my story for context and history.

We've had our house on the market for over a year. For the first quarter of this year, I paused my job search to dedicate all of my time to fixing up our home to prepare for sale so we could move to another city and start a new life and start having children. I've painted every door, door frame, and baseboard in the home. I painted the entire exterior of the home, as well as 2 bedrooms. I got down wallpaper in one of the bathrooms, and made many other little fixes to the home as I could so that we could sell for the most money possible and relieve some very severe financial constraints. My ex remained employed with his father and paid all the bills while I dedicated all of my time to maximizing the home's value.

Examples of his reactive abuse:

When we separated in July of this year and moved in with his father, he told me that he would be moving back in on Aug 10, but then showed up at the house that evening without any of his things and told me that I needed to immediately get a job. From that small window during July and Aug, he had been telling me that if he wasn't living in the house, he wouldn't be paying any of the bills. The night he was supposed to move back in and changed course on me mid-flight left me devastated given his earlier statement about the bills. When I started crying and asked how he could he expect me to react to this new destablization, he then informed me that he didn't tell me sooner he wasn't moving back in because he was afraid of the exact reaction I was having in front of him.

Our house was and is actively on the market and there have been showings. One day, the lights had been cut off and a $1300 past due bill needed to be paid in order to restore service. A showing was scheduled for the next day. The only reason the lights hadn't been cut sooner was because my area was under a severe heat wave. I wrongly assumed he would at least inform me if he wasn't going to pay this bill, particularly since the house was on the market. I had to call my brother and beg him for half of the utility payment so that I could get the lights back on. Surely no one would be as cruel as to leave you without literal lights?

During this separation, our married neighbors who we are great friends with pointed out to me that they thought it was very insane that he would leave me completely destitute with no money for food or basic necessities. They literally had to give me toilet paper. When I mentioned this to ex during one of the many times he would come to our home to bread crumb me, he didn't seem phased by that at all. If it weren't for my mother, I literally wouldn't be able to eat.

The bread crumbing in general. Before the divorce papers landed in my inbox on Sep 17, the last time I saw my ex was Sep 5. His car's ac was out, so he called me in the morning and asked me to go pick up food for him. I did and I went. We were just existing together. He gave me no indication that he was no longer working towards the marriage, and now I'm seeing that he was likely just using me.

The initial lie that set this whole thing in motion: his lie about his location. He wrote me a letter and apologized for lying to me about it twice, but then went on to say that because I could see his location, I shouldn't have been upset about it and I should've taken his word that he was where he said he was. Now, it was an office building, but that doesn't mean he could've been there for the reasons he said he was, nor to see who he said he was.

Longtime lurker here. Posting because I literally have nowhere else to get anything off my chest.

Wife and I have 3 kids & just moved. The stress and bad choices of that move have been the last straw, we're contacting divorce mediators. I'm just overwhelmed by how totally screwed we all are. Financially we're barely going to be afloat. Kids just moved, changed schools, now parents gonna split. I can't imagine what that'll do to them

I'm a complete wreck. Throughout the day completely numb, or when I do feel anything I immediately start crying. The person I had to lean on during hard times doesn't even look at me.

I'm a complete failure as a husband, father, provider.

I can’t keep doing this anymore. The arguments are everyday about everything. He says he is the problem, apologizes and turns and tells his “mentor” from church that he’s trying and how hard it is and that I play the victim. We switched churches a few months ago because of theology. He believes in patriarchy and infant baptism. We came from a complementary/ baptist church that we were at for 9 years. He says that everyone there thought he was the problem and that I was perfect. He genuinely tries to lead us but when I ask him a question he takes it as me questioning his “authority” and gets mad. I have to ask him just the right way (which I have yet to figure out yet). Everyone that disagrees with him is out to get him. It’s exhausting. He has told me multiple times that he is done, that I am exhausting and he doesn’t like me and doesn’t want to do this anymore. I kept pushing it off knowing he would apologize later and we would make up. But I think I’m done this time. I can’t keep doing this. Our kids don’t deserve this.

My ex makes about 130k, I make about 60k, I moved out last month to an apartment and the kids are with me 80% of the time with a verbal (documented in email) agreement on parenting time. When does he start paying child support and how do we calculate and who implements this please? Thank you.

I’m 51. Married 24 years. 3 kids - one is 11. Practicing Catholic family.

My wife told me she filed for divorce today. We started talking about separation but she want to go straight to divorce. I talked to an attorney today to try to protect myself.

Nothing nasty happened between us. She was just drowning for years as a mom and I was drowning as a provider. She is conflict avoidant so she didn’t tell me how she was feeling and if she did, I didn’t pick up on it.

I’m not handling this well. Today I haven’t eaten. I have an upset stomach. I feel like my world as I know it as gone. Knowing my little girl isn’t going to be around all the time is killing me.

I’m going to therapy. I’m going to church. Spoke with a priest. Reached out to friends. Started running again. Doing everything to keep busy.

I’m just holding back the tears and my best friend won’t really talk to me anymore.

Its going to tear me apart once the holidays hit. I don’t think I have the strength to go through all this. It feels like a nightmare.

I’m going to put the phone away because this is making it worse. If anyone has some wisdom or kind words to share, I’d appreciate it. I can’t find comfort in anything right now.

Hey folks,

Been lurking a while. Thought today might be a good vent day as I am feeling pretty down.

My (ex)wife (35f) and I (35m) separated last year. November is the one year mark. We were together since we were 17, so our entire adult lives. She was the main cause - caught her posting nudes on the web. AFAIK, nothing physical every happened and we lived pretty close lives (both wfh, one car, rural area), so I guess relatively tame from what some people go through. Not that I would want to know any more than I do.

Anywho, I was willing to work through it, but she wasn't. The final month we spent living together between selling our house and moving out was..amicable? No fights or anything and was just our routine, minus any touching or "fun". We split our stuff up without any issues. No children - just cats, who I miss dearly.

I tried to reconcile a few times throughout the year, but she clearly didn't want that. It breaks my heart. Makes my life really difficult sometimes as she was my best friend and it still feels like I just lost a huge part of me. We haven't spoken since ~April. I'm not particularly great in social situations, so it's been tough trying to make new friends and my friend that I was leaning on ended up losing his soon-to-be-spouse to a freak accident abroad, so he has been mia (fair enough haha). And my sister, who I am close with, has severe depression and has begun a therapy where she can't have any distractions, so I've lost her as a support as well.

Skipping forward to today. I miss her. So. Damn. Much. The conversations. The touch. The presence of her being with me. The stability of being with someone you will be with forever (or so you think). Having a house. My fur babies.

That's it. I think I just had to write it down. Thanks for listening.

I believe life can be thought of as a machine. Each part or component represents an experience, an idea, a moral, a value, or perhaps advice taken from someone.

There are times in life when your machine can be broken, perhaps even destroyed, by people or experiences. I also believe that, for those who choose to rebuild, this destruction can present a rare opportunity.

When your machine is destroyed, you can see it as an ending—a sunset—but it can also be a new beginning: a sunrise. You now have the opportunity to build a new machine the way you want to build it. These machines cannot be bought. Others can help you build yours, but the choices must be your own.

If you decide to start building, I find it helps to imagine the person you want to become. Perhaps there are qualities in someone you admire that you would like to develop in yourself. Think about what matters to you, how you want to treat others, and what kind of life you want to live. Next, consider what you can do to become that person.

You will need to go out and source the parts and components for your new machine. You can do this by having new experiences, meeting new people, and slowly discovering what works for you.

Experiences will teach you what you enjoy and what affects you negatively. They can strengthen you and build resilience, giving you valuable components for your machine. Some experiences may also show you where you need support, rest, or a different approach.

Meeting new people gives you the opportunity to build connections with people who encourage you, respect you, and share your values. Be thoughtful about where you look for these connections. If you want to grow flowers, it helps to find a garden where they are nurtured. People can flourish in unexpected places, too, so pay attention to how they treat you and others rather than judging them only by where you find them.

When talking to people, you have the opportunity to consider the information and advice they give you. You do not have to fit every part you are offered. Keep what is helpful, question what you are unsure of, and leave behind what does not fit your values or the life you want to build.

As you build your new machine, it is okay to grieve and acknowledge your old one. It was part of your life, and rebuilding does not mean pretending it never mattered. You can learn from it and recognise the parts you do not want to include again.

You may also discover that some old parts are worth keeping. Your kindness, humour, love, skills, and capacity to care do not lose their value because your circumstances have changed. Take time to recognise what was good in you all along and carry those parts forward.

If a part you have fitted does not work, or does not run well with the rest of your new machine, it is okay to remove it or explore why it does not fit. Some parts may need adjusting; others may need replacing. Changing your mind as you learn is part of building something that works for you.

Your machine does not have to be finished today. You can build slowly, accept help, and take pride in the progress you make. Over time, you may find yourself becoming more comfortable with both the person you are and the person you are still becoming.

I have been with husband for 11 years. I have expressed my concerns and issues for maybe last 9 of those years.

I asked for divorce. Now all of a sudden he wants to play husband of the year and is begging for a final chance and saying that I owe him his final chance as his wife- that I owe it to our relationship to give him one more chance to fix it.

He claims he’s very apologetic and doesn’t know how he has let it get this bad for this long- he’s actually taking a lot of ownership for how bad things have been and states that it is definitely mostly his fault. He says that he just felt so secure in our relationship that he overlooked making changes. (Aka didn’t take me seriously until now?!)

Is it true? Do I “owe” a final chance?

I feel so done, so numb and like I have nothing left.

He just follows me around the house HYSTERICALLY SOBBING saying we were supposed to grow old together.

She’s done it. The kids are flipped against me. Living in fear was enough. Now this. If I don’t stick my tail between my legs, it’s all over.