Divorce to complete in 1 month, but feel no emotion

[orangele]

My wife and I will complete our uncontested divorce in exactly 1 month after 8 1/2 years of marriage. I allowed my wife to file the divorce because she said it would make her feel better, even though I actually filed first, and then stopped pursuing my filing upon her request. Basically I came to an emotional and analytical conclusion that either my wife did not love me, was exceptionally greedy, or simply had a completely different view of the events of the events in our marriage.

 

Our marriage was stressed by the illnesses of her father, mother, and sister. First her father, who I believe was a sociopath, and abusive, became ill.

To make a long story short, her father had a long illness, and she devoted much of her time to him. We lived together during that time, and that left the great majority of the household chores to me for a period of months. Please understand that I was a medical resident at the time, so I worked over 100 hours a week, and felt like I had to do everything at home (cooking cleaning, washing, taking care of pets) to allow her the freedom to care for her father. This went on for intermittent periods of a week or two over an entire year. I understand the need and desire to take care of an ill parent, but she spent virtually all her time with her father. I do not believe that I was totally supportive of her, but at the same time I certainly did indeed carry a larger burden of tasks during his illness over an extended period.

 

The same scenario applied when her mother became ill. Once again, she depended on me to take care of things at home when she travelled to take care of her mother. Her mother was ill over a period of about 6 months.

 

Finally, over virtually the entire duration of our marriage, my wife was closely involved with the care of her sister who developed schizophrenia. In the begining, both my wife and I did not believe that her sister was mentally ill, but simply had behavioural problems, but as the years went by, it was clear she was indeed mentally ill. During the past two years, I have been TOTALLY supportive of my wife in her sisters care. Even when my wife did things that I believe were not smart (buying her sister a car which she wrecked within a week), I told my wife that even though I did not agree with her decision, I would support her, because I knew that would make her feel better.

 

The reason for our divorce stems from an event about a year and a half ago, when finally someone in my family had a problem. My father has Alzheimers, and there was an issue in his care. I told my wife that I may need to travel out of state to try to take care of it. She became outraged that I may take a trip. In turn I became unbelievably upset with her because I felt that I had provided nearly a decade of emotional, and financial support for her family, but when finally, my family needed something, she had a problem. I did not speak to her for two weeks, and went to see a divorce attorney. The issue finally resolved when a trip was not necessary, and she promised me that she would be totally supportive of me if my family ever needed any help or support.

 

The most recent event occured about 3 months ago when we were planning a trip to visit San Diego. Since my mother lives there, I said that we should probably at least have dinner with my mom. My wife refused, saying that she wanted to go shopping. I felt totally betrayed and lied to regarding her promise to support my family. After two counselling sessions, it became clear to me that either she just doesnt care about our marriage, or is incredibly greedy (a trait I have known about her for some time). It was her perspective that while I had contributed to caring for her family, it was not enough, and that she feels that I should have been more supoortive in the past. Indeed she felt I should be more supportive in the future. It was my perspective that I have contributed orders of magnitude more effort toward her family than she has ever been even asked to consider, and I found it unbelievable that she would not even have dinner with my mom.

 

Lastly, I can say that there has never been an accusation on her part that I am not a good bread winner, abusive, womaniser, gambler, or other similar vice. I have been faithful to this day. I have been the sole bread winner for the past 5 years, and we have a very good lifestyle, and travelled frequently to vacation around the world. She has a housekeeper come twice a week, a gardener, and uses daycare to care for our 5 year old adopted son. Her only responsibility was to care for our son.

 

Following the second counselling session, I felt emotionally empty. I felt that her refusal to even have dinner with my mother, belittled that past decade of effort I had provided to her and her family. The only conclusion I can come to regarding my wife is that either she does not love me, or that she is very greedy in expecting me to give everything, and she give virtually nothing in return. I felt as though an emotional switch had been turned, and suddenly my mind and heart agreed, that there was nothing left in this marriage. I told my wife shortly thereafter that I intended to file for divorce, and invited her to come with me to the lawyer.

She subsequently said she would feel better filing, so I withdrew my filing and we went to a lawyer together and filed for divorce. We have agreed to all terms of divorce on our own without the intervention of lawyers.

 

I am a very goal-directed and analytical person. The day after filing for divorce, I started to plan for my future life. I met someone on an online dating site within a couple of weeks, and we are planning to meet for the first time, a week after the divorce is complete. I am very taken with this woman who is beautiful, and very committed to starting another family. I am not the type to date many people, and feel that I have found someone very quickly that I can share mutual happiness.

[kasey]

Do you still love your wife?

[orangele]

The only thing that prevented me from pursuing a divorce a year and a half ago, was that I still felt that I loved my wife, and I believed that my wife loved me. When I came to the conclusion that she no longer loved me, whatever remnant of that feeling disappeared.

[kasey]

Have you openly talked about this? Whether or not you both love each other? You seem to be moving on pretty quickly, talking to a woman online. I wouldn't end a marriage based on anger or resentment. If there are any feelings towards each other at all, I would try to base some foundation on that. If there are no feelings involved, yes, move on. But a divorce is something not to be taken lightly.

[supermom]

In my opinion, marriage is about bringing two families together through your union. Sounds like your wife is a very selfish individual and you have bent over backwards to accommodate her.

 

You did the right thing and that I also think that the fact that she was unwilling to spend a dinner with your mom, instead wanted to go shopping....on whos dime?....yours?...selfish.

 

Also, I feel that family is VERY important. If my husband pulled the same selfishness as your wife has, I'd leave too.

 

Sounds like you are on your way to a better life....good luck!

[kasey]

yes, i do agree your wife is very very selfish, but I would try every avenue possible before ending up in a divorce. If there is any love left in your marriage, I would base my decisions on that.

[orangele]

When the most recent event occured regarding my wifes refusal to have dinner with my mom, I went to see a counselor alone. During this visit I cried my eyes out when I told the counselor that I did not think my wife loved me. I believe that I still would be with my wife, if she had simply reassured me that she loved me. During the period we were seeing a counselor I did indeed tell my wife that based on her actions, I did not believe that she loved me. Now after hearing her peception of the events in our marriage, even if she honestly believes what she says, then we have such vastly different perceptions that I did not, and do not see any middle ground. Further, I would much rather divorce now before we do become bitter and angry, for the sake of our son. It makes me sad to see her go through days when she acts friendly and cordial towards me, and then the next day accuses me of breaking up the marriage so that I can date other women, or planning the timing of the divorce so that I can avoid alimony payments, none of which is true.

 

I still care for her, and want to leave the marriage feeling good about our relationship, and her. I have agreed to allow her to literally keep every penny of our very significant personal and retirement savings of the past 8 1/2 years. I will keep our home and my medical practice. After our divorce had been filed, I told her that I literally had nothing to give her for her birthday since she literally owns all our assets other than the house and its contents.

I told her she could take our large screen LCD TV and stand which we bought for 5K less than two months ago.

Yes I am sad to end the marriage. Do I still love her? No I can honestly say that I no longer feel that I love her any longer.