Its Over!

[Jrugby7]

Well its finally over. After months of trying to make it work the decision was made last night. W told me that she can't live with herself when she is around me and she always feels terrible about what she did. So we are calling it quits. Can anyone tell me what i'm in for here? What are the steps of divorce? We don't have kids and i think it will be a rather easy road. I need advice on legal and emotional steps.

 

thanks

[cranium]

Sorry to hear. Don't have much legal advice. On the emotional side, I know you've said you're not taking the Paxil. My C tried me on Zoloft and Remeron; wouldn't recommend either. Try StJohn's Wort or SAMe for depression. Both have been utilized for years in Europe and don't have the side effects of the AD's prescribed like candy here in the states.

 

Hang in there and take care.

Cranium

[Trimmer]

JR:

 

Good luck. Like you, we reached our final decision to divorce just a few nights ago, after my trying to make it work for several months. I had made it clear that I was willing to work together, and I was open to any possibility of mending our relationship. She has made it clear that that can't happen.

 

There's an OM involved who was carefully hidden for a long time and only exposed by my digging near the end, although according to her that's supposedly an independent issue (don't know whether to use a "laugh", "wink", or "scowl" smiley on that one...) as she maintains that she has been feeling this way for a long time now. Wish she had brought me in on that one before it was too late to do anything about it...

 

But for me, emotionally, it feels like a good deal of the burden has lifted. To some degree, I can appreciate that my situation now, instead of being totally up in the air, has a greater degree of certainty to it, and I am back in a position of greater control over my life and my future. I don't mean this as sour grapes, though. I will honestly say that, right up to the end, I would still have preferred to work it out and keep our lives together, but although I had already been working on accepting the possibility of divorcing, I have now accepted its inevitability. Up to now, it has been agonizing knowing that it might happen, now it's just kind of peacefully sad accepting that it will.

 

I'm doing some individual counseling, and I really think it helps. I can't really point to specific "progress", but it's a safe place to let it all out, and I'm sure I would be more bottled up and tied in knots if I didn't have that emotional release. In one of your earlier posts you said you were doing MC - have you thought about doing some individual counseling? I don't know whether using the same counselor (as for your MC) would be good (because they would know your "backstory") or maybe you'd want to start with a new one, since you are really starting out in a whole new direction.

 

Over the past week, as a result of our "official" decision to divorce, my perspective has shifted a lot. I have gone from anguished, angry, frustrated, etc... (all born of the uncertainty and lack of control I felt) to this kind of calm sadness, with a growing hint of hope for the future. I'm sure the rollercoaster will continue, and I'll have worse days than this, but I also believe - I know - that more and more of them will be better as well. I wish the same for you.

 

On the legal side, you can go see a lawyer for an initial consultation. I did this just to educate myself as to the process, which seems pretty straightforward. It was worth it for me as a learning experience, and to know what to expect. Since we expect an amicable parting (that always sounds cheerier than I think it should...), we will mutually "petition" the court for a divorce (as opposed to one person filing and serving papers, etc...) Unlike you, we have kids, and although the devil is in the details, we are already in basic agreement about the overall custody and property settlement situations. If I still trust one thing about her (and this may be the only thing, at the moment ), it is that she has the same desire I do to avoid turning this into a messy circus, and I don't see any motivation or personality tendencies on either side to anticipate things turning nasty. But I'm sure a lot of divorcing couples start out feeling this way, so I am maintaing a kind of an alert flexibility.

 

I have never been a big one for signatures on my posts, but I find myself saying the same thing in several of my posts over the last few days, so I think I'll use it as a sig... Good luck and let me know if any of this resonates with you, JR.