Divorce! Well this sucks.

[SirAndrewD]

I know I'd mentioned in other threads I'm going through a divorce. 

It was, actually really big thing for me, and still is.  It's been not as ugly as some have gone through I suppose but it's had its downs.

Anyone that knows me knows how much my wife was part of my identity. 

I wasn't going to do a full topic on this but I got messaged by another esteemed Grog and friend going through the same if we could possibly start a thread about this. 

I won't call him out but I expect he'll be posting toot sweet.

Anyway, I'll share a bit more but yeah, I spent the week in Orlando.  My paperwork was final in Feb.  Moving out finally on Monday.  Don't judge me but I think I have a girlfriend now..

[al_infierno]

Don't judge me but I think I have a girlfriend now..

Good for you man.  I don't see how anyone could possibly judge.  Moving on with your life is obviously the healthy thing to do.

[SirAndrewD]

Good for you man.  I don't see how anyone could possibly judge.  Moving on with your life is obviously the healthy thing to do.

Well, it's wild because I'm still in mourning, I mean, I lost my life.

But it's also exciting, because I met this woman randomly, while weirdly going out with one of my old professors that led nowhere, and it was wild chemistry and felt healthy. 

It's been a painful process and I am still trying to get through it.  My ex and I will always be friends, even though she made it harder than it needed to be.

I think we have a lot of support for each other on this subject, I know some of us have  been here before.  And as I say, I think a couple of other members who reached out to me might chime in here. 

We can get through this together, like Napoleon's old Guard got through Water....

Wait...

Ooops

[al_infierno]

Honestly that sounds like a best case scenario to me.  I haven't been married but regular old breakups are rough enough without someone to fall back on or remaining on good terms with the ex.

[jamus34]

No judgement but just try to be clear with the new flavor what you went through and know that you are not in a good (head)space right now.

Thankfully I've never had to go through the personal hell that is a divorce but I've seen many people who have. In the very best case it's a business transaction, cold and formal. Most of the time it is ugly.

Good luck man!

[Jarhead0331]

I went through a divorce circa 2011.

Mine wasn't nearly as bad as others. My ex and I had only been married for 4 years at the time, but overall it had been a 10 year relationship. A relationship that I knew was wrong from the start. She was more like my best friend and I got pressured by her and her family to commit to marriage. We didn't have kids and didn't have much assets to fight over.

I mourned for two weeks, then got back online, started dating, having a blast, and met my present wife who is one in a million. We now have two kids and a wonderful life overall.

Sometimes, you need to take a step back in order to take a couple of leaps forward. I believe everything happens for a reason and you will be better off for going through this. When you broke the news, you sounded disappointed and uncertain about the future, but positive overall and confident that you and your wife would remain close. When I saw the Ewok in the avatar, I suspected all might not be settled in your soul. Give it time brother. You're through the worst part. Making this thread was a good idea.

[Gusington]

Who could ever judge another person's divorce? It's no one's business but your own.

I have been with my wife for 25 years (!!!!) and we have a pretty healthy relationship.

That said, I learned everything a person should NOT do from my own parents, who divorced when I was in college. It f'd up my younger sister pretty badly, but I seemed to have escaped pretty unscathed. My parents should never have been married in the first place. But that's a whole other ball of wax.

Do you have kids Andrew?

[ArizonaTank]

I divorced more than 20 years ago. Under the circumstances, it would have been very easy to spin off into tit-for-tat confrontation. But I decided that for me, moving on and making a clean break was more important than scoring points. 

I found that frequent, very long walks, and doing whatever I could to reduce confrontation and stress really helped. We used a lawyer as a mediator for example. 

I was able to move on pretty quickly. I dated for a while, and the fact that I had moved on really helped. I found that prospective partners (including myself) just really don't want to get seriously involved with people who have too much baggage (emotional or otherwise) from their previous marriage. For example, the poor lady whose ex was a control-freak, and who kept showing up to pick up "something he forgot" from his gun collection, just didn't sit well with me.

Eventually I found a really great woman, who was also divorced, but who had made a good, clean break. I married her 18 years ago and have been very happy ever since.

It did suck for a while...but in the end, I am much happier and in a better place.

[Sir Slash]

One divorce and multiple co-habitation break-ups. Some got personal, some didn't. It's always better to leave the personal, bitter, get-back-at acts off as it'll just poison your look on life and carry-over into relationships down the line. Plus, nothing screws with their heads like ignoring their provocations.    The life ahead can be every bit as happy and fun as was the one with an Ex in the beginning and this isn't just words. I would do all of them over again, with all the pain and trouble, to get where I am today in a heartbeat. You just have to get to that happy place and that starts with getting at peace with yourself, accepting the present chapter of this part of your life is over, but the next, even greater, happier chapter has begun.  :D  Dealing with the pain is the hard part, don't deny you have it, embrace it and that's the first part to getting-over it. And, don't do it alone. Talk to people about it, friends, family, a Priest or Pastor if you have one. DON'T try booze or drugs to deal with the pain, that leads to more pain later. Afterward, payback the help that gets you through by helping others just beginning to go through it themselves. Divorce IS survivable and can even be an improvement for both of you in time. My 2 cents.

[SirAndrewD]

No kids thankfully. 

The only custody fight was for the cats, and we walked away on that one with me taking one to her 2, which is logical since I'm going to a new place. 

Yeah, I'm taking it slow with this new lady.  I kinda don't want to, ha, but she seems to be on first few impressions quite the catch. 

One of the hardest things for me has been my grudging acceptance that the marriage really had to end.  I think we'd both been deluding ourselves for a long time about our feelings and the simple fact that I'm not pining for the woman I was married to for 15 years and am already taking interest in another with the ink only a month dry is telling. 

I have a feeling that in a year this will look like an easy one compared to others.  She did TRY to make it hard at points mainly due to family pressure (her parents and therapist wanted her to take me to the cleaners even though it was a no-fault and we live in an ED state) but ended up seeing reason at the end.  There was an incident of infidelity in her past and to be honest neither one of  us wanted that in the record.

I'm moving in the stages of grief to acceptance, and now starting to get into the hopeful phase.  I'm excited to get my own place and start using that VR helmet Jarhead convinced me to buy for its true best purpose, dirty movies.

[Gusington]

^Ha that last line there is the most telling. BTW divorce is not a requirement for the dirty movies in VR...as far as I know.

[SirAndrewD]

^Ha that last line there is the most telling. BTW divorce is not a requirement for the dirty movies in VR...as far as I know.

Well, my VR setup is in a public space in our house. 

Now I'll have the space all to myself.  8)

[Gusington]

'SirAndrewD' unleashed

[Toonces]

I'm not ready to share at the moment, but I will at some point.  This thread has already been extremely helpful.

Thanks for doing this, SirAndrewD.

[Con]

My sister is divorcing her Husband of 25 years.  I am really missing him - we have a backdoor channel/burner phones so we can still talk!
Have to have plausible deniability while she is in her bitter all men are scum phase
Con