Update re: divorce status

Things were rough--really rough--for a while.  We are still living in the same house while trying to separate our lives.  It is not easy.  But we are both too stubborn to move out.  I have my reasons, he has his.  Both of us are right.  Both of us are wrong.  As in the rest of our marriage, there is no easy way to resolve the conflict.  So here we both stay.  In separate rooms.  Trying to be civil to each other.  Both wishing the other would just leave already.

He is going to buy the house and pay me for my part of the equity.  Despite a too-low appraisal, we have finally agreed on an amount that he will pay to me for me to sign the house over to him.  Once the cash-out refi/sale closes, I can use my part of the equity money for a down payment to buy a new house.  He thinks I should move out immediately and permanently because he is buying the house.  I think he should move out temporarily while I pack my stuff and prepare to move, both so that I have easy access and time to pack and because all the bills are in my name and I don't think he can afford to pay them all, and I can't afford to rent somewhere else to live and also pay toward his living expenses here.  He could, for example, move into his mom's or his friend's spare bedroom, probably cheaply or for free.  I would have to rent an apartment.

But things are a little better lately.  We almost have all of the terms of the consent decree worked out.  We are coparenting reasonably effectively, as always.  And finally, he is able to talk to me about issues without assuming that (as a lawyer who used to do divorce law) I am automatically trying to screw him over at every turn.  He seems to have finally accepted that I am actually trying to be fair to both of us, but that we might occasionally disagree about what is "fair."

He also seems to have finally understood that he, too, will have the potential for far greater happiness than he has had in recent years after the divorce is final.

Progress.  I am so happy for it!

Trump's Election Caused My Divorce

I told my husband that I wanted a divorce back in October.  I asked if he would like to go to a mediator to try to settle all the issues and then file a consent decree, instead of litigating everything in court. He refused to talk about it and refused to even talk about when he might be willing to talk about it, saying, "this is a bad time" and  "maybe after the holidays."

Truth be told, I might've deferred to my soon-to-be-ex-husband's desire to wait until January to discuss divorce, but for Trump's election.... See, I knew that I wasn't going to change my mind, so waiting seemed a little pointless. But I typically like to try to make others happy, so I waited a couple of weeks....

...until, on November 8, the unthinkable happened:  Trump got elected.

I am a hardcore hippie liberal who supported Sanders in the primary.  My soon-to-be-ex-husband is a Republican.

I can't stand Trump.  Policies aside, he seemed to me to be a racist, misogynistic, power-hungry, bullying narcissist with a tendency to overreact to perceived slights and with no experience, little knowledge, and no interest in learning anything about foreign policy.  In short, completely unqualified to be President, and a jerk besides.  I am terrified that he will start a global nuclear war in reaction to some perceived insult from a foreign leader.

My soon-to-be-ex-husband liked him. During the primary season, as we were arguing about Trump, I told him that if Trump got elected, I'd divorce him. I was kind of serious even then.  I have a hard time understanding how we have drifted so far apart in our core values.  He seemed to admire Trump's blustering, bullying, assaholic ways.  I noticed more and more that the things I dislike most about my soon-to-be-ex-husband are traits that he shares with Trump...

I never thought it would happen.  But it did. They announced that Trump had won the election.

And suddenly, I felt that I had to be divorced, ASAP.

See, I can deal with a certain amount of sadness in my life.  I can take a sorry excuse for a marriage if the world outside my home is tolerable.  I can take an intolerable president (Bush, for example), if my home life and mariage are tolerable.  But when both are intolerable, I can't take it.

When my marriage first really became intolerable, part way through Bush's second term, I got very depressed.  I was barely functional and many days would not have gotten out of bed except that I had kids to care for.  I never want to feel that way again.

Then Obama got elected, life was cheerier in general, and I became much more functional and less depressed, though still unhappy in my marriage.

But when we elected the narcissstic orange man as POTUS, despair set in.  I cannot take four to eight years of both my home life and the world at large sucking.  I would likely kill myself from despair if forced to endure both.

I can't control who is president, but I can damn sure control whether I'm married or not.

So, two days after the election, I filed for divorce.

It's not really fair to say Trump "caused" my divorce.  I would have ended up divorced eventually.  But his election was the precipitating event.

I want to be happily divorced for at least some amount of time before the nuclear holocaust begins.

Divorcing this narcissist will be hell on steroids...

No one gets married thinking they will get divorced.

Well, maybe some people do, but then they are fools.

But let me give you some free advice:  Before you get married, think about how a divorce would go, if it were to come to that, sometime in the distant future.  And then don't marry anyone who you would not want to have to try to divorce.

I knew from the beginning that my then-boyfriend could be mean and vindictive if he felt he had been "wronged."  I watched him treat others badly and seek petty revenge when he felt they had treated him badly.

But I was in love, and so was he, and at the time, we were nice to each other.  He was fun to be with, creative, smart, funny, adventurous, romantic...  We both thought we would be friends forever, regardless of what else might happen between us.

We were wrong.

We have tried marriage counseling.  It helped, marginally, for a while.  The counselor would tell us both things that we should work on to improve our relationship.  But instead of taking the counselor's advice and applying it to himself, my husband too often used it as a weapon against me, as in "The doctor said you are supposed to ____" or "are not supposed to ___" -- all the while, not working on the issues the counselor had asked him to work on.  He wouldn't take seriously the "couples exercises" the counselor assigned -- the ones in the book designed to build trust and understanding.  He would say they were "silly" or "goofy" and he didn't want to do them.  If I pushed the point, he would give short or flip answers to the questions asked.  I gave up.

Eventually, I gave up on the marriage. I got tired of giving and not feeling appreciated or loved.  The constant criticism is just too much to bear. I guess a part of me felt like, if he was going to criticize constantly, he might as well have something to criticize.

At this point, we are not friends, and we are not lovers.  There is open hostility, snide remarks made in front of the kids, and a complete lack of communication about many issues.  It is time to end this marriage.

It is not good for me.  It is not good for him.  It cannot possibly be good for the kids.

And yet I dread it, because I know he will be manipulative, vindictive, and downright mean.  He thinks I have treated him badly.  I think he is wrong, but it doesn't matter what I think.  I know what is coming.

I have assisted so many others through this process.  I have seen the damage a manipulative, vindictive, and mean person, with the "right" ("wrong?") lawyer, can inflict on a soon-to-be-ex-spouse, on the kids, on the family as a whole.

I do not want my kids to be in this crossfire.

But the only way through to the other side, to peace and the potential for real happiness, is a divorce.