Another one here whose spouse filed and then dragged their feet at every stage much as UM describes. While blaming me, of course. It was all rather surreal.
It does feel like rubbing salt in the wound, doesn’t it? Why do they do that? My best guess is based on an old book by Erica Jong that talks about the idea of a ‘zipless f**k’….i think for our spouses, it’s about a ‘zipless divorce’. Something that is already real in their head bc they have mentally declared themselves as no longer married so to them it’s kind of already true? And bc a real divorce process comes with quite a lot of adult practical stuff that is uncomfortable, costly and difficult. I can’t mind read MLCers ha ha, but I suppose the one thing we do know about the kind of folks who do this is that they are given to avoidance and don’t seem to much like adulting…..so the idea of an easy ‘zipless divorce’ where they don’t have to do much and the magic happy just shows up fits that mindset, doesn’t it? And their fury or resentment if/when the world turns out not to work that way.
There are a lot of LBS here - me included - who ended up having to work quite hard to finalise a divorce that they never imagined wanting. Looking back, I think I did that bc, just as you say, the limbo had exhausted me. I was ready to accept my losses and be done with the process. None of it was what I wanted or ever imagined happening in my life, but I knew when I had reached a point when I just wanted it behind me not in front of me if that makes sense.
Looking back, I think we LBS stay in limbo - understandably - rather more bc of our own mindset, hopes and deep sense of shock than might always be comfortable to admit. I think our MLC spouses simply don’t feel that same sense of limbo….we are playing catch up really. If you feel in limbo, and if it has become too much to live with, I think the feeling of limbo ends when you decide to end it even if there are practical things left hanging in the air. Perhaps it is even as strange and as simple as our own version of mentally divorcing ourselves from then….that we too stop thinking of ourselves as married, idk.
T: 18 M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.
"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg