[Ready2Transform]

Big hugs, AL. It is not up to any of us here what you choose to do. You are the one who must live your own life with honesty and dignity, and even though we can give you our perspective, there is no "right" or "wrong" that we can give you on how to handle it. It's all "wrong", but not because of anything YOU have done! The unfairness of it all is always a heartbreak.

I clung to the "it's HIS divorce" and let mine file back in 2012, and that put me at a financial and emotional disadvantage. In hindsight, I wish I had made this less of a moral decision and more about what affected my own personal physical, emotional, and logical needs, and counted less on the MLC ever being rational or coming to some sort of self-awareness that me into consideration. He never has. But that is a sample of one, as your situation may allow you to act differently. I encourage you though to make your decisions on what is long-term best for you and your kids. I don't think we can rush healing, but I do think we can slow it down by letting others drive the car for too long. I hope things feel better for you soon.

[beyondblessed]

AL, you have just had the rug pulled from beneath you, without any warning.  While you have been dealing with this since October, that amount of time is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the undoing of an M.  And, add to that the emotions that keep swirling.  It is difficult to get a grasp on anything because nothing is stable and nothing is settled.  Grief is no linear.  It ebbs and flows, just like every other emotion.

As far as everyone telling you it is HIS D,  well, of course he started it, but that does not mean he's the only one who can finish it, unless that is what you want for yourself.

[MadLuv]

First I want you look st your SIL differently. I am sure she is more thsn happy your husband is making mistakes. She has felt like a failure alone for a while now. It’s not anything against you, but more that she is glad not to be on the sinking ship alone.

Also, only October is not long. It took me 2 years to start to feel I would survive this all. It’s hard to detach when they are attached. Personally I don’t think I saw anything clearly until I went no contact.  So, dont be hard on yourself. You have a lot of healing to do and processing trauma and loss while they are still around adding to it, well it’s almost impossible

[Treasur]

I agree so much with what Ready said. Some people may say that and some times in some situations for some people that may be what is best for them. Some wait it out hoping it will all go away. Some find a way to live beside it. Some have spouses who talk about going but don’t actually go. Some make peace with a kind of virtual marriage but absent spouse. Some feel that they have a covenant regardless of legalities. It really isn’t a one size fits all, even if the trauma and pain of it are shared by most LBS.

But you are not some people; you are you. And that’s ok. In fact it’s more than ok - imho the more ‘like ourselves’ we can be in the middle of such trauma, the better it probably is. Bc this kind of behaviour from a spouse is deeply discombobulating and throws most of us ‘off’ for quite a while.

I think most of us - in our own way - reach a point when we want peace more than we want the rollercoaster. And so we work out what peace means for us individually in a set of circumstances we did not choose to be in. And that’s ok.

There are also plenty of LBS here who wished they had filed earlier to step off the rollercoaster earlier. There are plenty here who had to file bc they were facing financial meltdown if they didn’t.

What seems to be quite common though is, regardless of who files, it ends up being the LBS who does the hard adulting stuff involved in legally and practically unravelling a marriage. Bc, well, MLCers are not great at adulting, are they? If they were, they probably wouldn’t be MLCers. I’m not alone here I’m sure in finding that, although my xh filed (well, he WAS engaged to be married after all lol, poor chap!), he dragged his feet at almost every stage and was invisible when it came to almost all of the practicalities. Which tbh at the time felt bewildering and like extra salt in the wound. It made me doubt/hope/don my magic mind reading hat/feel quite angry…..now I just think that they don’t do adult and assume we will bc we usually always did to some degree, and they find it tedious or uncomfortable compared to their fantasy new life fix so they usually avoid it. So I’m not sure who files matters nearly as much as it feels like it matters, if that makes sense…most LBS end up doing the heavy lifting of finishing what the MLCer started. And most of us look on with some bewilderment when the MLCer is then seemingly a bit shocked by the entirely predictable effects of their own choices lol.

The core truth - and it took me a couple of years tbh to get this  - is that the marriage I had died at BD. Truthfully it probably had been killed off before BD unbeknownst to me. I did not lose anything in the legal process that I had not already lost. But what I gained was a ticket off his rollercoaster….it freed me of obligations and some of the uncertainty that affected all of the big stuff of life.

So you do you. You do what is best for you in impossibly hard circumstances and phooey to anyone who thinks they know better.

Have you had a conversation with a lawyer yet about some of the practicalities involved? What did they suggest you should do and not do?

[amazinglove]

So we've agreed we are moving towards divorce. and I've told his mom - she asked me what was going on and I didn't want to lie - he said i was fine. which means we are REALLY moving there.

here's my thing. I am crying silently upstairs and taking walks so kids don't see me and he is SINGING all day downstairs. He is giddy, he is over the moon, he is like hyped-up. It really hurts to see this. I mean, it's horrible. Like he's so excited to start a new life and so happy he will be rid of me.

Today i said to him. oh i liked your singing! you good? (i said it nicely not sarcastically) and he said, well every day is one day closer.....to our trip to Antalya. But I'm not stupid enough to believe that that's all he's talking about.

I mean, if I hadn't lost enough dignity already - having to watch him overjoyed is pushing me over the edge! (not really, but it sucks)

Anyone else experienced this? Hopefully with a tail end coda that is something like - and then he crashed down to earth and I was the one singing bc. my life was great!

[WHY]

The signing theme has come up a lot before.  I experienced the same thing.  Just block it out and try not to read too much into.   Their minds are off in fantasyland.  It has little to do with you.   

[amazinglove]

Really? There's a singing theme/pattern? I am FASCINATED by this because in my life, I have never, ever heard him sing so much. EVER.