[Mitzpah]

I think divorce is coming for me too
I trust that it is all in God's hands and as Covenant for Life says

So, no, nothing good has or will come of this divorce except for the honor and glory that will be the Lord's when he resurrects it from the ashes and replaces it with the beauty of a new restored marriage and of a family made whole once again.

The results for the 2010 census here in Brazil are being publicized in the newspapers and news programs currently and they have detected a considerable rise in divorces I do not like being part of this kind of statistic...

We have divorce in my family and I cannot see any benefits at all, quite the contrary.

I understand the need to sort finances, however, rarely is it beneficial.

I am facing an impoverished future, maybe due to the fact that I didn't pursue a career (I wanted to be at home and take care of the kids, deliberately imploding all my chances by working flexible hours) when I was  young enough. Also due to bad decisions about housing so now we don't have a saleable house. So, it seems, I got the short end of the stick.

I can only depend on God and if He allows me to go through the divorce, so be it.

I stand till death.

[In this for ME]

What's different in a MLC divorce? He was done with me without ever giving us a chance to make changes that might have meet his needs"

This is what royally pi$$ed me off and that is why I would NOT accept the circumstances I found myself in.If this thing is (or was) SUPPOSED to end it needed to end WITHOUT either one of us having someone on the side.
I gave him the divorce; but he found out that didn't end the relationship.

Now I feel at least that this is fair. If we both give this our best shot then I know I can walk away and be at peace ( whether he ends it or I end it) with it without feeling like he replaced me. Or at least tried to.

[TrustingMyHP]

Right after BD and my H moved out, when I was getting "condolence" calls from family and friends, several people said to me, "I know you don't feel this way now, but one day you'll look back and realize this experience (they were assuming H & I would be getting a divorce) is going to make you a better person.  You're going to learn things about yourself you never knew and you're going to become stronger."

It was people who had experienced a divorce (or two!) who told me this, of course.  (Interestingly, almost all of my family and friends who've divorced have been the initiators, not the ones left.)  I'm sure everybody here has heard similar things.

I didn't appreciate hearing that, not when I was so devastated, but, as we all know, this experience (being on your own, GALing, learning new skills and coping strategies for being solely responsible for yourself and maybe children, having the time to reassess your behavior within your marriage, having the time to develop your own interests, etc.) does make you stronger and you do learn things about yourself you didn't know.  Experience is a quick and highly effective, albeit painful, teacher.

And I accept that, even divorce, unwanted as it is by me, will have benefits, too.  Every adversity in life gives us something:  greater compassion, more patience, greater gratitude for the blessings we do have, reassessment of what we're doing with our lives, how we're spending our times, etc.

I truly believe every cloud has a silver lining.  And although I don't want a divorce and hope it doesn't happen, I try to remember there will be benefits, just as there have been positive "gifts" from being left by my H.  The key is how we respond to what happens to us, as we all know. 

I don't want to sound too Pollyanna-ish.  I HATE what's happened to my marriage, but I also have to admit I'm stronger, more self-aware, more honest with myself, more compassionate to others pain, and more self-reliant than I was a year ago.  And I believe that, if the unwanted divorce happens to me, it will have "gifts," too.

If you haven't read sociologist Judith Wallerstein's book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce:  A 25 Year Landmark Study, I recommend it.  Although, be warned, it is depressing reading and may be too much for someone who's new to being a LBS. 

Wallerstein was the first academic to do a study of how divorce affects every member of a family and it's an assessment of the effects done every 5 years on the same families post divorce.  She concluded the effects of divorce are lifelong, traumatizing, and much more damaging to the person left, and to children, than people have previously realized. 

She also concludes there's always a "winner" (usually the person who left) and a "loser" (usually the person who was left) in every divorce.  Like I said, depressing reading, but she has serious scholarship and data to backup her conclusions.  What's most chilling about her research is the deep and lifelong trauma suffered by children whose parents have divorced. 

If it was possible to get an MLCer contemplating leaving his/her family to read just one book, this would be the one I'd chose.  (Wishful thinking, I know!)

Interesting discussion!

TMHP

[honour]

She also concludes there's always a "winner" (usually the person who left) and a "loser" (usually the person who was left) in every divorce.  Like I said, depressing reading, but she has serious scholarship and data to backup her conclusions.  What's most chilling about her research is the deep and lifelong trauma suffered by children whose parents have divorced. 

If it was possible to get an MLCer contemplating leaving his/her family to read just one book, this would be the one I'd chose.  (Wishful thinking, I know!)

Would encouraging a MLCer to read a book that states the leaver is usually the winner really be a good idea?

honour

[StandandDeliver]

It would be interesting to know how they define "leaver" though. For instance I know a lot of people where there was an affair and the betrayed person did the leaving. In fact, it was me who actually kicked my H out after BD - he would be more than happy to have people think that I left him to alleviate his guilt (she didnt want to stay married either type thing) except that I made it clear that he was leaving because he refused to work on the marriage - he was not offering to walk away at any point. So am I the leaver? Or does the fact that I did not want him to have an affair and would have worked to save the marriage if I had known how to make him the leaver (he emotionally left even before he physically left)?

In any case, I am determined to be the winner in all of this even if I end up and remain divorced. I don't know what criteria was used to determine what being a "winner" is. My H will probably always earn more money than me,  but I have a job that I like, that is flexible and I have time with my children who he never sees. Who is the winner in the scenario? I too, can, and probably will go on to have other relationships, even if H never looks back. So I will have my children, my interesting job, a new lover and all my great friends. He might look like a "winner" if you only look at the financials, but I know emotionally that the winner will be me.

[honour]

It would be interesting to know how they define "leaver" though.

That is a good point S&D. I lept in there without thinking it all through.

honour

[TrustingMyHP]

Honour,

I can see how what I wrote sounds a bit strange!

By "winners" she wasn't saying that those who leave their marriage are happier in the short and long run.  As I remember she was saying those who leave marriages do better financially than those left behind, have less difficulties in adjusting to changes brought about by their decision (often because they have another partner in the wings to help with the transition) and, because they made the decision to end the marriage, they have more of a feeling of "control" than those who've been left.  It's been some time since I read the book so I may be fuzzy about the details. 

The overall tone of her book is very sobering, I think particularly for anyone contemplating leaving their marriage.  Because her conclusions are based on solid research they're hard to argue with.  Her data shows that the overall effects of divorce are overwhelmingly negative, that children are deeply, permanently scarred by their parents divorce, and that most people who divorce, both the leavers and those left behind, suffer intense emotional, financial, and physical upheaval that takes many, many years to adjust to and, in all cases for children, never goes away.

I don't think anyone would conclude after having read the book, "Gee divorce sounds like it's going to be the answer to my problems.  I need to do that."

TMHP

[Anjae]

Dear LG, please don’t take offense, but, if I read correctly, you left your first husband suddenly (you do not say if you were on MLC or if something else made you leave).
You also say not everyone should stay married and that you did not wish to still married to your first husband, so, why are you so upset that, after years on end of standing (and, like I said before, I was standing when I come here) I decide to divorce my husband?
It would not be incorrect to say I have a series of reasons, including the type that are accepted by court, to divorce my husband. 
Of course divorce hurts a lot of people. But, in my case, husband’s (still ongoing) MLC hurt a lot of people. And caused financial devastation not only to myself but to my family. My divorce, if to come now, will not hurt anyone nearly has bad as my husband MLC. Actually, I doubt the divorce will hurt anyone. The damage is all  already done.
No, no one wins in a divorce but, sometimes, and depending on circumstances, the divorce can brings us if not to a better life, to similar to the life we’ve had pre spouse MLC.
In my case, not being married anymore it will change my life for the better. No more constant absurd costy court cases, my money (that husband took) returned, no more been attached to someone who is absent. Remember I have a marriage only on paper. It is like being married to a ghost.
Why do you say your divorce from your first husband teach you some lessons but nor for a long while?
Covenant and Mitzpah, I respect your views of marriage as a covenant for life.

Mitzpah, your impoverish future is already my present. And it has been so since husband left. Only way of my future to be a little more bright on that department is to divorce. Actually, the reason why my husband keeps delaying the divorce is because he does not want to pay and give me what is financially mine.

Trusting, Several friends that divorce did not iniciate the divorce but some where the cause for the divorce (they stayed, one had a MLC), in my close family there was only one divorce and I think it was mutual agreement.

Maybe that sociologist Judith Wallerstein, should do a study on the effects done every 5 years to a  LBS… I doubt it would be worst than the effects of the divorce  itself…Anyway, I would say the effects of MLC are “lifelong, traumatizing, and much more damaging to the person left, and to children, than people have previously realized”.

Don’t think it is all rosy and nice after a MLC nor that it is better than a divorce.

No, I don’t think it would be a good idea to encourage a MCLer to read a book where it is said that there is always a “winner” " (usually the person who left) and a “loser” (usually the person who was left) in every divorce.

That would not only make the MCLer to feel even more happy by had left, after all they “won”, but would made a reconciliation quite unpleasant and hard. The “winning” MCLer back with the “looser” LBS.

I  think it would be fare to say, that,  really, my husband has been, so far, the “winner”. He left, got all our money, lives with someone, leads the high life, travels, spends and I’m  left with crumbs. But, wait, I’m not divorced…still, the effects of my husband MLC  have been lifelong devastating and traumatizing. A normal, amicable divorce would had been much less devastating and traumatizing than what I (and many other MCLer LBS) have been through.

So, perhaps, in some MLC cases a divorce is less of a trauma than standing…In my case it would had been. And, if rather than standing I had, right after husband left, seek a divorce (but I thought that was rushing in the wave of very heated emotions), the financial devastation had been much smaller. And the emotional and psychological as well.

[Anjae]

By "winners" she wasn't saying that those who leave their marriage are happier in the short and long run.  As I remember she was saying those who leave marriages do better financially than those left behind, have less difficulties in adjusting to changes brought about by their decision (often because they have another partner in the wings to help with the transition) and, because they made the decision to end the marriage, they have more of a feeling of "control" than those who've been left.  It's been some time since I read the book so I may be fuzzy about the details. 

So, the "crime" pays off! Having a partner in the wing, and so on is, if we go for what she wrote, the better option, because it makes it better for you and you get more money. What a pity I did not thought about that...

I think her research is saying, to someone who was left behind to stick to the marriage. After all she already said that the one who lefts has it better. She pretty much says, well, if you are going to be divorce, make sure you are the one who left.

SD, frankly, I don't really care much for what the one left thinks. My husband tried a kind of aproach after OW1 was no longer in the picture, wanted to date me, I said no. So, guess also makes like you, the one who said not. Also, I've recently wrote him a farewell letter. I just said it was over.

"Or does the fact that I did not want him to have an affair and would have worked to save the marriage if I had known how to make him the leaver (he emotionally left even before he physically left)?"

He, like mine, is the one "left". Not sure if, in the end, mine will be the financial "winner". But I'm the "winner" for sure.

No one "wins" in a divorce, so, a book that uses "winner" and "looser" when talking about divorce is not IMHO using a very good aproach.

[Mitzpah]

AnneJ,

I quite understand!

Mitzpah, your impoverish future is already my present. And it has been so since husband left. Only way of my future to be a little more bright on that department is to divorce. Actually, the reason why my husband keeps delaying the divorce is because he does not want to pay and give me what is financially mine.

I said future but, in reality, it is my present, too!
I suspect that things will be slightly mitigated after a divorce, in financial terms.  It will kind of establish what is my present.

Interesting what TMHP says about it

does make you stronger and you do learn things about yourself you didn't know.  Experience is a quick and highly effective, albeit painful, teacher.

And I accept that, even divorce, unwanted as it is by me, will have benefits, too.  Every adversity in life gives us something:  greater compassion, more patience, greater gratitude for the blessings we do have, reassessment of what we're doing with our lives, how we're spending our times, etc.

I agree that adversity will build character in us, however, divorce itself is not a blessing in disguise.

As a mother who had a child go through life threatening situations (at birth with a heart defect that had to be corrected surgically and later brain cancer), I know that there are valuable lessons to be learnt and they wouldn't have been learnt if my son hadn't faced these risks.

I hate childhood cancer and birth defects with all my being!

I value the lessons learnt and I know I am more compassionate and understanding of other people's pain. It doesn't mean that I consider what we went through a blessing. It was horrible and very painful.