When you got divorced - what were some of the first steps you took?

I In hind site I believe that time does not heal no. But how that time is managed can assist in growth and healing.

I left my car sit in the driveway all night. He would get so annoyed if I didn’t put it in the garage. It felt wonderful!!!

Yes, I moved out.

No, I didn’t know I needed therapy. I processed my feelings later when I went into therapy. I got some accidental therapy when I watched the movei “Shoot the Moon,” which was about the dissolution of a marriage.

I was not friendly with my ex and felt surreal when he was really friendly to me during his father’s funeral, which I attended a couple of years later.

I am so over it. Been married to a good man going on 30 years. Just picked wrong the first time.

I did not move out. He moved down to the basement and overstayed his welcome by months and months. He finally moved out.

I was in counseling long before filing for divorce and stayed with it long after.

I am not friendly with my ex. I am forced to communicate with him; it is always strained and horrible and he is a complete jerk.

I harbor no ill will for my ex-husband. He on the other hand thinks I am out to get him and has not said a civil word to me since the day I filed (except when he wanted something from me). For me the wounds healed all up, for him they are still gaping, infected holes.

@SuperMouse I harbor no ill will for my ex-husband – but you call him a jerk.

@zensky ok, how about I modify my answer to say he constantly acts like a jerk. I honestly have no ill will toward him though his ongoing harassment of my husband, my kids and me, does place him squarely in the jerk category. I wish him no harm, I just want him to stop.

I hear ya.

My husband moved out 14 months ago two weeks after announcing he was going to. I am still pretty upset that he wouldn’t try counseling. In many ways, I am better off not being with an unloving spouse but I get very sad and lonely at times even though I’ve made wonderful new friends. We haven’t started the official divorce process yet but I expect we will in the next few months. It saddens me that my family is not intact any more and that it had come to mean so little to him.

Just reread the question. One of the first steps I took was joining a singles’ walking group two nights after my husband left. And that – as the Poets says – “has made all the difference.”

Wow – has it been 14 months already???

The week my divorce was finalized, I moved out of my brother’s townhouse that I was living in for nine months and moved into a one bedroom apartment that I shared with my two girls (I have half custody of them).

Through the whole process, as heartbroken as I was, I knew that I would eventually get back to feeling good about my life. A large part of that was the summer before my divorce was finalized, I had the same custody/visitation that I would have after the divorce was finalized. The girls and I had a great summer, and those experiences helped me realize that even though my family had changed dramatically, we were still a beautiful family.

I am not friendly with my ex. She destroyed something that was beautiful for no reason, lied throughout the entire divorce, and continues to act like she is morally entitled to the money that, at times, I put my life in dangerous situations to earn. (I realized that she was going to get a decent amount for alimony and accept that for the most part. Her sense of entitlement grates on me though. She thinks the money train is going to continue when I am done with alimony through child support, but she is using the wrong child support calculator. Instead of correcting her, I am going to let her live under the delusion that it will continue. I would like to see her face when she finds out it isn’t.)

I rarely communicate with her, unless something happens with our children, such as getting sick when they are with me, something with their teams (I coach all of their teams) or if I have something I would like to do with them during her time.

I was talking to a psychologist, but I don’t think he helped me get over it too much.

Time has not healed all wounds. I am in a good place, but I reflect on that chapter of my life every now and then. There are always things that remind me of what we had. I wonder why she broke up our family the way she did. The summer before our life fell apart, we celebrated our tenth anniversary, and to me we seemed like a very happy and well balanced family. Six months later she was drinking with our married neighbor until 2AM on a nightly basis, and they ending up having an affair. I still wonder why she never accepted responsibility for her actions, why she continued to lie to me while saying she loved me and wanted to get back together, why she only apologized to me (via text) when I said to her once that she had never said she was sorry. I know that she will never give me a truthful answer; she may not really know why.

I miss my kids when I am not with them, all the little moments, and I still miss the balance that we had in our life.

Life is much more scheduled now. Time flies by faster than ever and there is never enough of it.

I have not been “upset” about my divorce in a while. It happened, I think about things from time to time, and life goes on.

I have met a woman that is such a better human being in every way than my ex. I feel loved, respected and supported in a way that I never was. We communicate about everything. Our sex life is incredible. I am lucky to have met her.

I knew I was completely done in June of 2010, but didn’t feel confident enough to initiate the process. I had tried couples counseling (he just showed up), tried many different ways to work on the marriage, but it really had been over 8 years earlier. It had gotten worse and worse until physical abuse occurred.

We worked in the same department at the same school and where I lived at that time, I had no support system at all- all my friendships were professional, work-related. I refused to allow any drama to drag out in front of our students, so kept everything hidden inside so well that only one person at work had any idea that anything was wrong. On the outside, people think I’m a strong woman, that it is impossible for me to be abused and that I could manage anything—they have no idea.

I knew I needed therapy—only I could get out and get better—and started meeting weekly with a counselor. It took me a year to get my finances in order, buy a vehicle in my own name and build up the confidence I needed. That’s around the time I found Fluther, where I found my support system and sanity. After school was out in 2011, I asked him to move out—that wasn’t an easy task—took him 2 months to get out. I wanted the separation/divorce to be as amiable as possible, so focused on keeping him calm and comfortable. In retrospect, it was probably a waste of energy but then again, it kept things stable for my daughter.

We finally signed the divorce papers June 2012 and I moved out of state with my daughter. Things have been so, so, SO much better here, unbelievably so! I love being away from him, rediscovering myself and being stronger than ever. I’m still re-building, though.

Up until a few months ago, he acted like a martyr and victim, but lately, though, he has been changing, becoming acidic and outwardly cruel- blaming me for every single thing that happened in the marriage. Unfortunately, until my daughter’s 18, he’ll be in the periphery somewhere. My only hope is that she gets through her teen years strong, confident, autonomous and as unaffected by his negativity as humanely possible.

I moved out and took my pets with me – and pretty much nothing else. Oh, and I got a tattoo to celebrate.

I filed for legal separation first to freeze any further possibility of accruing joint debt. My ex was a very manipulative and controlling guy and I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him in the end.
Yes, I went to year of therapy and it was a great and very validating experience.
I stayed in the family home for 10 months until I moved to a new place of my own.

There was no way I could stay in our house, the energy was dead and gone.
Time to move on.
No, I am not friends with my ex, he was abusive and toxic.
He has since moved to Houston TX. for a corporate job the original snake in a suit and I am happy to say I have the entire state of California to myself again. lol

It has been 10 years and I never even think about those miserable days anymore.
Totally healed and never a backwards glance.

I dissolved my first marriage and after the initial shock waves, we stayed friends because we had children. The parental marriage ended only when he died two years ago.

After a year or so, he found a nice woman and had a happy second marriage. Wnen ever there was the smallest event involving our children, he used to drive from NYC to Philly to be involved or watch the event. Then he spent the night in our guest room and shared breakfast.

We made decisions regarding the children jointly.

It made birthdays, graduations, weddings, and even the most minor celebration stress-free for all.

My second husband and his ex-wife had the same arrangement. So, often we had my children, his children, his ex-wife and my ex-husband hanging around. His ex-wife was dating our dentist so he was there too.

I stayed in the apartment so as not to disrupt the kids, who were very young. He got his own apartment within walking distance.

We had counseling before the break-up.

Did you move out and have to find a place with all it entails? I did move out and I was lucky enough to have a relative who wanted someone to rent a house. I think I wanted to get out of ‘that’ space. In hindsight, I should have sought out some legal and financial advice on what was the best thing for me to do. I pretty much packed up my children and took the bare essentials and left the rest. I was on autopilot.

Did you need/seek out counselling? I probably needed it but I didn’t seek it out. I think I was suffering from some sort of guilt that I couldn’t make my marriage work. I withdrew a lot from friends and family apart from my children. I needed some ‘me’ space to regroup.

Did you stay friends/friendly with your ex? No. I initially had high hopes things would be very civilised. It didn’t turn out that way.

Did time heal the wounds? We moved on. I still can’t believe I was married for years to the person I met after we separated and didn’t ‘see’ them. That is still something of a revelation to me. I still have wounds and I am exceedingly wary of any interactions. Sadly, and because of their own interactions with him, my children have also cut him off. That does make me very sad. I understand why they have and I totally get they need to but I worry that in the future those bridges may be hard for both sides to repair (if they ever choose to try).

We stayed together longer than we should have but once the kids were grown I rented a flat and moved out. One of the first things I did was to open my own bank account and ensure I would have no responsibility for future debts accrued on our joint account. I then saw a lawyer. A bad one as it turned out but that is another story.

@flutherother My first family law atty. said to me one day ” I have to get out of family law, it’s killing me.” He literally had a heart attack the very next day!!!!
He survived but I then had to find a new atty. Talk about irony. lol

@Coloma Reminds me of this scene in A Serious Man

The very first day I happened to get a book I’d ordered from Reader’s Digest. It was a hardback, titled “The World’s Greatest Disasters.” I put a chair in front of the door so I could catch a breeze and just read every chance I could (had 3 small kids though.) By the time I finished, at the end of the week, the pain had stopped throbbing so badly.

The next thing I did was rip out the GD dog run that he put in because he thought dog runs were cool. You don’t get a dog, bring him in as part of the family then stick him in a Effen dog run because you think dog runs are “cool.” Idiot.

Then I tore out the back fence so that our yard was about 8 foot wider. I just had to put in a large gate so utility trucks could get in and out because it was actually the easement portion.

All of that involved busting up the concrete that the poles were set in with a sledge hammer. A LOT of hard, physical work.

@Dutchess_III Yes, and cathartic as hell….every swing of that hammer was a Maxwells silver hammer coming down on his head. lol
Subconsciously speaking of course. ;-)

After his final screaming rage in which I locked myself into the bathroom, the next morning I called my sister and my best friend. They came round and we packed up as much as we could and I left. He was fine and demanded a do-yourself-divorce. My settlement would have been almost nothing. Because he is a company bigshot, I borrowed a retainer from my sister and hired a high profile lawyer. My husband couldn’t believe he was served and begged for me to come back for many months. I stuck it out and sued the pants off him. We are pretty much strangers now, but odd, today I cut his hair and we had a nice lunch. He only calls me when he wants a haircut, but by the next time he calls I’ll be long gone out of the country hehe.

@trailsillustrated – are you coming back home??? Just in time for footy season!

@rooeytoo—2 weeks!! yay !

I’ll be waiting for you!!!

I moved out and cancelled the credit cards (all in my name)
I also closed the checking account (opened by me before we got married)