In PA there is a 90-day waiting period when filing an uncontested divorce before it takes effect. That does not bother me. (It's now over). What really annoys the crap out of me is that after the 90 days, the divorce still does not take effect until a judge rubber-stamps it and that takes typically about five or six weeks. (That's the period I'm in now). The legal waiting period is not a problem, but the waiting a random period for some bureaucrat to process it seriously is. This is important to me.
Related, God I wish she would try marriage counseling, or give me another chance. She always hid how bad it was for her until she gave up entirely. I still love her and I miss her so much.
I've got to get over that though. It's selfish. There's never been a hint that she misses me; I think she's happier now. I think that has a lot to do with her neat new apartment instead of our ugly old fixer-upper house.
A couple of friends of mine went through a do-it-yourself, no-fault divorce about two and a half years ago. They asked me to sit in and mediate. It didn't take nearly as long as yours is.
ReplyDeleteIn their case, they'd been married nearly ten years, and it was the guy that walked out without being willing to go through counseling. He told me that the whole marriage was a shell from the beginning--that he hadn't wanted to marry the girl, but that she'd pushed him into it, and he'd gone along with it. He said he'd tried to make it work, but it wasn't, and it wouldn't. A lot of it was his resentment of her--for his decisions, and for her pressure to commit--but it still hurt her immensely.
She's remarried, to a guy that's pressured her into changing her religion, her hobbies, her job, and is trying to change her personality. She's going along with it because she thinks her first husband left because she didn't change to suit him.
It's not healthy. I want you to promise me to not do the same, when you get back into the market. You're a great guy as you are, and any woman who does not see that is not worth your time and effort.
Thank you so much, Heroditus! I was just thinking, when and since I wrote this post, how I am totally not emotionally ready to find someone else. I really want to look, but it's partly because I'm lonely and partly because I'm seeking validation. And I catch myself really wanting to find another her; until I'm over that I'm not ready.
ReplyDeleteYour story is really sad; I'm sorry for your friend. Everybody has to adapt in some details, but first you find someone who likes you as you are, not as they imagine you could be. I promise not to find someone and try to deeply change to suit them. There are things about myself that my wife didn't like that I want to change; like I'm kind of a slob; but I want to change them now, while I'm still alone, for myself, not for her or anyone else.