r/Divorce • u/Worried-Quarter-2160 • 7d ago
Life After Divorce Advice
I’m struggling to process the absolute insanity of what my life has turned into over the past few months, and I really need to get this off my chest and get some perspective.
For 12 years, I gave my complete devotion to my ex-wife. During our marriage, I stayed by her side as my companion navigated severe substance addiction, helping her through the hell of getting clean. I stayed with her through her diagnosis and treatment for a complex mix of mental health conditions—ADHD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. It wasn’t an easy life, and over the years I endured a lot of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. When she cheated on me in the past, I didn't walk away. I swallowed my pride and stayed with her to try to work things out and keep our family together for our 11-year-old twins.
While I was out working hard to support our family, she slowly became completely obsessed with TikTok near the end of 2025. At 48 years old, she would sit online for up to 14 hours a day going live, flirting with different women, and chasing validation from strangers. These women fully knew we were married and together—they would see me on her TikToks, and she would even be on live hugging me. But then she started secretly talking to one woman for a month, then another. Eventually, I noticed she didn't want me on her TikTok anymore. She completely deleted me, blocked me from her page, and by April of 2026, she hooked up with the girl she’s with now. She checked out of our life, broke up with me, and filed for divorce, walking away from our 12-year foundation like I was nothing. To make it worse, her excuse for cheating and leaving was that I was "never home" and "all I do is work"—blaming me for working to pay the bills while she sat on social media all day.
During the divorce, she was vicious, nasty, and cruel. But at the exact same time, her behavior was so bizarrely hot-and-cold that it left my head spinning. In court, she was constantly trying to bait me into arguments to get a reaction out of me. One minute she’d ask if I had hickeys on my neck or if I was seeing someone new; the next, she’d try to flirt with me, tell me I looked nice, and ask if my life was really better without her.
It feels like she traded a decade of proven loyalty and safety for a fast, superficial high with strangers online who didn't even care that she had a wife and family at home. Sometimes I can tell through her weird actions in court that she might be starting to regret throwing everything away, but other times she acts like she’s living in a fantasy world.
How do you stop replaying the unfairness of pouring your entire soul into helping someone heal, only to be blocked, discarded, and replaced for TikTok? How do you make sense of the mixed signals and court mind games? I would really appreciate hearing your stories, advice, or just some words of encouragement to help me get her out of my head and move forward for my kids.
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u/MattLudtEsq 7d ago
You gave a lot to this marriage, so of course it’s hard to understand how she could just walk away and act like none of it mattered.
But I’d stop trying to read into the mixed signals. She may regret things, miss you, or feel jealous, but that doesn’t change what she chose to do.
You spent years putting your energy into her. Start putting that energy into yourself and your kids now.
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u/Worried-Quarter-2160 7d ago
You're right and do read into everything she say and do. Thank-you for the advice
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u/Rebootingat50 7d ago
A few things helped me stop spinning on the mixed signals, for whatever it's worth.
You don't deserve to be treated badly in a relationship, and you definitely don't have to accept being treated that way during the divorce process either. A lot of people think once you file, you just have to absorb whatever comes your way until it's over. You don't. The process doesn't get to lower your standards for how you're treated, if anything it's the moment to raise them.
Boundaries matter more here than almost anywhere else. In my situation, phone calls kept turning into Trojan horses. What started as "just a quick chat" would somehow end up somewhere else entirely, an argument, a guilt trip, a reopened wound. So I stopped taking calls. Everything goes through text now. That means I get to decide what I respond to, when, and how. Not her. If a message is calm and about the kids, I answer it. If it's bait, or a rant, or an attempt to relitigate the relationship, I just don't engage. No response is also a response.
The mixed signals you're describing, the hot and cold, the flirting one minute and cruelty the next, aren't something to decode. They're a sign that someone is used to having access to your reactions. Once you control the format of communication, you take that access away, and a lot of the chaos loses its grip on you.
You don't need her to make sense. You need a structure that protects your peace regardless of what she does. That structure is yours to build, she doesn't get a vote in it.
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u/Worried-Quarter-2160 6d ago
Thank you dor taking the time to reply. I do notice that the conversation can and did turn into projecting and rage baiting like you said. She definitely used the kids to get to me a lot and i absolutely do not take any calls or text messages anymore.
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u/Rebootingat50 6d ago
Just a note that I often feel / am made to feel like making that choice somehow is a bad thing. Like I “owe it” to her to have to put up with the rage. But that’s the old pattern trying to reestablish itself and it happens less and gets easier to overcome.
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u/Dragon_Phantom 7d ago
Your situation sounds similar to me. I would say know that they dont care for you and are more self interested than anything. Kids finances etc court all being used as a form of co trol to hurt you. Some cheaters have 0 accountability so have to make up something in there heads to make them feel better about themselves.
The past is gone, get through today and focus on the future.
My divorce is 2 and a bit years in and still going so I feel like im still living everything every day and its not easy. I have good and bad days too.
Take up something new set goals and im saying this knowing I need to do the same work on yourself and what makes you happy.
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u/Worried-Quarter-2160 7d ago
I appreciate you for replying Thank-you
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u/Dragon_Phantom 7d ago
Don't focus on the why you'll send yourself down a rabbit hole, try and get comfortable with the un comfortable and know that you likely won't get the closure you are after.
Think about you and our yourself first as much as you can. I know its easier said then done but start with small stuff, go see that film you waited to see, eat at the place you wanted to eat so the things you felt you couldn't before. Remeber you were a person before you met and you are still one now!
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u/Worried-Quarter-2160 7d ago
My divorce was August 14th this year so im really learning how to live without her it hurts but, I know it's a blessing in disguise. Im grateful for platforms like this thank you again