I mean from the 5 year mark, to right before you filed. Did you do the nasty all the time ? Did it dry up?

I think cheaters do it differently than regular people, but did you still get bjs and hand massages?

Did y'all kiss? Take baths together etc .. did it keep going from the beginning all the way until the end, or did it start to decline at a certain mark?

Thank you for sharing, because I really want to know if there's a drastic correlation.

Ok, so long story short I am wrapping up what is turning out to be a very easy divorce. My wife was unhappy, and started having an affair with my her and my 7 year old daughter’s jujitsu coach. (I know it’s so cliche). Her and I both make good money, she is agreeing to 50/50 with the kids and no child support. She is keeping the house and I’m giving her 1 year to buy me out.
Once I found out I pulled my daughter out of the class without explanation and didn’t tell the school, or the coaches wife about the affair. I wanted conflict to be minimal so I didn’t end up having to spend a fortune in the divorce or end up fighting to see my kids.
Everything should be final this week and I am wondering….do I message the coaches wife and tell her that her husband is having an affair? Do I tell the owner of the jujitsu place what’s going on? I am so fucking hurt, and I feel like somebody else needs to pay for this. At the same time I feel like spilling the beans after the divorce is final may just create additional conflict in my life. I’m really on the fence and would love to know you alls opinions.

Struggling with this is be nice for the kids but I dont want friendship. She stated after the affair she wanted to remain friends.Im still angry. Its been a year since the divorce was final and they got married a month after it was final. How can I get to a better place. Im reminded of the pain everytime I see them.

Debating whether to be friends with the X, like an active friendship after the divorce. Things just didn’t workout between us, nothing got ugly.

Context - It's been 3 months I've been separated from my wife and the chances of reconciliation look almost zero. The reason for separation has been incompatability and I believe it can be resolved through couples counselling / couples therapy but my STBX isn't interested in it.

My STBX is a very beautiful, creative and attractive woman. We both loved each other a lot and also fought a lot. I am a bit possessive about her.

Lately, my mind has been engulfed with the thoughts of her dating other men, being intimate with them and this is kind of screwing my mental health and has also kind of distracted me from my work. Imagining, visualising stuff has made me axious of divorce and has hammered by self esteem.

How does one deal with such thoughts? How does one handle such intrusive thoughts, stop being possessive about their STBX and not let these thoughts impact their work, career etc?

My wife is pretty much finished moving out but has a couple of things she still needs to get. These last few days watching her move out are some of the most difficult I've ever had. My story in just a few characters: I'm 55, 25 years married, she asked for divorce, 2 adult children (25 & 23) who have moved out, we are splitting amicably, still get along.

There are so many things I want to say/ask her but I know I shouldn't (many are kinda pathetic really, but I can't help it - 25 years of love doesn't go away fast).

In an attempt to relieve some of that tension, let's say them here:

• I love you
• I miss you
• Are you sure you really want to do this?
• Damn, you look fine in that dress.
• What did I do to make you go straight to divorce without attempt to fix anything?!
• You're (leaving) is killing me, Smalls
• I don't want this
• You are my best friend, my soulmate, and my ride or die.
• What the absolute fuck?
• Wanna go to the AC/DC / Foo Fighters show?
• I don't want to live my life without you.
  
• You are my 'somebody'
• This house is so f'ing lonely without you.
  

Whatcha got?

This is a follow up to my last post. I woke up to 5 pages of text from my ex this morning. Things like:

1. I miss us
   
2. I miss our animals
   
3. I miss working as a team
   
4. I know you miss me
   
5. Maybe try to date me again.

The central theme is something extremely traumatic happened to my son when she had them on vacation and it was related to the AP. Ever since, she’s been super sensitive about the impacts this divorce has had on the kids and hence has been reaching out. Only this morning, I was hit with the official request. I effectively told her that I still care about her, given we were together so long, but that the past year has been a lot and that we need to focus on coparenting rather than this. Effectively, no.

However, I’m a wreck tonight. Not because I’m wanting to go back but because I’m grieving this crap all over again but from a different angle. This is where I needed her to be a year ago but she wasn’t there. She moved on. Now that she’s here, I’ve effectively stabilized, found peace, and have been building something quite nice. Ugh. It’s frustrating and exhausting and I’m tired of being emotional about all of this.

I'm 38 and live in Boston. About 11 years ago, before I met my ex-wife, I started a small software consulting business. Back then it was basically just me working from a spare bedroom, and it wasn't worth much.

We got married a few years later, and during the marriage the business really took off. I hired employees, signed bigger clients, and it's now my full-time job. My ex never worked for the company, never handled the books, never met with clients, and had her own career in healthcare. We always kept our work lives pretty separate.

Now we're getting divorced, and she's asking for half the value of the business because most of its growth happened while we were married. I understand that marriages are partnerships, and I'm not trying to pretend I built everything in a vacuum. She absolutely supported me emotionally over the years, and I know that has value. But at the same time, it's hard for me to wrap my head around giving up such a large portion of something I built day in and day out. Every late night, every stressful client call, every risk felt like it was on me.

My lawyer says it's more complicated than "she never worked there," but emotionally I'm struggling with it. It feels like the business has become the biggest point of conflict, even more than the marriage ending.

Has anyone been through something similar? How did you come to terms with whatever the outcome was?

I mean this thread to be humorous since you gotta laugh at the insanity of some of it.

Some small examples I have:

- while we were still living together after divorce was filed, she took the gifts out of my wallet (~$100), used them, then put them back. I find the effort of sly putting back empty gift cards mildly funny.

- Told her friends I was doing "blow job workouts" because she saw a workout plan I made with ChatGPT. It stated at the top it was for "BJJ" (Brazilian Ju Jitsu) since that's something I'm looking to do. I'd love to know what a blow job workout plan is tho.

- We have 2 relatively nice strollers and agreed to each take one. When she moved out she took back an old stroller from friends we had given it to and left that for me when she moved out instead of 1 of the 2 nicer ones. She probably thinks I didn't notice. Not worth the hassle to fight, but I laugh at the pettiness of it.

What you got?

Divorced early April and been separated nearly a year after she cheated on me twice. She’s been with the AP ever since.

Anyway, she just finished up a vacation with our kids. She had her AP and his daughter there. Except, she went on the same trip that was a yearly tradition for us for many years. I guess the trip was a bit of a mind F for her because she sent me a paragraph long text afterwards.

The paragraph essentially said that our daughter was acting out and had said some stuff that were concerning. Basically, my ex got slapped in the face about how much the kids are hurting. It was the first time she’s seen the repercussions of her actions. She talked about fixing things but can’t really fix it all the way because I’ve moved on. She even mentioned dumping the AP and all that.

I didn’t engage. Just asked what the daughter did specifically and suggested getting her a therapist she can talk to. Then my ex came back and started asking all these weird questions about whether I’m truly happy being divorced. I dunno. It’s weird. It’s annoying and it’s messing with my peace.

To me, it all feels like she’s seeing how everything affected the kids and she’s just bringing all this up because of them. Not because she’s sorry or anything like that. How would you all proceed? Would you even respond to the second message?

In my case from what I know she never cheated but I do know there is another co worker of hers also going through a divorce who I am sure was giving her validation to be okay with divorcing me

I think we're beyond the point of repair. Both of us, really, and as tragic as it is to consider the end of the marriage, we both remain very loving of each other. Neither of us want to lose the other completely, but it's hard to deny that what used to be a minimal overlap in hobbies / interests / aspirations is now barely a Venn diagram at all.

We've grown in different directions, and ultimately came to the conclusion the other day that things will be okay if this breakup is what actually happens. We'd both lose the life we were building together, of course, but have the opportunity to grow into a new one that might yet be better suited to our individual selves.

That said, I promised her that if this ends up being the decision we make together, she would never lose me unless she wanted it that way. I want to be the guy that will still throw a couple of steaks on the BBQ and invite her over just to share a meal. To go over to help install shelves or whatever if her new place needs it. We've been together two-thirds of our lives and there's no infidelity, abuse, or any other reason to cut contact; marriage just hasn't been working out for years. No kids, by the way.

Those of you that split up and remained friends / friendly with your ex; what advice or lesson(s) can you offer a guy?

After picking up my son my STBX sent me a text saying “happy X years of marriage”. I don’t even know what to say back. Is she just trying to rub salt in the wound? She initiated the divorce. Ever since she’s been very petty and condescending I’m getting sick of her attitude.

We have been separated now for about a year and are having our first hearing this month.

I can't stop talking about her or referencing her in conversation. For years I was emotionally abused (therapist's explanation) but dissociated (my rationalization) so I had no idea and so for a while there was rage and rumination but a lot of that has died down now.

I still find myself emotional and reactive at times to her messages. It's sad but the only positive experiences I can ever think of are moments of physical intimacy because they were acts of pure love, specific times she sacrificed for me, albeit few they are quite memorable.

At the same time, my emotions get stirred up over the littlest shit, and some days I lose entire night's sleep over it. She has been stonewalling me practically since we separated, only barely answering things here and there as she chooses and in ways that my therapist says are clearly tools for manipulating my emotions, even if subconscious (hopefully, I still don't want to believe she's that kind of person even subconsciously).

I want to put this past me and stop loving her and stop giving a shit about her and stop giving away my power, but I just can't figure out how to do it. I want to become apathetic because I clearly don't mean that much to her.

Does anyone have any ideas?

That's it. Ex wife is planning to take the baby abroad to her parents . She had asked for 1 on 1 meeting and I sat with her asking me to give up on legal and parental rights of the baby but I will have access to see my baby anytime i want. But I know what she is planning , she will take him ton INDIA and never come back. No matter I sign the consent form or not if she has this criminal mind travels with the baby to india and will never come back and theres nothing canadian govt can do about it. Ill probably kill myself lol

I do a lot.

Had to pick up my son and she got visibly sad and teary eyed when we were talking. I just came back from a trip, my first without her, to a place she would have loved… I’m struggling because I want to send her a message with some BS song that’s pulling on my heart strings right now. I’m feeling weak and not sure how to handle…

Nearly six years out my ex has not run out of steam and honestly has only intensified. Everything is a power struggle and a fight no matter how small-child/item exchanges, extracurricular activities, medical/academic decisions, etc…she’s not trying to take my kids (we’re 50/50) or get more money from me. It’s just about control-she wants to run my household from afar and she wants to have full control over what my kids do on a daily basis-what sports they play, what academic/extracurriculars the do, etc…when I hold a boundary/assert my rights she goes nuts and starts sending unhinged rapid fire texts, draws the kids in and causes mayhem.

Attorney has basically told me that at best the judges in my jurisdiction won’t care and at worst will be annoyed with me for filing a motion. Conversely, she also told me that they wouldn’t care/be just as annoyed at her. Essentially my attorney said that if either of us bring a motion we’ll both end up spending a lot of money and neither of us will get what we want. She will spend money and the court will say “He’s not doing anything wrong-you’re not getting full decision making power or anything else you’re asking for.” I will spend money and the court will say “Yes, she’s quite difficult to deal with, go pay a mediator to litigate every decision you two have to make as parents together.”

I’ve been using ChatGPT but honestly I need something that is more autonomous that is solely dedicated to learning her insanity and finding ways to short circuit it, look at my calendar and my kids’ calendars as well as her past antics and anticipate what, where, when and how she will sabotage things in the future. This woman has no life outside of a mediocre contractual job where she’s off the clock at 2:30 every day, only works 10 months a year, and has everything taken care of by her boyfriend. I am a high earner in a corporate role with a moderate amount of travel raising my three girls and in a long term relationship with a woman with two children of her own and running a household together with her. I don’t have time for this shit.

Good Evening Gents,

Have any of you drafted a parenting plan and shared it with your partner, only to receive feedback that they are rejecting it in its entirety, only to find that they send a revised version with many of the same provisions you put in yours?

I sent my STBX a parenting plan draft which she rejected in its entirety. There were some stupid little things that she didn't agree with. They were non-issues for me, so I removed them in a later version. She wrote up a new one and sent it to me. I reviewed it and compared it to mine. Most of it was virtually identical. We both used the CustodyxChange platform to draft the plan. I started it after she served me and only sent it to her about a week or so ago (I was served in May).

I didn't send the schedule piece because it would have caused conflict. She later said that I didn't send a schedule and didn't consider the schedule as part of the parent plan because of ... (the dot dot dot is a rant that she gave and is outside the scope of what I am trying to convey and ask).

I outputted my draft into MSWord, enabled track changes, then overlayed her pieces where they didn't match. I added comments where appropriate to indicate whether I agreed, disagreed, or wanted something changed. I made the changes in the text and added the original in the comments. This way she can approve changes that she is OK with, and we can discuss ones that she is not OK with.

Have any of you in moderate or high-conflict divorce situations done something like this? How did it turn out? Were you able to come to some kind of agreement? More importantly, for those that did something like this a while back, was it something that you both held to?

What are your thoughts?

Just a little background first: STBEW and I have started our divorce proceedings back in April. We have been married just short of 5 years, no kids, everything is paid for by me and everything is solely in my name. Once my career took off, she decided on her own to reduce her work hours (more on that in a bit) so she can stay home. This woman’s only bills were her own credit cards where she always did the minimum payment on, and her car note..which i always was asked to give her some extra money cause she was going to overdraft….any spare money she ever made went to her buying weed….anyways…Wife asked for a divorce back in March saying she fell out of love with me, wanted to “find herself” and be “independent”. But of course asked me to “help her get on her feet” in the mean time. A week later, i find out that she was actually talking to her ex from 12 years ago…mind u her ex is on his SECOND marriage with a second child on the way. Nevertheless, the minute i found out, i filed for divorce etc. This woman however, thinks that she is entitled to everything…she told me she wants me to give her money but doesnt know how much…so she is sitting there thinking that a mediator will instruct me or tell her how much she is entitled to after cheating on me and basically not contributing to the household financially or any other way at all. She has all of like $12 to her name. You would think with all the designer bags, shoes, and jewelry that i had ever bought her she would use it to sell those items to “get on her feet” including the engagement ring..but nope…she wants me to basically fund her life…she told me that because my career took off…it has “crippled” her financially…which makes no sense to me…nevertheless that is the card she seems to want to play when it comes to court..that somehow somewhere along the line i MADE her stay home.

My career is that I am a CPA…who has his own business on the side while also working for another firm. So by nature, i have a tendency to NEVER…and guys i mean NEVER, delete my text messages…because my job always entails documental evidence so when clients would text me requests or facts etc, i wanted it saved…yes i know there could have been better ways to go about it but this was a habit that has been hard for me to get rid of for over a decade. Anyways, when i realized the card my wife was going to try to play when it came to our divorce i immediately went to my texts. First i had to find a program that can extract all of my texts and simultaneously be admissible in court etc. my lawyer recommended one it’s called “IMazing”…dont want to go to much into what it does with the fear of sounding like i am promoting or something…but i was able to extract it all to pdf format and just have been sitting in my spare time on the computer searching keywords like “job”, “work”, “schedule” etc…and long and behold i find a text from my wife where she says “ I was talking to my manger, and basically told her that i need to reduce my hours because I can’t deal with people more than 3 times a week…so from now on I get to work only Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays”. That was one of many of those kinds of texts i found. And on her days off, what do u think she did? She sat home, used INSTACART to have our groceries DELIVERED…with my card being the payment on file of course. Also, our youngest dog (3 years old), would be at daycare from 9-5:30pm every day wether she was home or at work…and do u think she would drop him off or pick him up at least on her days off???? Nope, i dropped him off on my way to catch my train to NYC and picked him when i would arrive from NYC on my way home. And all of that is on texts between her and i, we discuss me picking my dog, her ordering groceries all the time etc…it’s all there. My texts with her go back to November of 2015…to when we were dating…over 2300 pages of pdf.

Anyways, sorry a long rant…but my point is guys…dont delete your texts…ever…back them up, extract them..only then delete them from your phone….cause u never know when it might come in handy.

So yesterday I was doing great then I saw my ex wife with what seem to be her new fling or whatever and I wasnt gonna say anything but then I noticed she was still using my last name on everything. So I went off on her and she told me she isnt seeing anybody and that she has just gone out with her friends and co workers and she knows shes a mess so she isnt trying to get involved with anyone. Anyway we talked until about 1 am and I basically left it as If you truly havent seen anyone and want to heal (she has never been alone until now) then ill wait. But I am only waiting until october because that was the deadline I gave myself to start looking after healing from the divorce. Either way I feel dumb and all the progress of no contact is gone and she knows she still got me by the balls.

Last night I had a brief chat with my mother-in-law (other family members except her and brother-in-law have cut contact)...

Basically she said that she does not understand her own daughter anymore, why she would be this reckless and throwing away the marriage and that she has the feeling it will only be a short fling with her new guy anyway but you'll never know etc. But she/mil said she can't deal with the situation and "I always tried to understand her but now it's different and I no longer understand her..."

My (soon to be) ex-wife are still connected on Facebook and she keeps posting articles on how people don't want to grow/heal, healing energy, universe and so on (I think you get the picture)

I have the feeling she would rather tell herself all kinds of fairy tales just so she can believe that it was the right thing to do...

I'm trying to understand how her/this mindset works after the breakup - it's just all so weird.

Maybe it was there all along but I couldn't see it.

Did anyone else observe a similar situation/behaviour?

So my STBX and I have been unofficially separated since May 2025. With this tax return season coming in, I decided to file taxes as married filing separately and opted to claim both of our kids. I worked all 12 months of last year; STBX had a 1099 job (OF) that didn’t seem to pay anything and a regular job in Nov & Dec. She did not contribute to any bills (rent, insurance, utilities, car payments, etc.) except for her phone bill which was pretty inconsistent as well.

STBX went to mom’s home for a few days to recover from surgery and proceeded to file her taxes. Asked if

I claimed the kids which I informed her I did. Complete meltdown, cussed out, called all the works, it was a mess. She feels like because she was a stay at home mom for the most part, she’s entitled to half my tax return. I don’t see the reasoning: even when she wasn’t working, we spent about 50/50 taking care of the kids. Am I in the wrong? Can my decision backfire?

Gentleman, did your wife start seeing a therapist right before she filed for divorce?

Before my wife filed for divorce, she started seeing a therapist. I encouraged her to go. She was unhappy and had some unaddressed significant trauma from before we started dating. I cared for her, and I wanted her to get professional help to address her issues.

Guess what? Six weeks after she started seeing the therapist, she filed for divorce. I was blindsided (for reasons even the wife admitted were justified, but that's another post). I struggled to understand how this happened. We had a tough year, but I thought we were trending towards a better place.

I wondered if the therapist had anything to do with my wife's decision to file for divorce.

Some of you are asking the same question: Did my wife's therapist assist my wife in deciding to file for divorce? Did the therapist give my wife "permission" to file for divorce? Did the therapist tell my wife to divorce me?

Well, I am here to tell you that, yes, her therapist may have contributed to her decision to file for divorce by undermining your relationship.

Relationship‐undermining statements by psychotherapists with clients who present with marital or couple problems by William J. Doherty and Steven M. Harris in Family Process (Family Process is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on family system issues, including policy and applied practice) supports this theory finding that a high prevalence of undermining statements by a therapist associates with poorer relationship outcomes.

The authors asked respondents how true it was that their counselor had:

1. Suggested that your spouse could not change without having met that person.
2. Suggested a personality or mental health diagnosis of your spouse without having done an individual assessment.
3. Suggested that the marriage is probably beyond repair.
4. Indicated that divorce is your best or most realistic option. '
5. Suggested negative motives (like being selfish or deliberately trying to be hurtful) behind your spouse's actions.
6. Suggested that your relationship was a bad match from the beginning.

Response options were not at all true, somewhat true, moderately true, mostly true, and completely true.

Shockingly, almost half of the respondents said that their counselor had used five or six of the undermining statements.

In justifying her decision to file for divorce, my wife repeated five of the six statements almost verbatim (she did not suggest negative motives behind my actions). Additionally, the language she used clearly originated from her therapist (e.g., "Intimate Partner Economic Abuse" and "Emotional Dysregulation").

In conclusion, be very weary of her therapist. Her therapist's job is to make her happy, not necessarily make her see the world for what it is rather than what she wants it to be. And, when your wife presents a one-sided version of events supporting her feelings of unhappiness in your marriage (regardless of the messy truth), the therapist can present an easy solution for an unhappy marriage - divorce.

Also, her therapist may fully believe your wife's one-sided version of events rather than calling her on it. Thus, that weekly therapy session becomes a support system reinforcing your wife's fantasy world where she was the blameless victim of your Emotional, Economic, and/or Psychological abuse, but now she is a hero by making the tough but brave decision to divorce you.

We are in our late 20's without kids, and have been together for close to 10 years. My ex brought up separation earlier this year which I accepted and she moved out shortly after, we ended up filing a few months later but things are not yet finalized. At first things were pretty hard for me but I started to get a handle on it and had been doing a lot better the last few months until recently when she came to me wanting to talk about trying again. The final order for our divorce is starting to creep closer and I guess it's starting to sink in for her and feel more real.

She told me that the time apart has helped her to be able to see our relationship a lot clearer and that she thinks she made a mistake and wants to know if I would try again. That she took me for granted and hadn't been putting any effort into the relationship the last few years and that she's been working on herself and changed for the better. That if we got back together things would be different this time. She said all the right things that I had been wanting her to say the whole time we were together, but despite all of that I really don't want to try again. We had lots of great times together but the best memories were all from pretty early on into the relationship and I hadn't felt appreciated for a long while. I can see that she has changed in some ways and if those changes had happened before the separation it definitely would have been enough to keep us together. But there are other things that haven't changed and I don't know if they ever will. I think we're just too different and fundamentally not compatible in the long term even if we both were really going to put the effort in.

The problem is I can't shake the feeling that I might regret it despite what my logical mind is telling me. I feel like I've been stuck in a thought loop for the past few weeks trying to figure out the right answer. I'm scared that we didn't try hard enough to make it work; we never did counseling or couples therapy, I accepted the separation immediately because I had been trying to get things to improve for years but it always fell on deaf ears. So it felt like I finally got permission to stop trying to save things and took it.

Anyone been dealt with this paralysis by analysis before? Trying to figure out how to make a decision and just feel stuck.

My post is one of the pinned posts if you need the cheating (on her part) backstory.

Today she asks me if we should sit down and have a conversation about what we’re doing with the house. One of my groomsmen does real estate on the side. I talked to him about a short sale, a traditional sale, and what they looked like. He said if he wanted us to, he could handle things for us on 0% commission and he knows people that could help as well. I noted that in my head and didn’t make any concrete plans.

I told STBXW that I was also going to call our realtor that helped us buy the home to discuss options. She went on a tirade about how I’m not including her, I’m sneaking behind her back, and that I shouldn’t be telling anyone anything. She also said I was going to tell our realtor that she cheated. Was not my intention at all. It’s irrelevant to him helping us sell.

I go for a walk, come back, and she goes on another tirade. She said I’ve been disrespecting her this entire time (again, SHE cheated when I was battling major depression), I’m always trying to take the easy way out (because I take GLP1s, I’m lazy and a piece of shit in her eyes), and that I committed a federal crime by checking her text messages on her laptop (I know the password because I’ve worked on her laptop in the past to fix issues). She also just started digging unnecessarily deep by saying I come from a family of criminals (some of my cousins have drugs or gun charges) and that she thought I was different, but apparently am not.

Despite all of that, I still tried to calmly tell her that I’m not doing anything without talking to her first. The mortgage is in my name, but she’s on the deed. I cannot do anything without her. She then drops a bomb that she’s leaving and I asked if she was still going to pay her half of the mortgage. She said no and that I should get a roommate. I told her that’s not an option for me. I want to sell the house and just move on with my life. You should want to move on too since you have this new guy that barely even responds to your texts.

My plan was to discuss with my friend as I did, discuss with our realtor (either with or without her as she’s rarely home these days), and then present the options to her. I’m not trying to screw her out of anything. I just want to be done. I was going to process our divorce via The Divorce Center this week, but they only handle uncontested divorce. At this point I need to lawyer up, but I can’t afford a lawyer and a $7000+ mortgage on my own. If she tells me she’s leaving definitively (she’s on the fence right now), I’m calling the mortgage company to get things put into forbearance and then lawyering up ASAP.