Being told " I don't love you anymore"

[xjay1337]

I think what he said is true for the most part and is a good starting place for most people who are going through a divorce.

[zygalski]

stuttgartmetal said:

Cut up her credit cards
The first advice she'll get is to run those right up.
Close joint bank account.
Get control of finances
Get a hold of any financial papers,bank statements and stash them where she can't get them.
Tell your boss, and make sure they know it's in confidence.
Find a solicitor.
Look on wiki orcs dot com
All the answers are on there.
They'll be a bloke somewhere, you haven't looked hard enough.
Birds are tree swingers.
Don't let go of one branch until they've grabbed another
Sort a flat out somewhere
Get your house valued and on the market
Get that sorted now
Forget double garages
That's five years away.
Take the initiative
Control the things you can control
Youve not even started yet
Hold on to the rails
It all gets a bit disorientating
You'll get through it

You may just have to get a rented gaffe and force the house sale when the kids are 18
Whatever.
It's over, move on.

Why on earth did she leave you?

[stuttgartmetal]

olly22n said:

stuttgartmetal said:

Cut up her credit cards - don't do this. By all means keep a close eye on it. Remember its joint debt.
The first advice she'll get is to run those right up - she won't, probably
Close joint bank account. Nope. Massivley antagonistic. Monitor.
Get control of finances. Yes, but talk to her first.
Get a hold of any financial papers,bank statements and stash them where she can't get them. Just take copies
Tell your boss, and make sure they know it's in confidence. Yes, do this. You will need your boss on your side.
Find a solicitor. This too. but don't go firing any rockets. You will need to know how the land lies and exactly what could happen.
Look on wiki orcs dot com. Trust your solicitor
All the answers are on there. Hmm.
They'll be a bloke somewhere, you haven't looked hard enough. This maybe true, but it doesn't actually matter. My ex-wife didn't have someone else, and it still hurt and still cost me the same.
Birds are tree swingers.
Don't let go of one branch until they've grabbed another
Sort a flat out somewhere. Not yet, house will take ages to sell. Stay put and save as much 'rainy-day' cash as you can. You WILL need it.
Get your house valued and on the market. Not yet.

>SNIP<

It's over, move on. No. Accept its over first. You won't move on for a while yet.

My take on things.

Pick and choose what you want to do, but if you start playing dirty, or using fighting talk, then so will she.

I split out (read - my) assets into half, gave her half and £10k. Told her that was more than fair (she had to house my daughter, don't forget that) and said no legal fights.

She took it.

Thank god. I would rather she had it than the lawyers.

Good luck.

Sounds like you had an easy time
Well done
I didn't
Went the full way
3 hearings at Family Court Holborn
Cost £35k in fees
My experience doesn't mirror yours

One thing I did learn that was she turned into a person unrecognisable to the person I thought she was
Proper bitter
And I mean bitter
Made it as bad as it possibly could have been
Rottweiler struck off solicitor for legal advice
Tried to evict me and have the keys to the house give back to the bank
Poisoned my daughter with absolute lies
Told her I was going to murder them both. Proper terrified her
Had me nicked for shouting at her and grabbing her dressing gown during an argument
Put in a cell for fifteen hours
That kind of thing.
Unbelievably hostile.
I begged for everything like a mug
Offered everything
Got walked right over
Left with £25k after paying a mortgage for 23 years
So please, don't tell me what a driven wife is capable of

Rule number one
Look after yourself
It must've been nice to have a civilised divorce
Mine was all out war
And she was on the front foot the whole way.
I truly wish I'd had the advice I'd posted there.

Whatever.
It's only an opinion.
The op has choices.
Just write up later how you got on.
I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Just don't get walked on like I did.

[jshell]

To be fair, I've seen it go both ways...

[Pat H]

stuttgartmetal said:

Depressing stuff

I was very lucky with my separation and divorce, which happened after 19 years of marriage.

We had a bloody great house which we had to sell before either of us could move on.

It took about 18 months to get shot of the place. Even then, it was sold at an eye watering loss.

I moved into the spare room and we just soldiered on with the joint account and trusted each other not to go mad with the money.

In the meantime, she started seeing someone else and I found a girlfriend. Somehow, my girlfriend managed to get her head around the fact that I still lived under the same roof as my ex.

Similarly, my ex was pretty tolerant of the whole weird situation.

We agreed a financial separation. She took two thirds of the equity. She needed a bigger house than me, as the kids were going to live with her. Otherwise, we just went our separate ways.

The kids were 15 and 19 at the time, so we agreed that I would pay a weekly allowance directly to them.

I instructed a solicitor to deal with the deed of financial separation and the divorce. My ex-wife didn't bother with a solicitor and trusted me not to rip her off. We actually got divorced while we were still living under the same roof, which was more than a little strange.

Fast forward 18 months and I have bought a house with my girlfriend, complete with a decent sized double garage.

And to cap it all, my girlfriend and my ex-wife get on pretty well and are even friends on the dreaded Facebook.

There have been stressful moments, when everyone's patience was wearing a bit thin, but we were determined to keep it amicable for our collective sanity and for the sake of the kids.

I am under no illusions that we had it very easy indeed, but I thought I ought to post my experiences simply to show that divorce isn't always an emotional train crash.

Fundamentally, my ex and I managed to remain friends despite the fact that we had fallen out of love. I think we both saw the divorce as a necessary avenue to each other's future happiness, so we just made the best of it.

One thing that made it much easier was that we had similarly paid jobs, so there wasn't much to fall out over financially.

By a considerable margin, the hardest part for me was seeing less of the kids.

[Shnozz]

Just thought I would say Pat that story is both sad and heart-warming to read all at the same time. And how it should be when a glacier has formed between two people. Incredible really that its such an anomaly when it comes to takes of separation.

[mr_spock]

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH. I'm still waiting to see a solicitor to see where I am likely to end up, still no paperwork from her but I expect it shortly. Somehow I'm keeping going with work, trying to get out and reconnect with old friends, all that stuff. At least I can accept where we're going, the "how we're getting there" is the worst part.

I think I miss her as a friend most of all. She doesn't want much to do with me, so where I'd normally call or text her, there's a blank hole. Just the "how's your day" chit-chat, relaxing in front of the TV, all that kind of stuff. Ah well, I just have to find some way of being comfortable inside my own head.

[stewies_minion]

You certainly do need to find a way to cut her out / off.

Much as it's incredibly difficult you've got to rattle through it and get rid. She's no longer someone who is bothered about your day and to an extent wellbeing.

The kids bit will be the hardest. Sorry. Think of them and smile if you can.

Hope it goes ok.

[Ari]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That was a week ago. Spit it out man.

[andy-xr]

mr_spock said:

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

Do you think there might be a chance they already know? In some cases, the kids would rather have 2 people separated and happy than 1 family unit pulling in different directions, and the resentment and anger that they get swept up in. No doubt they'll have seen some kind of change, you cant hide that completely.

If it helps, a family friend went through it recently and they're both much better off and share responsibility for the kids. They needed to draw the line for each of them, and they both found the awkwardness of what you're supposed to (and not supposed to) do anymore more by chance than by setting down a list of 'this is OK, this isnt's

See how you go, remember to look after yourself as best you can.

[GreatGranny]

mr_spock said:

, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

My sister and her ex. had the same feeling when they were about to tell my 2 nieces that they were separating. They were 12 & 14.
They cried and shouted and did all the things you would expect but they got over it, pretty quickly as it happened.
Things settled down and it helped that they agreed on how the childcare etc.. would be sorted.

There was no arguing on the doorstep, abusive phone calls, poisoning kids against a parent etc..

But be strong when it comes to sorting stuff out.
Don't be a walkover.

[Johnniem]

May I? Thanks...

I had an affair twenty years ago (she is now my wife and we are celebrating our 14th anniversary at the end of this month). I was not proud of our actions but there it is. Her husband bit back in a serious manner but he used the cro-magnon arguments in court that most idiots use when they have been cuckolded, are devoid of common sense and have solicitors promising them the world! I.e. that he paid the mortgage and she didnt work when she had the two kids, (ignoring that she used £80k's worth of inheritance to bail the family out when he was out of work and couldn't pay the mortgage! Remember when there was 14% interest rates on mortgages?).

She sensibly took details of the house that they owned. A three bed semi in the burbs. There were two kids, so a bedroom each.

The judge saw the details and couldn't believe that they were in court arguing over the property.

Needless to say she got the house and he paid the debts. This may seem harsh (it was to him) but the courts will always consider the position of the kids rather than the parents.

Had they lived in a massive mansion then she would have had to sell and split some of the proceeds but never such that the kids didn't have a reasonable house in which to live.

To those going through the same, be aware that if kids are involved then kids get priority over who did what to whom and what a bh she is.

Just saying....

[julian64]

andy-xr said:

mr_spock said:

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

Do you think there might be a chance they already know? In some cases, the kids would rather have 2 people separated and happy than 1 family unit pulling in different directions, and the resentment and anger that they get swept up in. [\quote]

This is what adults say to each other to justify their own desires. For a child, probably right the way up to teenage years they will not appreciate you are splitting up for the eventual good.

This sort of understanding from a child is only seen in slushy American day time films, not real life. At best the children will want to please you by not disagreeing.

[RobinOakapple]

olly22n said:

julian64 said:

andy-xr said:

mr_spock said:

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

Do you think there might be a chance they already know? In some cases, the kids would rather have 2 people separated and happy than 1 family unit pulling in different directions, and the resentment and anger that they get swept up in.

This is what adults say to each other to justify their own desires. For a child, probably right the way up to teenage years they will not appreciate you are splitting up for the eventual good.

This sort of understanding from a child is only seen in slushy American day time films, not real life. At best the children will want to please you by not disagreeing.

Oh do fk off julian.

Pratty response, especially considering he's right. Not in every case, but most of them.

[julian64]

RobinOakapple said:

olly22n said:

julian64 said:

andy-xr said:

mr_spock said:

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

Do you think there might be a chance they already know? In some cases, the kids would rather have 2 people separated and happy than 1 family unit pulling in different directions, and the resentment and anger that they get swept up in.

This is what adults say to each other to justify their own desires. For a child, probably right the way up to teenage years they will not appreciate you are splitting up for the eventual good.

This sort of understanding from a child is only seen in slushy American day time films, not real life. At best the children will want to please you by not disagreeing.

Oh do fk off julian.

Pratty response, especially considering he's right. Not in every case, but most of them.

Its a typical response to hearing something you don't want to hear unfortunately. People who say the child is better off with the parents apart are usually the parents who want to be apart.

I'm not suggesting people who don't love each other should stay together for the sake of the children. That is a decision every couple with children have to make individually, but they need to understand they make that decision for themselves. In twenty years I've never met a child who wanted their parents to split, arguments or no arguments. Later on as children grow into adults the feeling are rationalised and a different interpretation is put on them looking back.

Probably that's why judges and social workers, in fact anyone with any involvement with the children tend to put them first, because the parents are rarely objective, even when they think they are.

[andy-xr]

My wife's family was pulled apart when she was 2 and again when she was 17. At 2, her natural father left and she was at an age where she probably didnt really know he existed. At 14, when her Mum and step Dad were constantly arguing she knew something wasnt right, so by 17 she'd had 3 years of it.
They stayed together until she went to Uni. She's said, and had long chats with her Mum about it, that she'd rather have seen them going their own way in life if they couldnt make it work together. We still meet up with/talk to/have involvement with dad and step dad.

For some people, I get that they just cant make it work. It's not really where I'd aim at personally, but if my wife and I ever split up/divorced, it probably wouldnt be through my choice. I'm the sort of person who wants to work through any problems, I'd look at my parents who at times had blazing rows with each other, but they always sorted it out. I can appreciate that you need 2 willing parties to do that.

So, in answer to the original reply, I do think it's possible that kids can see and understand what's going on, and they can come to accept it.

[danllama]

Similarly to Andy-xr's wife above, my bio father left when I was only 1. Then my step dad and mum split when I was 14 after he had an affair. My step dad and mum also had two daughters together, and he'd always been my Dad basically, so he was still on the scene when my mum passed away just a year and a half later.

It was horrible when they split up, and some hard conversations were had, but do you know what? The last year of my mum's life she was living it to the full and all the happier for it. So yes, looking back I am glad they split up, because she was able to live happily for her last year with us. I don't think I could have forgiven my step dad if they'd stuck it out and her last years on earth were miserable. Don't get me wrong, I was internally very angry at him for a long time but retrospect is a wonderful thing. Now the whole family are closer than ever most of the time. Any one of us could be gone tomorrow, so why waste time dragging each other down?

I hope that's some food for thought.

[stuttgartmetal]

If one half of a marriage want out, it'll happen.
Unreasonable behaviour can become a feeble as he liked farting in bed
Blame is irrelevant, barring a couple of things, one interestingly enough being having an affair using the marital bed.
Children always come first
Women generally do well if the kids are under 18

It's just how it goes.

[mikefacel]

stuttgartmetal said:

If one half of a marriage want out, it'll happen.
Unreasonable behaviour can become a feeble as he liked farting in bed
Blame is irrelevant, barring a couple of things, one interestingly enough being having an affair using the marital bed.
Children always come first
Women generally do well if the kids are under 18

It's just how it goes.

Indeed, but it doesn't HAVE to (I have the kids and stayed in the marital home, and am a bloke).

mr_spock, you said initially that she agreed to you staying at home with the kids. Why was that? It would be unusual for a woman to allow it, so she must have had a reason - a reason that you could potentially use to keep the kids/house or at least get 50-50.

On the kids and divorce, I very strongly recommend buying 2 copies of this book, giving one to your ex, and following it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-No-Big-Deal-Really/dp...

[WinstonWolf]

julian64 said:

RobinOakapple said:

olly22n said:

julian64 said:

andy-xr said:

mr_spock said:

I thought I'd pop back with an update. Things are still strained, she wants to tell the kids this weekend. I'm dreading it TBH.

Do you think there might be a chance they already know? In some cases, the kids would rather have 2 people separated and happy than 1 family unit pulling in different directions, and the resentment and anger that they get swept up in.

This is what adults say to each other to justify their own desires. For a child, probably right the way up to teenage years they will not appreciate you are splitting up for the eventual good.

This sort of understanding from a child is only seen in slushy American day time films, not real life. At best the children will want to please you by not disagreeing.

Oh do fk off julian.

Pratty response, especially considering he's right. Not in every case, but most of them.

Its a typical response to hearing something you don't want to hear unfortunately. People who say the child is better off with the parents apart are usually the parents who want to be apart.

I'm not suggesting people who don't love each other should stay together for the sake of the children. That is a decision every couple with children have to make individually, but they need to understand they make that decision for themselves. In twenty years I've never met a child who wanted their parents to split, arguments or no arguments. Later on as children grow into adults the feeling are rationalised and a different interpretation is put on them looking back.

Probably that's why judges and social workers, in fact anyone with any involvement with the children tend to put them first, because the parents are rarely objective, even when they think they are.

You should meet my kids then, they're fantastically adjusted and have absolutely no hang ups about their mum and I splitting up.

My parents split acrimoniously, that's a whole different ball game...