One more question, someone told me its going to take 3 years before you finally feel normal again, stop questioning yourself and your actions and feel like you have truly moved on in your life... is this true?
Not to be a Debbie downer, but depends on the person. I know guys who have moved on in a year or so but for me it's been over 3 and I still don't feel "normal". I'd think 2-4 is close to average though.
YMMV.
The Following User Says Thank You to DownhillGoat For This Useful Post:
One more question, someone told me its going to take 3 years before you finally feel normal again, stop questioning yourself and your actions and feel like you have truly moved on in your life... is this true?
Yes it does depend on the person, but from personal experience try not to let that happen, it's destructive and time wasted. This is your life now and though it's not what you wanted you have to make the best of it. Don't spend time looking back or thinking what if, life is too short. I would wait a year, go through all those hard holidays/anniversaries before thinking about getting into another serious relationship or anything, but I really regret all the time I wasted after my divorce, being sad/angry about it.
One piece of advice from what I've seen in divorces - sell the house on the market. Don't "guess" as to what the value is - it's almost always overinflated and you'll pay way too much for your share. Let the market decide what it's worth.
That and you'll be able to move on with a new place. Nothing like a big empty place to remind you of the old days.
Yeah, dwelling on the past is hard to move away from, but it will just bum you out.
Look at it like moving on from a job or quitting smoking. Look at the positives you now have, the changes in your life you can make, and just know that there are plenty of new opportunities/people out there to fill that void. There are things out there that may even bring you more joy than you previously had. The hardest part about change is getting out of your comfort zone; once you beat that, it gets much, much easier and life changes for the better.
Also, you are in a position that many people would love to have -a fresh slate and a new chapter. That's definitely something to get excited over!
The Following User Says Thank You to Ozy_Flame For This Useful Post:
Do the agreement with separate independent legal advice. This can still be done amicably and with dignity. Without the ILA, the agreement would not be worth much.
You can do an uncontested divorce later, with or without a lawyer.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to troutman For This Useful Post:
I hate to bump an old thread, but after 6.5 years of marriage and nearly 12 years together Mrs. Decided to pack up and walk out on me.I wouldn’t wish these feelings on my worst enemy, and I feel for everyone in this thread I am sure can relate to the frustrations and concerns and uncertainty that the other guys like Kunkstyle and CrazyCaper have felt. All I can say is thank god I didn’t have any kids to be pulled into the middle of my mess…
It’s been 6 months now since she left, and there is no chance of reconciliation, she says she doesn’t love me anymore, our place is holding her back, and she doesn’t want kids and never will (something that I do want eventually but have been in no rush to have).So far… touch wood… she has been very amicable regarding assets and our place etc. and both of us are interested in avoiding lawyer bills or court cases In order to split the sheets so to speak. And I just want to be fair, I know it takes two and I cant blame her for everything or be vindictive.
There has been some discussion on here about no fault divorces and doing things like writing a separation agreement yourself instead of getting a lawyer, and also this 400$ option for assistance in filling out the necessary documents. Has anyone ever done these themselves? And where do you start to find out about these options? I have already talked to the bank and I think I can assume our mortgage and make it work with one income but it’s going to be tight when you consider a payout for her share of the property and assets equity. One thing I gleaned from this thread is try and make my arrangements faster and sooner than later while there might be some guilt in her still for not trying to work it out, as it seems the longer it takes the more she is going to feel entitled to and the more it’s going to cost me financially and emotionally.
Any advice is much appreciated!
Yes, you can do this very economically if you both cooperate and make your respective legal counsels cooperate as well. When my ex and I went through this, her lawyer quickly discerned that we were being fairly adult about it all and gave her a raft of information and worksheets for us to complete. His advice was to do as much sorting out as we could on our own and not incur legal bills for routine stuff that two adults should be able to sort out on their own. Fairly quickly (a couple months) we had a agreement to sign off and I needed to get my own lawyer because the same lawyer can't act for both parties.
That's when the real fighting started because the lawyer I hired immediately start slamming the deal and jacking up the rhetoric about one thing being unacceptable and the next thing being outrageous, we need to write letters and make demands, etc. (have to pump up those billable hours, you see).
Once I made it clear that I fully understood the terms and what I was signing off on she, reluctantly, got on board and the agreement was presented to the court. Done deal. Even though going through the process there were times I wanted to break furniture and strike people with it, it was a far better outcome than 98% of the divorces I have personal knowledge of.
See a lawyer first and have them explain the steps of the process to you. Then commit the decisions and agreements with your ex to paper as you go. You don't have to sort it all out in a day or two. Get the easy stuff down on paper and get the process rolling. It will tend to make the bigger issues easier to deal with if there is a track record of previous agreements, demonstrations of reasonableness and desire to resolve things without acrimony. My 2 cents.
__________________
'Bieber definitely merits $1M per show' - sun
The Following User Says Thank You to Free Ben Hur! For This Useful Post:
I always saw getting over my divorce like quitting smoking, in the beginning I was reminded daily of the divorce, over time as I rebuilt my life, replaced things, dated etc the reminders became far less until they pretty much disappeared after three or four years. A lot of it was practical, get rid of shared stuff quickly, get the legal part done as soon as you can, now that said it's been 14 years, I saw my ex last night at a mutual friends play, wasn't expecting her to be there and it was still weird to be honest. Said hi, she had her fella, I was with my fiancée.
I get on ok with my ex not friends but not enemies, don't miss her at all, have a better life by far now, my regrets these days are that I couldn't give my daughter a stable family, as a child of divorce myself that hurt me a lot, and also, ironically, that we didn't end sooner, it was a grimly bad marriage and my kid and I had a way better life after the separation.
You can both get collaborative family lawyers. And specify that you want to be collaborative. There's also collaborative mediators, but if you're getting along then you probably don't need a mediator.
I (personally) think it's one of those "you get what you pay for" kind of things. Go to a more reputable collaborative family lawyer, who may have a pricey hourly rate, but you'll get better advice from them and that will save you money in the long run.
Very sorry to hear this. My sister-in-law (my wife's sister) went through this a year and a half ago when her husband cheated, had a massive change in personality, walked out, etc. It absolutely shattered her. Emotionally, financially, the whole bit. I wasn't sure that she'd ever recover from it enough to have another relationship.
It took about a year for her, with the help of counseling, but I think that she's slowly getting to know a guy at her office, and he seems like a stand-up sort of guy. The family hasn't met him yet, but I think that will be soon. I wouldn't have imagined this a year ago, and not even 8 months ago.
My only advice would be to seek help whenever you need it. Make sure that you are taken care of - emotionally, legally, physically. After seeing how shattered my sister-in-law was, I really gained a new understanding for how things can really spiral downward. Everyone is going to handle it differently, so just be honest with yourself and don't be afraid to talk about it and to ask for help when you need it.
The Following User Says Thank You to Jimmy Stang For This Useful Post:
Thanks for the Support guys! yes, if it wasn't for good friends I don't know where I would be right now, I was in a pretty dark place for the first while, didn't know what I did wrong or how I was going to even function alone anymore, the nights were even more difficult because you cant sleep and all you do is run the past through your head constantly trying to replay everything out and see what went wrong and when...
Counselling really did help me get my head right at least, and I have had a lot more good days then bad especially lately. The part I am focusing on now is really keeping my acreage which I work really hard to build, and fix up, and invest my life in, and to try and wrap up the financial part as painlessly and as quickly as possible so I know if I can start to make plans for the future again or not.
From what I am hearing, you get what you pay for, and despite hearing that there are quick and cheap ways of doing things like the separation agreements, its important to get legal advice to fill out legal documents and contracts...
Really sorry to hear this - no one should have to go through this. I went through something similar with my first wife - 9 years of marriage then she wanted out, hit me like a ton of bricks. We separated for 6 months, reconciled for a while but then were both ready to call it quits. Same as you we had no kids, which is a huge silver lining at least.
I hired a lawyer but he was a real prick and wanted to take her to the cleaners, rubbing his hands about her government pension. I just wanted to be done with it so fired him and we ended up sharing the same lawyer. Not sure if that's the smartest move or not but it worked ok - we didn't have many assets to fight over and were generally amicable.
I started dating someone a month after - boy was that a mistake and we called it off pretty quickly. A year later we picked it up again and married a couple of years later. So give yourself a year minimum just to be with yourself, even then it does take longer to fully get over it.
Get a good divorce lawyer, then listen to him/her. Some #### is worth fighting for, most isn't, my wife insisted on keeping my canoe just to piss me off ( she drove a celica and had never canoed in her life) as I was about to go to 'over my dead body' my lawyer lent over and pointed out how many new canoes arguing over it would cost. I let her keep the thing, she then tried to sell it back to me a year later, told her I wouldn't want it if it was the last boat in the world and the flood was rising.
My bottom line was joint custody and half the house, no alimony (as opposed to child support which I paid), other than that I took nothing really.
The Following User Says Thank You to afc wimbledon For This Useful Post:
I hired a lawyer but he was a real prick and wanted to take her to the cleaners, rubbing his hands about her government pension. I just wanted to be done with it so fired him and we ended up sharing the same lawyer. Not sure if that's the smartest move or not but it worked ok - we didn't have many assets to fight over and were generally amicable.
I'm not sure what the shared lawyer was doing for both of you, but that could be highly inappropriate (conflicts of interest).
