Thanks for the additional replies and insights.
You are a good, kind man with a strong sense of integrity and a great deal of tenderness, and you are mourning as you sort out this sea change.
Thanks norabird. I can say the same for you (except the "man" part of course
).
gypsybird87 - I like the way your father put it. I really don't know how to expect to feel this coming Thursday morning, but either way, I can remind myself that signing that paperwork isn't the end as the end already happened. It just puts the finishing touches on what is already over, and hopefully frees me to focus exclusively on my future.
Caretaker1 - While I wish the circumstances by which we don't have living children were not so, I do know in many ways it is a blessing that I can make a clean break. Even the easiest, cleanest divorces still are far from easy, but I do know how much worse it could have been. I read stories all the time here that absolutely break my heart where the ex continues to inflict wound-after-wound because they can. While I never wanted to be here, I am thankful for how it happened and when it happened. I'm only 35. We didn't hit the 10 year mark. There are no child custody or support issues to work out. I basically gave her nothing in the divorce. I don't know if it's her "need" to make a clean break or guilt, or maybe a mix of both, but she basically was willing to sign anything the lawyer and I wanted. I would go into details, but I'd rather have everything final first. May sound dumb, but I don't want to "jinx' anything. I can say that outside of lawyer fees, I come out of this no worse for wear, financially at least. Hell, my lawyer is a family friend contact who gave me quite a discount. She's charging me a fraction of what she would charge someone off the street, and she's pretty well known in my area. So yeah, it could be so much worse.
Doesn't mean she won't regret it in some way, but fuck her, who cares about her anymore.
Amen brother. There are those times I miss her so very much, at least who she was at one time. There are times I feel very wounded and down. There are times where I find it petty and vindictive to have some thoughts that run through my head that I will never act on. Then I remember - she stabbed me in the back. She took my love and trust for her and pissed it all away, and for what. Her "needs"? Her selfishness? Her weakness and inability to address the past? I did not deserve this, and I wouldn't tolerate being left for dead by any friend, family member or anyone else, so why should I pine over someone who could be so cold and heartless? She's not my wife. She's not my lover. She's not my friend. She is my enemy. Words are just that, words. She can say she's sorry. She can say she worries about me. She can offer to be friends. Her actions tell paint an entirely different picture, a picture of a woman so cold and empty inside and so ugly beneath the surface. Someone who has no problem hurting anyone when the alternative may mean she needs to look at herself for who she is. someone who simply doesn't care what anyone else needs when she's feeling vulnerable. Yes, she's been hurt. She's had things happen to her that are absolutely horrible. That said, I was there too, and I was willing to be there for her always, but I can't make her address her issues. The fact that she's known such pain makes it even more disgusting that she could wound me so deeply. She knew exactly what she was doing and how bad it would hurt me, but she did it anyway. That would be like me moving on, falling in love again, getting remarried, promising her to always be faithful, and then cheat on her and split in the blink-of-an-eye. For someone to know the pain that such a wound can inflict and do it anyway would make me an asshole of the highest order.
So yeah, fuck her. I don't went to walk around angry over this indefinitely, but there are days where I need to channel that anger in order to see her for who she is, and then extricate her from my thoughts. She's gone, and there's nothing I can or shod do other than move on. One day she may realize what she gave up. One day she'll realize that, no, I do not want to know how she's doing, try to be friends, try to be anything. Maybe then the full weight of it all will come crashing down. All I know is I won't be there to see it.
[This message edited by MadeOfScars at 10:13 AM, April 14th (Monday)]