SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Before you were married you had to have some small idea of what marriage was.

To me marriage was the highest level of a relationship. Going from friends -> talking -> dating -> sex -> moving in -> engaged -> marriage.

So it would only make sense to me that the opposite could be said about divorce. Divorce is the final break up, the last good bye and no more chances.

As I prepare to divorce my wife, it made me think more about what my divorce will be.

Divorce doesn't mean I didn't love you enough.

Divorce doesn't mean I don't have the ability to forgive.

Divorce doesn't mean I will instantly feel better about what you did to me.

Please share your own thoughts about what divorce means to you.

[This message edited by Rulk at 9:39 PM, July 8th (Tuesday)]

Divorce doesn't mean you are instantly healed.

Divorce means: everything you knew and everything in your life, the way you do, plan, engage in everything changes. your plans for the future, hopes, dreams, desires and goals all change... It is all different, not impossible, but different..

I don't know. I am having a hard time trying to figure it out. The answer above, doesn't mean you are instantly healed, really spoke to me.. I guess I was hoping that would be the case, but how could it. I feel like the story of my family, the chapters of our lives, its like the book doesn't get finished at the end but more like cut off and left incomplete.

The way that I CURRENTLY view divorce....as I am in the process....is more like a lesser of two evils.

It was not what I wanted, but what appears to be a safer choice. It also makes a statement that I am leaving my current state of infidelity.

Divorce has to vary greatly from one member to the next. Some people are married to virtual monsters, so divorce has to look as not only liberating, but relieving. Then there are members whose WS not only cut out their heart, but have filed for D and left them bleeding...even though the BS would take them back in a second.

And like my scenario, I have a WS that I love very much, and I believe that she loves me, but is so self-destructive that I am left with the choice of dying a slow death....with her repeated betrayals....or to throw myself a lifeline(divorce), and pull myself out of the drowning waters.

Divorce in this situation means being pushed to my limits by a liar who made choices for me. It's freedom to escape that.

Divorce means he can't hurt me any more. No more lies, no more emotional abuse.

It means closure and the opportunity to heal and move forward. It hurts like hell but limbo hurts more and keeps you paralyzed.

Divorce to me means my mental health, inner peace, and self-respect, mean more to me than his immature desires for validation via his dick.

It means choosing me.

To me, it meant that I/we failed. It meant that my daughter was going to be raised in two separate households and that she didn't deserve to have to suffer for what her mother had done. It made me very sad that divorce was the only option and that my daughter would be more impacted than anyone else. And it has proven to be true after being divorced for twelve years.

But, conversely, it was the end. A sort of closure and the signal of a new beginning for me. I remember the very moment that I hit the bottom and from that point on it was a steady climb upward and I finally met my new wife. Unfortunately, she became a WW last year and I had to stare the possibility of D in the eyes again. I couldn't do it again especially after having two young children now. But I have told her in no uncertain terms that if another A comes that D will be the only option. R is going great but it was a rough road.

Divorce primarily meant two things to me.

It meant despite what I'd hoped I would have a failed marriage in my history. I truly only wanted to marry once.

Most importantly it meant that I would largely lose my relationship with my step-daughter. Though I do occasionally see her it isn't what it was. Nowhere near that.

For me, it means that I'm finally reaching out for some self-respect. More importantly, my sons will have the chance to learn this from me.

Rulk:

You ask "What does divorce mean to you?" (at least, I think that's what you meant )

Then you quote 3 lines of what divorce DOESN'T MEAN.

Your example of marriage was the growth of a relationship between 2 people.

Divorce is the death of that relationship. In most of our cases on this website, that means one member killed it.

But it also means the growth of a new relationship. The one we need to have with ourselves. Restoring honesty, security, honor, and hopefulness.

Many of us were consumed by the marriage, to the detriment of our own identities.

Divorce is rediscovery.

Divorce means to me freedom. Escape. I want peace in my life. I want to quiet the storm. Not that everything that has happened will suddenly disappear; it’s just that I won’t have to constantly think about A every time I see him (we are still sharing the same house, D is not final yet)

I still care but I don’t trust and I cannot live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Having self-doubt wondering why I wasn’t good enough. Why did this happen? I cannot control WH’s behavior but I can control my life and I plan to move forward and stop dwelling on the past. I have not yet forgiven I just accept the fact that this has happened.

It’s about me now! Time for me to heal and move forward.

interesting question.

To me divorce means ending a toxic relationship and creating an environment where I can recover and heal from all the damage that has been done. I don't see that as being possible in the marriage I have now.

In my situation it is liberating to think of the end of my marriage. That may sound sad to some but the thought of ridding myself of the manipulation and control from the other person couldn't come soon enough.

Divorce to me means that at least one of us is unable or unwilling to meet the needs and expectations of the other partner. In our instance neither of us is meeting the needs and expectations of the other. This does not mean that we are bad people, but rather that we are bad partners for each other.

I am fortunate that we are nearly 5 years post dday, and so my anger and resentment of the A's is gone. I have healed from that. During the time since dday stbx has worked on her stuff and improved as a partner, but for whatever reasons has given up. This allows me to D without anger and see move on as the obvious next step.

Divorce for me meant acceptance. Acceptance of a lot of “truths” I had been fighting hard to not believe since D-Day.

- Accepting that my XWH was broken and was never going to fix himself

- Accepting that my marriage was not a safe or healthy place for me

- Accepting that there was nothing I could do to fix it

-Accepting that moving on was the right thing for me

-Accepting that this really was the path to peace

-Accepting that the life I had imagined was just that -- only in my imagination, that it was never real.

For me? Once upon a time, it was not something I viewed even as a possibility. Even after my first d-day, I did not view it as an option.

After the last d-day, it represented the end of the pain associated with merely being in the presence of a man eager to cause me as much pain as he could. It was not what I wanted, but I wanted marriage even less. Divorce was the lesser of two evils. It meant huge financial changes. It meant huge trauma to our kids. It meant a lot of unexpected things, in terms of responses from our families. It meant enormous losses---both of real things and of dreams.

Now it represents hope that I will one day have, in my life, peace and happiness. Divorce, itself, will not confer these things; I have to make them happen for myself. (This is a lesson I did not learn in marriage; I was too busy trying to confer them to someone else.) I would have preferred to find peace and happiness and opportunity for personal growth within my marriage, but I did not marry the right person. So divorce represents acceptance of this--acceptance of myself, despite my errors---and a willingness to find, for myself what I need in this life.

For me, divorce meant that I had respect for myself. It was my way of saying that I refused to be treated as though I were invisible (which is how his A made me feel), and I deserved better than that.

Divorce also means getting back to figuring out who I am without being defined by anyone else. That's a journey I've been on and why I haven't bothered with dating.

I wish it could mean never having to deal with my XWH again, but since we have kids together, it will just have to mean NC as much as possible, but we still have to discuss kids and finances in a civil manner.

Divorce for me will always mean the ultimate betrayal. I married for life, he didn't. To me, it will always be an ugly word that holds a wealth of pain. For that reason and many others, I don't describe myself as divorced, but as single.