No. Certainly not. I don't expect divorce to "fix" me. I don't expect to ever be fixed. I think not living with her will remove one external reminder of how far I fall short of expectations. But I am confident I will find other ways to torture myself after she is gone.


No. It is within me. I hate myself, and I cannot imagine ever stopping that. Divorce is not about freeing me to thrive. I am never going to thrive. Divorce is about not having someone else slice little pieces off every night. I do a sufficiently good job of that all by myself, thank you.

While our kids are home, living with them makes it worthwhile for me to accept her cuts. After the kids are gone, there is much less reason for me to take crap from her. Not that this is all her fault. I am my own worst enemy. I don't fail because I take her crap. I fail on my own. I take her crap because I don't believe I deserve better.


As you say, I don't do a complete s**t job. But I make enough mistakes that I cannot afford to go out on my own or take a position where I am the only one at my firm who knows how to do this. Things will fall through the cracks. I need to be here where there are enough colleagues who understand this stuff that someone always catches what I miss.

Do I also catch their mistakes? Yes, sometimes I do. As you say, I am not completely without value. But having something to offer and being fully competent in my own right are 2 entirely different things.