OK So we are just beginning the divorce process. Her Lawyer sent me a letter asking for my Financial information! Uggh.

After almost 22 years of marriage my wife basically says she is suffocating and our entire 22 year marriage has been bad! We have 4 kids all good (but one of our daughters we have had problems with..drugs, crash car, drop out of school etc.) We never put a framework in place for raising kids or boundaries in our marriage. As a result I would get frustrated and isolated that I was the only one working on family (daughter issues or when son shoplifted) and our marriage and say I 'wanted out' but never act on it.(this scared her) Well she has now taken action! Now I am destroyed and need advice.

She has new friends from a new job I don’t care for that support her in this.
She has a tattoo and tanning and other MLC hints.
She feels the need to move on while she still is young enough (42)

My part in this was too much time at work to enable our buying the houses and cars and material things. I also had the outbursts and controlling behavior at times. The lack of intimacy and anger is a deadly combination. I know the triggers of this behavior and have eliminated it. She has seen the results of my Therapy and acknowledges progress but fails to believe.

I feel that the combination of my outbursts, her new divorced friends, daughter issues and my wife's inability to use her therapist to challenge her for her own immaturity and acts all collided to put us down the path of ending this!

I want to fix this and stay together… For the sake of our love and kids I feel it is worth it and sends our kids a great message if we work through this; she feels too much hurt to forgive and in a pattern for her is running from the problem. She ran from home to marry me (mistake as we were young but this is not our issue), ran from finishing various degrees, ran from various jobs when they became hard (even though they were only part time). I just want her to wake up and see it took TWO of us to create this and two of us working together can fix this and have the life we both want -- removing the loneliness.

What do you think? The more I try to talk or work on this the more she pulls away as in the tough love scenario. How can I stop this steamroller from moving so fast?

Is this a lost cause? We have a hard time talking now because she uses anger to fuel her ability to do this quickly. I have written letters and notes and she feels it is brainwashing. I am at my wits end. Do I support this divorce. I have reduced my love busters and aksed for forgiveness. I have also asked her to look inward. No luck so far. No known affairs but I guess the analogy is I am in Plan B?

Bill, your situation sounds much like mine a few months ago. Although I knew what the trigger was (me) I thought her reactions overblown and fueled by anger without much thought. I was resigned to the fact she couldn't/wouldn't be happy unless the divorce went through. I think she had made up her mind regardless of the facts or logic. I pleaded and begged to but it did no good. Now a few months later I see signs that she is regretting some of her decisions and may seek counseling.

I hope my Ex and I get back together someday (we had a great marriage and she agrees) but in the meantime I'm working on myself so that I can understand why I did what I did, and to also understand why I gave into my wife on so many things. I hope she sees the change in me and we are able to rekindle our love. If not, I had a great 22 years and I'm thankful for that. Hang in there and take care of yourself first. Best of luck.

Thanks we seem to have very similar situations! Any way looking back you could have slowed down the divorce and made it to counseling?

I really don't think so. I did fight the original filing (W filed in Jan 04) by dragging my feet and finally she came around. We dated like always in mid to late 04 and she moved back in. She would never go to counseling however...I think she was afraid to hear she had flaws, hangups, etc. I went to IC in early 04 and finally quit after it became to big a financial burden. I started again after divorce because I hurt, and still do, so much. The house payments are gone so I can afford things better now.

How did you fight the filing? Any thoughts by folks here how to break down the anger? At my sons baseball game yesterday she was angry i sat near her! This is moving so fast and the FOG she is in is so thick it clouds her judgment.. but I have no way to reach this person i do not know.