Today I met with my lawyer for information prior to our mediation (coming up on the 23rd). It occurred to me that the mediation might be the last time WH and I face each other as a married couple. I have kept on an even keel until now, but I just plain boo hoo'ed on the way there. I am glad I had my sister along; she has been such a support to me.

All the while I was wiping away tears, it is like there were two filmstrips running side by side in my memory. One is of the awful things WH has done over the years, the many ways he has hurt me with his controlling and anger. The other is of the good times we had, and the times when he selflessly stood by my side during some horrific times in our lives.

I know that the divorce is the right thing to do, but I am grieving the loss of my husband so much. I loved him so much, and it is taking me by surprise how much I still love him. It feels like this man I am divorcing killed my husband, and is walking around in his body. The scheming, lying interloper hides behind the face of the only man I have ever loved. We got married at 19, and I know that the seeds of the man lie in the boy, but it was a long, slow germination period. I felt the man that I loved die a little more each day.

Today the lawyer punched in some numbers (evidently there is some kind of computer program that crunches numbers like age, years married, income, child support, etc, and spits out a number for what alimony and child support should be. I nearly choked at the total.

My husband handled our finances since we were married, and evidently there has been a lot of spending that I did not know about. For us both to have the incomes we did, and to have so little to show for it, should have been a huge red flag to me. Knowing that WH has a sexual compulsion and an addiction to porn, I am now wondering what exactly he was spending money on.

And despite all that, I still felt guilty about the alimony. I feel sorry for the financial pain he is going to feel now. In the past year or so, we've had huge expenses relating to our son and his problems (related to autism and his developmental delays, etc) so I know that neither of us at this moment has much money on hand.

Of course, he has shown some dishonor in his dealings with his lawyer. He took our adult daughter and our disabled son into the meetings with the lawyer, and now both of them think that Mom is "trying to screw Dad over." He's put the kids in a tug of war about which parent to support, and that is wrong.

I learned a lot from the lawyer. Florida is a no-fault, community property state, which might sound good, but it also means that income and possessions are divided "equitably". If one person has three times the income of the other spouse, then the division is made so that both have roughly the same when all is said and done.

Since I am disabled, and our marriage was 33 years, and a few other factors, the amount is going to come as a rude shock to WH. (FYI, the lawyer said if he ever divorced, he was going to go live in Texas for a few months and file there; in Texas, alimony is only awarded for three years, not for life.

I dread the fallout from the divorce affecting my relationship with our kids. I have to keep reminding myself (and them, as needed) that I did not want to divorce. I wanted us to be together for life, and even with the flaws he has, I was still being faithful to him. I never wanted to be starting over at age 52. He made the choices over the years that have led to this. He could have taken anger management therapy, he could have admitted his faults and tried to mitigate them, and he definitely could have decided not to get heavily back into an EA with the former OW.

Still, finding out that he was back with her again led to a sense of freedom. I didn't have to try to work on this marriage anymore. I didn't have to feel guilty about divorce, because my church sanctions divorce for adultery. I don't have to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering his anger, and I don't have to live with someone who makes me flinch when he touches me.

I don't even know how many emotional direction swings are in this post. If there was an emotional weather vane, the rooster would have spun into orbit by now. I am hoping to reach safer emotional ground soon.

Ellen

Well, join the crowed world of divorce. Marriage is for love, divorce is for money. Feel no guilt. You didn't write the laws. And you are not driving the Karma Bus as it backs over him, the law is.

Manipulating the kids is just flat wrong. This goes along with all the other wrongs. You made an investment over the years and you got your kids. So it wasn't all bad, plus you have good memories from some of the time.

Move on with the rest of your life, content that you did the best you could with the tools you had and some of your life was spent in a relationship that lurched along until it ended.

Easy for me to say.

Larry

PS, tell your lawyer is is six months in Texas before you can file for divorce, and then time for it to be final, it is not a few months.