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[alto_stratus]

Happy new year, all. It seems a bit odd to post here again, I'm still not divorced, but it's 18 months since he asked for a divorce, so nothing's very "new"...my lawyer has said we're going to have to sign affidavits explaining why it's taking so long (disagreement on a settlement, and his, or his lawyer's inability to respond to my lawyer's letters promptly).

Anyway, I've been wondering if something I experience is a post-divorce, new singleton thing, or just a me thing. Despite being in year two of post-married life, I am still so incredibly overwhelmed by possibilities/my potential. The sky is the limit, and assuming I can get a job offer (currently VAP, after having adjuncted elsewhere), I could accept one anywhere, no two body problem anymore. Everytime a new job posting comes out, I freak out and think, oh no, not ANOTHER one! It's not dread, just I-can't-believe-I-could-go-THERE-and-do-THAT, too! I'm an optimist, and it shows, but after seven years with my ex, contemplating the two body problem, further complicated by a two country problem, it is so luxurious to just think of me. I don't know how to cope. I just get so darned excited by all the things I could do (tempered with waves of despair over the job market). I do feel there isn't just one "right" thing to do or place to be, that I'd be happy with most of the jobs I've applied for. It just feels intense a lot of the time, sometimes keeps me up at night, my mind racing through all the scenarios that could play out. I am anxious about the lack of security I now face outside of the marriage but so far my optimism balances that out. How the heck do you cope with no limits? Sure the job market is dire and that could be a limitation, but I'm told I've done well and am in a good position to land something. There is so much that I could DO, I start to feel mentally fried thinking about different directions, it's just so stimulating.

But maybe I'm an odd duck...or is anyone else totally fired up about all they can consider outside of the commitments and negotiations marriage requires?

When you have been stuck in a difficult relationship, the prospect of not having to deal with all the stuff that made it so difficult can be exhilarating.  I was happy to have some doors open back up, and also to have some mental energy freed up.  That said, you don't want to be losing too much sleep from feeling wired all the time.  Be sure to work in some relaxation time.

[dr_prephd]

I think I'm the opposite. When considering moving across country for TT gigs, I was perfectly content to imagine doing so while carting hubby along. (Built-in support system.)

Now that I have no SO, I do not like to think about moving alone, starting all over with no support system. Good thing my area is one of the best for jobs...

[chickpea]

Hmm.  I was tied to current location by my spouse, who *refused* to move, and luckily got a TT job in our city. Whether or not I passed up some amazing opportunity to move is kind of moot now - we've split, I have the job, and am happy with it and my city so it all kind of worked out.  That said, now I have YB (YogaBoy, my SO - things still going super strong there), and while I would apply for Dream Job regardless there aren't that many Dream Jobs out there.  And things with YB are to the point that I would take him into consideration.

So being excited or keyed up over possibilities doesn't keep me up at night, but I love, love, love not having to worry about ex, not having to pass up other opportunities (mostly social) because he wouldn't want to do them, not having to negotiate things between him and my family.  It's a huge relief, and the lift of a burden I didn't really know was there.  And with YB, I am experiencing how easy all this can be. 

Divorcing my ex was one of the best decisions I ever made.  Would I do it all again?  Hell no, not if I knew what I know now.  But I didn't, I made the wrong choice, I learned from it, and now I get to have amazing love in my life.  I'm sure it's unsettling not knowing where you might be, but if you'd married a portable spouse you'd be in the same position.  I think alto is right - work in some relaxation time.  Maybe some meditation to calm that monkey mind.   

[traductio]

I’ve never read this thread before, but I hope you won’t mind if I post here. I’m not posting about myself, but about my brother, with whom I’m very close. He told me today that he is looking for a divorce lawyer, and I told him he’s making the right decision. I have no doubt about that -- it’s the right thing for him and for his son -- but I’ve struggled to watch him go through the pain of the last three or four years, and all of that came to a head today. I needed somewhere just to write about it to people who are relatively anonymous but sympathetic.

My brother’s wife has been struggling with mental illness for a long time, although she has only recently been diagnosed -- PTSD, bipolar disorder, depression, and borderline personality disorder. She has been unspeakably cruel to my brother, and I try to remember (as he does) that there are forces she simply cannot control. She has sought treatment -- therapy and drugs, although the doctors have yet to find a combination that in any way helps her. The side effects hit her hard.

About a week ago, she called my brother and -- as best he could make out, because she had lost emotional control -- asked for help. She lives in the same town as I, but my brother lives five hours away with their son. Part of the reason for their separation is to give their son a bit more stability and shield him from the direct effects of his mother’s illness. Part of it is my brother exercising a wise level of self-preservation. My brother’s wife has been unfaithful, all the while telling all of their mutual friends that he is on some sort of vendetta against her and that he wants to hurt her. He isn’t, and he doesn’t, and I have watched him as he has worked to deal with the fallout.

So my brother got in the car and drove here, and when he found her, she had passed out from an overdose of sedatives, and she had been cutting herself with razor blades. He checked her into the hospital and has been visiting her all week.

This morning he discovered that after she called him, during his drive across the state, and before she OD’ed, she spent her time chatting online with her new boyfriend (the fifth that my brother knows about, although he didn’t know about him until today) about how her terrible husband was coming to “help” her, and that all of this was his fault. My brother wasn’t surprised by the content of the exchange, but he decided he couldn’t take it any more. I saw him on his way out of town, and we talked for an hour. He had decided to seek out a divorce lawyer when he got back home, and I told him that was the right thing to do. His wife is destroying herself, and he shouldn’t let her destroy him, too.

My brother is amazingly strong, and I told him how much I have admired his strength in all of this. He has been a good dad and a good husband. He has resisted the urge to do anything that would hurt his wife more than she is already hurting herself. He wants full custody of their son, and I imagine that he will get it -- she’s in no condition to take care of him (she’s still in the hospital, and she has just alienated the only support she had left, although she doesn’t see that), and, I think, he can afford a lawyer but she can’t. He doesn’t want child support (which would devastate her financially), and he genuinely wants her to get better. He loves her in ways she’ll never understand, but he has decided -- and I told him he was right -- that he needs to let go, for his own sake and for the sake of his son. (He has suffered some serious health problems in the last year, one of which was a condition that, if it had not been diagnosed when it was, would have led to a heart attack or stroke within months.) He’s getting therapy, but he has a long road ahead of him. I’m confident that he can make it, but it still hurts to watch him go through this.

Thanks for listening -- this has hit me harder than I expected. No one wins here, not my brother, not his wife, certainly not their son. All day I've thought about how lucky I am -- I have a strong relationship with my wife, and we have a beautiful daughter, and I hugged them long and hard when I got home today.

[traductio]

I don't know whether anyone read my post from yesterday, but I just spoke with my brother, who is now back home across the state, and it sounds like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He sounds relieved, like he can breathe again. He hasn't told his son, but I think he's taking one step at a time.

It was good to hear him in higher spirits.

[bald_cypress]

Traductio,  I read your post today--such a sad story. Oddly enough, I finished a novel yesterday in which one of the sub-plots concerned a mentally ill wife who kept leaving and returning to her husband--doing many of the things which you have described. Difficult to imagine the nightmare your brother has been living through. For his sake, his child's, and his extended family, including you, it sounds like the best ending will be occuring in the near future. Best wishes--

[alto_stratus]

That's a very sad situation, Traductio.  A few of us have described the various emotions of divorce as coming in waves, so just be prepared that things might get difficult again.  I hope it all works out okay.  That he's in therapy is a good idea, as he may need help figuring out the new dynamic with the ex.

[traductio]

That's a very sad situation, Traductio.  A few of us have described the various emotions of divorce as coming in waves, so just be prepared that things might get difficult again.  I hope it all works out okay.  That he's in therapy is a good idea, as he may need help figuring out the new dynamic with the ex.

Thanks for the kind words. I've been surprised by how waves of emotion have come over me, when I'm involved only indirectly. I don't think I realized until just recently how close I am to my brother (I left home to go to college sixteen years ago, and we didn't see each other regularly for quite some time after that), but I have come to see him in a new light in the past few years as he has struggled with his wife's illness. I've come to admire him, and I told him as much.

He has a good support network in the town where he lives -- our parents are there, and they have looked after his son when necessary. And he's acutely aware of the need for therapy -- his self-awareness is astounding.

It's heart-wrenching to watch, though, I must admit.

[hegemony]

Traductio, sending you and your brother good wishes for lots of strength.

I don't mean to cast a morbid shadow over this, but in his dealings with his lawyer and arrangements for custody, he might want to get it pinned down as to what would happen to his son should he, heaven forbid, die prematurely.  Your mention of his health condition, now attended to, made me think of this.  Should the worst happen, could his son find a home with another family member?  He might want to get this written into the agreements -- that his wife would not get custody unless she had fulfilled certain requirements as to stability, etc., but that instead it would go to [the person he directs].  Normally people have this in their wills, or should, but this situation makes the issue more complicated.

I just have that superstitious feeling that not having arranged for disaster tempts the universe to visit it upon us, so I thought I'd bring that up for what it's worth.

Again wishing both of you strength.

[traductio]

Traductio, sending you and your brother good wishes for lots of strength.

I don't mean to cast a morbid shadow over this, but in his dealings with his lawyer and arrangements for custody, he might want to get it pinned down as to what would happen to his son should he, heaven forbid, die prematurely.  Your mention of his health condition, now attended to, made me think of this.  Should the worst happen, could his son find a home with another family member?  He might want to get this written into the agreements -- that his wife would not get custody unless she had fulfilled certain requirements as to stability, etc., but that instead it would go to [the person he directs].  Normally people have this in their wills, or should, but this situation makes the issue more complicated.

I just have that superstitious feeling that not having arranged for disaster tempts the universe to visit it upon us, so I thought I'd bring that up for what it's worth.

Again wishing both of you strength.

The thought had crossed my mind, to be honest. He hasn't done anything more than contact a lawyer yet (he only got home yesterday), but once he's further along in the process, I thought I'd mention that to him. When my nephew was born, he and his wife drew up a will and named my wife and me as guardians if, heaven forbid, anything were to happen to them. Their situation has obviously changed now (my nephew is about ten, and suddenly the contrast in my sister-in-law's health between now and then seems so stark), but I thought I'd let him know that we would still take him, if my brother wanted us to be in that role.

[healthlit]

Glad to see this thread! Quite timely...I'm in the middle of a divorce now.

Divorce has not been nearly as hard as I expected, since I was miserable and now feel freed. (I love all things creative and academic; my husband was a manual laborer with terrible insecurites around academic people) but I've been going through the "why did I spend so much of my life like this?" woes. I'm just kicking myself. Why did I not only marry someone so different, but spend 16 years with them?

Ah, I'll get over it, and life does look cheery now. But I'm glad this post is hear; I'll be needing it!

[zoelouise]

You were learning a lot of useful stuff in those 16 years, I'm sure.

[spork]

You were learning a lot of useful stuff in those 16 years, I'm sure.

In my case, even though my marriage ended after four years, the total length of the relationship was over a decade. After the divorce I thought with 20-20 hindsight "what was I thinking and why did I stay in that relationship for so long?" But it taught me what to look for in a mate.

[westcoastgirl]

I've heard divorce described as the "best worst thing" one has to go through. I've been divorced for about five years now. No regrets. We were both very committed to going through with it. I'm thankful the circumstances weren't worse.

 It was surreal, especially because I had kids involved. I remember walking through a parking lot one day and saying "I'll be just fine." Time is a good healer.

[prof2be]

I had some issues this week with getting a passport in my maiden name (all resolved now but extremely stressful for about eight hours). The drama just emphasised how stuck to my ex I continue to be since for reasons unknown to me, he is stalling our divorce. It's been 18 months since I filed, and beyond getting my name off the phone bill (only last month!) nothing has happened for at least the last 12 months. My lawyer checks in with me regularly, but the update is always the same, that there's been no response to her last letter and she is following up for the umpteenth time. I'm trying to find out if a complaint can be made to a legal ombudsman, but I think you can only complain about your own lawyer.

I'll see my ex next month at the national conference, which was incredibly awkward last year though I feel I did well being the bigger person. This time I feel like I will just want to throttle him - if he is the one delaying and not his lawyer, why the heck is he doing this? He left me and asked for a divorce, why can't he finish what he started? Because of the delays, we're going to have to sign affidavits explaining why it's taken so long. Sigh.

No real point to this post, I am just fed up and feeling quite powerless. Rationally I know I've done good work in the last 18 months, but emotionally I feel like I've achieved nothing - I'm not divorced and I don't have job security. I need some of the time and work I've put in to start paying off.

I try to stay positive with the good things that happen - stimulating research collaboration, a journal article commission, organising a conference, lovely students and supportive friends. But I kind of feel like I'm living on an ice floe. Rant over.