When did you pop the big 'D' news?

I told him when he asked me. A bit before I had planned. I had wanted more ducks in a row. But I thought the opening of "Do you want to work on this marriage?" was the right place to start.

Haven't decided when I will start the legal action. Right now I just want to get moved out and have a bit of peace before I do anything else.

Well, I was the one who was served.  We never talked about getting a divorce.  I tried to work on our marriage.  I'm not sure how much work he really put into it.  According to him, if I wasn't willing to have sex, I wasn't working on our marriage.  Well, there were a lot of things I wasn't getting on my end.  But, that's neither here nor there.  I basically flipped out one morning and walked out.  A month later, I was served.  I knew it was coming, though, because I had gotten into his email and saw where he told a bunch ouf OUR friends he was going to see a lawyer that week.

We STILL haven't talked about what went wrong.

I was married for 11 months. the 7th month of the marriage I was laid off my job of 31 years and my husband had been laid off his six figure job for 16 months before we got married. He said he was not happy  and felt like a stranger in the house that I owned before the marriage. I as what could I do and he said nothing and that at the end of the year he just could not be there with me.  So I said I did not want't to hold him hostage in the marriage and suggested that I would file for divorce he said may be we could get it  annuled and I said it had been too long.  So we did talk about it but he continued to mob around and did not want to go for any counseling became very distant. So I filed and took him with me to the paralegal to be served in a casual way and he blew up.  Not sure why when he wanted out.  He then moved out 5 days later and is now trying to get what he can get from me even though we are both unemployed and we signed a pre-nup. He never paid a dime during the marriage with is unemployment check even after I got laid off he thought he did not need to help.  so I finally realized why he had never been married or had children aft 54 years.  He angry but he  is the one that brought up he was not happy and wanted me to sit around until the end of the year to see if I would have a husband.  I loved him with all my heart and didn't notice anything was wrong with the marriage until he said he was unhappy a month after I was laid off and he actually had put down a diposit on a studio before we had even talked about the divorce so he was going to slip out on me but I became the demon because I filed for divorce and did not wait until he was really ready to go or had drained all of the severance check I received from my employer and now wants half of it. Oh I forgot to mentioned he is a untreated bipolar victim.

In 20 years practicing divorce law, I can tell you that how you start the divorce is how it ends. So if you start respectfully (even though that is difficult) you have a much better chance of it ending respectfully & civilly.  It's always a shock, no matter how much it may be wanted or anticipated, so anything you can do to keep it honest and straightforward is worth doing.
Diana Mercer, co-author, Your Divorce Advisor.

In 20 years practicing divorce law, I can tell you that how you start the divorce is how it ends. So if you start respectfully (even though that is difficult) you have a much better chance of it ending respectfully & civilly.  It's always a shock, no matter how much it may be wanted or anticipated, so anything you can do to keep it honest and straightforward is worth doing.
Diana Mercer, co-author, Your Divorce Advisor.

In 20 years practicing divorce law, I can tell you that how you start the divorce is how it ends. So if you start respectfully (even though that is difficult) you have a much better chance of it ending respectfully & civilly.  It's always a shock, no matter how much it may be wanted or anticipated, so anything you can do to keep it honest and straightforward is worth doing.
Diana Mercer, co-author, Your Divorce Advisor.

I will have to admit I wasn't as tactful as I should have been, but I had just had enough of him. I KNEW I wanted a divorce, I had already mourned the loss of my marriage while still being "with him" (and without him ever realizing it), so when he tried to rip me off with our tax return (had said I'd get 40%, notice 40, not 50 cuz I was never his equal) by only giving me $1000 out of some $4600, I got furious. He said it was because he had bills to pay, but so did I. It escalated, and he threatened to cut off a bunch of things so I told him to just go ahead, cuz I'd pay for it from spousal support. And erhmmm....... that was pretty much how I broke the news, lol. For months he thought I was just mad and would eventually change my mind, but unlike him, I never uttered the D word during our marriage, and I wouldn't have unless I was 100% sure that's what I wanted. And I've never looked back. It was a long and hard road, straight up nasty at times, but I'm finally divorced and will be moving to Denmark with my 2 daughters in just over a month.
Good luck with taking that first step.

I have not filed yet, but I hope to soon.  I still live with my STBX, so I tread carefully.  He is not particularly pleasant or respectful, but it is important to me that I conduct myself decently towards him.  I do not want him to be surprised and I do not want him to be served with papers where he works(which I know he would find humiliating).  He brought up divorce today, but it sounded like he was just trying to draw me into an argument.  I told him that he was welcome to go to an attorney and discuss our situation.  I left out the fact that I have already done so.  I did so because I wanted to know my rights, how much this will cost me, what to expect, and what sort of paperwork the lawyer will need from me to get started. 

     As far as how you should give him the news, it really comes down to what kind of relationship the two of you have and how friendly you want or need to be in the future.  You have children together, so you will have to continue to deal with one another regarding them.  In light of that, I suggest being considerate and not dropping a bomb on him.  If you feel that he may have some sort of violent reaction or fear for your safety in any way, then you should go with lisa c's suggestion and use a public place to give him the news. Best of luck to you.  None of this is easy.

I didn't pop it, I dropped it.  Like a meteor out of the sky!  Just the same as his sorted affairs dropped out of the sky on me, so ditto! 

I don't know the details of your situation so I have no suggestions on this one but I will say that it all depends on your situation and how you feel you were treated.  Since my sbtx's whoredom started at his work place that's were he was served.  What a sock to the old big gut! 

When I busted him I tried to talk to him about our 30 years together and he sounded like a fool.  Talking as though I had something to do with him being a whore.  I tried to talk to him about everything that was on his mind because in my mind things were operating as they do in relationships and marriage, sometimes up, sometimes down.  I had been talking to him for years about where our marriage was headed and like I said earlier he sounded like a FOOL!  So when he told me that he didn't have to explain himself, I thought neither do I and blamo! 

I don't consider this a fun thing to do, I have suffered tremendously and just recently decided that I surrender to all of the pain, hurt, anger, disappointment, betrayal and anything else that goes along with it and I feel damn good!  I am lonely at times but I manage.  I still love him like the first day I saw that twinkle in his eye but I love me more!  I have given a hell of a lot to this relationship, marriage and family and I'm all given out! 

Short story long, depends on your situation, how you feel and your list could go on!  Oh, yeah either way he's probably going to be mad as hell, simply because who do you think that you are divorcing him as good as he has been to you!  Go figure! 

Who throws out treasure or who keeps trash?

When I finally came to the realization that my wife had no intent on trying to improve the relationship, we had a talk where I asked her if that's what she wanted.

She said yes so here we are.

We sat down and talked about a month ago.  He came home for the weekend after working out of town and said he had expected me to serve papers on him but was glad that I had not done that without telling him first.  We have almost 30 years invested together and both feel we owe each other the respect of being upfront with things.  I didn't expect this calm attitude from him and I know that the situation can change.  But I do feel that if there is any possible way of discussing it before you slap the other person with the papers it's best for everyone.  Alot of men change their minds when they see just how much it's going to cost them to divorce their wife and that's no reason to stay in the marriage.

My ex woke me up at 2:00 am and sat me down at the kitchen table. He listed out my faults in detail, reminded me how fat and worthless I was, ridiculed my job (I'm a teacher) and told me that we were married in name only.  He even said that the only reason that we had three kids was because I handled my birth control like I handled everything else in my life.   At that point, he didn't know that I was aware of all of the skanks that he met up with after finding them on the internet.  He also explained to me exactly what he was taking, how much I would see my kids, that he was selling my car and what our settlement was going to be.  I also knew exactly where he had been squirreling away our money for the past year so that when he tried to hide it, he was busted. I just sat there and listened. For the first time in my life, I had nothing to say to him. The next day, I took the bull by the horns, hired the best attorney I could find, filed for divorce and had him served at his softball game.  Soon it was me who was telling him how things were going to be.  Within a week, he realized what this divorce was going to cost him and after 5 years of refusing therapy, he wanted to reconcile and try to work it out. When I asked him what would change, he calmly replied, "well, you will. I don't have a problem."   That was the end of the reconciliation talks. There are some things, though, that once you say, you can't take back. I was done with him.  I realized that the only thing that he contributed to my life was a pay check and that I could still have a good chunk of that.  
 Sometimes I am lonely, that's true. But I am so not sorry.

Thanks for the feedback.  I know I didn't offer much info about why I am filing.  We have tried to work things out, we even tried marriage counseling.  It seems like all he wants to do is blame me and try to get me to change to suit his needs.  We have had a few discussions about divorce, but he feels it would be more economical to stay married until the kids are out of school.  I don't agree.  So, yeah, I am sure it won't be a 'huge' shock.

I'm wondering if maybe he doesn't already have an inkling that will make the 'popping' easier...?

I think Lisa's advice is great, meet publicly and have a plan for immediately afterwards.

HI GloWorm -

I am a relationship counselor and divorce coach here on D360. 

I sat down with my son's father in a public diner over breakfast.  We had planned to meet to talk about the relationship and what we were going to do to move forward.  He didn't know I wanted out until that time.  I too was concerned about my safety and his reaction, that's why the public place.  I also had a place to go with my son afterward so I didn't have to go right home and face his anger.  I gave him some time to cool down, most of the day, then went home later on in the evening after dinner.  Shortly after that he moved out and we filed.

Hope that helps.
Best -
Lisa

When I went to file for divorce he knew prior to me filing.  Of course, our situation is different from what yours is and my ex had an affair so he knew I was filing.

I didn't pop the news per se. We had been "trying" to work it out (and I use that term loosely cuz he was doing 0 and I was doing 100% of the compromising and changing) and I did consult an atty without his knowledge, just to protect myself and our son and what I had worked for all these years. I wasn't going to tell him at that point, and that nite we had a frank discussion and he said he wouldn't stop contacting this woman and I told him then there was no compromise. I'm done. I told him we needed to have our family business valued and he got all up in my face, told me he would give me some ridiculous amount of money and that's when I told him I had seen an atty that day and I knew my rights so don't try any crap on me. I hate to say it, but I guess I did sort of spring it on him, but I had to protect my interests cuz I had worked our entire marriage and needed to make sure I got my fair share.

You don't pop the news. You should have been talking to him all along. Does he even know you're considering it? Did you make an effort to work on the marriage? Did you tell him that there's a problem? That's where you start. Dropping a divorce on someone you promised to love til death do you part is not ok. You loved him at one point. You owe him an explaination.