I am leaving my wife tomorrow and I couldn’t be happier
This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
I am NOT OP. Original post by u/throwawaydoc9817 in r/TrueOffMyChest
—
I (45m) and my wife (44f) have been married for 10 years. We dated for 6 years before that and I got a lot of pressure to get married from my parents, her parents, her… something in my gut said that this wasn’t right. I called it cold feet and did my best to ignore it. We got married.
Pretty much the moment the ink was dry on our marriage license, things went south. On our honeymoon, she did nothing but complain I hadn’t booked a nicer hotel. In the following months she wanted a new apartment, a new car, gifts, jewelry, handbags. It was never enough. It’s like the moment she got the ring, it stopped being about me and became about what I could give her. I am a doctor. I make good money. Not good enough to support the kind of lifestyle she wants though.
We don’t have sex anymore. We don’t laugh. We don’t talk about anything but money. We have no kids (she said she wanted them before marriage then changed her mind), our home looks like a showroom, there is no warmth or joy or even comfort here. I hate it. I hate her. I am a 45 year old physician and I have barely enough savings to sustain us for 3 months. I want to retire someday, I want to enjoy my life.
I rented a cool apartment across town, in a “less desirable” neighborhood and there’s a stack of ikea furniture waiting for me to set it up there. The lease is up on the Mercedes my wife pushed me to lease next month and I will be replacing it with a used Prius. I’m starting therapy next week. I have a divorce attorney who has assured me that the prenup we signed before marriage means I won’t have to pay alimony. I hope to leave the higher-paying job that my wife insisted I take for something with less hours, sometime in the next year. I am going to ask out the pretty barista who flirts with me every morning.
I’m telling her first thing tomorrow. I’m expecting her to cry and beg and demand we try therapy. I don’t want any of that. This was never right, and I’m only sorry it took me so long to realize it. I’m sorry I’ve wasted so much of my life being married to a woman because I thought it was the right thing.
I am so excited.
Update (tried to post separately but it was taken down) posted today
First of all… damn. I didn’t expect the first post to blow up. I really was “getting it off my chest” and expected a few “good luck” comments and not much more. I know a lot of people were asking for an update so here goes:
Usually when I wake up, I go for a run or a bike ride. While I’m gone my wife gets up, gets dressed, gets a smoothie going… whatever. This morning I paced the kitchen, rehearsing what I had to tell her over and over again. When she finally came down, I felt oddly calm? I wasn’t expecting to be panicked exactly, but apprehensive at least?
I told her I needed to speak to her. She gave me an “uh huh” and didn’t look up from the coffee machine. Then I just came out with it. I told her I was leaving and that I wanted a divorce. That we hadn’t been happy in a long time and I felt as though she didn’t care about me or my emotional needs.
Pretty much instantly, the gaslighting began. She cried that I never get her flowers anymore, that I don’t do enough to support her, that I don’t care if she’s happy. I brought up the fact that I suggested therapy over a year ago and she agreed, but then made excuse after excuse not to go. I brought up the times she completely ignored the budget we worked on. I told her how it made me feel when she dismissed me when I tried to tell her how I was feeling.
The crying escalated then, along with begging for a chance to make this right, to go to therapy, that she would be better. It went like I thought it would go, and I felt absolutely nothing. I don’t care anymore. Whatever I once felt for her is just dead and gone, and she might as well have been a second cousin sobbing about her marriage for all the connection I felt to it. Eventually I just got fed up and walked out. She has been blowing up my phone with calls and texts which range from angry to begging to threatening. I started getting calls from her mother and mine too but the end of the day. I spoke briefly to my mother and calmly explained that I was sorry she didn’t hear it from me, but my wife was sucking me dry financially and emotionally and I couldn’t do it anymore. She was surprisingly supportive.
I’m currently in my new apartment. I unrolled the mattress-in-a-box and went to Walmart for sheets. I ate Thai takeout for dinner at the kitchen counter and watched a bit of Netflix on my computer. I have everything I need for the next few days. My wife is getting served tomorrow.
I keep expecting the sadness to set in but it hasn’t. I feel like a thousand pounds are off my shoulders and suddenly my future is full of possibilities. I’m going to travel, I’m going to try new restaurants, I’m going to take a job that actually makes me happy and proud instead of rich. Much to the internet’s chagrin, I will ask out the barista, because despite unpopular opinion she is both age appropriate (it’s her family’s business) and I do have the interpersonal skills to recognize the difference between customer service and actual connection.
Cheers, everyone. I’m going to have a beer and then take a walk around my new neighborhood.
Reminder- I am not the original poster.
Note: because a lot of people are commenting on “asking the barista out” thing, I will paste comment OP made about that:
Alright, folks. I’ve gotten a lot of comments begging me not to ask out the barista as it’s her job to be nice to me. I didn’t really get into the relationship I have with her because I didn’t think it was relevant to the divorce, but here goes:
I met her about a year ago. She’s 30. I don’t usually wear a wedding ring because my job requires me to scrub regularly. She actually asked me out (invited me to a food truck festival in town) a few months into knowing each other. I said I was married and she was embarrassed. Since then, we’ve had a bit of a running joke going where she asks me “so, still married?”. My current plan is to reply “not for long” and see what happens.
I appreciate the internet’s apprehension (in truth I would probably say the same thing if I didn’t know the back story) but I promise I’m not a creep
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
Add comment