Its a long one, hold on.
I haven't felt this good in years, despite losing basically everything and having to move in with a family member, I feel so much better now.
When it first happened I was pretty rattled/upset.
Obviously this is just "my side" of things, regardless of how impartial I try to be.
I offered and tried everything I could think of.
Therapy, couples and singles, rejected.
Her reason? She said she wanted therapy a year ago and I said no.
I should have said yes, I didn't think it would help.
Offered to pay for a hotel room if she wanted a ONS, NSA, I was ok with it.
She said she would, but what would mommy/daddy the church think if anyone found out.
I suggested she could drive a few hours away.
I think she wanted to, but was too afraid of what someone else would think.
She got the house, land, building, basically no debt.
I got all the debt, I had to sell things I didn't want to sell, or wasn't able to store, at "giving it away" pricing.
I still split the money with her. I left her with almost $1,000 in cash when I moved out.
What hurt me the most was her reason why.
"I was mentally abusing her."
When I asked for examples, she couldn't give any, when I asked her what exactly I did so I could be a better person, she had nothing to say.
I gave up so many things in life, things I could never get back, for her.
I've sold gaming gear, cars/trucks, rings, personal mementos.
Stopped going out.
I worked 65-70 hours a week so she could have a year off. As she likes to remind me when I remind her it "was only 11 months".
I worked 6 days a week so she should stay home because I knew she was having mental problems.
For years I tried to get her to get help and medicine. I finally got her on anxiety medicine only for mommy to find whatever Dr. Phil and facebook told her would work better.
That was a struggle, until I managed to get her to take her real medicine and, shockingly enough, it helped.
Pretty sure she is depressed, my fault, maybe, I'm willing to admit I wasn't always the greatest husband. She refused to get help because mommy was worried about cirrhosis of the liver.
She would sit, on the couch for hours everyday, phone in her face, tv going, doom scrolling tiktok, instagram and watching influencers on youtube.
Leaving me with the house work.
I would often have to do most/all of the laundry, trash and so on. She did take care of the dishes.
Sadly, I could never have an adult level conversation with her, she would instantly turn hostile or run off to another room and lock her self inside.
"I was going to get that" she would say, as I picked up after the ferret I didn't want. Thing is, she would leave the corner full of ferret shit for days. If I picked it up "she as going to do that" if I said something about it, she got mad.
We slept in different rooms for over a year.
One day she asked me to help her rearrange her room. I asked her what she wanted and she didn't know. She had an entire week to think about what she wanted and still didn't have a clue.
When she finally figured it out, the piles of ferret shit in that room and the smell was enough to make me gag.
She had a total meltdown when I asked her where she wanted the alarm clock. Plopped down in the floor and started screaming "I can't, I can't!" over and over.
She needed tires on her vehicle, I asked her if she felt comfortable taking care of it or if she needed my help.
The day of her appointment, as I am getting ready for work she starts hitting me with questions.
I asked her why she said she could handle it and then waited until the day of to start asking me all this.
Ended up having to tell her exactly what to get, what to say and where to go, she had no clue.
She couldn't fix hamburger helper, she didn't understand simmer doesn't mean leave the cap on at 4/8. It means the one marked "simmer".
She would start fixing meals before checking to she if she had the required items. Apparently she was unable to read and understand directions.
Bring water to boil, add noodles, return to boil, then stir occasionally for 10 minutes, All she reads is, boil, add noodles, 10 minutes.
She wonders why my noodles always turned out better, when I tried to explain "I can read directions", yes you can, do you understand them?
The last time I thoroughly cleaned the house, I scrubbed the walls, moved things, vacuumed, cleaned cabinet doors and scrubbed the floors she agreed to finish the three rooms I didn't get. She never did.
She would whine and pout as soon as whatever "shiny new thing" she seen on social media caught her eye until I caved in and bought it.
Knowing full well, like everything else over the 15 years of marriage, that it would be tossed away in less than two weeks when the next shiny new thing came along.
The last 4 years I really, really tired to change who I was to suit her, along the way I think it just made me worse and did nothing for her.
I spent a year living in a truck to make enough money to pay off debts, the house and buy her a truck "like mommy and daddy" have.
She couldn't even keep it clean. A 4 door, 6 seat truck crammed with so much junk that it had room for one person to drive it. Trash piled in the passenger side to the bottom of the seat.
Backed it into a pole, denting the tail gate, tore a mirror off, busted a tire. The final straw, she literately, in the truest sense of the word, drove it straight into a sign from end to end one day.
I was upset, the most expensive thing I had ever paid for (50K), nearly 3-1/2 times the price of our house (15K) and she refused to keep it clean. I put her back in her car and took the truck.
I simply couldn't stomach to see it treated that way when it wasn't even what I wanted, it was what she wanted.
I was upset, and I did apologize for being upset. I just felt like she didn't really care enough about it or the effort I put in to buy it for her to take care of it.
Passing up something I wanted, my dream car, so she could have that truck, I kept it in the divorce, she can't afford the payment, and it hurt me that she didn't care enough about it to even get the oil changed or keep it clean.
She just didn't understand it.
Near the end, before the divorce, I asked her where she got her manicure/pedicure done because I wanted one.
The way she made me feel because I wanted to take care of my self and experience that was truly terrible.
Anyway, I just wanted to type that out.
If you made here, thanks for reading.