I filed for divorce in October 2023 and lived separate from my economic since that date. Our divorce finalized in February 2024, so we’ve been divorced officially for just over 2 years. I divorced him because I felt emotionally neglected, he always prioritized work over family to the point of not going on date nights with me and not going on family vacations and never taking off for the kids, and he cleaned up after himself but didn’t help much with parenting or household tasks that involved work or mess that didn’t belong to him individually. It’s like we were operating with him as a unit to himself and the kids and I were another unit completely separate from him. I begged for couples therapy for a solid year and he claimed he would go but never did. So after individual therapy and just getting to my breaking point, I finally filed for divorce. I didn’t know what else to do even though I didn’t truly want to divorce him in my heart. He was very shocked when I followed through on filing and told no one besides his parents that we split. He was very embarrassed by the divorce and he told his parents the reason for the divorce was because of “too much drama” with my side of the family, although my family had no drama that affected us and played absolutely 0 part in the divorce at all. I never publicly broadcasted that we divorced either. Word just kind of got around, but to this day, there are still people who don’t realize we are divorced. Like my landlord— he has no clue. I’ll have random friends and distant family see me in passing and ask how we are doing and when I say we divorced, they act so shocked and sad and are like “when did that happen?!” and always say “I had no idea!”
I have worked in family law for years, and the most common reasons I saw for divorce were infidelity, domestic abuse, stalking, severely controlling behaviors, addictions and substance abuse problems, and financial abuse. We didn’t have any of those problems… the closest we came to any of those would’ve been financial abuse. I found out after the divorce that he’d been hiding a significant stream of monthly income from me although he allowed his main work check to go into our joint account and never questioned how I used the money.
We’ve both dated other people since the divorce and none of those relationships have lasted for either of us. It didn’t hurt me to know that he dated other people (they were all women from work) but it did hurt me that he violated our custody order and brought those women around our kids and took the kids to those women’s houses overnight on his time. We have a custody order clause that says no overnights with paramours and no introduction of paramours before 6 months of dating. I honored the order and never once brought anyone I dated around the kids. I didn’t want to confuse them with anything that wasn’t serious. I can’t describe it, but it flew all over me that he allowed our kids to be exposed to his short term relationships. From time to time, they’ll bring up these women to me and ask where they are, if they’re daddy’s friend or girlfriend, why they were kissing daddy, and if daddy is going to take them to (gf’s name) house. The most recent girlfriend was even buying them gifts that were sent home with me and my youngest child was asking me to buy gifts for the girlfriend and was upset when I told her she’d have to ask her dad.
I broke up with the last guy I was dating 2 months ago. I just couldn’t feel anything for him and it wasn’t fair to either of us. My ex husband supposedly broke up with his most recent girlfriend a month ago. He is now wanting to rekindle things with me. He just bought a new house and says that “you and the kids belong here with me.” I don’t know how to feel about it. I really would love to have my family back but I don’t want to live as a married single mom again. But at the same time, I’m just as unhappy divorced from him as I was married to him, but for different reasons. Now I’m constantly stressed about money, lost my federal job and now have a job making 60% of my federal salary, and am completely reliant on child support and alimony for making it through each month. I am primary custodial parent with little help, so I am always alone with the kids and constantly need an extra hand around the house and with childcare but I don’t have it.
Also, out of the 5 men I’ve talked to and 3 that actually turned into me dating in the past 2 years— my ex husband is the better of them all. I’ve also done real work on decentering men and being happy with being alone but I don’t find true fulfillment in being by myself. I really crave companionship.
I’m really thinking about giving him another chance but I don’t know if I’ll hate myself for it later. Has anyone else ever reconciled with their ex? Did it work out or not?