furbaby ask yourself if he came crawling back today would you take him? Is he the man you thought you married? Would things be better now than they were last year? If you cannot say yes to any of those questions then ask yourself what are you giving him? Does your pain make him want to return? There is no going around or over your pain, you have to go straight through it. You will have those moments when you feel everything might turn out ok but then the pain will return and hopelessness. Just remember nothing lasts forever. You can be stressed, you can be sad, you can be broken but remember you can get through the pain too.

He has missed out on you. He has walked away and this is his loss. I am sorry you are here. I wish there was an easy answer.

I will agree with furbabymom that dealing with the attorney, and the papers-everything involved in that from day one to whenever the end is, it's painful beyond description. It's not fun to look at a legal petition that is so formal and cold, and think, "So this is what decades of marriage has come down to?" That's how it is for me. It's ok if you go dark furbabymom, but we're going to come looking for you if you go dark too long. We're your friends. We're not going to let you fall.

But I agree with MovingOn2016 too. I still can't remember who it was, but either yesterday or the day before someone on here asked me the same exact question, but I think it was worded a bit differently. Hey, it might have been MovingOn who made me look: "Is this the woman you want to spend your life with?" That was when something snapped inside me and I suddenly I realized no matter how miserable I am now in the present, no freaking way would I ever want to be with her again. I am too good of a guy to "settle" for that. And mind you, my marriage has almost been 30 years. Ronald Reagan was President when we got married! So I have a lot of memories that want me to hang on. But, I just can't settle for anything but the best, and based on what she's done, she ain't the best..

Hang on furbabymom..Hang on!

I know how you feel. I read a description of divorce really that helps me a lot when I start to feel emotional about it. Divorce is basically the dissolving of a legal contract. That sounds so cold and clinical when you've been married to someone for years and raised a family with them, but it helps me to swing my perspective back when I'm nearly going off the edge in pain. I also remember something my minister told me years ago when I confided in him about my marriage and the abuse. I said that I felt guilty about closing myself up to him as a result of it, like I wasn't being forgiving. He said, "Nonsense. He has lost the privilege of knowing you." I have never forgotten that. My stbx doesn't have a gf yet, that I know of anyway, but if he did, I would feel very sorry for her and I would want to say, "Good luck, sugar. You're going to need it!"

Good luck!! Hope it goes well. Rooting for you.