My Divorce Is Over & Now I’m Angry

Why am I not in bliss?

As of last week, my divorce is final.

I’ve moved out. I’ve moved on.

And yet, my anger is rising. This isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t how I imagined my life. I loved my wedding day. I loved my wedding ring. I genuinely wanted to be with one person for the rest of my life.

If I had known how hard my kids would handle this, maybe I would have sucked it up another year or two. My heart is destroyed seeing them in agony over this. It makes me wish that we had fought in front of them; we kept everything hidden for their sake and now, they’re confused why two people who seemingly get along would end their marriage.

I’m angry because I feel like I was punched in the face every day and kept asking Joseph to stop. Then I’m the asshole for leaving the marriage when it was on him to stop the punching.

For the record, he never punched me. I wish he did. It would have made this decision much easier.

Joseph still wants me to come back. He wants his family back. And I want my family too…I just don’t want to be married to him as the fine print of that family.

I’m still dating Thomas, who has stepped up his A-game. After I laid it out that I wouldn’t commit to him until he got his life together, including a better job (not in so many words, I played up his worthiness and skillset rather than his paycheck), he’s showing me all the things a healthy relationship should have.

We’ve talked about how we handle confrontation and our expectations of a partner. Thomas is highly empathetic and feeds off my energy; if I’m happy, he’s happy.

This causes me to think of how my marriage should have been. What it would have been like to have a true partner. Someone who immediately jumps in to help without me asking or offers to find solutions even when I don’t need them.

I look back to memories of my marriage when I tried so hard and received nothing back. Admittedly, I wasn’t Wife of the Year either. I just didn’t have anything left to give. My resentment gave me a mentality of, “you don’t help me when I need you so why do you deserve my free time after I’ve done work all day for this house?”

Joseph’s depression crippled both of us at times. At the end of the day, he’d come home (after I spent the evening with the chaotic rush of picking up the kids after work and managing their nighttime routine) and flop on the couch to watch TV. Unless the topic was about a TV show or movie, Joseph’s anger surfaced.

That meant asking about his day was off the table. Which, I assume, is a standard conversation for most couples (regardless if the day was good or bad). I didn’t even know that Joseph had employees until years later and I never knew how many there were or their names. Shouldn’t a wife know if her husband has employees? But his depression and stress caused him to snap, telling me to never ask about his days ever again.

Later, in marriage counseling, Joseph insisted that the only reason I asked about his day was to rub it in his face. To this day I don’t fully understand the logic. I wasn’t asking every day like an autodial robot; twice a week triggered him into anger.

How do you connect with a spouse who commutes far away, isn’t there in the evenings, and then refuses to discuss their day with you?

I think back to events that should have been happy moments.

Christmas isn’t my jam. I could easily turn Halloween into a 3-month event to carry me into the new year. But I make a big deal for the sake of the kids because I know what it’s like to have parents who didn’t partake in fun holidays.

I organized a trip with another family for a whole Santa-Polar-Express-Toy-Workshop in Arizona. It was months of planning. Joseph didn’t have to do anything other than pack his bag. We switched driving and he got a speeding ticket. It sucked, but we weren’t so broke that we couldn’t afford the ticket or the increase in car insurance.

That ticket single-handedly ruined the weekend. Joseph was a dick to me. He was a dick to our friends. He was a dick to the kids. No matter how upbeat I tried to be or put a positive spin on the action-packed events, he was a bitchy version of Eeyore. I still remember silently crying while driving to the Grand Canyon, grateful my sunglasses covered the tears.

Finally, I had a moment alone without the children around to lay the smackdown and tell him he was ruining the weekend. Joseph changed his attitude but the damage was done; three days of him acting like I was the cause of his unhappiness ruined what was supposed to be a special trip with our kids making memories. I’ll never be able to afford that trip again.

In contrast, my friend and her family had a laughing, jolly time. It’s hard to see reminders of what your marriage should be like. What happiness looks like.

Am I crying over it still, years later? Yes, yes I am.

I’m angry because I became the Bad Guy in our marriage. The nagging wife, the battleax, the unfun one. My lack of self-esteem allowed me to fall right into the role of the villain.

Partnerships aren’t supposed to have villains.

I wish I could say that I’m not trying to be a victim here. However as I spend my time alone (there’s plenty of that after divorce), my pity parties are Gatsby-esque in grandeur. I’m grieving for the Me of the past 20 years.

I’m angry that I’m the Bad Guy now for ending the marriage. Joseph insists that I didn’t try hard enough. That we could have continued working on this. That our kids are worth the effort.

There wasn’t anymore more for me to give. And if it wasn’t for my sky-high guilt over my children’s pain, I wouldn’t feel so torn up over the divorce.

My emotions over this divorce are all over the map.

I’m mourning the loss of being a family unit.

I’m aching for my children’s devastation and not seeing them every day.

I’m overwhelmed with my excess free time. I lack the motivation to do anything with it.

I’m angry that my peak hotness of my twenties and thirties was spent with someone who didn’t want sex with me because of a hidden porn addiction. To this day I still get nervous wearing lingerie because of the times I was rejected, unaware that Joseph had jerked off moments before my advances (somehow he was angry with me for choosing the wrong time to wear lacy nothings, like it was my fault he came already). Wearing lingerie is extremely vulnerable for women who are self-conscious about their bodies; rejecting them regularly does enough damage but rejecting them when they’re wearing microscopic string will scar them for life.

I feel stupid for the affairs not realizing I was seeking out a connection and intimacy. They had nothing to do with sex (which was typically awful anyway) and everything to do with a desperate moment of connection combined with a hit of oxytocin.

I’m sad for the person who stayed in a marriage hoping for something different and taking the blame for everything that went wrong. When I discovered he went to massage parlors for happy endings, my immediate emotion was fear because I knew he would be angry when I brought it up.

My heart genuinely hurts for believing that I was an awful person for wanting her husband to pick up his trash or clean the dishes. I believed it was wrong of me to wish Joseph were there every day to help me with the kids at dinnertime. I can’t express what a mind fuck it is to realize that you weren’t a bad person for wanting more out of your spouse other than an income contributor and weekend Disneyland dad.

Admittedly, this homegirl needs to get back into therapy. I’m a hot mess emotionally when it comes to this divorce.

My goal is to ensure future relationships aren’t collateral damage for the apparent PTSD I have from my marriage. It doesn’t take much for Thomas to say something sweet, triggering me to throw my face in a pillow and cry for hours (this is by text…I have my shit together to not do that in person or let on that I’m a disaster).

It boils down to believing that I’m capable of giving the right kind of love to someone and to feel like I’m deserving of it back. Right now, that’s a struggle as marital memories randomly overwhelm my brain like a tidal wave. It’s difficult to not tell Thomas, “so FYI, I’m a complete bitch who will nag and make you miserable.”

Sometimes, this divorce makes me feel like I take two steps forward and three steps back emotionally.