Your children don’t have to see scary fights anymore. There will still be fights, for a while, but it’ll be easier to keep the kids out of the fray.

If you like Best Foods you don’t have to deal with their Miracle Whip.

You are free to be yourself again—and pursue your own dreams again,

Perhaps also you see reality, as before marriage it was probably imagination and hope but didn’t pan out to be that ideal life,

It can be very hard to change within a relationship. We often feel pressured to stay the person we were (or thought we were, or presented ourselves as) at the start of the relationship. So divorce (or any kind of breakup) offers us an opportunity to be different than we once were without the awkwardness and resistance that may come from trying to do so within an existing relationship.

This isn’t to say that people can’t grow separately without growing apart, just that it can be difficult.

Alimony?

You get to test your new axe.

A lot of people, especially women, talk about feeling free again and a weight off of their shoulders.

Set the thermostat at any temperature you want.

Joy Behar says raising her daughter became easier, contrary to a lot of the messaging out there. She said she could make decisions about raising her daughter without having to deal with checking with her husband or him disagreeing.

Freedom of not having to answer to anyone.

You get to be around people that like spending time with you.

Best part: not having to be denigrated, criticized, and bitched at by my spouse.

Learning that you are more capable than you thought you were, Making new friends and finding new activities to participate in. Doing exactly what you want when you want it. Not being judged by someone else’s standards.

All that being said, since mine was a bland rather than a horrible marriage, there are still times 10 years on, that I grieve. And I am glad that we didn’t divorce when my kids were little because I think we were better together for the kids. But even though they were youngish adults when we split up, it was still devastating to one of them.

You experience the exhilarating feeling that NOW you are FREE to repeat the mistake all over again! ;-D

Don’t know, been married to the same woman almost 40 years, lived together for two years before we married. So, what, 42 years here? Never wanted a divorce, nor has she. She was divorced from another guy before we met, he was a cheater and beater. So I guess she would say the best thing was getting shed of his ass. Not that I’m any bargain, but after 42 years of her sticking with me, I guess maybe I’m not too bad.

Is FOLGER’S in your cup.

Folgers and a tad of Irish whiskey. Medicinal purposes only.

I don’t have direct experience, but from friends I’ve gained a few impressions:

• being able to correct a mistake you were too long in admitting
• feeling like you can breathe again
• making some drastic and overdue lifestyle changes
• getting to bitch unreservedly about the ex without being constrained by loyalty or shame

Not everyone goes for the last one, and like @janbb, some genuinely miss their exes.

I have broken up with boyfriends in the (long) past, even one live-in one, and I know it’s not the same, because there’s none of the legal stuff or the vows; but there was always a feeling of relief mixed with the regrets and loss. It was always so hard for me to admit that what I wanted and hoped for was never coming true and that I’d just messed up again.

When I began to look forward to the relief as being better than the current misery, I knew it was time to let go.

My late husband did divorce his first wife many long years ago. It was very rough on him. He said he had thought it would be about emotions, but it turned out to be about division of property. I think correcting a mistake was his main gain.

Regarding children, I have observed friends go through their parents getting divorced, and my friends who got divorced, and it was easier if the divorce happened when the children were very young or high school age and older. Ages 5 through 14 seems to be the toughest. That is my observation and not supported by any data. When I was a kid I used to wish my parents would get divorced. They are still married; 55 years married.

@JLeslie Why would you have wished them divorced? If it’s to personal, just tell me to drop dead.

@Nomore_lockout They fought constantly. Also, my mom seemed very unhappy.

@JLeslie Oh ok. Sorry to hear that. As well as being nosey.

The thoughtful reminders that the attorneys are adding late interest onto their fees, and rebound sex – But not with the attorney.

Probably.

Like 5 days after Thanksgiving, the turkey is gone.

Oh the utter relief from the games and the lies.

Wrong answers allowed.

I don’t have to wait until I’m “allowed” to speak…you’ll be receiving our divorce papers tomorrow morning!!! I’ve only been through ONE divorce & it was the MOST FREEING thing that I’ve ever experienced!!!

Well let me ask this, and I suppose I direct this to the Lady jellies. So you get a divorce, justifiable reasons, you feel much better, liberated, whatever. I get that. But why do some women get so radical about it? What I mean is that I have encountered two situations in my life, where a woman I was close to, my wife one time, and a prior girlfriend a few years before that, literally tried to burn, and or destroy, pictures of her wedding day? The wife and I were sitting chatting one evening, and she was telling me about what a jerk her X was. I had asked to see her old wedding album, just out of curiosity. And then she suddenly got up. grabbed some scissors, and started trying to cut up her pics. I took the album and scissors away, told her to calm down, and we’d go out and get some fresh air. In the prior situation. the girl had an almost identical reaction, and tried to go out on the porch and torch her album with my lighter. Ditto taking it all away, telling her to chill out and put the book away. What the hell does it accomplish, to destroy your memories? And trashing a wedding album wont change your life one whit. Any explanations?

Don’t know, I still have mine. But men are just as guilty.

@chyna I’m sure of that. Either way, I think its bonkers. I still have pics of old girlfriends in my album. Doesn’t bother my wife, and getting rid of them wont change anything about a prior relationship. Just never could grasp what would make someone just snap like that.

@Nomore_lockout Both of my husband’s siblings are like that, one a brother one a sister. They will cut up photos and not want to talk about their exes at all. My husband isn’t like that and neither am I. Not so far anyway. My husband and I were never married before our marriage, but I even mean boyfriends and girlfriends. I think maybe it matters how abused the person felt, and I think women are more likely to have felt oppressed and abused.

I can’t imagine someone having children and destroying their wedding album.

I know people who literally forget they were married to their first husband’s if they were married young and less than two years. LOL.

Although my kids are in their 30s, she comes to see them maybe 1–2 times a year, so I often end up seeing her and being at a ‘family’ dinner even though she has been married a couple times since she and I were.

I don’t hate her – I got over that years and years ago. But I don’t trust her, and I have no reason to reach out to her for any reason. I’ll never be her friend.

But she is the mother of my (our kids) and that is something that can’t be erased or torn apart with a scissors.

@elbanditoroso Perfect answer man, that explains what I was trying to get at perfectly. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it is what it is, and an x is an x. And severing a finger or burning your pad down in a fit of anger, wont change the past at all. I think my wife has the right attitude. Now anyway, lol. I have offered to toss those pics I have of previous girlfriends, and she told me, no, what are they hurting? They’re only pictures, don’t worry about it. Bingo!

@Nomore_lockout Since you haven’t had the experience, I find it a little odd that you are judging other people’s reactions to it and even supposing that “lady Jellies” can explain how some unknown women may have reacted. I find it a question lacking in nuance to say the least and it is interesting that you felt the need to control the responses of women friends who were venting their anger.

As for me personally, I have had a range of emotions toward my Ex from anger to grief to a profound sense of failure but never felt the need to act out in that way. But that is a result of the marriage I had and the person I am.

Maybe it made you uncomfortable to witness these women’s anger and maybe they shouldn’t have acted out in your presence, but concluding that there should be a blanket way of reacting to something you’ve never experience seems pretty shallow. That’s just my two cents.

Nonsense, @janbb, that’s worth a lot more than two cents. A couple of bucks at least. Wild generalizations about strangers are always stupid.

Not judging anyone. Just don’t see how destroying pics will change anything from the past.

It might make them feel better at the time.

@Nomore_lockout Divorce rewrites your past and is a profound wrench and how you are able to integrate or deal with that is an individual matter of time and personality.

Whatever the case may be, trying to light an album on fire on a wooden porch, is not the brightest of ideas. Nor is getting radical with a pair of very sharp scissors. So yes, I took the stuff from them in both cases, and if that makes me “controlling” in your point of view, oh well. Better than a burned out residence, or a serious cut. And destroying the photo’s wont wipe the memories from a persons mind. I’m out.

Starting on MY career goals as in the marriage it was all about him only.

As for wedding pictures I kept the one picture that we could afford to have and thus sent

copies to my now adult children for there photo albums.

I remarried and 2nd husband and I split when I became the ONLY breadwinner while he
wandered .( a pattern throughout his life)

I sent his photographs to his sisters address on the other side of the country and years later

when he expectantly passed on ( disease?) his family I am sure were grateful that they had

pictures of his life while at that time they lost contact with him .( he had wandered across the

country taking up with many other women throughout his life, mooching off women.

I was too trusting and was just one of many that he used.

However to end on a good note we never divorced since he wandered and could not be

found if I were to file divorce papers and this I thought would prevent him from using another

women but it didn’t . He lived with another women when he died but because I was the last

one married to him I received death benefits through government benefits for life which in a

way reimburses me for all that I paid for as the only breadwinner throughout living together

for six years , then four years of marriage.

It all balanced out in the end ,I suppose.

Note: It doesn’t matter how long a person is with another BEFORE marriage, as there are no

guarantees that one knows the other fully, since it all depends on IF honest communication

especially on his past dalliance’s/and marriages (4) occurs and he wants to change?
In my case he kept that information to himself.

For me it was self-realization.

I rushed into my marriage at a time where I wasn’t completely comfortable with who I was or where I was going. I didn’t really know myself and was looking for someone else to help me fill a void.

After my divorce, I got to spend time with me. I worked on some issues and began to fall in love with myself. I learned the value of alone-time and realized where I wanted my life to go and what I needed to be happy.

It took a while and it hurt for a long time, but I’m at a point in my life now where I’m perfectly happy alone or with company, and know what I want in my life and who i choose to spend my time with.

It’s quite liberating.

@Dr_C Good to see you!

@Nomore_lockout….maybe it was just your choice in women. It doesn’t mean ALL women act like that.

Coming from you, I can take that under consideration. : ) Perhaps it was. Although I tired hard to avoid drama queens. I thought.

@janbb likewise! It’s been a while!

@Nomore_lockout Destroying the pics changes NOTHING!!! At the same time I think that it’s more a symbolic gesture than the act of destroying their hold on your life.

For me, the “freeing” part came from the fact that he got his jollies beating me a minimum of once a day…or twice IF he was in a good mood. He was so freaking controlling that I had to ask permission to go to the bathroom. IF he said NO & I went anyway…beating #3. So for me, it was GREAT to be in control of my own life for a change!!! The ONLY pics that I destroyed were some that he took of me & I didn’t trust him to keep them private & I definitely did NOT want them shown to anyone else!!!

@LadyMarissa Good grief, he really beat you for using the bathroom? You should have pressed charges and put his ass UNDER the jail!

@Nomore_lockout This was before women’s lib & I was still considered his property.After one of the first beatings, I did go to the cops to see what options I had to protect me They laughed at me & told me that I needed to learn how to obey better so he had NO reason to hit me again.

@LadyMarissa Every one of those jack asses should have been fired.

I’m going to go with: the ever-present risk of having anything you commit to writing subpoenaed. It is so cool living under the thumb of your ex-husband like that. What a ride.

Eddie Murphy had some thoughts.

Interesting that the majority of those responding and sharing experiences are women

^^Maybe women typically see more good parts about being divorced than men? Women ask for divorces more than men.

Men don’t admit to being abused by women because they are seen as being weak!!!

Silence. Not hearing constant criticism.

Generally speaking, men aren’t in as much danger when a woman gets pissed as woman are when a man gets pissed.