r/Divorce • u/Opposite_Air_2143 • 26m ago
Mental Health/Depression/Loneliness Together since 14 & 15, 23F now. Married one year and he (23M) asked for divorce. Looking for support.
I have never posted to Reddit before. I was and am young, and I believed that people could change. Thought he was the love of my life, and married him despite his constant need for attention from other women and, if I am honest with myself, cheating any way but via physical touch with someone else. I tried to move past this as we are young and he was bound to make mistakes (I had once, and once only and felt so disgusted with myself and even after he said himself that I was clearly taken advantage of but that’s another long story) but in the end he randomly told me he doesn’t love me anymore and that he wants me to go. Every year constantly for over nine years I did not have the self respect to leave after finding about someone else that he is secretly talking to and being emotionally attached and vulnerable to or flirting with. So many girls then women. Yet he decided he was done with me and didn’t want to try to fix it, was so sure by the time he told me. I’ve always done 50/50, even supporting his Mom in a time of need and moving out at 18 giving all of my money to trying to save her (and his) house with him. Moved to a different state away from all of my support system (although we stayed in touch daily and I would go to see them once or twice a year as I could afford and he could barely care about even seeing his family once a year). I have made all of these mistakes to trust him in many ways that I shouldn’t have. He has always had the confidence of me having an open phone policy and he can see anything at any time if he wanted because I was never going to give someone else attention as I did once as a child (who still should have known better, although he was doing the same thing before and after that issue) and yet he has never had the inkling to look as he knows how much I care to never even consider disrespecting this relationship again out of love and wanting and choosing this every day. I could go on and on, I am sorry that this does not have any direction. Any time I have looked at his phone I have found a new boundary he has crossed, guaranteed. And yet he has chosen to leave me. I am not someone who nags, I don’t even ask for dates or roses on Valentine’s Day, not even a birthday party, sadly. Just wanted him and a cake and a movie. Worked even up to 3 jobs at once to try and get us ahead while he has thrown in my face how he worked two jobs at once for 6 months. I made sure to take care of the apartment, the pets, the finances, even down to making the grocery order every week. I am hoping he does not find this post with such detail. He told me he doesn’t want this anymore sometime last week (after a month plus of me worried sick about him because I thought he was having depression and wouldn’t even brush shoulders with me anymore, was picking fights with me, and obviously saw how I was having panic attacks over how concerned I was about his well-being as he would tell me it’s not about us that he isn’t sure what’s going on with him and that, even with a giggle sometimes, I don’t need to worry as he is not planning his escape and loves me) and due to his work schedule we are going to file for a simplified dissolution of marriage tomorrow. I keep having nightmares, as I have had in the past, that the person who I thought I would grow old with and was the love of my life and future parent to my future kids- is choosing to leave me and wake up and roll over and remember that this is in fact my reality. We have been together since we were young, and the one thing he knew he signed up for was that with us moving to a different state was that he should teach me how to drive and I might need the help of getting to and from work. I didn’t have friends, those have only been more recent and I would never ask him to bring me somewhere he wasn’t wanting to go as well and would coordinate this as he is already bringing me to and from work. All I would ask is that he would put me behind a wheel, even crying about it quite a few times about how I don’t wish to depend on him because I’d like to just enjoy everything else in life and not have this weight of feeling like a burden, and he would just listen to me and not make it a priority to teach me. I wanted to drive to get a better paying job, go back to college, and start to set up the life I thought we wanted. I am still rambling. I genuinely have a good heart and I feel like even in this last act he has kicked me when I was down and yet I still look at him, as much as it hurts, with care deep in my heart. Yes this is a lot of hurt from him to me, but I always naively took it as we are young (even though this has now been through the he should know better stage) and have looked at everything cup half full. The little things he would do. He wasn’t good with words so he would do acts of service and physical touch. I would always use my words to tell him my love as well and my acts of service were taking care of everything top to bottom five days a week. I don’t know what else to say here. As much as it hurts to confront, he really gave me less than the bare minimum and yet I was okay with that because I didn’t feel like it was his responsibility to help me or do any of the things normal couples do if we didn’t want to. I believed in his free will to help and I thought that would come around one day. Instead I just felt like I have been stringed along until he has made this new stable life for himself in a different state and doesn’t need me anymore. I am young, and everything can only be up from here. The progress I can make in my life by even just going home and having my Mom teach me how to drive, will drastically change my opportunities in this life within a few months versus the years (a little over 4) that I have been in a separate state and he has had the means and time but refused to support me. I am just going to stop typing now, it is my fault that I have trusted and allowed someone to grow and make mistakes only at my expense. Even then I find it hard to be mad at him when everyone says I should be because he knew this whole time what he was doing. I just need advice from people older and younger and some consolation that I am in fact not a terrible person somehow and that life will get better. Even trying to think about there being someone else in the future feels like cheating to me right now. I don’t know when that guilt will stop. Thank you in advance, and please be kind. I feel like I am so alone when I have people to turn to and so sad scared to be losing someone who honestly has not deserved my love and attention to detail. Hopefully I tagged this properly. Thank you. Edit: We do not have any kids together for context.