If you were to ask me how my marriage was, I would have said great. I had a home, husband, and child. I had just started going to university to improve the future of our family. We rarely fought. Our marriage was very healthy. Overall, I thought I was going to die with my husband. Over the 9 years together, we had done a lot. We even owned our own business at one point. What ended up happening, I never saw coming.
In August 2023, I quit my job because my ex and I agreed I'd attend university to get a bachelor's degree in psychology. I started in September, and things were going well, though adjusting was tough. I got home later, which I disliked because I saw less of my daughter. In September, my ex also decided to give a one-month notice at his job, feeling ready for something new. We agreed he could take two weeks off between jobs, but he was supposed to start looking immediately, as I was uneasy with both of us being out of work while I was in school full-time.
Time passed, and it was the last day of his job. That day, he told me he had something really important to tell me. I bought a confetti popper to celebrate his last day at the job and celebrate a new beginning. Little did I know, it was not the new beginning I had in mind. That night, he was acting odd. He was visibly nervous and I couldn't figure out why. Eventually he tells me he wants to transition to a woman.
I was initially confused and shocked, as this had never come up in our nine years together. I said, "Okay, we'll figure this out together." I loved him, and we had a family. I'll delve into this more in part 3, as it significantly impacted me. The shock and confusion were overwhelming. I struggled to focus at school, and he distanced himself more each day. Since he wasn't working, he spent all day on the computer talking to people on VR Chat. He said he was looking for understanding, and I encouraged this, knowing I couldn't support that part of his decision.
After about a month of his distancing and change, I noticed more concerning things. I went into his office to ask a question while he was on VR Chat with a new friend. Thirty minutes later, I returned with another question, and he responded with attitude. Later, when I asked another question, he yelled at me for interrupting. This was the first time in nine years he raised his voice at me, and I realized something else was happening. He spent all his time online, leaving almost everything else to me. I tried to maintain normalcy for our daughter, but that wasn't in our future.
After his outburst, I paid more attention. I initially thought he needed space to adjust, but something felt wrong. I asked more questions and observed his actions. In November 2023, after a lot of questioning, he told me he needed to be polyamorous, that I'd be the main partner since we were married, but he needed more. This made me even mentally weaker than before. He was completely disregarding my feelings and everything he had already put me though. Almost as if I owed him this, and I did not.
I asked him if we went on more dates and rekindled things, would that help and remove the need to be polyamorous. I tried to find solutions, as I could admit things got mundane with work, school, life, etc. That is when he told me he loved someone else more than he loved me. Within that conversation, I told him we were getting divorced and asked him how selfish one person can be. How much does he expect me to accept when he's changing the rules out of nowhere? Did he really think I was going to say yes to all of this? Or did he simply not care?
Him as a person instantly changed. He was no longer the person I was with for 9 years. He became selfish and self absorbed. He became impulsive and was hiding everything. How could I be with someone for nine years and not see a single sign? How can someone that claimed to love me put all of this on my shoulders and then abondon me?
Everything in my life is unraveling. I completed my semester at university and immediately began searching for a new job, as the challenges of being a single mother have become very real. During our divorce conversation, he mentioned he wanted to have our daughter every other weekend. His certainty showed me that he had emotionally left the marriage long before.
Since we owned the house, we ended up living together from November 2023 to June 2024. Our daughter noticed her dad sleeping in another room and spending time in the basement, no longer interacting with her as he used to. He chose to escape reality, leaving me to manage everything alone. He would question why I was upset, as if he hadn't disrupted our daughter’s and my world. Then replaced me with people aged 18 and 20 while he was 45. The age of his new parters led me to question even more things. What does a 45-year-old want with such young individuals? Did I ever really know him? Who is this person I have dedicated nine years of my life to?
Within two weeks of discussing divorce, he already had a new partner. I could hear him flirting and talking to them while I sat alone on the couch, crying because everything I built with someone I trusted had just fallen apart before my eyes. During the day, I tried to stay strong. I didn't want our daughter to be burdened by her father's choices, but by night as she slept, I would cry. Cry that my future had been altered beyond a point I ever expected. My new reality was so far from the one I created in my mind that being awake simply hurt. I had to put on a brave face and go to a new job every day, while hiding how broken his choices made me. All while caring for our daugher because he was too busy talking to people online to remember he had responsibilities. In part 4, I will go into more detail about how I was trying to heal myself while healing my daughter and the struggles I had and still have with her because of all of his choices.
We chose to do mediation, we wanted to end things amicably for our daughter. We followed the length of time it takes before being able to file the paperwork. However, to further add to the experience, by time we filed the paperwork my ex legally changed his name, so my divorce paperwork doesnt even have the name of the person I married.
Now, just to give you a recap of what I have just experienced over a 4 month period: I left my job in August 2023. By September 2023, I started university, and my husband gave a one-month notice to leave his job. In October 2023, he decided to transition to a woman and no longer had a job. In November 2023, he expressed the desire to be polyamorous while I tried to hold myself together and pass my finals, maintaining normalcy for our daughter. I'll discuss how the transition and polyamory affected me in part 3.
All in all, the legal aspect of the divorce was straight forward, but the waiting time was difficult. It got to a point, I simply wanted the ties to him to be broken. Technically, we still aren't divorced as we have submitted everything but have not recieved the finalized divorce paperwork.
Once I realized that staying angry with him wasn't beneficial and I didn't want to waste my time on it, our interactions began to improve. We can now discuss our daughter's needs, and I can update him when necessary. Do we have an excellent relationship? No. But we can communicate where it truly matters. I am determined not to let our daughter be further affected by her parents' decisions. Therefore, I chose to let go of my anger, as holding onto it would only cause her more harm.
I will elaborate on some of these points in future parts of Facing The Unforseen. If I were to write everything, this blog would never end.
I want to thank you for making it this far in my blog, and I hope some of these experiences can help you or show you that you're not alone.