Divorced in April. We weren’t married long, but we’ve been together for a while. It felt like everything went sideways after we got married.

The worst things I’m dealing with are:

None of this was supposed to be this way. We’re relocating at the beginning of next year, and until the divorce, it was “buying a house, settling in, finding a school for our kid, making plans together, etc…” I am JUST now entering the phase in my career where I can take more time off, work a more normal schedule (shift work sucks), be at home more. But she couldn’t wait until it got better. Now I have to find an apartment, figure out how to get the kid to and from school, and deal with losing all the plans for the future I had made.

And

As a child of divorce myself, I know what it’s like to have to grow up with two sides of a family. My father remarried and had three kids with his second wife, and whenever I would spend time with him and his other family, I always felt like fringe family. I would sleep on a cot in the basement. I was 6 when their first was born, so forever after that I was the helper/assistant when I stayed with them. I was their packhorse and chore monkey. Now my kid is potentially going to be in that situation (I’m fixed, so I won’t have any more kids, but who knows what the fuck she wants).

All the reasons we separated still exist. But my childhood insecurities are really kicking into high gear and I want her back so I can save my kid from having to feel that way. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t trust us not to go right back to where we were.

How do you deal with the feelings of failure and fear of the future you now have to recreate from scratch?

(PS we still have to cohabitate for 18 more weeks…it’s like breaking up every day when I have to see her at morning and night times. I just want to hold her hand and believe the fairy tale. I screw the lid on my feelings in the morning and let it off at night when I crawl into bed. Been crying for weeks now at night)