About 2 weeks ago my stbxw (F48) got back from a trip to visit her host family in another country (she was a foreign exchange student when she was 16 and had not been back in over 30 years) and told me (M47) she doesn’t love me, she is not attracted to me, and she wants a divorce. She said that while she was on her trip she remembered the hopes and dreams she had when she was 16 and wants to go and try to live that life in that other country. She also is loving to proclaim that she is a “strong and independent woman”, right before she tells me that she can’t move out on her own so she wants me to move out of my bedroom so she can stay in the master bedroom while I figure out somewhere else to live in the house just so she can be here for our youngest’s senior year of high school. I am devastated. We had problems, and before she left on her trip we were working on them. When I told her that I was surprised she said, “Why are you surprised? You should have seen this coming.” She tells me that if she starts arguing with me and I don’t walk away it is my fault. And she can’t seem to wrap her head around the fact that she is leaving me so she needs to leave. She obviously didn’t think this through. To me it resembles a toddler that is throwing a tantrum and running away but doesn’t have anywhere to go. She has knocked herself off the pedestal I had her on and I will never put another woman or person there again. If showing her so much respect and adoration makes her feel like I think of her as property vs a person, then I am sad for her future. One of the saddest parts for her is that before she decided to divorce me she had shared her desire to live part time in our home country, and part time in her host families country. After she told me that I did a bunch of research and came up with a plan that could make that happen in 8 years. Unfortunately without someone to help her, it is unlikely that she will realize this dream. I’m still thinking about doing that, living part time in 2 different countries, but now it will just be for me, and I’m becoming okay with that.