My wife and I have been together since we were 21 and she dropped the news on me today that she’s done. She wants a divorce. She thinks I’m a great dad, good provider and planner but the intimacy is lacking. I knew she wasn’t happy but she’s been going through a lot of mental health stuff over the years dealing with burnout. It honestly started with severe post-partum depression where she ended up on Zoloft for several years. Ever been married to an emotionless zombie? I gutted it out because I cared about her and our son.

We both work full time as engineers/project managers and we have an 8 year old son who starts third grade on Monday. This is going to absolutely destroy him, and my heart shatters just thinking about what this is going to do to his life.

I want to be strong for him and to be the best father for him that I can. She said she’s already reaching out to lawyers and wants to keep this as civil as possible. I’m not going to let her destroy my life and roll over - I want to be fair to her too, but I want what’s best for my son and myself too.

I don’t even know where to start. We live in North Carolina. I feel like I need a couple days to process what this means, not just today but years from now. I’m close to her family and I’m gutted knowing that I’m going to lose them. My own family hasn’t been part of my life for decades now, so I know I’m about to be alone.

I think I need to sit down and get an immediate understanding of my finances and then cut all my expenses to the bone to handle this. Financially, we’re in a great spot with no student loans or credit card debt - just a mortgage and HELOC from a major home repair a few years back. She mentioned “nesting” where we each get a place and keep our son in the home, but I hate it. I don’t want to live in a weird limbo and have the specter of her presence in the house - maybe I’m being unreasonable….

Any way, just needed to vent. I don’t really have any to talk to and even strangers on the internet are better than nothing.