My ex and I had been together for 13 years. Everything was pretty good until I'd say about 5 years ago. That's when the crack started forming.

I was The stay-at-home dad for the first 7 years of my oldest child's life and all of my youngest life until I went back to work once we moved from state to state. I absolutely love to being a stay at home dad I was really good at it.

So basically the cracks were things where I was realizing I was never heard. I was never listened to and I was talked down to constantly. When I would confront her she would say she was just helping me do things or she didn't mean it or any other excuse and then would turn around with a what about you comment. It was a very typical It was her way or it was the wrong way type of situation for most everything. I couldn't load the dishwasher correctly, for example. Just fine it just wasn't her way.

She was angry and I lost two jobs almost back to back. It unfortunately was through politicking not anything I really did. She knew that but she didn't support it anyway. She talked with her friend I found out about it and basically they were just tearing me apart for being a responsible. Of course she never mentioned that she was fired from her job before he moved here, she was fired from a second job. And when she moved here she had to quit her job because it was too stressful for her and that's when I went back to the workforce immediately. So we went from her agreed upon arrangement of she works because she could make more money and I would support the house to her being too stressed and I did it without complaint. And she still got irritated with me for being annoyed that the situation was changing.

This of course caused me to start shutting down and getting angry. I'm not the type to rant and scream and yell unless we're in a full argument and even then I just try to make my point heard but with her it's impossible. Once you're angry she's angry at you for being angry and won't hear you. We had one argument where I told her I was tired of being ignored. I was tired of her picking up her phone to browse texts or check her messages when we were in the middle of a discussion. I was tired of her not even knowing what I was saying because she was zone out to talk with the kids. She told me she was sorry and that it would be better. She did it for about 2 weeks and it went right back to it. And then weaponized those two weeks constantly.

We had a point about 2 years ago where I moved into the basement of our house and she stayed upstairs. It was under the guise of her snoring too much. We started fighting more. Neither one of us giving the other grace. Weaponizing anything we could.

We had a massive argument and I finally got a hold of a marriage counselor. We had one session. The counselor wouldn't let her immediately blame me and instead wanted to just get both of our sites before the next session through a survey and writing down our goals and how we saw the situation. On top of that I put in way more effort to try to fix everything.

She attended one counseling session and that was it. A couple months later I got a letter hand delivered by her telling me she wanted a divorce. She had already divided the assets and they were very fair. To her surprise I didn't flip out and to my surprise I just felt relief.

The process went quickly and we were officially divorced a while ago.

Now here is where ar I'm not sure I'm feeling the right way. I absolutely thrived The moment I was given the letter. I went to therapy that night since I still go by myself and I've just been feeling really good. I feel like I'm a better dad, I enjoy things a lot more. My level of stress has dropped, It's almost nothing. I'm enjoying dating living life again. I've lost weight. It's just been me thriving. Her on the other hand she's been falling apart. We're very amicable and get along better now than we have as a couple. She's had a ton of health issues that have popped up, she had to buy a new house because in the divorce I kept the house and she kept her retirement. She's suffering from insomnia health issues depression. Does she won't admit it I think she's realizing that I wasn't nearly as bad as she thought I was. That counseling would have helped us both since it was helping me.

So I make sure that I give her as much grace as I can but I'm starting to feel guilty about how bad she's doing. Mentally and physically. I don't want to get back with her at all. I don't think I ever will. She has a lot of issues that she doesn't want to admit or get help for and that's fine. As long as we can co-parent and get along just fine.

We both have navigated very well keeping our daughters in the loop at an age-appropriate level. We make sure that visitation is very smooth and that both of us get to see our kids everyday. We even did Christmas as a family unit because we want the girls to have those experiences. Our daughters are doing very well. We make sure they had therapy and they're perfectly fine. We check in with them separately just to make sure they understand what happened and why and then it's not their faults and that we love them both even if we don't love each other.

Custody is kind of interesting because it was very simple. I worked third shift My ex works first shift. She takes him to school I pick them up and spend a few hours with them and they go back to my ex's in the evening. I work rotating days off so they spend the night at my house whenever I have the next day off. So we both get to see the kids every single day. The one thing I have to give her absolute credit for as an ex is that she hasn't weaponized her children whatsoever. I make sure to talk her up a lot to them because I don't want them to have resentment later in life and she doesn't seem for me. We make sure the both of us get plenty of time with both girls and there's no arguments about that. I would go mad if I didn't have my children so this is something I really appreciate with her.

I feel like our daughters get to do more and a lot happier with this situation even if they don't realize why. They love having two different houses to live in. They love the fact that their dad is far more active with them. We didn't do a lot of things because I used to want to include my ex but she's very sedentary so we ended up staying home a lot. I'm a lot more of an active person and so we take day trips all the time. Go out and do things. We don't sit on our cell phones or YouTube or whatever. We play board games in card games. We just have fun. But on top of that I'm also the one that helps them with their homework everyday and all of that.

With all that said have any of you ex-husbands been in my position where you don't realize how unhappy you are until the divorce and all of a sudden you thrive? It was like I've been suffocating and didn't even know it until I was told she wanted a divorce and then something changed to me and fundamentally. I had gone from treading water trying to keep my head above it. Now I'm just happily swimming along. And with all of that I feel like I should feel guilty. I feel like while she struggles and I live life I should feel worse. I should feel guilty or I should be sad or something. My sadness when she gave me the divorce paper work lasted maybe a day or two. After that I was just fine with it. And it all feels weird. 13 years I was with somebody. We've had two children together. Lived a full life together and now she's just my ex-wife who lives in a different house and it doesn't matter to me.

I don't know man This is such a rant and maybe looking for commiseration. Which seems silly because I'm in such a good place but I don't know.