I get why men /themselves at the rate they do during and after divorce.

In a span of 18 months I lost my father, my business, litigation resulting from that business loss, my income, my marriage. I'm likely going to lose my home (i grew up in this home, and so have my sons). I'm battling an absolute nutjob diagnosed with untreated borderline who with ever sentence lies in court. I am unavoidably seeking full custody because she's articulated plainly and clearly that she has trauma from her own sons, and that she screams at them uncontrollably when i'm not there. I've spent the last several years as a functional single father given how little she's engaged the children (it's pre-pandemic the last time she took either or both of them anywhere on her own).

The one person who I could genuinely talk to about all this is dead. We both just went pro se due to finances. If this carries past the settlement I just offered her - basically offering to give her a bag of cash to walk, and I'll take all the heat on debt, provided I get the kids - we will burn through what little we have fighting each other.

It has been constant, never-ending gut punches. It's incessant. And knowing that because i have a Y chromocome, the uphill battle in going after full custody is far steeper than women.

I've already had my go of it with counsel. He came highly recommended. What he did was wrap his letterhead around my content (ie: i could have done it all myself. I basically did)

The anxiety is indescribable. The depression is crippling.

I'm not saying I would do it. I can't. I need to protect my sons from the emotional trauma she's inflicted on them the last several years and will in the future.

But all I am saying is...I get it. For some, that's the only way of seeking mercy from it all.

I understand.