Home from court. The divorce is finalized and the marriage is over. Its crazy that a 15 year marriage ends in a five minute hearing where the judge just basically reads a script and we both answer yes or no questions. What hurt the most is that this is a no fault state: you just say there are "irreconcilable differences" and that's that. So the judge actually asked my wife something to the effect of whether "irreconcilable differences have caused the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, that efforts at reconciliation have failed, and that future attempts at reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best interests of the family." My wife never made any attempt at reconciliation. She never gave me a good reason why she left me. She refused to even consider counseling or even a conversation on what was happening.

I can honestly say that the past six months have been the worst in my life. From the day that she told me she wanted a divorce until today has been an absolute roller coaster of emotions. Maybe not a roller coaster as there weren't any ups, just several downs.

What was heartbreaking is that this whole thing was her idea. She told me she was leaving me. Just said "We are different people" and that was that. I have been an absolute wreck. I've lost 30 lbs and can barely sleep. She refused to move out, and although she left the country for two months, she kept her stuff here. She came back here after those two months because the move she had planned on making fell through. It wasn't till last Thursday that she left. She took one of the dogs. She came back home, or as she called it, "your place" Saturday night to pack before her movers came Sunday morning. And what hurt was for the first time in six months she cried. She actually got emotional. And sure enough, she was crying the entire time the movers were at the house on Sunday and when I saw her in the court house today she had tears in her eyes. But she didn't display a hint of emotion in the six months before. Not once did she express any doubt or hesitation. I've had to hear her plan her new life for the past six months. Every coworker or friend telling her how brave and strong she is. How pretty she is. How intelligent she is. She brought all this on me and now ... its done. She gets her new life and I get to pick up the pieces of mine.