Hey guys, it’s been a crazy 5 months. A quick recap: my stbxw went dark on me and asked for a divorce. We started our separation Jan 1st this yr, been married for 5 yrs, together 7 yrs. No kids and our only joint asset is our house in a HCOL area. I’m in my mid 30s and have 8 yrs over my stbxw. We bought our home before the pandemic housing boom and refinanced when rates experienced a historic drop in 2021 in the 2.7% range. STBXW’s mother has been living with us since early 2022, which happens to be the year when our marriage hit rock bottom. Stbxw hates her MIL whom would also visit and stay for 1-2 months a year (that was my bad for allowing that).

We’re both earners and make around the same (this also happened in 2022 after stbxw got promoted), but most of the big financial decisions that allowed us to gain equity and save cash at a strong rate were mine.

She lawyered up and has been very hostile towards me, falsely accusing me of harassment, of forcing myself on her and just being an overall shitty husband. She always tried to record me if I approached her amicably for general questions and has threatened to call the cops despite the absence of a real threat.

We did end up sleeping together a few times during the “separation” and in those short lived moments of bliss she would go back to being sweet again. A few days later the nastiness would resume and at some point during that period is when she falsely accused me of forcing her to have sex. I find it hard to believe I am guilty of this when she was giving me very specific instructions of what to do and what she liked during our close encounters lol. Afterwards she would praise me and say that I was “so great” and she had to admit I am a “handsome guy”! So wtf! Anyways, it was probably stupid of me to let myself get tangled up in those situations. The fucked up part is that her toxic behavior was not enough for me to stop having feelings for her.

I wanted to buy her half of the mortgage equity to keep the home and she was open to the idea. The problem is that she wanted the gross equity of the home and I was offering her the estimated share of net proceeds if we were to sell the house. We were at a stand still for a couple of months living in a toxic environment. She would also change her mind on wanting to leave the home and wouldn’t stop seeking me out to fight or just say nasty comments. There was one time she lost her shit and started banging her head against the wall bc we didn’t agree on some financial figures when we attempted to negotiate without lawyers. I had to pull my camera out and threaten to call 911 if she didn’t stop. She stopped as soon as she saw the camera lense on her.

Her mother kept trying to be part of the arguments and I had to politely tell her to fuck off please, “this is not your business”. To cope with this I’ve been exercising a lot more, I gained back a healthy appetite, been keeping a busy social life, focused on work and spoke with family daily. Had I let my emotions fully dominate me, I’d probably be 50lbs lighter, with no job, no house, no money laying by a bedroom wall corner in fetal position. To this day, I still love that crazy woman but I had to be objective and stay strong.

Ultimately she agreed to accepting the estimated net proceeds but I had to increase the estimated sale price of the home to improve her figures. It was not an unreasonable position on her part. We just recently signed the separation agreement and she moved out about 2 weeks ago. Seeing my empty home post move out was tough. I’ve broken down in tears a few time and this will likely happen again. It doesn’t help that we slept together again the week she moved out despite the lessons I learned from that. I’m a bit light in cash now but I guess I still have my health, my house, my car, my job, my dog and I still look and feel relatively young. Especially with the extra attention to my weekly exercise routine.

I am convinced my stbxw needs psychiatric help and that her mother and father are toxic influences in her life. I regret not doing my part better though. There are things I would have probably done differently and changes I wish I could’ve made to my personal behavior to improve the marriage. I still love and miss her despite the way she treated me during this separation period. Of course, I don’t miss this version of her but the person she was before her mother joined us in 2022. I can’t help but lament that the destruction of our home was not necessary and could have been avoided.