This week has been hectic. That's an understatement, but I can't think of a better way to describe it. Work was simply crazy all week. That's not a bad thing, but it's very draining.

Then this happened…

My husband got his copy of the Divorce Petition. His first reaction was to threaten to fight me forever. He hadn't even talked to me yet. Can you say "knee-jerk reaction"? Oh well. I was expecting it. The thing I can't understand is that the part he was most angry about wasn't what I thought it would be. You see I thought he would be most upset that the reason listed for the divorce is "irreconcilable differences" and (here it is…) "extreme mental cruelty". It was either that or I would push the adultry charge. I don't want to do that, so this was the reduced cause. But he didn't seem to care about that. (I wonder, sometimes, if he really does feel bad. He says he regrets the affair, but his actions speak louder than words. And he's never really apologized for it either.)

The part that made him mad was that I asked for sole custody of the kids. He wanted joint custody. He's not a bad father. He's never been abusive to them (or me really, just incredibly insensitive and narcicistic). And he wants to be part of their lives. It could be worse, right? So I can't blame him for wanting joint custody. I've asked my attorney to change the Petition. I just pray it won't become a point of contention between us. It's going to be an annoyance for me, I suspect. The worst part about it was the thought of having to deal with him so closely that I'd never be able to get away from him enough to move on.

Then we got on the phone and had a screaming match… well, I screamed. He tried to deflect and defend himself, throwing the blame for his affair on me. This one was too big even for the Xanax to save me from.

But here's the strangest thing… I feel like I've finally gotten a little bit of truth out of him and that makes today much better. He'd always given some BS reasons that I knew weren't true. They never made any sense.

So here's the super short version of what I've come to understand…

He wasn't fulfilling my emotional needs, and I wasn't fulfiling his sexual needs (TMI? maybe, but it's true). Neither of us really understood how deep the issue went with the other. Eventually, we both just stopped trying. But it's the whole "chicken and the egg" argument all over again. Who started hurting first? Who stopped trying first? We don't really know. And so it ends. But that kind of makes this ok for me. It shows me that we just weren't right for each other any more. I'm not saying I'm all better. I'm saying that understanding this has given me the strength to start letting go and let the healing process begin.

– WomanScorned 2/2/13 (Happy Groundhog's Day!)