I am now officially a statistic.

 LOTTERY! 

WINNING!

It'll all work out, Beth.  Right now you are feeling lots of emotions, some overwhelming and I'm betting some relief too.

Recently divorcing myself the intial month or so was challenging.  Today I can honestly say, WOW this really should've happened years ago. 

I wish you the best, stay focused on your happiness and your children.

I'm sorry, Beth.

I wish I could help in some way. I know of places to live, but that's here, not by you, and certainly not in commuting distance for the kids to see their Dad.

I'm glad you guys are going to work things out as friends because that will be the best thing for the kids. I really wish I had advice, but I don't. Life throws some massive curveballs sometimes. If you decide to move to the NY/NJ area, let me know.

Many hugs. (((Beth)))))

Adele

(((( HUGS ))))) Ouch.. **** ********!!!! Ouch... (((((More HUGS)))))

Okay, don't hate me for saying this or think I'm a bad person but what if just you left, giving him primary care of the kids and go to school full time. You could dorm it, live on campus and cram the hell out of studying and get that degree.

You would be out of 'his house', your kids would be taken care of and their routine not disrupted too much and you would be fast forwarding to a time when you could split the care 50/50 with your husband and support youself.

You can take some weekends with the kids and either he can make room for you there or turn the house and kids over to you for the weekend.

I know there are grants/scholorships/loans out there for retraining/reskilling  people who will become full time students. And your blogging could be done from a dorm room or even the library. Yes, you would be granny dormy girl, but there might even be a break in room fees for that.

Are you a bad mother for doing that? I don't think so. You are making sure they are taken care of and making yourself able to take care of them in the future.

 You're not awful to say it - I thought it.  EVERY LITTLE THING comes back to money.  Ick.  

   You could do what I did, pretend to be content, just have seperate bedrooms , like roommates. Just for awhile  till you can get some money together. Usually  the judge makes the man pay everything for awhile and you can stay in the house and he has to still pay because of the kids. That's what I would do! don't make it easy on him and hard on the kids. If he was any kind of man , he'd want that too.

I just hate it for you.

Hugs.

Beth, I read this several hours ago---according to the time-clock, twelve minutes after you posted it. I was so blown away that I couldn't answer.

I still can't answer---because I've never been where you are now. I have no clue what to say to you that might help. (I suspect that nothing will.)

Just know that  love you.

It doesn't seem shocking to me at all, you have chosen a different path away from who you used to be and he's not part of it.  But be prepared, you could really hear some things you don't want too, people can get super nasty in divorce and if he wants to **** you over he certainly can.  This divorce is gonna cost him a ****load of money with child support on four kids, I hope he isn't planning to go for custody also and leave you with virtually nothing.  Seriously get mentally prepared for a battle, you just never know what might happen.  My ex was a compulsive gambler, who had lied his way through our marriage, when the final straw came and I was done all of a sudden he was this wounded animal and I was the bad guy.  He sat my son on the table and said Mommy doesn't want us to be a family anymore, Mommy wants to take you away from me.  He did everything in his power to change my mind and re-consider.  Ummm yeah I am gonna go back to the ******g ***** that gambles away the inheritance my grandmother left my son.  And even in divorce he refused to pay the money back to his own son, my son knows to this day his father ****** him over and hes never had a moment of respect for him.  Luckily there was never guns in our house because I doubt seriously both of us would have made it out alive.  The night I called 911 on him when he threatened to kill me he pulled the cord out of the phone, when the police came anyway they took him away, they wouldn't arrest him because I had no visible marks.  He made sure I could move but I couldnt take my son with me.  He would fax me papers at work stating he wanted full custody and to pay me nothing.  Yeah right ****** as if that will ever happen.  He did everything to make my life a living hell and then begged me to take him back while we are sitting in divorce court.  The best part of the whole mess was he met someone else about a month later and he's been torturing her ever since.  Seriously he still refers to stuff that I do and we have been divorced over 10 years.  I tried to tell her not to marry him, she thought I was being the ***** ex-wife, she found out after she got married that now he will treat her like **** and ignore her except when he makes her do otherwise.  He's a piece of work, she filed for divorce but hes afraid to really **** her off and go through with it because she filed 20 motions on her ex when she divorced him.  Yeah divorce can be ugly, I gave him our condo, I asked for nothing, no alimony no anything, I knew he would haunt me if I did and I couldnt afford the condo anyway.  So I took my son and started my life over in an apartment on my own, those were probably the happiest years of my life when I was finally free of him.  I wish you better luck, but be prepared for some things you never thought would happen.