Looking for divorce after husband left

QUESTION: My husband left our home in 2009 and never came back. He had been cheating with our neighbour two doors away.

I found out about her a month after he left. He’d lied, said he just wasn’t happy, comfortable or content.

She’s years younger than him and has a young son. Her previous marriage, with a man who’d left his wife and kids for her, had fallen apart because her husband was cheating.

My husband stopped putting money into our joint account in 2011. I work part-time and had to consult a lawyer.

He stopped all communication with his mother and has had no communication at all for six years with our adult sons. He has never seen his three-year-old grandson.

I wrote his lawyer two letters asking for my ex to divorce me. I get no response. He started this and got what he wanted, yet won’t move forward with a divorce.

I haven’t met anyone and I want to close the door on my marriage. I despise this man and have no feelings for him. He’s a coward and I believe he was also cheating with other women during our marriage.

I struggle with having to divorce him because I didn’t want this, don’t want to pay for it, and feel like I'm making the final cut easy for him.

ANSWER: After the hell you’ve been through, this is the wrong battle to stay and fight. Just get rid of the guy’s presence in your mind.

You’re lucky to be on your own rather than with a husband and father who could be so deceitful and cold.

Find the cheapest legal way to get the divorce and go for it.

All the time that you delay, talk to his lawyer and get agitated about what he did then and now, your ex is still directing a drama with you in it.

A final act of indifference on your part will shut him down sooner than your contempt. And divorce will free your mind. QUESTION: How do I, a woman, respond when a man's religious views precludes him from shaking my hand?

I believe I deserve to be treated with the same respect he shows my male colleagues, whose hands he does shake.

I ignored it twice, because we have to respect other people’s religious views (even if we don’t agree with them).

But then he began a workplace email with “Dear Gentleman” and I became angry. Did he forget that I was part of the team?

I’m progressive and open-minded (i.e. accepting that some religions have practices that are racist/sexist/ homophobic), but lately I decided that I wouldn’t let that stuff go anymore.

How do I respond in a way that states that everyone should treat everyone else with the equal amount of respect, without sounding ignorant to different religious views?

ANSWER: While his religion apparently proscribes against touching a woman who’s not his wife or close family, it doesn’t preclude him from addressing a female colleague appropriately in a business-related email.

That’s where to direct your position on his being “sexist” in this matter. You’re asking for recognition of equality in the workforce, not for his ignoring his religious beliefs.

Make that case to him. If he continues to exclude you from equal job-related acknowledgement that he gives male colleagues, take it to a senior manager and/or your human resources department. If he continues, contact the labour board for direction. Read Ellie Monday to Saturday. Email ellie@thestar.ca.