Soon-to-be ex-husband makes claim ‘divorce is gut-wrenching’

Adapted from an online discussion.

Dear Carolyn: My soon-to-be ex-husband is a lying coward, telling everyone and making social media posts claiming that our “divorce is gut-wrenching,” “devastating,” etc., when none of that is true. He’s the one who doesn’t love me anymore. After 27 years together, he sat me down and told me he wanted an open marriage since he’s not attracted to women my age, meaning his own age, even though I’ve stayed in shape and he hasn’t.

I have more self-respect than that so I filed for divorce. I don’t need his money and I’m buying him out of our house. I made him move into the guest room and I can’t wait until he moves out entirely, but in the meantime I’ve tried to maintain my dignity and protect our grown children by refusing to discuss the details of our divorce. But now I have to hear him lying to our sons about being miserable. I wish I could say this isn’t affecting me, but I feel unwanted, undesirable, and notice every sag and gray hair like I never did before. I’m being made to be the bad guy when I’m actually the wounded party.

Should I shut this down by telling everyone the true story of our breakup? I want to but I’m worried I might regret airing the dirty laundry later.

The Wounded Party

The Wounded Party: He’s not lying, necessarily. He is lying in the bed he made (I can use “literally” here, correctly!), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t genuinely miserable, devastated, gut-wrenched. The misery of the bed-maker is kind of the whole point of the adage. He wanted his happy stable marital home AND freedom to bag younger babes. Oopsie ...

You, splendidly and rightfully, handled the situation.

This not only absolves you of having to explain anything to anyone – because either the world will see through him just fine on its own, or enough time will pass for it not to matter – but also makes every sag and gray hair about you drop-dead gorgeous. Agency is beautiful. Congratulations.

Readers’ thoughts:

You can defend yourself without being explicit. h “He made it clear he wants something different, and I did not want to be married on those terms.” And if they press you for the details, say, “That’s between the two of us.”

There’s a lot of power in speaking your truth, regardless of whether they believe you.

There’s no airing required to say truthfully h and simply that yes, you were shocked when he wanted out of the type of marriage you had promised to each other. Presumably your vows were understood to be an endorsement of monogamy at the time, yes?

It seems entirely appropriate to say, “He h wanted an open marriage and I did not. So I filed for divorce.” True, short, and doesn’t really invite questions.

Just because you have decided not to tell h your children doesn’t mean you can’t talk to a good therapist or a trusted friend and properly air out what is going on.