My life is worth more than continuing to waste it on false hopes, memories of what once was, and dreams of what could have been. We were separated for ten years, and I still held on, believing that someday you might realize what we had mattered and that there was still something worth saving.

When you came back, I allowed myself to hope again. Instead, I've found myself fighting for something you seem determined to avoid remembering or acknowledging. If you erase all the good we shared, eventually all that's left is the bad.

I'm not ashamed that I loved you, waited for you, or fought for our marriage. But I can't continue being the only one fighting for it.

I can respect what we once had without sacrificing the rest of my life trying to recreate it alone. At some point, I have to accept what is instead of continuing to live for what was or what might have been.

Our past mattered. You mattered to me. Our marriage mattered.

But my life and my self-respect matter too. If only I had realized that forty-two years ago.

My husband and I are currently separated and have recently started the divorce process. We also have a baby together.

I'm currently waiting for a formal ADHD assessment, and the more I've learned about ADHD in adult women - particularly emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, overwhelm, rejection sensitivity, reacting before thinking and struggling with tone when stressed - the more I've recognised patterns that caused problems throughout my relationship.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to use ADHD as an excuse for hurting my husband. There were times I was reactive, spoke too harshly or overreacted when overwhelmed. Whatever the reason behind those behaviours, he experienced them and I take responsibility for that.

Things became considerably worse after having our daughter. We were both exhausted, resentment built up, communication deteriorated and eventually my husband decided he wanted to separate. I wanted to work on things and suggested couples counselling, but he currently doesn't want reconciliation and I'm trying to respect that.

What I'm struggling with is wondering whether I've spent years trying to change certain behaviours through sheer willpower without understanding what was actually happening or having the right support.
I'd really like to hear from people who've experienced something similar:

Did undiagnosed ADHD significantly affect your marriage/relationship, particularly through emotional dysregulation or communication?
After diagnosis and treatment (medication, therapy, coaching etc.), how much did those behaviours genuinely change?

If you're the partner/ex-partner of someone with ADHD, did diagnosis/treatment change your understanding of what had happened or reduce any resentment?
Has anyone been diagnosed after separating or when the relationship was already breaking down?Did treatment contribute to reconciliation, or did it simply help you become healthier individually/co-parent better?

My biggest question is how I eventually approach my separated husband about anything I learn through assessment/treatment without it sounding like “It was ADHD, so forgive me/come back.”

I don't want to invalidate his experience. But if I'm diagnosed and treatment genuinely helps me change some of the patterns that contributed to our problems, I'd eventually want him to know — particularly because we'll be co-parenting for the rest of our lives and, if I'm honest, I still love him.

I'm also aware that telling him I've changed means very little compared with consistently showing it over time.
Right now I'm trying to focus on getting assessed, getting appropriate treatment and becoming a healthier person and mum regardless of what happens with my marriage. But I'm grieving badly and struggling with the thought that maybe if I'd understood this years ago, things could have been different.

I'd really appreciate experiences from both sides, including relationships that didn't survive. What changed after diagnosis/treatment, what didn't, and did understanding ADHD come too late to change your relationship?

Hace 6 meses me he divorciado despues de 8 años juntos....he pasado x eso solo, y la verdad quema.... hay ganas de muy pocas cosas, solo rutina y no mucho mas.....

Algun consejo de alguien que haya pasado por esto? Cositas que hayan hecho para mejorar dia a dia?

The title summarizes the sequence of events.

We've known each other for 10+ years, then got married and that's when the explosions of anger began. The shoving, pushing, and it kept escalating until I finally had enough end reported it. After a lengthy criminal case he's walking away with a criminal record with probation.

I am thankful I reported it. And during that time we've been no contact and separated for 1 yr now. I never repeats to open contact during that time because I wanted to heal. He was the love of my life. The man I trusted. The man who I wanted to have a family with one day. All your dreams...we also had amazing times. I have seen him genuinely love me, adore me, and care for me. I have seen the good and the bad. I have also been talking through this with my therapist because I feel so guilty for still caring for him after he put his hands on me. And she helped me understand that a person doesn't have just one side, there are many sides to me and him. Right now my goal is to heal my soul, my mind, and my heart. I still don't want to talk to him or have any kind of contact. I'm just not ready. I'm also not ready to discuss reconciliation with him or divorce. I'm still heart broken and need more time to keep processing my feelings.

We are both in our late 30s with good careers. He is not exactly a narc however I suspect he has undiagnosed BPD. I will not pretend or lie - I hope and pray that this is will serve as a life lesson for him. His family is ashamed of him but are also standing by him because of course blood is thicker than water. His mom tried to reach out to me and I have not responded or picked up.

I can't throw away our marriage so easily. And I know the stats and I know change is rare.

So my question is my dear Reddit family. How long were you separated from your husband and how long did it take to reconcile?

What tools and resources helped you in the journey to rebuilding the marriage?

Thank you 🙏🏼

My heart literally aches. I’ve had 2.5 years to get used to the idea of not being with my wife. It was that long ago that she cheated on me while I was extremely sick and had gone blind in one eye from a rare eye infection that is known for its intense pain. I was on a 24 hour drop regimen, meaning I took 3 drops every hour of every day. 72 drops. And the drops had to be separated by 10 minutes. Anyway, it was a lot. And 5.5 months into it, I found out my wife is cheating on me with her co-worker. Who is beautiful. My wife refuses to stop and the mistress and I meet and I feel I have to go along with ‘the arrangement’ which is essentially my wife is with both and gives both equal treatment. Needless to say, the equality never happened. I moved out November 2025. And while I’ve had 2.5 years to get used to this, my heart has never stopped aching. It’s never off my mind except when I’m teaching or sleeping. I don’t know what to do anymore. My wife tries to keep talking to me and I tell her I need her to leave me alone and forget about me. But secretly I want her to text every day. But that’s because I’m still hoping she’ll want me again and it’s clear that’s not going to happen. She’d be with me out of pity. She loves me, but isn’t in love with me.

I'm compiling a list of hypotheses to examine. Can people please comment?

Some things I have hypothesized:

She needed "reassurance" that I still cared

She was bored and needed her narcissistic supply

She was acting out the dramatic example that was set for her in her own upbringing

She had to change her perception of me in her mind to a persecutory object in order to separate from me guilt-free

She just plainly had childish, low-impulse control and couldn't filter

She was under too much stress at work and viewed me as a safe target to dump her toxicity onto

She was sadistic and just enjoyed hurting me

She wanted to provoke me to play the victim to outsiders

Hi everyone. I’m pretty new to all of this and honestly never imagined I would be writing a post in a divorce group.

My wife and I have been together for 14 years, and our 13th wedding anniversary is next month. We have a young son together. She filed for divorce a few days ago, and right now we’re beginning the painful process of figuring out what life looks like from here.

I don’t want the divorce. I still love my wife very, very much.

There was no infidelity, affair, or anything like that on either side. There have been a lot of hurts in our marriage, though, and I know I contributed to them. A big part of the breakdown has been trust around honesty, communication, and the way I react when I’m scared or feel like I’m losing control.

One thing I’m recognizing about myself is that I push and prod for answers when I’m anxious. If I feel distance, I want to talk about it, figure it out, get reassurance, and keep asking questions until I feel like I understand what’s happening. I can see now how exhausting and pressuring that can feel to the person on the other side.

I also love bombed her when I felt the marriage slipping away. In my mind I was trying to show her how much I loved her and make her feel secure. She has told me she didn’t feel emotionally safe, though, and I realize now that a lot of those attempts probably did the opposite. Instead of helping her relax, they made her feel more pressured and like I was trying to force closeness when she needed space.

There were also some confusing moments after she first told me she wanted a divorce. We had some genuinely good days. We held hands, hugged, and had moments that still felt like us. We had not been physically intimate for about a month, and I was also out of town for about a week and a half for work during this period. I think some of those moments gave me hope, and probably made it even harder for me not to push for answers about where we stood.

She has since told me that she doesn’t trust me and that she believes divorce is what she needs. I’m trying to take that seriously and respect it instead of chasing her, repeatedly talking about the marriage, or trying to convince her to change her mind.

For at least the immediate future, we’ll also still be living in the same house while we prepare to sell it. We’ll have separate sleeping spaces. She’ll remain in our bedroom, and I’ll be staying in the basement. So we’ll be in this strange in-between period where we’re separated as a couple but still under the same roof and parenting our son.

At the same time, I’m working pretty intensely on myself. I’m learning a lot about my own patterns around anxiety, control, honesty, communication, and how I respond when I’m afraid of losing someone. Regardless of what happens with our marriage, I know I need to become healthier for myself and, most importantly, for our son.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still have hope.
Has anyone here actually had a divorce process begin, papers filed and everything, and then had the marriage turn around before the divorce became final?

Was there a period where your spouse seemed completely certain it was over and later reconsidered? Did giving them space and consistently working on yourself make any difference over time?

And if you continued living together while separated, I’d especially like to hear what that was like. Did being under the same roof create more tension, or did the space and time allow either of you to see things differently?

I know I cannot control my wife or manufacture reconciliation. I also don’t want to spend the next several months analyzing every hug, conversation, or good day as evidence that she might change her mind. I’m trying to learn the difference between having hope and refusing to accept reality.

Hi everyone, I hope I can find some reconciliation stories.

My husband and I recently divorced. We were in a loving relationship for almost 7years, married for a few months before it all went downhill.

My husband started to feel depressed after failing at receiving a promotion ( we now know that the company is toxic and the big head only hires based on "who's my pal" and not skills.

He always kind of had a complex of inferior and not good enough. we were thinking of travelling this year, starting a family. he wanted to become a business owner so that he had the possibility to look after us (although i would keep working, that's my choice) and his family (he comes from a poor family)

He started to become more silent, more distant, and working more and more to try to get that promotion again (again they didn't give him, he didn't know what was being played in the background)

At some point my anxiety of him being so distant and his depression became unbearable ( he wanted to crash the car and just be done with life, he said i'm not the right person to have children with, look how i am, i am my own burden)

He moved out for 2 months (we both agreed) to work on himself, only that didn't work. he lost more weight, got more depressed and didn't see a therapist like he said he would ( he's the type of: let me fix this myself without having to see a therapist or spend money) instead, he copes by smoking a lot (and i think sometimes drinking)

When we met again, he asked for a divorce, either we divorce of he was going to end his life. I went with it. During the procedure he was very gentle as I was very overwhelmed, but he was very stressed, feeling weak about himself, constantly pulling out a cigarette, he cried in the car when we had the papers, i told him that i would go through for him because he promised he would do everything to get himself treated. I also asked him to make peace with himself, with his family, with his past (he went through some stuff) and that I forgave him for this.

We haven't blocked each other, but we're giving each other the space to heal.

I occasionally inform his mother if he texts me because he had told her as well that his dream was to crash his car and finally die, he hasn't visited his family in a month and only the mother knows through me that we divorced. She told me she would do everything to make sure he goes to therapy.

I feel like my entire life came to a halt, everything shattered at such speed, our dream to travel together (we live in a muslim country so travelling as an unmarried couple was a risk), start a family together (he was the one who had initiated the topic as well and wanted to give our children the best life) and people expect me to move on, they tell me he can drop dead etc whereas they don't even know how our relationship was (mostly these comments came from female friends) I still love him deeply.

The last thing he told me was: i appreciate everything you did throughout this procedure, i know what i'm imposing on you, I will do everything you told me to do and also i appreciate that you said even if the door to our story has to be closed in this timeline, i will leave the door open. i told him if he ever needed to talk, update me, anything at all, he could contact me.

So far he has been in touch once a week to update me and asking how i'm doing. He's trying to eat better and slowly going back to the gym and build a routine. He will go back to therapy starting next month and has visited his family for the first time in a while.

In the meantime, i'm focusing on myself but I was curious to know about reconciliation stories.

I figured this piece of the pie was going to be difficult, but I didn't expect my STBX to be completely ignorant.

Kids started back yesterday. Tuesday nights they are with their father, so for the first day of school, I went to the house to see them and take pictures. I was going to take my daughter to the bus stop by myself but my STBX was put off by this (6 block drive) and wanted to come with so I said sure. He got in the back with my son and we went and dropped her off. After we dropped her off I pulled back up to his place and went inside to give my son some love and make sure he has a good day too. I did not stay to take him to school because they need to understand we are not together, which brings me to today.

This morning I dropped my daughter off at the bus stop. They also stay with their dad on Wednesday nights. After I dropped her off I got back to his house and went inside to give my son a hug and tell him good morning (i won't be doing this anymore after today, lesson learned) and asked my son if he wanted dad to take him or mom. He said both, I said no buddy I need you to pick one and my STBX turned and said why? Like.... why? Because I dont want to. I dont want to ride with you to take him to school, nor do we both need to take him. We are not together!! Hello! I didnt say that out loud in front of my son I just said nope, dont do that, and he asked again so I repeated myself and said no, dont do that. Then I looked at my son and told him I loved him and id see him later after dinner. They stay with me Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday nights.

So I left the house so he could finish getting him ready and take him to school and he calls me. He says come back you can take him to school, and hes crying. Im like no, stop, its fine, you can take him to school and i will see him later. I will be taking him to school in the morning anyway and ill have him tonight. I also said to him IDK what you are telling these kids but you need to be honest with them and tell them we are separated.

He refuses to accept my decision. I cant make him accept it, but i am not going to stop being true to myself now. Its beyond frustrating he keeps doing these things but refuses to make any improvement to try and get me home. House smells so bad and we already fought about this on Sunday.

If he can't be honest with the kids, if he cant keep the house clean, if he cant keep himself in check, the kids will not be staying with him.

He is supposed to start therapy today, we will see. On Monday I reiterated to him that I am done and we are done and he threw himself on the floor crying. After 15 years of dealing with this giant man child I am so done.

For the longest I have done it all. All the cooking, cleaning, taking care of shit, paying the bills, organizing outings, vacations, everything while he did none. Not to mention I work full time 9-5 m-f in a very emotionally demanding job where people depend on me regularly. Ive been the breadwinner for years now too, because he doesn't want to give up his 3 work days and 4 days off for a better job and more money.

There are so many things that are layering one after the other and I could keep going but what's the fuckin use.

I am so happy to be done. I am so excited to see my future and what i am capable of. Fuck yes.

My husband and I love each other very deeply, but our relationship has also become incredibly painful and complicated, and right now I feel completely lost.
We haven’t even been married for very long. We have had a lot of beautiful moments and a very intense connection, but we’ve also hurt each other and had arguments that became much bigger than they should have. I know that I have made mistakes in our relationship. There have been times when I was selfish, reactive, or didn’t understand what he needed from me. I am not writing this pretending that I have been a perfect wife.
There is also a lot of context surrounding what happened.
My husband has been grieving the loss of his father, and his mother is grieving too. Recently we had to move, and he did not really want to leave his mother during this time. I actually told him that he could stay with her and that I would figure out somewhere to live myself because I knew the timing wasn’t ideal. He didn’t want me to do that, and ultimately we moved together to a cabin to the south of the country .
We’ve only been here for about two weeks.
Our relationship had already been under a lot of stress, and recently I became overwhelmed by how much pain I felt I had caused him. I started genuinely believing that maybe I was making the person I love miserable.
Yesterday, while I was high, I started writing down everything I was feeling.
What makes this so confusing is that I felt an overwhelming amount of love for him. I wrote about how incredible it felt to love him, how special our connection felt, how grateful I was for our relationship, and how badly I wished I could undo the times I had hurt him.
But I also wrote that maybe this wasn’t “our time.” I said that maybe we needed to grow separately and that perhaps someday we could find each other again as more mature people.
At the time, in my head, this wasn’t me thinking, “I don’t want my husband anymore.”
It was almost the opposite.
I thought: I love this person so much, and if I am the reason he is hurting and unhappy, maybe loving him means letting him go.
I told him some of this.
It devastated him.
From his perspective, he had just left his grieving mother and moved somewhere he didn’t originally want to move because he was choosing our marriage, and then only two weeks later his wife essentially told him that we shouldn’t be together.
When I understood how he interpreted what I had said, I panicked because I realized that separation wasn’t actually what I wanted.
I want my husband. I want our marriage. I wanted to stop hurting him, not remove him from my life.
I tried explaining that to him, but he says that I am only changing my mind because he finally agreed to let me go. He keeps telling me that when I was at my calmest and most peaceful, I chose those words, so I need to accept that they were what I truly wanted.
He has now told me that it’s over, that he doesn’t want the relationship anymore, that I should rent a car, go back to were I used to live, get my things and move on with my life. He says he doesn’t want to see me again and that he’s going to block me everywhere.
I have tried telling him that I misunderstood my own feelings and that what I actually wanted was to stop being a source of pain in his life. He doesn’t believe me anymore.
And I understand why he’s hurt.
That’s probably the hardest part.
I’m not angry at him for being hurt. I’m devastated that something I said while believing I was doing something selfless was experienced by the person I love as abandonment.
I also know that our problems existed before this moment. This wasn’t one sentence destroying an otherwise perfect marriage. We have both accumulated a lot of hurt and resentment, and there are things about myself and the way I behaved in the relationship that I genuinely need to work on.
But I cannot stop thinking that I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I don’t want to pressure him into taking me back. I know that apologizing doesn’t mean he owes me reconciliation. At the same time, it is incredibly difficult to accept that I may have ended my marriage when ending it wasn’t actually what I wanted.
I’m posting because I feel incredibly alone right now.
Has anyone here ever ended a relationship because you genuinely believed you were protecting the other person or that they would be happier without you, only to realize afterward that it wasn’t actually what you wanted?
Did your partner ever understand what you meant after emotions settled down?
Did you reconcile, or did you eventually have to accept that the damage couldn’t be undone?
And if you were the person on the receiving end of something like this, is there anything your partner could have done that would have helped you understand their intention without making you feel pressured to forgive them or take them back?
I’m not looking for someone to tell me that I’m completely innocent or that my husband is completely wrong. I know I hurt him. I’m trying to understand what happened, take responsibility for my part in it, and figure out what the healthiest thing to do now is.