Opinion On Reason For Divorce (someone My Mom Told Me About)

I love my husband..and I love my kids BUT I seriously think all a person needs is a companion! In other cases..one need not even need a companion if he or she is a kick ass extrovert..

I am waiting for my kids to grow up and be very independent coz then I can leave to India and restart from life and of course with my husband coz I love him.

As for in-laws..they never helped me when I wanted help for my child.They took part in my happiness alone but never helped me otherwise citing reasons as “ we have brought our kids with lot of hardship and now it’s rest time”..

So..when my kids grow up and it is MY REST TIME..how can they expect me to take care of them??how is that fair?let their son take care and I am in now way will stand if he wants to financially help them But why should I be there physically??

I honestly don’t know the inside story of Mrs M but if she wants to leave after so many years..she DID wait for her kids to grow up(that’s not selfish)..let her enjoy and am actually happy for her.If she had loved her husband,she might not have left him but we don’t know the true story.

Only thing is she should not feel lonely and want to get back with him but feel she won’t..

Good luck to both of them

 

I think Mrs M is a such a bold lady because this decision is not at all easy. How much should she have suffered to walk out of a 25 years marriage? It is super hard.

Mr M couldn’t manage without her n quit working n returned to india n all, that only shows how much Mrs M has done for them over 25 years.

Atleast she’s decided to live the rest of her life in peace, good for her. Unfortunately it’s a thing I have seen where the mother waits till the children takes off, then starts travelling to her kids leaving the hubby back. Guess it’s all to do with how they have been treated.

 

Waiting till all kids become legal adults (often coincides with HS graduation, and/or college entrance) to get a divorce is a topic that has opinions galore on the web. And there are plenty of essays in magazines like Psychology Today. All of that would seem to make it look like a very American Problem.

The long winded OP story is often shrunk down to a simple query to agony aunties: "Should one wait to divorce till kids have grown up and left home?". In one essay, there was this extreme behavior from one couple:"the couple who decided to divorce in their late 90’s, claiming that they had waited so long because they wanted “to wait until all the children have died”.

Waiting till the children are legal adults (i.e., 18+ in America) would make the legal proceedings simpler. There'd be no question of child support payments, where the child lives, visitation rights for the non-custodial one, and so on. Legal costs are therefore lower.

 

Planning to divorce America after your children grow up and leave home is a cute variant of the OP story.
While the children are doing the growing up, India and America also evolve (grow up?) differently. For long-gone NRI the readjustment back to the old country gets tougher by the year that goes by.

What is good for one kind of ex (ex-spouse), is good for another (ex-country) too.... And if the ex (the country, in case of older children) is a custodial parent, there is more hassle to visit the children as well.
You rightly point out :

 

No one knows the full story, so we can't blindly take anyone's side here.

But cases like these are not very uncommon. I've witnessed many couples separating after 40s, specially after their children left their nest.
It stresses that these couples were holding up a loveless/inconvenient marriage for the sake of their children ONLY.

I am happy Mrs M had the guts to leave her unhappy marriage at least now. She deserves to live as per her desires.

I stay at an 85 yr old aunt's home as a PG for 2 days in a week here. She is a traditional Sri Lankan Tamil woman and a retired nurse by profession.
The other day when we were casually conversing, she mentioned that she waited till her H's death to live her life.
I was surprised. But she was right.
She said her H was a jerk, and their marriage was very unhappy. She focused all her life at work, so that she could earn better to be independent later in life.
She had an ailing widowed mom back in the 90s, and her H didn't even allow her to spend on her mom then. She had to secretly meet her mom, and spend something from her pocket. She was very sad, and worried about her mom then, as there were no one to look after that very old lady there.

One day, her H died of heart attack, and it was the best day of her life according to this aunt. She said, after 3 day's rituals, I brought my mom in and looked after her for the next 15 years at my place. Now that, I am very peaceful that I did my part for my mom without having to feel any guilt about it.

 

It’s not easy to leave a marriage. Those who keep saying that it’s easier to divorce than to make things work... it’s all crap. For Mrs. M, I am sure she is not afraid of hard work- because rebuilding one’s life is not an easy task, especially after living it a certain way for 25 years. Taking care of in-laws may have played a part in this woman’s decision...but the decision to divorce is far more complex- Especially in Indian marriages. I am glad she has found happiness and a better lifestyle for herself. It is a bummer that Mr.M did not learn to thrive from this experience. I hope that with time, he too would find happiness and not let the bitterness of his divorce cloud his life.

It’s all too common to hear people wonder about the validity of a person’s reason to divorce. It’s silly to expect someone to stay in a marriage just because she has already put in x number of years, yet I’ve heard so many Indians spew that. A person doesn’t have to be physically abused to be hurt or feel that the marriage cannot be salvaged. Each person draws their own boundary. At this point, I’m sure mrs.M doesn’t care about what others speculate about her or her decision.

 

My mil also many times say this that by the time your father was alive I had to listen to him always and now you kids want me to listen to you. When will I live my own life.

I too learned to say no for many tasks now that I used to do unhappily to live some of my life.

 

In fact, I learned this art very recently. Initially I would put up with every **** that is thrown at me for the sake of building a peaceful marriage. Over the years, it killed my inner peace and left me unappreciated for everything that I have been doing so far.

Then, let's say after almost 5 years of such life, I had an one-on-one discussion with H openly. To my surprise, my H didn't even noticed the amount of sacrifices that I had been doing back then. He was like, why can't you say NO.

With that, I started saying NO. But that wasn't taken positively by anyone. H was unhappy, and PILs fueled the fire by projecting how mean I am, and how other ladies in their circle are being better wives. My H often took their sides by heart, even though he did not openly showed it. I knew my NOs were not happily accepted. Hence, I had to mend my decision to meet a common ground or to go back to YES regardless of what I wish - again to keep the sanity at home, for the kids, for the social status etc..etc...

This cycle repeated till one fine day I felt enough is enough.
I said NO. This time I did not think about anything. Even if that amount to losing the sanity at home or my kid's future or whatever.
I felt, I can't build a happy home if the mother of that home is unhappy. I can't be a better mother when I myself is not at my better version. So, I was prepared to deal with it.
I said NO. I stood on my ground regardless of who thinks what.
I had my own reasoning, and I researched it well before saying it.
There were fussy days, there were arguments and what not..... But after a point, people have started to listen to me. They were open to my reasoning, and even accepted my POV.
Now that, I have the freedom to say NO or YES depending on what I think, What I think the best for my family.
We discuss, and agree to disagree respectfully. There is nothing as such that I must agree or accept whatever and sacrifice my entire life.
This is the happy part, and this is where we both have started our marriage all over again.

Men are not always cruel. They are brought up this way, and most of the times they don't think from our perspectives.
We need to raise our concerns, and we should never give up.
Consistency matters, specially when no one is on your side, you must stand by your side to make others understand and eventually see your point.
In this patriarchal society, nothing comes in favor of women that easily. But it is not impossible either

 

Good for Mrs M.....
Hope she gets to live the rest of her life happily.
Hope the children understand her.
If not....she has raised them to be adults...she has done her bit.


Hope this makes people realise that the happiness of the wife or dil is not optional in their version of a ' happy family '.

Hope this gives hope to people in unhappy marriages that you don't have to be trapped for life. There will be exit points along the way.

 

Either Mrs. M is a bold person who did the right decision. Could be.
Or, she is a selfish person who is borderline cruel. Could be.
We don't know which is true - but there is assumed chest-thumping of "good for her"? Wogay!