Divorced and All Good

This is going to be deeply personal. I haven't updated here in a while. Suffice it to say the last year has been quite challenging. My ex-wife left me end of last May (May 2023) and the divorce finalized last month (early August 2024). We had a lot of conflict, mainly stemming from the following contrary views:

#	My View	Her View
1	You should work for your money.	The man takes care of me! As long as one of us is making enough money, the other spouse doesn't need to go and work.
2	Everyone should know how to drive by the time they're 28 and if not, they should learn. They shouldn't be dependent on someone else for transporation.	Husband and my parents should be responsible for driving me around. I don't need to learn how to drive since my family (including my husband) should be able to drive me around. They should understand that I am scared of driving and let me take my time to learn.
3	I am not required to buy you expensive gifts or clothes because that is the expected thing to do for a spouse. I will do it on your birthday or special holidays but otherwise I feel no obligation to do so. If you want something special, we can go experience something for free.	Boyfriends and husbands are supposed to take care of their girlfriends or wives by buying them clothing or other fashionable items as a treat at random times. It's what nice guys do.
4	Everyone should be able to live on their own and take time for themselves to process their feelings by themselves.	I cannot be by myself! If Shen is not around, I need to go see my parents since I can't bear the thought of sleeping alone in my apartment. My dog does not count as a human. I need human company over the night in order to feel safe and secure.
5	Working on your dreams are fine but when you're not making any money or cast for any roles (as an actress), you should seriously consider doing other things that can utilize other skills you have.	People who do menial jobs or do other things outside of their main dreams are wasting their times. I am an actress and I refuse to do anything like work in a restaurant or retail. Besides, my husband makes a lot of money so why do I need to have any self-sufficiency?
6	Having weird art and books around my home makes it feel like home.	Weird art does not belong on walls. They belong in museums. Books everywhere makes the place look untidy. Bookshelves shouldn't be in the living room ever.
7	I love to read and discuss literature and poetry.	The only books I'll read are music sheets and plays that I may want to act in. Reading books feel mostly boring to me. I'll rather watch TV or scroll on social media.
8	Social media pictures of myself should display candidness. I don't care if I don't look my best in the pictures posted.	Social media pictures must reflect my absolute best. I cannot look goofy unless that's my intention. Otherwise, full makeup and just looking beautiful.
9	If I fall in love with someone, I have to ask myself if that is rational. I don't want to make spontaneous decisions which can destroy current relationships.	If I fall in love with someone, I just got to go for it. Love conquers all right? I just have to follow my feelings. If a relationship is meant to end, falling in love with someone else is a perfectly good way to end it.
10	If someone buys me a lot of gifts, I feel very uncomfortable. I feel like that is a sign of disrespect since I can make my own money and I'm not a dependent child. I would rather be self-sufficient.	I love it when someone buys me gifts and I don't have to work for it. Any man is lucky to have me and if they're not willing to spend money on me, I don't want to be around them for too long.
11	Keeping secrets from your significant other is never a good idea. Even if it's emotionally damaging, it's better to hear the truth.	I would rather just wait things out and keep a lie since what my husband doesn't know won't hurt him. I'll tell him one day but I can't now since he'll get angry. I'll keep delaying telling him the truth and maybe I don't have to deal with it one day.

For the last three reasons, Abby (my ex-wife) left me for a former friend of mine named Craig. Yes, I got backstabbed by two people! Neither of them told me anything. While I was working on myself by going to therapy and support groups as well as taichi, Abby did no work on herself emotionally or spiritually. Instead of examining herself or just moving in with her parents to recover, she literally moved into a stranger's house and got into a relationship with him. This occurred barely a month later since she had at first told me that she was staying with her sister and then said she moved in with a friend when I asked her how she was able to move so much furniture into her sister's house 2 months later (August 2023).

She was very coy in telling me which friend. I had suspicions even then because Craig also stopped responding to me but I dismissed it since Abby was 28 and Craig was 72. That's a 45 year difference! When Abby was born, Craig was already well past his middle age. There was no way those two could get together! Well, Craig is a s*x and love addict as he openly admitted to me. He has been arrested before for publicly masturbating and for a while lost his attorney license. To add to the irony, he's presently a divorce attorney.

A few months later, I get suddenly pinged online that my credit card has been used. It turns out that Abby has used our joint credit card to file for divorce online. I say joint when really I pay for the bills. Not only that, she was not apologetic at all and said that she didn't need to give me any warning. I was distraught and did nothing about it for months hoping that she would change her mind.

Fast forward to February this year (2024) and I have mostly processed the fact that Abby is not going to come back. Also around this time, my friend Michelle informed me that Abby has been sleeping with a 72 year old man who likes to work out a lot and is an attorney who lives in Memorial City. It does not take a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together.

I sent Abby a very nice letter to which she gladly took. When I confronted her, she said she felt a little sorry but also stated that love was love and she "fell in love" with Craig. This is what happens with someone who doesn't understand herself or the meaning of life. As Scott Peck puts it, people often confuse cathexis with love. Read this article for a bit more information:

https://letstalklovetoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/cathexis-vs-love/

In any case, tangent aside, she then proceeded to say that she had no plans to tell me the truth any time soon because I would just angry. This completely discredited my feelings. Of course, I would get more angry finding it out this way but I don't think she realized that. Abby is scared of many things and admittedly through our horrible interactions and fights, she grew wary of how I might react. Truthfully, through my self-growth, I felt no inclination to be angry at her at this point.

On this phone call (which was the last civil one we had) she also said that she doesn't want any of my money. Fast forward to April and I finally got the divorce papers ready for her to sign. She doesn't respond and when she finally does after I call her multiple times, she inquired me on where it states that she should receive half my money. I told her that back in February she said she didn't want anything and we can each go our ways. She told me I completely misunderstood. When I cried and asked her why she cared so much about money, acting like a narcissist, she turned around and gaslit me by saying that I'm the one who cares too much about money since if I didn't, why would I have so much trouble just giving her half?

In the meantime, during all these months, she had continually posted on Facebook all the fancy restaurant meals and jewelry and handbags that Craig has been buying her. She never mentioned Craig by name or put up a single picture of him (probably for fear of judgment) but she was happy to say things like "best birthday gift ever!" with several pictures of thousand dollar Jimmy Choo bags that Craig bought her. This completely negated the Fiji honeymoon we took which spanned her birthday in 2022. I don't know if she was being purposely hurtful towards me or just wanted to show the world that she was doing okay. She also got a nose job done paid for by either her parents (who's always willing to buy her anything) or by Craig.

I went through the attorney and turned it into a contested case. Discovery items were filed to which on her side she claimed she had $25 in her credit union account and that was everything she possessed. She demanded almost $90K on my part. In the meantime, her lover Craig was acting like a ghost attorney giving her all sorts of free legal advice. I'm sure she tried to service him in bed as best as he could manage given that he's no longer able to perform in bed from what he last told me.

At the end of it, we went through a court extension and finally mediation. There, she pulled $65K from me in terms of a cashier's check. I ended up borrowing some money from my parents and scrounging almost all my liquid assets to write this check for her.

My attorney told me that even before the ink dried, Abby walked in and rudely demanded the check. This once again indicates to me how desperate she seems to be for money. She was the one who 

1. Left me physically
2. Moved in with a former friend of mine and got into a relationship with him without telling me. In other words, cheating and lying on her husband.
3. Initially filed for divorce
4. Sat on the paperwork for months and continued with the cheating and lying
5. Said she didn't want any money from me and then changed her mind later. In the meantime, she lied to herself and to me that she always expected half my money
6. Claimed that I was hiding money and forced me to go through discovery to list out every single I owned before marriage and presently to make sure I'm not hiding money. It is ironic to me how a liar and cheater accuses an honest person like me of also lying.
7. Showed no remorse for her behavior since "falling in love" is a good justification for everything and since I was cruel to her, it was perfectly fine for her to do all this

At the end of the day, she got what she wanted. It took from mid April to end of July but after 3 months of wrangling, she got her $65K. What did she lose? 

1. All our mutual friends. None of my friends have any respect for her.
2. Any relationship or sympathy from my parents. In fact, they're full of severe dislike towards her.
3. Me. Any possibility of reconciliation with me is gone. In the past before marriage, we have broken up twice and gotten back together. Now, there's no possibility at all of that ever happening given how clearly I see her character.
4. Her own self-worth. She's willing to do sexual favors and act like a trophy wife for a 72 year old man as long as she gets all the luxury items and other gifts that she wants without needing to work for them.
5. Her marriage.
6. Her parents for a bit. They had the worst possible relationship for a while but they have since reconciled from what I understand.
7. Her self-growth. By depending on someone else and treating material things with such high regard, she is not growing in terms of a greater appreciation of what is truly meaningful in life. More fundamentally, she also cannot admit that she was at fault for doing at any of this and so for her none of this taught her anything about herself.
8. Her honesty. Even if she cannot admit it, everyone who knows the story can say that this is someone who is willing to lie for months and severely hurt her partner's feelings. She is also willing to lie to herself thinking this was the best path she could have done.
9. Her self-love. She so desperately wants the image of her to be perfect that in social media, she can only present herself as such. She doesn't realize how superficial she appears for that is all she knows what to do in order to get the public's attention and feel that she is beloved because she looks beautiful. She got a nose job done because she didn't like the look of her own nose.

As several of my close friends have put it, a relationship like the one she has is purely transactional even if she doesn't believe it. If Craig was making minimum wage all other things being equal, she would not be with him. This is a relationship born from two desperate love addicts from what I see. Craig has been desperate for years wanting a girlfriend. Every girl that he meets that he finds attractive he thinks the possibility is there to be his girlfriend. I have heard the stories from him for years. For Abby, she has openly admitted that she never felt comfortable by herself. As far as I have known her, when she wasn't with me, she was always with someone else or trying to get with someone else. She has never felt comfortable in her own skin. She has also never been financially independent and always depended on either her parents or later me and now Craig.

In the meantime, I lost about $22K with attorney fees and $65K to her as well as any love towards her and the marriage but I have gained a lot! What did I gain?

1. Deeper friendships with existing friends due to vulnerability sharing and empathy.
2. New friendships and acquaintances stemming from being able to be vulnerable as well as trying out new activities and support groups.
3. Deeper understanding of what actual love is.
4. More exercise and spiritual growth with taichi.
5. More support for my behavior addictions with returning to therapy and my support grups.
6. More spiritual growth in general with self-reflection and going to church.
7. New relationship with someone I met through doing taichi.

I have now an overall deeper understanding of myself and a greater self-love as well. Overall, my life could not be better! I am thankful for the failed marriage as a teaching moment for me. It was an expensive lesson as my mom put it and I hope to not make the same mistake twice.