Man called 'selfish' for waiting years until it was 'a good time' to divorce his wife. AITA?
"AITA for waiting to divorce my wife until it was a good time for me?"
Prudent-Composer3500
My ex wife and I were married for over 20 years and have 2 children together (22M and 20F). For most of my marriage, things were pretty balanced. We both shared housework and childcare responsibilities.
We were each stay at home parents for over a year after each child, her with our son and me with our son and daughter. We always had agreements on how we wanted to divide work and generally had decent communication.
This changed when my oldest went to high school. My wife got a new job that was both very demanding on her time and was 50% travel. This meant that I had to handle everything about 2 weeks per month and when she was home she wasn't holding up her side of the work with agreements.
I did my best to be accommodating and we worked through redistributing chores/house work a few times to make it fit her schedule better, but a lot of the work just kept falling to me. When the pandemic happened, things got worse, but I tried to just suck it up because I knew the lockdowns were temporary.
Finally, when things opened back up things continued to decline and I asked to go to counseling. She missed a lot of our meetings and just didn't commit to it. At this point I decided that I wanted a divorce.
Unfortunately, it was a really tough time for the family. My son was getting ready for college in person after his freshman year being remote which was both a financial and logistical challenge. At the same time, my daughter was also having some issues with depression and I had become her main support person with my wife gone half the time.
I made a decision to wait until my daughter was in a better mental state and our family was in a more financially stable place before I filed for divorce. I did my best to continue to contribute and was essentially a single parent for three years. On a few occasions I brought up counseling again, but my wife said "things were good" and wouldn't go.
We pretty much didn't have any intimacy for that period of time and there was one summer where she essentially moved to North Carolina for 6 weeks for work (she came home on some weekends).
Last year, after my daughter started sophomore year of college and she was in a better place mentally and emotionally, I sold off some of my stock investments to create a trust for my kids to ensure college was covered then I filed for divorce.
At first my wife was really angry, then she left to live in North Carolina again. When she came back 4 weeks later, she said she wanted to work through it, but I told her I had made the decision to leave years ago and wasn't interested.
We eventually worked through mediation and got an amicable divorce. My kids live with me now and support me, but all of my in-laws and even most of my family outside of my sister think I'm the AH. They believe I should have forced the issue more when we started counseling and either divorced or made it clearer to my wife how important counseling was to me.
They've called me selfish and some of my in-laws are refusing to interact with my kids when they're at my house (for example my daughter FaceTimed her grandmother once this summer and she hung up once she saw that my daughter was at my house).
They also created a bit of a scene at my son's graduation in the spring, refusing to acknowledging me and demanding that my son choose to celebrate with them or me rather than having dinner together as a group.
I encouraged my son to go with them and we had our own celebration later, but something happened at the dinner and my son has lived with me and been almost no contact with them since.
I honestly feel like I did what was best for my kids, but now it feels like their mom's family is punishing them and I feel like a terrible father. I admit that it might have been more mature to address the issue head on with my ex, but I felt that it was about more than just the two of us.
Frankly, I feel like my lack of backbone years ago has made this divorce worse for my kids, but I also believe that if I had to do it again, I would still prioritize my kids over my own feelings and make the same choice. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Nightwish1976
NTA, you did your best for your kids.
BriefHorror
NTA oh no you wanted your daughter and family to be in a stable place before you left someone who didn't try at all the horror. If they want to be petty they can be I understand feeling guilty but you can't take on responsibility for the actions of others when you tried your best.
Staying for an extra 3 years gave everyone the best outcome and its not like you didn't push for reconciliation your wife dropped the ball massively and just went "eh". Your kids support you and their opinions are really the only ones that count.
herefortheadvice020
Of course the in-laws are gonna bark and complain and moan because their golden angel got blindsided by a divorce...a separation she cemented when she told you "NO, I'M NOT GOING THE COUNSELING WITH YOU..."
Your in-laws sound not only insufferable, but incapable of accountability. It may be too much effort to explain to her AH family that you tried for YEARS to fix the marriage, but she was too busy...somewhere else...
NTA for doing what's right for your children. It sucks the in-laws are being mean to them, but hopefully they'll develop new relationships and bonds with other people who aren't incapable of empathy or rational conversations surrounding major life events.
BadJasmine1
You’re not an AH for making decisions that you believe are in the best interest of your children.
Pan666_gothi3
First of all, let's just take a moment to appreciate that this person's username is "DivorcedDadDrama" - talk about being on brand. Secondly, I think we can all agree that parenting during a pandemic while also going through a divorce is a true test of strength and resilience.
You're definitely not the asshole for putting your kids' well-being first. And hey, at least you didn't let your own feelings ruin your son's graduation dinner like some of your in-laws.