This Is It

This is it. 3 days ago my husband signed the lease on his new apartment. The apartment that he will be living in, alone. After 8 years of marriage, and 5 years of dating before that we're done. We made this decision almost a month ago. Almost a month ago I moved to the spare room. Within the next week, after 12 years of living together, we will be living apart.

Why did we split? I have one close friend that is telling me to cite "irreconcilable differences". Why have people digging through your life? Why bring on the avalanche of questions that inevitably will come with the truth? Another close friend feels that I should disclose everything to many of the people closest to me. Why have people wondering why you separated? Why have people thinking that no effort was made? Why have people think that you don't have a legitimate reason? I trust both these friends wholeheartedly. I value both their opinions. And given they have both gone through divorce themselves I know that their opinions come from some experience. Right now I think I'll chose the route of least resistance, of least effort, and keep those details to myself.

So what details will I disclose?

• We want different things in a relationship
• Neither of us are able to bend on some of the deal-breakers
• We both have spent too much time unhappy, and have too much life left to continue being unhappy
• Neither of us turn to the other for support, strength, or inspiration
• Our children are suffering because we are unhappy

We have spent the past year trying to put things back together. We spent the year before that denying there was anything wrong. And we spent the year before that really struggling and drifting apart. When all is said and done this has been a three year slide towards a separation.

This is where I find myself now. I'm 32 years old, with a house, two kids, two cats, a puppy, and very soon...single.