Pat, There are a lot of similarities between you and me. We were almost like roommates for a couple of years when he began an emotional affair. When he told me about it I begged him to leave her alone. He refused. I filed for divorce. Not because I wanted us to be divorced, but because I couldn't live with 3 of us in our relationship and the violence that cropped up in him after he started seeing this woman. I couldn't take the pain and I felt I'd be better off just moving on with my life than living with the excrutiating pain of knowing he was continuing his affair. Emotional affairs almost always end up being physical affairs and I couldn't take that.
We had many arguments about the OW and it ended up that he just shunned me. Yes, shunning is the word. That's was how he grew up and that was how his family handled conflicts. If someone didn't agree with one another, rather than communicate and discuss, they shunned. So that's what he did to me. For about a year he didn't talk to me. Or I should say he rarely talked to me. He'd come in the house to eat and go to bed. Other than that I never saw him.
Now we are divorced. All I have is social security. Nothing else. I didn't try to get maintenance because he threatened me that "it will get ugly" if I try to get maintenance and half the value of the house. He was physically abusive and I was afraid of him. I settled for about 1/4 of the assets and that's all. I got enough out of it to buy a small house with nothing left over. All I have is social security. We lived together for a couple of months after the divorce so I could find and buy this place and I've been here for only a month. With the prices going up on gas and everything else, I don't know if I can make it. Time will tell. Social Security isn't a whole lot of money, but skimping on that is better than living with him seeing the OW and living with his violence.
In January we were divorced after 32 years of marriage.
I might be wrong but why divorce???? I know your life is not that great but have you really consider what divorce would do. Divorce throws your life all out the window and worse. Can you to talk and try to work it out. I am probably the wrong person to say this put, try to see what can be done before you consider divorce