Reasons to get a divorce:

1. He throws his dirty laundry on the floor (cats see his dirty laundry and pee in it). He doesn't ever change the cat litter either.

2. He cracks eggs directly onto the hot stove surface so that it is the hardest thing to clean ever. 

And then he doesn't clean it. The crud builds up on the stove if no one cleans it and burns the bottom of all the pots and pans = extra work for me because...

3. He doesn't wash dishes either. Weeks will pass if I decide I won't be responsible for cleaning up after him. Entire microbiomes bloom in the meantime and the entire kitchen smells. He doesn't clear his dishes off the table and leaves piles of paper plates; during the next meal time, he just pushes the dirty plates to where I sit. Crumbs gather all over the table and underneath it too.

4. He leaves the basement lights on all night. In spite of me going downstairs several times and turning them all off, he goes back down and turns them on and then leaves them on all night. Is it any wonder that my electricity bill is nearly $200? And then he has the gall to say that I should pay the bill by myself because he has other expenses.

5. He takes 1-2 hour baths, refilling the tub several times and depleting the hot water each time. Water bill has increased to $200 too. My ask was that he pay for what he uses. I got shot down on that too.

6. He trashed the downstairs office with his laundry, tools, bike parts, discarded empty Amazon packaging, and random debris all over the floor. Ditto for the garage.

7. When he shaves, his beard hair is all over the bathroom counter and sink. The sink is then clogged with that thick hair. Guess who has the singular honor of manually declogging the sink and cleaning the bathroom? 

Forget his ever lifting a finger to clean the bathroom even for routine cleaning. The sink basin is yellow and he does not care at all. 

8. He never schedules any routine dental/doctor visits for the kids. He doesn't plan or pay for their summer camp.

9. He habitually calls out of work. His excuse is that he is burned out. Forget planning any kind of vacation with him because he depleted all his PTO with these weekly sudden call outs from work. It's a wonder he still has a job.

10. He is an angry, aggressive, verbally abusive, damaged human being who yells at me and my kids. He will vomit an anger-laden rant of contempt at either me or my oldest daughter. He calls my oldest daughter "f-cker," "foot," "psychopath," or other foul things (he once addressed her as "c-nt" and I came after him for that). Right on cue, he is now yelling at her for being "insubordinate" in his true despotic form. He then turned to me and started yelling at me for creating a toxic environment. I'm not his slave to clean up after him constantly or be on the receiving end of his unhinged anger. I closed the door on him while he was yelling and he threw a can of flat seltzer at the closed door, spewing water all over the door and floor; the door is now dinged and scuffed. Of course he called out of work today.

11. He disappears during bedtime for the kids, so making sure they are fed, have their teeth brushed, and put to bed is on me. His "self-care" takes priority over anything, so he goes on long bike rides, sees extra clients at night, and luxuriates in the bathtub on my dime.

12. He consistently takes my older daughter 1-2 hours late to school to the point that she got in trouble at school for this; the school asked that any further late arrivals be accompanied with a doctor's note. Instead of asking his doctor for a letter because he couldn't get out of bed in the morning, he asked my daughter's therapist for a letter to excuse her lates due to her ADHD.

13. He discontinued my younger daughter's daycare so that he would be able to move out and afford to pay rent for an apartment. Instead of moving out, he pocketed the money for repair expenses and my younger daughter is at home now without daycare. Adding insult to injury, he stiffed the daycare provider out of last month's payment. Is he paying for repair expenses for the house in which we currently reside? Nope. The siding is old, has cracks, and peeling paint. The deck has woodrot, loose boards, and shakes; the railing is about to fall off. Wasps have taken residence in some of the rotting wood by the doorway. The weather stripping in the door is sticking out. The lawn is scorched. The sprinklers are non-functional. There's a leaning tree that needs to be removed. Does he contribute to any of these expenses at all? No. Does he pay for car or house insurance? No. In fact, he spends the majority of him time scrolling through CarMax listings of new cars that he is thinking of buying.

14. He constantly acts like he is a victim, throwing words like DARVO at me, calling me a narcissist, and saying that I am gaslighting him. He then talks about all the psychpaths he has worked with in his line of work and compares either me or my daughter to these sexually violent predators. He blames me for his unhappinesses. He has anxious attachment and very much embodies "I hate you, don't leave me" in how he communicates with me. He pulled a gun on me several months ago, yet he's the victim. His brother had to talk to him and keep him from doing something stupid(er) and getting his gun taken away. He has anger management problems and my children and I are the unfortunate recipients of his wrath. Yet, he calls himself the victim. He's a recovering alcoholic who was half-naked on the roof several years ago, pissed drunk and out of his mind; he was nearly arrested when he called the cops at the beginning of COVID. Red-pilled to the hilt and listening to the likes of Jordan Peterson and Wesley Watson. Foolishness.

15. He badmouths me to his friend and mother.

16. He refuses to change or be respectful.

17. He gives me grief for being in school because then he feels like the onus of cooking and watching the children is on him. If his "holding down the fort" is angrily cooking, sending ground meat and tomato sauce spraying onto the kitchen counters and walls and setting the kids in front of a screen so that he can ignore them while he plays video games, then I want no part of it.

18. I am doing everything myself anyways. What good is he? He begrudgingly transfers his half of housing cost to me (and late every single time); last month I paid for it all myself because he said that he had repair expenses. He's trying to lump me with paying for all of housing this month too. What is his purpose?

19. He has the audacity to ask for intimacy after all of the above occurs. It is a detestable chore being with him in that way after all of the above. The times that I have caved and given him what he asks for, I am dry as a bone and it becomes painful. He gets angry and calls me cold and bitter, pulls up his pants, and leaves me naked, sad, and feeling used.

20. I deserve better. I am tired of his oscillations and getting whiplash. I am tired of feeling resentful. I am tired of living in a mess. I am tired of dysfunction. I am tired of being on a rollercoaster of his drama and abuse. I am tired of crying and feeling like garbage after he yells at me in a vomitous tirade. Even if I am all the things that he accuses me of being, neither me or my kids deserve this treatment. I am ripping the bandaid off. I am done. It took some time to see what family members and friends have been telling me for some time, but I am finally ready to make the jump. It will be hard. Very hard, especially with being in school and having kids. He will be difficult and fight me every step of the way and try to dodge being responsible (i.e. paying child support; he will have the gall to fight me for custody when in reality he wants nothing to do with the children. My eldest daughter straight up said she would not cry if he passed away when we were watching television and the main character's father passed away. Is it any wonder that she said that considering that he used to hit her and feint/lunge at her?). It's fine. I might lose my house that I worked so hard to get approved for (that I paid a downpayment for and got approved for). It will be fine. I will be fine. My children and I will be fine. I have seen friends do it and still be fine (better than fine since their mental health had been restored after removing the domestic violence and emotional parasitism from their lives). For the mental well-being and peace it will bring, it will be worth it. 

Reasons not to get a divorce:

1. My youngest daughter is very sad about it. She cried all evening and was inconsolable when he tried a break at an Airbnb.

2. It's expensive and I am living paycheck to paycheck as it is.

3. It will be a long drawn out, painful process that will be prolonged and made more expensive because he will refuse to sign papers and fight things. I will be kept in a tortuous state of being both married and unmarried until he finally releases his  clutches and I can shake free of him. It will be difficult for him to find a new host unless he hides his true, manipulative self.

This morning, I had enough and called a lawyer. There's only so much a person can take before they break or walk. I hope I am able to excise him from my life without collateral damage. I hope for the best. I hope he is cooperative. I hope my kids don't suffer. I hope I finish school. I hope for success. I do not think I will bring another human being into my life. There's too much at stake. The risk of bringing another wrong person into our lives is not worth it.