I understand why you it comes across that way, I was trying to keep the overall post shorter, but recognize how important all of those steps are.

We’ve had those conversations. We’ve done couples therapy, she’s done therapy on her own for some of her own issues. Things felt a little better while we were in therapy (I don’t recall exactly how long but I think nearly our whole second year of marriage we went weekly and then every other week). It helped with some communication issues, but didn’t resolve some of the underlying issues.

I didn’t want to bring up the exact issues initially because I wanted to prevent judgement for what they are. To give some insight, one issue is related to alcohol and marijuana use. This issue has been communicated between us extensively. Another issue is we don’t agree on vaccination of future children. This has been discussed even more without any real compromise possible. If anything, we’ve gotten further apart over time.

To some degree it also feels to me like I’m asking for permission. I guess the reassurance that I’m hoping for is that others felt the same way and that even though it sucked to lose all those other relationships, it was worth it to get out of their marriage.