I need genuine opinion. AITAH
Allow me to preface this by saying this is my side of the story. The only information I have from her side is what she has told me. I am not as nieve as to think she has told me everything that she thinks or feels. This is in no way to try and paint her in a bad light. This is simply my story. My soon to be ex wife and I both had no intention of getting married. Neither one of us saw conventional marriage as anything more than a piece of paper. She had a son from a previous relationship who was 4 years old when we got together. I had known her, her ex and her son since he was 1. About 2 years after starting dating, we ended up having our daughter. It was about a year after that that she mentioned that she would like to actually get married because she wanted to have the same last name as at least one of her kids. Of course this made complete sense to me and since I still believed in the commitment being more important than the paper, I agreed. I was already committed to her so adding the formality didn't cause any hesitation on my part. We got married and moved on with our lives. I will admit that I noticed the marriage growing stale some years ago but didn't really pay it much mind. Relationships have their ups and downs so I figured as long as I continued to show her I loved her, things would end up working themselves out. I will admit that this may have been the time that I should have actually asked her what was happening or told her how I was feeling but I did not. Neither did she. The intimacy stopped first, about 3 years ago. Then any sort a affection stopped. I had spent the last 5 years growing my beard out and I loved it. Definitely wasn't the best beard around but I liked it. My ex had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she hated it but it was the only thing I had done in my life that was 100% only for me. About 9 months ago, I realized how incredibly bad our marriage had become and I chose to shave my beard as a last ditch effort to show her that I loved her and I would allow nothing that was in my power to come between us. She did ask why I had shaved and I did tell her that I was trying to show her that she was important enough to me to even shave my beard if there was any way to save us. This is when we finally started talking. She admitted that she had been unhappy for some time and that while she still "loved" me she was no longer "in love" with me. I asked her what I needed to do to help her find that feeling again. She offered the usual "tasks" that everyone talks about. Counseling, first dates, etc etc. I did everything she asked. She did nothing. We did 2 couples counseling sessions when she suggested we do separate sessions so we could say what we were really feeling without fear of hurting each other. I agreed and did 3 sessions before she admitted that she was not doing hers. Long story short, she filed for divorce in October and moved out. The problem is, her employment barely covers her rent and utilities. I am still paying her car payment, insurance and phone bill. I have found myself growing angrier and angrier. I am struggling to make ends meet because the life I spent 16 years building relied on both of our income and now I'm still trying to maintain based solely on my own. I guess I just need to know, AITAH for being angry?
Posted Feb 15, 2026, 3:08 AM UTC