I’m 53, my ex-wife and I were married for 30 years, separated, living apart for the last 10. There was a period of about two years after we separated where we didn’t talk (that’s on me). Shortly after the separation, we saw a mediator. I kept my 401(k) and my truck, she kept the house. No argument, frankly, I felt like she could have whatever she wanted, leading up to the separation, I’ve been a bit of a dick.

Anyway, we separated in 2015, live separate lives, had separate lovers, other than those two years we were basically best friends. Starting around 2018, I would ask around the new year “ what do you think about getting divorced?” and for whatever reason her response was “no”. I didn’t push it, just asked every year… january of 24 she said “yes”. I told her don’t worry I’ll take care of everything, and then for fear of complexity, dragged my feet for a year. Finally in January 2025, I said “fuck it” and went to an online site that walks you filling out the paperwork for your state, then prints the finished forms. Full disclosure the online forms didn’t exactly match the ones I got from the district court, but the content was all the same. So I just sat down with both packets and transposed the relevant info from the former to the later. Didn’t take me 15 minutes.

Once submitted, because of Maine law, I had to wait 60 days to get a court date, got our court date, it was a tele-session. Process was basically, me “I don’t”, her “I don’t”, judge “You ain’t”. I won’t lie it was a little emotional even though we hadn’t lived together for 10 years, but admittedly are still friends. A very important point, there was no contested property or alimony, and no children requiring visitation or child support.

The whole point of this is to tell you, if you guys have split and there’s nothing that you’re arguing over (and your state doesn’t have some super wacky process) the whole thing is likely extremely easier than your brain is making it out to be.

Also if your girlfriend of 16 years has mentioned divorce, fucking do it. When women mention something in passing, they aren’t just sort of thinking about it out loud like men do, they’re telling us out loud what they want and testing how fuk’n thick we are. No joking, if you love this woman, get divorced, like yesterday. Having finally done it last year, I wish I had done it years ago (btw I justified not doing it using the same $75 dollars to get married…)