I've post this on other threads,but not verbatim. I married young at 24, soon-2BEXWW was 22. I filed after 27 years, divorced at 33 years.
When we got married, I was still in school and she worked. I supported my end of things while working a union job part-time. We held off having kids for over a decade while we established our careers. That decade was good, because she had no real responsibilities. I am a very hardworking person and adult very well,so I carried a majority of the load.
After kids, it was different, as she had to step up and actually be a mom. It was at this point that I realized just how bad she was at "adulting". Add to this her lack of empathy, selfishness, entitlement, and need for validation, and, well, you get the point.
I felt like Boxer from Animal Farm. The less she did, the harder I worked. After Dday, I was done. I mean done. I let no boundary remain broken and unaddressed. When she forgot to buy me a valentine's gift, I told her to get her ass in the car and buy me something expensive. Just to add, she neglected to buy meva gift on our first Christmas together and had to run out to a gas station on the eve.
I gave her 6 mo ths to prove to mevthatvshe was worth R, but did not tell her about the time limit as she is performative and transactional. She would treat it like a challenge and then immediately revert at the end.
At the end of 6 months, I went away to think deeply and returned with a simple question, a shit test if you will. She failed spectacularly and I told her that since she was never going to change, we would be divorcing. Then I went to bed.
The absolute correctness of my decision has been underscored by the fact that not only has she not changed, but she has gotten worse in the last 5 years. For me, my life has been largely peaceful. Sure, I've had some relationshipscand suffered setbacks, but through it all, I am in control of who and what I allow into my life.
Looking back, my EXWW had her psychological development arrested at some point in her early to late teens. In her mid 50s she is just an older version of her 20 year old self and will likely remain so until she dies. It's probably a combination of her ADHD and undiagnosed aspergers coupled with a massively dysfunctional FOO. Plus, she was hypersexual at a very age, which created some disfunction in how she related to men. After her S, she confessed that she feels a need to please men who pay her attention. Yeah, that made me barf in my mouth a little.
So yeah, she just wasn't wired for R.