To throw away a thirty year friendship/marriage and hurt the kids for that kind of pathos - what a terrible waste and what selfish, wanton destruction. I guess the key is to be clear what it is we want and ask whether it's realistic. While we were separated I am pleased to say I watched no TV, never fell asleep on the sofa and I don't know what Popbitch is, but I am going to find out, it sounds intriguing. I feel guilty admitting it, but in those six months I felt more alive than I have for years, like Tarasmalatarocks said.
My friend kept telling me he felt 'more alive than he had for years' in the few months immediately after telling his wife he wanted out and he got a bunch of new hobbies, bought a racy new car, started socialising a lot more, applied for an impressive new job in a different field. But now we're months later still, when he has his 'new life', which is permanent and not in jeopardy it just looks an awful lot like his old couch potato one.
I suppose what I'm saying is 'What do you envisage your new life being like? What in it is completely incompatible with remaining married? Do you, for instance, imagine eventually forming another relationship?'
I'm all in favour of people in unhappy marriages divorcing, I should say. It's just so happened that the two incredibly painful break-ups I've happened to see up close in the last two years have both been initiated by men who felt they'd been ground down and pruned into domestic life that had prevented them from being their authentic selves, and in both cases the post-break-up lives they have fashioned for themselves look remarkably similar to the ones they left.
The other friend had a remarkably successful food business with his first wife but claimed they were living her vision of life, doing things he'd never wanted at all, like having children. He now runs a similar type of business with his second wife, and it reflects her interests -- things he would have been extremely cynical about before they met. To be honest, I can already see the seeds of his second divorce. I think he may be just someone who drifts into relationships where he temporarily adopts the interests of the other person and then blames them for it when he gets bored. The sad thing is that he's lost both his adult children, whom he appears to view as his first wife's project.
Sorry if this sounds like I'm saying 'Everyone must always grit their teeth and stay' -- that's not what I mean. I think I've just seen a lot of pain caused recently by people who blamed their spouses for what they didn't like about their lives in middle age.