I Need Freedom

hello, my name is aaron. i have been trying to get out of my marriage to my emotionally abusive, lying, cheating ex. where to start? she asked me for separation on utterly false premises nearly 4 years ago. since then, she has strung me along with lies and manipulation, at first making me believe that there was some hope for reconciliation, which i will admit at first was what i wanted. over time i realized this hope was in vain. roughly 3 years ago i first asked her for divorce. her response was more lies and manipulation. she led me on, while still refusing to take any tangible steps towards any form of resolution. since that time i have done everything short of getting on my knees and begging her to let me go, and still she would not do anything.

eventually, last december 2022 i flew out to portland, oregon (where we had spent the last 8 years of our relationship together) and put the papers in her hands, and we filled them out together. unfortunately, when I returned home to massachusetts and attempted to file the court clerk informed me that her signature was invalid- when we got married our inclination was for her to keep her maiden name, however upon further investigation realized that when we signed for our marriage license, she had in fact taken my last name. she had never changed any of her formal identification, so the signatures requiring notarization can not be completed until that has taken place. nine more months have passed, and i have asked her repeatedly to take care of this so we can continue the process and she has not done anything about it.

just recently i discovered that she had been cheating on me, something i had suspected at the time, but without proof and getting gaslit to hell and back, had buried in the back of my mind. i am, quite frankly, furious. i could have and should have known at the time it was going on. all of our friends knew but me, and they all conspired to keep it secret. their reasons are their reasons but the fact of the matter is that if i had known at the time, i would have taken her to court to get my divorce while i still lived in portland, and i would have been out of my marriage years ago.

so here we are. i can not even begin to explain the toll this has taken on me- i have now lost friends, relationships, thousands of dollars and quite frankly nearly my life. i have lost years that could have been spent building a new one. there is more, so so so much more... but i am not posting this fundraiser to air dirty laundry. i simply want my freedom. at this point, the only way i can see forward is to hire a lawyer and force the process on her. so i am asking for help, because i have no idea how much this will wind up costing me, and it has already cost me so much. anything helps.

thanks for taking the time to read this, and please, if you don't mind, pass this along. i want out. i need out. a few bucks will go a long way towards making this happen.