I have been married to my husband Rick for 15 years, and prior to getting married, we dated for 3 years.

• So, I was sure that he was the person that I wanted to spend my life with.

We both were in love with each other and thought we would be together forever. We were teenagers when we first fell in love, and we got married when we were in our early 20s. I was happy for the first 10 years of our marriage, but the last 5 years, I have been pretty miserable. Being married became draining to my soul. I believe I completely lost myself between catering to my kids as well as to my husband. And to be honest, it began to feel like a chore that I no longer wanted to complete. So, after discussing my feelings with Rick and after we realized that counseling didn’t solve the issue, we mutually agreed to go our separate ways. Initially, we discussed not getting a divorce attorney and we would instead have a mediation to work out the settlement. But to my surprise, Rick decided to hire a divorce attorney and served me papers, which totally caught me off guard. After being blindsided by this, I had no choice but to hire my own divorce attorney. I thought Rick and I could have settled our divorce out of court, but for some odd reason, he decided otherwise. I have tried to ask him why he decided to take a different route, and I have not been able to get a straight answer from him. Either way, my hope is that we can come to the best resolution for our divorce. Only time will tell.

Family lawyer