I have no idea what stage I am in. I separated 6 years ago!!!!!! but have not moved on at all. I have not settled the financial aspects of my divorce and in fact don't really think I perceive on an emotional level that I am separated. I met my husband when I was 15 and I suppose pretty damn naive. I became pregnant. In 1968 noon raised children as a single mother and my school automatically expelled all girls who became pregnant. So I simply didn't tell anyone at school that I was pregnant. My doctor wrote a letter that I had medical issues. I has been very good at school and my parents were devestated by the pregnancy. My mother decided the solution was to give the child up for adoption. My father took me past a few shacks built by squatters at a dump who scavenged the items at the dump and told me that is where I would have to raise my child if I proposed to keep her. He never spoke to me after that. He was what was called a dry drunk back then. A sober alcoholic today. He started drinking when he heard I was pregnant and died a few months after my daughter was born. She was adopted. I was damaged goods and it was clear I had to stay with my husband. He moved in with us when my father died. We married a couple of years later. He went to military college and I went to university and law school. I was a great student and worked for a great law firm. I was driven. I was the first woman lawyer in a large firm. I started out as a tax lawyer but later became a corporate lawyer. We had two more children. The second boy had health problems and I left work to take care of him. I started working part time for various corporations and educational institutions. About ten years ago my husband thought it would be a good idea to go back into practice and seemed to be very supportive in setting up my practice. My son was in the hospital a lot and we considered buying an apartment close to the hospital. One night it was decided to go look at the apartment. My husband said he was busy. I went to look at and was describing it to him and talking about a move. He said "no we are not going to move YOU are going to move" He said he had been unhappy every since I had become fat and ugly. Needless to say I di not not move out. I saw a lawyer and he moved out. We tried to settle the financial issues but could not. After four months I was going to start an action against him. I told my mother. She said "you thought your father was a son of a bitch but not as much as [my husband[. It was the last thing she said to me. She had a stroke that night. She was found the next morning. She was paralyzed and never spoke again. She died 6 months later. And oh I forgot I switched my practice area to family law. During the six months my mom was dying I travelled thousands of files travelling from the city where we lived to the town I practiced to the towm where my mom was hospitalized to the hospital my son was hospitilized. I got so many tickets I lost my insurance. I went to a high risk insurance company and spent $36.000 on car insurance over the first six months. When my mother died my sister found a lot of clippings about me from when I was a child among her things which she had moved from apartment to apartment. A friend looked at it and said I was a very different child then she imagined. I decided I wanted to reconnect to the child I was. I joined Classmates.com and contacted every friend I could from my past and communicated until each one got sick of me. I was trying to figure out who I was intended to be before the pregnancy and the early marriage. But I eventually figured that I was still grieving for the loss of my first child. I joined support groups for birth mothers and tried to come to terms with this. None of my friends knew about this chapter of my life and i started "coming out" to them. I then started searching for my daughter. While my husband and I were together his view was that "The past should stay in the past" A year ago I found my daughter, not in the small town where she had been given up for adoption, but in the big city where I live. As a tax lawyer in one of the top ten firms in the country. (this was my first job) She is married with a young son. We have been communicating by email for a year but she hasn't quite found the time to meet me in person. But I feel more complete knowing who and where she is and I hope to have a long relationship with her. My second child (the oldest one I raised) lives with me in the former matrimonial home. After his father left he dropped out of school and worked a bit changed majors three times and eventually completed a degree in film and works on a film crew. When he isn't working, he works in my office. He would make a good lawyer but isn't interested. He is a delightful man. My youngest is doing fairly well but is living with his father now. when he is away from him he does well. But he is subject to depression. Since I switched to family law I went back to school to do a Masters in Law in Family Law. I started two years ago and should finish in six months. Just prior to separation the lady who owns the building I have my office in (a converted small house) said she wanted to sell it and my husband said we would buy it. When he left I said, I guess I should tell her we aren't buying. He said well you should have enough after we settle. I told her I would buy it when my divorce was settled. This year six years later she said she had to sell it. and so i am buying it. I have a hundred per cent financing from three sources because I can not mortgage the house because it is still in my husband's name. So the ridiculousness of my not having settled anything or be divorced six years later. I am on my second lawyer, I have spent tens of thousands of dollars. I have got three friends who are lawyers not divorce lawyers to help me but nothing has been accomplished because I never do what my lawyer tells me to. I have been to a psychologist and a psychiatrist to try to get guidance as to why I don't move on.; The psychologist says I am still grieving. The psychiatrist says I am suffereing after affects of a depression. But still I ignore deadlines. My husband had no desire to get it done as he owes me money so he throws every delay in my way and I just let him. I have to figure out how to get myself to move on. I hope to get inspiration from this site.