First post here and maybe looking for a little push. I have been married for 7 years. My husband is 12 years older with (4) kids from previous marriage (19)sd, (17)sd, (12)ss, 10sd and we have (2) together (7)ds, (5)dd . He doesn't have a healthy relationship with alcohol and sometimes goes on binges maybe once every 2 months.

I tried one last time to explain how my now STBXW how her actions of leaving me for 3 days to stay in a hotel (a mile from our house) to be with her DD is hurtful and makes me feel like I mean nothing to her. Her response to my question of what are you doing to try to make things better? “I can’t fix it”, which means she is doing nothing and this will not change. Tomorrow would be our anniversary, but instead it will be the end.

There are so many lessons learned as we proceed through the mine field of divorce and child custody and co-parenting once the process is final that it might be a good thing to share our experiences with others so that they may learn from our experiences and avoid some of the mistakes we made along the way.  

Those who are new to the process are often overwhelmed and don't really know where to begin.  We know that divorce is the next best step, but how do we file?  What do we ask for?  What can we expect?