Starting Over
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Separated but living together?
So I have been to counseling twice and am feeling good about my decision to end it with dh. However, we have a complicated issue with one of our children, which makes co-parenting pretty critical. At first, I was dreaming of moving to another city and starting a new life, but then realized that the parenting issue was a priority. I've spoken with my counselor about it and plan to work out details for a co-living agreement for finances, co-parenting, separate bedrooms, etc. I am crossing my fingers that this can work for 6-months to a year until we can figure more things out.
Has anyone had success with something like this?
Re: Separated but living together?
Your counselor was in favor of living together?
I tried it for a brief period with my XH until I found a place to move to and even though we were on good terms and we got along it still had its challenges. I was constantly stressed having to be in the same house as him. It was depressing to be constantly reminded that our marriage didn't work out and once I was in my own place I was way happier and actually felt like I could move forward.
Also if you plan on living with him for 6+ plus how are you both going to feel if the other one starts dating and potentially bringing another person around the house?
No, she wasn't necessarily in favor of it, but she understood the reasons due to an issue with one of our children. And I am actually only looking at this for a 6 month to one year solution... I am not sure what we would do about the dating others situation, but it would probably involve a rule that while we have to live together, there would be no interaction with the kids/the home. And honestly, I don't see that happening anytime soon for either of us.
I'm doing it. We separated in July and are still in our house with separate bedrooms. We just started our parenting plan where we each take a week to be in charge of our boys who are 4 & 6 (take to and pick up from school, monitor homework, make dinner etc). We are refinancing our house to just him and as soon as that is finalized I hope to buy my own place.
We eat dinner together as a family most nights but do not spend any time together (unless its an activities for our boys) and he goes out several evening/nights (after the kids are asleep on his week, or after dinner on my week) -which sadly is exactly like the last year of our marriage.
Honestly it's rough. It makes me sad to have a constant reminder that the man I used to love is so different and I feel like I'm in limbo. Though I still get to see my boys everyday. After I move out I will have to go several days without them
(we plan to visit the other for dinner twice a week so we can each see our boys when it's not our week). But it's temporary so I just take one day at a time. It also helps that there is no big immediate rush to separate all our marriaged things (cell phones, health insurance, car insurance etc). Instead we separate about one item a week.
As for dating, I'm no where near emotionally ready for that. StbX is doing his own thing in the evenings but would not bring anyone as its too soon for the boys to meet anyone new. If he did want to bring someone home, we'd reevaluate our living situation.
Dh is no different than he used to be, which is why I want to leave. Chronic depression, anxiety, etc. The best thing that is coming of this, though, is that he is realizing that I can't be his crutch. By putting the emotional and physical distance between us, he has stopped using me as his sounding board. That means he is going to counseling several times a week. Unfortunately, we've been through this cycle before and I know that if I make myself available to him as a "wife" (or what he perceives as the "duties" of a wife), then he starts the cycle all over again. A night of intimacy, a hug, an "I love you," or anything remotely wife-like toward him and I become his crutch again.
He's trying really hard, but I am so checked out now and exhausted that I know we won't ever get to where we should be as a couple. Thus, I know our marriage is over.
It's not so hard living with him, but I do feel like I won't be able to move on until I am out of the house.
To cope, I've scheduled some working trips and conferences outside of the state. The working trips aren't terribly necessary (I could do phone and web conferences instead), but it gets me away for a little while in order to be able to distance myself and have a sort of pseudo-life away from home and sort my head out. I have a trip coming up at the end of December/beginning of January. It only needed to be two days away, but I am taking seven days instead. Then, I have a conference in Florida in February, for which I only needed to be gone one day, but I am taking seven at that one, as well. I've fully disclosed this to dh (stbxh) and he understands and is supporting me having a life outside of the house for once. which is new. I know he's doing it in hopes that I will eventually reconcile, but really I am doing it to keep my sanity.