To think separated parents have the best of both worlds?

Are you telling me you can't pop to a shop without your children? Or after they're in bed?

I'm a seperated parent with older kids who don't see their dad but my life is still a million times easier than when I was living with their dad. Resentment uses up a lot of energy and headspace and it will only get worse for you. Your kids are still very young by the sounds of it, if I were you I would separate as soon as possible as it will do less damage to them. Life is too short to stick it out for 15-20 years just in case the kids don't like having separated parents. A lot of kids are also pretty much unaffected by it and for some their lives improve once the parents separate. It's you and kids now anyway, their dad seems to just be some figure who is around sometimes but doesn't contribute in any noticable way for the kids.

And his laziness wouldn’t affect me in the same way. If he’s got the children and he doesn’t remind them to go to the toilet and they wet themselves then he has to sort that. It’s his house, his laundry, his wet child. It he doesn’t give them a reasonably healthy day food wise and then they are waking up at night hungry and wired that affects him, not me.

But you don't want your children wet and hungry.

Leaving him isn’t something you should do on a whim but if he isn’t pulling his weight and doesn’t realise the impact this is having on you; if you cannot communicate and find a way forward; if you are making threads on MN saying you wish you were a single parent - then it probably is time to seriously re-evaluate.

Your children are clearly not getting the best of you now. And you aren’t getting joy from them. Staying together for the kids is not always the better option. You seem resigned to this miserable existence - do not drop anchor here.

If you choose to marry a bone idle husband you pay the price. Ditch him

Yes, but the thought of not having my children with me 50% of the times makes me sick to my stomach. Not something I’d enjoy, even though I’m bloody exhausted and would love a break!

But the thing is you could take time for yourself, even if just to go sit in the car round the corner and scroll for an hour.

If you think he’s the kind of man who would step up and do 2 nights a week and you’d be perfectly happy for him to do that then he is capable of looking after his kids in the house for an hour on an evening. All you have to do is pick your evening and walk out the door, come back in an hour. Or run yourself a bath, tell him you’re off there for an hour, lock the door and enjoy. If he’s a dad you’d be happy to look after your kids for 2 days alone then he can manage an hour.

Gosh I've never envied this. I could not cope with only having my kids 50/50, my heart would break.

You have another adult in the house. You have someone to share the burden. Let’s if people with feckless husbands say glibly “oh it’s like I’m a single parent” but it is not the same. Some particular examples from when mine were tiny:
-DC1 running a severe temperature and realising you’ve run out of calpol in the middle of the night. Faced with the choice of either calling round friends and waking them up or dragging a poorly child and sleeping toddler to the all night pharmacy.
-On a different occasion having to take both children to A&E and sit waiting for hours when one has a suspected broken ankle. No food, every time you need the loo all three of you have to traipse there together.
-Getting home, doing dinner, bath, bedtime, coming downstairs to be faced with the washing up and general evening chaos that YOU have to do because there is no one else.
-being faced with eviction because your landlord wants to sell, and being sneered at by agencies because your one person salary is not enough apparently to rent a shoe box.
-spending the one weekend ‘off’ a fortnight doing all the housework you’ve not been able to do, desperately missing your kids and also spending evenings alone because everyone else is with their family.

I could go on and on. Obviously it is a lot better than being married to a dick though, but it is not “easy”.

An equal and balanced relationship where both parents are actively involved in running the household and raising the children is the best of both worlds.

You're making it sound like a.mini break. In my experience, no I didn't have the best of both worlds.

Easier than being married to a lazy sod who doesn’t give a toss about you? Yeah I guess so… but easier in general? No.

Not being with the parent of your child often means you don’t have that shared “aren’t they the most wonderful humans ever”? Moments or someone to share your concerns with… my husband loves the very bones of my older two kids and would call them “his” but I know that how we parent them differs from how we parent our younger two together… and I sometimes miss the ability to speak to my exH about “our kids” even though he’s a wanker…

In a healthy relationship you should be able to carve out time alone anyway- and then also have time together.

My advice - go to bed and snore. Really loudly . IME kids don't like it!!
Or just chuck them in with you and all have a lovely nights sleep

Also buy a huge dog ( Mal or Dutchie) Once they are bonded with your children, drive round to ex's . Say "kids are here for a visit" . Keep dog on leash ( they are actually total sweethearts) but fluffy Dutchies like mine look like a wolf. Seriously your ex will agree very quickly. Hugely protective of children too.
Mine once jumped straight through a window screen, because my DS was patting our new pony! He's also "rescued " people from the pool a number of times ( close the gate people!)
I hope your DH is paying maintenance!!

I remember thinking this when the dcs were younger, op. Tbf I was looking at friends who had gone on to meet new partners and maintain civilised relationships with their exes, thus had support while on duty and time to themselves when not. I agree it feels like a hard slog when the kids are young and the thought of having 50% of time off was pretty appealing back then. It’s been a different case for my sister however, whose ex lives in another country to her and so she’s had to do most of it on her own.

I get what you’re saying, I do get time to myself now - but it’s only now I have it I realise I don’t want it. I miss my children desperately when they’re with their father and I don’t think he takes care of them that well (not in terms of safeguarding but stuff like feeds them sugar constantly, leaves them on ipads all day).

Whatever the positives may be, I will never ever get over us not being a nuclear family again. I miss being in a relationship but although there’s billions of men on the planet, no one else will ever be their father and love them the way a father does and it just will never be the same.

my husband was fucking lazy and I did everything (he added to my work is anything by being so damn messy himself), but I would give anything for him not to have had affair and to have my family back. I will never get over it and nothing will ever make up for it.

OP it sounds like the only benefit you are interested in is having some childfree time? So can’t you get that another way, eg by having more childcare? Are your finances joint? If DH won’t pull his weight with the kids I bloody hope he is with finances and you have full access to his money? Otherwise he really is a deadweight!

But it obviously is a massive thing to break up a family and I don’t think it would make the children happy

Maybe her free time is consumed with thoughts of the massive upheaval she's been through and the fact her child has come out worse for it. She'll also be thinking about paying all the bills on her single salary, being responsible for most of the decisions, doing all the life admin as Mr Two Nights per week likely doesn't bother himself with such frivolities.

The grass is greenest where you water it. Take yourself off for a night in a hotel and leave your useless lump of a husband to look after his children.

TBH, on balance it's shit. But it was never my choice to split up so that colours my opinion.

I miss out on time with my kids.
Christmas is forever tainted and is now a time of year I want out the way and done.I used to love Christmas but now I lose my kids for part of it each year.

Secondary school is a bloody nightmare working out logistics of which sports and PE kit is here or they have left at their dad's. I still carry all the mental load of this because their dad doesn't think about these things, and I don't want my kids to suffer because their dad walked out.

Dating- forget it. There's no time and nobody wants a woman aged 48.
So yes I get a weekday night off each week and every other weekend. But it's shit.
You asked.

Yep, my sister's dead weight of a husband (decent dad though) left her for someone else and her life is immeasurably better. Free time for chilling, hobbies, dating etc.

My DH was like this, but things have massively improved. I married a man who I later discovered had a mother who was a housewife and waited on her family without expecting them to lift a finger, and despite me working full time, he seemed to then expect the same.

You need to speak to your DH. Our kids are now older (youngest is 8), but my DH now does half the school runs, and is supposed to wash up after meals (I cook as I'm home first). If he doesn't bother then I refuse to cook for him the next day and he can make himself a sandwich.

I'm far more organised than him, and always know what needs doing (he still often puts himself or his dogs first) so I find being very clear with what needs doing and who is doing it helps. e.g. if pack lunches need making, I'll say "kids need pack lunches making. Do you want to make the sandwiches or do the fruit/veg snack?". That way I'm not telling him to do something, I'm saying something needs doing and he can chose which bit he would LIKE to do!

On the one day he finishes earlier, I'll say "these are the meals we have planned for the week, I've done the food shop, which one do you want to cook on X day? I don't mind which ones I cook so you can choose".

There are still times when I find it utterly frustrating where he puts his own needs first before thinking about me and the kids, but in general he is so much better. When the kids were younger I was also at the point of realising that as a single parent my life would be so much easier, but that wouldn't have been best for the kids.

You’re focusing on the wrong issue. It’s not separated parents that have it ‘easy’. It’s those who are sharing the load fairly with another parent, regardless of whether they are together as a couple or not.

Stop focusing your attention on your friend having lie in once a week and start focusing it on your DH and the fact that you say he should be doing more.

Besides you are completely ignoring the additional financial pressure that being a single parent brings. The fact that it is your income alone that is responsible for paying the mortgage, bills ect. And that if you were to loose your job then you wouldn’t have a second income to fall back on.

I really can’t be bothered to read anymore. You’re either goady or a bit thick. But just leave your husband and crack on. Eurgh! 🙄🙄🙄

If I could choose between "practically being a single parent" with a double income, someone on automatic fallback if I become ill etc; and my situation, which is single parent, no fallback, one income, all mental load, all stress on me, then I'd choose the first option 10000000% of the time. I've been variations of both. I had a supportive but duplicitous husband (hence ex). Then I had a useless partner. In both cases it was easier than my reality as a single parent (working full time, own home, two children).

I think the icing on the cake was last November when I was hospitalised and almost died, but the Dr's had to phone social services to make arrangements, because their dad did not offer himself up. I've never felt so vulnerable. Even a useless partner wouldn't have left me in that position.

As for a lie in a week. I don't get it. On the rare occasion I get actual time to myself, I'm too exhausted to do anything because everything is just me the rest of the time.

No, you just pay them an extra hour or so
To do the tidying first, it's not that hard.

Disagree. Your Dh needs to step up. Dh did stuff when ds's young, now they are older I have lots of time to myself. Saying that I always have, even when they were babies, made time for myself.

Running a household on 2 incomes is hard enough. Only 1 is really hard.