Hi - thanks so much for your responses. Pussweasel - you should not beat yourself up about being cowardly - I am beginning to realise that breaking up a marriage is a really brave and strong thing to do because it involves recognising that it is over and there is a lot of bravery in that.
Any way can't you flip that - ie you have to do the dirty work because he is too cowardly to?
I read somewhere that divorce can be harder to cope with than someone dying because it is not final in that you always have that grain of doubt that you are not doing the right thing. On the other hand I had lunch with my 86 year old mother last week who is nearing the end of her life - she does not tell me what to do but she did say 'you only have one life'. I have been thinking about that a lot lately.
I have found two relate books about divorce really good - one which is their book about helping the children deal with it and the other 'how to have a happy divorce'. I would recommend. In the early days I also read 'too good to leave too bad to stay' by Mira Kirchenbaum.
I think being ready is a good idea - I too got advice. There are still things I need to do - work out the assets - work out what my arguments on finances and children for when we start to discuss things, plan, plan, plan. I think I might be using the planning as to put off getting on with it and breaking up !. I think that given I have thought about little else for some time now I will in any event be at a more advanced stage than him and I will have to give him ages to take it all in before I can expect him to be ready to talk about the nitty gritty issues. So you don't have to have every single duck in a row before you start.
I looked at getting a counsellor and started with a promising lady from relate - I wanted to go alone - in order - as you are thinking - to decide for myself if I wanted to end the relationship but she persuaded me that I would not get the answer to that unless I heard him talk and give me some answers. So I agreed that he would come into the counselling too. I have to say that it did get us talking a bit and got me a bit closer to realising that that the relationship is not going to work for the future. If you are talking at all I think it would be a good thing to do joint counselling just to understand together that the relationship is at an end. We did not quite get there because we both gave up really but I think that if you can talk counselling could be good - after all if you have kids you have to learn to any way .
I am thinking of going for more counselling elsewhere now - alone - at least to help me support myself and the kids..
I am very interested to understand people's perceptions of being children of people in unhappy marriages. I don't know how to handle this at all. It is complex because partly because of the situation my DH has become an insomniac - and he does not get up in the day until well past noon - so the kids don't see him half the time - this has been going on for a year - it is clear that there is an atmosphere between us but we try to go on the rest of the time as normal and be 'jolly'. I have explained to the kids that DH does not sleep too well which is why he does not get up but I think that (at least the oldest one) realises something is horribly wrong - he seems sadder than usual and confused but that could be just his age .. or nothing. Kids sense it though. They must. Pantone - I would be really interested in understanding how you sensed that 'simmering resentment'