Separation talks

[Muddypatches]

It's finally happening. Once the kids are at school we're going to sit down and try to sit ourselves out. It's all very sad. I don't know what I want from this thread just yet, but some handholding would be good. It's not fair to tell other people that this is happening before we've talked so iMm turning to you wonderful people for support today. Thank you.

Hope it is going ok. I found mnet a great place for support in early days of my split.

Hope you're Ok Muddy :) I wish I had known about mumsnet when I separated

Its excellent that you are amicable enough to sit down together & talk. Do you have any children? Was it your decision to split?

Its a sad time but also inevitable in a lot of cases, there will be many emotions that happen so be kind to yourself & start to detach emotionally. Its also a new start x

And as it turns out he's managed to persuade me to give him one last chance. He's assured me he's had an epiphany of his behaviour and that he's going to change. I really don't believe him as he's know I've been at the end of my tether with him for the last year and a half and still nothing changed and possibly even got worse. He's managed to drop the possibility of suicide into the conversation several times over the last few days.

I'm not sure where I stand at the moment with it all. In my head I'm giving him until the new year and then seeing where we stand.

Muddypatches threatening suicide is emotional abuse so do take care of yourself. Do not stay because you are worried about the consequences.

I'm partly staying because I'm worried about him, but also because I really do want to believe in him and that we can make this all work. Except my feeling at the end of it all was that I'd just given him enough time to prove me right. He seemed mostly very panicky at the thought of having to leave and make changes to his life (he hates having to do anything proactive).

But we'll see. Maybe there has been an epiphany and he's a changed man.

Is he seeking any support from his GP?

OK well giving him one last chance shows that you're a very decent person who is trying her best to make a marriage work. As DivorceAlchemist says, threatening self harm to force you to stay is classed as abuse so just be aware that he might be trying to manipulate you into staying.

With the suicide in mind then you may want to think about other emotionally abusive behaviours such as gaslighting, ignoring you, minimising your opinions etc I'm not suggesting that he has done all of these things but there have been many many times on MN where a poster will say something such as the suicide threat then it turns out its the tip of the iceberg.

Have a firm date in your head, say January 10th or something when you will re-evaluate. It means that all the festivities are out of the way & you can concentrate on what you want to do next. You sound as thought you have already detached from him some way & that's helpful if you do decide you want to leave.

(If you want to talk about your reasons in more detail where your thread will disappear after a month & it won't show up on a google search then post in the special place ) :)

I've put both threads about all this together in the special place.