Is an amicable divorce/separation possible?

[WinWinnieTheWay]

I'm really seriously thinking about telling DH that I want us to separate, but I don't want all the nastiness, lying and scrapping over money that I've seen friends go through.

DH will be upset, he will want us to stay together.

Does anyone have any tips how to do this with respect and love? We have four children and I don't want them to go through a nasty divorce.

So not at all possible?

Anyone?

You can do your best certainly. I found this book helpful: Conscious Uncoupling

However whether your divorce is amicable or not is not entirely within your control so you can't reasonably predict how it will turn out (despite your best efforts).

I have 4 children and we are divorcing. We live together still as wiaitng until Jan to put house on market we split in may. At first it was hard lots of arguments and actually awful. Now it's just nothing. Not good not bad. Just coexisting and I still care for him but we have separate bedrooms and bathrooms and separate lounge and don't talk or spend time together apart form the odd chat re kids or how was you day type thing. I would much rather not live together but now it's manageable if a little miserable after we don't live together I can see us being friends and we have agreed to buy houses very close to each other so the kids have 2 homes close together, so yes it possible but it's taken 6 months of hell to get here.

Yes similar situation here
Don't blame each other take it as a mutual growing apart / changing
Don't bring up past resentments (I still do but try not to)
I care about him very much and it is hard to see him upset
Children are happy, it has been commented my ds number 3 is happier than previously
Bite your tongue and let him get his anger or frustration out, try and look at it compassionately
Organise what the future holds
Don't tell the children until you have a good plan as they will want to know how it affects them
Don't go over the same things again and again
Good luck it's v hard especially when there is nothing obvious to blame
I think my dh would have preferred an affair as that would have been more understandable to him

The bite your tongue thing sounds terrible reading back but I truly believed it helped him to see it was over when I didn't engage ie he didn't anger me anymore as I'd made the decision

My circumstances are different but it’s still a ‘no blame’ separation. It was always never going to be easy to separate but they way I handled telling the kids ( they are adults) meant the wheels have fallen off. All I can advise is prepare yourself mentally for all eventualities. It’s easily the most traumatic and emotionally draining experience I have ever had. I wish you well and good luck to you.

I think in some ways the most apparently amiable one I've seen close up (of two close friends) was actually the most painful to the non-initiating party, because there was no affair, no particular desire for another relationship on her husband's part, no arguments or clues he was unhappy, he just decided that the past 20 years of their marriage and the two children they had produced (and which she had done all the gruntwork for) had been a massive mistake for him, and announced it on holiday in Florida! as a fait acompli. No discussion. He wanted his bachelor lifestyle back, and felt she had strong-armed him into marriage and 'family life'. Basically, he divorced her to have an affair with his PS4.

So it looked superficially amiable no one else involved etc but I think it caused immense pain.

Jeezo MilkandWater, that’s grim...I recall the shock on my kids faces ( 21/24). Not something I would want to do again. They seem to have absorbed it now but I’m keeping an eye on them.

It's possible - I've done it, although without children - if:

• You both want it;
• You both like each other enough to do it;
• Neither of you allows your legal person to talk you into a conflict, and
• You both remember that it's more important to have your spouse as a friend than to have that special piece of furniture you both want.

It wasn't easy but I was very fond of him. We haven't seen each other in over 20 years but I'd still go a long way to help him. He was a lovely man but there wasn't enough passion for a marriage.

Both our solicitors advised us we could go for more. We just told them, No, this is what we agreed on. We both went to the decree nisi hearing then went for lunch together.

His second wife hates me and sees me as a threat - I'm not, but I can see that it's difficult for her. Be prepared for that.

I think it is possible, me and h are divorcing and it is pretty amicable. We’ve been through 2 rounds of unsuccessful relate sessions and are in a place where we both want it. We’re past acute bitterness and hurt (had years of it) and working on moving forward our separate ways.
I imagine it is difficult when both parties are in different stages of break up emotionally as that would create a lot of tension and hurt. Depends on personalities i guess

Oh, and what also helps is that there are no other people on either side. I just want peace and quiet and get on with my life and so does he.

I've read this thread with interest. I'm considering splitting - we are late 30s with no children and a comfortable lifestyle. We've grown apart essentially - had sex a handful of times over the past five years.

I'm not sure its possible though. I think you both need to want it and she doesn't appear to be on the same page as me. We are in counselling at the moment and the counselor has stated that its clear i'm ambivalent about the relationship.

I care for her, and hate seeing her upset. I yearn for the day when she sees the marriage as I do .. we are just housemates. I kiss her when I leave each day and that's it.

I think she is happy living in a sexless marriage for the rest of her life - she likes the status quo. Maybe that's because i'm the more submissive in the relationship, I'm compliant and do everything that she cant.

I just wish she would turn around and say lets be friends... but I'm very scared

@BravoCharlie
In her book Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, Mira Kirshenbaum refers to this as tyranny of ambivalence Ambivalence can feel so powerful but ultimately it doesn't particularly lead you anywhere...

@SecretOfChange

I started reading that book but haven't finished. I need to re-read. Funny, maybe our counselor was just referring to that directly as she said "for as long as I stay ambivalent. that things will just go round and round"

I just feel so low. There is no abuse and we get on well. But I've fallen out of deep romantic love and in my head I don't think I can get it back.

I do think its my duty though to try and talk through this with my wife, and in some sense then that may make the separation easier.

An interesting thread and one that resonates all too clearly with me.
I’m not an alpha male, more like a 2nd Lieutenant really (!) so the decisions I made really took it out of me.
We married 25 years ago and one month before our anniversary my wife said we were finished. This was the third time she had said this over the years.
Additionally a number of years ago my wife also said that she wouldn’t be bothered if she never had sex again. I have a high sex drive and this was a bit of a downer. Literally!
So these things ( plus her controlling nature) all added up to an unhappy husband..
I had a couple of breakdowns in the summer and it was then I realised I had to change things, for my mental health if nothing else.
My brother said I was literally trembling with anxiety, I’m normally quite placid.
My GP had prescribed Citalopram for my new anxiety attacks which have helped.
I started the process in August when I told my wife I wanted to separate. She said she wasn’t ready to discuss it.
However I have seen a solicitor and have told our kids (21/24). Telling the kids was something that made me sick with worry and the shock on their faces was something that I’ll have to live with. However they seem to have accepted it but I’m keeping an eye on them.
My wife is now blaming me for destroying their childhood and for being deceitful for seeing a solicitor without telling her.
For every little step has been a nightmare for me, I’m not a confrontational type. I have to build up a head of steam to move things on.
Today I had to constantly remind myself why I’m doing it as I kept remembering the good times ( there were many) but having a loveless, cold marriage isn’t how I want to spend my remaining years ( I’m 55).
It’s like inching your way along a dark winding tunnel and it will get worse before it gets better.
I’m still in the same house and indeed the same bed so that’s the next challenge for me, to get into our newly vacated spare room, our daughter having moved our recently.
Ironically I care about what happens to my wife as I think she will struggle physically in later life.
Remind yourself what it is you want at the end of it.
I want a loving, warm relationship, to hold hands as we go through life together. Something I’ve never really experienced.
Prepare yourself mentally and get a support network. I have leaned heavily on mine. They are vital for your sanity.
Someone said to me this life isn’t a rehearsal.

@Shunter350 I agree that life’s not a rehearsal. I’m a little confused by your post. At the start you said your wife ended things a month before your 25th anniversary. But then you talk about you ending it. Maybe I got the timeline wrong. Good luck with it though.

@Shunter350 ‘I want a loving, warm relationship, to hold hands as we go through life together’

This. I cannot achieve this in my current marriage and at 39 i don’t see how i can thrive both physically and mentally if I stay. I don’t want to look back in my 70s and see a long line of lonely years and don’t think i would be happy for not even trying to achieve that.
If plan A fails, at least I can have peace and quiet alone without constant stress that being lonely in a marriage creates.

@WinWinnieTheWay
What are the reasons for you wanting to dicorce?

@BaskingMad I'm I'm a marriage where I am lonely, misunderstood and bitter.

My wife has said three times over the years that we were finished but we recovered ( for the kids I suppose) but I realised that after the last ‘ threat’ I couldn’t live like this and so I started the process. Life’s too short to live in a sterile marriage. Thanks for the good wishes. It is very traumatic.

Your right. My brother told me that when I’m 60 / 65 / 70 where do I want to be and what regrets will I have if I stay..