Separated but going back?

[Cornfieldrainbows]

I left DH four weeks ago and went to my parents’. It reached the point where I was very anxious and unwell - really I’ve not been well since I had dd and she is coming up to six.
I also have ds - he is twelve.
Part of the reason I was so unhappy is DH has left everything re the dc to me. He’s really had very little involvement (done bedtime with dd twice, never taken both of them anywhere apart from MiL’s, not taken dd anywhere without me ever and only rarely ds) and it has made me feel like we are living very separate lives.
Since we left he’s been making a massive effort, we’ve seen him much more since we left (ds also voiced this opinion) and he’s generally being much more considerate and patient.
He’s keen for us to go back.
We are seeing relate.
I want to want to go back but I am not sure I do. However dd is very upset by the split and saying she is much happier when we all live together and I’m finding this hard. DH and I have never argued, she’s never seen conflict and she can’t understand why we are living apart. She is asking when we are going to go home. I think maybe if we’d have stayed in the house it would have been easier because she misses her room and the pets. But DH wouldn’t have left and hasn’t offered to since.
He’s had them for eight hours - total - on his own in the last four weeks. I am working 28 hours in quite a stressful job and have done all the back and forth with the dc, dd’s childminder is back by our house and we are 12 miles away. I’ve been fitting my 28 hours into four days so that I have a day off and have taken a couple of days leave too.

I’m shattered.

I’m so shattered that I don’t know what to do anymore. Should I go back and try it? I don’t know. I feel so awful round the dc, what do I say to dd? She’s such a happy little girl normally and I feel as though I am damaging her.

Kindly , you've had lots of advice on the other thread and almost everyone is telling you to leave. I agree.

No. It's easy to promise the world to try and manipulate someone into returning, but nothing has actually changed:

He’s had them for eight hours - total - on his own in the last four weeks. I ... have done all the back and forth with the dc

If this combined with false promises constitutes a "massive effort" then it must have been atrocious before, and just reinforces that you did the right thing by leaving.

Shitty partners do this routine of promising the earth to con their partner into returning. And then revert to how things were before. It is easy to pretend to be a better human being on a very part time basis for a short period of time. He has spent years treating you badly - four weeks of false promises don't undo that it signify meaningful lasting change.

You need to start giving your daughter clear and honest but age appropriate information. Otherwise she will make sense of this in the way all children make sense of the world: "something bad has happened, it must be my fault".

So you tell her that it's not her fault, explicitly. You explain that you're not going back and give her as much information as you have about what will happen next / where you will live.

It isn't separation that damages children, but failing to communicate effectively with them. Which is good because improved communication is within your power to change.

You left for very valid and important reasons that haven't changed. You need to give yourself more time to grieve and adjust. Four weeks is no time at all and not long enough for you to adjust.

I pretty much guarantee that if you go back you will regret it.