Separating, but need to live together

[Bedazzled22]

We are planning to separate but need to live together, for a while at least. We have a teen DS.

Any tips on how to do this? We sleep in separate bedrooms anyway and can separate our lives reasonably well I think as DP away for work often.

Any tips or advice please?

We do this. It works ok as a temporary thing and we know it’s not forever - our DD is in her final year of A levels so we’re trying to avoid a house move before she finishes, so we’ve got the summer in mind as an end point. I think it would be worse if we didn’t have that end!
it works ok for us though because we get on ok. If we end up in the kitchen at the same time it’s not weird or anything, we’ll make each other a brew etc. we live in a town house so everything is quite spread out across 3 floors. So we’re in separate bedrooms but also on separate floors. We share the lounge and kitchen but he doesn’t use the lounge much. We literally live as housemates and lead separate lives - we don’t eat together (sometimes I will eat with our daughter, sometimes he will, and something she does her own thing - just depends what everyone’s plans are, but we don’t only eat together all three of us if it’s a special occasion!)

We have stopped having a joint account and now keep our money separate and split the bills. We’re quite lucky in that between us we tend to just do chores as they need doing and it evens out ok, but if that wasn’t the case we’d probably need to put something in place to make sure things were as equal as possible there. We very much lead separate lives but occasionally pass on the stairs or in the kitchen! He works away a couple of nights a week which also helps.

I can’t imagine doing this if we didn’t get on as friends though. Also one of the main things is that it’s hard to explain the situation to people if you wanted to date. I’ve tried and even as I was explaining that I still lived with my ex I was thinking how stupid it sounds and how if I was the other person I wouldn’t want to get involved with that situation! So I’ve put all that on hold until we’re not living together. Although you never know - if the man of my dreams came along and was very understanding I might change my mind - but I would never bring anyone home, and I know my ex wouldn’t either. That wouldn’t be fair on either of us.

I guess I’d say just do what you can to separate your lives and keep channels of communication open and honest. At first my ex felt that with us still living together I might change my mind and we’d get back together. It took a while for him to accept it and now he has things are fine. So it’s really important to be clear and make sure the situation isn’t giving any false hope to either of you.

Hope that helps a little. It can be done! But it’s not for everyone, and it’s not forever 😊

Placemaking for tips. We haven't formalised it but are headed in this direction if we can't turn some quite big things around. Really useful to see the experiences and reassuring to know that a kind and honest coexistence can work, at least in HoneyDaze's case!

Just the one tip then...?

@HoneyDaze Thank you for taking time to respond, thats really useful. In particular, I think having end date in sight is very sensible. Can I ask how your daughter copes with situation?

@Bedazzled22 She copes really well to be fair. She’s 17 and quite grown up about it all. She said it wasn’t a huge surprise to her, and really not much has changed for her at the moment as she is so used to us living separate lives. She’s also very busy herself so is out with friends / school/ at work a lot. Maybe it’s easier with her being the age she is. She does know that things will change more at some point though, but she ok for now and I think this has been a good “in between” time for her to get used to things.

I lived with my ex during Covid (sept 2019 to July 2021) as house hunting was problematic during the early covid times and then the market went mad 🥴.

We had separate rooms and he had the en-suite whilst I shared the bathroom with teens.

Given the world was upside down we actually did fine and very little change from marriage tbh. Everyone still pitched in with meals and chores and we ate together. We have 2 separate tv rooms but again we didn't watch much together beforehand! Maybe oddly we argued less as once the decision was made to split it took a lot of tension out of the atmosphere.

DC seemed fine about it and asked if we could continue once the house hunting/moving came into full flow.

We still have a joint account - this covered bills etc during the living together phase and now is just used for DC expenses. We had always just both put a % salary in before to cover bills so didn't really need to change.

Tips: stay respectful if you can! I'm lucky we are still good friends just not right as a married couple......

Currently doing this but i think it can only ever work as a temporary measure, you have to have your goal in sight and use the time to clear out clutter and get (as mumsnet says) your ducks in a row.
We are lucky to have opposite ends of the house, our finances aren't joined and I am saving money by being here for now.

I want to say don't do it- but it might work for you. In my situation we only had one bedroom so it was horrendous whilst waiting for house sale to go through. Ex wanting to get back with me, walking around naked etc. Taking turns to be the one on the airbed on the floor. Wondering if he was going to flip out and strangle me or hang himself or something else dramatic. Trying to keep the stress away from the DC. God I feel sick remembering.