Terrified of the impact divorce will have on my children

[Lamima]

Hi!
I'm a mum of 5 year old DD and almost 2 year old DD.
married to my husband c.2017, together 13y
we suffered a 2nd trimester loss / stillbirth of a little girl 3 months after we married at 23 weeks (we announced pregnancy at the wedding)

we were OK before we fell pregnant for the first time, I’d consider my husband a safe and stable choice, but we’ve never set each others worlds on fire (both would admit that)

I fell pregnant extremely quickly after having our stillbirth, then 5 years of pregnancy, breastfeeding ensued, I am finally getting “me” back and re establishing my identity and have realised that although he’s safe he’s not meant for me.
since our 2yo DD’s birth I struggled with PNA/PND and received therapy for this, I’ve been re grieving the loss of my first baby and have struggled with this, my husband is of an opinion that it’s done, we concentrate on the ones we have now, not sure why I’m dredging up stuff all the time etc. I’ve suffered with trust issues with him since the loss, as I wasn’t feeling right for 3 days leading up to us discovering she died, but he constantly dismissed me, was angry at suggesting I’d get checked out, called me a hypochondriac etc until I eventually went in and found she had died. (I’m not saying it’s just him I don’t trust, it’s anyone now when it comes to health as a result)

ive also started a new job which is higher paid and involves travel, he’s been unsupportive of my job although stays home with the children when I am away (overnight trip once every 2/3 months, long day travel once a week, the rest I WFH) which has caused further issues.

all of this considered, I am terrified for my children. My parents divorced due to an affair when I was 19, I don’t want the same for our children. My DD tells me she worries when both husband and I are not in the house together, she picks up that either of us are out most evenings, she’s become more clingy and this before we’ve officially separated.
I am 80% sure I want to end things, but I want to stay for my children. Like I’ve said everything is “OK” normally, which makes it hard to leave someone who is so middle of the road and on paper has nothing wrong with him!!

I don’t want to F my kids up, I don’t want to F myself up living in constant regret like my mum is (she had the affair) and I don’t want my children to become another statistic. I worry so much for their future and relationships.

has anyone felt similar, gone through with separating and lived to tell the tale??

You'll mess up your children more by staying in a relationship where you aren't happy...

My parents should have split years before my dad had an affair and devastated us. An honest conversation and a separation when my sister and I were young would have been such a healthier life for us. Of course we’d have been very upset anyway, but I really don’t believe that divorce in itself is so awful particularly to such young children. Much worse to be an older teen and to understand the betrayal etc. I would urge you to deal with it now while they’re so young and accepting of the kindest narrative you can give them. My dad thought it best to wait until I’d finished my A levels before dropping the bombshell of his 2nd family. That was a terrible idea.

This is exactly what I’m frightened of, both or one of us having an affair “for the kids sake” I’m spiralling, I don’t know whether I want to leave him or not from one hour to the next. A lot of the pain and trust issues he’s telling me are “all my issues to deal with” refusing therapy, I’ve told him our marriage could be saved if he just went to therapy with me so we can talk, but he’s refusing as he doesn’t want it to be a bashing session. I’m just so confused & sad.

There's a lot going on there. I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds very traumatic - was the therapy you had for that trauma? You mentioned you still struggle to trust anyone with health matters and that you feel you are re grieving the loss.

I don't think grief is something that neatly concludes, it fluctuates over our lifetime. I just wondered whether you had support with this, because it sounds like you feel you have to justify your experience of grief and it being particularly painful again recently - you don't have to justify yourself.

Bereavements can pull people apart - you are both grieving differently and by the sounds of it struggling to understand each other's reactions. Some people cope the way your husband is, some people cope the way you are. Any relationship would come under strain.

It's not necessarily irreparable if you don't want it to be.

That said, you are not your parents and this is a very different situation.

Some of your daughter's clinginess may be about the uncertainty of sensing something isn't right but not knowing what's going to happen. Certainty can sometimes be easier to manage.

The way you handle it, explain it, support them will influence any impact it has if you do decide to separate. It's not a foregone conclusion that divorce will "fuck up" anyone.

I can only tell you the impact a year down the line from divorce. Not mutual. (I wanted to stay together to keep the family unit together)

My eldest is 6. Twins 2.

Eldest - more anxious. Doesn't want to be away from me. Seems to be behaving more immature and clingy. Gets upset as my time is now spread very thinly (ex husband doesn't have any overnights and only sees them a couple of hours per fortnight). Become more attention seeking. Has already developed a different view of "families" and how babies are made and role of a father in a family - basically none. Negative personality traits seem to be amplified (or maybe I'm just seeing them more because it's just me now). No one else in her class is from separated parents - I think she feels embarrassed and self conscious. Family days out I don't feel she can fully be a child as there is just me and she is often the second set of eyes on the twins. When she's been at friends houses for play dates she can come home quite sad maybe from being around a family unit

Twins - I feel that they sense because I'm now outnumbered by kids then they have more power (they do!) so often behaviour is poor.

Me - knackered and become a shouty mum. Stressed raising 3 young children on a single salary. I can't enjoy parenting the way I used to it because everything is on me and there is always something that needs to be done and so no time to just sit and play. Resentful that their entire lives will have changed - they'll not go on the holidays I thought we would, I won't be able to buy them a car or fund university on a single salary. Some of them will have to share a bedroom.

Don't get me started about navigating Christmas and birthdays. He'll have to take me to court if he wants a Xmas day with them. I'm "lucky" that I haven't had to agree to 50/50 custody - I didn't have children to only see them 50% of the time.

75% of all the time we will ever have with our children is over by the time they are 12 and 95% by the time they are 18....do you really want to give half of that up?? Because a slightly boring staid maybe even loveless marriage but one that is more based on friendship and shared experience and mutual respect is preferable to losing time with my children any day

Would it be a "bashing" session? Does he mean that is what he feels is happening when you talk about the loss of your baby?

To me personally you sound very distressed frightened. I personally am not sure those are the circumstances to be making big life changing decisions.

Have you had individual bereavement or trauma therapy? That lingering sense of unsafeness and distrust you feel does sound like trauma.

Woah, this hit hard. I’m so sorry that you’re going through this, it sounds unbearably hard and I hope you are doing ok through this all?

I know our situations are very different, and those stats on time with the children really hit home for me. That’s so scary.
its strange, I’m a shouty mum when the 4 of us are together, I spend less time playing with them, I’m usually busy doing chores and tidying etc, I just seem to think that if i was on my own, I’d have 60/40 childcare split (he would have them thurs - Saturday, me Sunday - weds) but with me working away my days I would need wrap childcare to accommodate those days. It feels not enough.

i don’t want to just “wait” in a loveless marriage, co exist around one another… I don’t know. It’s such a horrendous time.

Hi - I’ve had psychotherapy which unlocked the trust issue further but then funding ran out and I was discharged, I’ve tried to contact my therapist again but I’ve not heard from them so cannot commence therapy again, which is a shame. With the looming separation I can’t afford therapy again, and he is refusing couples therapy because he feels I am blaming him entirely on the baby’s death, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m blaming me, health professionals, midwives, the midwife who scanned me, anyone really. I can’t trust anything I’m told with regards to my health, I just don’t trust what people say.
I have no doubt I have trauma, but dealing with my trauma whilst being told I’m on my own with it from my husband - the person I should trust the most - is unbearable x

Can you calmly sit down and give him something of an ultimatum. That he comes to counselling or he accepts that his refusal to go was a contributing factor in a divorce.
You'll have done all you can.

We are doing ok (I hope!) Thankyou! Or making the best of it at least. It will get easier when the twins are older and at least sleep through the night 🤞🏻 but I don't want to wish their lives away either

The other thing to think about is the prospect of meeting someone else who will give you the spark you crave....the truth is on line dating is shit. But that seems to be the norm for how people meet these days. It's awful - and doing it with young children like we have? It's a minefield. I don't want to be alone forever but neither do I want to bring someone around my young children - navigating that will be horrendous - if it ever happens at all! It means facing living alone for what - another 10 years or more! I'd rather still live my ex! It's lonely. Not having a "person" - no one to talk to in the evenings, no one to send silly messages to or photos of the kids when they do something funny. It feels weird to send them to my ex. He isn't "mine" anymore. I was with my ex over 15 years. As crap as our sex life was I just feel really self conscious about the thought of being intimate with someone else. I'm not 20 anymore. I come with baggage and a mum tum.

I'm not saying this to put you off but lots of people romanticise ending a marriage and many will say how great things are for them now but the truth is just as many don't go on to find what they were looking for...ever.

Personally from exp, what will badly affect them is dragging them into the details, bad mouthing the other to them etc. that's all the shit me and my brothers had to deal with, it was extremely nasty, and it has had a lasting impact on us all, particularly my older brother who bore the brunt of it.
Divorce if you're not happy, your children deserve to have happy parents, and to develop an amicable Co parenting relationship if possible.

We all have one life and deserve to be happy! ❤️