How to make things amicable

[Spottycoat]

We're separating, my husband does not want to, despite agreeing that neither of us have been happy for years. He would like to stay with an appearance of being happily married until our 3 primary age children are out of secondary school; this isnt something I can do.

Our children dont know about this yet, only very close family and friends do.

Things have got nasty recently, he wont talk to me (we function around the children) and when we do try to talk he is very angry and we get nowhere.

How can I help this be amicable for all our sakes? I have tried so hard to show patience as I know he is hurting - I would have progressed things much more quickly if it was just up to me. I'm constantly double thinking things I say and do to make sure I am being considerate to him and his feelings but I'm starting to snap back and be short as I'm just gettung rude comments to me and a refusal to move things forward. I feel he won't be civil unless I agree to live together. I've tried to say in advance about things we need to diacuss, I've given him space, and time (it's been months). But he can be very angry in arguments and this is leaking out to comments in front of others.

How can I make this so we dont deteriorate to a point our children have parents who dont speak? Has anyone managed this once it got horrible - so to make it more civil again?

You can't.

You won't be amicable to one another until he completely understands your marriage is finished and he's mentally moved on.

This may take years if you are lucky and a lifetime if you are not.

Sorry to hear this. I have no advice but worry this will be my situation too in the months to come (I haven't told my husband yet that I want a divorce, will do this early December).
Have you actually started the divorce proceedings?

I dont seem to know how to reply to individual posts, I'm sorry. Thank you for the honesty, that's really hard to hear although I guess he is in a similar position. We have both been unhappy but don't - or didn't - hate each other, I hoped we could pull together to make the best next option for the children's sake. I feel so low that it's gone this way. I guess he does too.

I havent started divorce proceedings yet and had hoped we could sort most of everything involved between us too but recent things said make me feel we may have to have more legal support than I'd realised, I never thought this would be the case for us. I'm sorry you're in a similar position, does your husband have any idea of how you feel?

Maybe you could start the process? You can apply online as sole applicant and he would then get notified. It costs around £580 if you're in the UK. You then have 20 weeks before you can proceed to the next step, would give you a few months to sort things out? Maybe mediation would be an option? Do you think you could get him to agree to that if he knew you were serious and had actually filed for divorce?

My plan is to speak to my husband in December and fill in the application after Christmas. Neither one of us has been happy for a long time, we have nothing in common, don't even watch TV together. Not sure if he knows how I feel, I have certainly been more distant than usual and he has been kinder than usual. With kind I mean there's not been emotional abuse, shouting or general grumpiness as usual. He got really angry at me a couple of weeks ago over something ridiculous and yelled for 15 minutes when I was driving on a motorway with the kids in the car as well. He actually apologised after (very unusual) and has been less volatile since, maybe he realised it was really out of order. Well too little too late.

You can't.

The only thing that helped for me was time. My husband left me and wanted us to be friends straight away. We are now but it took years for us to get to that stage.

I think it comes with acceptance (he’s not there yet), Reflection ( too soon for him ), space ( living apart), time ( to adjust, to see children are ok, that new lives are ok etc)

that’s hard and fir some people can take months, others years, some never unfortunately

best thing is crack on, be fair ( but not a doormat), dont badmouth him ( even though you might feel it inside), if he blames you don’t rise to it, just reiterate that you hope you can both put your children first and love them more than you dislike each other.

delaying the inevitable won’t help

Thank you so much for all of this advice, i cant seem to word things well in reply after a tough day and evening, but its really so helpful and I appreciate your replies.

Apply for the divorce now. Waiting serves no purpose at all and the process takes much longer than you’d think.

I’m was in your situation, asked for divorce in Feb 2022 after a long period of couples counselling. I walked on eggshells and everyone said to give him time to process everything to make it amicable. If it was up to me we would have been divorced a year prior. Anyway, we then had mediation for months because I was told that this would ensure things stayed amicable. They were ALL just delaying tactics by him. He went back on everything agreed during extensive mediation. I had to get solicitors involved and he’s becoming more and more unreasonable. We have a final hearing in spring 2024!

I genuinely believed that we could stay reasonable and amicable. The only person that warned me he was likely to turn nasty was my counsellor and I didn’t believe her.

My advice to you is to get your ducks in a row. Take copies of everything you have access to now - bank statements, pension statements etc, get legal advice regarding what your financial split might look like (best and worst case scenario). Meanwhile, try to get him to agree to mediation (this could take months). If he agrees to mediation, don’t tell him you’ve had legal advice but have a settlement in mind based on the advice you’ve had. To avoid court, make him a generous offer.

Thank you for sharing this and I'm sorry you've had a difficult time. I'm struggling to understand when we'd tell the children through this - I have looked up so much and was going to wait until we knew for sure what next steps would be for them, so when the house is up for sale, which could be some time. Is this what you have done? I dont want them to live through uncertainty (much as possible).

So we did things in unconventional order but the mediator drummed it into both of us that the house had to be sold (far too much equity for either of us to buy the other out). We put the house on the market but asked the estate agents to market it discreetly only to their email list and people they knew were looking for our type of house. This was May ‘22 so at the height of the crazy market conditions back then and we had an offer very quickly. The kids didn’t know at this point because I didn’t want them to live in limbo.

We eventually told them in June ‘22 and fully believed we would move during the summer holidays. The chain was a nightmare so when it became apparent that we should be stuck living together beyond the summer (which was spent apart, a week on/week off) I didn’t want to slide back in to family life. So I moved out and actually rented the house I’d found to buy (it was vacant). My ex stayed in the house until completion and then moved to rented.

I could NEVER have got him out of the house so I had to move, for all of our sakes. It was awful living in the same house. He suggested nesting which would have been a very bad idea - that only works when you are genuinely reasonable people and he wasn’t by this point.

They do advise you not to move before an agreement has been reached but my solicitor said that because the house was on the market, it wouldn’t be used against me. The judge at the second hearing was a bit surprised that we had already sold the house but I couldn’t imagine still living with him until the March ‘24 hearing and only then put the house on the market!! This would not have done the children any good at all.

I agree it’s best not to have the kids live with the uncertainty for too long. The worst part is waiting and knowing they’ll have to leave the house. Once it happens there’s a period of adjustment but the kids adapted really quickly to the new situation.

Thank you for explaining. We haven't had mediation, my husband wouldn't ever do counselling either (together or separate). And I wonder whether I need to now push for that - mediation - I hadn't as I thought we could work things out together. But looking at it this morning and reading these replies again maybe that is what we also need to support moving things along.

The first step is to apply for the divorce. You might then have no choice but to start proceedings if he won’t go to mediation. The threat of court might help him see sense and engage in the mediation to save costs. Once you have issued court proceedings, he can’t really stop the process (but he can delay it if he’s that way inclined).

You can't. Just rip the plaster off. My ex had an affair with I still tried to keep everything amiable, he still wasn't happy when he got everything he wanted. Just do what's right for you, and your children. Good luck

It really depends on what type of person he is. If you read threads on boards like this about people who struggle with divorce you see that for most people it is traumatic process. Some people need more time to come to terms with this huge change to their lives.

However there are people who have disordered behaviours and cannot let go of a relationship or accept what they see as rejection. Time will not heal this and you cannot be amicable.

For your part you should continue to be assertive. Don’t over explain the reasons why as this just creates more avenues for him to debate.

There are two different ways of trying to keep things amicable. Option 2 I recommend, option 1 I do not:

1. You can walk on egg shells around the person you are divorcing, concede on every point where you think they might blow up and do anything to keep the peace or;

2. You can set out what you think is fair (and do be reasonable, consider the other party's needs and base it somewhere in the realms of reality, ideally based on quality legal advice) and if they kick off, just stay polite but firm in the hope that their tantrum will pass. Eventually once they have stopped the tantrums they will probably remember your civility.

People who refuse to be reasonable in a divorce come in all shapes and sizes but they tend to coalesce around two "types" which is why the stereotypes persist. The first unreasonable type is the breadwinner who refuses to acknowledge the contribution of their spouse and expects to get more of the assets (and blows up, perhaps a bit more understandably, when they learn they are going to actually get less than half, sometimes considerably less). They can draw a divorce out with an unwinnable case but the best thing to do is stay civil in option 2 and hope they get some legal advice that pulls them back to reality before then.

The other type is the lower (or no) earner who is taking no responsibility for their own future and expects to be kept by their ex-spouse, often for a lengthy period of time. We've seen a recent case of that on this forum, where they inevitably lost their case in a final hearing and should have settled at FDR. Similar to the high earner worrying about assets, when they realise they are going to be financially responsible for themselves they can stamp and scream for a while (and can be left unsatisfied even with a larger percentage of the assets) but may come around if you are firm and polite. They're less likely to pursue a fruitless court battle anyway because they tend to lack funds and have a lot more to lose from the asset share.

@Spottycoat I'm so sorry you're in this situation. I am in the same situation. All I want is for the kids to know what is going to happen and be as settled as possible. The atmosphere in the house has been terrible for years, no arguments, but no love either and I don't want that to continue. I am terrified of submitting my divorce form as I know it will cause chaos. My dh doesn't want to separate but can see as much as I do how awful things are, like yours. But he seems to be willing to let it carry on forever as long as we both just do our own thing in the house on an evening. That's no life. So, not really here with any advice to give you, just tagging on to see what advice you get