Here’s a strange one…separated, reconciled, but considering divorce

[BackwardsReasoning]

This is such a long story but I’ll try to keep it brief. Our 16 year marriage has been pretty rough for 6ish years. I handled it really, really badly, and had an affair in the last year. It tore me, and everyone else, apart. I hated myself, ended it, and moved out of the family home. At which point, DH and I started to get on so much better. I then disclosed the affair because I knew I couldn’t go back to him without him knowing the truth.
Against all odds, and all my expectations, DH wants to stay together and try again. He has been incredible in forgiving me. We are prepared to work on it, and I am committed to being a safe partner, and am in a lot of therapy to ensure this is the case.

We love each other enough to try to make it work.
But…we both agree that if we end up in a place that makes us as deeply unhappy over such a prolonged period as before, we don’t want to stay together.
For both of us, we feel that our marriage as was is over- we are building something new. And that we no longer believe in ‘Marriage’ - that you stay married regardless of happiness, through thick and thin even if the thin bits last for years and years. We’re in our late forties - we don’t want unhappy decades. And we don’t want each other to be unhappy.
So DH has suggested we file for divorce, and stay together as partners, knowing that we are together because we make each other happy, not because of a marriage certificate.

Are we totally crazy? We just feel we need some kind of massive gesture to mark the end of something and the beginning of something new.

Posting in this forum as am also keen to understand whether you are actually allowed to divorce if you are staying together, and whether there might be unforeseen legal complications? I imagine we wouldn’t even bother with the financial order bit if we could help it. (We are fairly equal in terms of finances, jointly own a house, earning power is similar, both look after our two children equally, no imbalance here). We just want a piece of paper saying we aren’t married anymore. Bizarre, isn’t it.

I kind of see where you're coming from. But I believe you would need legal advice. It could affect your wills, inheritance tax, other things I don't know about. It will involve boring and expensive arrangements with lawyers. I frankly wouldn't bother.

What about having a conscious commitment ceremony? Invite people if you want, build a fire (or just borrow a firepit), declare your marriage dead, burn a memento, throw your rings into the fire, then make new promises of honesty or whatever you want to say to each other.

So,you'll financially seperate and divide up your assets, the house, pensions etc and then stay together? Maybe need to sell the house to release the equity? It's not as simple as let's divorce and not have a piece of paper, and I can't I,whine that he means a full financial separation, which you'd be silly not to do as if you're divorced and seperate the financial rules are quite different.

If i were cynical (and I am), I'd say he is lulling you into a false sense of security, do this and you could end up fucked. Out of his will, our of his pension, out of your house. He takes advantage of this being a gesture, you let him take everything in the divorce because a) you feel guilty and b) you don't think you are really divorcing as it's only a "gesture". 2 weeks later, he has everything.

@IIdentifyAsInnocent - I also identify as cynical as hell and would be concerned this could be used in the future to screw over the OP.......

I wondered this too - as per previous 2 comments.

Tread carefully!

We have friends who married as high school sweethearts and divorced after about 15 years (and two kids). Neither were unfaithful but he was terribly irresponsible; changing jobs frequently, flaking out on childcare, not pulling his weight in the house. She got sick of it, kicked him out, and divorced him. A few years later they reconciled after he 'grew up'. She refused to re-marry him but they've been living together happily for over 20 years now. She confided that she thinks her 'easy out' keeps him on his toes.

I'm in the US and I know nothing about their finances. But if you're contemplating doing this I'd see a solicitor first about how to protect yourself financially and I'd keep finances separate.

Getting legal advice would be very expensive but you also need to be aware of the implications like the other commenter said - wills etc. With divorce, since you both seem to be doing this amicably, it should be pretty straightforward so don't waste your money on a solicitor's steep costs. Use online resources to sort it out (I used this one - https://iamlip.com/).
This guide may also help safeguard you in a relationship where you are not married so you are not taken advantage of https://iamlip.com/unmarried-couples/

I imagine we wouldn’t even bother with the financial order bit if we could help it.

This sounds really unwise.

It’s totally unwise. If and when it became relevant the marriage would be viewed as one continuous relationship bound by marriage.

Thank you all, especially for the links to resources.
I do trust him. He has been incredibly loving and forgiving. And he’s not the scheming kind, nor is he driven by money. However there is a fair amount of guilt on my part and I am aware that it does play into this. Divorce would benefit him as I have the larger pension.
I see the point about the risk in not seeking a financial order in the scenario that we really did separate later - presumably there would be lots of grounds for argument (= legal bills) about the true date that the marriage really ended.
I do think the state of marriage has not been a good one for us though. I want to show that I’m with him, and he is with me, by choice, not by necessity.

I think you're blaming the institution of marriage for your own (and his) behaviour. Divorcing - if you are planning to stay together - would be an empty gesture that could potentially cause you huge legal and financial headaches down the line.

How about renewing your vows instead?

I do trust him.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Don't do this.

I would take your focus off divorce, it's not your marriage that got you into this position, and it won't be ending it that gets you out of it. You'll be the same two people the day after the final paperwork lands on the doormat as you were the day before. Without comprehensive legal advice you're just opening the door to a different set of problems, make sure this isn't a distraction from what's really going on.

Yes you are contrite and want to try to go along with everything he suggests to show willing, but common sense has to prevail at some point.

Your feelings changed, so could his.

Your feel so sure at the moment, it all makes perfect sense "Marriage is to blame, let's get a divorce!".

The whole idea thing sounds like a vanity project or like you're both in the throes of trauma bonding - grand gestures showing the world how much you love each other.To what purpose?

Since you've both decided and are committed getting divorced is a pointless exercise IMHO .

Ugh. The bit about trauma bonding rings horribly true. And yes, we probably are diverting ourselves from talking about the real (harder) issues. Thanks all for the straight talking. I know this will take time and effort to fix on both our parts.

The piece of paper isn't ad wasn't your problem. Marriage isn't and wasn't your problem. Identify the actual problem and deal with that otherwise the problems will resurface. Did you neglect each other, resent each other, take each other for granted?

Marriage doesn't keep you together. I think kids, commitments, joint finances might play into staying together. Personally, I'd stay married but consider living separately or keeping your own digs.

Thanks @ChangeAgain2 .
I have to confess that having my own place has been really good for us and moving back under the same roof fills me with trepidation. I have a lot of avoidant tendencies.
It does feel like a new relationship (with the added massive complication of two children, a joint mortgage, and a whole host of emotional bear traps still set in the woods…..)

Can you stay as you are and not live together? Nothing says you have to.

How old are the children and how will this impact them? It will be very confusing for you to get back together, move back in then split again if it doesn't work out.

I'd be cautious about divorce if you're staying together and think about the legal/financial implications. Honestly I think being married isn't the issue and you can choose to be together because it makes you both happy and not because you're married.

I stay with my husband because I love him and I want to. Being married wouldn't change that or make it harder for me to leave it I wanted to.

If you can afford to keep your own place then that's what I'd do. You're making a commitment to spend time together. You can date each other but have distance if you need it. I think it's better to maintain a level of independence and distance while working on your relationship.

Kids are 8 and 11.
I’m renting about 10 minutes walk away and they spend half the week with me. It’s as convenient as it’s going to get, unless we lived right next door to each other, but they still find it annoying and are now asking a lot for me to move back in, as they see we are getting on much better.

The situation is draining our finances so it’s not a long term solution.

DH is keen I move back in with the decision to be together pretty much made. He is very anxious-attached too and I do feel he needs me to be there every day to make him feel better. I’m comfortable with this and he understands I need my space too.

So it’s hard to avoid the scenario where I’m back in the family home. (It’s not a house I love, which also complicates my feelings about it.)

It feels like a massive conundrum where the more space we have, the better the relationship is, but we need to build closeness for the relationship to survive.

I think you need to look at the old pattern that you fell into and analyse it. What did you do or not do before that you do or don't want to do now? For example I currently do all the childcare, cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. If I started over again I would want a more equal distribution of labour. Don't get me wrong I've discussed it in our relationship and we are now 85:15 as apposed to 99:1. I would want no mobile phone nights. I would want date night once a month. I wouldn't want to take on all the mental load. I wouldnt want to pick up after a grown man because i want a partner not a child. Someone talked before about task cards and distribution the household tasks so everyone knows what they are doing and it's fair.

I can totally see the reasoning behind it. Marriage does trap you with the security it brings and can fuzz the line between together for love, and together by habit, companionship, financial security. If you want to make sure that it's love that binds you, divorcing take the rest away.

I would however agree that each keep their own pension.

It sounds like you've got a good understanding of some of the tensions. I was going to ask if things are good BECAUSE of your guilt, not in spite of it - does he like you contrite and apologetic? You can see how they feeds into your avoidant / his anxious attachment, he feels much safer in this current dynamic. Less good for you in the longer term though. Back to the 'rough dynamic of the last six years?

Get some couples therapy before making any big decisions (incl moving back in). You need to figure out if this has legs first, whether you can both be happy together.

Exactly @vivainsomnia Plus, the ingrained expectations about marriage we both brought to the table. His totally unexamined, unarticulated assumptions about spending money, childcare, and the amount of independence that a wife could have, were all problems that came up. I think he was very keen to replicate his parents’ own successful model marriage, and we were both running away from my parents’ marriage which was very chaotic.
I guess that’s to do with family of origin and applies to any relationship. But marriage put a certain symbolic importance on it.