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.

@housingplanningquestion yes I think this is a risk.

I do feel a tremendous obligation to make things right. If what I’ve read is true, and it takes 2-3 years to recover from a partner’s affair, if at the end of that time he decides we need to part ways, I feel at least I helped him recover from what I’ve done and to move on.
But I think the more risky scenario is that things eventually slip back to the way they were, I feel I can’t be myself in the relationship (or express any negativity, which was an issue before) and that I become very unhappy again. And if he’s not on the same page, and just wants to maintain the status quo, then it will be almost impossible for me to leave again. (To be clear I’ll never be unfaithful again, that was a complete hellhole of misery.)
So yes. Reading what I’ve written I realise I’m pretty scared of reconciliation. Maybe that’s why I thought the crazy divorce-anyway option might be a solution.

I think the issue with this is that the financial order is often the most difficult part of divorce. If you don’t do one now you can still divorce but essentially have the same barrier to breaking up in that you would need to sort finances when you do.

But if you do do a financial order now whst is it going to say given that you will presumably continue to share the house? You could have something bespoke which provides for you to share the house in some percentage until such time as one of you required a sale. After making the order would you keep your finances separate? If you need to share pensions to get an equitable result would you actually want to go through with splitting them now? I think the whole thing would be a complicated expensive headache and would require you to contemplate questions around what would happen if you did split up and put that in a legal agreement which may not be great for your relationship. You would still likely have some financial issues to deal with if you do separate.

Why do you feel such a tremendous obligation to make things right? Of course it's never a great idea to have an affair, but sometimes we make unconscious choices because we need to change a situation and the usual routes are not available to us.

If he was controlling, and resisting your attempts to address your needs within the relationship, and you felt that morally you couldn't leave - perhaps your options were extremely limited. I think the idea of an Exit Affair may be relevant - where the affair is not about the other person, but is a route to blow up a relationship when no other way of ending is possible. It's not done consciously.

If separating is what you really want (and it sounds like it might be), honour that and allow yourself the self-compassion to live your own life the way it would make you happy. Don't prioritise his well-being over your own (is this a pattern with you?), he's not been doing the same to you.

Some really good posts on here.
Just to add, divorce is a massive, expensive PITA. Things like, having to get the values certificate for pensions and then get them adjusted. It's not easy and it's time consuming. And you will end up arguing about who deserves what as a straight split down the middle isn't possible (I mean arguments like, you might think he keeps the family car in return for you keeping all your pension, he argues the car depreciates so he needs the car and some cash).
Honestly its a bad idea. Maybe the fact you like the thought of it is a sign you actually don't want to be married any more?

I think from what you've said you might be better moving house for a fresh start and finding somewhere where you can have your own space (e.g. a room of your own)

This was my first thought.

Divorce is financially bad for you if not do it unless you are genuinely splitting up or else you could loose everything. Especially if your career took the hit raising kids and his pension is what he's trying to protect

I think your husband is one cheeky fu-cker, he’s conning you into a divorce for his own financial advantage. He wants his cake and eat it too, he wants to financially disengage with you while you’re in “good terms” (which would make things go his way easy) while enjoy staying engaged to you. Cake, eat it too. He wants one foot out of the door, so if things go wrong again he can just pack and leave and not affect his assets. To be honest OP I would only get into this “strange situation-ship” if I’m benefitting from it (financially and emotionally) otherwise I wouldn’t do.

You took the words right out of my mouth.
OP do NOT do this

More red flags than a communist parade 🚩

Lol. I think you are a cynical lot and I am very grateful to you all for such straight talking / flag pointing.
I am also grateful that you have all been very kind about the affair part, most unusual for mumsnetters.
If my DH has a fault it’s that he’s loved me far too much, in a way that has been extremely codependent. I think @housingplanningquestion you might be right about the affair being an unconscious effort to end the relationship, because it had become so unhealthy in how he was dependent on me, and so anxious that he’d become quite controlling.
I think it’s even possible that I disclosed the affair in an effort to break that dependence (because at the time I did think we were going to separate, and he was still wanting to be with me even after I’d said it wasn’t working and moved out).
Living apart has helped to moderate those dynamics and he’s working on it in therapy too.

I think I need to find a solution that works for us both if we stay together and if we end up parting. I can’t do this to my children twice.

(Works for me, I should say - me and the children. I know I can’t sacrifice my happiness for his. I think I might have to sacrifice some potential for happiness for the girls - but isn’t that what being a parent is all about, in the end?

Thank you again for your wisdom here PPs. I have been wrestling in agony with this for months and this thread is really helping with perspective)

Glad it's been helpful. One final thing to question - 'sacrificing some of your happiness for the girls'. If you were their mother, in 30 years time, would you want them to do that?

Unfortunately your are modeling, teaching them, what is normal in a relationship (were you taught to suppress your needs and prioritise other's / men's?) This is particularly an issue as they are girls.

Please don't sacrifice your happiness thinking it will benefit them. For many children it can feel very damaging when their parents split up later - when they realise that what they thought were happy family memories were based on deceit, or on one person having a hidden private experience that didn't match the shared reality. And that they were the cause of that. That's a dreadful burden. Their mother's lost decades are their fault? Does this mean they should do the same in an unhappy marriage? How can they ever make it up to her? Or trust what she says?

Maybe get some therapy of your own, and do some reading on contemporary views of what works best for children when parents relationships break down, and the merits or otherwise of staying together for the kids. I also want to acknowledge though that separating will be really hard, and will trigger loads of guilt. But still may be the right thing to do. Wishing good luck and all the best x

I'd go for something meaningful like a reblessing or hand fasting
But nothing that downgrades your status together legally.