Hi everyone, after many years of bickering and subsequent loss of affection, a minor argument escalated into a full on fight about everything we do and everything we are. Suddenly "things have changed", and my husband started imposing rules about our personal space and day-to-day organisation, which I felt were violating my independence and demonstrating complete lack of trust and respect. I don't want to live like that, our marriage has not been what I want for many years now, and I have gotten tired of constantly waIking on eggshells and pushing myself to the limits with life, work, kids to the point of making myself (mainly physically) sick. He has been completely unreasonable and it's so difficult to have an adult conversation with him that does include insults and harsh words. My patience has run out, and with the little respect I have left for myself and our children, I suggested that we split our households if he wants to proceed imposing unreasonable rules about our life.
Unsurprisingly, and in a very formal way, he has requested that we initiate divorce proceedings. Now the problem lies on his opinion on what a divorce entails... Divorce for me means we live together for a few months until we decide who gets to stay in the family home and until there is a suitable accommodation found for the other party. In the meantime, we do not announce anything to family or the children, and keep discussing on how to split assets and our future living/child arrangements. If possible, things can be amicable, but the end goal is to be two separate households that our children can live in taking turns. From that point where we actually don't live together anymore, our only communication will be about the children and we will be working towards a clean break and formal marriage resolution.
Now, his suggestion is to keep living together only as parents (ie. separate beds), for an undetermined amount of time, which includes after the divorce is finalised. He wants to keep what's his and I keep what's mine, and we keep owning together what we jointly own. I find this suggestion absurd and so tough to implement considering we are two adults who don't want to be married to each other, and who seem unable to find ways of effective communication. Not to mention other practicalities such as how to split expenses, agree on house maintenance and chores, finding new partners, etc.
Apart from the very obvious issue of getting officially divorced without a clean break (which is something I will certainly pursue as I am aware of the complications), what bothers me is that this suggestion is not coming from "it will be better for the kids to have one home, with two available parents who can co-parent so that nothing changes in the kids lives apart from their parents not being married", it's instead coming from "I won't be able to afford to rent or buy something in the local area, and I will also have to pay child maintenance"... It is kinda degrading, don't you think?
To set the record straight, we both have enough assets/savings and high earner salaries that we can use to support our current standard of living even if we live separately. What he means, is that we won't be saving much money, and that it will be wasteful to have to spend money we are now able to save for the future.
I am at a place where I don't know what to say, and how to break it down to him that a request for divorce entails is a very serious process, with an outcome that means that we will both be financially worse off, and he will have lost the only person who currently cares about him and is his best (and only) friend. I am so upset that he thinks I will still be there for him, in the same way I have been ever since we got together. Listening to how his day was, making small talk, washing his clothes, almost certainly doing 80% of the childcare, facilitating his personal life, all while there will be rules I am not keen on following in my own home (which was what triggered the separate households and the subsequent request for divorce in the first place 😅). Or even worse, he might be expecting that we use separate rooms and don't even look or talk to each other, which will make it such a great example for the children...
Does anyone think this is reasonable? I am happy to give it a shot, but in my opinion we should start living separately as soon as possible, and learn how to live independently to see how it feels after 10 years of living together. It will be a massive shock, but that's life. Thanks!