Divorce and co-habiting

[AliceSay]

Would be interested to hear if anyone has successfully divorced but stayed living in the family home with your ex, and the kids (we have two boys, aged 13 and nearly 11)?

A bit of background if you can be bothered to read it… my marriage has been on a long slow decline for many years. Been sleeping in separate rooms since summer 2020. Agreed marriage was over and took off wedding rings in Oct 2022. I finally applied for divorce in January, and we’ve just started mediation. For logistical, financial and childcare reasons I think I have to seriously consider that we might need to stay in the same house, but is it really possible to move on in those circumstances? Would love to hear from anyone with an ‘outside of the box’ approach to separation.

Not in that same situation but I’d expect it to be impossible to move on, would be utterly confusing the the children and relationship would deteriorate when a new partner/dating came into the mix

sounds like a bad idea to me

people do it while in the process of separating /divorcing, but beyond that I would expect it to be nearly impossible

Will be fine until one of you meets someone then it will go downhill fast.

This. I can attest to it.

This is me. It is borne out of circumstance as we cannot afford to run two houses. Four DCs, two at home two at uni, all much older than yours. Trying to show by example we are still mum and dad to them is proving impossible as time wears on. Mainly as he seems to have adopted a partisan approach and consequently I have dealt with hideous events including parental alienation and exclusion from family meals. I am acting in accordance with my values and culture which means I won’t exclude anyone living under the same roof, but it seems he (and the legal system) has a different approach which is adversarial. Claims to be collaborative lack authenticity when the gloves come off and I am accused of dragging things out when events outside of my control intervene to slow us down. It may be that it is because of his ‘choices' and lack of accountability that led to this outcome, and therefore his reaction. Either way, unless someone is very emotionally mature, I suspect it is very unusual for parties to maintain focus on process and not start attacking character. I have been told by many family lawyers it is common with the current economy. The stress levels will only rise so I am anticipating this and aiming to keep the feeling tone as calm as I can to minimise the trauma for the DCs. But that is only as effective as I can make it, and I have been shown time and time again if he is having a bad day, it will all come out on me.

@Fenix999 I’m sorry you’re in this situation - it sounds exhausting. How long have you been separated? Do you have a time limit on living together (eg when all the kids have left home)? And are either of you seeing other people yet, and how are you navigating that? Sorry - so many questions, I hope you don’t mind me asking!!

There may be a risk the court won’t grant the divorce as you have to say the relationship has irretrievably broken down. I know the rules changed recently to no fault divorce but living together at same address might be problematic in establishing this. I would have divorced my exH many years earlier (under old rules) otherwise as we only continued living together due to disabled child’s needs and financially I would have been better off legally offloading him much earlier. Unless you can divide the house into 2 units I also don’t know how you would get a financial settlement agreed by the court.

@grumpyoldeyeore Thanks, yes that was also a concern.