H and I had been going through a difficult time for a couple of years. He had been living a pre-child lifestyle and had no time/intimacy for me. I kept asking/demanding for change. At the end of the two year period, He gave me the "I don't love you like a DH should speech". He said he didn't know what he wanted. I asked him to leave. He did. That was 4 mths ago. He is in the process of changing jobs/lifestyle and had been in contact with me lots (treating me like a good friend I suppose), filling me in on his career, spending time together as a family. He has not told anyone about our separation (I've just told my family & closest friend).
I had been holding out hope that he was going to change his mind and want to try again. I broached the subject this week and he does not want to reconcile but was just 'being friends'. So I have now told him we need to tell our DC (well only DD at 4 will understand) and I am ready to tell the rest of my friends/acquaintances.
The problem is that I really didn't think that this would be it for us. I still love him despite the fact that we had been having problems in recent years (we were together for 13 years). He has been at the house 3 week nights for bed time (a lot more than in the preceding few years) and I have allowed him to let himself in at 8am on the weekends so that he can go straight upstairs and get the DC up (if we had not planned to do something together) so I could sleep in - bad idea I know. We have not separated financially yet either (I am sahm). I know that I now need to start putting down some social barriers to let me get over the relationship but I need to do this without impacting on his time/ability to see the children.
DC's are 2 & 4. I guess as I am a SAHM (he says he is happy to continue to support me in this role) it's only fair to let him come to the house 2/3 evenings a week as suits him (expect that will drop as he starts socialising more/seeing someone). He is in a rented flat at the moment and has not taken the children there. Now that we are making things official - I could suggest that he takes the children there at weekends although I don't think he is planning on being there for long so I think that might be confusing for the children. But when we tell my DD that Daddy sleeps in another house, I'm thinking she might ask to see it? I think we will soon move to the children being with him every other weekend. So I suppose, I should have the children up/dressed and ready to hand over to him. I really am not sure that sending them off to a flat which will likely be temporary is a good idea at this point. He is actually going away for 2 mths for work in April (back at weekends) so he probably won't have a permanent place until June/July which takes me back ton him spending time with them at my house. So I guess I need to just deal with it for that time period and leave him to it as much as possible.
Sorry I'm going round in circles here.