How do I end my marriage without affecting the children?

[champagnesuperover]

Things are just getting progressively worse at home. I don’t think I love him anymore. I’m 37 and I can’t see myself spending the next 30 odd years with him. I am unhappy.
We have a 3 and 7 yo. The eldest is sensitive and I’m worried about breaking his little heart. He such s lovely bright boy with an excellent record at school. Is it possible to end this and for the children to still be happy?

to echo some of the above, it's not possible to make a change like that without affecting your children, but you can definitely have them come through undamaged - and that is dictated mostly by how the two of you conduct things as it happens and as the inevitable changes unfold.

This concern was at the centre of my marriage lasting a coupe of yours more than it really should have for anyone's benefit - in the end I wrapped my head around it, and I realised that I knew families and children who were perfectly well adjusted who had been through breakups.

My expereince:
Effects? Yes
Upset? Yes
Lasting damage/negative effects? No - but that bit takes two

None of this means you should break up - that's a whole other thing for you guys

There is no way to do it without affecting them at all but the sooner the better. They will be resentment from him and you need to be prepared for that.
Your children will be happy eventually, it was tough for mine for a while, and that obviously had an impact on myself. All of a sudden my ex turned a corner and it was so amicable from then. Mine were 5 and 7 at the time. They fully acknowledged and understood the reasons quite soon after and I think it helped them that they knew they weren't the only family to break up, as many do. It also helped that we had a little outside help, from the local children's centre, who came an visited 2 or 3 times, and got them to express their feelings and do a worry box.
They also saw that things weren't working out and respected the fact that we didn't want them to grow up in a toxic environment. The children used to say that when we were together discussions/disagreements were done away from them and I think that helped their view overall on how we dealt with things.
Let the school/nursery know, they can keep an eye on things, and pull them for a chat to ask how they are/encourage them to express their emotions.

Thing is, you can only amicably co-parenting if your ex cooperates. And he might not.

He also might ask for 50/50 residency. Are you ok with that? Even men who do very little parenting often ask for 50/50 whether for financial reasons, or because they suddenly realise what they stand to lose. And if they ask for it they will get it unless there's a very good reason why not.

He might parade a string of girlfriend's through your children's life. And you can't stop him.

Or he might decide never to see the children and leave everything to you. That is also hard.

You can't really predict what a person will be like in divorce by what they are like married. Hurt and angry people don't always think rationally.

Is up to you whether you think the risk is worth it.