Practicalities of amicable divorce

[Bobsmyaunty]

Hello

Hoping to hear some experiences of amicable divorces (if there is such a thing) and what the 'new world' looks like.

DH and I have been in marriage counselling for a while. Nothing seriously wrong. He's a great Dad and tries to be a great husband too. We've only been married 8 years but have had weathered many storms including a deep post natal depression (me) and many stressful jobs (him). He is quite a self-sufficient task machine and I am more of a creative type. We find it hard to connect and it can feel lonely for me and, for him, like he is never quite good enough (his words).

Think we both might be coming to the realisation that this marriage just isn't working for us.

At night, my mind is SO active thinking about all the practicalities and is this the right thing? Nothing is seriously wrong so maybe we should stick it out .... and then my heart sinks a little. Happiness is important, right? Our lives feels comfortable but we both agree we cannot go on in this limbo. When I think about our next house move (which we would like to make) I feel utter dread at making this commitment.

I am 44 with 2 DC's aged 8 and 6.

Can anyone tell me how they have experienced life post-divorce and how it's worked with the kids?

He's a hands on dad but commutes out and is gone 6am until 7.30pm and I have just finished re-training and hope to be employed again soon.

I feel SO tired and sick and can't work out what the right thing to do is. I'm thinking if I can at least take the fear out / unknown out of what our situation might look like, we might be able to make a decision. This limbo is wearing us both down.

Apologies for the ramble - wasn't actually sure what would come out.

Thoughts and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Hi @Bobsmyaunty no advice sorry, but following to see what response you get. I want the same advice x

Hi @Wakingup55643 - good to know I have company. x

@Wakingup55643 - what's going on for you in your marriage? Don't worry if you'd rather not explain. x

Hi again @Bobsmyaunty it's kind of a long story but I'm at work and mega stressed trying to get things done, so I'll tell you later if that's ok. So stressed I could do with a nice stress relieving shag, but not having had that for 10 long years, I'm more stressed than ever! So that's one of the things

I'd be careful about assuming the grass is greener. You might find someone who meets your creative needs but is wildly flawed in other ways. And sometimes opposite can be good for each other, e.g. a steady hand is in many ways a good counterbalance for a scatterbrained creative.

When you say you find it difficult to connect, what do you actually mean by that?

Hi sorry to hear of your possible marriage breakdown iv never married so probably not best suited to advise,!! But have you considered some timeout 1 of you to leave the family home for as long as it takes, in ref to child contact maybe sort a timetable between you, you say you are in counselling but has this option been suggested or is the marriage on its last legs,? Good luck with any future decisions

I sounded very much like you 3 years ago. I'm now at the other side and overall very happy, yes there were challenges however we were able to maintain an amicable relationship and my DC were the priority.
I look back to how unhappy I was and feel it was the best thing to do for everyone. Life is definitely too short to live in misery, however of course I'd recommend trying to salvage things if you can. My situation had no chance of getting better and i knew I needed out.

Hi again @Bobsmyaunty well I don't know where to start! Married nearly 13 years, kids 13 and 9, unhappy for many years, no sex or any kind of intimacy for 10 years (last time was conceiving 9yo!) He's been almost unbearable for the past few years with our political differences, which I try to just forget and get on with, but he is obsessed and I am tired of it. I've told him this, and he just continues, every evening he watches his news programmes and I go upstairs with the kids. I don't want to bang on about everything, the bottom line is that I'm unhappy, he seems to be content to rumble along, and I feel stuck because of the kids. I've told him I don't have feelings for him that a wife should have for a husband, and that I see us more as parents and housemates than romantic partners, and he's very offended by this. Yet he does nothing to make it better! But tbh, he could suddenly become husband and father of the year and it wouldn't help. It's too late. I just want to be on on own and relax, not stand in the kitchen because I don't want to be in the living room (and usually he's stretched out on the whole length of the sofa so I can't sit down anyway), or dread coming home. That's no life. I am so sad and I want to be happy. What are your thoughts OP? Do you think you want to move on? Are you at that stage or just starting to feel like things are crumbling? X

I think if you’re unhappy and want to move on then that’s what you should do

Ex-DH and I split pretty amicably. Once we’d agreed that divorce was our chosen option it was still pretty upsetting for both of us. I think we were both sad to lose the people we thought we’d married. He moved out for a few weeks but came by every day to do school run (he did school runs before we split as I worked FT from homecc be and he didn’t).

Once the shock wore off a bit we sat down and discussed what we both wanted and what was realistic. He kept full access to the joint account for 3 months whilst looking for a job and finding a flat. He wanted 50:50 but agreed that as he was hopeless at Drs, school uniform shopping, dentists, opticians etc.. that I would be considered primary cater. I wasn’t convinced he’d do 50:50 but I don’t need child maintenance money so I was happy to agree in principal and see how it turned out.

I wanted not to be financially responsible for him anymore so we agreed that I would divorce him on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour. I’d do the paperwork, pay the fees and sort out the house sale and we’d split the money 50:50. I think, given the disparity in our earnings, that he might have got more if he’d taken legal advice but he didn’t want it.

Fast forward 2 years. We are divorced. Money worked out as agreed. He doesn’t do 50:50 childcare but he does EOW and 2 nights per week so not far off. We didn’t get a court order for the kid but we did get a financial clean break. He’s just quit his job (the reason I finally needed to divorce him) and I am SO relieved not to be financially responsible for him.
DD is now 10, a delight and perfectly happy with this shared arrangement.

I have a boyfriend who is lovely and I see him mostly when DD is at her Dads. We go out (Covid permitting), eat nice meals, have sex and just generally have fun - things I could no longer do with ex-H.

Ex-H had a girlfriend but I think she went during Covid. I was happy for him. I wish he’d get another one.

We were together for 15 years, married 9 when we separated. We were only 30 when we separated and life is too short to not be happy. Both lovely people but different to the 15 year olds that started the relationship.

The split has been entirely amicable, it has now been 14 months. I kept the house and bought him out, it is now I’m my name. I have petitioned for divorce but he wrote the reasons for his own unreasonable behaviour.

We share two children, they were 7 and 6 when we split. We have kept the shared narrative and not spoken negatively about one another. He started off with them 1 night in the week and EOW, it went up to 2 nights in the week after about 8 months when the children expressed a preference. We will continue to be guided by them but ultimately be the adults.

Maintenance is a little over the legal minimum (and not much) but everything has been privately agreed with no solicitors and no arguments.

Amicable can be done if you both want it 🙂

In*

As far as I’m aware neither of us have entered into a serious relationship since the split. The only thing I struggle to imagine is blending a family or introducing someone else to my children.

With 2 nights in the week and EOW free, I really don’t see a need any time soon and someone would have to be VERY special. I totally trust that he will not introduce someone unless he is serious about them.

I trust him to parent and it is nice to hand them off knowing they are going to have a lovely time.

It is so reassuring to hear these stories, and also that people have split simply because they are unhappy. I keep feeling that I am selfish / mad / wrong to want to split up when everything is ... fine (ish). But I can't stop these thoughts that keep surfacing about wanting to live a different life. We are due a house move and the idea of committing to it fills me with dread. The idea of starting on my own makes me feel excited and free.

We get on ok. He doesn't overly irritate me or behave badly. He listens and we both try. BUT, we are just very different and I don't feel we have many laughs / free-flowing conversations or interests in common anymore. We shuffle past each other. We've been in marriage counselling for over a year. Previously we have been close to splitting seriously maybe two times.

I had awful PND brought on by a number of things (one of those things was, yes being very unsupportive but he has worked on this behaviour) and I feel that I have emerged a different person. He says so too, and said the other day that he often feels he will never be able to meet my needs, those needs being of feeling loved and affection etc. He is a kind, generous, warm-hearted man but he was sent to boarding school to 'toughen him up' and as a result is extremely self-sufficient and a solo operator. We have sex once a month, or once ever other month, only at my instigation. I literally schedule it in and tell him its happening.

He says he is happy with how things are, but I look at him sometimes and he looks so worn down by our marriage. He strives to be good at everything (his words) and I think it feels awful to him that he can't solve our marriage problems. His main solution is to be very active with housework, which I really do appreciate having grown up in a household where only women did housework. He says he wants to have fun and have a laugh, but I often think we both find that outside of our marriage.

@Wakingup55643 - it sounds like you are really ready to move on and past any point of reconciliation. You absolutely deserve to be happy.

Also, ten years is a really long time to go without sex. Has he always had a sex drive that low? He sounds a little depressed in the way you describe him.

Are you going to go ahead with a separation as soon as possible? And how do you imagine that will look i.e. will you do EOW or split childcare etc?