What did you tell your kids was the reason for marriage breakdown.?

[SmokeWithoutFire]

I'm not at that point yet, but this part terrifies me. I have DD aged 14 and DS aged 9. I'm close to calling it a day on our 15 year marriage for a number of reasons but the most important is that I've become more and more sex averse over the last decade and I just can't cope with the idea of another 20 years.

Never enjoyed it, hoped it would get better, got pregnant....and here I am.

Obviously, I don't want to share those gory details with my kids, but I'm sure they would appreciate a better explanation than I got of why my life was turned upside down.

The truth in my case. That their dad left me for someone else

Age appropriate. But honest.
You don't want to be in a relationship with their dad. You love them. You like dad. But you just don't want to be a wife anymore.
True but not icky.
Are you a sexual or is there more to it?
Have you tried counselling, drugs etc.
Divorce is hard. Fair enough if you've given the above a crack of the whip but if not it might be worth a shot. If that's what you want. I lost my libido for years then it came back but the damage to the relationship was done. I wish I'd tried harder earlier - with the drugs and counselling hence the advice

Again the truth. Your dad didn't love me anymore and is now happy with x. X being the ow. I hope that this will make him a better dad for you because you deserve him to be the best dad he can be. He then went in to dump them and not pay his way. 🙄

My boys were a lot younger 9 and 5. I've had to re explain it several times over the years since, they're now 14 and 10. I explained I wasn't happy and wasn't in love with their father anymore. That we'd become more like brother and sister, they have an uncle on my side. It was easiest to compare to this, explaining whilst I liked their dad (lied) I didn't want to live with him etc etc. He's since shown himself for the absolute arse he is, poor kids.

As a child of separated parents I beg you to spare them any details. Please don't share the truth about affairs and cheating or who is to blame. It just makes it harder and puts children into loyalty binds.

My stbxh and I sat our 10yo down and explained that we didn’t love each other anymore, we will always be friends and always be there for her and her sister. She was obviously upset but it wasn’t a surprise to her. We have managed to co parent well for the kids sake

Following, as weirdly I could have written this myself. My husband doesn’t want to tell the kids that we don’t love each other anymore because apparently he does (funny way of showing it) and so he doesn’t want to lie. I’m more anxious about this than anything else to do with our split

I've been such a coward to come back to this thread, as the thought of harming my children, of them thinking I haven't tried, truly terrifies me as I know how this will be something they carry with them forever (or at least I did). Thanks for your thoughts everyone x

Don't spend too much time worrying about it, you may be over-thinking it.

I didn't get any time to worry about it, as my DH sprung it on me (in front of DC) that we needed to tell them (within hours of deciding I wanted to divorce). However, we just said that we would be splitting up as we didn't want to be married to each other and to love together any more. DC didn't ask why. They have since asked and I've answered in age-appropriate ways, including being honest by the time they were adults, as it was appropriate for them to know.

I know all children are different, and their ages will make a difference. But it's OK to say you don't want to be married any more, you don't love each other in that way, and the reasons are private and not for children to know or understand.