I'm staying with husband because I don't want to parent the kids seperately. Feel trapped

[Heavyload3]

I was with my husband for ten years before we decided to have children. I put a lot of thought in to it, and thought we'd make great parents.
We had 2 kids & suddenly my husband wasn't the parent I thought he would be. Over the years due to depression & it seems like a mid life crisis, he has become a miserable, moody man. A very withdrawn father emotionally. He's also much stricter than me.
Due to our different parenting styles and many, many other reasons our marriage has now completely failed. Now been together for 20 years. My kids are 8 and 11. I desperately want to split up, I dream about it every day. But I just can't bare the thought of the kids having to spend time alone with him without me there. I won't know what's going on, I won't know what he's doing with them etc. He's a good dad in that he provides the basics, money, food, clothes etc, but he's just not a good father when it comes to spending quality time with them, playing with them, taking them out, having fun with them.
I feel like I need to stay with him so I can still be with my kids every day, but he's draining all the joy from our family.
What do I do? People have told me before, don't wait until the kids are older, but surely that will help with regards to childcare, and that he won't need to play with them etc in the same way.

The reality is that if he's not an engaged parent now, separation won't be a magic cure. He'll get 4 days a month tops (every other weekend) and that means that the kids get 24 days out of every 28 with you. You can prepare them against neglect with clean clothing, food, and phones. They're not babies and should be sensible enough to be able to communicate with you and him.

It's better than you all being miserable 100% of the time, surely.

I am in the same situation. I wonder if all the people saying you must leave and do it immediately are in the same situation. I feel my husband’s worry that he would be perceived as a bad father would propel him to seek half of the time. During that time I think the kids will be emotionally neglected, and be very unhappy. For people that think it’s easy to submit this type of moody, emotionally neglectful type of behavior into evidence in court don’t know what the system is like. I just try to work on myself, spend lots of time with my daughters making happy memories, try to maintain boundaries and call out bad behavior when I see it and hope for a change in something soon. Perhaps hope to see a better way or another solution. Currently I honestly don’t know of a better one. I don’t have faith that separating is better for the kids. And I see their mental health as my primary obligation.