Co-parenting / live together - can this work?

[Platonicparents]

Looking for thoughts and suggestions on how to create a healthy co-parenting home where the parents aren’t in an intimate relationship but need to live under the same roof due to both financial situation and for welfare of the children.

On a practical level we have enough bedrooms for everyone to sleep and WFH apart!

Would be great to hear from anyone who has successfully done this?

Backstory to hopefully avoid drip feed: relationship of 12 years, 2 primary aged kids, but the relationship just not working any more, still care about each other but we’ve really grown apart and there is a growing tension due to the pressure to be ‘together’. There has been a low level of ongoing bickering due to various resentments building up and we need to make a change. No terrible abuses, infidelities or serious MH issues. Currently locked into a long mortgage (5y) and due to have renovations carried out next year on the house. We need that to happen in order to increase value for future financial stability.

(Name changed to preserve anonymity).

what do the children think is going on or are they not aware yet?

We are 1 week into doing this.
It’s very early days, but we envision it working for as long as it needs to, with a preliminary 12 month target.
Financial and housing are the main reasons - with the benefits of us both being here as parents for our 3 children and there being no upheaval for them.
We sat them down last week and explained it all to them. They know it’s something they can talk about and ask questions about. They seems to have processed it - mum and dad are great friends, they just aren’t a couple anymore.

We changed our bedrooms around. We plan to sit down and go through our finances; split things 50/50 to make it fairer for us both. 25 years together and it’s always been “what’s mine is his and what’s his is mine” kinda thing. This way we can both start saving and planning for our own futures.

We plan to set up some ground rules. Not inviting anyone home is a big one. Doing equal share of the housework. Quality time with the children together AND solo.

Like I say, early days.

To add, we aren’t married so there is no divorce involved.

I don’t know op but I’m hoping to do something similar so am watching with interest!

I commented on a very similar thread a couple of days ago, see if you can find it, it got quite long.

Recipient
For disaster imo.

Due to having to care for my grandparents and other personal reasons, i ended up living with my ex hubby for 5 years, we co-parented, had separate lives and it worked great. we are still best friends and our son had the bonus of having both of us around also able to split costs and bill which really helped.

Having just sold my flat and the new flat falling through i am now back sleeping in ex hubbys spare room, co - parenting again (son is now 17) and again it's working out fine and even though my son is older it's great that we can do this together. The only issue we found was new partners not believing the marriage was over, its taken some convincing to prove to his new gf that i really dont want him back and that I'm happy for them.

I think it would be very difficult.

I continued to live with my XH for a year after we separated to sort out the sale of the house and find somewhere new to live etc. It was hell and in hindsight I wish I'd moved out while the house sale went through.

Setting up firm ground rules similar to @Lovelybunchofwhatnots suggested above would be an essential. But - ask yourself. If you and your partner are able to sensibly discuss and stick to those kind of ground rules would you even be separating? I know in my case there's no way my X and I could of done so - the relationship was too bad by that point to enable that kind of co-operation.

Also I think you need to set a time limit on the arrangement.

Why won’t you still bicker?

Lots of new potential for conflict especially if one of you starts dating.

Yes can definitely work. But needs great self management and good communication. And also definitely all about setting good boundaries too. Have a look at www.thecoparentway.com and also thecoparentway.mykajabi.com/offers/Vs2HbVYg/checkout

I think it would depend massively on what it causing the bickering and resentment to be honest.

If for example one of you is not pulling your weight around the house, then the resentment and bickering is just going to get worse.

It might work until one of you gets another boyfriend / girlfriend and then your priorities change

The main issue may be if either of you meets someone. Not many people will be comfortable with their romantic interest still living with an ex.

Not sure how it will end the bickering, especially if any of it is related to housework.

Someone I know did this successfully. The keys were

• they actually still liked and respected each other, they'd just grown into housemates (so essentially they just formalised the existing situation)
• they discussed all the potential problems and things they bickered over and agreed in advance how to handle them - everything from who got to use the shared space when, to communication over nights out, to potentially meeting new partners
• re: new partners the agreement was not to bring them back to the house, both my friend and her ex accepted they wouldn't have much of a dating life while this situation was ongoing. Though my friend's ex met a new woman who was suspicious of his living situation and didn't believe they'd actually separated - my friend actually met her to tell her she absolutely didn't want him back and he wasn't lying about being separated
• the most important thing was a timeframe. They needed to stay living together for another year and set 15 months (or something) as a hard deadline. Knowing the situation was ending at a specific time made it much easier for them to deal with it

Although we didn’t live together the ex and I co-parented very closely for 12yrs with him coming round every evening for many years, every weekend. He did go and work overseas a lot which helped, and the last 3yrs I’ve actually been living in his house whilst he’s been permanently based overseas, so I can save a deposit (I was renting before). We also did several big holidays during this time. It only worked as none of us have had another partner in over 10yrs.

Now it’s time to move on, he’s due back from overseas in the spring and he won’t be living here with us and we both want to move on with our lives now. No more holidays together and no more evenings together. One kid is at Uni, another doing GCSE’s so the time is right. He doesn’t know I’ve met someone else, but it’s early days anyway. But there’s no way we could have carried on as we were if other partners involved. I wouldn’t like it either and so I could understand why someone would question if it was really over. My own mother thinks I’ve been lying for over a decade and we are really still together! I can’t wait to tell her at Christmas I’ve met someone so she knows she’s been wrong all this time! She can’t understand it, she thinks if you’re split you’re split. Many of my friends thought I was still sleeping with him too. So expect that

I don't really see how that works.. would you not just slide back into your roles just without intimacy. Be like living a half life to me. Not really together yet not really separated

I'm 2 months into a split. My choice. He lives at his parents house the majority of the time but comes back 2 days a week and then I go to my parents. The day he comes back I tend to cook tea and do bath and bed with the children with him before leaving. The weekends are a little more ad hoc but have spent quite a few of them having a roast, walking the dog etc. The split was my choice and I know he finds it h

.........ard as he sees it as a way to show he has changed and wants me back. I find it fine as it's nice being amicable. He's staying on the sofa tonight as I need to take the children to school in the morning even though it's his night. It's works ok but sometimes I feel my lines are blurred and question of I've done the right thing. Will it feel like a split? As I know sometimes I question myself. But yes it can work if you're both on the same wavelength.

We are coming up to 2 months in now. Starting to get niggly to be honest and we’ve had days where we snipe at each other. He keeps reminding me that if we are going to get through this then we have to be civil and communicate. This is true of course.

There are some days when I just don’t want to chit chat though. I’m allowed to have a quiet off day. I’m not plastering on a fake smile to make him feel better. I’m not going to sit in the living room and watch a film every evening with him so he doesn’t feel lonely. I’m the difficult one though, because I’m not being ‘civil’. I’m also paranoid too, because according to him I misconstrued something he remarked on the other night. I didn’t react at the time, just went silent and went to bed rather than call him out. Wish I had though. It came up last night during a discussion about how we’ve felt this week and he denied meaning anything negative by it. It’s all in my head he says. Doesn’t help that my mum’s mental health is deteriorating rapidly. I have always discussed this with him, even up until very recently. Not anymore though. Not when he has already questioned whether I might be going the same way as my mum.

That must be it right? Why else would she want it be over after 25 years? She must be mentally ill.

He is going to be moving out. We both know that realistically this won’t happen for a while as everything is SO expensive.
I just need to breathe and tolerate a little longer.

I’d say I’m in a very similar position. We are housemates, we bicker, no intimacy - but we do have two happy children and financial stability. Our lifestyle revolves around them and they are our first thought in everything we do.

I think a lot of people grow into this kind of lifestyle. We are generally happy, stable - but definitely got past the tearing each other’s clothes off stage. I’m normally in bed by 8pm.

I do miss intimacy -but don’t want to go back to the days where I had that, because I didn’t have the family which I desperately wanted. I didn’t have my direction in life, and I was very insecure.

Are you explicitly separated though?

@MolliciousIntent

We are not married, so together as partners - not separated. We don’t have sex. I think life is more about building a life for our children - ensuring they have great experiences, holidays, a good education, teaching them things.

I think we could almost be seen as romantically separated. But I’m not sure how important that definition is - or why that would matter so much anymore?

I guess for me the difference between your situation and OP's is whether or not you and your partner have explicitly stated that your relationship is over.

Maybe it's the way you've put it, but it's not clear to me either whether your partner is aware you consider the relationship over.

Sounds like a few of these situations would benefit from either some marriage counselling or some realism. Not tearing each other's clothes off in a long term monogamous relationship is totally normal, especially on the woman's side, it's not usually how desire works in those situations. You have to find other ways to make intimacy and closeness happen. Ending long term relationships that are fine in every other way just because you're not feeling like a horny teenager any more isn't the way forwards. What are you doing to do in your next relationship? Because after the limerance it'll probably be exactly the same.

We are separated, our relationship is very much over. If money wasn’t an issue we would be living separately already. If we didn’t have children I would’ve made the decision to separate a lot sooner.

Living together has it’s benefits in the short term - practicalities of being there for the children, saving money, giving him time to get things in order for the future. I still just want it done and I want to move on already. We’re in limbo. I just need to be patient for a little while longer.