Many, many years ago my sister told me she was leaving her long-term partner and because she didn’t really have anywhere to go she planned to leave the children with him. She dropped this bombshell on me out of nowhere, I didn’t even know they were having relationship problems. Her children were 6 and 4 at the time. She didn’t want to leave her children but she had absolutely no idea what to do.
I obviously packed her and the children up in my car and took them all back to my house. It was an incredibly difficult situation and I can’t even imagine how her children would have felt if they had come home from nursery/school to find that their mum had left them.
Another friend of mine left her abusive household and was rehomed in a woman’s refuge. She had three sons, one who was 16, one who was 9 and one who was 7. The 16 year old refused to leave the family home and go to the refuge and therefore he stayed behind whilst my friend and the other two children left. Obviously this is a very different situation as the ‘child’ was 16 and could make his own decisions, but their relationship has never been the same since and it breaks my friend’s heart. She was so close to her son beforehand and even though it was his decision to stay in the home with his father he still feels he was abandoned by his mother. It’s all so very sad.
Please find a solution that doesn’t mean leaving your children behind unless there really, really isn’t any alternative. If your husband isn’t abusive or threatening towards you then staying in the home during the divorce proceedings is probably something you will have to endure, but if he is dangerous/threatening then you shouldn’t be leaving your children with him anyway.
I wish you had included your children’s ages in the post, as the replies would probably be much more tailored and helpful if you had specified whether you were leaving a 5 year old and an 8 year old, compared to leaving a 14 year old and a 17 year old for example.