Should we rekindle after divorce, or is it unfair on our boys?

[ThisAquaCritic]

I posted on aibu but maybe it’s better suited on here.

I need some perspective because the guilt is starting to eat me alive. My ex-husband and I have been divorced for 4 years. We have two boys (14 and 11). The divorce itself was incredibly amicable we split everything 50/50 without any arguments, I kept the marital home, and he eventually bought his own place. Honestly, our parenting and our general relationship improved massively after we split. We realised we had just run our course and were making each other miserable with constant arguing never in agreement with one another, always wanting to one up eachother but we managed to remain good friends.

Fast forward to last September. The boys were staying at his house and had gone to sleep. He called me at about 11pm and asked if I wanted to come over and watch a film it was "our" favourite film, and he said he was feeling nostalgic. I went over, one drink led to another and we ended up having sex. I snuck out before the kids woke up. We discussed it and said oh it was just one time thing and joked ‘for old times sake’
Since September, this has become a regular thing. Almost every week, we’ve been sneaking around, sleeping together, and even going on secret "dates" when the kids are occupied or at my parents or his parents, or parties just any excuse for us to see each other .

The turning point happened recently: he told me he loves me and that he never actually stopped loving me. I still love him too very much the divorce was quite hard on both of us neither of us wanted to but all so neither of us was willing to maybe try counselling.

Now I am panicking. The kids know we are friends, but they have no idea about this. I feel incredibly guilty and like this is deeply unfair to them if it all goes wrong again if we chose to rekindle which wouod just confuse them. We divorced for a reason we used to argue constantly and it felt totally broken. I have no idea how to navigate this or if I'm being completely unfair to our boys by entertaining this.

At Easter we took the boys on holiday, we didn’t share a room because we didn’t want to confuse our children but most nights we did spend together anyway. He will be taking the boys on holiday just him but he wants me to join even tho everything is already been booked I can join later etc but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’m not sure any of this is. We are already sneaking around.

Maybe we just wait till our youngest us an adult to rekindle things. We both regret divorcing.

My parents got back together. I dearly wish they had not. None of the reasons for the divorce went away. In their case there was abuse.

I was an adult and not directly impacted, but I still dearly wish they had just stayed apart.

if you do want to reconcile, I can old be 100% certain. That means much more time. Is there really any harm in maintaining what you have now and waiting until they are out of the house?

Take it slowly and make sure you really address those issues which led to your split - have you both learned from them/taken individual responsibility?

I know a couple of divorced and later eventually remarried each other - they are very happy.

Are any of the things you used to argue about still applicable or not anymore as you don’t live together ?

Why did you divorce in the first place?
He never stopped loving you, he says. You still love him very much, you say.
Why were you arguing so much if you both loved and love each other so much?

If you get together again, do you both think it will be forever? Or at least until your children are adults?

I think postpartum and then it just dragged on for years I was very stubborn at that point. We could never agree on anything, we’d always one up eachother , give each other the silent treatment, I was quite an angry person for a while and so on. He started counselling as soon as we divorced he said he just needed someone to talk to when our marriage broke down. I didn’t stop loving him.

I want to work on our relationship I’m just scared it’ll be weird and confusing for our children.

How is your communication now? By your own account, it was so bad before that you managed to divorce each other despite loving each other and didn’t bother with couples therapy despite loving each other. It’s common only to realise what you had once it’s gone but, if you do rekindle, how will you avoid ending up back where you were before? It may well be worth exploring but you need to take it slowly and carefully and work on your communication because you really don’t want a repeat, particularly for the sake of your boys.

You’re talking like this is all wrong, when it isn’t necessarily. The key is being aware of what went wrong before. You say you were very stubborn. has this changed? Did counselling change things about him? There’s a reason why couples counselling can be very effective, people look at their negative cycles and patterns, gain awareness and change their behaviours. Are you able to communicate better now? Instead of feeling guilty take control of the situation. Maybe have the couples counselling now, to talk things through, address the issues you had, and see if this has a future. Or at the very least address the issues between the two of you, open and non defensive discussions, to work out how you would move forward without slipping back into arguments.

I think this is a terrible idea. I'd stop and focus on your kids. You like the sneaking around, just like you presumably enjoyed dating him. But what you didn't enjoy was living together and raising kids together and doing all of the shit, mundane everyday things together. If you get back together, you'll be straight back to not enjoying it and your kids will have to suffer through a second break-up. Stop it.

Yes, I saw your other thread.

I just want to point out that your children will catch you eventually. They're growing up, likely staying up later etc. and could easily bump into you when you're going to the loo and they're getting up for water, for example.

I think you're having a jolly good time sneaking around and that's part of the allure.

Have you dated anyone else since the divorce? Are you quite toxic in general, or just with your exH?

Sorry but I don't really believe that people change, fundamentally, and you're going to walk back into similar patterns.

People do change. We mature, we evolve, our circumstances change and we adapt.
Personally, I don’t think this is a terrible idea. What would be terrible is if you didn’t do any work to resolve the issues that previously led to the breakdown of the relationship, restarted things and it all went awry again.
I would book some couples counselling for the two of you, see if you can’t unpick what doesn’t work for you and build back what does.

Yes I have dated but that was mainly just to get out there and see it wasn’t for anything permanent.

You don’t have to apologise everyone is allowed an opinion and maybe people don’t change I do not know but, he’s certainly changed and worked on himself a lot. We endured quite painful events together. We lost our daughter and neither of us really knew how to navigate it at the time and I was struggling a lot. A lot of the things that went wrong with us could have easily been ‘fixed’ by just sitting down with a professional but at the time that wasn’t on my mind.

I don’t think I’m a toxic person in general I think I had quite tough circumstances and didn’t know how to work through them at the time.

as someone who is at the beginning of divorce I could not imagine ever getting back together. That is because how we want to live our lives are so so different. Totally different goals.

in your situation - he has had counselling which is massive plus. If you can imagine living back together and if you really truely believe the old reasons for your arguments wouldn’t be there anymore… and the reasons you wanted to split with him have now gone.. and you aren’t a truely happier person now with your own independence.. and don’t now like the fact you have your own space and own way of doing every single thing..

then go for it.

initially I thought if my ex had counseling- grew the hell up and learnt how to actually look after himself we may get back together in a couple of years. He however doesn’t want to change how he is and so that isn’t happening!

I think it can work, but you both need to address why things got to the point of divorce. Saying you’re stubborn and you both never stopped loving each other isn’t addressing how you ended up making the life changing decision to end your marriage. It’s basically saying “it wasn’t that bad really”, when if you look back with a clear eye I’m sure it was that bad.

How do you make sense of that time, were there outside pressures you both weren’t handling well? What has materially changed for you both - how has communication changed, how do you deal with differences. If you don’t do that work, you may get back together but it’ll fall apart, what are your hopes for the future and where does he fit in them.

In all honesty I’d stop having sex with him until you’ve both had time to really evaluate where you are with each other. No one more remorseful than a man who wants his leg over, and none more accommodating that a woman with a case of the fanny flutters. You’ve muddied the waters, taking things back a step will help you work out if you both really have buyers remorse, or whether you’re mistaking a booty call for love.

Getting back together wouldn't be unfair on the boys. The thing that would be unfair would be to get back together and then split up again- that would be unthinkably cruel and awful. So you need to think about why you split up, why it would be different this time, what you could both do to head off the problems that were there before, and whether you're both able to work at the relationship through bad times as well as good.

Sneaking about having lots of illicit sex with someone who already knows what you like sounds like lots of fun but it's not really a helpful guide to any of the above. Try to take a step back, stop the sex and sneaking (you will get caught) and approach it with a cool head.

Why don't you go for some counselling yourself? It sounds like you need to make sure that the ways you'd deal with problems would be very different second time around?

Maybe it is just a booty call I do not know I feel as though after 25 years of knowing him I know him but maybe I don’t know him at all.

I didn’t really come on here to go into the ins and outs. Just because I haven’t mentioned something doesn’t mean there isn’t more nuanced people don’t just divorce because they’re ’stubborn’ I was struggling a lot with PND and that continued and manifested itself after the kids got older then we lost a child, I really struggled during that time. People handle loss and grief differently. He has done more work than I have, we’ve discussed trying counselling together first and seeing how that goes.

Neither of us stopped caring or loving eachother. We didn’t deal with our circumstances very well but even during the separation neither of us were mad at each other we just wanted the best for one another and wanted our children in the end.

We would like to get back together officially at some point all live in the same house. It’s not completely unheard of to divorce then find your way back to one another.

I Imagine it feels naughty and exciting and has added some fun to it all….. dating and sex without any of the pressures obligations and responsibilities of a family life and marriage (plus he is familiar) ….but that doesn’t change who you both fundamentally are and how you deal with pressure and life challenges. Maybe it will be easier to be together this time around as your children are older? I think you owe it to your children to wait until they are older and left home to rekindle whatever this is. After all you broke up their family once when they were young.

We are trying to avoid that. We don’t want to do that to our children if we do get back together officially we want to make sure it lasts.

I think as long as you take it slow then go for it.

It’s not completely unheard of to divorce then find your way back to one another.

I know it’s not, I’ve done it myself.

I wasn’t asking you to share everything here - I’m sorry if that’s how it came across - but to help you think about what might be different this time, what you need to be different this time. Knowing how you got there can help you navigate future issues. It may be that you’ve both grown and developed, and time apart has helped you see what you both want in a partner.

I’d take the opportunity to go to counselling together to talk about what went wrong then and whether you can be confident you’ve resolved those issues.

And I hope it works out for you, I recently got divorced and deep down never stopped loving my ex. We just couldn’t get over our own limitations. If you two both can, that’s amazing.

Just keep it from the kids for a while longer. No need to leap in to telling them. They know you’re friends, they don’t need to know you’re having sex!

It sounds like you had extremely difficult circumstances to work through. I’m so sorry about your daughter - losing a child drives lots of couples apart. I would go slowly and go for counselling. Maybe tell the children you’re trying to be better friends so you can go on a couple of holidays together (with separate rooms) and stay living apart until you’re absolutely certain (perhaps when they’re older, as you mentioned).

At the moment rationality is being clouded by the thrill off the illicit affair. If you’re serious about trying again, you need to stop what you’re doing and book some counselling. Start right back at the beginning and slowly unpick what went wrong in your marriage. Only then will you see whether another try is the right way to go. For the sake of your boys, do this properly.

Take it slower, maybe being together but not live together would work out better for you both? Agree you need to be sure first.