Any mothers who have left their children on a marriage breakup???

[sparkybabe]

My mariage is getting worse and worse, we were hoping to stay 'together' for the dc, as a partnership rather than as a couple. I wanted to move into a spare room - I thought it would be ideal. He could still see the dc every night, get his dinner cooked, shirts ironed, shopping done, and after all the house and garden is half his so why shouldn't he enjoy it too? Anyway, he decided that if we were to do that, we might as well tell the dc everything....no I didn't see why either.
Sooooooo, he thought we could stay together, same bedroom, same bed, (no sex - havent' for ages) and put on a Front for the dc but after 2 weeks of this he shouted at me yesterday that I have been 'cold' to him, not been even 'friendly', he can't deal with that. (this is HIS idea remember). I get it that he still has feelings for me, it's all my fault that I want to split (there is no-one else on either side) and he is NOW saying that he should move out into rented accom. and have a complete split.

My question is, are there mums out there who've moved out and left the dc with dad? I havent 'done' anything, so no affair, no violence, no health probs. (neither has he) But I feel guilty enough without him being ousted from the family home (I moved into his house with a kitbag of clothes, 20 years ago and have been a SAHM for 17) so I wondered if I should be the one to go? I have said I would be happy ot get back every morning at 7AM so that he can go to work, I'd see the dc to school and during the early evening and cook for them, then leave again at 7PM when he gets back from work. He'd see the dc, and live comfortably, I'd have my own flat, and I'd still see the dc.

Or am I kidding myself? I'd die if I couldn't see the kids, and would I feel that I'd abandoned them?

Guilt guilt guilt.

I think you need to think very, VERY carefully about this. I would never forgive myself for doing such a thing.

Breaking up is hard to do and some tough decisions need to be made but personally I dont think living separate lives in one house would work (although obviously everyone is different).

With regards to the arguments re man v woman leaving, I think there is a difference whether we like to admit it or not. But the fact is that in this case the mother(ie sparkybabe) has been the primary caregiver and therefore her departure would be harder felt.

Sometimes it easier to just leave but the consequences of leaving your children behind would be far-reaching in the extreme.

All v

How old are your DC's

Sparkybabe - you have contributed to the house for 17 years for goodness sake - it's not his house because you have contributed equally to it - him by going out to workand you by enabling him to that by doing a unpaid full time child caring/ domestic job - he could not have supported the house and that without you.
Are you sure you are not regretting your life choices rather than your marriage? I wonder if revitalising your life in other ways - socially/ employment and so on would make you view things differently - whastever it is I think you are hugely in need of counselling for all your sakes.Counselling would help you put the guilt to one side and work out what it is you need to do.

i left. that's how people who don't know me see it.

my relationship with ds's father fell apart. it was a mutual decision that we separate. Ex runs a business from the house, he couldn't move out and do that, so we decided that i would move out. Ex works away at weekends, so i have ds Friday to Monday and ex has him the rest of the week.

Our split was amicable, we get on very well.....we have come to an arrangement which gives our son the very best life possible in the circumstances.But i still find it very hard to come to terms with the fact that people think i walked away from my son......and only the people close to the situation really understand why things are the way they are.

DO NOT LEAVE unless you have explored every possibility of keeping this relationship going.......

I wonder every day how my son will view all of this when he is old enough to understand and it tears me apart to think he will grow to hate me........

My MIL left dh and his bro aged 9 and 10. Dh in particular has never really got over this and has no real relationship with his mum. He actually says he will not shed a tear when she dies.

It affected him deeply and affected the way he views women.

I think, feeling abandoned by your own Mother is something you never really get over.

I hope we have shocked sparky out of that particular course of action...... (leaving)

there has to be another way sparky

get a referral for relate/family/couples counselling whatever

they will help you see a way through, whether you stay in your marriage or not

and although some replies seem a little harsh on the surface, they are nothing to the way you will be judged/judge yourself if things go horribly wrong

and don't be too sure your dh won't move some floozy in if you move out, men are strange creatures

scaryfucker - your comment about being judged/judging yourself......i have been round and round in circles about my situation in my head. I know i have done the right thing.......but it doesn't stop me feeling incredibly crap about it.....and other people do judge........
My ex and i kept our relationship going, we worked and worked at it until we couldn't keep going any longer.

Sparky......you need to move into the spare room, and you need to THINK about your situation very hard. You need to talk about your situation with a professional. Even knowing that i could not have taken any other path than the one i am on, i still spend every day turning it over and over in my head.

I have not left my child......i left the house, i have a new home which i share with my son. he is only 3, he has accepted the situation without question, but i know this won't always be the case, and i am lucky that i get on very well with his dad, and our son sees us spending time together getting on. But i have a whole unknown future ahead of me........do not put yourself in this position.....i have to spend three days a week apart from the most precious person in my life, a person i thought i would see wake up every morning and i would put to bed every night. I will NEVER have that life with him.......as will lots of other mothers who have separated from the father of their child.......this on it's own aside from who leaves who, and who goes where is heartbreaking.

queen, my comment was not directed at you nor to make you feel worse than you already do

I see that in some instances, the course of action you took may be the only one

I think we are united in saying to the OP that what she was seriously considering should be the last resort and one that, if she took that path, she was fully aware of the potential consequences

my apologies if I said a hurtful thing

Sparkybabe if you don't want to leave then don't.
Sit your partner down and explain that the relationship is over your want a divorce and your going to live apart and you want to be the sole carer of the children or shared care whichever works best for your family.

You may have moved into his house but you have lives there for 17 years and its your children's home. So if he doesn't want to move, make it clear you will do so with the children.
Once he accepts that you can properly plan the future.

I apologise for being so harsh earlier but my grandmother left my father as a child and it truly is a lifetime abandonment.

Scaryfucker.....ah the problem with text on a screen.....your comments were not hurtful. I wanted to try and reinforce what you said.....to make the OP really think hard before she makes a decision.....

sparkybabe it sounds like you have been giving giving giving as mum of the home for years and you are burnt out.

Don't make any decisions if possible.
Get professional help to work on yourself.

Get the job first and settle in. Everything can change without a huge amount of effort and disruption.

If you change your course just slightly it will take you down a totally new path.

Being a single mother or absent mother does not tend to be exciting! but a rewarding job is exciting and would give you a whole new perspective and position.

You are passed yourself but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

This will probably sound all wrong, but have you considered you maybe going through a mid-life crisis?

I really do believe in trying every option to maintain the family unit when there is no violence.

Seek individual counselling and couples therapy to try to work out whether the relationship is actually salvagable, please.

The grass is always greener on the other side until you get there, cliche I know, but no less true.

The therapy may actually help both you and your OH to resolve any differences and make it a clean break. Or you will both be able to stay together but have a better understanding of what the other is seeking from the relationship.

SparkyBabe,

this situation sounds so similar to the situation I found myself in just about this time last year, appart from it was my DH that suddenly decided he wanted to be single again.

My DH swore he wasn't depressed or having a mid-life crisis. We went to councilling.

I was devistated, sure after 12 years of being together and 3 DC my life is a tad boring, DH doesn't set my heart a fluttering everytime he walks into a room, but for me long term marraige is about friendship and DH is still my best friend. Our sex life was non exsistant

We carried on living together trying to work it out for a while, it was hard arguments galore, but DH stood by he wouldn't abandon me and the DC's we enentually decided to seperate but not advertise it - we didn't want the kids to know (then 5 3 and 13mths) I was single 2 weeks before DH realised what he was lossing. A few months on from this Im still very insecure about things but we are getting on great and our sex life is back to how it was when we got together!! And most importaintly DH is happy.

DH was diagosised with depression and took a course of anti depressants - he believed it was our situation making him down where it is possible it was him feeling down which made our situation seem not right.

hoping it works out as well for you

queenrollo, I was hoping that was the case, that we were coming from the same viewpoint

My best friend did exactly this - she left her DH for the same reasons that you are considering leaving yours.

She found that the single life was not anything like as much fun as she remembered it being in her early twenties. And then her DH met someone else and she was utterly distraught. She wound up grovelling, begging him to take her back. He did, maybe for the sake of the DCs at first. But they have since patched things up and their relationship is now better than ever. She tells me that somehow over the years she just stopped appreciating him, taking him totally for granted. When she realised that she might have lost him for ever she suddenly understood how important he was to her.

Though after she learned her DH was seeing someone else I can still remember her wailing after a bottle of wine "when I said I wanted us to see other people, I didn't mean him, I meant me!"

Thanks for all your input - I realise now that I cannot leave my dc, they are my entire world and have been for 17 years. I think I will concentrate on getting a job/meeting new people and having a bit of a life. I still think the marriage/couple is over, I don;t want t be half of a couple any longer. I don't want to have to explain myself to anyone, to have to give of myself to him. He was/is quite needy and used to moan a lot that I didn't cuddle him, our sex life wasn't great, i didn't snuggle up on the sofa, all those 'coupley' things lovers do. Truthfully, I actually like being on my own (after20 years of never having 'me' time I suppose, tho I hate that phrase) and my heart still sinks when I hear his key in the door, and I realise I have to spend another evening just not doing what I want with the kids.

I don;'t think I am depressed, and I certainly wouldnt get jealous of him with another woman, so I don't think counselling would help. It might help him tho, as he still has feelings for me, which I think he should talk out. At the moment I am being a bit of a bitch in the hope that he will start to dislike me a bit more. I'm sure that would help him.

good luck

but please don't try to get him to hate you by being nasty to him, that is unkind

can you not just sit down and talk, he deserves to know if there is no chance for the relationship

Scary - I have told him and told him that the relationship is over, but I still feel he doesn't quite 'get it'. He still admits that he has feelings for me, however illogical they are. He told me the other day (in the midt of an argument) that if he thought I'd ever sleep with another man then he would kill him. He knows that I have friendships with other guys (nothing in it at all) and with my ex-boyfriend from 20 years ago, - we text, is all.(he lives in Ireland).

I really think he'd be helped by counselling, but when he's working all hours, when would he be able to do this? And I don't suppose it would be a 'quick' fix either. He did say to me the other day that I have talked to my friends about it all (as women do) butthat he has no-one to vent to. It's true but Men are not suppsoed to! He has friends at work but other than them, no-one really.

Sparkybabe

marraige guidance is not only to help you stay together - they will also help you split up if that is what you want. It sounds like it might help your husband.

hoping that you find peace and happiness