Supporting the children

[fluxy3]

I really need advice and support here... after months of not getting on, arguments, tension and bad atmosphere my H has finally agreed to leave the family home and for us to separate.
I really don't know what to say to the children, how to support them and how to deal with it all.. They are 10, 13 and 13.
They know that things are not right and that I have been very unhappy for a long time.. one of my daughters is very angry at me and the other is very quiet. My son says he knows we are getting a divorce and keeps talking 'at' me all the time... I know they are really worried.
I feel guilty about this, but after months of soul searching and thinking I know that I am doing the right thing for me, I've been desperately unhappy in the marriage for years and in truth we should never have got married.... but that sounds so selfish...
We have been to Relate and I have had counselling too about the relationship.
Just feels such a mess.. I'm not very good at writing down my thoughts and there is so much I could say here....
On paper my H is not a bad man... but he is definitely emotionally abusive, subtle, but he is... the big crunch really came for me when I read the 'heartless bitch link' somewhere on here... too many boxes were ticked.
I just want to try and make it as less upsetting as possible for the children... I already think I've messed them up by how they have seen my behaviour towards their dad.
I know they think that I'm the horrid one in all of this.. and in a way they are right... they cannot see or know what has really gone on for years to make me behave the way I do/ have... angry, upset, crying mummy who cannot talk to daddy as it always ends in a row... while he stays all calm and seems like the good cop....
Thanks for reading.

I don't have any answers but am going through the same thing - just wanted to say you are not alone!

Just offering my support but sadly no real advice. I find myself in the same boat right now (except my dc are much younger).

I have been through this and am now happily re-married and my ex is also happy in a new relationship. My DC were very upset with me and didn't understand at all. They do now because without me around to absorb his behaviour they became much more aware of how things really were. I think the key is to act well in all this. Don't bad-mouth him, encourage your kids to spend time with him and don't use them as emotional props -they don't need to know all the ins and outs of your relationship and how bad it was for you. Be nice about their dad. You can't avoid the difficult time you are going through but you will get through it.

I had that too, the DCs just didn't get why I was "breaking up the family", and of course XH played on this big-time. I did try not to bad-mouth him in return, but this tended to backfire on me. The big crime really was that I was going to insist on the house being sold, as there was enough equity there to let us both buy new but smaller places with a mortgage each, so effectively I was throwing them all out of their family home (pigsty that it was, but they were used to it!). I remember the day DS3 (older than yours) said he didn't understand how I could leave them all. I said but I'm not leaving all of you, I'm only leaving your dad. I will make sure I have room for you wherever I live next and you will always be welcome there, for all or some of the time as you wish. A kind of light broke over his face. He said he'd never realised it was an option. As for DS4, who as the only legally dependent child they saw as the key to keeping the house and getting maintenance from me, the emotional pressure they all put on the poor little fellow to say he wanted to stay with his dad was appalling, and was the main factor that proved to me I was doing the right thing. I was in such a depressed and frankly slightly deranged state by then that I was almost ready to walk out the door at times and leave them to it, but I wouldn't leave the poor little mite to those tender mercies. He needed me in his life at least 50% of the time to counter the weirdness.

Now, four years later, they regard my house as their home, when they're not out and about (most of them are older than yours). DS4 lives with me full time, instigated by his school and backed up at arm's length by SS. As for their dad, they still love him but recognise that he has got some funny ways that make him very difficult to live with, and that my kind of organised chaos is a much better atmosphere than his carefully nurtured squalor. DS2 put up with it the longest, but only because he felt his dad needed him. Eventually self-preservation kicked in and he moved in with me.

So hang on there, carry on doing what you have to do, be there for them and hopefully they'll come round in time. He will out himself when he starts playing control games on them too.