Soon to be living apart, temporary separation

Hi there
It feels comforting to have found this site and forum - thank you Kate & Emily and others.

My partner is making arrangements to move out of our family home on a temporary separation. We haven't discussed any details as yet, as it's still early, we're both new to this and upset and angry and I am currently away with friends.

I'm devastated after making many suggestions the one he seemed most able to readily accept is to move out. I want to learn to accept this is what he wants and needs, maybe I need it to but am feeling so scared and sad and I can't always help feeling resentful of his lack of effort and I think that will grow as he's away on his own and I'm still doing the same daily family routine, though I am aware that is very selfish and negative of me so I will work on that. We have one child who's 4 and a dog and we have recently being going through IVF to try to have another child.

So as we're currently saying this is a temporary situation of maybe 3 - 6 mths after which we will agree to try again or fully separate, We are thinking that maybe we don't tell our daughter that we've decided to live separately for a while but that her daddy is away with work and he will come back once a week for supper with her. This is to hopefully avoid confusion of her daddy going and coming back and avoid the introduction of a new home where she would see her daddy live possibly temporarily. Does this make sense? Is it advisable or should we instead be honest with her?

Again I have not yet been able to discuss these issues with my partner as I am trying to build my strength to maintain rational and fair discussions for next week. I would very much welcome thoughts and advise on
this and matters of access in terms of stay overs if we instead be honest or number of times per week visits etc.

Many thanks

Categories:

This is all new to me / early days

Hello, thanks for your

Submitted by emily on Mon, 2012-01-09 21:39.

Hello, thanks for your posting and for making it through the tonnes of spam I've just been deleting - and thank goodness spotted yours buried! I totally understand what you mean about feeling fed up that you carry on with the day to day routine, while they appear to have the freedom, change and 'adventure'. I think everyone dealing with children day to day ont heir own feels the same envy, it's normal, but try and keep a lid on it as I also know from talking to dads who don;t have their children all the time, that it breaks their heart when they hand them back, and they see the children treating their mum's home as 'real home' etc.. I told myself to be careful what I wished for when I found myslef thinking they were luckier than me.

Given how young your daughter is I think you're right to to tell her a white lie until you know for sure that it's a permanent split. Being a single parent is fine (hard work but fine), but if there's any way that you 2 can work it out then I strongly recommend you do. I'd talk down the trial seperation with friends etc - pick on one good friend to share the burden with, and close family and then leave it alone with everyone else. It's not their business, your daughter thinks it's work related, and you don't want her picking things up - and I think that the more you talk about something, the more concrete and real it becomes. You want to keep the situation as open as you possibly can so that there's a way for you both to get back to each other, rather than doors shut. So try and keep your mind thinking of it as being a breathing / thinking space for the pair of you, rather than a spilt. I know people who have got back together from trial seperations so a spilt isn't inevitable. You could both try couple counceling through Relate? If that's not going to work for both of you, then one of you can go... or meet once a week the 2 of you out on a date - go to the cinema, meal, walk etc anything that means you spend time out of the house just the 2 of you and get a chance to chat and argue (!) and see if you can work it out. I think that lots of regular meetings like that are better than a 'make or break' weekend away as conversations like this take time to develop and you can think about them, come back to them etc if you have a regualr meeting planned.

I really wish you the best of luck, and really really hope it all works out for you both. Hopefully you'll find a way to stay together, but if not you know where we are if we can ever offer any other advice or encouragement!

Emily