Having 'the' talk...

:hug: Kel, I'm so sorry you are going through this :(

When my ex-DH and I split up I wrote him a letter about everything that I was feeling (but not accusing him of anything and not in anger) and left it for him to read while I went away for the weekend. I knew that he wouldn't listen to me if I had sat down and tried to talk to him about it so I wrote the letter and ended it by saying that we would discuss it when I returned. It gave him time to digest the issues and think about what I had said so that when we sat down and talked it wasn't in anger.

Although we didn't have kids we managed to seperate on good terms and are still good friends. Sometimes you need to take things slowly and try to remove as much emotion as possible to get to the core of things to work out if anything can be salvaged.

Kelly I just wanted to give u a hug :hug: and say i am sorry to hear things are not going well. My only advice would be tell the kids the truth from the start. If you try to cover it up they will know something is wrong and they will be more worried then if you tell them the truth. Best of luck. :hug:

I think my Cait is the same age as your daughter - I told her that mummy and daddy just don't love each other any more, but that we both still love you very much. We couldn't live together anymore because daddy did things that mummy didn't like and I'm sure mummy did things that daddy didn't like ... mummy is a lot happier on her own and there are no more fights ... and when you go and stay at dads, you've got him all to yourself. It was hardest for her in the first month, lots of tears from both of us, Cait and I. But 10 months later, it's good.

For the EX - we didn't have a trial anything - we fought a lot and it always ended with "get the f*ck out of my house" from him, as his parents owned the house and we rented it.

We both knew it was over, but he thought we could live in the same house, he wanted me to stay until the kids were older !!

We're civil to each other, but he's an idiot and I'm so glad I left. I can't imagine what I was thinking for almost ten years !

Good Luck,
barb.

Well with XP DD was born, things went from bad to worse and then he read things i'd written to DP indicating i had feelings for him beyond friendship. These were not out on display, he hacked into some accounts i think. He denies it but at the end of the day i figure me writing them and him reading them were equal transgressions.

After he found out i had feelings for DP (he was just a VERY platonic friend back then!) we tried to have another go, in the sense that i said i'd been really unhappy, he said i needed to tell him more (i had been) and he deserved another chance (turns out NO) and so i sat and wrote him a long letter, telling him in writing all the things i'd been feeling and saying for years. I gave it to him and said if we were able to save the relationship we'd both need to try and i was ready to hear his feelings too and talk all this through. Two days later i asked him if he'd read it and he said "Some of it....can't you just not see HIM anymore, and we can go back to normal?" - i guess "some" meant "the first sentence" because it was NOT about DP AT ALL! Anyway, with those words a door banged shut in my head and i knew it was finished.

XP took longer to come around to that, months, even after i'd left he seemed sometimes to forget we weren't a couple anymore. I had to live physically with him in the same house for 2 months after i told him we were through (i just said quietly after his "some of it" comment "this is finished now isn't it? We're over." and then i re-iterated it whenever we got to talking about it. Helpfully for me though he said he wanted us to stay together he did NOTHING to make that happen, no effort at all, apart from the night before i left him (after i'd signed a contract, paid over 1000GBP in deposit and collected my keys) waking me up between breastfeeds to tell me his mum and friends had told him he should try to save the relationship and did i just want to stay afterall and we could "forget about it all" WTF? No thanks, i said, and went back to sleep.

So with XP i basically told him once, without making a big deal of it, and then i made the new reality happen. It meant i had to do the moving etc. (he's STILL where we were living!) but it was worth it. I think it was about a year after DP and i got together (after i'd moved out from XP's) before i think he saw the finality REALLY - before then he'd talk as if he'd accepted it but he'd also disparage my relationship with DP and talk as if really there was not any reason for us to NOT be together.

The first 4-6 months were very very hard. He was pretty awful to me. Angry at me, VERY VERY critical of every single thing i did, knocked my parenting (hard when you're a fragile 1st time mummy heading for PND and having a thyroid crisis!), you name it. He never physically hit me but sometimes i wished he would, just to stop the cruelty for a bit and give me a rest. I got through it by telling myself this was the last bit of crappy dirt track i had to drive on, that i'd be on a broad smooth road soon, going where *I* wanted to go, and that however bad it got he couldn't make me stay. Living alone with DD was HEAVEN compared to the fighting, criticism and nastiness in his place. I have never regretted it, not even for a second.

They say time heals all wounds. Well, my wounds haven't healed from what he said and did, but time has certainly marched on and on for us and with it comes perspective, peace and eventually, acceptance. I think about 10 months after we split i accidentally sent XP an SMS meant for DP which said something like "I can't believe how difficult he's being, it's been over a year, when is he going to get over this?" and though XP was really angry that i'd a) say it at all, and b) send it stupidly to him by mistake, i think seeing it in black and white like that jolted him out of his self-pity a good bit, because from there he began seeing women again and living more of a life.

:hug: to you Kel. It's so so hard this bit, but i promise promise PROMISE you it's worth it.

Many loves

Bx

Hoping its starting to get easier, Kel :comfort:

When I had decided enough was enough with ExDH, I sat down with him & told him I thought the best thing for us was to seperate for a while & see how it goes.

I decided to move in with my brother for 3 months - He was in Sydney, and that was about 3hrs away from where we were living.
Luke was about 12months old.

Our relationship failed mainly because Luke & I were always about 5th or 6th (sometimes even further) down the ladder of priorities - drinking, mates, football, surfing... actually, almost everything else always came first.

I hated living where we were... we were only there because its where he wanted to be - yet all day & all night he was somewhere else doing something else.
I got to a point where I'd put Luke in the car on a Fri night, go to my brothers or a friends in Sydney for the weekend, and come home Monday morning.... by 6pm Monday night Luke & I would be waiting for him to come home to see us... I would call to say 'You haven't seen us all weekend, aren't you coming home?' ... and he would say. 'Oh, just thought I'd have a beer with the boys after work & go straight to touch footy, etc from here'... he'd end up coming home about 10pm (after going for another beer with the boys after footy) - Luke & I would both be asleep.

My thoughts were that if I moved away for 3 months, he would have a big empty house with no noise, no toys & no cooking, clothes washing etc to come home to - he'd miss us & at the same time, would HAVE to make the effort to put aside the weekend for us to come & visit because of the distance.
My thoughts were that it would either make us or break us ;)

Throughout the 3 months, whenever I spoke to him, his intention was that we would always get back together... I would move home, and things would carry on as they were :rolleyes:

I didn't say anything within the 3 months, I wanted to pan it out & see what eventuated.
At the end of the 3 months, I went home for the weekend, walked in on the Friday night to my loungeroom full of boys, beer, food, footy on the tv & girls on my loungeroom floor that I didn't recognise :(

Walked into Luke's room & there was a mattress on the floor & someones bag.. looked like they had been staying for a while.

Needless to say, 'the talk' happened the next day after I managed to get everyone out of the house.

I just said to him ' I left hoping you would feel the loneliness of us not being here & would miss us enough to want your family back... in the 3 months I've been away, I made all the phonecalls, the only time you saw Luke was if I came home for the weekend, and you haven't been to see us once since we left. That to me, is my answer on your level of committment to us & making it work, so I think we know our fate?'

He just nodded... he knew, but would NEVER have ended it himself... honestly, I still think he would be miserably married to me if it had had to come down to him being the one to end it :rolleyes:

I told him that I would be the one to leave (I hated living there anyway) - and he was happy with that (I think he needed it so he had the support of our friends... whatever floats your boat ;))

Best thing I ever did... but I definately had to do it all & make the decisions.
The last thing I said to him before we said it was over was that when he finally found someone he was in love with, he would thank me for letting our relationship go so he had the opportunity to experience a real relationship with someone he loved.
He said he doubted whether he'd ever thank me for leaving him & taking his son with me.

A few yrs ago he got remarried to someone he is clearly head over heels for - complete opposite husband to what he was to me.
They had their first baby together last year - when I took Luke up to see her when she was born, he pulled me aside & told me I was right, & thankyou for making the right decision.

Its so hard, Kel - but the fact that you guys are already seperated & living ok like that - and have admitted to each other initially that life can't carry on the way that it was... thats where all the hard work was.

It will only get easier from here - because there'll be a little more clarity every step & everyday from here on ;)

If you think the time has come for 'the talk' - then it probably has... sit with him & do it - The end of the arguing will ensure a nicer seperation & friendship on some level between you for the kids.

Hope all of my rambling made some sense :D

Just wanted to send you a huge :hug: Kel, as tough as this must be for you right now I can only imagine how tough the last 12 mths (maybe longer) have been. You got through that, you're okay, your kids will be okay, so you can get through this too.

Be kind to yourself and take heart from all the wonderful strong women in here who have given you such great examples of their courage!