# Entering Separation with Young Children



## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

I've known at some point that if things didn't change in our marriage, we'd be down this road. Let me preface this in that I have an almost 6-year old (not there yet), a 20-month-old, and a 5-month-old (I know, we were careless). 

Long story short, here we are. The details don't matter any longer. He doesn't see marriage the way I do, and there's been a lot of baggage, past mistakes, lies, anger, infidelity, verbal and "almost" physical abuse, and lack of respect and gratitude in the relationship. All of which has spiraled. I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. 

He wants out. I've agreed. He's unhappy. I get it. He's been unhappy for a long time, mostly with me. We've just been hanging on by a thread. I'm in IC. 

I've seen a lawyer, actually three. Mostly to find a good fit for me if this goes south (as in custody etc.). He would prefer that I don't use an attorney to avoid a costly legal process. I don't have the funds to go into a long fight, so he's aware of that. I do want to keep it simple if possible, but I also realize, that I need to protect myself. He constantly tells me that I need to keep the kid's interest in mind. I get that. This is also why I'm being as civil as possible while we continue being in the same house. 

I work full-time and do reasonably well. So I won't be destitute. However, he's got the majority of our retirement. He is afraid that I'm going to "take" half of it so he tends to slide in a little "threat" that he'd be less flexible with custody if I pushed for finances. 

Taking the emotions out of it, I realize that our marriage is now pretty much figuring out how to schedule the kids and how much child support he's going to have to come up with monthly. He's "offered" me the majority of the time with the kids with a lump sum with the slight "threat" that if I push for a larger piece of the pie, that he'll be stringent about how much time I get with the kids. 

Have any of you walked away from taking anything related to retirement? I know it's what he would prefer I do, but I also realize that I've got three kids of my own to raise mostly with some financial support from him and every little bit will help at this point. I'm grateful that I'm a stable job, and I can afford our home even if it's a stretch. 

I've also been told I need to stop worrying about what he wants and start to thinking for myself. My concern is that if I don't "give in" that he'll hold the kids "hostage" so to speak. 

Yes, I'm also aware that I can agree with whatever he wants or use mediation or take this to court and that lawyers get rich on the latter options. I know my legal options. I guess I'm just trying to understand how do I balance priorities of raising children, and realizing that I still need a "chunk" from him to do it (for retirement) while keeping him "happy" enough that he won't change his mind on the kids. I'm told that while things are civil now, and that he's being nice, he will get "mad" and that I should expect it coming soon. 

I just want to do the right thing for the kids and for myself without causing additional conflict. I'm still trying to work all of this out in my head. 

My pride tells me to just walk away with nothing. But I know that's just stupid.


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## Rob_1 (Sep 8, 2017)

Do not walk away. That would be stupid, and what he wants. LAWYER UP. He cannot decide the outcome of children custody, regardless of what he says/ threatens.


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## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

How many years married?


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

Married 14 years this November.


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## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

As women, we tend not to plan for retirement. You will find that you will be mostly financially responsible for the kids even with child support. Kids are expensive, as you know. You might not be able to put money away for awhile towards retirement. So, my advice is to ask for half of the retirement.

Don't play nice because you will come out losing in the end. The state will mandate how much he pays in child support. He has no control over this. 

Do not be bullied. Ask for what you want.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

Rob_1 said:


> Do not walk away. That would be stupid, and what he wants. LAWYER UP. He cannot decide the outcome of children custody, regardless of what he says/ threatens.


I know logically that he can't. But what in the meantime can I say to him when he says those things?


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## Yeswecan (Jul 25, 2014)

loveispatient said:


> I know logically that he can't. But what in the meantime can I say to him when he says those things?


"I'll have my lawyer contact your lawyer." This is what lawyers are paid to do.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

brooklynAnn said:


> As women, we tend not to plan for retirement. You will find that you will be mostly financially responsible for the kids even with child support. Kids are expensive, as you know. You might not be able to put money away for awhile towards retirement. So, my advice is to ask for half of the retirement.
> 
> Don't play nice because you will come out losing in the end. The state will mandate how much he pays in child support. He has no control over this.
> 
> Do not be bullied. Ask for what you want.


I have retirement just not as much as he does because his income was primarily allocated toward retirement and mine was for everything else including vacations and kid expenses. I did, however, have to cut back on my contributions as things spiraled down, and I've handled the majority of everything related to the kids.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

Yeswecan said:


> "I'll have my lawyer contact your lawyer." This is what lawyers are paid to do.


Good point and good idea. Trying not to get antagonistic, but I guess if it comes to that, this should work.


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

"The details don't matter any longer"

I know you feel that way but I've only been here a year and haven't really seen many threads this where you were here 5 years ago talking about a separation that was happening and then here's another thread 5 years later with kids that were born in between.

Can you kind of fill in the gaps a little bit of what transpired in those 5 years?


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## Yeswecan (Jul 25, 2014)

loveispatient said:


> Good point and good idea. Trying not to get antagonistic, but I guess if it comes to that, this should work.


But your H is being antagonistic with round about threats and his retirement. 

Take the retirement. Take all you can get because your H is looking out for himself. That is quite obvious from where I'm sitting.


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## brooklynAnn (Jun 29, 2015)

loveispatient said:


> I have retirement just not as much as he does because his income was primarily allocated toward retirement and mine was for everything else including vacations and kid expenses. I did, however, have to cut back on my contributions as things spiraled down, and I've handled the majority of everything related to the kids.


Then, you need to ask for half. Don't tell him this now. When you speak to your lawyer you can discuss this and don't talk anything with him about the divorce with regards to money. Just say you need advice on that and will ask the lawyer. You are entitled to a portion of his retirement account and pension if he has one. 

Don't be nice and try to please him. YOu are going to need all the money you can get with 3 small kids even though you have a job. Child care alone will eat up a good portion of your income. Child support never really give enough to cover this and everything else.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

stillfightingforus said:


> "The details don't matter any longer"
> 
> I know you feel that way but I've only been here a year and haven't really seen many threads this where you were here 5 years ago talking about a separation that was happening and then here's another thread 5 years later with kids that were born in between.
> 
> Can you kind of fill in the gaps a little bit of what transpired in those 5 years?


Where do I even begin? Let me give you the short version. 

I have a varied sexual history prior to us getting together. It shouldn't matter because it was in my past. But it mattered when he found out that I wasn't the "nice sweet girl" he believed I was post-marriage. When he asked about my past and read my journals about the things I had done, I tried to be vague knowing full well that the more he found out, the more it would feed into his psyche. Needless to say, it created a monster. Sex was no longer sex, but really me having to create scenarios in his head. 

But it created a situation where he always felt (and still does) that he was better than me from a "moral and honorable" standpoint. Because I was ashamed of my past, I myself felt like a second class citizen in my marriage. I figured if I did this or that or whatever, he'd love me or respect me more. Yeah, I know stupid. It just created resentment. 

In the meantime, the whole situation gave him permission to somehow say things to me and do things outside of the bounds of marriage, which again, I tolerated, because I was "committed" to the marriage and I wanted it to work. I also loved him. Things weren't great, but they weren't horrible. We did things together (i.e. travel); I put up with his lack of respect for me, and candidly, I was losing respect for him. When it was great, it was fun. But when it was bad, it wasn't good. 

Then came the pregnancy years, when we were trying. I kept losing pregnancies. I kid you not. I am the poster child for recurrent pregnancy loss in the first trimester. By our third IVF attempt, and yet another loss and the vacation we took to rest didn't work, he was done and angry at me, and the world. So again, I took care of the mortgage and the dogs and he continued communicating with me, which he did whatever wherever he was then. Apparently he slept with a woman with two young kids, and she thought he was a dirtbag for leaving her. 

Needless to say, he wanted to come home. I allowed him because you know, I was "in love". I got pregnant in early 2013 (typical right), and the pregnancy progressed all the way despite the fact I thought I'd lose "it" again. It was a roller coaster. So yeah, things were honky dory for a while when baby made it. Unfortunately, had another miscarriage in 2014 or was it a molar pregnancy. I get easily confused given the number of pregnancies. 

We thought kid #1 would be our only. But we were wrong. We had kid #2 in 2016. He's a hoot. But things were starting to spiral slowly again. I was busy mothering, the sex was lousy, and he called me fat (not too long after delivering kid #2) and I was barely sleeping. Anyway, what can you do but keep trying to make it work right? I mean, we have kids. I still had feelings for him. But he was still hung up on my past. 

Had no plans to have kid #3, but precautions failed. In the interim last year, I found out he was messing around with a 20-something year old. He says communication has stopped, but I know that in March this year they met again and have been communicating. So I spent 9-months pregnant alone with two other kids while he pretty much did his thing and wanted nothing to do with me. He loves the kids, just not me. 

Baby comes. Here we are. He's depressed, angry, drinking to forget his problems. I'm pretending that if I don't say anything, we can coast for a bit while the baby gets older. I am basically to blame for everything - his unhappiness, the fact that we're lousy for each other, the fact that he was messing around with another woman etc. I'm the enemy - his words, not mine. 

Long story short, we're both idiots, and we both screwed up. Our children deserve better. Therapist says it boils down to my past and that he has to choose to be married to me in the present despite what he knows. Or maybe we're both in a mid-life crisis.

The lesson here, the past shouldn't matter and it shouldn't be "hung" over someone else's head. Especially if you say you love them. But that's neither here nor there. 

I am mostly worried about our children. I can deal with my baggage. So the details don't matter. The kids do and their well-being. So I'm treading cautiously. 

So yeah, the short and dirty version.


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## Adelais (Oct 23, 2013)

Did he find out about your past before or after you were married? Did he have a moral issue with your past? i.e. were you a prostitute, or did you just have premarital sex?

His cheating has nothing to do morally with your past. You did not commit adultery on him before you were married, no matter how bad your past was. He has committed adultery.

All that aside, now that you are separating, you need to look after yourself and your children. His being able to save more for retirement while you were using a larger percentage of your salary for living expenses was great as long as you would be there to help spend his retirement at a later date.

Half of his retirement is yours. Think of it as a refund to you for all those years that your $ was going toward living expenses.

The court will look at both your finances, investments, etc. and split it 50/50. Add into that child support if you don't share custody 50/50. That is what is fair.

As others have said, it is expensive to raise children. You will need your half of (his) retirement to live and take care of the children. They will need a home to live in while they are with you, and that $ will help pay for it.

Don't feel as if you are mean or something worse for expecting 1/2 of his retirement. He is mistaken. His threatening you if you go after it is pretty bad. Take it as another sign of his lack of integrity.


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

Ok, thank you for the summary, it allowed me to re-read first post in this thread and fully understand. You seem to carry a lot of guilt and based upon what we know here, the guilt is rather unjustified but you can choose to handle it as you wish but for someone else to judge you the way you have been, that's on him.

I realize this is one big hot mess but what is his reason for wanting out at this moment? 

As far as walking away with nothing, NO. That's not morally or ethically right. Don't worry about paying for a legal fight. You guys are married, you will have to pay for that with joint funds. You can agree to play nice with him but only if you aren't going to get 'taken'. You will need some of his retirement, that's the way it works. You guys can work together on talking about custody and days you have the kids and personal possessions but the courts will need to decide things like retirement, alimony, child support, etc. It's really the only fair way to your kids. 

The sad thing is and DO Not let this scare your prevent you from getting legal counsel, at least a consultation, please, I just get the feeling he is going to get nasty based upon how his whole personality seems in your description. He can say all he wants about the financial stuff but he's not the judge or the law.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

Araucaria said:


> Did he find out about your past before or after you were married? Did he have a moral issue with your past? i.e. were you a prostitute, or did you just have premarital sex?
> 
> His cheating has nothing to do morally with your past. You did not commit adultery on him before you were married, no matter how bad your past was. He has committed adultery.
> 
> ...


I was young, rebellious, and I made poor decisions about sex and men. Things that I really don't want my own daughter doing. I carried it with me far too long. Live and learn right? I'll own up to being stupid. But it was my past. I know things about him that are questionable, but it's the past. I can't hold the things he's done over his head. It makes for a lousy situation. 

Anyway, neither here nor there. Just trying to focus on the kids and what happens next. I can't really fault him for being stupid. We both dug our own holes.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

OP, is your husband telling you that he is willing to pay more for child support in that you will have more than 50% custody but to leave the retirement alone?


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

stillfightingforus said:


> Ok, thank you for the summary, it allowed me to re-read first post in this thread and fully understand. You seem to carry a lot of guilt and based upon what we know here, the guilt is rather unjustified but you can choose to handle it as you wish but for someone else to judge you the way you have been, that's on him.
> 
> I realize this is one big hot mess but what is his reason for wanting out at this moment?
> 
> ...


Yep. I carry a lot of guilt. I'm working on getting past it. I did it for so long and believed the nonsense he said about me. So much crap. 

He wants out because he's not happy. It's that simple. It's been one thing after another and time is passing. He wants to be happy. He doesn't love me and he says he's tried. He said that he had his "affair" because he thought he could do that on the side while staying married. So I can't keep a broken marriage afloat even for the "sake of the kids." It takes two to be vested to work on a troubled marriage. 

Yes, things can get nasty, but I am hoping and praying they don't. I'm grateful for that even if things get out of hand that I can support myself and my family. Which beats what a lot of people, especially women can say. It won't be easy, but it'll be OK.


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

loveispatient said:


> Yep. I carry a lot of guilt. I'm working on getting past it. I did it for so long and believed the nonsense he said about me. So much crap.
> 
> He wants out because he's not happy. It's that simple. It's been one thing after another and time is passing. He wants to be happy. He doesn't love me and he says he's tried. *He said that he had his "affair" because he thought he could do that on the side while staying married*. So I can't keep a broken marriage afloat even for the "sake of the kids." It takes two to be vested to work on a troubled marriage.
> 
> Yes, things can get nasty, but I am hoping and praying they don't. I'm grateful for that even if things get out of hand that I can support myself and my family. Which beats what a lot of people, especially women can say. It won't be easy, but it'll be OK.


You know what ..... in regards to the bolded. This is coming from someone who considers himself religious but practical and as I always say, 'usually' pro-reconciliation and working on things but seriously. F this dude. In it's simplest form, it seems like this guy has never grown up in more ways than one and his shortcomings were projected upon you and quite successfully since you took them to heart pretty deep. You have three kids, don't need another one (HIM). You are in my prayers. Please sign up for a consultation soon.


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## Adelais (Oct 23, 2013)

loveispatient said:


> I was young, rebellious, and I made poor decisions about sex and men. Things that I really don't want my own daughter doing. I carried it with me far too long. Live and learn right? I'll own up to being stupid. But it was my past. I know things about him that are questionable, but it's the past. I can't hold the things he's done over his head. It makes for a lousy situation.
> 
> Anyway, neither here nor there. Just trying to focus on the kids and what happens next. I can't really fault him for being stupid. We both dug our own holes.


That's a good attitude.


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

stillfightingforus said:


> You know what ..... in regards to the bolded. This is coming from someone who considers himself religious but practical and as I always say, 'usually' pro-reconciliation and working on things but seriously. F this dude. In it's simplest form, it seems like this guy has never grown up in more ways than one and his shortcomings were projected upon you and quite successfully since you took them to heart pretty deep. You have three kids, don't need another one (HIM). You are in my prayers. Please sign up for a consultation soon.


Well, yeah. I tend to take things to heart. Pretty deeply. He drinks to cope. I withdraw. He couldn't make me happy (so he said), and I obviously didn't do much for him. There was a point we liked each other. I can't say we do these days. 

We tried working toward reconciling last year with MC but we made it a few sessions with the last one being so bad, that I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to take it on again. I tried again getting him to go a week ago because when you have kids, you go the extra mile. But I also knew that if my gut told me he wasn't vested, I needed to stop trying. You can't go into MC without both parties being vested in the marriage even if the outcome isn't reconciliation. One foot out is ALL feet out. 

Anyway, I had my consult on Monday. I just have to nail out a few details next week with her before deciding. Just don't want to be mean and awful about it all.


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## ReturntoZero (Aug 31, 2015)

loveispatient said:


> Well, yeah. I tend to take things to heart. Pretty deeply. He drinks to cope. I withdraw. He couldn't make me happy (so he said), and I obviously didn't do much for him. There was a point we liked each other. I can't say we do these days.
> 
> We tried working toward reconciling last year with MC but we made it a few sessions with the last one being so bad, that I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to take it on again. I tried again getting him to go a week ago because when you have kids, you go the extra mile. But I also knew that if my gut told me he wasn't vested, I needed to stop trying. You can't go into MC without both parties being vested in the marriage even if the outcome isn't reconciliation. One foot out is ALL feet out.
> 
> Anyway, I had my consult on Monday. I just have to nail out a few details next week with her before deciding. Just don't want to be mean and awful about it all.


Just out of curiosity... in the discussions you initiated, how many were positive about him and how many were pointing to flaws where he was coming up short?


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## loveispatient (Jan 10, 2013)

ReturntoZero said:


> Just out of curiosity... in the discussions you initiated, how many were positive about him and how many were pointing to flaws where he was coming up short?


Good question. I'm an introvert, and tend to avoid conflict when it comes to matters of the heart. So I rarely initiated conversations about our marriage or really avoided it hoping it would go away. I mean, if you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist right? He'd usually do it after a late night drinking because he has trouble being expressing himself and alcohol helps remove some of those constraints. So he'd initiate the conversation, and usually it would revolve around the fact my past is an issue, I don't respect him, I am not grateful for all that he's done or has brought to the marriage (I could argue the same on his part, but again, it's immaterial at the moment) etc. Most of the time, I'd simply listen, and take the blame, get emotional, encourage him getting help and us seeking help. When things would get bad, we'd have all out blowouts. I'd avoid those at all costs if I could, but it did happen. Usually late, and when he'd have too much to drink. It's gotten to the point that no one sees any good in the other and it's really hard to remember what brought us together in the first place. Pretty sad if you ask me. 

But we have three beautiful kids. Don't regret them. Still, we messed up badly.


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