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We have been married for 14 years, I requested the divorce in Nov 2019 and after reading the article of "how to divorce" i realize i am emotionally more ahead than my husband. I realize I am guilty of pressuring him to start making decisions as i am becoming impatient and want us to start planning for the kids future and life ahead. But how much time do i give him? We currently still living together and started divorce mediation but we have not told our children or extended family/friends as we decided only to tell once we agreed on the living arrangement, parenting plan and divorce settlement in order to have clear direction when we break the news. We have 2 children aged 4 and 7 years. I can see it is emotionally hard for my husband and i dont know how to support him. I have suggested he see a counsellor but he chooses not to and he doesnt have any close friends or family he can talk to. So what do I do? I tried only communicating via email to avoid confrontation but i dont receive any response to the emails. When i ask for a meeting to discuss matters he tells i am taking away time spent with the kids. I am at a lost and really just want to be able to have amicable relationship with him in order to co-parent but i am starting to feel it is not going to be possible as its is becoming more difficult to communicate with my husband about any topic.
Replies (1)
Dear Nazlie – you clearly have a lot of self-insight and recognise the difficulty many people face when separating - that they are starting from different places. If you think back to when you first contemplated a divorce it was probably many months ago. Your husband is trying to process things and is playing catch up (and Christmas came in the middle of all this too). So, although you may feel he has known for while in the context of how long you have been thinking about this, its not so long.
It sounds like you have found a positive process of mediation to start discussions. I would use this as the forum for talking about timescales and making a plan of when its appropriate to talk to the children and wider family. The mediator will be able to help you with this and help your husband hear your concerns. You don’t need to write off your ability to co-parent long-term, just because it is tough now. For many co-parenting is a process and a goal – it’s not something you wake up being able to do, especially if you are in different emotional spaces. You might need to parallel parent until things settle down and then try a more co-parenting approach.
Stick with it… don’t give up, accept this is a process. Focus on doing what you do well for the children.