Hi! My husband and I had a long break in relationships - we didn't quarrel, we simply felt that we needed to have a rest. After a year we decided to start communicating. It was wonderful! We both were free and saw each other not because we were a husband and a wife but because we WANTED. We have been living apart for THREE years and everything is OK. But now we are to decide something because we want to have a baby, who needs a family. I want to live apart, because I'm afraid to loose our relationships, to spoil it. I'm afraid to make a mistake. Any suggestions?
I'm not judging you for the way you want to lead your life but the people who come here, are into conventional relationships. Like the type that have been around since man and woman first walked the planet. What you are looking for is some alternative relationship that as a traditional romantic, family man, father and husband, I can't comprehend and find your lifestyle choice disturbing.
If someone has some suggestions for you all well and good. My suggestion is to leave because you've come to the wrong place. Just my opinion.
Before having a baby together, I think you need to live together again and have a conventional marriage. The one you describe sounds like a friendship with perks. You probably can little imagine the stress having a baby puts on a relationship and how it is much more preferable to work as a team to raise a child...and that means living together. If I was your H, there is not a chance in h@ll that I would entertain the possibility of having a baby that I can only have visitation with. It's my opinion that unless you are dedicated to giving it the best possible home, with both parents, that it isn't the time to have one. I'd give the same advice to two people that are just dating.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
I just wanted to put my two cents in as I tried to have an unconventional relationship with my H...with not-so-great results.
My H and I lived together for 5 years before we got married. I realized that is was an 'ideal' situation. In other words, there was always a back door, thus eliminating pressure on the relationship. Then came the time when we broached the subject of marriage. We both entered into it cautiously, me more so because I had great examples in my family that COMMITMENT was a WORLD away from our previous causual relationship structure, knowing that my H had not such model. My husband had a different idea of commitment (physical presence, support but not growing emotional depth between us etc, etc). Eventually, this all caught up with us. We weren't living and growing into a mature relationship together. We were sticking to our old ways as boyfriend and girlfriend, basically.
Mature love is (in my opinion) living together, working through life's issues together even when - no, especially when life's difficult, rubbing each other the wrong way because you are in constant contact BUT...but (here's the important part) from that, gaining a MATURE love with one's partner by sticking with it and being willing to change and grow. Living apart is NOT being willing to change and grow with another in commitment because there's always a back door. Some find this safe and reassuring (I understand this...I had this with my H, too). However....however...
When you bring a baby into the situation, there is a responsibility to that child that can not be ignored. How can you create a stable household for this baby when you don't have one yourself? This is NOT to say that you and your H should force yourself into the same house without preparation and have the baby!! I'm sure you've read many threads on this site about how having a baby was a pressure point that 'broke' the marriage that wasn't ready for it. I (humbley and lovingly) suggest facing the issues between you and your partner, creating an agreement and boundaries between you before you take another step in this direction. And do it with a counselor as your mediator. Please, for your own happiness, that of any child you may have in the future, for your partner, and your marriage take this into consideration!
