Pennies in the Fountain of Serenity

[hopefloats7]

I copied RB's post from my locked thread so that I could reply to it here:

Hope, I may be in the minority here, but I would say that you don't need to get a D right now if you don't want to. Knowing how strongly you still love your H, I would tell you that maybe you should simply get a legal separation, with a division of assets and a financial settlement. At that point, you can truly remove him from your life for a while, which is what you need. He is only a source of pain for you right now, and you need time and space to heal. With all the financial stuff done, getting a D then becomes very simple when you want it to happen.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that the process of working with lawyers and dividing assets is the thing that brings a wayward spouse to his senses. He sees the future that's ahead of him and decides he doesn't want it. Or after the separation, he decides that he misses you and wants you back. I don't want you to get your hopes up at all, but I don't think there's anything wrong with giving your H every chance to reform. You will at least have the peace of knowing that you did everything you could.

So that's what I would do if I were you. Of course, this advice is probably worth what you paid for it.

RB,
Please don't discount your advice. That is actually a very good idea. I hadn't thought about it. I guess what you mean is we would go through all the dividing up of what we own together, etc. just as if we were getting a divorce, and we'd work out the finances in the same way...we just wouldn't actually be getting divorced, only separated. We could still sell the house, I could still move, and we could get out of limbo. Maybe that would be what we need.

After a year, if H. still hasn't changed his mind, then we could just divorce, which would probably be easier as you said, since everything would already be split up and accounted for. But if he decided that he wanted to get back together, it would force a completely fresh start, which is also what we would need. I am starting to think that although I love our house, it is probably impossible to expect H. to ever live with me here again because of all of the lying he did to me while he was living here. It must make him feel very uncomfortable when he comes over, remembering everything he did when he lived here.

I think this is an excellent idea and I might suggest this to him. I think he is just as lost as I am in regards as to what to do about our situation. I thank you so much for posting this.

Incidentally, he has not called me or stopped by yet today. I wonder if he is putting it off, because he's afraid to face this? It seems if he really wanted to discuss what we were going to do in regards to separating/divorcing, he'd be over here talking about it. I have not called him to see if he's coming over; not sure if I ought to.

RB, as you said, your idea would give me the peace of mind in knowing I have tried everything. If we ever do have this talk (and I sure hope so; I need the truth) then I might suggest this and see how he feels about it.

RB, thank you very much.