So sorry you are going through this.

OK...I should be working but I can't respond later. I am exactly in your same spot. My sbtx and I are separating at the beginning of the year and telling the kids during the last week of 2014. Married for 18 years with 2 kids (11 and 15). Been dealing with this issue since May (we were intimate until that day in May). I am terrified to do this to them, but it has been the wall to bust through on the path to my healing. I feel like there is a time bomb waiting to go off and it makes me very anxious and scared. My situation is different...she is moving out. She wants this, she cheated on me, she lost "the feeling" so I said I'm not moving. Why should I move? She has been working on her apt this month so that it will be ready for beginning of January.

It is a very weird and surreal time. Putting up Christmas ornaments was hard as my 11 year old grabbed one with a picture of my sbtx and me hugging after her bridal shower. "Here Dad, put this one up!" Oy vey...everything I could do to hold it together. When we finished, my sbtx left for a furniture delivery at her apartment.

Are you seeing a therapist? I see somebody who is helping me with my anxiety for the kids. What I have been reading is that the kids need to feel they are safe and secure and that they see the parents are handling it well. We are trying our best to have a schedule that allows us to co-parent and cause the least disruption to their lives. It is a difficult situation because even she though wants this to happen I have been the one to set up new budgets for finances, determine what to say to the kids, worked out the schedule. I have been forced to be the rational one while she wants to get on with living her life with her other relationship (whole other story). I've been the one paying the bills, setting up college funds, setting up retirement, and all that non-sexy stuff that families need to survive.

Hang in there. You are definitely not alone. I don't know how all this works, but I can only control what I can control...and at this point it is being the best supportive father I can for my kids. I believe that we are going to make it through this.

Thank you for your response. I am basically going to live at a house that my mother has but is not living there anymore. They are very familiar with the house and have been over there recenlty while I did some yard work. I dont think my daughter will be too surprised. Last month my daughter asked me why I do not hug on mommy anymore. When we were over at the house doing yardwork she asked if my she and I ever divorced would I live there?? I was so blown away. She is very observant. Seems the wife and I are just roommates and it has been like that for years. I dotn want us to get filled with so much resentment and hatred that we cannot be good parents and be able to be around each other at kid events, etc.

I'm trying to get to that point...having no resentment so that we can parent effectively and on cordial terms. I think I can do it for the benefit of the kids. She expected this to not be "yucky" but the more that things come up and realizing that she did not think this all the way through...she has inherently made it yucky. She is worried about what I will say to the kids, but I have assured her over and over and in writing that I have no ulterior motive. I don't know how this all plays out and I really want the kids to have a good relationship with their mother...they deserve that. However, she is the one that has bad mouthed me to the kids...if I came home late from work "Mommy wants to know if you lived here anymore".

We were very loving (more so on my part after she told me she wasn't happy). Over the last 2 months is when I stopped trying to show affection and really withdraw to try to disconnect. I try to think that she would rather be in her boyfriend's arms or bed...that helps. I think my 14 year old thinks something is up but my 12 year old does not. They don't know that Mom has been setting up an apartment.

This Christmas is very bittersweet. Realizing it is the last one we will all be together. Who knows how this all ends up playing out but I'm trying to take it one day at a time.

Just continue to show the kids LOTS of love and being positive around them. I am sure YOU will be fine. The kids will see it for themselves. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. Besides the consistent arguing and blow ups that we have the one thing I miss is just having a physical relationship with a person. Knowing that the other person is attracted to me or wants to be initimate. Been way too long, but I guess its normal for people to divorece even for the lack of sex/initimacy???

I am guilty of always lingering far too long on the idea of "Maybe this is the last time..." in various situations, so I definitely understand your sadness at the idea that this will be your last Christmas all together.

But! You have no idea what the future holds. Maybe it won't be! Maybe once the dust settles and you heal and you both move forward, if you find yourselves in a good enough place you can all still enjoy celebrating Christmas together as a family (even if that family is different from how it used to be). It might not be for a while, and there might be some tough holidays ahead, but there are still so many years ahead of you. Try not to focus on the potential finality of it all, because maybe if you maintain a positive enough relationship and come out of this a happier person, you could have an even better Christmas in the future. Or, maybe once you've healed, you'll find a new 'normal' for Christmas and this loss won't feel quite so painful. I'm holding out hope for you!

For me I want it to be where we can still be called a family even if we dont live together. My sons plays baseball and my daughter does gymnastics and I want to be able to be at each one and not sit across the room or field. My biggest fear/anxiet is the day we tell the kids!! Just keep telling myself that they will be better off in the long run and we can take our happiness up to a new level.