HOW DO I TELL KIDS WE’RE SPLITTING UP?

Dear Coleen

I’m a woman in my 30s with two children aged f ive and eight. Sadly, my husband and I have decided to separate in the new year after nearly 10 years of marriage.

Things hadn’t been going well for a while, but then lockdown was the final nail in the coffin – we just couldn’t stand to be around each other.

Anyway, I ’ve come to terms with the split and so has my husband, but I ’m very stressed about how to tell our children.

I t hink my eight- year - ol d daughter will take it particularly badly and be very upset, and I hate myself f or putting her through that.

Do you have any advice on how I can explain the situation to them?

Coleen says

I feel your pain having gone through it myself when my first marriage ended. My sons Shane Jnr and Jake were seven and four at the time, and when I told them, Shane curled up in a little ball and howled like an injured animal, which I really wasn’t expecting. So be prepared that your daughter might not react in the way you expect.

When you tell them, it’s better if you can present a united front and do it together, with both of you providing lots of reassurance. I think the instant worry with children is that it means they won’t see their dad again, so explain you’ l l see both of them all the time, but you just won’t live in the same house.

When I told my sons it would mean two birthdays, two sets of presents and so on, I could see the cogs turning in their little brains, thinking, “OK, this might not be so bad after all”.

Let them ask questions and try to answer them all. Tell them how much you both love them and reassure them that the split had nothing to do with them.

Timing i s al so i mportant. Hold off until after Christmas but, equally, give them enough time afterwards to adjust to the news before you separate.