Have you and your spouse decided to get a divorce but are still living in the same house? There may be compelling reasons to do so — you can’t afford separate places, you want to maintain a stable family situation for your children, proximity to your place of employment, etc.
Your date of separation has legal implications in many states. It can be tricky proving that you are really separated if, for family or economic reasons, you are still living together in the same house.
Here is a checklist of what you should do if you and your spouse are still living together but are separated.
- Establish and maintain the intent to separate permanently or indefinitely.
- Use separate bedrooms.
- Do not engage in romantic or sexual intimacy.
- Stop wearing wedding rings.
- Don’t shop for your spouse’s food, prepare his meals, or shop for his clothing and other necessities.
- Don’t let your spouse shop for you, and don’t use his food or other purchases.
- Do not eat meals together, except for special occasions such as holidays or children’s birthdays.
- Make each spouse responsible for caring for their own space within the home, such as a bedroom.
- Make each spouse responsible for doing their own laundry.
- Use a separate and secure computer.
- Use a separate and secure telephone/cell phone for personal and business calls.
- Establish separate checking accounts.
- Cease socializing together, e.g., do not attend parties, movies, theater, etc. together.
- Do not attend church together.
- Where there are minor children, interact as parents only where strictly necessary from the children’s perspective and their well-being, e.g., meeting with school officials. If you both attend your child’s game, don’t sit together.
- Don’t give gifts to your spouse for birthdays, Christmas, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, etc.
- Let close associates and relatives know that you are not living as man and wife, but are separated within the residence.
- Have a third party come to the home from time to time to personally observe the two spouses’ separate and distinct living quarters (bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.).
- Utilize separate entrances to residence if feasible.
- Be prepared to explain why you are living separately under the same roof, e.g., financial considerations; unavailability of separate residence; easing children’s transition to parental separation, etc.
Nice to find this site and see that I’m not alone. I feel stuck in a marriage that should never have happened. We’ve been basically talking separation for the past 9 months but we are tied into a rental lease until a few weeks from now so living together still (he refused to move). He started sleeping on the couch a couple weeks ago then told me tonight that we are married, he’s paying bills, so it is his RIGHT to sleep in the bed. So here I am on the couch as I am usually up late studying. We only have a 2/2 and we have a toddler who sleeps in her own room. I’m not sure how this will pan out with divorce if we can’t really have separate quarters and he’s refusing to sleep in a different room.
I feel that there has always been an issue with finances. He calls me cheap b/c I don’t offer to take him out to eat but I have to ask for reimbursement for things that I’ve paid for that are shared expenses (daycare, daughters copays). He never buys our daughter clothes or shoes unless I tell him to and I rarely have. I buy more than my fair share of the food and with her expenses, I feel that I am paying 50%+ but he disagrees and says I need to pay more. I pay all of the utilities (electric, cell, cable) and reimburse him for my part of the health insurance. He complained that wasn’t enough and said I needed to pay 40% of the bills (mortgage, electric, cell, cable). I already pay 100% of the utilities. I offered 40% of the rent. This leads to a big argument b/c he wants to add up the mortgage, electric, cell, cable and then deduct all of the utilities that I pay to come up with a bigger amount to pay. It makes absolutely no sense.
My husband lost his job only a few months after being married. I said I’d pay for everything for a few months. The problems came when he was job searching. I felt that a good husband would take any job to help contribute a fair share but he turned down a maintenance position and refused to utilize his management experience in the restaurant industry and a reference for the cable company here. He said they didn’t pay enough and that he didn’t want to be a manager anymore. He decided to take a server position 4 months later far away so no one would see him. He wasn’t making much money so that left me paying over half of the bills for at least 6 months. Our agreement was that he’d pay the entire rent for at least 6 months when he got a decent paying job. This happened at 15 months…and after 2 mos of working, he was already asking when I’d start contributing to the rent. Am I the only one who sees this as abnormal? I am done with being with someone who doesn’t act in the way I feel a husband should. Anytime I want to have a day to myself to go to the mall or get some type of pampering, he calls or texts my phone asking if I’m done after a couple hours. I’ve stopped leaving the house unless I’m going somewhere with him or my daughter. He even pitched a fit when I went to dinner with my daughter and my male best friend who came in to town to meet her. It’s like being in a prison. All I do is go to work and to the park with my daughter. I have no friends or family here. He makes plans with his friends or comes home and goes to the gym with no consideration of if I want to do something alone. He’s on his phone or laptop all night when her gets home or all day on the weekends playing fantasy baseball but anytime I look at my phone I get questioned. If I get a text, I get questioned. He’s very critical and controlling. I breastfed and worked full-time while he was unemployed and he called me lazy for not cooking much or doing the dishes when he’s home every day. It was exhausting enough working 12 hrs and trying to find time to pump. Come home and breastfeed and pump. Not to mention clean and sterilize all of the pump accessories. He’s just been so verbally abusive and critical that it has rubbed off. I’ve now started criticizing everything he does. I don’t like the person I’ve become. I’ve lost interest in sex with him and that’s another complaint. We have a 2 yr old and I want her to grow up in a happy home with both parents but I can’t take it anymore. I want to leave but am also feeling overwhelmed about being a single mom. Am I the only one who sees the issues in the relationship? We’ve tried counseling and I felt that I was made out to be the bad guy. I was told “at least he’s trying” and to “tough it out a couple months” when he was finally about to start a decent paying job when I was mentally and physically exhausted. My schedule has always revolved around his. He says he has no problem with paying for daycare but then complains if I’m working during the week. He then complains that I’m working every weekend if I don’t. Always complaining. He is his mother’s child. He’ll never be happy with anything.
how do you continue to live together when one partner is living in denial that a separation is happening? My husband of 15 years and I have been on a downward spiral for years and I finally asked for a separation. we tried the counseling thing and that didn’t work . we are trying to stay friends while the assests are sold but it will be another 6 or so months. He always avoided conflict and refused to talk about anything negative which was part of the problem as nothing ever gets resolved . we have a 10 year old child together . I sleep in a separate room and we don’t do any of the daily household things for each other like laundry or cleaning but do eat meals together with our child. I want to remain friends for the sake of co parenting but he almost acts as if nothing is happening and if he ignores it , its not happening… makes me think of an ostrich with his head in the sand. cant afford to move out until the house sells though so we need to work together on that and that will take a while.
Sounds like you are doing what you can to make it through.
In Illinois, if you are separated but living together it is up to the judge’s discretion whether to let you file for a divorce if one party is contesting the divorce. You’re supposed to be able to prove you’ve been living separate lives for 6 months if you want to divorce for irreconcilable differences. However, if both parties agree to amicably divorce then there’s no problem.
I think these are all good ideas if you need to prove you’ve been separated for 6 months due to state laws before you can file for divorce. The thing about following all these rules is that if one party doesn’t agree to the divorce, after the 6 month period you have to be able to prove to the judge that you’ve been living separately under the same roof. Your spouse could contest this if he or she has been doing your laundry, making your meals, paying your expenses etc. So, before bashing the author for listing these rules, I think you should try to decide what the overall goal you have for the separation is. If you want a divorce but your spouse doesn’t and you need to prove to a judge that you really were living separately even though you were under the same roof, then following the above rules would certainly help your case. You’d probably need witnesses that can attest to the fact that you are truly living separately.
My son is in this position right now. He wants to get a divorce but his spouse does not. They are living separately for 6 months so he can prove that there are irreconcilable differences. He’s taken all the above steps including not wearing his wedding ring, he has her wedding ring in his possession. They have separate bedrooms, eat separately. His wife has never cooked his meals, done his laundry, cleaned the home or made any household contributions. She keeps every penny of the money she makes to get her hair and nails done, pay for a personal trainer, buy weight loss products etc. He pays for everything related to daily living even though they make a similar amount of money. All bills for the household except the cell phones are in his name alone because her credit is terrible. She has massive credit card debt that is all in default. (Fortunately she had it before the marriage so hopefully when he can finally divorce he won’t be saddled paying her debt off.) Her reckless spending and refusal to contribute to the household in any way is the reason he wants a divorce. However, she refuses. Why would she agree? She lives as a child as though it is her daddy paying for everything. Another blessing is that they have no children. When he was researching divorce he found out that he had to have this 6 month separation to prove the irreconcilable differences and force her into a divorce. During this time he is seeking counseling and he has encouraged her to seek counseling separately. Naturally, she refuses. He is hoping that by following the steps outlined above, he can show the judge that he has made every effort to work things out with her and has lived completely separately all this time. We have offered to let him move in with us for 6 months but since he is the one paying for all the expenses of the home, he does not want to move out of it.
Anyway, I don’t think any of these steps listed above are unreasonable in his case.
Wondering if anyone can give me advice. I’m in the UK. My husband and I have been together for 17 years, married for the last 5. I decided I wanted to seperate due to his lack of trying to get a job, sleeping seperatly due to his online gaming obsession. I work, pay all the bills etc, both our names are obv on the rent card (we don’t have a mortgage and rent). I go to work, come home, do all the housework because he hasn’t moved out his chair all day. So I asked him for a break which he took badly and just proceeded to tell me if I want a break, I should go. I now know in myself I want to seperation leading to divorce as I don’t think he’ll change. I also have a 19 year old son from a previous relationship who has autism and I don’t want him to be living in a house of bad feeling. Can anyone help me with wher I stand on this. I’ve not had any legal advice as of yet but from what I’ve read, it needs to be through mutual agreement that one of us moves out. Thanks in advance
You’ll need to check with an attorney in the UK to see what the laws provide in this regard.
You are an idiot. The only advice you give is: seek the advice of an attorney. You are a financial expert?
Yes, I am a financial expert. And when people ask legal questions, I am smart enough to know that I’m not an attorney and I don’t know the laws in their state. Would you really rather I guess at what the law might be? No, of course not — that would be idiotic, right?
I reacently moved to florida because my wife was offers a position in the jacksonville office we have bin together for 9 years we have a 7 year old but in the last few months she started to act diffrently then I find out that she is atracted to one of her co workers. Shortly their after she tells me she wants to separate then she wanted more than that she wants a divorece. The problem is that I left my job all of my extended family back in California I left everything for her now I am here in florida with no job what so ever trying to find one with no luck. The other problem is through all of this my love for her is their I understand that I have to let it be, I am so confused every time I see her I want to hug her kiss her feel her close to me but that will never happen
She told me that the reason she stoped living me was because I was verbally abuseve did not consider her feelings but in that I was not the only one. She always made more money than me and keeps telling me that she is over supporting me.Now I am going through a depression I try not to brake down I am botteling everything so my son those not see what is going on I want to talk to some one but I do not have any support. Out here and today I got another blow, the evidence was their in plane sight almost like she was trying to throw it in my face, she slept with that co worker. We are not divorced yet but are sleeping in diffrent rooms I due all the dinners take care of my son the pets and all she douse is stay in her office in her computer on face book or talking to that coworker I need help because I do not know what do u am so confused
Get an attorney and now u get the child and support cause the affair. Get her on video admitting it.