How To Deal With Separation When You Have A Child?

I'm having trouble deciding what to do in regards to this relationship I'm in. I'm currently separated from my wife, with our daughter having lived with us together for her whole life. She's two currently. The mother and I don't get along much as we have little in common and constantly get into arguments. We only married as she was pregnant beforehand, and we hadnt known each other much before that. We're both young, have help financially from our parents, and had been living together for nearly two years. Is this a good time to separate as our daughter is still very young? Is it wrong to separate at all as we're married and have a child? I feel like we should end things between us, but I still have some feelings for her as she's my daughter's mother, and I felt strongly going into the marriage that we should both be there together for our child.

 

I don't have any practical experience but my thought is that young kids can sense things they might not even understand, they can feel the bad vibes, hear the tension in voices...
If you and your wife can't behave somewhat lovingly toward each other around the kid then maybe it would be better to separate while the child is still very young and spare her the subliminal damage of exposure to constant drama between mommy and daddy.

 

It's a tough situation, sorry to hear that.

I think maybe the first thing to try is marriage counseling. If you can't work things out so that you can stay together, then hopefully you can at least avoid having a messy divorce.

If you can't fix the marriage, just trying to tough it out would probably make both of you miserable and your daughter too.

Respect for trying to be a good daddy.

Hope that this all works out

 

It's not easy. It's an awful thing for the parents. The child some too.

Could you and your wife coexist as housemates with your own social lives?

 

Thank you for the suggestion of marriage counseling. I don't know if our relationship is strong enough to mend again, but we could at least give that route a try.

I live in my parents home, and there wasnt the most space to start with. We (me, my wife, and our daughter) all lived togther in the same room, previously. If she were to move back in, it would likely be the same set up.

 

The purpose of marriage counseling wouldn't necessarily be to fix the marriage, but to get the best result under the circumstances (either stay together or separate on good terms).

Working things out in your marriage is different from necessarily living in the same space.

Frankly, it would be difficult under any circumstances for a couple to live with a child in the same room. It's just too crowded.

It would probably be better for now to live separately, but just work on fixing the relationship

 

I suppose it can't hurt to try the counseling. But it sounds like you two never had a relationship to start with.

I think theProdu brought up a good point, there is no doubt that your daughter can sense the tension in the house. That isn't doing her any favors. Maybe counseling can fix that, maybe not. It should at least me a first step.

 

So you have a combined housing/income problem and also a relationship/child care problem.

You might want to try calling 211 or visiting 211.org if you are in the US or Canada.

They could direct you to a variety of relevant resources.