[whateverdidiwants]

My stbx and I are telling our 5.5 yo dd tonight about our divorce. Everything has been very amicable so far, all the papers have been agreed on and filed, and we've been putting off telling her until it was time for him to move out.

He's going to be moving into a (very nice!) apartment about 10 minutes away, slowly over the course of the next week or two. She's going to have her own room there, so she'll have space to call her own at both houses. He'll have visitation two evenings a week, and then every other weekend. (It'll probably end up being more than that, since we're getting along fine and we want to make this transition as easy for her as possible, so he'll most likely be over for a little while most evenings, at least in the near future)

Any suggestions, hints, things you wish you had done differently?

 

[hotmamacita]

No advice. Just a big

. I wish there was some way your family didn't have to go through this.

My parents divorced when I was 6. And it was sudden, from my perspective, and a lot of pressure to pretend everything was okay. So any advice that I would give would be from a different perspective anyway.

 

[rubelin]

we didn't tell the kids about our relationship, only about what was happening (daddy moving out, when they'd see him, etc) and it has worked out very well. The subject of divorce has come up with my 7 yr old in the last month or so (dh moved out 3 mo ago), and he's been pretty blase' about it. They only need to know what is going to happen in their lives and how it's going to be for them. Answer any questions simply and don't give more information than they need.