Hi
My lot coped with it quite well, I feel. Perhaps it was fortunate that their father did very little with us as a family unit though, and even when I bought family tickets to local attractions (I used to go to a local farm place more or less every week as they loved it), I bought a ticket for "one adult and four children"!
I told my children very simply that their Dad and I were no longer going to live together, and that I was going to find a new place for us to live. They cried, but I reassured that Mummy and Daddy loved them so very much and that would never change.
They would ask questions and I'd give them very simple answers, and always reminded them we both loved them.
After we moved, we were playing frisbee on the beach (back then, private lets weren't easy to come by, and we were very lucky to get one by a beach!), and eldest, then 12, broke down and said we weren't a family anymore. I hugged him and told him to look around and tell me what was different to every other time we'd played frisbee. He picked up the frisbee and somehow we never looked back.
Very rarely did we have tears. The main ones were over the fact their father didn't phone them back when they left messages on his phone.
He saw them regularly at first. It's when he would cancel contact that I experienced anger from the eldest.
Sorry if I've gone on too much here! But I have to say that at the time it was never as hard as I expected to be, and the children were never as sad as I expected them to be. I really do feel I was incredibly lucky.
We've hit many lows since though - and due to divorce - and they are pretty happy children. My eldest, now 19, drives me nuts though, but that's his age!
Please do ask questions, and if I can answer them, I will.
Best wishes
Jane
