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Lemon said:
I was interested to read about your expected timing. Do you mind my asking why you are waiting to the Fall to separate? After we decided not to work to save our marriage, I decided I wanted to be the one to file. It is giving me a sense of confidence. I have been surprised about how fast the process actually is. My attorney says we could be divorced by this fall if everything goes as expected. That is a little scary and faster than I expected.

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Lemon, we don't plan to separate until pretty close to when the divorce is final. In my state, once you file, you have to wait a minimum of 3 months to before you can make the divorce final. We'll probably spend most of that 3 month waiting period as we have spent almost the last 2 years, living together in the same house but different bedrooms, being good parents to our kids, sharing parenting responsibilities, and being fairly civil to each other. (We're actually getting along better now that we are more open about the divorce and have been through 2 months of couples counseling.) If we have a reason to separate sooner, we will. I will be staying in our house when we divorce and he wants to buy one for himself, so doesn't want to have to move twice, but instead just move directly from my house to his new one. We haven't filed for divorce yet but will probably join together to file, although I will be the petitioner. Joining together to file saves a lot in legal fees. Right now we are starting work on the financial settlement, which could take some time. We already did quite a bit of work with my therapist on the parenting plan, although we'll need to do some revisions with the lawyers. A big question for us is do we want our divorce final in 2007 or 2008 (affects the 2007 tax return in a big way). It all takes time.... Lemon, if your divorce is moving too fast, just slow it down.

If you read The Good Divorce, let me know what you think. It was very inspirational to me.

I sometimes get sad when I realize the future I had expected will not be. Growing old together, spending our retirement years together, being grandparents together. All that is lost. Last summer on vacation we were wandering through an old, historic graveyard, and I saw so many couples buried next to each other, with twin tombstones, "my beloved".... It just broke my heart because I realized that was never going to be me, and I had thought it would.