[DivorcedWoman]

I've posted an earlier thread titled boyfriend and lack of initiative. One of the other members has been really supportive and has given me some good insight and feedback on the issue so I truly appreciate it.

I'm in a spot now where I think maybe I needed to end the relationship but don't have much experience doing that and am concerned about how to do it since we both have kids. My bf daughter is 8 and my son is 6 1/2. We have spent 99% of our time together and including the time we have our kids on the same weekend.

As I mentioned in my earlier thread we weren't getting along last weekend and he wants a break but can't tell me for how long. I have fears about abandoment, etc. and am scared that if he needs a break from a tough weekend that even though he says he will be there to support me if I have an episode, I'm BP1, I don't feel any sense of security now. I am questioning everything. Doesn't help that I am an overanlayzer but here I am.

So, what advice do you have on how to end it as amicably as possible and how to break the news to the kids?

I did read on one website that you should get everyone together and tell the kids together that you are not getting along and you need to be apart. That advice was for a divorce and didn't see any advice on a bf/gf situation with kids.

Thanks for your help!

[Leed]

Hi ~ It seems a little drastic that he wants a break after only one bad weekend, but I guess there isn't much you can do. I have to think tho that if you've been together that long, he'll miss you and realize that this "break" wasn't such a good idea afterall.

I would think that sitting the kids down and talking to them together would be the same whether it was a divorce situation or boyfriend/girlfriend. It's all the same ~ you were all living together or close to it. You were with each other ALOT. It would just be a matter of telling them that they wouldn't be seeing each other for awhile ~ or perhaps not as often.

I understand your feelings of abandonment. It WOULD be scary. But you might as well find out now, rather than later when you've invested even more years in the relationship. It would be a shame for this to end -- but better now than when the kids are 12 or 14 -- when THEY have lived their whole life with one another and developed a huge attachment to each other. Now they're resilient ~ later on they won't be so much. Best of luck ~ and I hope things work out for you the way you want them to. God bless. Hugs, Lee