Ep. 48 How to Live Together While Deciding Whether to Divorce

What do you do when divorce has been brought up or just decided on but you’re still living together?

This is one of the most emotionally confusing stages of the divorce decision. You may still be sharing a bedroom, parenting together, eating dinner in the same kitchen, or managing bills and errands — but underneath all of that, the marriage feels uncertain.

In this episode of The Divorce Decision Podcast, I’m talking about how to live under the same roof while deciding whether to divorce.

You’ll learn how to:

• Set boundaries around when you talk about the marriage 
• Keep normal household conversations from turning into emotional emergencies 
• Create temporary living agreements around sleeping arrangements, parenting, responsibilities, and space 
• Decide what to tell friends, family, and kids 
• Stay kind without sending mixed messages or creating false hope 
• Know when outside support may help you navigate the decision with less damage 

If you’re in the painful in-between — not fully together, not fully apart — this episode will help you feel more grounded and less alone as you figure out what comes next. 

Book a complimentary call: kahoskins.com

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Transcript

Kari Hoskins (00:00.866)
Hey there everyone, welcome back to the Divorce Decision Podcast. I'm your host, Kari Hoskins, and today I wanted to take just a few minutes to talk to you about how to live in the same home after the divorce decision has been put out there on the table. So maybe you have been seriously questioning your marriage or contemplating divorce for a while, and you have finally told your spouse.

or you're getting ready to tell your spouse. Or maybe you have absolutely made the decision to get a divorce to file and now you're ready to tell them. Or maybe you're on the other side of the coin and you have found out that your spouse wants to get a divorce. Regardless of how you got here, it's hard. Regardless of how you got here, once the divorce decision is no longer like,

unspoken and theoretical, the emotional climate in your home is going to change very quickly. And living in the same house definitely gets a lot more challenging, definitely a lot trickier. So what I wanted to do today for you is I want to share a few suggestions on some ways to help you reduce unnecessary damage or like add more damage while you figure out

what's gonna happen next. So my first suggestion for you is the both of you need to sit down and figure out when you are and are not going to talk about the marriage and next steps. Okay, so basically what I'm saying here is that you need to create boundaries around when those conversations are going to happen. Here's the deal. You cannot live in this constant.

24-7 state of emotional marital relationship emergency. I even know, I think I just made that up. But you know what I mean, obviously because you're here, right? Once divorce is actually on the table, everything else in the home starts to feel loaded and heavy. But in truth, you still need to talk about normal life things.

Kari Hoskins (02:23.426)
especially if you have kids, right? So you have to worry about the kids. You have to worry about the dog, about who's gonna make dinner and who's going to the grocery store and who's gonna take the car in to get the oil change. And what about that Amazon package that needs to be returned? Who's gonna drop that off at UPS? The problem is once that divorce word is out there and you've explicitly put it on the table, normal life conversations

end up becoming more heated and they get mixed up with all of the pain that is happening in your life and in your relationship. And practical issues have a much bigger chance of turning into a fight about the marriage. And next thing you know, a conversation that started with whose turn is it to get gas in the car, turns into, you know, you're up until two in the morning with tears and yelling and drama. Okay.

And really what I'm hoping for is if you actually follow through and set these boundaries, it's going to help reduce the frequency of that happening. So again, what you wanna do is you wanna pick a specific time of day when you're going to have these conversations and then you stick to it. This includes phone conversations and text messages. So you need to adhere.

to the boundaries that you've agreed on. So for example, a lot of my clients have agreed that they don't want to talk about this first thing in the morning after they get up over coffee before work or when the kids are around getting ready for school, right? They pick a time after work that is like somewhere between six and eight p.m. Okay, and it's planned. So in the afternoon when everyone gets home from work and school and all that stuff, normal life things happen and the conversation

It's obviously thought about because it's in the back of your mind, but it isn't addressed until the agreed upon time. And that's when you sit down, talk about the marriage, and you talk about next steps. This also gives you an opportunity to figure out where to go to have the conversation. If kids are in the house, you need to pick a private place to have this conversation or the conversations, plural, right? Maybe you arrange for the kids to be somewhere else.

Kari Hoskins (04:46.475)
Maybe you arrange that you guys are somewhere else. Either way, it has to be done in private, which takes just a little bit of planning. I also want to throw out there that in your particular situation, you might just have other topics and conversations that also need boundaries beyond the divorce decision. I know with some of my clients, there are certain topics, things that are still unresolved, that have a lot of pain, have a lot of relationship history.

certain topics like that are off limits unless we are actually in a session with all three of us together. Because those conversations, even if you've already decided you want a divorce, they still matter down the road. And talking about them just carelessly can actually make things a lot worse for you. So if you're really thinking about this, what my goal here is for you is to help you keep your situation

from becoming even more reactive, more painful and more damaging than it already is, okay? And the more, I'm gonna call it contained, even though I'm not really sure that's the right word, but the more contained and respectful within your ability to, the best that you can, the more you can do that during this part of your decision and this part of the relationship, the smoother.

your decision making is going to be down the road. And if the divorce happens, these boundaries are going to be able to help you reduce some of the emotional and frankly, financial damage down the road. Cause all of this impacts who you pick if you choose a lawyer, it impacts how much custody, how much, how the money is separated, all of this stuff.

factors into your decision making about the divorce down the road. And if you happen to decide to rebuild, like you change directions, you change your mind, these boundaries and this structure will also help you in that area as well. My second suggestion is to create living agreements while you are in this phase, okay? So what I'm talking about here is the practical side of things. How are you going to live

Kari Hoskins (07:06.155)
while you were going through this uncertain time. I'm gonna give you some questions, even if you do not have the answers yet, it helps for you to start thinking about them and talking about them. So here are a few questions for you. Is anyone considering moving out? If so, who? And what is the timeline? What might need to happen before you make that decision? What might need to happen before you or your spouse moves out? Okay, because one of you,

might be assuming that space is coming soon, while the other one is assuming that you're both going to be living in the house while you're still trying to figure it out. This mismatch can very quickly make an already painful situation worse and more painful. Now if somebody does leave, what does this mean about the kids, about the finances, about the day-to-day responsibilities? These are all conversations that you need to have. Now if you are

still living in the same house and you do not know when someone is moving out. You do not have a plan for that yet. Maybe you haven't even thought about it until I just talked about it. What you do need to immediately do is figure out what the sleeping arrangements are. Are you gonna be sharing the same bedroom? Are you sharing the same bed? Is someone in the guest room? Is someone gonna be on the couch? What about the bathroom? Are you sharing the same bathroom? Are you using different bathrooms? Where's everyone's stuff gonna go?

Where are your areas of privacy? Because everyone needs privacy during this time. What are the parenting roles going to be? What about the daily responsibilities? You don't want to make assumptions about these things. When these types of things stay vague, it creates uncertainty. It creates or it not creates uncertainty. It adds to the uncertainty. It creates anxiety and it could actually create a little bit more of a power struggle and.

We definitely want to make sure that we are not adding to any more of the pressure that we already have. The third suggestion that I have for you is to talk about what you're going to tell other people, okay? If you have children, they've probably picked up on the fact that something is wrong, that something is going sideways, and they're probably going to start asking you questions. You and your spouse need to figure out how you're going to answer them, what you're going to say. Are you going to deflect for right now?

Kari Hoskins (09:32.981)
Are you going to sit down and have a conversation with them? When is that going to happen? Who's going to lead the conversation? Those are the things you guys need to figure out. Also, are you gonna continue hanging out socially as a couple for a while? If so, for how long? If not, what are you gonna tell your family and friends? Who's gonna tell them? Okay? Who are you going to tell about the situation?

What are you specifically going to say? So this last piece is especially, I think, important because you need to be really, really thoughtful about what you say and who you say it to. People remember what you said and how you talked about your spouse during this time. And if you bash each other to your family and your friends and then later decide to reconcile and rebuild your marriage, this can create a whole nother layer of

problems not just in your marriage, but for your other family relationships and friendships as well. Okay? So the more clear and intentional you are about those expectations, the less emotional chaos you're going to create while you are trying to figure out what happens next. My fourth suggestion for you is to be civil without creating false hope. Now this is a really big one. Some couples, even some of my couples,

they swing between icy cold distance and then acting like, oddly normal with each other. And that gets confusing really fast, especially if one of you is hoping to stay in the marriage and rebuild it, and the other one wants a divorce. And so really, it's about being respectful, decent, cooperative with each other, and not sending mixed messages.

or mixed signals. So I really felt compelled to bring this up because this has actually been coming up quite a bit with the couples that I'm working with right now. Okay, so what are some examples of sending a mixed message? Well, one of them is being physically affectionate or having sex. Now, this is actually very, very common. It happens in a lot of cases. Well, I shouldn't say a lot. Like I actually did look at the research about approximately 25 % of couples report having done this.

Kari Hoskins (11:56.243)
I personally think that like that statistic is pretty low. The other person is familiar and they're comforting to some extent and some people look at it as for like emotional closure. But you guys, while this is normal, this is a very harmful thing, can be a very harmful thing for the person that wants to stay in the marriage and repair it. It is frankly not fair to them.

even if it's their idea. And honestly, it's usually their idea because they're looking for connection and they're looking for hope. And when you follow through with that, okay, what you're doing is you're setting them up for more emotional distress down the road. And that is frankly not fair to them. So if you're entertaining this idea, either to ask your spouse for sex or to give in to having sex, I don't want you to feel shame or shame yourself.

for like considering it, I just want you to reconsider it and really think that through. Another example of a mixed signal would be leaning on your spouse for comfort while simultaneously emotionally exiting the marriage, right? So I've had couples where there's no one for the spouse that's going to leave, no one for them to lean on and process with other than me. And so what happens is they get sad

and they lean on the very person that they're leaving. And again, that just is not fair to the other person. So my rule of thumb is to be kind but clear, okay? Kind but clear. My last suggestion for you is to get professional help from someone who is specialized in divorce, either for just yourself or for the two of you as a couple. Now,

I'm not saying this because I specialize in divorce. I'm saying this because I have been on the other side and I understand from the other side of it how important this piece is. A good coach or a good therapist, couples therapist can really help you have the conversations that you need to have so you can start sorting through this stuff, okay? You need someone who can guide the conversation.

Kari Hoskins (14:19.086)
who can give you boundaries and structures so that it's not a verbal and emotional free-for-all. That just causes more damage. Because once the divorce decision is out there on the table, there's a whole other level of emotions to deal with alongside the logistics and the practical decisions that you have to deal with and that you have to make. And people who specialize in divorce should have...

good practical resources for you. So I was actually thinking about this, like how divorce itself is overwhelming. Like just thinking about the actual divorce process, like I should probably do an entire podcast on this. There are so many different ways you can get a divorce. You can go the DIY route. You can use online divorce services. You can use a mediator. You can go for a collaborative divorce, a traditional like lawyer representation negotiation divorce.

There might be litigation involved where there's a contested divorce that goes to the court. Maybe arbitration, legal separation. Some states, they require mediation or settlement conferences if there's a trial before the trial. There are so many things to consider and it's way easier if you have people working with you who are familiar with divorce proceedings. So listen.

If this is the season that you're in, if this is where you are at, first of all, I just want to say sincerely, I am sorry that you are hurting and I am sorry that your spouse is hurting. I know how challenging and how difficult this time is, okay? And I really am hoping that this episode gave you some helpful things to think about and some ways maybe to keep you a little bit more grounded through all of the emotional chaos.

uncertainty that you are likely either facing or that you're anticipating facing. And if you want help navigating your own specific situation, please I invite you to book a complimentary call with me. You can do that either by clicking on the link in the show notes or by visiting my website, kahoskins.com. I'd be more than happy just to have a chat with you. Okay my friends,

Kari Hoskins (16:37.376)
I am Kari Hoskins. This is the Divorce Decision Podcast, and I'll talk to you next time.