Separating is not divorcing. Please keep that in mind. It is, instead, the second step in seeing if there's a better way to manage your family.

There is a connection between environment and stress on both ends, with excessive clutter and excessive attention to detail both holding the power to distract us from our ability to love fully, work productively and relax effectively. So, what makes sense to me is for each of us to think this through on a few fronts: what constitutes a comfortable environment for us, how much effort we're willing to put into it relative to other priorities, and how well-matched we need our partners' preferences to be to ours.

You don't want someone who can't tell the difference between having a different opinion and dismissing your opinion.

You can't make someone agree with you, not even when you're 100 percent sure you're right.

For me, the greatest source of frustration was trying to work with a willful child when there was something else I wanted - say, to get the child to go to bed so I could have my own time. Just the promise of the time, and feeling that promise slip away, was enough to introduce a whole other element of stress into the encounter.

Almost no one can take on an entire future in one step, much less while reeling emotionally.

There's nothing wrong with being happy somewhere, even if it's the little pond you grew up in, as long as you are in fact comfortable vs. bored.