My “perfect” husband and I have a secret pact to separate when our daughter turns 16

WITH a successful husband, a loving daughter and a blossoming career, Anna*, 49, seems to have the perfect family.

But for the past five years she’s been living a lie…

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Hearing my daughter talk about her day at school and how excited she was about the Spanish vacation we had planned for the semester broke my heart.

With tears stinging the corners of my eyes, I quickly grabbed the plates from the table and rushed to the kitchen to calm down.

My beautiful 14-year-old daughter, the most precious thing in the world, has no idea that her father Jack and I plan to separate and divorce as soon as she turns 16.

Once Rose* graduates from high school, the happy family she grew up in will be gone forever.

With two years to go, things really can’t happen fast enough for me.

Jack*, 52, and I have been married for 19 years.

We had a beautiful, romantic wedding near London, but despite being together for almost twenty years, we’ve spent the last five years counting down the days until Rose turns sixteen so we can part ways and move on with the rest of our lives.

And we’re not the only ones: according to research, more than a fifth (22 percent) of parents stay together longer than they want, purely for the sake of their children.

While I know Jack has no plans to get together with anyone else until we break up, I have already met someone else through work.

Living a lie

Although I’m not going to do anything about it right now, I’ve been dreaming about what might happen if Jack and I go our separate ways.

On the surface, it seems like I have the perfect, happy family.

But our secret pact to break up once Rose graduates from high school proves we’re living a lie.

It is not a decision we have come to lightly.

Jack, a lawyer, and I fell madly in love when we met through work.

So much so that I moved from my original home, Canada, to Britain.

I left behind close family, friends and a successful legal career.

I retrained in British law and put everything I had into our lives here.

Rose was born four years after our wedding and although the first few years were blissful, things started to fall apart when she was about nine.

There is no hatred, but we simply don’t enjoy each other’s company anymore.

There were no big fights or throwing plates at each other; instead, life became dominated by our jobs.

We are both fortunate to have good careers, but climbing the career ladder and using our pay increases to buy a holiday home in Spain and pay for Rose’s private school fees came at a price.

We went from eating every meal together as a family to just one of us being home most nights while the other worked late the office.

Our once vibrant sex life also began to suffer.

Stress or fatigue always seemed to get in the way.

Now our idyllic family vacation has turned into just me or Jack taking Rose, with the other parent tagging along for the first or last few days.

There is no hatred, but we simply don’t enjoy each other’s company anymore.

Fortunately, Rose doesn’t associate our absences with anything other than long working hours.

Like most teenagers, she is too wrapped up in her own world to suspect anything.

When I first broached the idea of ​​splitting up with Jack, it was with the intention of ending our marriage sooner rather than later.

But he was convinced he didn’t want that.

Prick my conscience

He has a son from a previous relationship and because he hadn’t spent as much time with him as he would have liked, he wanted Rose to grow up in a safe home with both parents around.

I come from a broken home and always longed for a father figure.

My own father was never present, so it made sense to me to stay together for Rose’s sake.

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That’s how we decided: with heavy hearts – about our secret pact.

It was Jack’s idea, but I went along with it willingly and admired the fact that he wanted to put our daughter’s happiness ahead of ours.

Financially it also made sense.

As lawyers, we know how messy divorces can be when one spouse decides to dig in their heels.

We have started our own negotiations about how we are going to divide everything.

We are also frugal and know that it makes financial sense to run one household instead of two.

When we first discussed not being together, we had guidance.

Jack wanted to try to recapture the early years of our marriage, when we were both in love.

But we had tried things like date nights and it hadn’t worked.

Nothing physical happened between me and the man I hope to develop a relationship with.

But he recently divorced and has made it clear that he would happily pursue something with me as soon as I give him the green light.

I hate the fact that she has no idea that her world will then implode and there is nothing we can say or do to prepare her for it.

I know how shocked Rose will be when her father and I break up, because she hasn’t seen any angry words or anger.

When I hear her talking to her friends about the prom in two years, it always pricks my conscience.

And the few dinner times we eat together as a family are tough because she is so excited about many things and she loves to chat with both of us.

She is looking forward to working hard over the next two years, then celebrating and having a big celebration before taking her A Levels.

She dreams of becoming a lawyer.

I hate the fact that she has no idea that her world will then implode and there is nothing we can say or do to prepare her for it.

• Names changed, photo posed by models

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