Your daughter's response was not due to her being smart. She responded the way she did because in her mind her parents are going to stay together. She is four; she can't intellectualize that sort of information and imagine what it would mean for her life. She does not have the capacity to do that. Yes, your children would survive and you would all "muddle through somehow." What I don't understand is why that is acceptable thinking on your part. There isn't a child born who does not deserve more than to just survive and muddle through. Don't fool yourself into thinking that when you leave your husband your children's world won't be shattered. Regardless of what CM says, children have emotions that have nothing to do with the cues their parents give them. How well they do emotionally depends on how stable the foundation of their lives are. Home and family, all they have ever known, is the very foundation of a child's emotional life. You can communicate with her until the cows come home but she will not be all right if her parents split. She will go through an emotional crisis and any parent who divorces needs to understand that and not buy into the "she will be fine" myth about children and divorce. I've spent the morning in a psychiatrist's office with my 16 year old son. His father and I divorced nine years ago. My child was seven when his father decided he wanted a divorce. His father thought that he would be fine...he would adjust. That thinking caused his father to ignore and deny the problems his child experienced because of the divorce. Now, nine years later my child still suffers because of someone who thought his son would be "fine, no matter what." When you finally make the decision to leave your husband, do me a favor. Get your children into therapy immediately. Do it before there is a separation. Make them and not your need to leave your husband your main priority because if you don't you may be sitting in a psychiatrist’s office with them years after you have moved on.