Getting a divorce, trying to figure out what's best for the kids

My husband (29M) and I (32F) are getting a divorce. We have a five and two year old and I'm 39 weeks pregnant with our third. Basically, my husband has a bunch of issues with depression and anger and he's half-heartedly tried therapy and an antidepressant and is tired of trying. He believes it's not good for him to be around the kids most of the time and I'm tired of dealing with his issues. We've also done about a year and a half of couples counseling.I'm the primary support of our family. He has recently gotten a job that he's doing well at, but makes only a dollar or so above minimum wage. I make about five times what he does, so I'm not worried about financial issues or anything like that. He's not going to owe child support no matter how little or much he sees the kids.His current plan is to either live in a van or rent a room in a trailer with several of his co-workers. He would be pretty close to us. He was upfront that either situation would not be good for him having the kids over, so his time with them would probably be in our home (which I solely own from before our marriage).In spring of next year, he plans on moving to Alaska to do seasonal (tourist, not fishing) work for ~6 months, at which point he would have little to no contact with any of the kids for that period of time. Then he would come back near us for the off season and work or not.I think that having him first move out, giving the kids time to adjust to that, and then having another big transition to him being gone completely is going to be traumatizing and upsetting for them, especially the five year old. I'm not happy about him going to AK, but I think it would be better for the kids if he just leaves, instead of putting them through him leaving twice.He wants to "make good memories" with them over the next 8-10 months. His reasoning is that if he doesn't live with us, he can just come over when he's feeling good and then when he leaves, the kids will have good memories of him instead of remembering him as an angry person. When I pointed out that it's generally best to have a schedule, he said he could commit to a schedule because even if he was in a bad mood when he was scheduled to have the kids, he could hide it for the short period of time he'd be around them.At the most, he'd be seeing them for about an hour in the evening the five days he works, and then one full day. More likely, he'd see them about an hour in the evening for 2 nights a week, then one full day. This is the schedule of "me time" he says he needs (four evenings and one full day for himself).He also says that this way we can slowly prepare the kids for daddy being gone for a long period of time. So after they got used to the arrangement of him being out of the house, we'd start introducing the idea that he was going to be gone completely for a few months, but would eventually be back.Another issue is drug and alcohol use. He is a medical marijuana patient, which I generally don't have a problem with. But he is also an oxy addict who is currently not using (since end of February as far as I know). However, the place he works is filled with drug users. He has told me that he could get any drug he wants if he wanted to.He also does not drink responsibly. In the last two weeks, he has had two incidents where he has driven after drinking. One was late at night to bring a co-worker home after they'd all gone out drinking at a bar. We had a rental car for a couple of days while ours was in the shop and I was the only person supposed to be driving it.The second was just this past week. He had spent the day drinking on the water (kayaking) and then went to pick the kids up from the friend who had been watching them. He drank another couple of beers there and then drove home with the kids in the car. When he got home, he was visibly intoxicated.I think that especially given the culture of drugs in his workplace, and that he will be moving into a more miserable environment (renting a room with coworkers in a trailer or living out of a van), he is going to be much more likely to abuse drugs and/or alcohol.We have a couples counseling appointment in about two weeks where we're going to ask about this, but I wanted to see what other people have experienced. Is it better to just have the one big goodbye, or to kinda transition to it by having him move out first, then eventually leave completely? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/28YCL7R