‘Jon & Kate Plus 8′: A House Divided

UPDATE: ‘Jon & Kate Plus 8′ Goes on Unplanned Production Hiatus. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

“Kate and I have decided to separate.”

After days of hype and speculation, everyone officially heard confirmation that ‘Jon & Kate Plus 8‘ are indeed facing “a new chapter.” The news leaked Monday afternoon that the couple filed for a legal separation after 10 years of marriage.

“We can’t go back now,” says Kate, “we can only move forward.” The ‘big announcement’ follows the surprising revelation from February that Jon had been allegedly cheating on his wife.

In separate interviews, Jon and Kate Gosselin appeared somber as they finally expressed on-camera the toll the last four months have taken on them.

Sometimes you go “off the tracks” is how Jon put it.

“It’s just not good for us to be arguing in front of our kids,” Jon said. “And we can’t be cordial with one another, so we decided to separate.”

Watch how Jon and Kate revealed the news in the clip below:

“I don’t hate Kate,” he says. “But I have to do what’s best for me….and my kids.”

Kate, for her part, is “not fond of the idea.”

“I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to do this alone,” a teary Kate said, with a box of tissues by her side now instead of her husband.

“I know it’s necessary,” she went on to say, “and my goal is peace for the kids.”

But the show will go on.

The children will live with mom in “their” house, as both Jon and Kate described it, and the parents will divide their time with ‘the eight.’

Jon will still appear on the series, but he’ll be interviewed separately. “I won’t be here every day,” Jon explained, “we have a schedule set…it’s going to be different, you know. I will miss them a lot.”

Kate’s biggest worry now? “The label. That we failed. And how that will affect the kids.”

Look at photos of the Gosselin clan here

While Jon’s affair scandal was never directly mentioned, Jon summed up the breakdown of the marriage as an overall failure to communicate.

“I was too passive, I just let her rule the roost. Now I stood up on my own two feet and I’m proud of myself,” Jon declared.

Kate admitted, “I’m kind of lost. He won’t hold a discussion with me, he won’t talk to me. He has a lot of anger.”

The pushy missus has received a lot of the blame for her husband’s unhappiness, but it was hard not to have at least some sympathy for Kate during the hour, who, if anything, is strong…and self-aware.

“I may have become hard and crass and jaded–but that is my survivor-self saying I will not lay down and die,” says Kate, who gave herself half a day to “fall apart and hyperventilate.”

“I’m tired of smiling on the outside when I’m crying on the inside,” she added. “I just need relief now, I need to turn the page.”

The tension-filled confessionals were interspersed with segments that featured the couple’s eight children playing in the backyard in their new “crooked houses”–and the irony was not lost as we watched the Gosselins become yet another family from a broken home.

More on These Topics: Jon & Kate Plus 8 | Jon Gosselin | Kate Gosselin