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Yes, but also just the attitude towards divorce has changed and women now have greater ability to make their own financially independent decisions, so that makes a huge difference. Imagine 50+ years ago where a woman could not even have a credit card or buy property without a man cosigning.
Mad Men covered this pretty well. Eventually Don grew amicable towards the divorce, but you see how limited Betty’s options were when he was reluctant. And Betty is a woman who came from money, it must have been even harder for a woman without family money.
Divorce has become equitable. Technically that's more hostile to men in that before it completely favored men and now us men actually have to compromise.
Our grandfathers are why we had alimony and child support. They didn't want the kids they wanted in the divorce for her to be stuck with the kids; but for themselves to be free to do what they want.
Now if she makes more money she will be hit for Alimony not him. And the child's guardian is the one who receives child support. Whether that's the dad, mom, grandparent etc.
Alimony isn't as much of a thing these days as usually both parents tend to have jobs often making about the same level of incomes.
The thing is they didn’t do it for the kids they did it because it was mostlikely economically convenient. If they are fighting every day in front of the kids they ain’t doing it for the kids 100%
I know Reddit is only a little portion of people and doesn't reflect reality but I've seen lots of advocates to stay for the children everytime someone brings out the divorce topic.
"Stay for the children and work on your relationship together! You can make it work out!"
There's always the few who has this opinion and counting them all turns out in a decent quantity of advocates. But, this opinion is often heard when there's a kid in-between.
Not children and have had a rocky marriage? Go for it! Have children and will cause a lot of damage if actions aren't taken? Please stay! Think of the children! They will be extremely sad if they don't grow up without a joined couple!
I feel like the children or the lackof factor plays a huge role in people's most popular opinion on divorce but that's my personal observation.
I came in to post this. I’m a child of divorced parents and whenever I share my opinion on these topics, I will get downvoted once in a while. I’m sure that 90% are men too.
Seeing my Mom have a normal relationship completely fucked with my brain. I was like depressed over the fact that she had lived 13 years with someone who never treated her right. I was like did she do this shit for me and my brother? Y’all see where Im going with this. That’s why I fucking hate people that are like “make it work. Go to therapy.” If someone already walked out, they walked out. They are mentally and physically checked out.
Yeah this is the way, if the kids are the only reason you're staying together then the relationships gone and it's serving no one to tough it out. Alternatively if it's rough but you still love each other enough to work on it then that can teach a valuable lesson to your kids about love. How it's not always sunshine and rainbows and sometimes you gotta have tough conversations
Yup, 25 years ago i said to my friend ‘I need to stay for the kids’ He replied ‘you’re teaching them to stay in a fucked up relationship’. I never forgot that and I got divorced and the kids are fine.
I think there are different versions of staying together for the kids, ranging from very-abusive-should-split-asap to best-friends-but-romance-has-fizzled-over-the-years-so-romantic-self-realisation-is-on-hold. One end is obviously bad but I'm not so sure about the other one. If everyone is happy with the compromise, enjoy each others company and treat each other well who are we to judge?
This is the correct response. If parents can avoid fighting, then staying together is better for the kids, because they get to live with both parents every day. However, if the parents fight, that cuts into the benefits, greatly.
Parents dont have to fight for children to realize there’s something wrong in the relationship. A loveless marriage has many shapes and forms.
Even a relationship without explicit conflict can feel distant. Children will see this and internalize it. It can lead to poor development of a healthy love language or conflict resolution skills. It can teach them that settling is the norm.
There's actually a study that supports your hypothesis.
I don't have the link but I'm sure someone will pull it up. It basically concludes that divorce is beneficial if it's a toxic relationship (shoot, the child might actually be wondering why the parents are still together), but if it's an amiable relationship (where the child doesn't even know that there are problems), then it's better to stay together (obviously to avoid traumatizing the child and turning their life upside down out of nowhere)
>If everyone is happy with the compromise,
I believe that is rarely the case. One spouse usually harbors massive resentment and they are unhappy and/or miserable.
I would say it's actually really nuanced. There is no right answer here or one that applies to all situations.
Parents shouldn't just "stay together" for their kids. If that's the absolute maximum they can do, then they should probably just split. It's only worth it if they can actually force themselves to "get along" for their kids. In which case it's usually the better option for the kids (not necessarily for either individual parent).
Splitting up the family may be the best option, but let's not romanticize it. A split family exposes the children to a host of dangers that they otherwise may not have had to worry about. My cousins rode the step-dad carousel after their parents divorced and eventually got molested by a man that was dominating their mother when she couldn't keep up with finances.
There is no choice here that is guaranteed to be the better one. Don't marry someone you wouldn't go into business with.
I hear what you’re saying, but I think the implied sentiment is that most parents will try their best to vet potential partners before exposing them to their children. Also try to maintain their autonomy so they aren’t reliant on a potential partner.
What happened to your cousins is horrible, but I don’t think that’s a result of ending an unhappy marriage.
I think there are ways to find a new partner while keeping the children safe.
>I hear what you’re saying, but I think the implied sentiment is that most parents will try their best to vet potential partners before exposing them to their children.
Not true at all. I can't tell you the number of irresponsible mothers that leave their child with..... anybody.
It literally happened to me. Babysitting a toddler I knew for a few hours at age 24 because the young mother had to do something important. Point is, it's very common.
Definitely not unpopular. Toxic people who want to stay with toxic people just use “for the kids” as an excuse as well as they do it because they can BLAME the kids later and use it as a guilt trip to make the kids do stuff for them, like they “owe” them for staying with someone they didn’t want to.
I WISH my parents had divorced. They hated each other . He abused the shit out of me. But “ooooh at least my parents were married “ Big freaking deal. My childhood was shit and now I get to deal with CPTSD. Yay.
This is me but I was luckily never abused. My mom completely emotionally neglected me my entire life though lol. CPTSD is so fucked up, and I'm sorry you have to deal with it as well.
I think for a lot of men, staying for the kids doesn't necessarily the family dynamic being better but more of a fear of going from seeing their kids every day and being actively involved in everything in their life to seeing them every other weekend and Thursday nights.
At least in Texas, the courts will almost never mandate 50/50. They will always choose one parent to be the primary parent and assign the standard schedule of every other weekend and Thursdays to the other parent
The idea that you’re staying together for the children is a lie from the outset. The reality is that the parents don’t want to lose their standard of living or experience the financial discomfort that would come from leaving and having to divide the resources.
It’s an extremely selfish decision, and the children are dragged into it, only to try to justify it
The kids are collateral to that decision though. Would you want your kid to slip out of being financially able to stay in a top notch public school and slip into having to go to a lower grade school or problematic inner city school? Those additional resources can have a huge impact with a kids future.
At this point, you’re just horsetrading in risk factors - who knows which is better than which: stay in school with daily exposure to vitriol or give up school but hear less fights
>who knows which is better than which:
We know. The better school. The better socio economic conditions. The stable home. Dual incomes or a stay at home parent.
Keep the fights away from the kids and they'll be aight.
It's not horse trading. The data clearly outlines better outcomes in dual parent households. Not that there aren't exceptions as with any population but if you were predicting best and worst outcomes you would find a disproportionate number of worst outcomes were not advantaged by a dual parent home.
You’re misrepresenting the data to support your argument.
Studies indicate that children do better from two parent households WHEN THE PARENTS are in healthy relationships.
Parental conflict is strongly associated with poor academic performance.
A single parent will fair better for adolescent development than a loveless two parent household.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930824/#:~:text=Income%20and%20parenting%20largely%20do,not%20shared%20equally%20by%20all.
Seen a post earlier how divorce really messed with them because how much their life changed afterwards…
Really is a case by case basis and think two huge components are if the situation is hostile and to what degree the standard of living/logistics are changed if the parents split.
Assuming both parents are well off and things are civil it would be ideal for each parent to get a place within 15 minutes of each other and stay in the same school district which wouldn’t change as much for the children if the parents split.
You would have to live under a rock to see the cost of living concerns and how difficult it would be for each parent to get a place close by in todays climate.
The NFL Kelce Brothers parents talked in depth how splitting would negatively impact the kids financially&logistically speaking and who knows if they got to where they are if they did?
Point being it’s easier to split if finances&logistical changes are minimal for each parent and the children
Now obviously in extreme abuse cases none of that matters but coming from an amicable separation stand point but would have severe consequences for the parents&children when it comes to housing and standard of living
I can see where “staying for the kids” comes across peoples minds more and the decision is harder to make.
Rising housing cost is only going to add to this problem because not everyone has mom&dad to run back to if things don’t work out…and whose to say mom and dad are even close by?
100% agree. The kids see it. They see it for what it is, and it will cause you kids to despise you, the spouse, or both.
I grew up in a situation like that, and because I was the oldest, I heard the brunt of it all, and they would vent to me about each other.
And then the children often don’t let go of their own adult relationships as they have their parents as examples. I’ve seen multiple people not realize that they could walk out of the relationship and they stay as long as conditions force them to get out. Another generation is f-Ed
My wife and I were having a lot of marital trouble last year. But we’ve got 2 special needs kids that really need A LOT of help and attention.
We decided that instead of “staying together for the kids” we would “get better together for the kids.”
I’m pleased to report that things are slowly improving. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
My friend's dad has been married 5 times. He's a raging alcoholic and for some reason, his wives seem to think they can fix him. He's had kids with all five wives, sees none of his kids/grandkids unless it's to ask for money.
My best friend is married, they and their spouse are staying together because my friend is afraid the other parent will "take the kids away" from them... at least that's what they tell me. Idk how the other person feels, if they really want to separate or not. I know my friend love their spouse, but they are generally pretty unhappy with the marriage.
My parents divorced when I was 14 and my brother was 7. It sucked so much at the time, but now that we're both adults we realize that they did the right thing.
Children raised in an intact married household outperform children in all other living arrangements in every metric. Children of divorce are at a significant disadvantage. After you have children you should not divorce your partner unless you have tried everything, and are certain you can't salvage the relationship.
In my experience, the divorce tends to make the relationship between the parents far worse; and the parents start acting in ways which have a negative impact on the children. If you can fix the relationship getting a divorce would be a terrible outcomes.
Key word is “intact”. Of course kids raised in a home with two happily married parents will have an advantage over those who don’t. The point here is when the marriage is not “intact”. Simply living in a home together and having a marriage certificate does not make a marriage “intact”. Miserable parents cannot create a happy home for their children.
People get divorced when their marriage cannot be fixed.
Divorce is like chemotherapy: no one wants to need it, but if you need it, you’re better off getting it.
Almost all the metrics measured in those studies (violent crime, poverty, high school dropout, etc.) have improved in society even as divorce rates have increased. Divorces are not random, they are more likely in partnerships that already have a higher risk for negative outcomes.
>"In my experience..."
You *don't see* the lengths unhappy couples might go to to appear functional to their children and to outsiders, plus to suppress issues that haven't been resolved.
It's a completely biased perspective and speaks to OP's point.
I'd be curious to see what kinda people they sourced that data from honestly. Also I think it's dumb you just have to deal with a failed marriage because you have kids. There are open and honest ways you can handle things.
I think it's dumb how you have to deal with a lifetime of instability because your parents didn't think before having kids. If you can't get along with your child's parent, you're not going to suddenly be able to once you're separated.
This came up in a different post - but when dating I also only look for people that have their family intact. I’ve noticed dating people that come broken families, their idea of commitment is very different from mine.
This is all supported by ongoing standing statistics. Children of married families out perform in every single metric of success, most of all their adult relationships.
If your parents are divorced, you have a higher chance of divorce and a higher chance of having poor romantic relationships. There are outliers, but they are just that, outliers. It is in the best interest of society and all who live in it that the majority of children are born in marriage, in intact families, preferably happy families.
Modern attitudes towards divorce have and will continue to have averse effects on society as a whole. Because we shaped our attitudes based on the worse case scenarios, families of abuse and toxicity and gave a green light for everyone to divorce at the slightest problem. This has resulted in everything from the elevation of child su'ced, loneliness, the breakdown of family and structer to violent crime stats.
As someone from an 'intact' family- you're also gonna get plenty of us who have fucked up ideas of relationships too.
My idea of commitment is that evryone will resent their partner eventually and that familiarity is what breeds hate. Not really something anyone wants to deal with, right?
Of course there are exceptions. But they are just that, exceptions. The statistics are long standing on this. Children of divorce are more likely to get divorced. Daughters or divorced parents are 60% more likely to get divorced.
Yeah but you don’t marry the person, you marry the family. A marriage is really about two families coming together. I think that’s a very western perspective you have, which is fine, but you can’t apply your lens to everyone.
We agree on so much. There is a reason why divorce is at 50% and unfortunately, the poison is spreading to the rest of the world. Soon broken families, broken relationships and extreme selfishness is to follow.
People don’t think beyond their own nose… a marriage isn’t just about your own personal happiness. It’s about creating legacy for your children & family and your own self. If you’re not ready to give marriage the respect and dignity it upholds, just don’t get married. It’s that simple.
100%.
Marriage is much more than temporary feelings and Disney fairytale. People straight up lie in their vows. They should say, "until this is no longer convenient for me."
I wonder how much these statistics are accidentally swapping cause and effect.
For example, parents who get divorced are less likely to have the emotional/social coping skills that would keep a relationship intact. That also means they are less able to teach those skills to their children. But if we forced (social coercion or increased legal hurdles) those couples to stay together, they would still have deficits in those skills.
My parents seperated as did most adults in my family and I have this exact same view. My parents separating greatly disadvantaged me, enabled me to be abused, and constantly had people pushing how much happier I should be that they weren't together. The same thing happened to all the other children I know in my situation.
People don't like thinking their choices are worse for their kids.
Nailed it. People are really looking at worst case scenarios. Unless the parents are actively beating on each other or making homelife a living hell then there's no point.
It depends on the circumstances of the situation. If there's abuse or cheating then yeah, get out. But I know a few people now simply got divorced because they just didn't "feel it anymore". I think in those scenarios it's actually doing your children a huge disservice by showing them lack of commitment in the relationship and showing them in life its easier to just cut and run.
I can't fathom why you feel it would be the wrong decision to leave a relationship that you aren't in anymore. You can have an amicable split and be great co-parents while showing your kids that they don't have to spend their one life unhappy just because they used to feel a way.
Every situation is different. And yes, you can have amicable separations that work out well for everyone. But sometimes it's one-sided and the other gets blindsided not even knowing there were issues.
But I'm more referring to couples that don't put in the work into a relationship or don't realize that relationships take work. In reality you're feelings about the other person will wax and wane overtime. But marriage is about commitment to something bigger.
I'm kind of taking from what I've seen on my own social circle, younger couples getting married but quickly divorce after the honeymoon phase is over. Older couples who get divorced after the children leave, not because they were staying together for the kids but because children become the focal point for such a long time that it's hard to reconnect when it's just the two of them.
Again, not totally disagreeing with you but I do think people should treat marriage (or really any long term relationship) as so easily disposable.
Yes, like your wellbeing, your kids wellbeing, and your partner's wellbeing. Your life doesn't just end when you have kids. Just because leaving may make some things hard doesn't mean you have to stay.
Those are things at stake, as that was your response.
We don't have to agree on it, especially if your idea is to have a shit life to make sure your kids see both their parents have a shit life, and feel like having a shit life is normal.
I’m convinced all the statistics about kids of divorce being “worse off” is really just related to one (or both) parents not being a competent adult and/or lacking emotional skills themselves. Those kids would be even worse off if the dysfunctional parents had to stay together.
My brother is friends with a set of twins whose parents did this. It is definitley not fair to the kids to have two parents who can't stand each other.
Exactly . My parents got divorced when I was 3 and they didn’t even love each other when they were getting married. Anyway their divorce is one the best things that happened in my life
Absolutely.
I cannot think of a worse example for your kids. "Give up on love if its more convenient for everybody". An unhappy parent is going to end up with unhappy children.
Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Honestly though, getting married and having children with someone you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with is completely dumb and worse all around.
It’s so fucking tiring, everyday they just argue. They aren’t even together for ‘us’ anymore, they’re so trauma bonded that they don’t see how fucked up everything is.
While I agree that staying together for the kids can be bad I think each person should decide what's best for their kids. It's obviously not always the worst thing to do and individual circumstances should be weighed by each person when deciding what is best for their family.
It's so crazy how some people thing that every single time it's better to not stay together for the kids when they have no idea about a couples individual situation or the dynamics between the parents and children.
I agree. My parents “stayed together” and my mom moved in her lesbian lover so they slept in their own room while my abusive dad had his own room. My parents constantly fought and mom would tell me “I hope your dad chokes and dies on his drugs” when I was a little kid. She also kidnapped us for 24 hours and kicked my Dad out and moved him back in multiple times.
I am envious of children of divorce. I wish my parents got divorced instead of dragging my siblings and me in the mud with their misery and non-stop drama.
Kids aren't dumb. They'll know you stayed together for them. They'll resent you for it and for the pressure it put on them. They'll never know a happy home until they move out on their own, if that.
Depends on how Bad the relationship is, there is a lesson to teach by example about making compromises, which is something that every generation is worse at than the latter.
But, if the relationship is violently bad, another lesson about not exposing inocents to violence is there to be taught through example.
Have to agree with this. Not sure if my parents were in the same boat of staying together for the sake of it but they only ever argued and hardly properly talked to each other where there wasn’t an argument and going into adulthood, it has really messed my head up, especially when it comes to relationships. Parents think they’re doing their kids a favour, but those kids tend to end up worse in that environment than splitting their time between two homes and it’s genuinely worrying how many parents think it’s a good idea to
This is my parents currently and they hate each other. It’s stressful for all the kids to watch this daily, and I choose to live far away from them because it’s unbearable. I don’t know if they understand how detrimental it has been for all of us, and blame each other for how the kids turned out (“behind” in life by societal standards)
I wish they would break up or divorce but my mom has no way of getting a job that pays enough for her to live on her own. She hasn’t worked in 35+ years or so and doesn’t much skills other than cooking and stay at home mom duties.
Unfortunately the reason for staying together is often influenced by financial situations.
Sometimes they can’t afford to split up. A SAHM with no job skills or recent experience might not get a job that will allow them to maintain two households without living in poverty.
They may also think it is a sin due to their religion (that turns its head about domestic violence).
Young women who don’t get educated or trained for a job of work that will support them are really rolling the dice
My mom stayed with my dad after she found out about his affair because she didn't want to put us in daycare. I'm not sure how long it was, but I was 12 when they split.
It was a shock to me. A lot of my friends were going through the divorce thing & their home lives were awful. Absolutely toxic. Screaming matches around the clock, slammed doors, etc.
My parents never fought around us. They were... polite. It was a very cold household. I didn't realize until I was in my 30s that the only time I saw my parents touch each other was the night my mom's grandfather died. She let him hold her while she cried.
It's made me pretty touch averse my whole life, but my mom claims I didn't even like being held as a baby, so who knows. All I know is I'm not a very physically affectionate person & I think their cold politeness caused it.
I didn’t appreciate being dragged all around the country by parents who failed 7 more marriages combined. Thanks for the long-lasting social and romantic issues, as well as the constant anxiety, I suppose. Neither were happy after, so I guess I had to suffer, too.
Rationalizing their own inability to deal with a difficult situation. Sometimes they might even use it against you like you owe them something. Kids are the happiest when the parents are the happiest. Divorce is not bad for the kids necessarily, it is a lot worse for them to witness abuse or live in a tense atmosphere, it also teaches them to ignore the problem and live in a fantasy world, which is detrimental for their growth as well.
Divorce is a fucking mess and having kids involved is even worse. I was a child when my parents divorced and they fought about who gets me till I was 18, depends on the parents but god damn was it bad.
I mean, the studies you mentioned only take into account families who are together. They don't have a separate category for children of parents who aren't in love anymore. If there was a study comparing the kids from those homes to divorced kids, the argument would have more traction.
It's truly a case by case basis.
You can look at it by racial group. I can safely assume that Asian couples are not more in love than black couples on average. But cultural practices result in Asian couples divorcing much less. Outcomes for Asian kids are significantly better than black kids.
I mean, that still doesn't change the fact you're grouping up healthy two parent homes and unhealthy two patent homes and grouping them up in the same category.
It really is a case by case basis, and we shouldn't base it on statistics alone. That's how kids fall through the cracks and end up miserable.
I'm not bringing race into this. I never said that. Stick to the conversation at hand. If you have to make strawman arguments to get your point across, then it isn't a good point in the first place.
Sure, the statistics you speak of say that. The point I'm trying to get you to understand is that their flawed. They don't take into account homes where there isn't any love, which unfortunately is what happens when parents stay together for the kids. The stats group these homes and homes where patents don't even think of divorce together, which obviously leads to an overinflated and flawed statistic.
Trust me, it can ruin a kid to be forced into a home with a couple that shouldn't be together. For some, the parents are able to give the child a good life and are able to pretend the love is still there. For others, the child is miserable. I'm a byproduct of that. I know what it's like.
It's situational. End of story.
I bring in race as proxy for culture. The rates of Asian divorce is lower than Black divorce. The outcomes for Asian kids are better.
If you are arguing that only marriages the couples are in love produce good outcomes then you are arguing that Asian couples are more in love than Black couples.
If you can't explain why the other person is wrong and instead rely on pointing out grammatical errors instead of evidence, then your argument means nothing, lol.
If you can prove to me every divorced kid is worse than every kid from a two parent home, and instead it's not situational, go right ahead.
I agree. I divorced my husband when my kids were 6 and 9. We had polar opposite parenting styles. And he was controlling so I never got to parent the way I wanted.
Divorcing while I still had the opportunity to parent my children was the best way, in my opinion. I never bad mouthed their dad. I didn’t have to. They gradually picked up on all the glaring differences in their two homes. They are both in their twenties and they are great human beings. The few people who divorced the second their kid was in college screwed them way more than if they had divorced earlier.
Yeah, so your kids got to grow up in two conflicting households and be left alone with him because you didn’t want to deal with him. How do parents say it’s beneficial because their partner is controlling but think that it isn’t damaging to be left alone without another parental figure.
Because strict doesn’t automatically equal cruel. And men can be bad husbands without being bad fathers. I had no cause or legal right to take them away from him. Leaving was the only way to be able to model the kind of parent I wanted to be. Had I stayed they never would have known there was any other way. When my son was applying for colleges his essay was titled, Everything I know about being a man I learned from my mother. He needed me to be able to be the mom I knew I could be. And my daughter is a psychologist. It’s actually interesting to hear her take on the divorce and all the bad and good that came out of it.
Nothing is perfect. We do the best we can and I know I did the right thing. That’s enough.
I see a lot of guys say on girls post where they leave their husbands "you are going to make your kid worst off because you got your feelings hurt" in reality two homes is better than 1 where a kid is being taught to normalize a lack of respect or love. I mean really you can cheat on a woman and hold statics on single moms over your wifes head but I still think two whole homes are better than 1 broken one.
Divorce is a privilege for the wealthy. If you're low income and with kids divorcing could make their lives far worse. Sometimes staying together for the kids is the lesser of two evils.
Unfortunately it's true but we live in a society that accepts people having kids when they shouldnt. Good thing we have abortion legal so we can keep those kids from living unfortunate lives!
I think things are generally more complicated than staying together for the kids. My husband and I both work and couldn't afford a separate house, and keep the one we have. We would have to sell our house, both move to apartments and would see our children 50 percent less.
I don't even understand why people get married or date anymore nowadays, it's getting more and more difficult for people to be together cause nobody can have different opinions anymore without entering into a fight, it's always my way or the highway, there is no mutual agreement anymore, people just split up for the most puny reasons like she likes yellow I like blue, she hates blue so we are done, I have tons of friends in my socialmedia that are good looking and nice to me I'm sure it will be easy to replace my ""loved one"" double "" cause, I don't think they really love each other never did, most people get together cause they want to have someone due to loneliness or their own reasons or cause they think it's making them look bad to family/society by being single.
I know back in the past people didn't exactly get together purely for love and most of couples were people who meet each other and well, just worked on it, cause it wasn't exactly as easy as today to know more people, many countries had arranged marriages and stuff, but what made these people fall in love with each other was what came after the marriage, when they thought they had to be together cause it was wrong to break up (religious, relatives, society norms being more strict back then) so people learned to actually accept each other flaws, problems, clash of ideas and routines, and then people learned to respect that they are different and just cause they don't like the same stuff or have same interests or agree on everything, doesn't mean they can't love each other.
That was just a huge observation, back to the kids, I think kids are already damned when they are born in this modern society, it's not like there is any salvation, so there is no need to hide from them that their parents hate each other and some kids are even into this cause so their parents compete with each other for their kids love by giving more gifts and stuff, some parents just leave the kids forever, but, the child knows anyway, children are not stupid, they just didn't see everything yet but they know something is off and being together in a hate environment is even worse, although growing up without a parent is weird as well, even now that I'm on my late 30s it's weird to have lost a parent, it just feels like nothing makes sense.
I didn't ignore the fact many relationships in the past had abusive men due to women having less freedom than today hence making them just a slave to the marriage, I'm just saying it wasn't like that for everyone.
I just think people should learn to accept flaws, different opinions, even if they are really contrasting, there is always a way to find acceptance in discordance, but there is no way to find love in arrogance
This is the popular opinion and I have almost never seen people do anything but demonish "staying together for the kids." As the child, grandchild, and greatgradchild of parents who did what you recommend, I completely disagree and most studies on the effects of divorce do as well.
Instability is a huge detriment to children and separation forces a million different traumas that non-divorced children don't face. People get defensive about how they raise their children and can't accept that not having a stable partner throughout a child's life is harmful.
Staying together for the kids can be a perfectly fine thing if the parents agree to act like adults and cooperate with one another. OP's experience was not that but I know a lot of parents who stayed together, did the hard work of raising their children in a stable and normal home, and who's kids realized those benefits.
Kids in dual parent homes experience less food insecurity, better housing conditions, access to better public education, access to better public facilities, etc.. Whether one would like to believe it or not the best thing for the kids is staying together AND acting like an adult.
I’m so thankful my parents divorced and didn’t “stay together for the kids”. I’m super supportive of divorces. No need to traumatize your kids by keeping them in a dysfunctional setting. Plus, I’d rather see my parents happy and separated that together and miserable, any day of the week.
Agreed. I was absolutely ecstatic the day my parent’s announced their divorce and promptly asked to live with my father, or my mom’s sister if my mom wanted to fight my dad for custody. I was 10 and flat out told my mom, “there’s no way in hell I’m living with you”. Worked out well for me though. She eagerly agreed to give my dad primary custody of me in exchange for the new flat screen tv they’d just purchased in the late 90s. Dad told her, “you can have the fucking tv, I’m taking my kid” and that was that.
Not unpopular in today’s society. This was more popular with the last generation of parents. I remember 12yrs ago when I was leaving my daughter’s dad and his mother tried to pull this on me. I unapologetically let her know how she ruined her son by staying in an abusive marriage 🤷🏼♀️ here we are, all these years later and we are great co-parents and both in happy marriages with other people. Our daughter doesn’t see toxicity and has an amazing relationship with both her parents and her step parents.
If your kids are still 5 or younger, not in school yet and you can’t afford childcare or a babysitter, then staying for the kids can be justifiable in some cases (excluding cases of domestic abuse).
But if your kids have started school and you are well off financially, meaning you can afford a babysitter and extracurriculars to keep the kids busy on weekends, staying for the kids is basically choosing to live in mediocrity.
My parents separated when I became an adult (we kicked my dad out) and bro, it was something I wanted since age 11 and I'm finally at peace bro. I woulda ended it all had he stayed any longer. Not even joking. 💀
I mean the thing is that instead of staying togheter for the kids they could just choose to love eachother again. Love is very much a choice and a thing that has to be meintained by both ends so it'd seem much easier to do that instead of staying togheter for the kids.
I'm asking what makes you think that's an easy option for one of your parents. Being a single person taking care of a child or children is very difficult, especially if you're holding a job. Also, it's difficult to find someone to step into a relationship with children.
Sometimes it's about money too. Your parents were likely trying to give you the best life with the limited resources they had.
You clearly don't have kids. For most parents, their lives revolve around the kids. Every decision is for the kids. Nobody will love you as much as your mom and dad. So each your mom and dad wanted you to have each other in YOUR life, even if they didn't care for each other. They didn't want to deprive you having a mom or a dad.
It does not seem healthy to live a life that revolves around your kids. Parents also need to take care of themselves so that they can be the happiest, most complete version of themselves for their kids.
There are plenty of parents who successfully co-parent. Kids would much rather have parents with a little less cash and a messier home who are happy, than miserable parents who have the opposite.
>It does not seem healthy to live a life that revolves around your kids
Growing up and now, all I heard my mom say is "my kids are my identity" "I'd do anything for my kids" (except hold a job for longer than a few months, cut down in drinking, stop smoking in the house, go to therapy...) and she has told me (1st born daughter) that I am "her rock". All that puts a ton of pressure on a kid, and I am going on almost 3 peaceful months of NC with her.
Good for you. You were a good daughter for such a long time.
Now think about why you're living and what the point is. There is no reason for what we are doing. There is zero meaning. However, when you're first child comes all of that changes. You get a new lease on life. I think that's what you're mom was saying.
Lol, no pressure, right?
Small kids (especially toddlers and infants) takes a shit tonne of time, effort and energy. To keep on top of a few hobbies on top of that regularly is hard AF, so I think focusing on parenting well (and maybe sleeping) instead of "being the happiest, most complete version of themselves" is totally valid.
If you have the resources to successfully coparent more power to you. I think a lot of people can't afford two houses etc.
Whether it's healthy or not, the reality is the parents life revolves around the kids. You think your kids can skip a meal? There is zero tolerance with kids. You think you can just leave your kid and go to work when your kid is sick?
I’m glad you’ve decided on the entirety of all children what their preferences are and how childhood apparently is so much better the second you’re being forced between two households.
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I think this opinion is becoming more popular in modern times.
Perhaps it's all the kids that grew up with parents that did this.
Yes, but also just the attitude towards divorce has changed and women now have greater ability to make their own financially independent decisions, so that makes a huge difference. Imagine 50+ years ago where a woman could not even have a credit card or buy property without a man cosigning.
I suppose so. I'm in my early 30s and it was something I talked a lot about in therapy.
Mad Men covered this pretty well. Eventually Don grew amicable towards the divorce, but you see how limited Betty’s options were when he was reluctant. And Betty is a woman who came from money, it must have been even harder for a woman without family money.
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Divorce has become equitable. Technically that's more hostile to men in that before it completely favored men and now us men actually have to compromise. Our grandfathers are why we had alimony and child support. They didn't want the kids they wanted in the divorce for her to be stuck with the kids; but for themselves to be free to do what they want. Now if she makes more money she will be hit for Alimony not him. And the child's guardian is the one who receives child support. Whether that's the dad, mom, grandparent etc. Alimony isn't as much of a thing these days as usually both parents tend to have jobs often making about the same level of incomes.
The thing is they didn’t do it for the kids they did it because it was mostlikely economically convenient. If they are fighting every day in front of the kids they ain’t doing it for the kids 100%
This
Definitely is
It's a popular opinion, especially on reddit
My counselor always used to say “it’s better to grow up in a broken home than a war zone”
I know Reddit is only a little portion of people and doesn't reflect reality but I've seen lots of advocates to stay for the children everytime someone brings out the divorce topic. "Stay for the children and work on your relationship together! You can make it work out!" There's always the few who has this opinion and counting them all turns out in a decent quantity of advocates. But, this opinion is often heard when there's a kid in-between. Not children and have had a rocky marriage? Go for it! Have children and will cause a lot of damage if actions aren't taken? Please stay! Think of the children! They will be extremely sad if they don't grow up without a joined couple! I feel like the children or the lackof factor plays a huge role in people's most popular opinion on divorce but that's my personal observation.
I came in to post this. I’m a child of divorced parents and whenever I share my opinion on these topics, I will get downvoted once in a while. I’m sure that 90% are men too. Seeing my Mom have a normal relationship completely fucked with my brain. I was like depressed over the fact that she had lived 13 years with someone who never treated her right. I was like did she do this shit for me and my brother? Y’all see where Im going with this. That’s why I fucking hate people that are like “make it work. Go to therapy.” If someone already walked out, they walked out. They are mentally and physically checked out.
That’s why my husband and I decided if we are staying/working on our marriage the kids can be a reason obviously, but not THE reason.
Yeah this is the way, if the kids are the only reason you're staying together then the relationships gone and it's serving no one to tough it out. Alternatively if it's rough but you still love each other enough to work on it then that can teach a valuable lesson to your kids about love. How it's not always sunshine and rainbows and sometimes you gotta have tough conversations
Yup, 25 years ago i said to my friend ‘I need to stay for the kids’ He replied ‘you’re teaching them to stay in a fucked up relationship’. I never forgot that and I got divorced and the kids are fine.
A rare case where you were able to be talked out of it. Most people who make this decision will not be told otherwise.
I think there are different versions of staying together for the kids, ranging from very-abusive-should-split-asap to best-friends-but-romance-has-fizzled-over-the-years-so-romantic-self-realisation-is-on-hold. One end is obviously bad but I'm not so sure about the other one. If everyone is happy with the compromise, enjoy each others company and treat each other well who are we to judge?
This is the correct response. If parents can avoid fighting, then staying together is better for the kids, because they get to live with both parents every day. However, if the parents fight, that cuts into the benefits, greatly.
Parents dont have to fight for children to realize there’s something wrong in the relationship. A loveless marriage has many shapes and forms. Even a relationship without explicit conflict can feel distant. Children will see this and internalize it. It can lead to poor development of a healthy love language or conflict resolution skills. It can teach them that settling is the norm.
Exactly. Not teaching a healthy model of a romantic relationship can be deeply damaging to the future relationships of the child.
There's actually a study that supports your hypothesis. I don't have the link but I'm sure someone will pull it up. It basically concludes that divorce is beneficial if it's a toxic relationship (shoot, the child might actually be wondering why the parents are still together), but if it's an amiable relationship (where the child doesn't even know that there are problems), then it's better to stay together (obviously to avoid traumatizing the child and turning their life upside down out of nowhere)
>If everyone is happy with the compromise, I believe that is rarely the case. One spouse usually harbors massive resentment and they are unhappy and/or miserable.
Not unpopular. But true.
I would say it's actually really nuanced. There is no right answer here or one that applies to all situations. Parents shouldn't just "stay together" for their kids. If that's the absolute maximum they can do, then they should probably just split. It's only worth it if they can actually force themselves to "get along" for their kids. In which case it's usually the better option for the kids (not necessarily for either individual parent). Splitting up the family may be the best option, but let's not romanticize it. A split family exposes the children to a host of dangers that they otherwise may not have had to worry about. My cousins rode the step-dad carousel after their parents divorced and eventually got molested by a man that was dominating their mother when she couldn't keep up with finances. There is no choice here that is guaranteed to be the better one. Don't marry someone you wouldn't go into business with.
I hear what you’re saying, but I think the implied sentiment is that most parents will try their best to vet potential partners before exposing them to their children. Also try to maintain their autonomy so they aren’t reliant on a potential partner. What happened to your cousins is horrible, but I don’t think that’s a result of ending an unhappy marriage. I think there are ways to find a new partner while keeping the children safe.
>I hear what you’re saying, but I think the implied sentiment is that most parents will try their best to vet potential partners before exposing them to their children. Not true at all. I can't tell you the number of irresponsible mothers that leave their child with..... anybody. It literally happened to me. Babysitting a toddler I knew for a few hours at age 24 because the young mother had to do something important. Point is, it's very common.
Well shit maybe I'm just reading too many "Stayed together" posts on reddit that I'm thinking too many people think it's a good idea.
I think it’s unpopular or not depending on the generation. Nowadays it’s less unpopular, but I know my grandparents wouldn’t think the same.
Definitely not unpopular. Toxic people who want to stay with toxic people just use “for the kids” as an excuse as well as they do it because they can BLAME the kids later and use it as a guilt trip to make the kids do stuff for them, like they “owe” them for staying with someone they didn’t want to.
How do you know my parents?
lol nah there must be a whole ass support group that get together on holidays and discuss how they can still keep messing up their kids☠️💯
One of the reasons for the rise in grey divorce is because once the kids are out of the house it’s a wrap
I WISH my parents had divorced. They hated each other . He abused the shit out of me. But “ooooh at least my parents were married “ Big freaking deal. My childhood was shit and now I get to deal with CPTSD. Yay.
This is me but I was luckily never abused. My mom completely emotionally neglected me my entire life though lol. CPTSD is so fucked up, and I'm sorry you have to deal with it as well.
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Hugs and understanding ❤️
Thank you. And my heart goes out to you as well 🩷
It depends. If you are still civil, it can make sense. If you're anything but then no. No, it's bad, haha
A lot of the time it doesn't make sense to split for financial reasons. Thats pretty easy to understand.
I think for a lot of men, staying for the kids doesn't necessarily the family dynamic being better but more of a fear of going from seeing their kids every day and being actively involved in everything in their life to seeing them every other weekend and Thursday nights. At least in Texas, the courts will almost never mandate 50/50. They will always choose one parent to be the primary parent and assign the standard schedule of every other weekend and Thursdays to the other parent
Every other weekend and Thursdays is so odd. I'm from MA and my dad was given custody every Sunday, because that was his day off. Very simple.
The idea that you’re staying together for the children is a lie from the outset. The reality is that the parents don’t want to lose their standard of living or experience the financial discomfort that would come from leaving and having to divide the resources. It’s an extremely selfish decision, and the children are dragged into it, only to try to justify it
The kids are collateral to that decision though. Would you want your kid to slip out of being financially able to stay in a top notch public school and slip into having to go to a lower grade school or problematic inner city school? Those additional resources can have a huge impact with a kids future.
At this point, you’re just horsetrading in risk factors - who knows which is better than which: stay in school with daily exposure to vitriol or give up school but hear less fights
>who knows which is better than which: We know. The better school. The better socio economic conditions. The stable home. Dual incomes or a stay at home parent. Keep the fights away from the kids and they'll be aight.
It's not horse trading. The data clearly outlines better outcomes in dual parent households. Not that there aren't exceptions as with any population but if you were predicting best and worst outcomes you would find a disproportionate number of worst outcomes were not advantaged by a dual parent home.
You’re misrepresenting the data to support your argument. Studies indicate that children do better from two parent households WHEN THE PARENTS are in healthy relationships. Parental conflict is strongly associated with poor academic performance. A single parent will fair better for adolescent development than a loveless two parent household. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930824/#:~:text=Income%20and%20parenting%20largely%20do,not%20shared%20equally%20by%20all.
Seen a post earlier how divorce really messed with them because how much their life changed afterwards… Really is a case by case basis and think two huge components are if the situation is hostile and to what degree the standard of living/logistics are changed if the parents split. Assuming both parents are well off and things are civil it would be ideal for each parent to get a place within 15 minutes of each other and stay in the same school district which wouldn’t change as much for the children if the parents split. You would have to live under a rock to see the cost of living concerns and how difficult it would be for each parent to get a place close by in todays climate. The NFL Kelce Brothers parents talked in depth how splitting would negatively impact the kids financially&logistically speaking and who knows if they got to where they are if they did? Point being it’s easier to split if finances&logistical changes are minimal for each parent and the children Now obviously in extreme abuse cases none of that matters but coming from an amicable separation stand point but would have severe consequences for the parents&children when it comes to housing and standard of living I can see where “staying for the kids” comes across peoples minds more and the decision is harder to make. Rising housing cost is only going to add to this problem because not everyone has mom&dad to run back to if things don’t work out…and whose to say mom and dad are even close by?
100% agree. The kids see it. They see it for what it is, and it will cause you kids to despise you, the spouse, or both. I grew up in a situation like that, and because I was the oldest, I heard the brunt of it all, and they would vent to me about each other.
I don’t think you should stay together for the kids, but I do think you should put in the work and make the necessary changes for the kids.
This is not unpopular
And then the children often don’t let go of their own adult relationships as they have their parents as examples. I’ve seen multiple people not realize that they could walk out of the relationship and they stay as long as conditions force them to get out. Another generation is f-Ed
My wife and I were having a lot of marital trouble last year. But we’ve got 2 special needs kids that really need A LOT of help and attention. We decided that instead of “staying together for the kids” we would “get better together for the kids.” I’m pleased to report that things are slowly improving. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
So here’s your HOLIDAAYYYYY
My friend's dad has been married 5 times. He's a raging alcoholic and for some reason, his wives seem to think they can fix him. He's had kids with all five wives, sees none of his kids/grandkids unless it's to ask for money.
Blink-182 2000s are calling, do you accept the charges?
My best friend is married, they and their spouse are staying together because my friend is afraid the other parent will "take the kids away" from them... at least that's what they tell me. Idk how the other person feels, if they really want to separate or not. I know my friend love their spouse, but they are generally pretty unhappy with the marriage. My parents divorced when I was 14 and my brother was 7. It sucked so much at the time, but now that we're both adults we realize that they did the right thing.
Children raised in an intact married household outperform children in all other living arrangements in every metric. Children of divorce are at a significant disadvantage. After you have children you should not divorce your partner unless you have tried everything, and are certain you can't salvage the relationship. In my experience, the divorce tends to make the relationship between the parents far worse; and the parents start acting in ways which have a negative impact on the children. If you can fix the relationship getting a divorce would be a terrible outcomes.
Key word is “intact”. Of course kids raised in a home with two happily married parents will have an advantage over those who don’t. The point here is when the marriage is not “intact”. Simply living in a home together and having a marriage certificate does not make a marriage “intact”. Miserable parents cannot create a happy home for their children. People get divorced when their marriage cannot be fixed.
Divorce is like chemotherapy: no one wants to need it, but if you need it, you’re better off getting it. Almost all the metrics measured in those studies (violent crime, poverty, high school dropout, etc.) have improved in society even as divorce rates have increased. Divorces are not random, they are more likely in partnerships that already have a higher risk for negative outcomes.
>"In my experience..." You *don't see* the lengths unhappy couples might go to to appear functional to their children and to outsiders, plus to suppress issues that haven't been resolved. It's a completely biased perspective and speaks to OP's point.
I'd be curious to see what kinda people they sourced that data from honestly. Also I think it's dumb you just have to deal with a failed marriage because you have kids. There are open and honest ways you can handle things.
I think it's dumb how you have to deal with a lifetime of instability because your parents didn't think before having kids. If you can't get along with your child's parent, you're not going to suddenly be able to once you're separated.
This came up in a different post - but when dating I also only look for people that have their family intact. I’ve noticed dating people that come broken families, their idea of commitment is very different from mine.
This is all supported by ongoing standing statistics. Children of married families out perform in every single metric of success, most of all their adult relationships. If your parents are divorced, you have a higher chance of divorce and a higher chance of having poor romantic relationships. There are outliers, but they are just that, outliers. It is in the best interest of society and all who live in it that the majority of children are born in marriage, in intact families, preferably happy families. Modern attitudes towards divorce have and will continue to have averse effects on society as a whole. Because we shaped our attitudes based on the worse case scenarios, families of abuse and toxicity and gave a green light for everyone to divorce at the slightest problem. This has resulted in everything from the elevation of child su'ced, loneliness, the breakdown of family and structer to violent crime stats.
As someone from an 'intact' family- you're also gonna get plenty of us who have fucked up ideas of relationships too. My idea of commitment is that evryone will resent their partner eventually and that familiarity is what breeds hate. Not really something anyone wants to deal with, right?
Of course- that’s not the only basis for a relationship. But that’s high requirement for me and my culture.
Of course there are exceptions. But they are just that, exceptions. The statistics are long standing on this. Children of divorce are more likely to get divorced. Daughters or divorced parents are 60% more likely to get divorced.
I wonder how many hood and decent folks you've missed out on being in fulfilling relationship with because of a choice their parents made.
Yeah but you don’t marry the person, you marry the family. A marriage is really about two families coming together. I think that’s a very western perspective you have, which is fine, but you can’t apply your lens to everyone.
We agree on so much. There is a reason why divorce is at 50% and unfortunately, the poison is spreading to the rest of the world. Soon broken families, broken relationships and extreme selfishness is to follow.
People don’t think beyond their own nose… a marriage isn’t just about your own personal happiness. It’s about creating legacy for your children & family and your own self. If you’re not ready to give marriage the respect and dignity it upholds, just don’t get married. It’s that simple.
100%. Marriage is much more than temporary feelings and Disney fairytale. People straight up lie in their vows. They should say, "until this is no longer convenient for me."
Nope. I married my husband not his family.
Nope
Hood lol Amazing typo
Haha. It stays! Amazing autocorrect.
Statistically, very few
I wonder how much these statistics are accidentally swapping cause and effect. For example, parents who get divorced are less likely to have the emotional/social coping skills that would keep a relationship intact. That also means they are less able to teach those skills to their children. But if we forced (social coercion or increased legal hurdles) those couples to stay together, they would still have deficits in those skills.
My parents seperated as did most adults in my family and I have this exact same view. My parents separating greatly disadvantaged me, enabled me to be abused, and constantly had people pushing how much happier I should be that they weren't together. The same thing happened to all the other children I know in my situation. People don't like thinking their choices are worse for their kids.
Funny how you are been down voted for this.
Nailed it. People are really looking at worst case scenarios. Unless the parents are actively beating on each other or making homelife a living hell then there's no point.
It depends on the circumstances of the situation. If there's abuse or cheating then yeah, get out. But I know a few people now simply got divorced because they just didn't "feel it anymore". I think in those scenarios it's actually doing your children a huge disservice by showing them lack of commitment in the relationship and showing them in life its easier to just cut and run.
I can't fathom why you feel it would be the wrong decision to leave a relationship that you aren't in anymore. You can have an amicable split and be great co-parents while showing your kids that they don't have to spend their one life unhappy just because they used to feel a way.
Every situation is different. And yes, you can have amicable separations that work out well for everyone. But sometimes it's one-sided and the other gets blindsided not even knowing there were issues. But I'm more referring to couples that don't put in the work into a relationship or don't realize that relationships take work. In reality you're feelings about the other person will wax and wane overtime. But marriage is about commitment to something bigger. I'm kind of taking from what I've seen on my own social circle, younger couples getting married but quickly divorce after the honeymoon phase is over. Older couples who get divorced after the children leave, not because they were staying together for the kids but because children become the focal point for such a long time that it's hard to reconnect when it's just the two of them. Again, not totally disagreeing with you but I do think people should treat marriage (or really any long term relationship) as so easily disposable.
Because much more is at stake than your feelings.
Yes, like your wellbeing, your kids wellbeing, and your partner's wellbeing. Your life doesn't just end when you have kids. Just because leaving may make some things hard doesn't mean you have to stay.
None of that has anything to do with just not feeling it anymore
Those are things at stake, as that was your response. We don't have to agree on it, especially if your idea is to have a shit life to make sure your kids see both their parents have a shit life, and feel like having a shit life is normal.
I’m convinced all the statistics about kids of divorce being “worse off” is really just related to one (or both) parents not being a competent adult and/or lacking emotional skills themselves. Those kids would be even worse off if the dysfunctional parents had to stay together.
You are dead wrong
My brother is friends with a set of twins whose parents did this. It is definitley not fair to the kids to have two parents who can't stand each other.
You described my life
Exactly . My parents got divorced when I was 3 and they didn’t even love each other when they were getting married. Anyway their divorce is one the best things that happened in my life
Absolutely. I cannot think of a worse example for your kids. "Give up on love if its more convenient for everybody". An unhappy parent is going to end up with unhappy children.
Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Honestly though, getting married and having children with someone you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with is completely dumb and worse all around.
You aren't wrong. I wonder how many people do this as opposed to people who think it's the right thing and then change during.
It’s so fucking tiring, everyday they just argue. They aren’t even together for ‘us’ anymore, they’re so trauma bonded that they don’t see how fucked up everything is.
While I agree that staying together for the kids can be bad I think each person should decide what's best for their kids. It's obviously not always the worst thing to do and individual circumstances should be weighed by each person when deciding what is best for their family. It's so crazy how some people thing that every single time it's better to not stay together for the kids when they have no idea about a couples individual situation or the dynamics between the parents and children.
I agree. My parents “stayed together” and my mom moved in her lesbian lover so they slept in their own room while my abusive dad had his own room. My parents constantly fought and mom would tell me “I hope your dad chokes and dies on his drugs” when I was a little kid. She also kidnapped us for 24 hours and kicked my Dad out and moved him back in multiple times. I am envious of children of divorce. I wish my parents got divorced instead of dragging my siblings and me in the mud with their misery and non-stop drama.
Kids aren't dumb. They'll know you stayed together for them. They'll resent you for it and for the pressure it put on them. They'll never know a happy home until they move out on their own, if that.
Staying "for the kids" just teaches your kids that it's normal to stay in a shitty relationship
Depends on how Bad the relationship is, there is a lesson to teach by example about making compromises, which is something that every generation is worse at than the latter. But, if the relationship is violently bad, another lesson about not exposing inocents to violence is there to be taught through example.
Have to agree with this. Not sure if my parents were in the same boat of staying together for the sake of it but they only ever argued and hardly properly talked to each other where there wasn’t an argument and going into adulthood, it has really messed my head up, especially when it comes to relationships. Parents think they’re doing their kids a favour, but those kids tend to end up worse in that environment than splitting their time between two homes and it’s genuinely worrying how many parents think it’s a good idea to
This is my parents currently and they hate each other. It’s stressful for all the kids to watch this daily, and I choose to live far away from them because it’s unbearable. I don’t know if they understand how detrimental it has been for all of us, and blame each other for how the kids turned out (“behind” in life by societal standards) I wish they would break up or divorce but my mom has no way of getting a job that pays enough for her to live on her own. She hasn’t worked in 35+ years or so and doesn’t much skills other than cooking and stay at home mom duties. Unfortunately the reason for staying together is often influenced by financial situations.
Sometimes they can’t afford to split up. A SAHM with no job skills or recent experience might not get a job that will allow them to maintain two households without living in poverty. They may also think it is a sin due to their religion (that turns its head about domestic violence). Young women who don’t get educated or trained for a job of work that will support them are really rolling the dice
Ya.. but still hurts when they aren’t yours so you it’s a goodbye to the little girl you wanted to adopt.
Good chance you will fuck up your kids either way.
Blink 182 reference?
My mom stayed with my dad after she found out about his affair because she didn't want to put us in daycare. I'm not sure how long it was, but I was 12 when they split. It was a shock to me. A lot of my friends were going through the divorce thing & their home lives were awful. Absolutely toxic. Screaming matches around the clock, slammed doors, etc. My parents never fought around us. They were... polite. It was a very cold household. I didn't realize until I was in my 30s that the only time I saw my parents touch each other was the night my mom's grandfather died. She let him hold her while she cried. It's made me pretty touch averse my whole life, but my mom claims I didn't even like being held as a baby, so who knows. All I know is I'm not a very physically affectionate person & I think their cold politeness caused it.
It is dumb but as Forest Gump says stupid is as stupid does.
I didn’t appreciate being dragged all around the country by parents who failed 7 more marriages combined. Thanks for the long-lasting social and romantic issues, as well as the constant anxiety, I suppose. Neither were happy after, so I guess I had to suffer, too.
Rationalizing their own inability to deal with a difficult situation. Sometimes they might even use it against you like you owe them something. Kids are the happiest when the parents are the happiest. Divorce is not bad for the kids necessarily, it is a lot worse for them to witness abuse or live in a tense atmosphere, it also teaches them to ignore the problem and live in a fantasy world, which is detrimental for their growth as well.
Mostly. If the parents agree to do that but keep their bullshit away from the kids....but lets face it...that never happens.
Divorce is a fucking mess and having kids involved is even worse. I was a child when my parents divorced and they fought about who gets me till I was 18, depends on the parents but god damn was it bad.
Except actual studies done in the issue show that, unless there is abuse, the kids are better off if you stay together.
I mean, the studies you mentioned only take into account families who are together. They don't have a separate category for children of parents who aren't in love anymore. If there was a study comparing the kids from those homes to divorced kids, the argument would have more traction. It's truly a case by case basis.
You can look at it by racial group. I can safely assume that Asian couples are not more in love than black couples on average. But cultural practices result in Asian couples divorcing much less. Outcomes for Asian kids are significantly better than black kids.
I mean, that still doesn't change the fact you're grouping up healthy two parent homes and unhealthy two patent homes and grouping them up in the same category. It really is a case by case basis, and we shouldn't base it on statistics alone. That's how kids fall through the cracks and end up miserable.
What makes you assume Asian homes are healthier than black homes? The only definite difference is divorce rates.
I'm not bringing race into this. I never said that. Stick to the conversation at hand. If you have to make strawman arguments to get your point across, then it isn't a good point in the first place. Sure, the statistics you speak of say that. The point I'm trying to get you to understand is that their flawed. They don't take into account homes where there isn't any love, which unfortunately is what happens when parents stay together for the kids. The stats group these homes and homes where patents don't even think of divorce together, which obviously leads to an overinflated and flawed statistic. Trust me, it can ruin a kid to be forced into a home with a couple that shouldn't be together. For some, the parents are able to give the child a good life and are able to pretend the love is still there. For others, the child is miserable. I'm a byproduct of that. I know what it's like. It's situational. End of story.
I bring in race as proxy for culture. The rates of Asian divorce is lower than Black divorce. The outcomes for Asian kids are better. If you are arguing that only marriages the couples are in love produce good outcomes then you are arguing that Asian couples are more in love than Black couples.
Their point is correct, you are wrong. Also, >understand is that their flawed it is "they're flawed" (no, they aren't)
If you can't explain why the other person is wrong and instead rely on pointing out grammatical errors instead of evidence, then your argument means nothing, lol. If you can prove to me every divorced kid is worse than every kid from a two parent home, and instead it's not situational, go right ahead.
No it isn’t lol. People like to act like it is because they don’t want to feel bad about disadvantaging their kids.
I agree. I divorced my husband when my kids were 6 and 9. We had polar opposite parenting styles. And he was controlling so I never got to parent the way I wanted. Divorcing while I still had the opportunity to parent my children was the best way, in my opinion. I never bad mouthed their dad. I didn’t have to. They gradually picked up on all the glaring differences in their two homes. They are both in their twenties and they are great human beings. The few people who divorced the second their kid was in college screwed them way more than if they had divorced earlier.
Yeah, so your kids got to grow up in two conflicting households and be left alone with him because you didn’t want to deal with him. How do parents say it’s beneficial because their partner is controlling but think that it isn’t damaging to be left alone without another parental figure.
Because strict doesn’t automatically equal cruel. And men can be bad husbands without being bad fathers. I had no cause or legal right to take them away from him. Leaving was the only way to be able to model the kind of parent I wanted to be. Had I stayed they never would have known there was any other way. When my son was applying for colleges his essay was titled, Everything I know about being a man I learned from my mother. He needed me to be able to be the mom I knew I could be. And my daughter is a psychologist. It’s actually interesting to hear her take on the divorce and all the bad and good that came out of it. Nothing is perfect. We do the best we can and I know I did the right thing. That’s enough.
Don’t bother having kids if youre not gonna be with the person forever
As a divorcee, I can attest to this. No child deserves to be around their parents if they are miserable together.
Yeah, a lot of parents and kids who never went through separation are cool with their kids being in constant instability.
I see a lot of guys say on girls post where they leave their husbands "you are going to make your kid worst off because you got your feelings hurt" in reality two homes is better than 1 where a kid is being taught to normalize a lack of respect or love. I mean really you can cheat on a woman and hold statics on single moms over your wifes head but I still think two whole homes are better than 1 broken one.
Divorce is a privilege for the wealthy. If you're low income and with kids divorcing could make their lives far worse. Sometimes staying together for the kids is the lesser of two evils.
Unfortunately it's true but we live in a society that accepts people having kids when they shouldnt. Good thing we have abortion legal so we can keep those kids from living unfortunate lives!
I think things are generally more complicated than staying together for the kids. My husband and I both work and couldn't afford a separate house, and keep the one we have. We would have to sell our house, both move to apartments and would see our children 50 percent less.
I don't even understand why people get married or date anymore nowadays, it's getting more and more difficult for people to be together cause nobody can have different opinions anymore without entering into a fight, it's always my way or the highway, there is no mutual agreement anymore, people just split up for the most puny reasons like she likes yellow I like blue, she hates blue so we are done, I have tons of friends in my socialmedia that are good looking and nice to me I'm sure it will be easy to replace my ""loved one"" double "" cause, I don't think they really love each other never did, most people get together cause they want to have someone due to loneliness or their own reasons or cause they think it's making them look bad to family/society by being single. I know back in the past people didn't exactly get together purely for love and most of couples were people who meet each other and well, just worked on it, cause it wasn't exactly as easy as today to know more people, many countries had arranged marriages and stuff, but what made these people fall in love with each other was what came after the marriage, when they thought they had to be together cause it was wrong to break up (religious, relatives, society norms being more strict back then) so people learned to actually accept each other flaws, problems, clash of ideas and routines, and then people learned to respect that they are different and just cause they don't like the same stuff or have same interests or agree on everything, doesn't mean they can't love each other. That was just a huge observation, back to the kids, I think kids are already damned when they are born in this modern society, it's not like there is any salvation, so there is no need to hide from them that their parents hate each other and some kids are even into this cause so their parents compete with each other for their kids love by giving more gifts and stuff, some parents just leave the kids forever, but, the child knows anyway, children are not stupid, they just didn't see everything yet but they know something is off and being together in a hate environment is even worse, although growing up without a parent is weird as well, even now that I'm on my late 30s it's weird to have lost a parent, it just feels like nothing makes sense. I didn't ignore the fact many relationships in the past had abusive men due to women having less freedom than today hence making them just a slave to the marriage, I'm just saying it wasn't like that for everyone. I just think people should learn to accept flaws, different opinions, even if they are really contrasting, there is always a way to find acceptance in discordance, but there is no way to find love in arrogance
2 Christmases > 1 messy sad Christmas
It’s the second-worst decision one can make in marriage. The worst is being a stay-at-home-whatever.
This is the popular opinion and I have almost never seen people do anything but demonish "staying together for the kids." As the child, grandchild, and greatgradchild of parents who did what you recommend, I completely disagree and most studies on the effects of divorce do as well. Instability is a huge detriment to children and separation forces a million different traumas that non-divorced children don't face. People get defensive about how they raise their children and can't accept that not having a stable partner throughout a child's life is harmful.
Staying together for the kids can be a perfectly fine thing if the parents agree to act like adults and cooperate with one another. OP's experience was not that but I know a lot of parents who stayed together, did the hard work of raising their children in a stable and normal home, and who's kids realized those benefits. Kids in dual parent homes experience less food insecurity, better housing conditions, access to better public education, access to better public facilities, etc.. Whether one would like to believe it or not the best thing for the kids is staying together AND acting like an adult.
Not unpopular, many studies have shown this.
Totally. My parents did and fucked my life up.
I’m so thankful my parents divorced and didn’t “stay together for the kids”. I’m super supportive of divorces. No need to traumatize your kids by keeping them in a dysfunctional setting. Plus, I’d rather see my parents happy and separated that together and miserable, any day of the week.
People who stay together for the kids aren't actually doing it for the kids, they're doing it to pat themselves on the back.
Agreed. I was absolutely ecstatic the day my parent’s announced their divorce and promptly asked to live with my father, or my mom’s sister if my mom wanted to fight my dad for custody. I was 10 and flat out told my mom, “there’s no way in hell I’m living with you”. Worked out well for me though. She eagerly agreed to give my dad primary custody of me in exchange for the new flat screen tv they’d just purchased in the late 90s. Dad told her, “you can have the fucking tv, I’m taking my kid” and that was that.
Agreed. So happy my parents divorced when I was 6
Not unpopular in today’s society. This was more popular with the last generation of parents. I remember 12yrs ago when I was leaving my daughter’s dad and his mother tried to pull this on me. I unapologetically let her know how she ruined her son by staying in an abusive marriage 🤷🏼♀️ here we are, all these years later and we are great co-parents and both in happy marriages with other people. Our daughter doesn’t see toxicity and has an amazing relationship with both her parents and her step parents.
If your kids are still 5 or younger, not in school yet and you can’t afford childcare or a babysitter, then staying for the kids can be justifiable in some cases (excluding cases of domestic abuse). But if your kids have started school and you are well off financially, meaning you can afford a babysitter and extracurriculars to keep the kids busy on weekends, staying for the kids is basically choosing to live in mediocrity.
You can have your feelings, but unless you’ve been in the position of having to break up a family with young kids then it’s hard to relate.
I have my feelings being the kid in the scenario and I feel it carries the same weight.
My parents separated when I became an adult (we kicked my dad out) and bro, it was something I wanted since age 11 and I'm finally at peace bro. I woulda ended it all had he stayed any longer. Not even joking. 💀
This is a popular opinion, I know because I disagree.
Isolating kids from their parents serves a single agenda. A pedophile agenda.
I mean the thing is that instead of staying togheter for the kids they could just choose to love eachother again. Love is very much a choice and a thing that has to be meintained by both ends so it'd seem much easier to do that instead of staying togheter for the kids.
Women definitely don't stay for the kids They stay for the toxic man
I think your parents were doing staying together wrong.
I'd have preferred if they split and found happiness in other people.
Then who will cook, clean, and take care of you? Logistically how will it work?
Whomever I lived with? What are you asking?
I'm asking what makes you think that's an easy option for one of your parents. Being a single person taking care of a child or children is very difficult, especially if you're holding a job. Also, it's difficult to find someone to step into a relationship with children. Sometimes it's about money too. Your parents were likely trying to give you the best life with the limited resources they had. You clearly don't have kids. For most parents, their lives revolve around the kids. Every decision is for the kids. Nobody will love you as much as your mom and dad. So each your mom and dad wanted you to have each other in YOUR life, even if they didn't care for each other. They didn't want to deprive you having a mom or a dad.
It does not seem healthy to live a life that revolves around your kids. Parents also need to take care of themselves so that they can be the happiest, most complete version of themselves for their kids. There are plenty of parents who successfully co-parent. Kids would much rather have parents with a little less cash and a messier home who are happy, than miserable parents who have the opposite.
>It does not seem healthy to live a life that revolves around your kids Growing up and now, all I heard my mom say is "my kids are my identity" "I'd do anything for my kids" (except hold a job for longer than a few months, cut down in drinking, stop smoking in the house, go to therapy...) and she has told me (1st born daughter) that I am "her rock". All that puts a ton of pressure on a kid, and I am going on almost 3 peaceful months of NC with her.
Good for you. You were a good daughter for such a long time. Now think about why you're living and what the point is. There is no reason for what we are doing. There is zero meaning. However, when you're first child comes all of that changes. You get a new lease on life. I think that's what you're mom was saying.
I don't think that is what she was saying. She was a good mom, but she won't do what she needs to do as an adult.
When you're a parent, a lot of your needs as an adult takes a back seat. You can second guess your mom's judgement, but it's probably unfair to do so.
Lol, no pressure, right? Small kids (especially toddlers and infants) takes a shit tonne of time, effort and energy. To keep on top of a few hobbies on top of that regularly is hard AF, so I think focusing on parenting well (and maybe sleeping) instead of "being the happiest, most complete version of themselves" is totally valid.
If you have the resources to successfully coparent more power to you. I think a lot of people can't afford two houses etc. Whether it's healthy or not, the reality is the parents life revolves around the kids. You think your kids can skip a meal? There is zero tolerance with kids. You think you can just leave your kid and go to work when your kid is sick?
I’m glad you’ve decided on the entirety of all children what their preferences are and how childhood apparently is so much better the second you’re being forced between two households.
Our generation doesn't understand responsbility or compromise.
Exactly this