Ending marriages with children

I completely agree with the OP.

If my marriage did end, I also wouldn’t be looking for a new relationship until DD was old enough to be unaffected. DD comes first, ahead of my need / desire to be in a relationship.

I appreciate others will take a different approach.

Ironically, if you expect the kids to be grateful, you didn't do it for them.

I think a lot of women say they stay for the kids when they really stay for the security. That's an observation, not a judgement; I can very much understand it. But it does cause problems if you're not honest at least with yourself about it, because eventually the kids will grow up and then what will you tell yourself?

I agree with this.

This is not a scenario that the op was talking about because my dad was abusive but I know my mum stayed “for me”. I still feel like my mum, maybe just subconsciously, expects me to be grateful for it.

I read up a lot and did a lot of soul searching before getting divorced and this was one of the things that i considered.
DD was 6 when I seriously started considering it (before then I couldn't fathom 50/50) and realised that I had a window until purperty to do it or had to wait until well in to adulthood so it wasn't clearly a 'stayed together for the kid' head f*ck for her, but also didn't want it all to coincide with her starting high school, so I gave myself until she was 10. This focused by attention and I completed on my new home a week after she turned 8.

I am much happier, DD seems very settled, the school wellbeing TA is very impressed with how DD is handling it all, and it seems to be all going fine so far.

If you are going to stay together for the kids, you need to do it in such a way that the kids don't know you stayed together for them. If you split up the second they turn 18/leave home or just somehow let it be known that you've only done it for them, it's very likely to mess them up. Especially if you also expect them to be grateful to you for it.

I think a lot of people who say they're staying for the kids are reallh staying for the finances, security and convenience. Which I think is valid, tbh, as long as you're both on the same page about it. But you should be honest, at least to yourself.

Just a story from another perspective… my best friends parents stayed together until she had left home.

Literally once she’d started university they announced they were splitting.. she had no family home to go back to, so felt completely adrift and also very guilty that her parents had basically waited to split until she had left home.

So staying ‘together for the kids’ is also not always a good choice. It has really messed her up.

“Once they both got new partners and had more children, I never felt truly welcome in either home because my step mum or dad prioritised their own nuclear family by blood.”

Just commenting to empathise with this OP - my parents divorced when I was young and I always just felt like a visitor, never at home anywhere really.

Their new partners always took priority. If my DH and I split up, I’d just remain single.

YANBU. 90% of the posts on here from women in shit relationships or marriages become a drip feed of how he’s always been shit or emotionally distant but they decided to get married and have kids anyway, or posters who admit they knew their partner for a few months before ‘accidentally’ falling pregnant. These women don’t think of babies as actual human beings who will have to deal with the consequences of their reckless decisions.

Yes, I think so. I was widowed and have decided not to have a child with my partner in case my daughter feels “less than”, despite the fact that she sees my partner as her dad and he treats her as his own (having raised her since she was 5). I believe the benefits of having a sibling would be outweighed by that negative.

One of the first questions my only child DD asked when I divorced was if I could have another baby now, but she also asked if I could marry one of her friends divorced dads so that she had step siblings ...😂

But alas I'm 45 and hit menopause early, so there will be no more babies for me, and I certainly won't be marry her friends dad!!

I’ve been married 20 years. Been together 25. A few years ago I posted on MN on an old account how I felt trapped, bored, lonely in my marriage. Really down in the doldrums. I convinced myself that I was hard done by, had no freedom - all the things that I feel a lot of women (and some men!) when they’ve been married a long time and they approach their 40s. Many many well meaning members posted to tell me there was more to life than this, he’ll never change, go out and enjoy yourself etc.

Except one lady in 70’s. And her words changed my life. She asked if I thought my husband was bored too (didn’t know if not bothered to ask him)did I do things that made him feel less lonely (don’t know I only saw my own loneliness), had I actually spoken to him about what I thought would help us reconnect (of course not I assumed he should just telepathically know!) or was I just thinking of me, myself and I. She asked if I would be better off (emotionally not financially) without him. I thought a lot about that and the answer always came back as no, I wouldn’t. I went to a lot of effort to make the time to approach him about all the things that he was feeling and all the things I was. We booked a weekend away and for the first day we did nothing but moan about each of our gripes and then we set to work by discussing what we could do to resolve them. And it worked. Out of 25 years the last 3 have been the best and if I hadn’t seen her post or chosen to listen to the majority I would have left him, broken up our family, and would have regretted it. I think a lot of people forget that something like family and marriage need watering and time and patience.

Some people of course are better off apart but I do think a lot of separations these days are just ‘done’ with minimal effort to fix.

I don’t know anyone who split up because they were “bored” more like fundamental incompatibility and unfortunately it’s not clear what kind of parent the other person you’ll be when you first meet them. I thought I was marrying a real “family man”, he always prioritised his parents and grandparents whom he was close to, used to drop everything to help when they were in hospital. Unfortunately he was not a good father and resembled a third child. He has taken 1 day off with sick kids in 11 years. Kids are lowest on his priority list.

What many people don’t fully comprehend is that it’s possible to divorce and not immediately jump into bed with someone else and create an additional family. I have no desire for more kids and won’t be moving another man into my home. One of my friends told me out of all the divorced people she knows I’m the only one not to remarry quickly (been separated 5 years, divorced for 2). But that’s very much the expectation, with lots of people saying “you might meet your dream man and have another baby” etc. no thanks!!

Ideally both people would be selfless and emotionally intelligent enough to communicate about the loss of shine and then work on it before it gets worse.
But admittedly that isn’t always human nature, and nothing can change that.

I think both parties (one by one though) don’t realise the shine is gone until they’ve sleepwalked though a LOT of time being miserable

I'm the same. My exh had created a whole new family in no time after we separated (divorce wasn't even finalised) but I have no interest in doing the same even though my kids are now young adults. They have no relationship at all with their dad's new family but me and them are as close as ever.

I am glad we divorced, the kids are glad we divorced. The problem was never about the divorce, it was about the creation of a new family.

I'm divorced, and while my ex has attempted to blend families by moving into his partner's home, I have decided to make my home theirs only. I do have a partner, but he will never move in with me as I know this isn't what they would want. Financially it's difficult, but it's the right thing to do.

Surely though, this is less about divorcing and more about putting your kids first?

OP says it was best for her parents to separate but she felt left out when they each had second families.

i think it’s best to divorce rather than raise kids in a toxic relationship. But the parents need to focus on the children.

Adult relationships can happen out of sight of children. No string of new partners or do over families. That often seems very damaging.

I agree that ending a marriage if you have kids is a big step and should not be taken lightly. It's also important to consider the impact on children and there are many who show through their behaviour that they don't do this. At the same time, what I see on here is constant examples of men who disrespect, ignore and abuse their wives in many different ways. When their wives have tried and tried to explain how his behaviour is affecting them. And I think their wives should divorce them and this would actually model healthier to their kids. Marriage is ultimately a patriarchal institution which mostly benefits men and therefore for many women the right decision is to end their marriage. And for many this is a step they take after trying and trying for many years

This comes up every so often on here and I don't think it's particularly true. Divorce is expensive and painful. Nobody, or at least very, very few, gets divorced on a whim. I think this from OP is by far the most common reason why people divorce I am not talking about relationships where the couple is deeply unhappy and has unresolveable differences (for example one isn’t pulling their weight), which are making for an unhappy home.. That can be pulling their weight with chores, pulling their weight with availability, pulling their weight emotionally, pulling their weight financially etc.

Divorce is more common now than it was half a century ago, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially for women. Most children cope very well with having divorced parents. I agree that creating 2nd and 3rd families makes it all much more fragile and open to conflict, but you can get divorced and not do that. I feel like the gripe OP has isn't necessarily with people divorcing, it's about blending new families, which is a separate matter.

I agree with you to a certain extent.

Divorce was rarer in the past because more women were trapped financially, physically and emotionally. Returning to your parents house in the aftermath of a split isn’t something as shameful as in the past (man or woman) and as women usually continue working while married and the benefits system protect children and low earners better (than the past!), bouncing back is possible.

It’s a good thing that men and women expect and behave better in relationships than they did the past. While there are serious problems like DV, some children and spouses escaping is better than none.

I do think that some people jump into more kids and moving in with new partners scarily quick though. I realise that they are trying to make the new relationship as legitimate and serious as the old one but the end of a serious relationship should have made more people wiser tbh.

I am divorced with kids but our situation is much less complicated as neither of us had more kids. I think that the kids are better off not witnessing and living with my relationship with their dad and that they don’t see our relationship as normal and a basis for their current and future relationships. There was no DV or anything like that btw but I think that my kids should aim for loving and happy relationships rather than repeat their parents’ behaviour.

Yes. Absolutely.

The problem is that we pesky women have options now. We can leave. We have realised, now that many of us work full time, that it’s actually worse to work and do all of the housework and childcare, life admin etc, whilst married than it is to be single.
No one is turned on by resentment.
But when you end a marriage because of this, there is frequently disbelief. So many women just do it all and don’t question it that they can’t understand those of us who have enough.
Not to mention those women who, shock, have affairs.
We’re just doing to men what they’ve done to us for centuries.
In two hundred years, marriage and being monogamous will be distant memories. If we’re not all extinct.
7/10 of my friends are happy single mums, as am I. No abuse, just sick of their bullshit.

Correct

What if you only have one child? They’d be better off never having a sibling ever?

I did this. He wasn’t happy, ignored me for years, left me to do all the heavy lifting of childcare and housework while he did his hobbies and everyone went on about how wonderful he was. But I didn’t leave because it wasn’t abusive and it meant the children did not lose out financially. He then started an affair, eventually decided he was leaving for that.

I did what you said OP and there’s nothing of me. All anyone has to say about me is how lucky I am to have happy children. I love my children and I’m delighted they seem to have coped ok with coming from a broken home.
I’d do it all again.

But I wouldn’t advise anyone else to do it. It’s miserable having your children telling you what a lovely time they have with dad and his girlfriend but laughing and asking why would mum have a boyfriend when people ask if I’m seeing anyone. It’s miserable that I’ve wasted my life but only get as much credit, possibly less, as their dad in how they’ve turned out. And at the end of the day, the kids haven’t turned out any better or any worse than any other kids I know where the parents arguably prioritised their own happiness.