to think the mental impact of divorce on children is severely underestimated?

[InsanityandBeyond]

Contentious topic .

DC often get an absolutely shit deal when marriages break up and often have to accept their separated parents embarking on new relationships and having to be part of a 'blended' family with DCs from the stepmother/father added into the mix.

Some step/parents that complain about finding these DC hard work and their behaviour difficult to deal with. Not exactly rocket science that DC will be disturbed by having to share living space, and time with their parents, with people they are not related to and not having the security of living with, and focused attention of, both parents which is their birthright.

A lot of marriages break up way too easily these days as the parents want to be 'happy' or have 'fallen out of love', 'want a newer model' etc, etc with the DC dragged along for the ride with no choice in the matter.

In terms of abusive relationships, it could be argued that you should know your partner and their background well before bringing children into the equation which seems to be a very controversial view .

Is it really impossible for adults to put their 'happiness' and new relationships, which would have an impact on their DC, on hold until their children are grown up?

The damage is often played out when they become adults as children will accept almost anything from their parents as a survival mechanism until they are old enough to question it. It is thought that DC are resilient and will get over it but I think that is a fallacy self absorbed parents tell themselves to make themselves feel better.

My 17 year old DD is the only person on her college course whose parents are still together. I find that shocking and really sad.

AIBU in thinking that this is a ticking time bomb in an explosion of mental health issues in the next generation and the implications of divorce/separation on children's mental health should be much more ingrained in the morality of society?

I come from a broken home and out was very difficult. I do think it contributed to my depression aged 16. It is still difficult at times with my parents STILL trying to score points against each other nearly THIRTY years later. Both still putting me in the middle and making me feel bad about seeing the other one or who's seen my DS more..

Would it have been better if they'd stayed together for me? Absolutely not. For one the guilt I would feel would be horrendous. For another they would be miserable and bitter together and horrible people than would have probably screwed me up even more.

Life isn't black and white, one size doesn't fit all.

Yes, I agree that some people chuck the towel in too quickly with their marriage but that doesn't mean everyone does. It has made me want to work harder in my relationship because I don't want DS to go through what I did BUT if staying together became detrimental to the 3 of us then I would separate.

Walton

I'm not sure that is the case. I am divorced. I certainly don't feel bad about it. I am proud of the fact that I left for the better of myself and my little girl.

What I don't like is someone spouting shite about something they clearly don't have a very good grasp on the reality of.

To imply that someone should stay in any relationship that they are miserable in is daft but to suggest people should have known their partners would turn abusive prior to having children is downright idiotic.

I think the outcome for children of divorced parents depends on how the parents handle it and how they choose to conduct their lives afterwards, not the mere fact that they separated in the first place.

Yes I agree that the op doesn't have the experience to talk so knowingly but , opinions are usually that !
It would be nice to fully discuss the effects though without so much emotion , that's my point ...
The op has instantly got people's backs up , no level headed conversation can therefore take place .

Having been through a rotten parental breakup when I was around 15, I can say I raise an eyebrow at some of the 'my children are totally FINE after our divorce/subsequent remarriages' comments.

Maybe yours were, but I certainly wasn't. It was miserable and the breakup wasn't even the contentious/screamy/fights over access kind. But then again, I was the sensitive type - I'm sure it's different for each family.

I do think you should leave if you're a parent and miserable in your relationship, and I think on paper at least two happy people should make better parents than two miserable ones. But at the same time, I would expect massive emotional fallout for a kid living through the breakup of a marriage as a matter of course - and if it doesn't happen then yay. But I would expect it to be very painful for them. Just my opinion based on my experiences though.

DrankSangria and twofingers Very childish comebacks. Makes me wonder if you are actually adults who can participate in an adult discussion.
I can assure you I'm an adult. That's why I don't go around starting 'contentious' threads that fail to see the complexities in what is usually an extremely difficult situation and then claiming to be a 'deep thinker'.

People who wish their parents had split up but didn't until they were adults, well you don't actually know that this would have been better or how you would coped as a child, do you?

Yes it would have been better, because we wouldn't go to bed and listen to Dad screaming and shouting at Mum for whatever reason she wouldn't agree with him, or listen to mum robbing peter to pay paul because dad 'used' the money for some thing he wanted/needed NOW.

Although both worked fulltime, but mum could only afford to buy herself new clothes by using the commission she earnt through buying our clothes through the catalogue, where dad just bought himself bits when he wanted.

It's not good living in a house where everyone is stressed and unhappy.

Ugh, I feel like I sound rude - not my intention. What I am trying to say is that sometimes I think people can underestimate the effect a breakup has on the kids. Not that everyone does, just sometimes I question how you can know how they really feel, especially if the child isn't forthcoming with their emotions.

Breakups are unavoidable a lot of the time, just I feel like sometimes there's a danger that an effort can be made to sweep 'old' things under the carpet and get on with the 'new' way of things, even if part of the 'old' stuff is unresolved anger, pain, longing on the part of the child. Which isn't ideal.

I think people do have unreasonable expectations of how relationships go - they expect the exciting phase with the great sex and the rose tinted specs to last forever and forget that where there are two people there will often be conflict of some sort.

However, not every conflict can be resolved, not every relationship can be fixed and not every two people who get married should stay together 'for the sake of the children'.

My DM wishes her parents had divorced long before they did - theirs was an utterly dysfunctional family which scarred her emotionally. I have only recently discovered how deep that emotional pain goes.

From my own experience I have seen how hard it has been for my DDs during the one really rough patch my DH and I had when we were rowing and there was a lot of simmering resentment. We got through it, it did strengthen our relationship to the point where we have now just come out of a major crisis period (DH's bereavement/stress/depression) without most of the negative fallout of our first tough time. However I would not dream of saying to anyone else "Well I did it, why can't you?" because they are not me. My DDs still get distressed when there is discord between me and my DH - we can back off rowing these days and talk things through like adults, but when it happens and I see their distress, I think 'We did that to them'. How much worse would it have been if DH and I had not been able to resolve our issues and had stayed together like that? In that situation we would have and should have divorced, for the sake of our DDs.

You have a very naive, black and white view of relationships, OP.

I was sort of with you OP, until you stated that people who get together with a DV partner somehow had it coming/could have foreseen it.

But so as not to derail the debate, I agree that sometimes people seem to take a cavalier attitude to divorce and the effect it has on children.

All children I know from divorced parents have a tough time of it, one way or another.

But not everyone has a choice. a friend of mine was left by her DH, just like that. Nothing she would have said or done would have mad him stay. Breaking up the family is often a unilateral decision, the other partner just has to lump it.

I think that maybe schools could offer better support (a person the kids can speak to) to primary school aged children whose parents divorce.

I'm single and I intend to stay single, at least in terms of when my children are around, for the foreseeable future.

Also I don't see myself getting it on with anyone who had children who would need to be blended into our family - and I would not expect someone to try and blend mine in with theirs, either.

What I am trying to say is that I would rather be single for perpetuity than have a family where we all have to muddle in - my children are mine, and I have had some awful dealings with men with whom I thought things were going well only to find that they were borderline or actually abusive.

I was very stupid to get involved with them so fast. I will never, ever do that again. I'm here now just for my children, and won't be confusing their family life any further than I can possibly help.

Disclaimer - I know there are people who marry again and have great, healthy relationships with other people with children. I'm not saying that is wrong. It's just (ime) quite rare.

But it has to be a personal decision. We can't tell each other what to do. I've only realised it's where I am at due to my own stupid mistakes and experiences.

This post has really irritated me. Op you come across as self righteous and judgemental and you have no right to judge people for the many reasons they seperate. All your doing is making people feel like failures when most if the time these decisions are the hardest people need to make and usually for the benefit of the child to seperate rather than live in a hostile environment. And expecting people not to move on with new partners etc is incredibly narrow minded. Just unbelievable.

I also think it is probably far better to divorce if the relationship is unhappy. FAR better. Just maybe not so great to bring someone new in to replace the missing partner, not for a while anyway.

Ex is massively in denial about this - he seems to think it should all be about the grown ups and the children will adapt. His children have been very damaged afaik, by his attitude. He just can't see it.

My parents weren't an extreme case, they were reasonably happily married for 20 something years, before it turned sour. I was extremely glad though, to have my rather difficult moody alcohol dependent (at the time) father not around at family events and to see him separately. I am glad they are both with different people now who are better suited to them and I prefer maintaining a separate relationship.

I slightly blame my mum for sticking with him as his presence made our house less nice, no DV, nothing dramatic- but the house was happier when they split and I maintain a better relationship with him now (as contact is a choice and not just something that happens by visiting the family home).

Op, I kind of got over the fact my parents are adults with flaws and problems and issues a while ago. I don't cling to any idealised model of their marriage and that's why, for me, it is not deeply traumatic that they split when I was 20.

Also, sadly, my mum's current partner is nicer and kinder to me than my own dad. You have assumed in your OP that step-parents are always worse, but if you have a difficult parent, a step-parent may be easier, it depends on the person and perhaps how old you were- mine didn't have any parenting role as I was already an adult when they came along.

The real damage to children of separated parents is done by people like the OP who judge thousands and thousands of people on stereotyped caricatures of what 'single mums' or 'lone parents' or 'separated parents' look like. She has assumed, without having met me, that I am a bit stupid, got involved with a man and had a baby with him quickly and then presumed I couldn't be bothered to continue in the relationship and make it work. She then assumes I have given my children an infinite number of 'uncles', passing off my children onto others so that I can pursue my relationships rather than focus on my children and their up-bringing.

You, OP, have caused my children more damage than their parent's marriage falling apart. You know, the way you make not-so-quiet pantomine comments behind the back of the hand whilst my children are within earshot about the 'boyfriend' you saw me with last week. The boyfriend who is actually my cousin, very much a part of our lives and who treats my children with decency and respect. The stress that caused my children presuming that I was hiding something from them, scared that their lives were about to change was something I had to deal with...whilst you went back to your smug, perfect life. It was your children who called mine 'single mum, benefit scum' in the playground last year - because those children (from middle class, educated families) had heard those words in their homes and presumed that applied to me (I am a full time working professional, not that I have to explain that to anyone). It is you that on a playdate says 'oh, you're mum's single, well yes, that explains why you're in childcare all the time, doesn't it?' Well, yes, I work for a living and have no other support so childcare works for me. Presumably you would prefer that I didn't work so you could continue to call me 'benefit scum'? Or perhaps I should have my children adopted into a 'decent' family? Or the mum who turns up on my doorstep for a playdate and says 'I presume we're paying for you to live here, aren't we?'. No, you're not. I own my house, outright, and yes, it's big and yes, it's in a nice area. Unfortunately, there are people out there who believe we don't deserve that because....shhssh....I'm a 'single mum'.

Children are damaged not by the falling apart of their parent's relationships but by the second class status forced upon us by the media and society at large. Single-parenting/lone-parenting/separated parenting or co-parenting isn't a disease. You can't catch it. We're not the lowest of the low that the Daily Mail would have you believe we are. Most of us are people who are getting on with our lives as best we can and who have to dodge the daily shit thrown at us by people like you. Unfortunately, many single parents end up in new, unsatisfactory relationships because they are vulnerable - financially and emotionally and because of the status implied by a stable relationship and/or a wedding ring on your finger. The things people have said to me as a single parent would make most decent people's hair curl - things that people would never have dared say if that ring was visible. And people say these things - like you have here - without an ounce of understanding, let alone a desire to empathize and acknowledge that it's a massive leap forward that people no longer have to endure regular beatings, the emotional turmoil that goes with loving someone who sleeps around or just plain old unhappiness because they made a mistake. Divorce is OK.

And for the record, I am educated to Masters degree level. I speak 3 languages besides my own. I am well travelled and have lived and worked abroad in a number of countries. I am independent and pay my own bills. I met my now ex-husband at the age of 27, lived with him a couple of years before marrying and our first child was born some 6 years after we got together. He was, when I married him, a decent man and there was nothing in the first 10 years of our relationship that was to hint at the man he would become when he decided he no longer wanted to be with me. I had had other serious relationships, I had plenty to compare it to. I did just about everything I could to protect myself when choosing a life partner. I couldn't 'save' my marriage - I wasn't given that opportunity. He wanted to be with someone else, didn't come home one evening and served me divorce papers a couple of days later. I had no choice but to get on with single parenting and I take pride in the life I have built for us since he left over 5 years ago. I am not ashamed of what happened to me. I didn't deserve it - I was a decent enough wife although I presume you'll think I must have done something anything to deserve the way I was treated.

Stop judging thousand and thousands of people who's lives you know nothing at all about. As much as I would today neglect to spit at you if you were on fire, I would never wish on you what I went through when my ex husband walked out. It can - and does - happen to good, decent people. It may one day happen to you. I really do hope you don't live to regret what you have said here today.

"'I presume we're paying for you to live here, aren't we?'."

Fucking hell are you fucking serious?
beyond furious.
so sorry mumandboys123

yes, very serious. thatswhatimtalkingabout. The things people have said to me amaze me! Unfortunately, I'm not very quick witted so just smile and pretend I don't have a clue. I'm thick-skinned and it no longer bothers me - it says more about the person who feels the need to have a dig and their life than mine.

Applauds mumandboys123.

mumandboys

I am a single parent and thankfully haven't come across a lot of what you post about. What ignorant twats!

mumandboys - v sorry that you've had to put up with such vile comments.

A further point. The OP implies that it is selfish of adults to want to be 'happy' or to make decisions with a view to ensuring future happiness. There are a whole host of responses on this thread indicating that the unhappiness of an individual is never confined to that individual. The burden of parental unhappiness, of witnessing wasted or half-lived lives, is a horrible one, especially if you know that it exists because your parents made the wrong decision believing that they were acting in your best interests.

and [applause] for mumandboys

Another applause and from me mumandboys.

Your boys (?) will be (if they aren't already) proud of their Mum.

Heck, I'm proud of their Mum!

mumandboys amazing post, says it all.

mumandboys yes I relate though not quite as bad comments for me, maybe because my child is younger and I don't do playdates very much.

Like many things, it's not the event itself that causes the most damage. It's the social stigma and people's attitudes and behaviours. People have alot to answer for.