To ask how your children coped when you split up? Or how you did if your parents split?

[Orcaorcaorca]

I’m finding this really really hard, and I know everyone will have a different situation. My dc are 6 and 12 and my little one especially is extremely about being a family.
I’ve read study after study that tells me it takes two heads for them to start feeling better about it, that’s a big chunk of childhood there, on top of what we’ve lost to covid. The studies also tell me about suicide rates, depression, struggling academically, poorer life chances, likelihood of their own relationships failing.
Essentially it’s all harrowing reading and makes me feel as though I should just stay put since I had the dc and it’s not their fault that my marriage is breaking down.
They aren’t witnessing conflict or arguing - I believe this will be a massive shock for my younger dc. Not so much my older one I suspect.
I tend to think people underestimate the effect of family break up on dc by saying they are resilient - they have to be. They’ve no choice. It’s done to them and they don’t get a say. I’m not suggesting people should stay together for the dc but I do think they can be massively impacted.

Anyone?

I was 7 when my parents split. While it was a bit upsetting at the time, I don’t see it as a big tragedy. They were unhappy together and happy apart. I think 2 separate happy parents is better than married parents who are just plodding along for the sake of the kids.

I split with my ex before my son turned one, so he won’t remember us being together, so I don’t have any advice on that front, I’m afraid.

Divorce is very common, and while it will impact on kids, there are so many other factors to how they’ll grow up.

You're right that children can be massively impacted and it would be foolhardy to brush this off as "children are resilient".

That said, as someone who has been through a divorce with a child -- and has witnessed countless other similar situations: I firmly believe that its not the fact of separation itself that damages children, its factors associated with how the separation is conducted: such as acrimony between parents, rapid introduction of new partners and children into a child's life and the sudden downgrade of a child's living circumstances.

I am extremely aware of a risk of complacency but my H and I separated when my DD was 4. She's now 10 and generally pretty unscathed by things. She still maintains a good relationship with her dad but is a happy, healthy and resilient child.

It helps that a) I am lucky to have managed to maintain my standard of living and b) I haven't moved another bloke and his children in. Sorry if that sounds smug: its not meant to. I've had a very "good" divorce, all things considered.

But I also think the following are important: a) absolutely refusing, despite any provocation, to slag off the child's other parent and b) being very alert to the child's mental wellbeing. Anecdotally, I think it tends to be easier the younger the child is as well but clearly this isn't something in your control.

I don't want to minimise: I think there's a tendency for divorced parents to sweep this under the carpet and it is something which needs to be faced. I guess what I am saying is that divorce and separation don't have to damage children. If they are handled with dignity and mutual respect and if the child's needs are always put first it can be managed.

I was 13 and majorly impacted.

I was 10, and it was a relief when my mum finally left, after a string of affairs. The constant bickering left a tension in the house that was painful.
Being bought up by our Dad was very unusual at the time and where we lived, but I was much happier after she'd gone.

I was 9 when my parents separated and the thing that made it difficult is that they would fight in front of us , my mother made sure to run my father down in front of me in every opportunity, she pointed out the other woman to me in the street as well. For about 2 years my mother over burdened me with her grief and exposed me to adult situations that I had no business knowing about. Dont be like my mother and your children will more than likely adapt and be fine.

I'm the step parent to 2. I think my DH's kids have come through ok. They were 7& 9 when parents split. Amicably, continued to co parent well and both moved on to new relationships in time. Kids central to decisions, no bickering over money or custody. Oldest child seemed happier post spilt (according to DH) as was more aware of tension. Younger one always very sweet and good natured but I think found it harder to understand. I think she felt the loss of the family unit much more. Both now in their 20's and everyone is still on good terms.

My parents separated when I was an adult so it's a different experience, but I had parents who stayed together 'for the children' from when I was a small child and it made things really difficult.

My parents were quite young when they had me and my brothers, and from what people around me have said I think they didn't ever really have a real relationship. They didn't have a lot of money and knew it would be harder work in many ways raising us separately. I don't remember them ever arguing with each other, they were just very detached and wouldn't really do anything together that wasn't completely structured around us. Like they would come to our school plays together but had no friends in common and never watched films or went to the pub together or anything like that.

But by the time I was a teenager and had my own hobbies, rather than things being structured around taking the kids to swimming lessons or the cinema or whatever the entire social side of our family broke down. By that point me and my brothers had our own rooms, and my dad had moved onto the sofa downstairs permanently. They were amiable and would talk about bills etc. but were just very disconnected, and it felt like the entire (small) house was separated into rooms my mum went in vs rooms my dad went in. My dad stopped using the kitchen fridge and cupboard and essentially lived off microwave meals. I felt like I couldn't have friends over because anywhere I went it was like I was trespassing, and people would ask about the weird dynamic and why there were clothes in the living room, and why there was very obviously a grown man living on a small sofa without a duvet or pillow or anything. My mum is very sociable and outgoing, but never had people round either. There was this unspoken rule that we couldn't acknowledge any of it out loud, and it meant we were under massive pressure trying to lie and cover all the weirdness of it up when we saw friends or extended family, and me and my brothers didn't even feel like we could talk about it to each other. We'd have really convuluted conversations trying to avoid saying 'mum's room' or 'dad's room'.

It used to really bother me and I absolutely wished they'd just split up from the age of about 8. Then when I was getting to the end of secondary school I think there was this tension among all of us because we all knew we were slowly losing the reason we were all together as a family in the first place. My mum found it really tough and used to cry a lot, and that made me really scared about her. I didn't even want them to live together but the sense of everything falling apart was terrifying. I was absolutely terrified of turning 18 and remember staying up all night the night before crying, because it was the last point any of us were legally children and I conflated that in my head with the point that everything would finally fall apart. I left home permanently as soon as I could just to get away from the misery of it all.

As adults, my brothers and I are all extremely private and independent people. We've done well academically and have friends, good jobs etc. but none of us have had meaningful relationships and I know we all struggle a bit to open up to people emotionally. I think a part of that must be never having had a real relationship modelled to us. There are other things I notice as well, like it took us a long time to learn how to cook food that wasn't very idiosyncratic and we tend to eat quickly and without talking, which I think is because we haven't had family meals since we were small children. From secondary age we ate separately, and alone, just because there wasn't that social space keeping us together as a family.

I do think it's tough being the child of divorce as well, and navigating two households, and I don't want to minimise that at all. But even relationships that don't have that much actual conflict in can be difficult to grow up in as well. I've visited my parents separately as an adult and we'll eat together in the evenings, we'll chat together in the living room and the kitchen and my mum has a thriving social life with friends round for dinner parties all the (non-covid!) time. She's started seeing someone and he's lovely and warm, and the flat feels like somewhere where people love each other and get on. While there are so many things that I think would have been hard if they had split, I think that it would have been a much nicer place to grow up.

tl;dr - I think staying together for the children can work when they're small, if there's no real conflict, but in my experience it becomes stressful when they're teens and have an awareness of what relationships are meant to be like.

I was 9 and i was told that although they no longer loved each other they both loved me and the only change would be separate homes. I was fine with that and it's never been an issue for me.
My friend's parents divorced when we were 11 and she didn't cope. Her parents turned it into a massive drama and made a huge deal of letting the kids know how utterly devastating the situation was and that their lives would never be same.

I was 10. Came as a bit of a shock and was obviously sad but not a life altering tragedy. They did it well. They never said, and have still never said 20+ years later anything negative to me or my sister about the other.

As a child, I felt so relieved and was so excited to move into our new house. It just seemed so completely normal and sensible and it made such a change in my life from the stressful few years before. I was 10, I think. There's a lot of other dysfunctional stuff from my childhood that have impacted me, but the divorce was truly no big deal and there were only positives.

Child of divorce here and would never want to do it to my children. But as others have said that’s down to how it was dealt with and the new partners in my parents’ lives and therefore my life. Shuttling back and forth at weekends, feeling torn at Christmas or feeling like I couldn’t tell the other parent I’d had a great holiday with one etc etc. Having to leave a home where I was happy to move in with a man who clearly didn’t have much regard for me was the nail in the coffin. Not sure I’ve really ever forgiven my mum for that.

I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to stay in an unhappy marriage but I wish people would give more thought to how these things affect the children. You sound very thoughtful so I’m sure you will be sensitive about it.

My advice would be to never slate the other parent ever. Even now (25 years later!) my mum tries it and it makes me dislike her company. Don’t introduce any new partners quickly and make sure they care about your children and not only you.

I was 11 when my parents split. I agree with the poster above that it's not the split itself that causes issues but the acrimony between parents. I feel my brother and I were largely unscathed by our parents split. It was always made very clear that we were very loved by both parents and, for the most part, my parents remained civil and were are united front on key aspects in our childhood. They always attended parents evenings together for example.

I do have some lasting baggage from the split; in early adult I was especially bad at communicating my own wants and needs for fear of upset anyone and I'm pretty sure that came from a particular point in my teen years where I spent lots of time trying not to rock the boat between my parents and trying not to upset either of them. Although I'm pretty confident them staying together, and the tension that would have led to, would have caused more damage to me.

I teach and have been heartbroken at times for some of the children in my care who have been torn between warring parents. It's horrific and I will never ever put my children through that. My husband and I have already discussed how we will try and approach things if we were ever to split and I will not subject my children to being pawns in adult battles. That being said, I wouldn't stay with my husband just for the sake of the children. I would just expect us to always put the children first in the event of a split, even if it's incredibly hard for us. As long as the children's needs are always prioritised, they should be able to weather the storm of a split.

We to be honest should have split many years ago but because we actually get on well stayed together until youngest was 18. It's if anything harder on them older because they don't have the legal system to help them establish a new routine. I can't make my dd see her dad and their relationship is now really bad, he still pays for everything for her and I try to make her talk to him

I tend to think people underestimate the effect of family break up on dc by saying they are resilient - they have to be. They’ve no choice. It’s done to them and they don’t get a say. I’m not suggesting people should stay together for the dc but I do think they can be massively impacted.

I agree with this OP. My DPs divorced when I was six and it had a massive and terrible impact on me and my sibling and on my step-siblings (whose own DPs had also, obviously, got divorced to marry my DPs).

If you simply cannot stay in the marriage how you and the DC's father handle it and talk about it to them is key. My DF left us for someone we knew well and we had to leave our home so she and her DC could move in. We were expected to just suck it up. If we showed how angry and hurt we were, if we yelled or cried, it wasn't tolerated. My DF's selfishness wrought misery on my childhood. Now he says he regrets it and doesn't know what came over him. There is a part of me that will never forgive him, even now he's an old man and I'm a middle-aged woman. Think VERY carefully before you act.

I was 2, with older siblings. I have no memory of the split itself, but what has damaged me is the way my dad showed zero interest in us from the moment he left. We saw him, but I think it was my mum doing all the running. He frequently let us down. When we went to his house he mostly ignored us.

Having a parent be so disinterested is devastating.

My children were completely fine. In fact it made way for a happier and calmer home for them.

My experience was very different, because I was happy when my parents were together, and I felt like I was losing a lot whereas my children gained a lot.

Each child will experience it differently. My children went with the flow and never questioned anything or cried etc.. , whereas I felt like I was grieving for a while.

My parents divorced when I was 10. It wasn't really the divorce that messed us kids up, it was the vitriol, name calling, point scoring and hatred they had for each other. It made me feel lonely and cut off from both my parents. When I saw one I felt like I was betraying the other.

If you can keep any discord and bad mouthing from them and they have two loving parents living separately and happily, then it can really minimise the impact.

I was around 4 when my mum and I moved away from my dad - they were always separated but we moved to a different country so much less contact.

I was relieved because their relationship was toxic, so while I loved both of my parents, it was the perfect solution to see them both separately, and it was an amazing feeling to be away from all the fighting and stress.

I think it very much depends on how the break up plays out more than the bit before the break up.

DS has a good relationship with his dad, sees him regularly and he is still as close to me as ever.
Me and his dad speak, his dad calls round here to collect him and comes in the house etc. Essentially DS is seeing a far healthier relationship between us now than prior to us splitting up which is what I wanted.

I have to make the effort for that to happen but it's a price worth paying.

Thank you for these experiences.
I’m anxious to make sure things stay amicable in front of the children but I’m not certain DH will be the same and his whole family will be slagging me off.
However I can only control what I do. I have no control over their behaviour.

@Orcaorcaorca

Thank you for these experiences. I’m anxious to make sure things stay amicable in front of the children but I’m not certain DH will be the same and his whole family will be slagging me off. However I can only control what I do. I have no control over their behaviour.

That's a tough one OP. Unfortunately sometimes the very people you should want to seperate from are the hardest to do so because you know the shitstorm that might follow and what that WOULD do to the children. I have a friend whose wife told him she would destroy him if he ever left, he did so eventually and she is manipulating everyone and everything to turn the situation in her favour. The children's relationship with their very loving father is being destroyed and Im pretty sure he wishes he's stayed where he was. There are no easy answers here and only you know what kind of an ex-husband he would probably make.

My husband has said similar - he’s said he will make up allegations if needs be.

@Orcaorcaorca

My husband has said similar - he’s said he will make up allegations if needs be.

Oh God, I really feel for you OP, that's very tough and there's no point in pretending he's going to make it easy for you or even moderately civil if that's his mindset.

My parents divorced when I was 4. My father made a pretence of being interested for a year or so then moved hours away and we saw him once every year or two. The divorce wasnt the problem. Being left as uninteresting and not worth the time by a parent was the problem. Agree completely it's about how its managed.