Loveless marriage VS commitment to family

[hoven]

AIBU to suggest that committing to stay in a marriage for your children is more important to show your children than showing them an 'example of a happy relationship'?

In marriages without abuse or toxicity of course

I am in a loveless marriage (at least from my end) but I stay because my kids don't want us to split up. They would be so unhappy. They are thriving now and breaking up our family would change everything, and not for the better. So we make it work and it's alright. Not the best situation but I know it's what makes them happy and that's all that matters to me. He really is a great father and committed to our family.

I would definitely leave if our children were exposed to violent abuse. I would want to protect them at that point, whether they are happy with it or not. I try my hardest to make decisions that are best for them.

Agree. I also think that this is more about your comfort than doing it for the children. Probably for most of us actually, I think the excuse of "doing it for the kids" is mostly BS unless you're kids are clueless and don't know what's really going on. Spoiler alert, they see everything

I understand where the OP is coming from, but there are so many shades of grey.

I come from a successful split. My parents split when I was 4 and both went on to have very happy second marriages. I didn't suffer because other than for a blip my parents got on well and prioritised my happiness. The big 'but' here is that I didn't have to house shuffle and my main carer, my mum, didn't have more children. I spent half of every holiday with my dad and didn't have to share my mum with any half siblings, or worse, step siblings.

From my mum's perspective she was bloody miserable living with her parents for 10 years until she met my stepdad.

In contrast, when I was a TA I dealt with several very unhappy children switching between parents either alternating weeks or splitting weeks. Tears at drop offs because they weren't seeing that parent for a few days. Blended families really not blending at all.

A childhood friend is on to her third husband. Her first husband (and father of her DD) was lovely but not massively ambitious, so she left. She married her second husband knowing that he actually didn't like her DD. That only lasted a few years and she's now onto her third. Her DD gets on ok with him. I don't think that divorce made that 'friend' happy the first time. She has done extremely well in her career and earns more than the Prime Minister, as does DH3 who was her boss. I think she is happy now, but I'm not sure about her DD.

Sometimes your children may see you stressed from work, does that mean you are teaching your child to not prioritise their health over work? Work is always going to be stressful but you still have to do it.

Same thing with relationships and marriage, they're not always easy but sometimes you need to do the right thing and commit to the choice you made. Quitting and making massive changes for your child just because you want to get laid is not the best option

Chastising people who leave an unhappy and loveless marriage to find a healthier way to live as 'wanting to get laid' is actually disgusting and risible. Especially from someone using their own husband as a sperm donor. You're clearly still getting laid as you so charmingly put it so what on earth maes you think that other people who are in loveless marriages are in sexless marriages and sex is their driver to leave?

You get one life OP.

This is it and you are wasting yours on a sad barren existence no matter how much you look down your nose at people making different choices.

No one will thank you for this.

Well if you are stressed every day because you are unhappy in your job, yes you are teaching kids a poor lesson.

If you think you will be miserable for the next 20 years in your job and it will impact every aspect of your life, including theirs. Yes, that’s a poor lesson to teach children. Sticking at something that makes you unhappy for years and years, isn’t a good lesson. Teaching kids that even if you are miserable you shouldn’t change anything, isn’t a good lesson.

If we are comparing your marriage to a job. Your marriage would be a job that’s having a bad phase. But on the whole you are happy with it and it’s not always bad. A job that you believe might get better at some point. There’s a pay off for having this job. In your marriage the pay off is that you can have 2 kids with the same man so you can still sit in judgement of those that have 2 kids by 2 dads.

So you are not at the stage most people are when they divorce. You think there might be hope. So you can’t actually judge people who do divorce because your aren’t in the same position. You think there’s still hope judging people who are 100 steps beyond that.

Maybe when you get to the point where you know there’s no hope, you might decide divorce is the only option. You have no idea how you will feel.

You posted because you are miserable and you wanted people to tell your are so great it was that you are sacrificing your happiness for your child. Expect you aren’t doing anything for your child. You are massively judgmental about women who have kids with more than one man. You want another child so staying so you can have one and not be a hypocrite. You are staying for you. Not for the child you have or a future child. But because having another child is your priority.

I don’t see how that makes you any better than someone who has 2 kids by 2 dads. And the judgemental attitude will also be damaging to your children growing up.

I stand by what I said. Within in 5 years of having a second child you will leave.

There’s truth in this. But The outcome for the child is very dependent on how the adults handle it, rather than the divorce itself.

But then there plenty of unhappy children in homes where both parents live together and whose relationship with eachother is fine. Plenty of unhappy children in home where both parents are together but whose relationship is dead.

I don’t believe the only unhappy children are from families who divorce and the alternative handle it badly.

‘Quitting and making massive changes for your child just because you want to get laid is not the best option.’

Who/where are these people? I certainly don’t know them. Leaving a marriage is one of life’s biggest decisions. You’ve lost credibility with this comment, OP.

Sometimes your children may see you stressed from work, does that mean you are teaching your child to not prioritise their health over work? Work is always going to be stressful but you still have to do it.

I've actually left a job this year because it was making me unhappy and I felt devalued by the manager, managed to get a promotion externally and talked through it all with my eldest because I'm now being head hunted back to my remorseful old place so it's made for some useful teaching points around self worth!

No one is saying you have to 100% perfect and happy all the time, that is not life nor realistic to children, but when the light has gone out in a marriage that is more than just a down point in a marriage that has ups and downs.

It is actually true that most children murdered are killed by stepparents and not parents.

Each case for divorce is individual.

No one but you is actually experiencing your feelings you can write here and

try and explain. You could write the best description ever written but no one would be able to feel like you. Even if 20 women come on this forum and are also in dull though not toxic marriages and say I’m unhappy, bored, frustrated the way each one feels will be different.

I think it's important to remember that a lot of the time, parents are not the sole example of a committed romantic relationship that children have. My parents divorced, I didn't see my father regularly, my mum had a few boyfriends when I was a child. She taught me that I should never settle and I apply that in every area of my life. My grandparents taught me a lot about being in a long term committed relationship and how that can involve compromise. Those are not mutually exclusive lessons.

Keep telling yourself you're doing it for your child OP, if it makes you feel better. But even by the little you've written it's clear this isn't about what's best for your child it's about you wanting another child, and looking down on women who have children with different fathers. So you're willing to use your DH as a sperm donor even though you don't want to be with him. Not sure that's the moral high ground you seem to think it is.

Your distain for others who've made other choices, and generously shared their experiences to try to help you, says a lot about you.

Quitting and making massive changes for your child just because you want to get laid is not the best option

This is actually insulting. A vanishingly small number of women leave a marriage because they “want to get laid”. Some men do, I grant you. The majority of the time when women leave marriages it is due to abuse, neglect or general suboptimal behaviour.

OP you seem to be trying to bolster your position and rise above your own palpable uncertainty with this thread and you are totally unwilling to listen to reasonable responses to the question you posed.

It’s totally understandable that you are anxious and apprehensive about something which would cause such upheaval and to be cautious about it.

What is unreasonable is rejecting all alternative suggestions out of hand and saying that “wanting to get laid” is the motivation for marriage breakdowns.

@hoven

Do you really think that most people leave unhappy marriages because they 'want to get laid'? Seriously? I don't know a single woman who left because she wanted to 'get laid'. And tbf, the men I know who left, even for OW, were still 'getting laid' at home. Yes, there are people who leave because their spouse decides they don't want to have sex anymore, but those are few and far between. And even then they really aren't leaving to 'get laid', they are leaving to find love.

People leave because they are miserable. Not 'unhappy', miserable. There is nothing admirable in staying in a dead marriage. And definitely nothing admirable in staying in order to use a man you don't love as a sperm donor.

Having a sibling is no guarantee of someone to 'share the load'. My DH's brother never lifted a finger to help with their mother, DH did it all and as a result they no longer speak. My cousin's brother also didn't lift a finger to help but was happy to stick both hands in their mother's bank account before she died. They also no longer speak.

If you want to justify yourself to yourself, feel free. But don't use other people's decisions to seek happiness for themselves AND their children to do so.

Yes I do. Relationships are not perfect and can't actually make a person happy. Many people are miserable generally but project it onto their marriage. There would be less divorce if people assessed their lives holistically for happiness rather than relying on a marriage to make them happy.

Do they have hobbies, friends, are they fit and healthy with a flat belly, in a job they enjoy? If not they have bigger fish to fry rather than breaking up their families.

And yes a lot of people women included do divorce to find a sexual relationship. In effect putting their desires for sex above their children

Yes apart from abuse, it is often to find a sexual relationship hence the excuse of "no passion"

@hoven I am really sorry your marriage is shit, but you are seriously projecting here and you must realise it. You think so little of yourself and are so selfishly desperate for another child that you are clinging onto a misguided belief that what you are doing is virtuous and for your child, but you are no different to the supposed women you believe are choosing sex over their children, you are choosing what YOU want, and bringing another child into an unstable and unhappy relationship is NEVER a morally good thing. Just be honest here.

My relationship isn't unstable there is just no passion which is fine.

I am priced out my area so would have to live in temporary housing until I could afford somewhere. I would also be claiming hardworking taxpayers money for benefits.
For this reason amongst numerous others I'm happy to accept a lack of passion. My child comes before my sexual desires and my desire to not depend on the system comes before wanting sex.

I started this thread as this is an anonymous forum and I don't have anyone else to discuss this point of view with in real life as it too controversial.

@hoven

Yes apart from abuse, it is often to find a sexual relationship hence the excuse of "no passion"

I’m sorry this is just nonsense. You are fixated on the idea that this is about sex and missing out on the huge damage it does to people to be forced to remain legally bound to someone who doesn’t love or respect them.

Yes I am overlooking feelings of annoyance as children come first

You aren’t putting your child first.

You are putting your desire for another child first.

My relationship isn't unstable there is just no passion which is fine.

You said you will likely break up when the kid/s are grown, that is not a stable relationship. I'm afraid your thread is a case of people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, you're pointing fingers at other people when your own actions are pretty questionable. Deep down you know that, or you wouldn't be protesting so much.

@hoven and if you don't want to impact "hardworking taxpayers' money" don't add any more children to your already challenging set up!

For this reason amongst numerous others I'm happy to accept a lack of passion.

But happy to accept having another child when you really shouldn't be having any more children, especially if you couldn't support them alone. I just find it SO hypocritical with how you chastised women on another thread for who they picked as fathers, and here you are with no financial independence, unhappily married and wanting to add a child to this situation? What will you do if he leaves you? Maybe lack of passion will be an issue for him eventually, it's not all in your control?

What's your marital situation?