To think divorce is selfish?

[Readyforafallout]

( Totally different for abusive relationships so not including those in this post)

Am I wrong to think that the following are excuses for basically gaining a moral green light for being selfish and swapping your own discontent for a child’s upheaval and distress ?

’ Kids are resilient’
‘ they will pick up on it so you are better of to divorce !’ ( even if the parents DO hide it well, people being convinced they will notice feels again an excuse)
‘ You only have one life OP! …’ ( so do the children)

it just seems that people ‘ grow apart…’
‘ want different things’ and put themselves ahead of their children…. I know this is likely an unpopular opinion
but hearing how ‘ brave ‘ people are for ‘ having the guts to do something about their situation’ seems selfish to me ….

because the children’s world are being opened to who knows who!…. As potential step parents !…. Complete upheaval And emotional distress … That’s worse than ‘ picking up’ on not much in my opinion .

it’s not a post intended to be unkind to divorces but more to not hold it in the highest regard like some achievement of braveness. It feels selfish ?

The issues and less desirable personality traits I've struggled with for years are down to walking on eggshells around parents whose relationship was dead for much of my childhood. So yeah, no.

@Readyforafallout
People marry for selfish reasons because some need or desire of theirs will be met. The divorce for the same reason because dome need or desire is not being met. Even in the case of DV, the reason for splitting is because the the need for safety is not being met.

Marriage is not a form of captivity or unending bondage. It is reasonable for adults to leave a relationship or marriage when their reasons for entering the marriage no longer exists. Oddly enough, some people seems to feel that is unfair of their partner to no longer love or wish to live with them. That belief suggests some type of ownership mentality as opposed to a healthy understanding of human behavior.

What is selfish is for a parent to think that his or her obligation to parent effectively and to provide sufficient ( as opposed to the minimum set by CM) financial support for their children is changed. You are divorcing your equally obligated adult spouse; you are not divorcing your children.

When people say ‘we grew apart’ or similar it usually just means that they don’t want to discuss the real reasons for getting divorced. Nobody goes through the upheaval and expense of getting a divorce unless the marriage can’t be saved. Are you suggesting that if someone wants to leave, the other partner nails their feet to the carpet to stop them?

I agree with the sentiment. We do live in a world where there are huge numbers of people who simply will never be satisfied with what they have.

But if divorcing from the wrong marriage educates our children in what it should look like to be happy in a relationship, then that is worth it.

Well I’m soooo glad I’m selfish, no abusive relationship but I was married to an alcoholic and I’m so glad I’ve shown my son when you’re not happy leave.

No.
My parents married in 1060. Mother in an empire line gown. I loved both of my parents and was deeply unhappy when they separated when I was 12 and then divorced. I disliked SF 1 although he was a decent chap in retrospect. I dislike sF 2 and he's over 80 now. SM 1 was vacuous, SM2 was lovely but SF died within 5 years of their marriage.

My parents were ill suited and the longer they were together, the more toxic their relationship became.

I had everything: beautiful home, beautiful clothes, lovely school, fabulous holidays, West End shows, a Sindy, Tressy and Barbie and a pony. I didn't grow up with functional parents around me. They had everything too: money, looks, status. None of it worked. To the outside world it was pitch perfect.

They fuck you up your mum and dad. I was fucked up until my 30s when I met DH. I think I worked a little harder at marriage because there was no way I was going to fuck up my own kids.

Happy marriages don't end in divorce there is always some unfulfilled need or abuse this will always impact the child

So you have a choice condem your child to staying in a marriage with you or take a risk and split

my parents had a really amicable divorce. They’re best friends even now.....(my stepmother hates it 😂). My father gas never once said a bad word about my mum (again step mother hates it) and I truly couldn’t imagine them together. Both very different people.

It it can happen happily and I’m proof of that. However I’ve only every met 1 other person in a similar situation. In 40 years

Maybe it was selfish. But I was not going be happy while we were together (his MH issues caused a lot of unhappiness). I hate that the kids don’t have two happy parents together because, as the child of divorced parents, I so envied my friends whose parents were together and happy. So it is 100% not what I wanted at all. I hate that they don’t have their lovely childhood family home. I feel a lot of guilt. But am I happier now? Yes, completely. Of course I wouldn’t want it to be this way because I loved their dad, and there were no affairs, or anything dramatic. We tried so hard but we just couldn’t make it work.

This has made me teary. I was in a very similar relationship with DC1's "father", luckily I got out before this could become our future.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Christ I wish my parents had gotten divorced when I was a child.

I could have had happy parents, the people I finally met once I was already an adult and they split up. But no, I spent the bulk of my childhood believing that adulthood was about being snippy with each other, hushed arguments when they thought the kids weren't listening, hiding that fact you were crying so the kids don't see.

I could have gone into adulthood without finding out that my parents endured decades of unhappiness for "my benefit".

So no, divorce isn't selfish. But staying together "for the kids" and leaving them with mountains of guilt sure as fuck is.

Being a child with parents who are unhappy, argue constantly, can't agree on anything, and having a generally tense atmosphere isn't nice either. Sometimes divorce is the best thing for everyone, children included.

So no, divorce isn't selfish. But staying together "for the kids" and leaving them with mountains of guilt sure as fuck is.

This.

There was a thread on here the other year about wanting to leave marriages due to being just unfufilled. In most cases posters were describing how their DHs were good loving men, great dads and on paper at least ticked all the boxes but for various reasons they had just fallen out of love with these guys and were considering leaving to start new lives. It was just a really sad thread to read as there was no obvious person at fault but you knew there was a whole load of misery about to be unloaded.

How was I supposed to work it out when he was shagging someone else?

He's the one who got with her and has caused a complete mess of a blended family.

I waited til my kids were adults (well, my youngest was 18 and still at home but on the way to uni within a few months) to date and I didn't introduce them to my new partner until about 18 months had passed.

So what attention off a new man was I getting?

OP, you could not be more wrong.

My parents married in the days when divorce 'wasn't the done thing'. so they stayed together despite both being unhappy and disliking each other intensely.

Being a child, growing up in that household, was miserable. I watched my dm's life made a misery too, I learned that marriage was to be avoided at all costs, I learned never ever to trust or rely on a man. Never sign anything. Never share financial details with anyone. Always have an escape plan. Never get attached.

I left home as soon as I could and spent my 20s trying to persuade my dm to leave too while she was still young enough.

OP, If you have no experience of an unhappy household, you cannot possible understand the damage it can do.

Children need happy homes to grow up in, not the weight of the world on their shoulders.

I agree OP, but it’s not a popular opinion on here. I think if you choose to have children you owe it to them to make their early lives as happy as you can to give them the best start in life. And that usually, but I accept not always, means their parents are together. People on here sometimes split for the most trivial of reasons rather than work at their marriages. No marriage is perfect all the time, it can take effort. As parents I think people should put their kids’ happiness before their own.

Obviously I am not talking about abusive situations either.

Seeing parents in unhealthy relationships and unhappy relationships is way more damaging to kids. My parents divorce was the best thing for our family.

I actually am the other side of this coin. I am in a loveless relationship, and I stay for the selfish reason that I don't want to split custody of my DC. I want to see them everyday, go on all their holidays with them, spend all the special days like Christmas together. I believe that DC might even be better off if we split up (although there is no shouting or abuse in front of them) but selfishly I don't want that. Perhaps they'll resent it when they're older, I don't know. What I do know is that I only have one life, and my children will only be little for a short 10 years of my one life. Nothing is going to make me give up my precious time on this earth with them. Especially not just the fact that I accidentally married an idiot.

I know a woman with four children who only divorced her husband because he cheated on her. He only agreed to have the kids every second weekend even though he was such a family man and was the one who had insisted on many kids. But he did have the kids every second weekend. So all of a sudden she had time to herself occasionally. She hadn't had any time to herself for more than ten years. It made her realize that she ought to have divorced him whether he had cheated or not because she did 90% of all chores and then he was disrespectful too.
It wasn't an abusive marriage but she deserved better.

Because some people are simply never satisfied.......and genuinely don't realise what they have until it's gone.

My belief is that divorce is a sign of a healthy society. We live very much longer than we ever have before. We live healthier than ever before. Women are able to work, have careers and be financially independent.

Women, in particular, are no longer tied to unhappy, unhealthy or loveless marriages due to dependence. Hell, it's only recent history that women were not allowed a bank account, mortgage, rentals in their own name.

Children have survived separated parents due to war, disease, abandonment and all sorts, but before many did so in poverty. They are less likely to now (poverty is a much larger issue than divorce).

Hoobloodyray!

Child of divorce, of fucking course it would have been worse if they stayed together! We would have been taught that’s how a healthy relationship would have looked and would have fucked us up more. Yes it sucks, but them staying together would have been far worse.

I think there are many scenarios in mumsnet where I think the parents are being selfish and are considering divorce like you describe and people do pile on with platitudes about "only living one life" and "set him free to find someone who really loves him".

BUT I haven't ever come across this in real life. Perhaps people come on here sometimes to fantasize but then return to normality and don't act on it. I think in real life divorce is rarely entered into lightly when there are children involved, and usually there has been infidelity on one side.

I do think people enter blended families too lightly some times. Divorce causes children practical discomfort (2 homes etc) but they seem to overcome the emotional upset fairly quickly. Issues with step parents/step siblings seem rather more knotty. I'm not saying these situations are always a negative, but I think they are fraught with issues that people don't always consider. My DH loves his half brothers (born when he was 14/15 and he's have lived with them), but his stepmother still seems uncomfortable with him and I think sees him as a drain on his father's time/resources. She's nice to our children when she sees them, but that's usually only once a year as she has never come to visit with her husband and sons, even to pick one of them up after staying with us in the summer holidays as teenagers.

I don’t know anyone with children who divorced without absolute agony over it. I do know lots of people with DC who stayed together very unhappily or stressed endlessly over divorce. I think people might say to wider family/acquaintances that they grew apart or similar when the reality was much worse (affairs, abuse etc) because they don’t want to drag each other and the DC through the mud when there’s no point as the marriage is over.