To not believe everyone who says they wish their parents divorced

[KungBooPanda]

For people who grew up in homes that were abusive or toxic or just unhappy, do you truly really wish your parents had split? Even if it meant spending your life between two homes? Even if it meant spending days and days with the abusive/toxic/unhappy parent?

My parents had issues. Im an only child. My dad was an angry and drunk man. Although my childhood was pretty miserable I think I might have been more unhappy being at dad's home by myself for long periods of time.

I'm interested in people's thoughts and reflections.

Growing up in a dysfunctional environment will always be more damaging than moving between two homes. Even if the toxicity is played down or hidden in front of kids, they will still pick up on it. Better to have separate but ‘happy’ safe spaces than one where you’re teaching your child to doubt their own instincts. Would you want your own kids to spend their adult life living in this way? No.

A big factor here is how the parents go about splitting.

It was absolutely the right decision for my parents to split (when I was 12) and it didn’t bother me in the slightest living between 2 different homes.

What did bother me was that their divorce went on for 4 years, with me being put in the middle. There was stalking, threats on me, I was ordered to lie a lot, situations became abusive and it made my life hell. It ulitmately ended in being NC with my dad.

I’m hoping i will never get divorced but if i do, my priority will be the kids.

My parents were awful together. Not awful apart. I was honestly relieved not to hear arguing and live in a house where adults didn't like each other. I was early teens. It wasn't happily ever after, I worried about my dad who had mental health issues but the tension in my home was gone and that felt palpably better.

I grew up in a toxic home were the parents divorced.

I had very mixed feelings for a long time. What I presented, because I knew it was acceptable, was that I was glad.

on the inside I was more deeply hurt and confused than I ever let anyone know. Absolutely heartbroken. And I had no outlet for that whatsoever. So that unhappiness grew and grew inside me.

As an adult I read The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study.

The gist of that is basically that divorce is worse for kids, except if there is abuse. Parents being together but unhappy is better for the children than divorce as long as there isn’t abuse.

And there was abuse in my parent’s marriage so I accepted that what had happened was for the best.

It didn’t stop for wishing for other things- that their hadn’t been abuse, that there had been a way for me to stay in touch with both parents after their divorce, that even if that hadn’t been possible that someone would have been ok with me expressing my feelings or getting support.

In time and working through all those things, I realised that those weren’t any more likely either, not without big changes to to the people involved. Changes so big that I’d be as well just wish for them to be so different that there was never abuse and therefore no divorce.

But for all my life I will on some level passionately and fervently wish that they had been able to be together.

As a child I wished my parents would divorce. As an adult I don't know whether that would have been an improvement or not. As someone whose parents never have separated it's very difficult to know whether they would have been any happier separately or whether i then just would have had to deal with two unhappy homes rather than one i.e. whether their issues are from being in a toxic relationship or because they're both individually messed up and those problems would still have existed.

If I could know that at least one of my parents would have been happier and able to create a home which was a safe space then yes, I would definitely rather they had divorced even if I had to spend 50% of my time in an unhappy home with someone who was toxic, that would have been preferable to never having a home to go to which felt like a safe space I could relax in.

This is something I’ve thought a lot about. Like you, I am an only child and my father was an angry drunk who made my childhood miserable. I was desperate for my parents to divorce, I begged my Mum to leave but she wouldn’t. They’re still together now and I am no contact with my father.

Back then, I felt safe wishing they would divorce because fifty-fifty contact was so rare. I don’t think I would have coped if I’d had to live with my Dad half the time. I was too frightened of him to talk most of the time. One of the few times my Mum left me in his care he got drunk and smashed the house up.

Luckily, I don’t think he would have wanted me half the time anyway.

I agree OP, I thought my parents would have been better off divorced but I am glad they didn't. Not just because they seem to have muddled through to later life and be ok now. But also because I probably would have never seen much of my dad if they had.

My kids are shuttled between two households (not my choice) and it is awful. People don't think enough about the kids when they divorce.

I feel my mental health would have been better if my parents had divorced. My mother was a spiteful toxic narcissist who bullied us all, whereas my dad was neglectful but kind. As kids we would have made my father take custody of us, and we would have lived in a mess eating beans on toast with no clean clothes, but at least been free of the bullying. Even if dad could only have us weekends it would have been an escape from my mother however short.

When I separated from my ex, I was surprised when some work colleagues and acquaintances confided that they wished their parents had split up, rather than staying together.
There was a pattern of narcissism in those cases - with one parent being very difficult and the other one enabling them. They wished that they had been protected more as children. In one case, the child and their siblings all cut contact with both parents when they were adults.
Sometimes divorce is not just to resolve a marriage problem but a family problem as well.

Absolutely- my parents had screaming snguments in the middle of the night - they’d come to my room to argue and then mum would sleep in my bed for days and weeks until they’d make up. Their arguments were hideous, sometimes violent, always emotionally abusive, frightening and they’d go on for weeks sometimes months. My mother hated my father - detested the sir he breathed, was paranoid that we loved him more than her. He apparently loved her but what a way to behave. They were awful together, a terrible match and both behaved terribly. I longed for peace, yes I begged them to divorce but they were Catholic so they couldn’t face the shame. I am still furious with them - I cannot forgive what they put me through and I have tried to make my peace with it. My dad is dead and my mum is still alive - last time I saw her she had a screaming argument with me, threatening all sorts - it felt like a re enactment, it was really weird - the hatred in her scrunched up 93 year old face was a sight - I left the next morning - she said she was sorry - I just felt like a punch bag.
My dh and I do not behave like this - in a way my marriage and my parenting is better because of the way my parents behaved - they were everything I didn’t want to be. I’m so done with her, I can’t feel sad about my dad - they have left me emotionally numb.

OP, I think you’re asking the wrong demographic. Everyone here is likely to be of an age where contact wouldn’t have been the presumed 50/50. So how would any of us be able to answer your question? I don’t think you’ll have an answer until the current generation of abused and deeply unhappy children grow up and reflect on their own lives.

Personally I was over the moon my parents split up. He was abusive and it meant that home was now somewhere it was safe to be and somewhere I could relax. He took my mum to court for joint custody. Not because he had any interest or intention of spent time with us, thank God, but because it meant that she couldn’t do anything without consulting him first. We were his children. As far as he was concerned, he owned us and would have the final say on what schools we went to, where we lived etc. Fortunately, in practice, he struggled with five hours on a Sunday afternoon and didn’t force the issue when we all went nc.

I do. And I left XP for the same reason. Having one parent who was functional and calm some of the time would have been better for me to learn emotional regulation than being in a stressful and frightening house all the time. DD at 21 is really well adjusted despite me and her dad breaking up, whereas at that age I was drinking heavily and self harming to cope. I didn't know what it was like to live without arguments and the constant risk of upsetting somebody for doing something that the day before had been perfectly okay.

Thing is OP your dad probably wouldn't have been bothered about pressing for contact, horrible as it sounds.

My parents divorced and my dad was involved in drugs and crime, I initially saw him once every 2 weeks then it dropped to once a month, when I was 12 the courts took my views into consideration and I went NC completely, he didn't care a jot as he wasn't interested in parenting.

I'm glad my mum did not stay married to a man who cheated on her and spent loads of time in prison for "my sake." I'd never expect her to martyr herself like that.

I would have rather had a safe calm home 50% of the time. My dad wouldn't have bothered with us anyway. He only really paid us attention to shout and scream at us.

I recognised that my parents were toxic for each other at a very early age, neither were bad people. I used to beg my mum to get a divorce.

I was a child so I would have had no idea about the reality of divorce, I just wanted the shouting to stop.

It was a very poor example of a marriage which I think has affected my relationships as an adult.

My daughter doesn't have to go to her dad's house at all 🤷‍♀️she's with me 100% of the time and she's a super well-balanced lovely teen. I don't think she would have turned out better if I had stayed in an unhappy marriage with someone who put me down and added nothing positive to my life.

I wish my parents had divorced, I wouldn't have had to worry about 50/50 contact as my father wouldn't have agreed to any time alone with us. And maybe if my mother had left her abusive piece of crap husband instead of making excuses for him she would still have a relationship with all her kids not just her abusive piece of crap son.

My daughter was 100% my priority when I got divorced and the main reason I left my idiot ex-husband. I did not want her to grow up in a household where women are put down and seen as servants to useless lazy men. Plus, he was on drugs most of the time.

I knew he would be too lazy to fight me on contact and she's been with me 100% of the time and is now the most amazing teenager (I left when she was 18 months old).

I have done some quick googling for states. It was very quick and there isn’t much. I found a claim that 50:50 is awarded in about 35% of cases. If that’s correct chances are most children will not end up in a 50:50 situation.

But also there doesn’t seem to be a study into how much time these kids spend with both parents a year, 5 years, 10 years after the divorce.

My experience, anecdotally, is that 50:50 often doesn’t last long. Especially as the kids get older. Kids tend to, slowly, end up spending more time with one parent. Especially, if the other parent only engages to shout or is a drinker etc.

But 50:50 isn’t nearly as common as people think. It’s not even half of cases. And often the men don’t want 50:50.

I always wanted my parents to divorce. The shouting and the anger never stopped. My mother would threaten it often but it became a bit of a joke as it became obvious that she was never going to go through with it.

Father was and remains in complete denial and likes to talk about bringing children up in a stable home rather than a broken one. As if two people stuck in a toxic, co-dependent relationship isn't broken.

I don't know if it would have been better or worse if they had split. They are both badly affected by different undiagnosed conditions. What I really wish is that they had never had kids because they should never have been parents, they simply don't have what it takes.

Women shouldn't have to stay in unhappy marriages to facilitate lazy men who wouldn't bother to see their kids otherwise.

Agreed. It doesn't have to involve abuse etc for parents to be better apart. My brother and his ex-wife get on really well now they're divorced, and co-parent happily together. He'll even go and stay with her and her new partner when picking up his son as they live far apart. When together they used to argue constantly. Much preferable for a child to see happier parents separated than an unhappy couple together.

I think the problem is no one ever knows what the alternative would actually have been like, so the idea will always be more appealing, as it's a fantasy. In reality if you read the step family boards or read some posters experiences of their parents moving on with new partners, marriages and children, I am not sure the alternative would necessarily be preferable.

100% yes.

I remember being about 14 and they finally said they were divorcing and I was so happy. A weight was lifted. Then they took me and DSis out for a meal and told us no, they weren't, they were trying again and I burst into tears and sobbed and sobbed in that restaurant.

I had a childhood of mothering my DM and parenting DSis thanks to DF and his affairs, drunkenness and anger. They're still together and don't realise that their fucked up parenting has seen me and DSis screwed mentally.

Abusive and yes they should have got divorced