To ask why woman stay?

[doonnaKay]

My mother stayed in an unhappy marriage. It wasnt bad enough to leave I guess, but now that shes older I'm sad that she tolerated her unhappiness for so long.

I'm in my 40s and have settled into a life where I do not have a partner, but im very content. I'm trying to to understand why she stayed. She would have been financially okay if she had left. Her kids would have been better off not growing up in such an unhappy house.

I'm just wondering why do woman stay? They all have their own reasons, but there must be overlap.

I'm just trying to understand, sorry in advance is my wording or questions offend xx

That definitely wasn’t the case in the late 80s early 90s though I can remember my parents and auntie’s and uncles just going from one Council property to another getting upgraded the moment the next baby arrived
Benefits were relatively generous
Housing plentiful with no expectation to work until the child turned 16 like literally none
They may have been other reasons why they didn’t leave but the social safety net was definitely a lot better than than it is now

I remember when my parents went through a rough patch and I asked mum why she didn’t leave . She said this is my home , where do I go . Money basically.

@GetAbsOrDieTrying · Today 22:17

Reasons people stay in bad marriages are because

They are not financially independent.
Sometimes they stay because this means they get to see their children daily rather than only half the time.
Sometimes they stay because they can’t imagine what life would be outside the marriage.
Lifestyle usually changes, friends may change, they might even have to move etc. I think most people don’t enjoy change, so try to avoid it.
They don’t believe there is anything better out there and accept this is what marriage is.

@Catchycatchytune · Today 22:18

There are so many reasons why people stay. A person has invested everything in this life. This is your home, you have all your possessions here, you’ve built a life with this person, you may have children, pets. There will be financial consequences and It’s a massive decision to leave.

@3luckystars · Today 21:43

It’s so hard to leave when there are children.

@Morepositivemum · Today 21:44

I've heard posters on mn who say their mum leaving their dad ruined their life, their mum was selfish and split the family. You could have been writing that if she’d left.

Exactly! ^

It pisses me right off when posters come on here and try and make out it's just sooooooooooo easy, to pack up your whole life into 3 suitcases, and just bloody walk out on your home, life, marriage, and whole life. In many cases, women have nowhere to go, and can't afford to survive alone. (And many have children that they can't just leave, and they don't want the upheaval for them.)

Yet you get the predictable and tedious posts on threads like this, where someone claims that they - or a woman they know - left their DH, and are sooooo much happier, and not struggling financially at all, and have so many new friends, a shiny new career paying £75K a year, and are having sex with lots of different men, all younger and all gorgeous of course. 🙄Oh and SHE looks a decade younger as well. 😴

I stayed.
Financially I would have been fine.
The kids would have got over it.
The reason I stayed is that even though he cheated , I love him immensely

Fear of shared custody.
If a husband has been abusive there is massive fear of leaving children with them. Two scenarios:
A father who abuses and manipulates his children, often with a dysfunctional family.
A Disney dad who presents a perfect front while attempting to destroy his ex wife.

I did leave a coercively controlling marriage, but also lost my sons 50/50 from the ages of 3 and 6 as a result. It was an extremely heavy price to pay (both emotionally and financially).

Caitlyn O'Ryan
www.instagram.com/reel/DG83jyYvkSX/?igsh=dWFmbXJrOWYyYXdj

Probably because their parents gave an unhappy marriage as an example to their children and the cycle continues, and yes some women are financially independent but for how many woman has the man as the bank

And how many deliberately have children in unhappy marriages because their need to have children outweighs what is best for the children

my mother stayed because he would come anyway and torment her ....he was that kind of man. Nowhere to hide from him and no use of any authorities, another country

The biggest thing I will teach my DD is always be financially independent. It’s an absolute must. There is no way on earth I would leave myself vulnerable to anyone.

@StarDolphins Absolutely this. But a lot of women aspire to become SAHMs which is all well and good...until a marriage starts to fail.

@VoltaireMittyDream

I don't feel the shame because I choose never to have a relationship due to my own personal trauma. It's not because i'm better than those who feel it. I don't think i'm special.

It makes me sad to see my mother in her old age having spent so much of her life missing out on happiness because of the toxic man she was married to.

It’s pretty normal to want to try to do what you can to improve or hold on to a relationship that has meant a lot to you (and your children).

Men don't do this do they?

I'm confused by what seems like anger from you?

I wanted to understand why people choose to stay. There is no judgment, if you feel it, it must be coming from within you

I agree, and the thought of being aSAHM totally unnerves me. Like you say, great until it’s not! When I split with my ex, had it not have been my house we lived in, I’d have been absolutely fucked and homeless - I let him stay until he found somewhere but had it been reversed, I would’ve been out. Being in any way vulnerable, financially or emotionally, to anyone is absolutely asking for trouble. I know so many people stuck in shitty relationships because they can’t afford to leave and it’s no way to live.

Fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of how people will view you.
fear that leaving would damage your children.
Fear that your kids would resent you.
Fear that you would struggle financially (even though you have a full time job).
Fear that he will use the kids against you.
Fear that life after leaving wouldn’t be any better and you would have gone through a horrible experience for life still to be dictated by him!

You convince yourself it isn’t that bad.
You convince yourself the kids are too young to understand.
You convince yourself your children are better off having their father in their life and seeing him each day.
You convince yourself that life is better than if you left.

Yep a whole load of anger and resentment at those of us who are happy and divorced. I stayed too long so I know what it’s like to walk on eggshells in an unhappy marriage, but when I was done I was done. I didn’t up and leave, it was my house, he did. I could pay the bills myself and I’m not apologising for being in a financial position to do so. And my kids are doing just fine.

Some men do. 🤷‍♀️ Not always in helpful ways! Sometimes in quite controlling ways.

I am sorry about your personal trauma, and that you had to witness this dynamic with your parents. 💐

Because they feel stuck - finances, housing, lack of support so cannot leave or thought of doing life solo feels too much, lack of independence I would say particularly financially if not working or limited income due to children etc, or not married so no legal protection in this way upon separation.
“For the children” - which imo is not a justifiable reason, they will know things aren’t good and it can be much more harmful than having two separated parents that can co-parent in healthy new relationships or healthily single.
“They might change”/“when it’s good it’s good”/“but they did (insert nice thing)”/“it’s not all the time”/it’s “not bad enough” to end it.
Not realising the behaviour is unacceptable.
Cultural / religious stigma against divorce.
Worried about not seeing the children when separating, or perhaps feel powerless with partner saying they will fight for “full custody” if ever you try to split, or perhaps abusive partner etc. and they are concerned about not being able to always be present for contact to be able to protect kids.
What they have had modelled to them about healthy relationship from child etc. and trauma means they are wired toward these kind of relationships (what you know and are used to feels “safe” as familiar) so then simply continue the cycle.

In short - lots of reasons!

I’ve NC’d for this.

I would leave tomorrow if I could, I know I could be happier but I stay because I don’t have any choice not to. My husband isn’t abusive, I’m in no danger living with him, he’s nice enough. He’s lazy and doesn’t do anything round the house but I can do it. There’s not even any arguments particularly (I just say ‘ok’ a lot). It’s fine. He almost certainly has ASD and is very stereotypically emotionally illiterate (DS8 does, I’m not plucking it out of thin air in a desperate bid)

However- I have DS 8 with complex needs in a specialist school. I gave up my career when he was on a reduced part time timetable at mainstream and it took 3 years to get to specialist. I have to do school pick ups/drop offs and his school is over 20 miles away. Plus holidays as he can’t use childcare. I can’t see how I would meaningfully work. Besides, I was a teacher and wouldn’t be able to go back, so any job I took I’d need to have UC top up.

We also have DS4 though he could go to childcare so that’s less of an issue on paper.

I’m almost certain I’d have both boys full time if we split with DH coming to see them/bedtimes/park trips etc. I have no family support and no friends at all so if I leave I lose the adhoc help I need on a day to day basis such as popping to the shop to get something, or picking something up on the way home- DS8 can’t manage it easily.

We private rent and I can’t afford the rent on my own and whilst I would eventually get social housing, I can’t picture DS8 surviving temporary accommodation.

There’s a million other small things I haven’t said both to leave and to stay but they’re the main reasons I stay. It’s not bad enough to leave, I’m not happy and would be happier alone but I’m also not in any harm, we have a nice life and it’s not bad enough for me to struggle through leaving. I don’t have options.

It can be many reasons - practical - lack of money, unable to afford to live as a single person . Worries about custody.
mental health- feeling unable to cope alone, worries about being alone forever
societal- embarrassment at failing in marriage, disappointing others
dependents - impact on children, o their relationship with you, with their dad, impact on their esteem
Like many areas of life (job, house, town etc) it’s easier to stick with what you like than risk the alternative being worse.

Socially stigma of being single parent. And money a big factor, we can only just afford to run one house hold with 2 full time salaries. No way we could afford to split.

With my parents, it was largely my paternal family and their influence that caused it, from my limited perspective.

Both my parents stayed in their marriage far longer than they should have, never should been married in the first place, but the social pressures around pregnancy were and are still where they are very high, especially with my paternal family working in an American Evangelical church. In my parents' relationship, my mother was very violent, and they both self-medicated with alcohol and other drugs, my mother was openly on 'mother's little helpers'.

My mother was very blunt that she stayed for money/lifestyle, that she'd have been just as happy if he died and she got the money that way. She was very anti-marriage/kids, but also said she didn't want to work and the purpose of a husband was to pay her way, and that the purpose of us kids was to do the same so she could get rid of him. I can't say how much of that was her honest opinions or just how she wanted to portray herself to others, she was the kind to turn sadness into anger at others.

I think she also stayed because for social and parenting needs - while her family supported her no matter what, my paternal family shunned her once the separation was public - removed her photos, didn't discuss her - and she had been using the church they worked in for childcare/respite and was her main social life until less than a year before that happened - she went multiple times a week, we were in afterschool church clubs. She saw it happen to a former SIL (I literally didn't have any idea two of my cousins had a different mother than their younger siblings until I was nearly an adult, and I was around my cousins a lot - that's how much they erase women their sons separated from), but I don't think she'd want to admit that she had any need of them, that in our community, that that church was a major social outlet for her and support with parenting disabled kids that she needed and knew she would lose.

My father stayed because that was what was expected, and I think he really cared for her and thought if he could things 'right' that it would all get better. That was what he fed so we moved repeatedly for the 'fresh starts' she wanted, took trips she wanted, and so on. There was also childcare needs when we were small and a lot of social pressure from the church and wider society that 'kids need a mother' - that my mother was violent towards him and us was glossed over. No one cared that I could see when she would grab him by the hair and slam his head into the wall or otherwise be violent towards him, no one stepped in when she would discuss ways to kill him or me (I'm the kid that looks most like him) openly, it would get dismissed as a joke, that she couldn't mean it.

They separated essentially when my father made enough to keep two households (though got into a lot of debt to do so, but he had the income that he could get those debts, if that makes sense) and us kids could largely look after ourselves. He did so for years after they separated to keep the peace and I think it's just what he thought he should do as he earned a lot more than she could and I think for the first year or so, he thought and lived like it was a temporary thing that could be fixed, but that didn't work out. My mother was very happy with that arrangement even if it meant she needed to work more - most of bills were covered, she was earning to keep up her lifestyle/fuel her drug habits. She later moved in back in with her father and continued the same.

I stayed after my husband gave me a reason to leave. I loved him. No one is perfect. We'd been through a lot. Then I left over something else. He said he'd wait for me and didn't but that was fine as I didn't want him back. He lived with his mum, then into new gf house and now they are buying one together.

I've moved a long way away, bought a house, got a job, kids picked me, I have no parents, few friends, don't know a huge amount of people yet and the house is costing a lot but that's fine. Better than living with a man who isn't being truthful to me and thinks what he did about me.

Doing right by me is so much better than staying, having no money worries and not knowing the truth.

It has been hard. It has made me ill with potentially life lasting consequences, but I know I did the right thing.

Every time someone talks about the stigma of divorce you are perpetuating it. Just stop it. There's no shame in taking control of your own life.

In reality, family dynamics, communications and power structures are very complex things.

If you live in an uncomplicated family, where you can ask questions like this, then that’s great for you. It must be a good to feel secure with this kind of open communication, and safe in the knowledge that asking this won’t open up the floodgates to e.g. anger, gaslighting, denial, silent treatment.

Unfortunately, a lot of families and family dynamics are messy, stressful and difficult to navigate at the best of times. And asking a question like this is far from straightforward.

I left, but it remains the hardest thing I have ever done and it has meant a huge amount of loss. Frankly there is pain either way. And I am a highly educated and very well paid professional and I knew I would be ok financially, and my children supported my decision. But it was still incredibly hard. So I can completely understand why some women stay. My mother did - and I think the reason she died younger than she should have done was due to her unhappiness.