Staying for the kids - explain why please

[dorky]

Why do couples stay together for the sake of the kids?

Isn't it poor role modelling to accept a relationship that you would not like for your kids?

Isn't it unfair on a partner to stay for finances, and convenience?

I really don't understand why people in a less than happy marriage think it's better than going it alone... please enlighten me

I disagree, we are so conditioned by society to conform to the two by two into the ark norm that women, mothers rather, only contemplate leaving when things have already become terrible.

personally I don't know anybody who has left a marriage on a whim, because their husband grew nasal hair or because they missed dating. I know a few people who left before they cracked up.

what's all this nonsense about creating one's own vulnerability?? My x told me a whole heap of lies. I didn't ask to be abused, and he was clever enough not to start until I had given up my job and had no savings.

You talk like somebody who has no ability to visualise anything you have not experienced.

I left with as much as I could carry in a bin bag. I left a flat I owned half of and never took a penny from it. The money the CSA awarded me was a pittance. I already worked full time but got another job on top so I could save to move into somewhere decent with my son. I relied heavily on my GRANDparents to help with childcare. I cried over money more than once. But all that was worth to get away from a relationship which WAS always tense, frightening, abusive and utter hell.
I did try, for 6 and a half years, to stay with my ex for my son's sake but ultimately, getting away and suffering the financial consequences was by far preferable to the way we had existed up till then.
I would urge anyone in a similar situation to do the same. Escape.

Mmmm arfarfa, at the risk of deviating even further from the thread, you are talking, if I may say with the greatest of respect, bollox.

Luckily for me I am capable of earning a good living so didn't have to sponge off the state when I left my daughter's father... but what if I had not been that lucky?

You are telling me I should have just stayed put and 'worked at it' ?? We had three different counsellors over two years, he refused to talk to me, refused to have sex with me and wouldn't marry me. Just what on earth was I supposed to 'work with' there? Yes I was an idiot for getting and staying involved with someone who clearly had emotional difficulties, but are you saying that the penalty for that kind of mistake should be the workhouse or my daughter removed from my care if I couldn't afford to raise her after the breakup??

Your ire appears to be directed at what I think are a very small subset of people. I don't doubt the welfare state has lead to some unforseen consequences but I am not sure what happened before was much better.

I am genuinely interested to know if you have any ideas for a better system.

Spero-A better system? It would be hard to think of a worse one than the present one.
One idea that springs to mind is a much heavier emphasis upon supporting couples prior to the wheels starting to come off, ie, at the start of a relationship, ideally before marriage, and definitely before having children. Make people THINK hard before they commit to somebody, and make them THINK bloody hard, and for a very long time, before starting a family. Ensure financial provisions to care for a family are in place BEFORE becoming pregnant. Think about 'what happens next if...', in relation to the possible financial aftermath of a family breakdown BEFORE ever starting that family. In fact, all of this 'education' should start in school.

Honestly, I think that nowadays many people carefully consider the in's and out's of buying a flat-screen television more carefully than they do about bringing a new life into the world.
There are so many sad stories of relationships floundering upon the rocks of dreadful men that, sooner or later, you have to ask the question: who are these stupid women who get involved with these awful twats in the first place? And not just get involved, but stick around for years and start bloody FAMILIES with them!
I suppose that I just happen to believe in personal responsibility. If I cock up, then I carry the can. If I make a bad choice, then it's not down to 'bad luck', it's because I made a shit choice!

We live in a cosseted society where personal rights and freedoms are proclaimed as all, but any personal responsibility for exercising those rights and freedoms is avoided or ignored. Nobody ever gets anything wrong, and even if they do then, hey, it's ok. Nanny state will pick up the tab.

We're having bread and pull it for tea :)

Shit sorry however did I end up on this thread!!!!

Arfarfa, I think you are right in that it would help if people were a lot more educated about psychological issues and had more insight into why they do what they do - but to sort that out would require a massive financial input at all levels of life and I don't think that could or should be the State's role.

I have seen a lot of the unintended consequences of the welfare state, such as three generations in a family never having worked, because they could never be as well off as they are on benefits. That is clearly a big problem.

But I think you are mixing up a whole lot of different issues.

Who are these stupid women who get mixed up with these awful twats you ask? Well, I am one of them. I have a university degree and a well paying job... but I still wanted someone to love me, I wanted a family and I guess I was stupid to ignore all the warning signs. But I thought I loved him.

There are a lot of us stupid women out there. Are you really suggesting that we just pull up our socks, buck up and get on with it, live the rest of our lives (or at least until the children leave home) with men who dislike us, mistreat us, or simply ignore us?

I agree with all posters who say that generally things have to be desparate before a woman will leave. I simply don't accept that there are loads of bored, feckless people out there who dump nice if boring men.

I think you are mixing up two different problems.

Pardon me, but if you'd walked in my shoes you would not have been able to "work it through", because your H, like my XH, would have a gradually progressing personality disorder (or three) which made it impossible for him to come to any compromises, which rendered him unfit to provide for his family, which drove him to actively undermine your efforts to maintain liveable home conditions, which impelled him to teach the children damaging lessons you have to counter or they have to unlearn later on. XH didn't start that bad, but he is not capable of getting better, only worse. And I am not capable of helping him, only of going down with him. If I had been denied divorce or separation, suicide would be the only way out left, but that would mean leaving the children to his influence... If you were truly in that situation, where did you end up?

The thing is, if they were awful twats when we first got together, most of us would have run a mile. It generally escalates once they've got you where they want you, ie at home with a couple of kids, by which time it is too late. You can't send babies back where they came from because their father has turned into a twat!

The only thing I agree with you about, Arfarfa, is that "imperative to spread their seed" story is an excuse for selfish behaviour, and I don't buy the "evidence". The imperative I talk about is to reproduce, and I don't just mean women. If we were sensible, the human race would die out within a generation, because childbirth makes no sense at all.

I object to being labelled 'a stupid woman'. My ex started his behaviour long after we got together, it was very subtle too. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as is not being directly involved in a situation like that. HE was the one who never took responsibility while exercising his rights.

Right, so all women who got together with inadequate men were just stupid, were they Arfara?

Great grasp of psychology you've got love. And a huge knowledge of the subject matter.

The stupid women are often those who grew up in unhappy, disrespectful households where their parents modelled dysfunctional, unhappy marriages. But they stayed together for the sake of us, their children, and successfully taught us to accept unhappiness and dysfunction as an integral part of a relationship.

Some of us decided we deserve better and we'd like not to role model that dysfunction to our children, who also deserve better.

Oh and your ire about single parents being in poverty - that's because men don't pay maintenance, stupid.

I would much rather men paid for their children, than the state did. But funnily enough, most people fond of attackign single parents don't seem that enthusiastic about that option.

I just don't buy into this frankly ridiculous narrative that all men are either suppressing their true, evil, selves when women first meet them(and for several years afterwards whilst the 'courtship' is going on!) or suddenly, miraculously, develop serious mental problems once in a long term relationship!!! In fact, you could try looking at that from a different angle: man is normal, man meets woman, man turns mental. Trigger?
Also, the notion that men are hiding in some bizarre form of a true-character-concealing ambush, desperately suppressing their true wickedness, in order to snare a woman and settle down with her is so far detached from reality it made me LOL!
Of course men should pay for their progeny, preferably by choice and desire through a deep seated feeling of love and responsibility, but if necessary at bloody gunpoint! But women should have a hardwired expectancy that, should they suffer an ill-timed and unfortunate temporary lobotomy when choosing that lovely new man(really a bastard of the highest order), and subsequently be left with 'no choice'(my arse!) but to break up the family unit, then they cannot, and should not, expect the State to pick up the pieces.
From talking to a great many couples, now old aged pensioners, about how their relationships have ebbed and flowed over the years, one particular theme keeps recurring. That they have had bad periods in their relationships, indeed often VERY bad times, but they stuck at it and repaired their relationships to the best of their abilities. And not just because there wasn't another(easy) option, but also because they firmly believed it was the right thing to do.
I would tentatively suggest that nowadays there is a massively enhanced sense of the individual, whereas once upon a time 'I' was predominantly viewed as the middle letter of a greater word, 'society'.

Ok, rhetorical question here:

What if the parents relationship has become almost a friendship, with rare sex? They don't stimulate each other, but love their children? And if both are young, and see the opportunity to have a deep and rewarding, and hopefully long-lasting relationship with another partner?

What then? It would be selfish to leave, or would it be setting an example to your children than you deserve a truly fulfilling relationship?

Or do you lie in the bed you made for the rest of your life, regretting your original choice of partner and forever feeling unstimulated in your relationship?

Do you wait until they've left home? Do you put your needs aside? Do you risk resentment and affairs?

I think if you are dissatisfied or mildy unhappy in your marriage then you should stay together for the sake of your children - divorce hurts children terribly, haven't you heard?

If the relationship is abusive then, yes, put yourself first.

Arfarfa, I don't want the state to pick up the tab for my children.

I want their father to pay his fair share.

The state doesn't agree. Why are you blaming women for the fact that men don't pay for their children on the break up of a relationship?

Ok so we disagree then HB.

Only I wasn't talking about "crap" or "shit" relationships.

Just to be clear.

man is normal, man meets woman, man turns mental. Trigger?

yes actually... as others said hindsight is a wonderful thing....

man is normal,
well ish... he had had treatmetn for depresion but so have many people men and women. no one told me - eek watch out!!!

man meets woman, man turns mental. Trigger?

many things - having a disabled child (could not have forecast that one) , having a second child with milder issues but still medical issues (could not have forecast that one), his mother dying (inevitable) which he couldnt cope with (how was i to know that?) , him resigning his job due to stress (couldnt have predicted that either) etcetecetc.

sent him loopy and mildly abusive behaviour turned violent...

so - those leaving for "mild" issues may well be saving themselves from much worse.

and for the record - i am the main breadwinner, claim no beneifts (other than DLA) and as far as I know - outcome is only that HE is claiming from state because i no longer support him....

so i guess yes indirectly me leaving is costing the State (for him).

he is in poverty; my dc are not. and they are in much healthier and happier environment - while still having contact with him when he up to it.

Fair enough namey.

It's just that as someone else down the thread said, women don't generally walk away from joyful, happy, respectful relationships - the type we all want and want our children to have. They walk away when they have jumped through every hoop they can and flogged the horse's corpse way beyond the time for a decent burial. A minority of loons leave for "frivolous" reasons, I'm sure (though none of us know what goes on behind closed doors and no-one has a duty to explain to curious observers, why their relationship broke down), but the vast majority of mothers at least, only leave a relationship, when there really is no other option left. The disincentives to leave - the dramatic fall in income and social stigma alone for example - ensure that by the time a mother has decided to, she really doesn't feel she has any other option.

I'd also like to point out that when it comes to keeping relationships "the home" "the family" together, this is largely seen as the job of the woman in the relationship, not the man. I have come across countless tales of women desperately trying to keep their relationships on track, while men get on with sabotaging it. For some reason, if a relationship breaks down, the behaviour of the woman - how hard did she try to keep it togehter - gets scrutinised, while the behaviour of the man goes unnoticed. Because it's not his job to keep his marriage happy, it's his wife's. Why is that?

NameyMcNamey, I think you were replying to my post weren't you? Which wasn't painting a picture of a miserable relationship at all, just one in which one party isn't fulfilled.

Once we have children, do we have to put up with slightly-frustrating, less-than-happy, not-fulfilled relationships for evermore?

What if the alternative isn't single parentdom, but financial stability and the dream relationship with a new partner?

I think that we probably do have to 'put up' and count our blessings for the sake of our wonderful children, but was interested to hear people's views and experience.

Arfarfa I've already addressed your point about "man meets woman, man goes unexpectedly mad - trigger?" in my 21.11 post, but I'm happy to expand on it.

If you are brought up in a dysfunctional, unhappy family, that will feel normal to you. So when you meet someone who makes you vaguely unhappy, you might not like it, but you accept it as normal. Often, it's only when you start wising up and realising that your parent's relationship was dysfunctional and left you emotionally unequipped to form a functional relationship, that it dawns on you that the adult relationship you are in, is in fact, as mad as that of your parents (though not necessarily in the same way).

One brilliant example I know of is a good friend of mine who last year had counselling because of her problems with her father. During the course of her reading and counselling, it hit her like a ton of bricks that her family life had been hideously mad and that her marriage was simply wrong - she had fallen in love with her DH at a time when she was an emotionally fucked up young woman still suffering from the after effects of being brought up by dysfunctional parents. So she divorced him. (No children involved.) He was utterly bewildered, couldn't understand what he'd done wrong, didn't want things to change etc.etc. To the outside world, it looks like she split with him for no reason at all and had broken his heart out of some kind of selfish, frivolous, "grass is greener" agenda. But to her, the realisation that he is not the sort of partner who will make her happy or whom she can make happy, meant that the only course of action which was honourable, was to divorce him. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it was. But the way it was for her, was being insecure, control-freaky, unhappy, feeling worthless, having eating disorders, etc. That was no longer acceptable to her, because she had learned that she didn't need to feel like that for the rest of her life. All their joint friends have dropped her because she's "in the wrong". But she knows she's not and so do I.

Was responding to op.

I'm afraid I think some people are too quick to give up on marriages because they aren't happy. I think happiness is down to the individual (you can choose to be happy or not, mental illness notwithstanding) and some people are too quick to blame their relationship.

I think you should do absolutely everything you can to save your marriage before leaving, unless the children have left home themselves. And even then, divorce can be traumatic for adult children.

But not if you are being abused, obviously.

Uh, yes we do have to put up with 'slightly frustrating, unfulfilling relationships' once we have children!

So are we all happy for our children to have unfilling, unhappy relationships because we think that will be good for our grandchildren (who will then themselves go on to have unfulfilling, unhappy relationships)?