Effect of divorce on kids

[lostinthejungle]

Hello there, I've been posting on various threads about my husband's affair. I am, of course, giving a lot of thought to leaving him. But the thing I am most terrified about is the effect on my son. One article I came across in the immediate aftermath of discovery was this one, and I would very much like to hear your thoughts:

www.utexas.edu/features/2006/divorce/index.html

This article really spoke to all of my deepest fears. It's not just about how kids deal with divorce in the immediate aftermath, it's about how it affects the whole of their lives over time.

And I presume that it's talking about a fairly typical sample of families. My family is not typical. My husband is from South America and we're currently living here. We split up and there is an entire ocean between father and son. They have a beautiful and very intense relationship (partly by virtue of the fact that my husband has arsed around for 11 years and had all the time in the world for his son, but anyway). H is an outstanding dad. On the other side of the ocean, I have a country where I share the values much more than I do here, but I also come from a nuclear family with somewhat unhealthy, distant relationships and who are not going to provide me with much support. (DS much loved over there but they've never offered any practical support, and knowing my family ongoing interest is also likely to wane a bit - parents - or a lot - sister). There are no cousins at all for DS on either side. I do have several very good friends with kids, but they are dotted all over the country, not too much around the corner.

So you can imagine I feel rather grim about it all. I have a good friend who divorced and moved back home and has done really well and feels that her daughters were not hurt a bit by it. But she was (1) in a highly conflictive relationship with a man who was not at all a good father, and (2) part of a very close-knit family back home. My marriage has been unhappy for a long time, but H and I have managed to minimise overt conflict in front of DS - which is why this UTexas article really speaks to me.

Really would love to hear your thoughts, and in particular if there is anyone out there who has had to take their child away from a good father overseas that would be very important for me to hear about.

Thank you!

The term a good dad refers to many aspects. Being uncle dad, a good laugh and as you say arsing about, is good in some respects, but bloody awful in others.

Then there is the way he treats women. The way he has treated YOU.

Basically if your H doesn't grow up and show that he can be a decent dad, a good man and a great H, then how is your DS going to learn. Would you be happy knowing your son will grow up to be exactly like his dad? to cheat on the mother of your grandchildren, to never pull his weight?

You being happy, respected, fulfilled and not cheated on will teach your DS way more than you sticking this existence out. every trip home you will wonder how many women he is screwing. Every phone call, text, email.

Imagine this. You leave this wastrel. you come home, you restart the life you were well on the way to leading before mr snake diverted your attention. In time you may meet someone who DOES live a decent life, who IS a good amn, father, husband. Perhaps he has great parents that can provide you with help. Perhaps it'll spur your parents into helping.

The reason they don't help may be due to how they feel about your H.

My mum has let me down so badly with my 'H' going, she still won't talk about it, it's all brushed under the carpet and I am left recovering on my own. Oh yeah right, she'll collect DS if I'm working, she'll invite me over, but will she ask me how I am? No. Lately she seems to even try to limit contact, not listening, trying to end a phone call, I feel utterly abandoned by her, when I was the one that stepped up to help her when Dad left. I was 16.

XH is in Egypt, DS doesn't really want to talk to him. Not entirely sure why, but as H never did anything, DS knows the only person to go to in any hour of need is me. Now he has a happier mummy all to himself.

Don't let your DS be a reason to stay in a marriage where you are not truly valued. Please go and read WWIFN recent post on why she and her H got through his affair.

Please don't let some egghead come up with a document to keep you trapped in a life to nowhere.

You have to put your family first, and your family starts with YOU, your son, and then a long, long LONG way down the line, the bloke who chose to betray you.

Remember, nothing is cast in stone. The FEAR of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. The fear can last a life time, once you have ripped off the proverbial plaster, the pain can only last for so long.

Fuerza!

I find it sad when people in bad relationships don't want to have a divorce as if THAT would be the one thing that will mess them up

A good family with happy parents= definitely better than divorced parents

Divorced, but separately content parents = better than parents that are together but poison the children with negative atmosphere.

Please remember that there are a lot of articles about bad things that can go wrong with children when their parents divorce, but not much research has been done on the effect on the children of growing up in an unhappy family setting.

as someone already mentioned is about role models, he may learn to think that behaving like his dad is the correct way to do the things, and for his wife to put up with things as his mother put up with his father... so, food for thought.

It is always good to try to make things work for the children, but staying to be unhappy is definitively not in their benefit.

As for the option to go back to your country.... well, what can I say? sorry to bring this in, but do you have an idea about how incredibly difficult it would be for you to legally do that if your husband disagree?

Dear girls, sorry to thank you so belatedly for your ideas on this matter. I totally agree with you, AQ, that long-term poisonous atmosphere is much worse for kids than separation. And with you, MOAD, that staying to be obviously unhappy is absolutely the wrong thing to do. What got me about this article is that it is saying that as long as there is not a poisonous atmosphere (ie. "low conflict"), kids do better if the marriage lasts. I can sort of see this in my own parents' marriage, which is far from ideal - I think they probably stayed together because they couldn't imagine a different life, not necessarily for us - but nonetheless represents a bit of a haven/continuity/roots for my sister and myself. What the article is saying is that there is a trade-off in this group of marriages (low conflict) between parental happiness and kids' ability to form relationships as adults.

It's a horrible message, I agree. Plus anyway, I don't think I can do it. My resentment towards H is overwhelming. I think we are now definitely in, and may never get out of, the high conflict/poisonous atmosphere bracket. I can't see any evidence yet that it is affecting my son (I contain my rage until he's asleep, basically), but if things carry on this way of course it will harm him. I am not 100% there yet, but I think things are gradually drawing to a close. It is incredibly painful, no?

Hi lost
I have been reading your various threads and you sound a bright and brave person. I admire you for being strong and looking at all your options.

I woke up to the fact I was sleepwalking through an unhappy marriage carrying my DH as an extra child. Not financially but emotionally and providing all the support and domestic back up for his high flying career. Meanwhile I was suppressing all my ambitions, desires and emotions in a desperate effort to stay married and provide a stable family home for my DC.

What eventually broke through my numbness after 23 years was falling in love with someone else and having a sordid EMA which went against everything I had believed before about myself. That ended swiftly and I am single now (and happy to be!)

I went to counselling for over a year before I could bear to consider leaving DH and putting my DC through divorce. It is now 7 months since I left, they still live with their DF in the family home and it is nowhere near as bad as I expected.

They are arsy teenagers but they were before. They are still succeeding at school, sociable and happy. They growl at me and vent their rage. I feel guilty or relieved by turns. They come and eat with me and share their lives. They love me and I them.

It can be done. You can't see the whole picture at once, you have to focus on a tiny detail and work it out then move on to the next one. One day you will realise you have moved to a better position.

Is there a place near your home in SA you and DS could move to now? Before the big move home? or instead? Could your DH live in the cafe building? Don't try to fix everything straight off, just look at manageable chunks. And good luck

Oh and living with resentment is what made me into the bitch I couldn't live with. I was angry, critical and mean to DH, and flew off the handle over tiny things (long before the EMA). If you start being that person it is time to take action. I am now so chilled and easy going it is miraculous.

LittleHouse, I can't thank you enough for telling me about your situation. It is so relevant - particularly the part about being so bitchy. To be honest, I feel that though I have wasted 11 years of my life and gone over the hill in the process (I'm 41 now), I have learnt a lot from this. I do feel like once this is over I will never have another needy relationship again, in which I become a person that I don't like - that I will just be able to take it or leave it, you know? I hope that is truly the case because life/feelings are so hard to predict.

I was interested to hear that you went for counselling for a year before being able to separate. Did your family know about your affair, and about the counselling? How did the counselling help you to make the decision - as in what were your feelings about the situation before vs after? I myself wish that I had a longer period to adapt to all of this, to truly come to terms with what needs to be done, because everything is so raw now and I particularly regret having to take my son out of his school which he loves. I may be able to leave it until the summer break, but it still tortures me. Let alone the obvious element of taking him away from a loving father.

On DS and I moving somewhere in the interim, the truth is I don't have the energy. Can you believe that our container with everything that we have in it arrived only in September? I still haven't even unpacked everything! We have moved 3 times since beginning of 2008, and now that I'm facing moving back home there is no way I can put myself, or DS, through an unnecessary local move as well. I could chuck H out of course, but it's me that will have to pay for his accommodation (unless this cafe takes off, which I do really hope will be the case). And I'm also not sure that's the best thing for DS, as long as we can minimise the conflict (not sure about that either, obviously). I feel like maybe it would be best to restrict a traumatic move to just the once for him. But this is something I will be discussing with my counsellor.

I'm having a bit of a wobble at the moment, to be honest. Last night I just got this "my god, I know things have been awful, and I know what he did, but we were just on the verge of a possible turning point". I resented him massively, it is true, but for reasons that perhaps (not definitely) are about to change. He has always been loving and affectionate, even in the face of my bitchiness. He has done everything right since I found out about the affair, everything that WWIFN's husband for example managed to do. Do I really throw away any chance of a recovery, with all that entails for DS, and not even try for a limited period? Can I not try to make the decision to try and get over my resentment, as long as he shows that there is good reason to? I know what you're going to say, but I'm wobbling a bit. If we were going to live in the same place it would be so much easier because we could do a trial (lengthy separation), but with that ocean between us it would be very difficult to turn back.

Hi there, I agree with others here that you shouldn't get too hung up about this research article. For a start it is from Texas, where ideas about religion, marriage etc are quite different to Britain. The writers say that divorce has weakened the children's faith in the institution of marriage, but does anyone really believe that walking down the aisle is all it takes to make a relationship work??

You could read the research in a different way. Perhaps the reason that children whose parents went through "good" divorces were more likely to get divorced themselves was because they realised that getting divorced doesn't make you a "bad person", and when their own relationships didn't work out, they were more likely to admit it and break up? Perhaps the children who witnessed "bad divorces" stayed in unhappy marriages because they were afraid to leave?

Sorry if I'm going on - insomniac - I am not trying to say that divorce won't affect your DS, it is obviously a very sad situation. But don't beat yourself up with this research, you are obviously a very responsible person and trying to do the best for your son.

Agree with Gintoinc

Dont know your back story - sorry - but just wanted to say my dc 12 and 14 now are completely fine 15 months on from xh leaving us

My solicitor was talking about dc and divorce yesterday. We have done all the usual right things to make it as ok as possible , no bad mouthing each other, solid access routine, open door policy to talk about anything etc.

Yes if they could tick a box with Mum and Dad in love , married holding hands they would but they see that wasnt xh and I and are ok with that .