"Staying together for the sake of the children" were you that child, were your parents right?

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

I cant count how many relationship threads ive been on where still "staying together for the children" is cited as justification for excusing the inexcusable. It doesnt matter how may of us who have been there as the child say its unfair, year in year out its still trotted out

The guilt it puts on a childs shoulders cannot be understated "they dont like each other but are only together for me, therefore its my fault they are unhappy" and the long term damage it does in forming own relationships as "a normal relationship should have drama" or "its normal for the person im with to not trust me/be trustworthy"

I can understand "I dont feel I can live without him" "I feel we can get over it" "How will I manage financially" ultimately thats the perogative of person going thought it

I dont expect anyone to act on what I say but I hope maybe I can give them food for thought and help them make the right decision for them. But I wish just once I would see - "im not sure that staying together in these circumstances is right for our child" or "will my child think its OK for for him/her to be treated like this/behave like this If I accept it?"

No one can help having been put in this situation, it is the unfaithful/abusive partners fault but control can be taken in the ^decision about what to do about it and how that decision will affect your child's long term perception of what is acceptable in a relationship

There is no stigma to being divorced anymore, some children actually have a better relationship with a separated parent as dad cant leave it all to mum. I appreciate "finance" is still a motivating factor, I can understand that - I also understand its hard to give up when you love someone as your heart takes a while to catch up with what your head tells you.

It would be interesting to hear what other adults who have grown up as the child in this environment feel about it.

I think the difference is blueshoes - you were unaware of their issues until you were older. We knew we were the reason they were together and therefore, in a childs mind, the cause of the unhappiness

I dont think it is cowardice to work on a relationship, that is what you should do - but if parents cannot work together and make a happy supportive environment together perhaps they are better separately.

My main point though is that "the children" are often really just an excuse - but if your primary justification is that you want to raise the family as whole unit the children should NEVER know about it

I dont feel a marriage should be a life sentence if someone is genuinely not happy (I guess I felt my parents would always be mine whether together or apart - I dont feel so possessive that I could not share them with someone else)

Surely though the children are a reason to stay together when otherwise two people might just decide they'd be happier going their separate ways?

Just from a logical point of view, once DC are part of the family they become part of the equation that needs balancing.

So basically I think it's not a black and white issue, children can be a factor in a couple choosing to stay together. I think that's inevitable and nothing wrong with that as long as everything is considered, including everyone's happiness and well-being (including our own!)

I think the pp got it right when she noted that her parents had hit rough patches, but stayed together because they reinvested in the marriage and made it work again.

If 'staying for the children' means you dig in and work at reconciling and restoring a functioning family unit, it is a good thing, and definitely worth at least an attempt if you are both committed to making another go of it. It might work.

But if it proves it doesn't, or if there is no serious attempt at restoring a functioning home life, then a split is definitely better than indefinite hostility.

I've got tbh I think my dad did the right thing by not leaving my EA mother until after my sister graduated. No one would have ever assumed my mother was an alcoholic, abusive and nasty woman. Every time I did try to tell anyone they thought I was making it up.

My dad did go and spend some time at his mother's in the same village, and that was a taster of what it would be like if my parents split up. It was horrible, I was forbidden from spending time with him.

So dad came back for us, and I am very grateful, because one normal parent meant one good role-model.

It's so easy to assume from the outside that when a marriage breaksdown its the man who is the EA twat, and not the SAHM. It's very hard for a breadwinning father to get residency in that situation, and even more so when I was young.

I think a lot of men realise that they have to stay with their EA wives if they are going to have any hope of having a good relationship with their children, knowing that once they leave the ex will poison the children against their father.

And both parents have to be prepared to work at it. I saw my SIL living with her husband in a very unhappy marriage for 5 years. She continually tried to make it better, he did his own thing and ignored the problems in their relationship.

By the end the atmosphere in the house was very tense, my SIL was very depressed and her children were begging her to split up from their father. Roll on 2 years and it is a totally different house. Their father lives separately, and my SIL and the children live in a happy home.

it is not fair to say people are just using the kids as an excuse because they are cowards

I believe this. It can be a genuine belief that it's the best thing for the dcs, even if it's a misguided belief. Even the ever-beloved Lundy Bancroft acknowledges that some times a mother stays with an abusive H because she has more hope of running interference with his treatment of the dcs than if they were having unsupervised contact.

Likewise, I can picture a scenario where a H is married to (let us imagine) SAHM who is EA to the dcs. He might well believe (with some grounds) that if they were to split up, the dcs would live with her and he would have less chance to protect them.

Statistically, the most dangerous person to a child is a mother's new boyfriend - and of course I know that's a tiny minority and stepfathers can be wonderful, yadda yadda.

What stepmooster said, in other words.

Even the ever-beloved Lundy Bancroft acknowledges that some times a mother stays with an abusive H because she has more hope of running interference with his treatment of the dcs than if they were having unsupervised contact.

This is one of the major reasons why I have delayed leaving my EA husband (aside from the financial aspect). He is a nasty, manipulative person who twists and turns everything but nothing he does could prevent him losing unsupervised contact should we split.

The thought of leaving my little DD alone with him for long periods when I can't be there to monitor and check the kinds of things he says fills me with dread. I am still planning to get out, but I know that if I do I'll always be worrying about how he's treating her when I'm not there. Currently as things are he has very little 1-1 time with her.

Some of these stories on here are heartbreaking.

It's a hard position to be in, nini. I left anyway, but I constantly worry about what goes on during unsupervised contact. SS/CAFCASS/the court have all expressed concerns at various times about the way exH treats DD, but the bar is set very very high when it comes to stopping contact.

What I will say is that dd gets to experience the difference between life in her father's house, which involves walking on eggshells, and life in my house, which doesn't. I hope this has lessened the confusion for her and given her a better understanding of what is normal and acceptable. But it doesn't feel great to send her as a small child to an environment that I couldn't handle as an adult.

The decision is a complex one. I almost always come down on the side of LTB, but I think it's only fair to acknowledge that there can be things that need to be weighed up.

My parents divorced when I was 16 having stayed together for us.

They both found new partners with a few years and are now so happy.

I wish they had divorced when we were younger. We wouldn't have had to listen and see their fights and they wouldn't have wasted ten years if their life being unhappy

I'm one of those kids. It helps never to be actually told they stayed together for you. I felt no guilt about it but had periods of loathing my mother's weakness and passive-aggression and despising my father's aggression and anti-social nature. I feel sad of my mum who seems to be genuinely unhappy. I think she's viewed it as 'too late' her whole life.

Having said that, in most areas my siblings and I are reasonably well-adjusted. But I think I will never marry and am seriously considering not having children because my deep feelings about being tied to a partner for life are wholly negative.

But it doesn't feel great to send her as a small child to an environment that I couldn't handle as an adult.

Exactly why I worry, biblio. And give that my EA husband is himself the result of an EA parent (they divorced when he was 10), it makes me doubly worried.

It's enough to say nobody takes any decision, be it to leave or not, lightly.

OP - if your friend's children have already been picked up by SS via school it might help them if you should yourself to them as a witness should they need it. I'm not sure if your friend is aware that they could remove the children from her too if they felt she was enabling the situation by staying with this man. Allowing your children to witness abuse is also abusive (can't remember legally how, but it is). The mother doesn't have the last word on their childrens welfare in cases like this.

*should = presented yourself

I was "sort of" that child - my parents, to my knowledge, were never unfaithful or abusive to each other but argued frequently and never seemed happy with each other but often said/shouted at each other or told us dc's that they HAD to stay together "for the kids". From then to this day I think that was a terrible decision to make and a completely unfair responsibility to put on us (that basically they'd want to break up and would be free to if it wasn't for us). I felt as a child I'd be fine with them splitting up and still believe my home life would have been happier if they had.

What I realised much later, in adult life, which may be relevant to some posters who use the "for the kids" argument (or may not) is that staying together wasn't actually done for us kids, that was a complete excuse to cover up for our parents wanting to stay together because they were too scared of having to be on their own. We would have been happier with them separated, I honestly believe that, because the home atmosphere would have changed dramatically but THEY would have been scared and miserable having to fend for themselves & take the stigma of being divorced so they stayed together for themselves, not us.

I think a lot of men realise that they have to stay with their EA wives if they are going to have any hope of having a good relationship with their children, knowing that once they leave the ex will poison the children against their father.

Too true. Or that even worse damage will occur to the children if they are left in the care of the EA mother, without anyone to give a good rolemodel like stepmooster says.

The law seems to favour mothers over fathers which might or might not be a good thing overall, but sometimes it means that the EA women get away with way too much

I think the moral judgement has definitely shifted on this one to the other end of the spectrum in the last decade or so.

What used to be considered a widely accepted 'truth', i.e. that kids coming from broken homes do worse in later life than their peers, has given way to the opposite school of thought, whereby growing up in a less-than-idyllic family atmosphere is almost tantamount to child abuse.

I think the truth is somewhere in between, and each person has their own reasons in each individual case...people stay together and people split for reasons that go beyond what they'd overtly say, and the reasons are often multi-layered and not easily articulated. But children are an obvious reason to point at, either way. Whatever the decision, people will understand if you say it's for their sake.

It's certainly not 'fashionable' to admit that you have personal, emotional, god forbid financial reasons to stay with a less-than-perfect partner. I've seen people called hypocrites, materialistic, selfish, spineless and other things when they admitted that throwing several decades of marriage out the window was easier said than done...at the same time, I see very, very few relationships around me that I'd consider exemplary, so I suspect most of us make more compromises than what we'd sometimes encourage other people to settle for.

nini, I can't offer any facile comfort. On the whole, though, my worst imaginings have not come to pass. It helps a lot once your child is old enough to talk and so can tell you what happened during contact time (although you have to resist the temptation to always pump them for details). And as they get towards their teens, they get more control over whether they want to do contact or not.

Your dc is not in the same position as your H as a child, because they have you. The truth is you can't always protect them the way you want, but you can give them a safe place to come home to afterwards, and I think that has to count for something.

Fantastic post panicking

yes, great post

Thanks Biblio. Much comfort.

the most dangerous person to a child is a mother's new boyfriend

Bibliomania, can you tell us more about this? thanks

Charcoal, I'm not an expert, but that was something I read, I think around the time of Baby P. Can't remember where I read it. I had a quick google - here is a US study, although not very recent.

Also, if you google "Cinderella effect" you can find more info.

Still blown away by Panicking's post - that's my situation - lots of debt, health issues which we both help each other with, neither of us have any decent family + I don't want H to have what would be unsupervised access to DCs. So we are currently trying to "manage" staying together.

I left my H after every possible attempt to forgive his affair and move on. He failed at every hurdle, sabotaged our marriage in the process, and I had no option but to give up and leave.

I know the DC are better off now than when I was at rock bottom with zero self esteem and constantly exhausted, stressed and upset. And yet I am still bothered by the studies that show that children and teenagers aren't always as resilient as adults tend to think, and the consequences of divorce often follow them into adulthood and their own relationships.

It's such a hard choice, and the outcomes depend on so many factors. But it can feel like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't