Has anyone waited it out??

[indefinitestruggle]

I'm in an unhappy relationship and trying to stay, at least until kids are older. Yes, I know this is not a popular approach on MN, but I honestly think we'd be worse off (not financially but in other ways) if we went. The balance of this, I'm aware, could change at any time, but at the moment I'm hoping we can make it until the kids are independent.
Has anyone done this, and left? How did you manage it? How were the kids when it finally happened?

How did you remain sane in the meantime?

Its not all bad, we love the kids and parent quite well together, and have lots of happy family times, we just have nothing in common and I know I don't want to grow old with this person. He's also let me down in so many ways, I have no faith that he would look after me I needed it later in life.
Sometimes, like today, I'm afraid I'll go crazy living in this situation.
I suppose I still have some slight hope that things could get better and I'll want to stay, but it's looking less and less likely.

There is no adult who ever said thank you to their parent for staying in a marriage that they didn't want to be in.

What happens, is that teenagers pick up your intentions and motivations for staying, and grow to resent the dysfunction they are living under.

If you love your children, don't do that to them.

You are not doing this for them. You are staying because you too cowardly to get out of your comfort zone, and that is a very selfish parenting choice indeed.

3 things:

• no matter what you think, the children WILL be very aware that your relationship isn't right. You may think you are hiding it, but you're not. Children pick up on all the subtle non verbal cues.

-children learn about relationships from their parents. They will be learning that dysfunctional is the norm and will carry that with them into their adult lives. It has the potential to affect them for the rest of their lives.

• why do you have to leave and not take them with you? Why can't you take them? Why can't he leave?

You really need to bring this out into the open and have an honest talk about how you feel. It is possible for 2 mature adults to negotiate a split and put the children's best interests first. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum,If you are determined not to go, would you consider counselling to try and make it work? If not, then it's best to part ways.

How do you know his traits will get worse? Your excuse makes no sense.

"It doesn't make sense to me."

What damages children is an unhappy or dysfunctional environment. It doesn't matter if the parents are together or apart. What matters is how they relate to each other and what kind of family atmosphere they create as a result. If having an affair risks creating a miserable home-life... don't do it. If sticking around in an abusive relationship creates a miserable home-life... don't do that. If you've separated and every time you refer to the other parent in front of the DCs it's only to bad-mouth them or complain .... don't do that either.

Anyone who wants to stay together 'for the children', only consider it if you can be genuinely civil and kind to each other.

Get some couples counselling, you might find you can work through it and that you can build a happy marriage from where your at after all. Or you'll realise the only solution is to break now. A lot of couples make it through bad patches, some even have to live apart for a time, and then end up happier than ever. Love changes, you might not be 'in love' with him right now, but you may still love him, as a friend, as the father of your children, and that may be enough to help you rekindle a romance if your willing to work at it, and so is he. If your not willing to do the work, and stay in a relationship that is unhappy playing the 'waiting game' your kids WILL pick up on it, so either stay together because your both willing to work at it, or a clean break. I reccomend you go to counselling so you can work out the best option for the both of you, and for your family unit. But don't just stay in a stagnant and toxic relationship 'for the kids' indefinitely, as they will know.

OP you're going to have to say what these 'character traits that are difficult' actually are and why they would get worse in your absence.

With genuine respect cogito, I don't have to say anything. My op asked for responses from people in similar situations. I'm grateful for everyone taking the time to respond but I don't intend to justify my decision. That wasn't what I started the thread for.

Nobody here is going to advise you how to stay sane in an unhappy relationship are they. If your daughter asked you that question you would be advising her to leave and find happiness wouldn't you? Don't let your fear of leaving him cloud your judgement, and don't use your children as an excuse for staying. That would be insane.

The sad fact of the matter, OP, is that they are your kids to fuck up and there is little we can do about it over the internet, other than discourage you.

You've chosen not to justify yourself (ie, engage in any discussion as to why you would make this poor choice) so there is nothing left to be said if you do choose to overlook your children's well-being in this way.

How can anyone say they are in a similar situation if you're not clearer about the nature and severity of the behavioural problems? Should you stick it out for 18 years with a boring but otherwise amiable man?.... possibly. Should you stick it out for 18 years with a bully or an alcoholic?.... probably not.

I have a friend who stayed - she said the dc might be a bit fucked up, but she could pay for therapy - at least they would be alive and fucked up . She was convinced that her dh would snap should she leave - he used to say how he totally understood why men killed their families (remember the one where he killed, the horses, the dogs, then the family and then set fire to the home that was going to get repossessed? She said that was the clincher for her - her H said he could see himself doing something like that, after that she really was marking her time). She lived with a sort of low level threat for years,on the surface they were happy - she said that in a weird way, even though she knew she stayed because the consequences of leaving were so bad, she was happy a lot of the time, he was lovely and supportive of her most of the time. She was just not willing to take the risk and leave. Her H was a narcissist so couldn't really enjoy life without being adored - as she emotionally withdrew he needed to find someone to adore him so got involved with a younger woman who was even more screwed up than him. He left my friend and his teenage dc and is now married to OW. He has no contact with exW or his dc (his choice) he has a 'new' family.

She honestly believed that he might kill her dc (and certainly her horse) to punish her should she leave, so she stayed. Was she right? I don't know. I don't know if he would have or whether she was right to make that decision - but what a decision to have to make I can see why she decided to stay.

OP, I can actually see where you are coming from. Some times, you feel like you have to be a 'bumper' between your dcs and their father. And it's eay to be frightened of how it would be for the dcs if you weren't there.
I know. I have been there and done that.

And yes I did stay. But not because I wanted to protect the dcs. I stayed because I didn't have the energy (physically and more importantly emotionally) to leave.
And in my experience, I was absolutely rubbish at 'protecting' my dcs because basically either I was trying to protect them and interfering with my DH (and then I was getting a bollocking for always intervening and not letting him deal with the dcs), or I wasn't saying anything and then .... well they still had to deal with DH.

What it took me time to realise is that it's up to DH to handle his relationship with the dcs. I can't 'make it better' and I can't change him. I can't even protect the dcs because even if I successfully do, then they will know I have so they will still know their father was rubbish in his reactions iyswim. So regardless of whether I was staying or not, they would need to learn to deal with their father.
I also had to realise that it's up to me deal with my relationship with them. And to decide what is my role. My role is teach them hoe to handle bad situations. My role is to boost their self esteem and teach them they ARE valuable members of this world. My role is teach them values that they will help them be happy now and in the future.
Not tackling issues and burrying them is NOT what I want to teach them. How to Accept 'unacceptable' behaviours (at least in my eyes) from a 'difficult' person is NOT what I want to teach them. I want to teach them how to stand up for themselves and how to be assertive and not to accept somerthing just because the person in front of them is shouting more/louder.

There are LOTS of ways of doing that. And mine was very much about teaching myself to be assertive and to stand up for myself (In effect I had to learn for myself first what I wanted to teach my dcs). It has been about giving to myself as much importance as I give to DH (in his 'needs' and 'wants').
And more importantly, it has been about changing things rather than passively accepting that I would be living with someone, who I started to gradually despise, for the following 15 years. And to find ways to 'just' cope with it.

I am very lucky that DH did respond to the change in me by changing himself and stopping a lot of these 'unacceptable' behaviours.
I am very lucky that what I did allow me to protect the little bit of love I still had for him so that we could start afresh again.
But it could just as easily be the complete opposite.
And what I learnt is that, if it had gone the other way, I would have got divorced.

Unfortunatly, I don't have tips to cope with a relationship you don't want to in. In my experience, iot's just sould destroying. Even when you do it for the best intentions.
The only tip I have is that things need to change. You might want to separate. You might want to change yourself, learn more about yourself, learn self acceptance, about assertiveness, about being happy (and to look for it whithin). You might want to prepare yourself financally, prepare your dcs emotionally. Whatever. But please don't stay just like you are now.

I think it's very common to think that you are somehow protecting them more by staying as you feel you can moderate his behaviour or act as a sort of screen.

Unfortunately it's not true. They won't be able to separate out his actions, and see you protecting them from his unreasonable behaviour, they will see his behaviour and you excusing and enabling it and assume that it is acceptable. You will also be doing subtle things you are unaware of to keep the peace which are unhealthy and that you wouldn't want your daughters to repeat or your sons to expect. It's just impossible not to play out these dynamics when you live with somebody who is emotionally abusive.

When you are separated, yes they will see the unmitigated effects of his behaviour. They may well get hurt by him. But they will always have a safe place (you) to come back to where that kind of thing never ever happens. Instead of being a low level presence always, where they barely notice it and accept it as normal, it is stark and separate. They can see it more easily and process it. You are not throwing them to the wolves by allowing them unsupervised contact, you are allowing them the freedom to make that judgement for themselves. It might well be very painful for you, especially if they lean towards him perhaps in the teenage years, but it's still the best way for them, and they will come back to you - emotionally healthy support is always more satisfying, fulfilling, and real than emotionally unhealthy parenting or control. He might be "the exciting one" for a while, but children grow up and they understand that exciting does not always mean best.

All of my peers, (female, mid 20s) without exception, whose parents waited until the DC were grown to split have been in a string of and/or are still in emotionally unhealthy relationships - unsurprisingly! Because this is the script they have learned for relationships, and this is how they think things work.

Think of it this way - staying is like feeding them the lowest strength Silk Cut every day in a slow but steady stream. Low powered but still enough to build up a lining of tar. Leaving, and them seeing him, is like them smoking a full strength Marlborough once a week. Far enough apart and enough contrast to be able to taste the unpleasantness alongside the excitement and danger and coolness.

I totally understand staying if the fear is that he would actually kill them and you don't have faith in the authorities to protect them, but I would hope that is a vanishingly rare situation, and not the one the OP is in.

Oh yes. Undecided, what a brilliant post :)

The only way I could cope with this would be if I had lots of outside interests and no restrictions on doing them. If there was no sex I would find a lover.

Your life, your choice.

brilliant posts for both you and undecided Bertie - I didn't leave, my exH did, but in retrospect he was probably right and our relationship was better ended when it did, for everyone's sake.

to answer the question you posed:

1. separate bedrooms if you can at all. Any excuse. Snoring is great. Having to sleep in the same bed as someone you don't want to be with is soul eroding. Having your own space at the end of the day really does help.

2. Keep it friendly but withdraw emotionally.

3. get your emotional needs met elsewhere - friendships. Not meaning sex, just friendships.

4. make damn sure you have a small nest egg tucked away so that you can get out if thigns go really badly. even if you just put 10pounds a week aside. Really. It's practically very useful and emotionally reassuring.

5. try to go away for short holidays or weekends without him, with or without the kids. It will give you fresh air and help you endure the next months til the next break.

It's hard to work out if he's actively damaging or not - you say you don't want him single-parenting the children because his more difficult traits would come out, which at the moment you are buffering. But at the same time you have lots of happy family times. Another but - you feel that you need advice on how to keep sane, which indicates you are under a lot of pressure.

I do think you should work out the pros and cons of staying v going on paper once and also, how you would leave. Just once. Then destroy the paper but keep the plans in memory.

Contrary to just about everyone else, I reckon you've thought this through carefully and know what you are doing. If the balance of things change then you can always reconsider your decision to stay.

Completely agree with Meerka.

I totally understand that on balance, you feel it would be better for you and your children to stay for now. The scales could tip (for you or them) at any point of course.

You don't have to look far on these boards to see the problems and stress that arise when people split and one parent is 'difficult' as you say he is.

Its just not as black and white as 'leave him, model a good relationship for the children, start a happy new life'.

"You don't have to look far on these boards to see the problems and stress that arise when people split and one parent is 'difficult' as you say he is".

Indeed you do not but such a "difficult" parent would be difficult anyway whether the other person stayed or left. Such scenarios are more often than not about power and control and they want absolute; controlling people for instance do not like to let go of their victims easily.

Again it comes down to what the parents teach about relationships to their children; it is never wise to teach them that a loveless marriage is the "norm" because they could all too easily go on to replicate that within their own adult relationships.

Thanks for all the replies, especially from the people who have had experience of what I'm trying to do, it all helps keep things in perspective. I've been working on the premise of 'planning to leave, hoping to stay', so making sure I maintain my career, and have some savings, but also trying to work on the aspects of the relationship that I find difficult, and the way I handle it. Most of the time I feel fairly positive, and the atmosphere in the house in generally good, but today was a day I just felt worn out.
He's a very good father, and I think the children gain more from him than they lose from sometimes having to witness his difficult nature. I'm not sure if this might change as they get older, maybe, and then maybe I would reconsider.
I think counselling would be good for us, but there are practical barriers to it at the moment (DH doesn't speak good enough English to properly engage with the process), it might become more possible in years to come.
I know that everyone who posted on here had a good intention in posting, but some of the responses which ignored what I actually asked and just told me I was doing the wrong thing were quite aggressive. People post on the relationship board because they are feeling particularly low, they don't deserve to be judged for decisions they are making in difficult circumstances. I was feeling very fragile earlier today and these responses really didn't help, whereas others, who actually engaged with my question, really did, so thank you.