Have other people managed to keep going just for the children?

[Pinkport]

I've been reading on here for a while and I know people say it can be better to leave a marriage if it's really not working out but....
If you're marriage has become platonic and okay, there maybe a bit of low level conflict but mainly just getting along is it really harming your dc?
How long has anyone else managed to stay in a 'platonic marriage' for? Do you really think this is healthy for dc? We're just in limbo and have been for 5 years (dc 8 and 9).

What you don't really know, though, is whether your particular parents would have handled separating any better than they handled staying together. It's a fallacy to think one way of screwing your kids up is always better than another. It depends on the people concerned. That said, it is one thing to stay in a sex-free but otherwise caring and loving relationship, which is not uncommon, and another to stay in an emotionally distant or cold relationship where your children are the only thing you have in common and the only thing you like about each other. The latter sort of relationship is really not going to survive long term, so you will have to hurt your kids some day!

Absolutely Handywoman - therapy has been the most painful (and expensive!) think I've ever done but also by far the best thing I've ever done for myself and for the relationships I have now. There's no magic switch that gets automatically flicked that turns you from sad, scared, confused child to confident, independent, self-assured adult. For some of us, that's a long hard painful process.

girls, how do you feel having made such a discovery about your parents?

It has been awful as we have found out they have both been having affairs for years.
My mum has been and is currently sleeping with a good family friend.
I would have preferred them to have separated years ago tbh

That's horrendous girls

It's more common than you think and a lot of people do it. It's an MN mortal sin, though.

girls that must be really tough.

It might be common expat but its not nice finding out details about your parents sex life with one another let alone other people

Why did they tell you, girls?

Because my dad had been behaving strangely and has a drink problem. He hinted at marital problems and it kind of snowballed.
He feels betrayed by the friend and by my mum and thought the affairs type chapter of their lives was over.
My life has kind of turned into an episode of eastenders recently ..

girlsyearapart - That sounds awful.

Would you still have preferred them to separate years ago if the result had been multiple divorces and marriages and a succession of different step parents and custody arrangements through your childhood? Or are you imagining the alternative would have been two happy people capable of healthy, long term, monogamous relationships elsewhere?

I don't really know the answer to that one..
Just so hard to watch what's going on now.
It sort of taints everything that has come before. Some of the people involved are very very close family friends and we never would have suspected a thing..

I do think it's a lot more common than we like to admit for people to live in loveless marriages and have affairs on the side, or even to not have affairs at all.

It's only really in the past twenty years or so that divorce has become a lot more commonplace I remember my grandparents used to argue constantly and it was pretty much a known fact that they hated each other. Neither had affairs to my knowledge though, but their situation certainly isn't unique. girls the wrong committed here though is that they told you what was happening, after all if it worked for them was it wrong for them to have lived like that?

I suspect that a very large proportion of marriages do just that.

As long as the 2 adults show basic kindness and respect to each other, DC are probably not harmed.

If however it means living in a house full of unspoken resentment between the two (or worse), then it's much better to split.

DC are learning how people relate to each other from the way their adult role models interact.

girls, I'm so sorry. I found out a few years ago that my dad has been messing around with other men for years and years. I say messing around because I have no idea if it was one night stands or actual relationships. My mum found out and told me and my sister. She confronted my dad but he has no idea that we know. They are still together, its all been swept under the carpet as far as I can, like everything usually is in my family. Secrets and lies.

'It sort of taints everything that has come before'

Yes to this, although my relationship with my parents was not good before I found out. The lying and the denial and the level of deceit is quite mind blowing. And for you to find out that family friends were involved too.... It's a huge shock.

Thanks lotta . Yes so many lies have been too and it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins.
Open marriage is never something I would want and I would be devastated if dh cheated on me. It's obviously something that worked for my parents in the past but is not at all now.
They do seem to want to sweep things under the carpet but we can't un know things we have found out.
It's like a new revelation each day.
Anyway sorry op I've hijacked your thread!

Sorry to hear about your discovery, girls, it must be difficult and painful. There are so many details about my parent's sex life I wished they had kept to themselves, I know how you feel.

Lottapianos, what I meant about blaming your parents is that your childhood and your parent's marriage can explain a lot in your own life and your own relationships, but its very easy to blame your parents so much that you absolve yourself from any responsibility.

OP, what are your thoughts now?