AngryToast
Do not use your children as the main or even the reason to stay together; whose sake are you really staying for?. They are not glue nor should be used here as this to bind you and this man together.
What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?.
When marriages are angry, conflicted, or terribly mediocre, parents often default to staying together for the purported sake of the children. As our children grow older, they tend to replicate relationships similar to what their parents modelled. As parents we’d never say we want our children to suffer or struggle in their relationships. Yet that’s the greater likelihood. It’s not what we say, but what we do that matters. Telling our children they deserve healthy, respectful, and loving partnerships isn’t taken to heart if we don’t have the courage to live up to our own words. What we model for them is very much what we might expect for them in their future relationships. From this perspective we might question the sincerity of the expression “for the sake of the children.”
If we want our offspring to have joyful and successful relationships, we need to provide them with the best example we possibly can. Living in mediocrity or worse burdens children with very confusing messages about relationships and happiness. It certainly instructs them that loving marriages and partnerships are not their birthright.
Not infrequently, people are simply afraid to move on with their lives and take their own responsibility for happiness. Financial concerns or the fear of being alone often motivate such paralysis, hidden beneath the mask of staying together for the children. At other times, it’s easier to blame your partner for your discontent than to come out of your sense of victimhood. Unloving or conflicted marriages often follow a lineage as they are passed down from generation to generation. And so the cycle continues. Is this what we really wish for our children? It is much more challenging to come to terms with our own circumstances and face our fears than it is to hide behind them as we stay together “for the kids.”
Divorce is not failure, living in such unhappiness is. Divorce, in and of itself, need not be harmful to children. It is the adversarial and contentious process of divorce, if continued, that may wreak damage. Having two parents successfully move forward with their lives teaches an invaluable lesson: that we deserve to be happy and to feel loved. Conversely, remaining in relationships that perpetuate anger, devaluation, and lack of positive interactions leaves an indelible scar on children.