Is anyone waiting until their children are 18 and then leaving?

[Countdown99]

If so how are you getting through the years until then?

Also please don't reply saying it's not healthy for the children to be raised seeing an unloving marriage etc or that the children will thrive once I've left him. Everyone's situation is different, and I will not risk my children being away from me and alienated against me etc. Only I know my relationship and I have the vast majority of control of the children whilst I'm in this marriage and I feel that is what is best for them.

@Littlesthobo84

Better than them living with him 50% of the time without me Nerr

But it's not all about you.

I mean because I can shield them from it.
If I’m not there then I cannot.

@Littlesthobo84

I mean because I can shield them from it. If I’m not there then I cannot.

Please read the thread and all the people whose parents did this. You CANNOT shield them. Children are not stupid, however much you want to pretend they are. They will see it and hear it and internalise it all. It's likely they'll put on a pretence that they're happy as they won't want to add to the upset their dad is already causing them.

Why not give them a chance of having a safe place away from it all?

I meant the upset their dad is causing you.

My best friends parents did this and waited til she was 18 to split. We used to speak about it regularly when we were kids that she knew that's what they were going to do. She has a terrible relationship with both of them, and doesn't even speak to her mum anymore and that's a big part of it. She was forced to live in an unhealthy environment for everyone and the damage has carried on into adulthood. Be very very careful if you're dead set on waiting.

Do you think he will have the children 50% of the time too?. He only cares about his own self.

Such men rarely bother with the children post separation but tend to demand access or shout about 50% in order to punish the mother further for leaving him.

You cannot shield your own self from him and his temper let alone your children if you are all under the same roof. If he is at all interested in seeing his kids then I would arrange visits at a contact centre rather than any informal arrangement.

@sjfjsnfkdhsbd
You’re lovely. You have such a way with words which make you sound so approachable in times of crisis.

Honestly, I'm 60 and my parents' unhappiness continues to blight my life (less directly now that I've got on top of my poor relationship choices; more just worrying about them). It is very frustrating to see someone wondering whether to do this to their own kids. Sorry OP but you talk about them as though they don't have minds of their own and you will never be able to communicate with them directly, as though they are just pawns in the game.

@FluffyBlueJumper

What's more, if you say you are "staying for the kids", what you are saying is that you are staying in an unhappy marriage because of them, which is a huge burden for a child.

The kids will feel the burden of mummy being unhappy because of them.

Sorry OP but you talk about them as though they don't have minds of their own and you will never be able to communicate with them directly, as though they are just pawns in the game.

This is an excellent point. I felt trapped in our family, unable to escape. It was a frightening and harmful experience which has affected choices I’ve made as an adult. I put off having children until I was earning enough to go it alone if my relationship with DP soured. I also never considered reducing my hours when my children were tiny even though ai was exhausted because I could not compromise my financial independence, so strong was my need never to be trapped like that again. I can also see that I have tolerated toxic workplaces far longer than was healthy because enduring awfulness was normalised for me in childhood. You have no idea how much harm sticking with it “for the kids” does. It will shape your adult children’s lives and choices further down the line.

The kids will feel the burden of mummy being unhappy because of them.

I honesty think unless you've been the child in this type of environment you cannot possibly understand the impact it wull have on them. I appreciate divorce is difficult on children too but living in this sort of environment is nothing but cruel.

No way I could do that. Dh and I both action people once we have an idea we do it - how can you sit around for 10 years once you’ve decided on a course of action? Insane.

Also sadly I agree with gutful I don’t think this all altruistic something else is keeping you there - lifestyle status etc.

Don't wait.
I tried to wait it out.
I left, best decision I ever made.

I must admit I think if you already know that you want out, then you have a moral obligation to act on that.

It's different when women aren't sure, and that's what keeps them stuck.

I don't use the words "moral obligation" lightly. I mean it, whoever he is your husband deserves that basic human respect and your kids deserve not to grow up in a bullshit environment.

Whatever else is keeping you there, please examine it closely, because karma is a bitch.

OP I am you 10 years on. I don’t think anyone who isn’t in this situation can really understand it.

There are many things about my husband that I still love. Most of the time he is an excellent father. However, there are aspects of his personality which means if we didn’t have children I would probably have left him years ago. Equally there is a good chance that if we hadn’t had children, the aspects I can’t live with wouldn’t have come to the surface.

Yes, I have had therapy.

My kids are now young teens and I have known for at least 10 years. On good days I almost forget, most days I think of us as “a couple working at their marriage” but in the back of my mind there is a plan that after the kids are grown we will be separating. On bad days I count the hours until I can leave.

Leaving when they were young wasn’t an option. I won’t go into details but, although he has never ever hurt me or the children, I have a real and very valid fear that he would have been an extreme risk to the children and I if I had left him. If it weren’t for that fear I would have left when they were young.

This thread has been a depressing read, as it left me feeling that really I should be either waiting until the kids were mid to late 20s to leave, or possibly just staying forever so as not to hurt my children. I took some time to think though, and I disagree. Once they are physically bigger and, perhaps more importantly, once my husband sees them as adults I think the risk he poses to them diminishes, and I can’t see how us splitting in the future, with me considering it now, is any different to if we just grew apart or even spontaneously split at that point in the future. As I say, sometimes I even convince myself that we are “just working on our marriage”.

@user143677433 do you genuinely think that your children are that stupid that they think you're in a normal, happy marriage? Would you want your children to think it's normal to be unhappy for decades in a marriage when they become adults?

Have you read the experiences of us whose parents stayed together for the children and how damaging that is?

User

So he is not good enough a husband for you yet he is apparently a good enough father for your kids. 🤔how does that work for you and them ?

Your relationship bar is really so low here it’s almost non existent. Also if it was not for your children you would have left him years ago. Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing positive themes to write about their man. Would you want your kids as adults to be in such a relationship, probably not but you are showing them that this is still acceptable to you. Would you be advising them to basically put up with a marriage that should have ended years earlier because you’re doing the self same?.

Staying for the sake of the children is never a good idea and in your case a particularly terrible one, one that will further impact on your children when adult and you going forward. Your own relationship with them could well become non existent because in their eyes they could well view you as putting him before them.

@NerrSnerr You are so right, one of the things I'm most mad about now is the bloody insult to my intelligence when I was a child. To not know how things really were between my parents, I would have had to have been deaf, dumb and blind.

Just because they weren't having screaming verbal fights or knocking seven shades of shit out of each other in front of us didn't mean we had no idea of the true state of their marriage. It was obvious to everyone but were were made to pretend otherwise. The end result benefitted no one. After his unsuccessful attempt to dump us on the other side of the world when I was 11, my father finally left 6 months after my younger brother turned 18 (a whole decade later).

@user143677433

OP I am you 10 years on. I don’t think anyone who isn’t in this situation can really understand it.

There are many things about my husband that I still love. Most of the time he is an excellent father. However, there are aspects of his personality which means if we didn’t have children I would probably have left him years ago. Equally there is a good chance that if we hadn’t had children, the aspects I can’t live with wouldn’t have come to the surface.

Yes, I have had therapy.

My kids are now young teens and I have known for at least 10 years. On good days I almost forget, most days I think of us as “a couple working at their marriage” but in the back of my mind there is a plan that after the kids are grown we will be separating. On bad days I count the hours until I can leave.

Leaving when they were young wasn’t an option. I won’t go into details but, although he has never ever hurt me or the children, I have a real and very valid fear that he would have been an extreme risk to the children and I if I had left him. If it weren’t for that fear I would have left when they were young.

This thread has been a depressing read, as it left me feeling that really I should be either waiting until the kids were mid to late 20s to leave, or possibly just staying forever so as not to hurt my children. I took some time to think though, and I disagree. Once they are physically bigger and, perhaps more importantly, once my husband sees them as adults I think the risk he poses to them diminishes, and I can’t see how us splitting in the future, with me considering it now, is any different to if we just grew apart or even spontaneously split at that point in the future. As I say, sometimes I even convince myself that we are “just working on our marriage”.

What would be the point I splitting when your kids are 20 odd? You might as well stay forever. Plenty of women leave or people just split up because it doesn’t work out and yes in the beginning it is tough and messy but it doesn’t last 20 odd years that’s the difference.

I can understand to an extent that your husband will manipulate your children into thinking you are the bad guy and won’t want to spend time with you and he is going to be full on Disney Dad.
What is to stop you being Disney Mum
Yes you have the bed times and dinner times and homework but adding in a naughty late night here and there, trips and meals out after school and at the weekend. Pushing homework and the boring stuff on to him. Two can play at that game.

I do understand OP. Separating means putting your children at risk because they might have to stay with their father, without you, for 50% of the time. Anyone who's married to someone selfish and irresponsible will understand that this is not a risk worth taking. A man who drives irresponsibly, with your children in the car? A man who falls asleep with something cooking on the stove and can't be trusted to change the batteries in the smoke alarm? A man who loses his temper too quickly with small children? A man who would ignore his children for hours while he plays on his phone? A man who shouts people down when they disagree? Would you really leave your small children in his sole care for 50% of the time? I certainly wouldn't.

Do you really think that such a man would actually want his children half the time, particularly in the longer term?. Many abusive men come with such guff about wanting 50/50 or such like because they know that the children are the mother’s Achilles heel or weak spot. They use the kids as a way of punishing the mother because she has had the gall in his eyes to leave him. All such men care about are their own selves, certainly not their children. If they were decent men they would not treat the mother of their children with such overriding contempt and hate.

[quote noirchatsdeux]@NerrSnerr You are so right, one of the things I'm most mad about now is the bloody insult to my intelligence when I was a child. To not know how things really were between my parents, I would have had to have been deaf, dumb and blind.

Just because they weren't having screaming verbal fights or knocking seven shades of shit out of each other in front of us didn't mean we had no idea of the true state of their marriage. It was obvious to everyone but were were made to pretend otherwise. The end result benefitted no one. After his unsuccessful attempt to dump us on the other side of the world when I was 11, my father finally left 6 months after my younger brother turned 18 (a whole decade later).[/quote]
Reading this is so familar.

Parents in these situations like to pretend their children have no idea, but of course the children know.

By all means stay in a shit marriage, but don't pretend it's for the kids benefit. All you're doing is forcing them to endure a shit situation and live a lie.

My tuppence worth:

1. If the relationship is abusive you must leave. Your mental health will not survive it otherwise.
2. Children can go off the rails and struggle for a whole host of reasons, as Attila said, it’s more about how you divorce and then co-parent than when. Blended families can fuck kids right up IMO.
3. My own parents split when I was 10. It has blighted my life and I’ve had a lot of counselling (n.b there were no other children after my parents split up, though both remarried). My younger siblings fared better than I did on the face of it.

Unfortunately life rarely turns out how we planned. I’m sorry you’re in this situation.

My own marriage is dead but we have not separated yet and I don’t know when we will. But the consensus on this site at least is that it’s better to split.