Can I ask for stories where you actually did stay "until the children are grown up" and then divorced/separated - how did it go? Are your kids ok?

[herewegoroundthebastardbush]

On here you often see women in bad relationships (not abusive, or not seriously so, but not happy) say they will stay until the children are older/adults. So as to avoid disrupting their childhood, and then separate later. IME, IRL, such women usually end up staying - either because they reached an accommodation with their partner in the meantime they could live with, fear of being alone in old age, financial reasons, or discovered their children didn't magically become immune to family breakdown in their teens/twenties so still felt the obligation to maintain the facade.

So what I want to know is, did anyone actually do it - wait until the kids were older and then leave? How did it work out for you, and for the kids?

Oh and I will also add that my parents (probably my dad, but I can't remember) explicitly told me and my brother more than once that they would divorce when my younger brother turned 18. That wasn't particularly nice to hear either, so I don't recommend that...

I don't think there's a right answer on what to do.

I had a miserable childhood with arguing parents who showed no affection to each other. My mother would moan about my dad and use me as a sounding board.

Then when they spilt up I was 19. That was awful as I was a young adult they both needed support and wanted to use me as a pawn.

Having divorced parents is bloody tough even now I'm in my 40's. Couldn't have both in the same room for wedding or grandchildren things.

My parents did this. I'm honestly not sure whether there was a net benefit to all of us. I certainly can't say it would definitely have been better if they'd split earlier, but it would have been different. It would undoubtedly have been better for my mother. But she had two serious relationships in her life and frankly both had major issues - at least her second partner came at a time after we'd left home and we didn't have to live with him.

Exh and I tried to do this but after 10 years of a loveless marriage (kids were 12 & 11) DD picked up on things not being happy and I knew it was the right time to split. Had we have done it when they were very young it would have been much harder. I have never regretted those ten years but am very glad we did not wait until they were adults. Both adapted really well and whilst they don't have a close bond with their Dad (thats on him) they both say they are glad we didnt stay together.

My grandparents did this - they stayed together for the children (my mum and my uncles) and got divorced when they had all left home. Then both ended up in new relationships that were happier and better suited. My mum and uncles felt they'd done the right thing overall and all went on to have happy long term marriages / LTRs themselves. My mum had a rather tricky relationship with her own mum, but perhaps that would have been the same either way.

This was a long time ago so divorce was more of a stigma. Maybe it would be different now.

I didn't do this, but I know several people whose parents did - it was very common in that generation.

Either everybody was miserable and they wished their parents had split much earlier, or things seemed superficially OK and it fucked them up good to realise that the life they remembered was basically an enormous lie. None of them would recommend.

My XHs parents did this. They split up when he was 18.

The prolonged exposure to an unhealthy relationship causes him many issues with his self esteem, his relationship building, his desire to be needed and liked and the way he parents our children.

Ultimately it was the end of our very long marriage. I couldn't tolerate his behaviours anymore.

I have two friends whose long term plan is to leave when the kids are older. When we talk about it the reasons for staying are “it’s not that bad”, financial issues (they are able to be SAHM), not wanting to deal with possible step mothers.

Im a single mother so I find it quite strange that they would choose to stay in a relationship where they aren’t loved or fulfilled.

I seem to be posting on threads similar to this quite regularly at the moment.
It is easy in hindsight to wish parents split sooner, especially if you have benefitted from the security of a 2 parent household up until you reached adulthood.
The problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't take into account how different your childhood would have been if they had separated, step parents you might not have got on with, new step siblings taking time and resources that would have otherwise been devoted to you. That nice family home you grew up in and look back at fondly is now a small 2 bed flat in the scruffy part of town, the decent school you attended is now the failing comp that people avoid as you had to move out of the catchment area for the decent school.
People tend to look back and assume their childhood would have been exactly the same just with parents living separately, unless you had very wealthy parents it is very unlikely that would have been the case.

I think it depends on how bad things really are. My marriage was "OK". We didn't hate each other, there weren't endless rows or sniping, we respected each othet, we just weren't that "connected". I used to say we were like colleagues working at raising children, we got along, even enjoyed working together but we wouldn't have spent much time together side of work.

Neither of us begrudge it and we were happy in our own lives/enjoyed time spent as a family.

It's not the life I'd have chosen for me or DC, I'd prefer they'd had the relationship model of real intimacy, but I honestly don't think they'd be better off if we'd split. I work with troubled teens and an awful lot of their problems seem to stem from parents who are proud of their "co parenting". Weirdly, kids where one parent left altogether seem to do better than those who feel torn between two parents who still want to be involved. (Although of course I only see the ones where it's gone wrong).

Oh yes, and step parents, even good ones almost always seem to be a disaster for DC.

I stayed with my useless, abusive, feckless DH until my kids were late teens because I couldn't see a way of escape before then. I had no job, no money and because I didn't think he would 'let me go' without a nasty fight. I had no support, nowhere to go, things were different years ago. By the time we split, I was working and was so much emotionally stronger than when the kids were little. Yes, I wish we had split sooner but I just couldn't see a way for it to work. My kids seem fine now they're adults and they also see their father for what he is.

As an aside, my parents stayed together and I really wish they hadn't. My father was emotionally abusive to us all and it irked me as a child, the way my mother would just give into him all the time. He wiped out any personality she had and it prevented any meaningful relationship between my mother and I, or at least was one factor that made us not close.

Exactly this!

My parents split up when i was eight, over forty years ago. We lived on benefits after the split, really hard up, my dad was more or less absent - physically and financially, my mother was bitter and even now they can't be in the same room.

Obviously the extremes of living in a household where the parents are screaming and shouting at eachother daily, or never speak to eachother at all, are going to be damaging for a kid. However, living with a mother and father who can rub along steadily in a platonic fashion is better than living in poverty and suffering huge upheaval.
If adults modelling good relationships (and does that mean holding hands and smooching on the sofa or rather being respectful to one another?) is so vital then how on earth do young children of divorced parents manage as they grow up if those parents don't then go on to remarry, or take up with someone else?

Lastly, I think grown adults who struggle with thinking their parents lived a lie for their sake etc etc need to move on, quite frankly! If their parents are happier separately then focus on that.

Friend’s parents did this and she and her siblings felt that their whole childhood had been a lie. It didn’t work out very well. They all now have issues.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say.

Staying might not be perfect but leaving is unlikely to be happy ever after either.

It may be possible to have a kind/caring co parenting relationship with an ex but children do find it incredibly difficult when they have their loyalties didivided.

I also think far more children than parents realise are unhappy. There's no one better than the child of divorced parents at telling people what they want to hear.

I wish so much that they'd have divorced then. My childhood would have been happier and simpler!

^ but who knows what would happen next? New relationships? Schools? Financial issues? Potentially a whole other life course. When my parents divorced we relocated across the country. Something we never would have done otherwise.

We can't possibly know divorce is better for the kids if the parents are rubbing along OK because we can't see the parallel universe in which the marriage doesn't end.

Maybe so, but they'd likely have "issues" if they'd felt torn between the parents/desserted during their childhood too.

As PP said, leaving doesn't mean life carries on as before but without the difficult relationship.

My parents stayed together and then by the time we'd left home etc they decided just to carry on because they couldn't be bothered separating their lives but largely lead separate lives now. It can be exhausting being around them and not knowing if then are getting on that day or not

By contrast my ex husband left 10 years into marriage - 3 very young children. I would have stayed together for the sake of them. He didn't. In some ways I respect (maybe admire) his resoluteness

I don't know really which is the best option? I think it depends on very personal circumstances and the people and children involved. I think (hope) for my children splitting will be best in the long term because it was becoming clear their dad was very unhappy and starting to take it out on them

My parents waited til I went to uni. I suddenly had no home to go back to and after enduring the last years of a clearly awful relationship between them I ended up with depression and resenting my mother deeply (she's the one who left). I remember wishing they'd split up when I was about 13. That would have given us all time to get used to it before I left home and I wouldn't have then stayed away for the best part of a decade, which was actually the point where I needed a stable home (s) / parents to go back to.

My sister meanwhile (4 years older) escaped the worst of it but also had terrible mental health whilst at uni. We don't really speak to each other as adults because again we both stayed away and we had no relationship to build on.

My parents stayed together until we were late teens and then even after they had officially split lived together for another 4 years or so whilst they sold the house. It was vile. It damaged their mental health and wellbeing and it was a horrible experience for my DB and I to grow up in. I wish they could have separated at a much earlier point.

This is the trouble with "if only". You don't know, really, if that would have been better or worse. Statistics would suggest that 9-14yo is the worst time for parents to split in terms of outcomes for children, but of course within that they're all individuals.

It may have been better for you, but it may not. Neither was going to present an ideal situation. 😥

I’m not sure if this is entirely relevant but my H, after 28 years of marriage (which were, I think, happy enough, affair free, involved an ill child and had both ups and downs) left me for another younger woman. Our children were both over 21, one had her own child.

Both children felt it was hard to reconcile apparently happy times with his behaviour but the hardest thing is his conviction that they are adults and so they shouldn’t mind how he behaves as he is another adult. He says repeatedly that this is his life and he wants to live it with his now wife. He won’t see our children without her, ever, and says that his life with her is his priority (because the children are adults). They feel abandoned and marginalised.

It seems to me that it isn’t necessarily about a split or when that split happens but the issue is how the children of whatever age are treated by both parents whether or not there is a split. My experience says that children are children of the marriage whatever their age, and need to be assured of their importance

It wasn’t my personal experience. My parents split when I was 8. I remember feeling so relieved and I was so excited to move to a new home and live in peace away from all the shouting.

But thinking back about it now, I just pondered what would have been like if they had stayed together. I think one really important thing is it would have really shaken my sense of identity. From 8, I knew I was a child from a single parent family who barely saw her dad. It was just mum and I and actually that was fine.

But 17-19 was a really tricky time for me. I was really struggling with transitioning to adulthood and an unhealthy relationship and a bereavement. It wouldn’t have been a time when I found out that my family wasn’t what I thought it was. For me, knowing from nearly as early as I could remember what to expect was probably a really good thing. Fwiw, I grew up to have a good life, successful career, and a happy marriage without any of the drama my parents caused in theirs.

We split at the end of my youngest’s first year of uni. Things had been bad for 11 years, following a family tragedy that hit my XH’s MH like a physical assault. I hadn’t been happy for 7 years, tried and tried to get him back on track but eventually gave up. All 3 DC were relieved at the time for the most part. We kept on with family days, even holidays, while they adjusted, but have gradually reduced contact to an absolute minimum.

i stuck at it because the time was never right, nearly always because of things going on with the DC. We did communicate well, have laughs etc. I think in their teenage years we modelled friendship and respect, in their childhood it was love. In their 20s now it’s just tolerance and a shared humour.

they are all in good relationships, jobs etc. They appreciate that both parents are happy in their own way, and that he didn’t drag me down with him - he does no ‘parenting’ now, that has been my sole responsibility for 20 years.

its not ideal but I don’t regret sticking it out

@Almie My parents were much the same. The first time my father was unfaithful was before I'd started school. My mother was/is Catholic, so divorce was never an option.

Far better in her eyes to turn into a bitter, angry resentful woman, a 'trailing spouse' who wrecked our childhood - I have two brothers. Far better to show my father, and us, no physical or verbal affection our whole childhood...I've never heard the words 'I love you' from either parent or even been hugged by them. As I got older, became a teen, the sarcastic remarks started...you would have had to have been totally deaf and dumb not to realise what my mother was eluding to. My father finally left for good 6 months after my younger brother turned 18...he'd made an attempt when I was 12. I'd just turned 21 and had been married less than a week. I then had my mother demand that we all cut contact with my father, take her 'side'...as the only daughter I got burdened with all the toxic details of their marriage and divorce. I had a massive nervous breakdown when I was 23 and tried to kill myself.

That was 30 years ago, and like @Untitledsquatboulder my mother doesn't understand why I'm not more 'grateful' that she stayed with my father. I'm very low contact with her and deliberately live on the other side of the world from her...I've not seen her in 14 years. I've not seen my father in 34 years. Neither myself or my two brothers have had children of our own.