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?

We split when the kids were adults, I met my now dp 7 months later who was in a similar position - all fine and amicable with both ex's because nobody got hurt, nobody was surprised and the kids accepted it pretty well, one dd struggled more because she wanted it to be just me and her, ironically she's now in a serious relationship and planning marriage

My mum stayed until I was 18 and my brother 16. She quietly seethed with resentment for a good number of years, drank quite heavily, however, there were no arguments. My Dad was devastated when they divorced. As Mum had literally kept everything to herself for years, thinking she was doing the best for us children. The divorce was sudden and brutal and knocked us for six as we had no inkling this was how she felt. My brother was forced to live with my Dad and I left home pretty sharpish. My brother held a lot of resentment for Mum whereas I tried to understand, but failed more often than not.
I knew things weren't right with my ex husband about two years prior to separation. I didn't stay for the children. I stayed incase things got better. They didn't. I accepted that. We separated. We Co parent now, the children are happy. Both my ex husband and I are in new relationships, and we all muddle along well. I have no doubt my divorce impacted our children, they were of course sad. However being honest, and allowing them agency over decisions seems to have worked as best it could have.
I often wish my parents had tried harder to get on post divorce. For us.

DH’s parents did. They had some sort of pact to stay together for the kids and for the sake of propriety until the youngest left home. When DH’s younger brother started at university MIL moved out the family home and FIL gave her money to buy a place.

They are still married and never divorced because it’s a sin (old school Irish Catholics). AFAIK neither of them has ever had another partner.

DH only recently found out that his birth was 5 months after his parents’ wedding day. I suspect neither of them wanted to get married in the first place, but the shame of being an unwed mother (and abortion an abomination) in their circles was too much.

FIL is/was a nightmare and has bad mental health (OCD, hoarding, anxiety, coercive control). MIL should have left him years before. It badly affected their children.

My parents have stayed together- they absolutely shouldn't as they despise eachother.
Before I left home (at 18) I would stay in my room to avoid their arguments/ bickering (helped with my exam revision though!)
They were of the generation that you just put up with it

It's obvious from your responses which way you're leaning. At the end of the day you know your circumstances better than anyone on a public forum.

I chose to go. I felt the same as you, that I would never, ever be with someone else. I was 100% sure about this. 13 years later I am remarried. Both my kids are doing well but yself and their Dad have a very amicable relationship. I this this is key in the childrens lives. Whether you chose to stay together or apart if it is at all possible (and i'm well aware it's not always possible) a good relationship between their parents in important.

Children are incredibly perceptive. My parents should have split, they never did. My mother passed away never knowing a good relationship and that is heartbreaking.

I actively do not want the be with anyone else. For myself and for my kids. So the whole "and now I'm remarried" thing is the opposite o allf a draw for me. I don't want my kids to have a stepfamily or blended family of any sort, I know how challenging they are. This is one of my main reasons for staying put, because while I could control my end of this, I couldn't control his.

My parents did this and it wrecked everyone emotionally.

I for one find it strange that such responsibility is placed on the kids to carry the marriage through to their childrens adulthood as the parents see it beneficial for their kids, so the kids, once adults, will feel guilty for the rest of their lives due to that decision.

This is sad on so many levels… you’re so against a blended family that you’d potentially stay in an unhappy marriage to prevent your ex from meeting someone new and having a family with them? Many blended families work very well and are harmonious. Mumsnet is not a good indicator for this because the many many people who have happy blended families have no need to be posting on forums about them.
So not only are you preventing yourself from being truly loved by a partner in your lifetime, you’re also ensuring that your husband is being denied the same. My thoughts are that if it was me, I’d hate to be on my deathbed having wasted so many years of my life without true love and intimacy.

My parents have been married for almost 50 years. My DF had an affair when I was in early primary school years with a close friend of the family. I knew something was wrong at the time, and picked up the house phone to silence a couple of times, but was obviously too young to understand it all.

My DM found out about the affair, and stayed "because she didn't want the other woman to win". Personally, I think it was because she didn't want to become a single mum, plus she wouldn't have been able to support herself and us on her salary. Since that time, she's dripped poison in my ear about my DF whenever she can. I just tell her that's the life she chose.

She's now full of resentment that I left my emotionally abusive EXDP as soon as he started showing his contempt, and putting me down in front of the DC.

Despite my DF being a terrible husband, he's a good DD, and I'm a lot closer to him than I am to my DM. Due to my childhood experience, I wouldn't, and didn't, hesitate to leave a poor relationship, despite having DC. It helps that I have a great job and good support, so it wasn't a question of staying for the financial aspects.

*he's a good DF

I do think I'd have preferred for them to have split when we were young, as I now have to put up with my DM reminding us all what a martyr she is for staying with my DF on at least a weekly basis.

No, they stayed together even after we left home. My mum is still desperately unhappy. And can I tell you a story? She told me she'd stay with him for "our sake" when I was ten which led me to be in a horrifically abusive relationship for a long time because "we had a child and it was for their sake..." I got out eventually but suffered because that's what my mum taught me was what you do as a parent. Don't do it OP. Teach your kids you and they are worth more