A question for the ladies

[Dom R]

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your kids and their well-being IS leave the R.

Only if one or both of you is completely selfish, and is actively abusing you and/or the children.

Otherwise, it's just a matter of one or both people being too selfish to act like responsible adults and parents.
That is to say, in those lesser cases, It's not the "best thing to do". It's merely the "easiest thing to do". And/or "best for the ADULT, not best for the children.
Proof of this: because for almost all of those cases, the "reasons for leaving", could be summed up as, "I'm not happy".

That is, by definition, selfish. Not, "for the children".


Any responsible, mature person, should be capable of "acting like a good roommate", at the bare minimum. Hundreds of thousands of college students do it every year, and they're only teenagers.
If a bunch of teenagers can somehow manage it, then people who are older, and thus supposedly even more grown up and responsible, should be able to manage it too.

Children are not best served, by being shown the example of mom or dad leaving the marriage, because "they are not happy". They need to learn the life lesson of how to best deal with things, when they arent particularly happy with a responsability that they have.

The negative example being set, leads to behaviour such as, "I'm not happy in school. I should just drop out".

or, the most obvious.. when THEY get married:
"i'm not happy with [my spouse]. I dont want to bother putting in full effort on it. Why bother with extreme stuff like marital counselling? That's just a hassle, and I dont want to be told I have to change anything about ME. I can just get a divorce like mom/dad and 'find someone better' for ME".