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".

[Corri]

I'm not so sure you picked the wrong woman. As everyone here has been telling you for years, it's the current dynamics of your R that is killing the passion.

If your partner is unable or unwilling to work with you on the R, there ARE things you can do, changes you can make to yourself, that can change the dynamics of the R. If those changes aren't enough for you, and you are unwilling to leave the M, at least until your kids are grown, all you can do is make the best of it, and at least find other things that give you different forms of pleasure (hobbies, doing things with your kids, whatever). If passion is what you seek, and you are unwilling to have an affair, I'd suggest exploring high-risk thrill activities like parachuting, flying, off-road racing... and I'm being serious.

But down the road, let's say you do decide to D, and look for another potential mate... given your resistance to really understand your part in R dynamics... there is a high probability that you are going to create a similar scenario.

JMHO, of course.

[Corri]

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".

.... blah, blah, blah...

So sayeth the Morality and Ethics Police Chief, and legend-in-his-own-mind author of "The Book of Should Be's: How **I** Think YOU Should Believe, Act and Feel About YOURSELF, YOUR Children and YOUR Marriage/Sex Life."

Thanks for that sermon, Pastor Don. Not.

[Corri]

"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".

You know what? My mother was divorced three times, and my dad was divorced twice. All of them happened before I was 14.

And you know, never ONCE did that nice, flippant, completely uninformed opinion of YOURS ever enter my mind. Never. As a matter of fact... just the opposite happened.

[Dom R]

Thanks for that sermon, Pastor Don. Not.

It's nice how you completely ignored my 100% rational, not religious reasoning in my post, and made an ad hominem attack against me instead. Based solely on the fact that I am a Christian, and having nothing to do with what I posted.

Wanna try again, and see if you can actually reply to what I wrote, with a rational reply, rather than basically saying, [you dirty bible thumper dont tell me what to do!] ?

Note: your second post, written while I write this, does not refute what I said, about it setting a bad example.
All it implies is that you personally, did not follow the bad example set by your parents. It does not negate that it was a bad example to set for you. Nor does it negate that other people ARE influenced more heavily by their parents' choices to divorce instead of work on their marriages.

This is an objective, undisputable fact; backed both by plain numbers, that "children of divorced parents, are more likely to get divorced themselves", and also by more in-depth studies of why people get divorced.

[Corri]

anna try again, and see if you can actually reply to what I wrote, with a rational reply

No. Not really. <-- Rational reply. And I'm not taking stabs at your religion. Just your application of it to the masses.

[Burgbud]

This is an objective, undisputable fact; backed both by plain numbers, that "children of divorced parents, are more likely to get divorced themselves", and also by more in-depth studies of why people get divorced.

And Corri said: "Sometimes the best thing you can do for your kids and their well-being IS leave the R," which doesn't refute your objective, indisputable fact. Nor is it refuted *by* your objective, indisputable fact. So what was the point of your post?

[sat567]

There are also a lot of studies that show that children who grew up in families where the parents did not get divorced, but who did not model loving behavior for their children, end up pretty farked up, mentally and emotionally.

As far as I know, no one here has chosen divorce without trying many other ways to keep the marriage intact.

It's not always in the best interests of the kids to stay in a loveless marriage. Plenty of adult children are burdened with the guilt of knowing that their parents stayed in these emotional black holes of marriages just "for the kids." There is no "one size fits all" solution.

Hairdog

[chromosphere]

It's nice how you completely ignored my 100% rational, not religious reasoning in my post, and made an ad hominem attack against me instead. Based solely on the fact that I am a Christian, and having nothing to do with what I posted.

I think her post was more allegorical, in that your words had a flavor of dogmatism that is reminiscent of Sunday morning sermons. An ad hominem attack would have read more like "you are wrong BECAUSE you are a christian", while her response was disagreement over the level of dogmatism in your response. If someone argues a solution to a problem, responding that the solution is too narrow-focused is reasonable and not ad hominem.

Chrome

[Dom R]

There are also a lot of studies that show that children who grew up in families where the parents did not get divorced, but who did not model loving behavior for their children, end up pretty farked up, mentally and emotionally.

...

It's not always in the best interests of the kids to stay in a loveless marriage. Plenty of adult children are burdened with the guilt of knowing that their parents stayed in these emotional black holes of marriages just "for the kids." There is no "one size fits all" solution.

I actually agree with you, that the parents "just sleeping in the same house", but generally hissing at each other, is not good for the children either.

The children need to be shown caring ways to problem solve and resolve interpersonal issues. Not only for future marriages, but in other areas as well.
The best thing for the children in that reguard, is when both mom and dad try to work together to resolve their differences as best they can.

Even if only one of the parents is the more reasonable... it's still an important life skill. For example, as it applies to future work for them.
What lesson is important to teach the kids:

"If you dont like your boss, then quit, and keep going through jobs until you find a boss that you like" ?

Or, "Find a way to get along with your boss as best you can" ?

Practically every boss has their own individual quirks and faults. Unless your boss is blatantly abusing you in some form or another, isnt it important to try to work with them as best you can?

I'm not making any statements about how either spouse needs to be "the boss" in a marriage.

What I'm saying, is that this is just one example in life, where it's important to learn how to get along with someone in as positive a manner as possible, even if you imagine that a different situation might "make you happier". ('cause odds are.. it wont!! it's most likely that you'll just be faced with a different set of problems...)


How people deal with that kind of situation, according to the research, tends to be most geared towards how their parents resolved their differences.
Failure of the parents to resolve differences, leads to a lacking of conflict resolution skills in the children, which in turn, often leads to"farked up" children, as you put it.

Divorce isnt resolving the issues. It's modelling "job hopping until you find the 'perfect' match for you".
That may make great advertising for monster.com but for most people in the real world, that is harmful behaviour to be modelling.

(FYI: if people are curious about what "research" I'm referring to, some of it is mentioned in the book, "The unexpected legacy of divorce")