My biggest fear now is in regards to my children. How will they come out of this? Are they going to hate us for this? Will they struggle in school and their relationships? I do know the more I detach from my w, the better I will be able to deal with those questions?
Michele talks about this in DR. Yes they WILL be affected. Anyone who tells you they won't is just blowing happy smoke up your skirt. Every study out there clearly shows there are obvious and measurable differences between kids who have suffered D and those who haven't. You will never be able to convince your W of this. In her world your kids will be 100% unaffected, because that's what she WANTS to believe. Just like she wants to believe that leaving you will make her gloriously happy. She's lying to herself, it's all part of it.
As for how much they'll be affected, very hard to predict. I can tell you that my parents got D'd when I was a young teen and right up until BD I always said it was the worst experience I went through in my life. Worse than the death of a loved one. I still did great in school, I graduated college and I have had a very successful professional career and have successfully raised 3 kids, so it didn't impact me there. But the scars are there for sure. In my case it was my mom that was a WAS and I chose to stay with my dad. My R with my mom was previously quite strong but never did recover. To this day (35+ years later) we rarely talk. I see the same thing happening between my W and D18. I tried telling my W that she could be permanently harming her R with our kids, but she's living in that perfect dreamland with your W where kids are totally unharmed by marital problems.
