Hot Topic (5/27): Should a couple stay together for the kids?

[Cafe GroupAdmin]

Do you think that parents ought to stay together for the sake of their children? 

Why or why not? 

Do you think the effects of divorce on their kids are underestimated by parents?

[TikkiNippets]

No thats a bad idea because your kids will do better in a happy home and it cant be a happy home if mom and dad are fighting and being angry with each other all the time. I was relieved when my mother left my dad and took me with her because even though they would yell in the other room I still heard everything that they said to each other.

[guitarlove]

NOOOOO!  Because kids always know something is wrong, even if you think you are hiding it really well.  I think it's better to have a kid grow up with two happy families than unhappy one.  What kind of relationship expectations do you think a kid would grow up with if their parents are miserable in marriage?

[Chickadee]

 Good question. I think if they are going to be miserable together, definately not. The kids will pick up on the negative behavior and their lives will be miserable. I guess for the sake of the children, the parents should seperate and explain to the kids how much they love them and always will even though they ( the parents) cannot live together anymore.

[savannahnhi]

I am staying with my husband because he would not know how to take care of her when i am not around.  He never have done a thing for her since she was born.  i do not trust him for visitation.

[justgrape723]

 No they should not.

what they should do is to get counseling, try to repair the relationship. If they cannot then they should divorce.

Divorced parents should also behave in a mature manner and not put the kids in the middle.....no back stabbing the other parent, no playing games with visitation.

Of course that is for the typical divorced parent not the abusive or drug parent type of situation

[IhartU]

My childhood was spent in a home where my mother and father HATED each other and were very abusive to each other and us kids. They stayed together 'for the sake of the children', but all it did was make our lives miserable and we  would have been better off if they had just split up.

[gemini52283]

I don't think parents should stay together for the kids, but I do believe that they should work on things so that they are able to stay together for the kids. I'm a firm believer that almost any problem can be worked on and that marriages can be saved if the effort from both parties is put into it. Your children should be your reasoning for wanting to make things work. However, if the couple seeked counseling and tried to resolve their differences and they still can't make it work, then don't stay together because of the children. The children need a loving and happy home and when the parents are mad at one another constantly the home is not happy or loving.  

[anxiousschk]

Here's the thing....I think that parents have a problem acting like real adults way too often. 

If they were to pull their heads out of their asses often enough..they'd get what it does to the kids..they would never fight in front of them, they'd never talk badly about the other in front of them...the bad choices wouldn't happen..b/c they were putting kids first. 

I think that too often people give up on their marriages too easily.  Yes, I know..you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink...if one party in the marriage is done..there's only so much you can do...but I think that sometimes, there is a chance BEFORE that point that is missed...where the marriage could be fixed. 

I just think that marriage is entered into way to lightly these days and left way to easily.

I also think that the kids are rarely thought of enough.

[truckincowgirl]

Same with my dh. His parents were married at 16 because they had dh. They despised each other. The only time these two got along was when they were abusing my dh. He was physically, mentally, and emotionally abused. His parents forced him (as a teen) to pay for his own therapy. They said DH had issues. They made dh stop going because the therapist told his parents that THEY were his problem. He was a good kid. They needed to back off him. Wow did this ever set them off. DH left his house at 16 and has never regretted that choice. His parents blamed him for all of THEIR problems. They would call him a leaky rubber, backseat accident, and so on. We started dating right before he moved out. I witnessed his dad choking him and going after him with a baseball bat. His mom sat there and let it happen and actually "stoked the fire". It was like they enjoyed it. They chose to have two other children and the middle child was treated like a God and the youngest ended up going through the same hell as my dh. The youngest was basically taking too long to turn 18 so they could divorce. They finally split when the youngest was 13. All 3 kids will tell you how miserable their lives were. So NO it is the worst mistake ever to stay with each other for the sake of the kids.

Quoting IhartU:

My childhood was spent in a home where my mother and father HATED each other and were very abusive to each other and us kids. They stayed together 'for the sake of the children', but all it did was make our lives miserable and we  would have been better off if they had just split up.

[ain-gell72]

I know from experience that NO you should not stay together for the sake of the kids! In 2000, my ex and I were having problems. we rarely fought in front of our son, but sometimes things were said. granted my son was 4 at the time, but he wasn't stupid, and he knew mom and dad were not happy. My ex and I tried one more time with our marriage, under the * for our son* thing. it still didn't work. we finally realized, we both did have one thing in common and it was our son. so, we divorced. I have never been happier, my son sees this. it has been 8 years since we divorced, my son is now 14, and he still don't know the true reasons we divorced. he does know that we no longer loved each other enough to to stay married and that all he knows. he doesn't know how his dad had hit me, how his dad cheated on me or the hell early in our divorce that we both went through ( ex and I)

what will I say when he does ask for the real reason as an adult? IDK, but I do  not have any intentions of tarnishing his father in an effort to make it look like it was all my ex's fault.