Would you stay in an unfulfilling marriage for the sake of your children?

May said:
say you got married to someone you discovered you weren't compatible with; you try to make it work but you're just two very different people, with different values and goals in life. you're no longer in love; you can barely stand each other, but it's not a simple issue to just leave. finances aside, you have 2 young children (say 8 and 10) to think about. would you stay with your husband/wife for their sake, even though it would make you unhappy? say you were childless- would you still stay?
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I would stay. Mostly it's not all about me, and I have other people to think about. And then I would start thinking about the reasons why I married the person in the first place: what we have in common, some of the things we still enjoy together, all that stuff. If needed, we can seek out a counselor and we should talk things out before it gets beyond a certain point. But this is why "love" is not a good enough reason to get married. Everyone is "in love." But "in like" is far less common and far more important IMO. You can have fights with your best friends and still be best friends.

I think the danger is, people don't see marriage as permanent - they say, well, let's try it for a bit and see what happens. No one wants to invest in the time of knowing someone or thinking past the emotions. No one considers compatibility, how each individual raises children, financial obligations, moving, step-children, emotional compatibility, physical compatibility, spiritual compatibility, etc. There's a lot involved. If those things aren't discussed before getting married then I'd say the marriage is probably doomed to fail from the beginning.
 
88chaz88 and J Cardigan...

I get where you all are coming from. I'm glad my parents didn't stay together either.

BUT...

I still think their marriage was salvagable (sp).

But it takes a crucial self-evaluation from each partner. And I don't think they wanted to do it. Both were stubborn and unwilling to do it. I don't fault them for that. They made a choice to be apart and I accept that. It probably was for the best.

It's very scary to be in a f*cked-up relationship and then try to mend. It takes a lot of energy and love and patience. One has to dig deep down in the soul and garner up all this strength. I don't know...it gets way deep and it's a trying time...
 
WellNoWonder said:
I still think their marriage was salvagable (sp).
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This would be true if this next quote were the case:

But it takes a crucial self-evaluation from each partner. And I don't think they wanted to do it. Both were stubborn and unwilling to do it.
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My mom has said multiple times "my way or the highway." She is unwilling to bend to anyone, and it is beyond frustrating. I don't think she is incapable of changing, but I think it's about as likely as me winning the lottery that I've never played.
 
I agree that each situation is unique and needs to be weighed accordingly. That said, there are cases in which a marriage is one only according to civil law, but the actual dynamics of a marriage do not exist. In this case there may be conditions that do not premit a real marriage to exist. If partners are unable or unwilling to address these, then it is possible to dissolve the union.

Even so, great care should be given to address the other, seperate reality...the children. They had nothing to do with the conditions in the marriage and should be cared for and nurtured in the very best way possible.

The break up of a marriage is painful and a loss for all concerned, but if it must be so, so be it. It does happen.
 
arbygil said:
I think the danger is, people don't see marriage as permanent - they say, well, let's try it for a bit and see what happens. No one wants to invest in the time of knowing someone or thinking past the emotions. No one considers compatibility, how each individual raises children, financial obligations, moving, step-children, emotional compatibility, physical compatibility, spiritual compatibility, etc. There's a lot involved. If those things aren't discussed before getting married then I'd say the marriage is probably doomed to fail from the beginning.
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Very true. I can see how this attitude reflects in current marriages...and look at celebrity marriages where's it's okay to be this way, to marry and then be divorced 2-3 years later. Media does bombard society with divorce...hell it's a profitable industry. That's my conspiracy theorist coming out, don't mind me.



J. Cardigan said:
My mom has said multiple times "my way or the highway." She is unwilling to bend to anyone, and it is beyond frustrating. I don't think she is incapable of changing, but I think it's about as likely as me winning the lottery that I've never played.
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I used to be a lot like this, and it is gradually residing the more I self-reflect In general, humans tend to overlook that there are multiple ways to do the right thing. I think it's just a personal thing we have to come into in order to make the world a better place....in my opinion anyway.
 
Another multi-faceted topic with no easy answer. I believe Noblehearts statement which is being quoted here to be basically true. Marriage is hard work and will have many times of both good and bad--just like life. Too many people bail now at the first sign of tough times. I've had many tough times in my marriage and we struggle still today. You have to be adaptable and patient.

As far as the kids, yes that is the primary reason to try extra hard when things seem impossible. They deserve every chance to have a stable household with two parents. But on the flip side, it doesn't do them any good to be in a house full of strife and contention either. Many, many marriages stay together for the kids sake. It's sad, but the key is as has been said, chose the right partner to start with. Here is a link to an article I wrote on just that subject if you care to delve further. In the end, you have to do what's right for everyone involved and sometimes that means sticking it out.

http://www.risingupward.com/?p=114
 
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Marriage is forever. With the exception of infidelity and abuse. People WILL change, it's a commitment you make, not a contract with an escape clause. Just sayin.
 
Ok, Im very new to this forum, been reading for a little bit and this prob isnt proper place to introduce myself but F-it here I am.

I just got back together w? My wife of 7yr after a almost 2yr break I guess you can call it. We have a butifull set of twins. Absolutly the best part of our realtionship. Dont get me wrong my wife and I are great at times. Amazingly super awesome great at times...(thats y we got together in the first place) but as the years go by those times seem to get fewer and further bewteen.

But after refelting on how I was raised w/o a dad in the home and my wife was raised w/o a mom in the home and how that has affected us as people we dont want our children to have to carry that burden through life. 2 slightly dammaged humans can always do more good than harm i think.

To getback to the core of the ? If we didnt have the twins then we probaly would of went our seprate was a few years ago. So yup I proudly would and I guess you can say I kinda am in a realtionship(though our realtioship is healing) to better the kids.
 
No way.

Children learn how to socialize and interact first from their home life.
If the parent's relationship is awkward, distant, and strange it's going to confuse the children as to what that sort of love is supposed to be like.

My mom left my dad when I was about 8 because he was very abusive to her.
I have told her that leaving my father was the single most important thing she could have done for me.

I ended up getting into an abusive relationship when I was in my early 20s and I knew pretty quick what the signs were when they came. If my mom hadn't set the example to leave a man like that, I would have faced much more confusion than I had to. I don't know if I would have been strong enough to pick up and leave like I did.

By leaving our dad, she set an excellent example for my brother, too. She showed him that it is not acceptable for a man to treat a woman that way. Had she stayed, the abuse would have been normalized for him and he may have grown up to repeat the family cycle.

I am going to gush about my mom here because she was the best single mother imaginable. She put herself through college to graduate top of her class, worked 12 hour shifts and still made sure that my brother and I had healthy cooked dinners whenever she was home. We were poor, but as kids my brother and I never knew it.. She took us to orphanages and children's hospitals at Christmas time to donate toys and spend time with the kids.

She gave so much of herself to us just to set an example.
She showed me how to be a strong and independant woman. Life was difficult for her as a single parent, but she did it for our sake--and she succeeded in giving us the best start we could have had given the circumstances.
 
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First of all...I am of the opinion that marriage is binding. I dont enter into it lightly. I feel that our society has made somewhat of a mockery of it.

Scenario 1:

Two kids, a goat and some ducks....We loved each other at one point enough to get married...There has to be a way to rekindle that love. It has nothing to do with the kids, though that is something that can devastate children. I am of the opinion that kids or not, we should be able to rekindle what we lost. There are ways to do it. I wont give up.

Scenario 1 with twist...
NOW, if the partner had been unfaithful, kids or not I would be out of there...The bond of marriage was broken. I do not abide by cheating, and i will NOT give second chances for it.
Abusing is the same way, hit me once with intent, and Im gone.


Scenario 2...

For me its a little different...but the same. The bond of marriage is not something to take lightly. Try your damndest to work it out...I will admit that with out children, the split would feel easier...but the easy road is not always the right road.
Same goes for scenario 1 with cheating, and abusing.
 
If there are problems in a marriage, then you should seek counseling and learn how to work it out, do things together, talk together, learn when to compromise and when to just serve... divorce does nothing except cheapen marriage.

If I were being abused, I would take the children and myself out of the marriage, but I wouldn't divorce. I would give my husband the chance to get counseling for his anger issues, and only when I see that he has worked through it all, come back.
 
^ speaking of abuse, is it a kind of abuse to refuse to leave an unfullfilling marriage if it conveniences you (ie. if your spouse is providing for you), listing your kids as an excuse?
 
No. By abuse I mean physical abuse or sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is not a reason to leave. Sure, you should make sure you enter counseling together, and make sure that the children have counseling too, but I don't feel that anything less than physical or sexual abuse is an excuse to leave your spouse for any reason.
 
Revenwyn said:
If I were being abused, I would take the children and myself out of the marriage, but I wouldn't divorce. I would give my husband the chance to get counseling for his anger issues, and only when I see that he has worked through it all, come back.
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Except, statistically abusers do not change..
Even if they agree to go to counseling--they do not typically accept responsibility for their actions and really believe the victim deserved or instigated the treatment. How many times would you have to separate from the abuser before you figured out things would never change?

Do you know that a victim of abuse's brain chemistry actually changes? With enough trauma, it becomes increasingly difficult for the victim to reason themselves out of the relationship. The relationship literally becomes addictive. The highs and the lows of it.

After trauma, bonding hormones flood the victim's brain, which inhibit rational thinking and make the victim near frantic to bond with someone. Usually, it is the abuser who promises to go to counseling and change.. it's called the Honeymoon stage in the cycle of abuse. After that, is the tension building stage and then the big blow out---> then the honeymoon phase all over again.
 
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This is all hypothetical because I do not intend to marry or have children, however, if I did, this is how the situation would go about:

I would absolutely divorce. If our marriage was not working, I can tell you that it would be a pretty crappy marriage and there would be constant yelling and fighting and such so I would divorce immediately. Ideally, I could work something out with my spouse so that the children would still be able to have a relationship with them. It would depend upon the circumstances we broke up. If there was any violence, drug use or sexual abuse involved in our split I would not trust my ex. There are all sorts of things that occur like custody battles and stuff so I would try to make sure that I got the kids before divorcing if any of these things were a problem. If not, I would invest in a high quality attorney to get my children back, even if it put me slightly into debt, because my children would be the most important thing to me.

Assuming that the relationship with my ex spouse was a good one, I would allow the children to visit them whenever they wanted as long as it was reasonable (2am in the morning, not a good idea, nor when they have school or some big homework assignment due unless my spouse was agreeing to help them work on it) and try to maintain the best quality relationship with my spouse. It would be 100 times easier since we no longer live together or share finances, so I would try really hard to keep up a good relationship, if only for the sake of knowing what is going on over there when I lend my children out to them to make sure they are safe.

I would not date until all of my children reached eighteen. I believe dating is damaging to children who are especially young, and it is harder for children who are older to adjust from their parents splitting, let alone for both of their parents to be out dating and having a new relationship every few months. I would try to reason with my ex spouse about not dating too, but if they refused then I would be VERY VERY careful. I would make sure to meet each of my spouses' partners, and if my ex spouse would not let me meet their partners I would refuse to allow my children to go over there; bad things can happen to kids when their parents are dating complete strangers. If my spouse isn't willing to allow me to meet their partner or stay for five minutes to make sure my kids are comfortable, then there is probably something wrong with the relationship they are in.

I would try to maintain a good relationship with my ex's family and try to allow my kids to be able to go see their cousins on their other parents' side, grandparents, aunts and uncles etc. I would not want them to feel separated from that part of the family and if things were alright between the families I would try to occasionally integrate family outings and dinners with both sides so that the kids could feel some sort of connectivity on both sides.

Most importantly, I would not talk to my children about financial matters or issues between my ex spouse and mine, and if my ex spouse did or started sending messages through my kids I would find this absolutely unacceptable. The first thing I would do during a divorce is try to arrange some family counseling, with the spouse if it is possible, so that the kids know that even though their parents are no longer together that the family is ok, they will still see both sides, and that they had nothing to do with it. This would be even more crucial if my ex spouse was doing something I could not let my kids around; I would exclude the ex spouse from the family counseling and would start the counseling immediately so the kids understood what was wrong, what had happened, and that is was not their fault.
 
acd said:
Except, statistically abusers do not change..
Even if they agree to go to counseling--they do not typically accept responsibility for their actions and really believe the victim deserved or instigated the treatment. How many times would you have to separate from the abuser before you figured out things would never change?

Do you know that a victim of abuse's brain chemistry actually changes? With enough trauma, it becomes increasingly difficult for the victim to reason themselves out of the relationship. The relationship literally becomes addictive. The highs and the lows of it.

After trauma, bonding hormones flood the victim's brain, which inhibit rational thinking and make the victim near frantic to bond with someone. Usually, it is the abuser who promises to go to counseling and change.. it's called the Honeymoon stage in the cycle of abuse. After that, is the tension building stage and then the big blow out---> then the honeymoon phase all over again.
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I believe that with God anything is possible, and I HAVE seen abusers genuinely change.

It's because they got their act together and let God take their problems and change them.
 
Revenwyn said:
I believe that with God anything is possible, and I HAVE seen abusers genuinely change.

It's because they got their act together and let God take their problems and change them.
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I prefer the scientific approach to behavior.
I sincerely hope those abusers have changed.

Did you know them well? What did getting their act together entail, specifically?
 
Leaving abusive marriages is very different from leaving unfulfilling marriages.
 
I was in such a situation about 20 years ago. Married with a 5-year-old son. The marriage was seriously self-destructing and we were anything but compatible. We recognized this shortly after tying the knot, but tried to make things work anyway ... partly because there was a child involved, and partly because we'd both been taught not to give up with divorce. We fought a lot and our home life was anything but harmonious. That bled over onto our son and his happiness. She eventually filed for divorce, but in all honesty, I was not very far behind and would probably have done so had she not. We spent a total of six years together, and to be honest, they were pretty miserable. Both of us can point fingers, but the bottom line is we were grossly incompatible and never should have gotten married.

My son is 26 now ... successful, well adjusted, and gets along with both his parents. I don't regret having separated from my then wife, as I believe it would have done more damage to remain together ... to all of us. I didn't like the person I was when I was married to her, and I believe she felt the same way about me. Some things just are not meant to be.
 
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