Do kids benefit from a loveless marriage?

[bernie]

Katy brought up an interesting topic in the Sunrise thread. Along the lines of 'staying together for the kids sake.'

I think there's a tradeoff. I'm not so sure kids in that situation really learn what love is in an older relationship(or how it works) since their first example is flawed. Even though they still get the traditional father/mother roles. What they see everyday(emotion-wise or lack thereof) could condition negatively them for later on.

But then I've also seen kids where both parents divorce and go on to better healthier relationships and they turn out ok. They learn from watching happy parents what happiness is.

Personally, I think the key is if one is able to attain happiness and thereby share it with their kids, that would be more beneficial.

b

[Blarg]

There is no shortage of messed up kids from intact marriages, and I've seen kids who were raised very well by parents who separated but kept actively involved in the life of their kids and didn't use kids as pawns in games of revenge against each other. So it seems clear it can go either way for the kid.

I also think that although your kid is a huge priority and you owe him a lot, you don't owe him a perfect world. And if you aren't good with your partner anymore, you can't provide one anyway. It will wind up telling on the kid one way or the next -- if only by setting up poor role models for the kid, as you note, bernie. What you owe your kid doesn't include sacrificing your own chances for happiness in an adult relationship in this life. You don't owe him coming back to an unhappy house for the rest of your days, much less 10 or 20 years. You don't owe him never having any respite for your spirit or never fulfilling the normal adult need for the love and companionship of a partner. There are a lot of sacrifices you do owe your children, but when you sacrifice love, you've denied the whole point to life, and that's too much. You will have a lot less love to give your child if nobody loves you and you can't even try to make it better.

If anything, you might come to resent the child himself, and find the atmosphere of the home spiritually poisonous regardless of your love for the child. What kind of home is it if you inwardly recoil from it? What benefit can a happy father provide as compared to a loveless one trapped in his loneliness, seeing his life's energy trickling away wasted every year? I'd guess that the longer a man stays in a loveless marriage, there is a real danger that it's the less likely he is to want to come anywhere near the kid when the marriage finally breaks up, or maybe be a part of his kid's life when he grows up. He has spent too long trying to smother his emotions, and after breathing free at last, he may remember the feeling of years of smothering and at least unconsciously, instinctively dread his family, even if he feels consciously far different toward his child. If the feeling of family comes to be internalized as one we dread, we've stayed around too long and nobody has been done any favor.

[katyseagull]

It's a really difficult question, isn't it? I've mentioned several times on the forum that I'm the product of divorce. I used to think parents should never split up if they had kids. It was a mean thing to do to kids. Part of me still feels that way.

When my parents told us that they were going to divorce, I remember us all crying. An hour later my oldest sister talked to us in private and confided that she was, frankly, relieved. She was sick of their fighting and sick of the two of them. It made us laugh and we felt better. My sister has never changed her mind about this. She thinks it was the correct thing for my parents to do.

I'm still not sure what I think about the whole thing. I think my dad was a bit of a jerk to do it, to be honest. Even when I disassociate myself, I can't understand how my dad could walk away from my older sisters. There was so much he could have taught us. What a crappy thing for him to do. Now that I'm older, and after watching Before Sunset, I can sort of understand that everyone has a right to his own happiness...yeah, even at the expense of others.

[Blarg]

It sounds like your issue with your dad hinges substantially on abandonment, not divorce. Divorce doesn't have to be abandonment at all. Why do you feel your dad walked away from your sisters, rather than simply got a divorce?

And of course, it takes two to tango. It's wrong to blame only one party for a break-up unless the other person really was blameless. As to that, whereas sometimes it will be obvious, a great many other times it will be impossible for anybody, much less a kid, to know what goes on between two people. How and why their incompatibilities became manifest, and how seriously, is probably out of a kid's range of knowledge and maybe even emotional depth more times than not.

Dads are probably even harder to understand in this regard, because men are still raised to be pretty much emotional stick figures in our society, and keep whatever they have inside at all costs.

[katyseagull]

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It sounds like your issue with your dad hinges substantially on abandonment, not divorce. Divorce doesn't have to be abandonment at all. Why do you feel your dad walked away from your sisters, rather than simply got a divorce?



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I feel my dad walked away because he literally "walked away". He left the home and never moved back in. He left his children with endless days and nights and weeks and years of having no father in the home. He basically re-negotiated his contract with us to where he got 11 months out of the year to run around with women and begin a new life while my mom took the burden of raising us.


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Anyway, to answer the OP's question -

Yes, children can benefit from a loveless marriage but as Blarg, Knowledge and Dom point out, the negative effects can outweigh the benefits.

Here's what I see as the benefits to the kids if the parents stick it out though:

- having both parents in the home gives a balance to the kid's life. For me, I would have loved to have had a father in the house. I think all kids deserve to have a father figure in their life. My father would have intervened when my mom got weird and would have provided us a richness to our life that we didn't have without him.

- Financial security is increased. Not having to deal with a stressed out custodial parent who is always worried about monthly bills.

- Not having step parents introduced into the children's lives. This is really tricky and adds so much stress and confusion that it's unreal.

- Having 2 parents around is better than one. They are more effective with discipline and can spell each other when one gets tired or stressed out. The conflicts that I saw with my mom and one of my sisters would have been greatly reduced if my dad had been in the home.

I'm sure I could go on. These are just benefits I thought of off the top of my head.



I've known a couple of friends who have contemplated divorce. In most of these cases I think they are being overly emotional and reactionary. If they would calm down and take some time they would have a change of heart. Women especially seem to think the grass is greener and that they will be better off without the "jerk", when from my perspective they might not be better off at all.

[bernie]

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I'm still not sure what I think about the whole thing. I think my dad was a bit of a jerk to do it, to be honest. Even when I disassociate myself, I can't understand how my dad could walk away from my older sisters. There was so much he could have taught us.

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But he could've still stayed involved in your life w/o having to be married, couldn't he? I'm guessing he walked out and didn't take much time with you guys? I'm sure you've seen it the other way around, where they get divorced yet the father is still in his kids lives. To me, it's not crappy he did the divorce, but crappy he didn't carry on afterwards with you guys.(if that's the case and I'm reading this situation right)

Edit: I saw your response to Blarg. You don't need to respond to this post if you don't want to.

b

[Dominic]

I think if the parents are still respectful and actually still like one another, I think it benefits the kids. (The parents are another matter!) But if there is acrimony and disrespect then, no.

[katyseagull]

I've had friends talk to me about their marriages, contemplating divorce. I always feel bad for the kids. I take the kids side in it. If there's any way to stick it out and learn to accommodate the mate, learn to be less selfish, then I think people owe it to the kids to try. Too many parents today are just stubborn and selfish.

If, in the end, parents are really horrible and mean to each other then they should go their own ways. But both should remain in the children's lives. Neither should move away, imo.

[bernie]

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Too many parents today are just stubborn and selfish.

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I think alot of this has to do with people getting married and having kids at too young an age these days. They just aren't ready maturity-wise to be married, much less have kids.

b

[tuq]

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I think alot of this has to do with people getting married and having kids at too young an age these days. They just aren't ready maturity-wise to be married, much less have kids.

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Aren't people on average getting married at historically the oldest age ever? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]