Do kids benefit from a loveless marriage?

[tuq]

Good posts in this thread, particularly by knowledgeORbust.

To address the OP, it's tricky. My parents divorced right after I graduated high school, but to be fair they separated all the way back when I was in eighth grade and my mother and I moved into an apartment and left my brother and father behind (only as I am typing this do I realize how strange it was that my brother stayed behind and I left, but at the time he was involved in coke dealing and various other nefarious activities and as it turns out he would leave the state by the end of the year anyway to clean himself up, whereas I was never getting into trouble...oy the train wreck it would have been living with those two without my mother to right the ship).

I suppose it was for my benefit, but they officially weren't divorced until I graduated because prior to that he came by the apartment from time to time (he sold the house around a year after we moved out and resumed his nomadic lifestyle) but for all intents and purposes it wasn't a real marriage.

When they divorced, I was like "it's about goddamn time, you guys are oil and water". It was a relief and had they done it ten years sooner I probably would have been happier.

One thing that I definitely think that would suck for a developing child is divorced parents who don't live in close proximity of each other. In fact, the whole concept of visitation sucks to me, the kid gets yanked out of his environment and has to spend time in a totally different one, which I'm sure there's been lots of studies on but which I would guess stunts his/her social life and puts an awkward pressure on spending time with the visiting parent.

My solution: don't get married, then have kids, then divorce. Instead, post on 2+2. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]