Thomas Ash

I just wondered what anyone else had to say on divorce, which is typically seen as a more 'religious' area of concern. I'd personally have to say that it's a serious negative where children are involved, and that a marriage is far and away the best setting for bringing up children. But what we can do about the alarmingly high divorce statistics, and what the cause of them is, I don't know (hangdog look.)

Jet Grind

I think that divorce is sometimes justified, but it's never a good thing to put kids through (if you have kids of course). I don't know what we can do about high divorce rates. Chances are that we can and should do nothing.

Happy Wonderer

Divorce sometimes beats the alternative. If there are no kids involved, I don't see any problem with it. In my opinion most people who get divorced shouldn't have stayed together (or gotten together in the first place.) Life is short, why be miserable for most of it? If my wife hated me, I'd rather she divorced me than pushed me over a cliff on one of our hikes...

With kids it is a trickier issue; staying together until the kids are old enough to handle it (like in their 40's...) is by default a good thing. However there are situations where the difficulty of the breakup are far less than the dangers (emotional or physical) of staying together.

I would take the position that too many people have kids, and they have them too early. I think that having kids is extremely difficult and puts a lot of stress on a relationship. (People sometimes make the mistake of thinking that having kids will improve the relationship, from my observations it is usually the opposite.) For most relationships I'd make the argument to go childless, we seem to have a lot more fun than our child-burdened friends and there really isn't any shortage of people in the world. Nothing against people who have kids, your kids are wonderful and you love them, but remember when...?

It is a lot more fun being with someone if you don't feel that you are together because you have to be. (OK, not speaking from experience, but it seems that way based on my observations.)

hw

Daleth

Divorce is sometimes better than the alternative for the kids as well. Divorce is better for kids than watching your parents go at each other's throats. Divorce is better than being abused by one of your parents or watching one of your parents get abused by the other. Divorce is better than daily facing a neglectful parent who you know resents you. Even if parents are not fighting in front of their kids, if the marriage has really died the kids will usually know it. And they're learning how to have a shitty relationship.

Staying together for the kids is a good way to leave the kids feeling like they are responsible for their parents not having the lives they wanted. The kids would be wrong to draw that conclusion, but that doesn't stop them.

I'm not cheering on divorce, but don't assume 2 parents together is always best for the kids.

Dal

Odemus

As long as the home environement is not abusive, it is always best when parents stay together for the benefit of their children.

Daleth

My view may differ slightly or not at all depending on what you call abuse. First off all a lot of people when they say "abuse" assume pysical abuse, but emotional abuse is just as bad and its effects last as long. It's just harder to see and so gets passed over a lot.

And... this is an honest question... how would you feel about this situation?

A woman I know has 3 grown children, and is currently divorcing her husband. She's divorcing him because he's been having an affair for over a decade. She has known all along and so have the kids. She has always been very unhappy about this and has always wanted him to stop. He wouldn't stop because he knew she wouldn't leave him (for the sake of the children). She has all along felt belittled by this and trapped. And the kids knew it all.

What is her son likely to have learned from the parents staying together? What have the daughters likely learned from it? And wouldn't they have been more likely to grow up to be healthy people if the parents had divorced as soon as it became clear that he wasn't going to give up anything for his wife?

The husband is still having the affair and is still telling the wife she shouldn't divorce him because of the kids, although the youngest is 20.

Dal

Odemus

In that situation only the mother is remaining in the marriage for the benefit of the children. The father obviously doesn't care about the emotional/psychological welfare of his children. Divorce may be best for eveyone involved, especially since the children are more or less adults.

yguy

This sounds like essentially a unilateral divorce, initiated by the husband, and which the signing of legal documents only certifies. Unfortunately, while it takes two people to make a marriage, it only takes one to break it. The one who does will likely have hell to pay, in this life or the next.

Daleth

Odemus,
I agree. I also think it would have been healthier for the kids if the wife had at least considered divorce a possibility when this started. She might not have had to go through with it if he believed she would.

Otherwise, I think it would have been better for the kids if she'd divorced him much sooner (having tried first to change the situation, not the day she found out about the affair) because this 20 year old daughter has lived with the reality of her parents' screwed up relationship since she was about 8. It's got to have affected her view of marriage and relationships and her position in them. That's a kind of molasses-slow abuse, in my mind.

Dal

Loren Pechtel

Sure, divorce is bad for children--but living in a house with fighting parents isn't good for them, either.