Has anyone stayed in an unhappy marriage for the children?

[Robsinsons]

I have realised (writing has been on the walls for years really) that DH and I are probably fundamentally incompatible and, as is often the case, having DC has blasted open the cracks that were forming.

Won’t go into huge detail but there’s no abuse (but real lack of empathy/emotional support from his side), substance abuse or infidelity (as far as I know!) just a pervading lack of effort on both sides. Classic weaponised incompetence resulting in me carrying huge mental load whilst also working FT. Too much to even outline in a post without boring people and it being too outing. We get on ‘ok’, it’s not like blazing rows and shouting in front of the DC, but it feels like we are not even friends, I have zero interest in him anymore after years of resentment so think I have pushed him away, and he’s very selfish.

I know I’ve read threads where people say it’s ‘weak’ to stay in an unhappy marriage, unfair on the kids etc. Has anyone accepted that staying is the lesser of two evils?

I don’t think the impact of losing family home, DC not seeing their mother every day (as often the default parent!), passing young DC back and forth, unknown risk of new partners, financial concerns, general instability can be underestimated?

If you did stay, in similar circumstances, how long did you stay for and why? Did you make peace with it?

Have you considered trying to work on your marriage together? That should be the first step really - people can change what they do, how they communicate how they think about and prioritise the other one. Having young dc is incredibly difficult - but it is not impossible to turn things round and have a happy and fulfilling marriage, if both of you are prepared to work for that.

I second marriage counselling. Would you both be willing to try?

He refuses to do marriage counselling as he thinks it’s like a death sentence for a marriage. He also says he doesn’t want to split up, doesn’t want DC to have a ‘broken home’ and says he loves me, but doesn’t show it. Perhaps there is something we could salvage but when I try to raise how I feel he will always be defensive, or will make an effort for a few days and slip back into old patterns. It is draining but it’s not like I’m unhappy every single day.

He doesn’t want to - although I think he’d also highly benefit from counselling himself but refuses to acknowledge that too.

You can do it without marriage counselling. Someone once gave me the Relate guide to relationship counselling (this was 30 years ago), and it was full of really good tips on how to communicate, and different ways to tackle different issues. It sounds like you need a calm and supportive way that you can both share what you want and need - as it is likely that there is a lot of misunderstanding / miscommunication going on - woth a lot of resentment building up. And people show (and need) love in different ways. My oh and I had a discussion once and I said that having breakfast in bed occasionally made me feel loved / nurtured. And that when I was very low, I needed to have a hug, and have him reassure me. He couldn’t understand these things (it was not what he would want in those situations), but he took it on board, and started changing what he did - as did i, for what he said was the problem. Communication and understanding (or more accurately, the lack of) is usually the culprit in these things…

He doesn't want to lose half of his stuff

And is there a way to hive off more time for you both to have time off, away from the family? A close friend said the only thing that keot their marriage going during the young kids phase was tha they would take it in turns to have the morning off on the weekend - so no dealing with kids / housework etc.. the other one gets up with the kids and leaves the other one to sleep in til 1.00pm, or to go out and meet up with friends until 1.00pm, or to do a quiet hobby or whatever. I think you need to both work out what you need. And get more support if you can. Do you have family close by that can babysit so you can go out together every week? Or can you meet up for a lunch date during the week while you are both at work? Or is there a family with kids rHe same age that you can start to trade babysitting / sleepovers with? These things can really help.

What age are your children @Robsinsons ?
Are they aware of the tension in their home ?

My parents did. It was shit for us kids.

It's not like there were blazing arguments in our earshot or anything like that, but neither of them were happy and we could tell without them telling us.

There was just this constant oppressive gloom over the house. Dad was forever out of the house as he couldn't stand being there, and Mum was just unhappy. I had this memory of her from when I was little, of this smiley laughing woman who really enjoyed life, and I thought I must have just imagined that she used to be like that. It was such a joy to see her like that again once they finally split up when I was 19.

It did a real number on both me an my brother. I've always found it difficult to show positive emotion, because it always felt like it was wrong to be happy at home, when my parents weren't. Even now I kind've have to force myself to admit to myself and others that I'm enjoying myself.

My brother went the other way. He hates it when people aren't happy and has this utter need to try to make them feel better.

Don't "stay for the kids". Because you're not, not really. You're staying because splitting up is hard and you're afraid to do it. The kids are just a convenient excuse. And it's shit for them.

And change the way you communicate, so that no-one needs to get defensive… there should be less finger-pointing, and more “when this happens it makes me feel x, y, z” or “what would really help in these situations would be if you could do a,b,c”. You need to also think about (and talk about) the things that attracted to your partner when you first met.

Yes and no. I stayed with my exh until the DC were 11 and 12 and we had not been in a loving relationship since they were probably 1 and 2. It was never that bad and sometimes I wondered if all marriages were like this. We both worked and didn't spend a lot of 1:1 time together. The big change came when the DC started senior school and becoming more independence I realised I just didn't want to be with him anymore and I knew the feeling was mutual. We had a mutual amicable separation (no longer amicable) 10 year ago now and not for one single nano second have i regretted it. I am remarried and realise what it is like to be loved and boy I wouldn't swap it for the world. The DC were ok, DD struggled more than DS as their Dad met somebody else and they became second in his world but that is on him not me.

Do you think if his choice was counselling or divorce that would wake him up?
Maybe it’s time to be brutally honest with him.

Don't stay for the kids.

It isnt for the kids. People think it is, but it isnt. Its convenience/finances/worry/being scared....all valid. But it isnt for the children.

Even small children pick up on tension. Children need and deserve to see what a loving harmonious team a relationship is to help them make good choices for relationships later.

I see a lot of children (teacher) there are lots of children living in two seperate happy homes with two adults who can be mature enough to co parent. There are lots of children living in one unhappy home.

I stayed and am still here.

The marriage was shaky when I was pregnant but due to ill health and both kids having SEN I felt that leaving was impossible. It was the best thing for the kids that I stayed, they had security and stability and a happy childhood.

Now they are young adults, still living at home, and the resentment between DH and myself is hard to conceal. I can’t quite believe that I have given over 20 years of my life to this situation and am still trapped for practical and financial reasons. Most of the time I cruise along on autopilot but some days I am bereft that I am trapped like this with zero life of my own.

But I’m still glad I did it because the twins would not have had the life and possibilities they currently have. I dream of leaving him if I can get the kids launched somehow but I don’t know if that is feasible.

I stayed for much longer than was healthy for me or dc. I thought I was protecting them but I was resentful and he was unhappy and we were all stepping on eggshells around his moods. The dc started to copy the derogatory way he spoke to me and we weren’t modelling a healthy happy relationship. It was a relief to everyone in the end.
I feel very strongly a single parent household is still a complete family unit. My family and dc are not ‘broken’. I find it offensive people use that phrase. We don’t when a parent dies.
I’m much closer to dc now I’m their main parent as ex didn’t want the level of contact with them I had assumed. His level of absence has had some impact but having one base and not living between two houses had stability and advantages too. You won’t know until it happens how someone will react.

1 good parent or 2 good coparents is better than two unhappy parents.
I couldn’t look round my dc and their friends and pick out the ones with the ‘broken’ homes - plenty have had mental health issues who live with 2 parents in happy marriages. There’s no difference in education or employment outcomes between them. We are less well off but not to the point where it’s affected dc futures in any way. But I was able to be financially independent and comfortable without exH.

I think people’s responses are always going to be affected by a degree of bias depending on their own circumstances.

However, I do think it is important to consider that there will be significant peaks and troughs in a long marriage. How do you know where you are at any one point in time? A huge peak could still be yet to come, especially if children are small and life is stressful. Some of the peaks and troughs may even be about external circumstances (no one handles stress perfectly) and nothing to do with the relationship itself.

I am in a very long marriage and happy to be so, even though we too have been through huge highs and lows.

I will also say that the world is changing and the almost certainty of young people growing up and ‘launching’ at eighteen or twenty-one is not what it used to be…

I think any decision to leave a marriage is a very big one: personally, socially and particularly financially.

If you split up now while you both have a semblance of respect for each other, it will be better than splitting up after years of building resentment turning to hatred.

I second this. Divorce is disruptive for kids, unpleasant and scary, but it's only damaging when the adults treat each other with contempt and disrespect. Just as living in a complete family unit with unhappy, contemptuous parents is vs happy, respectful ones.

If you can model a positive relationship to your DC, even if it's a mutually agreed platonic co-parenting one, stay married if that's your preference. If you can't, then it's best to split up.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?.

I would urge you not to stay for the sake of the children. Why would you want to do that to yourself as well as them?, Do you think that such a selfish man would at all bother about his kids going forward?. Unlikely as they would interfere with both his work and leisure time. He’d probably see them once every week or fortnight or he’d palm them off to his parents.

Whose sake would you be staying for because it can be argued it’s not theirs but more likely your own because it’s somehow “easier “. It’s not easier to stay in such a marriage and besides which you two are providing the blueprint for their own adult relationships. They won’t say thanks mum to you for staying with for what are really your own reasons .

Do not be afraid to take responsibility for your own happiness and move on with your life. Your kids will adjust. Divorce is not failure here, living in such unhappiness is.

People do stay but it doesn't actually benefit the children. It's far better for kids to have separated parents who can model healthy and happy relationships apart than be growing up in a house like this. You are their example of what a partner and marriage should look like. As much as parents think they can hide these things, you just can't.

And definitely don't say to the DC that's why you stayed...

Mum perked up once DF passed away, literally. She's now telling me about this now she's older, it's miserable.

It's never made any sense to me why someone would want their child's experience of relationships to be based on an awful one.

So what if it means they can't see you every day? So long as you get quality time together and they know they are loved and the other parent, well, parents, it's fine.

What's not fine is growing into an adult that thinks women should tolerate crappy men. That thinks we should stay in relationships we aren't happy in. That then goes on to date losers, abusers and waste their life.

You're the parent. You're responsible for teaching them healthy boundaries. A little sadness and inconvenience now is nothing when compared with a lifetime of misery when they grow up because they think the have to settle for crap partners.

Be real, this isn't about them. It's a scary thing to end things but you cannot claim it's for their benefit and use them as an excuse. It isn't and they aren't.

Ask yourself, do you want your life for them?

Because if you stay, then that's how it'll go. Potentially even best case scenario. Because if they stay in relationships that make them unhappy, they'll also stay with abusers.

Only stay if you can guarantee that your DC will not pick up on your resentment of him.

My marriage ended and I have my kids 50-50. Although I'm happier not living with my ex, I'm aware time moves so fast and I miss out on half my kids lives. Sometimes they actually seem to have noticeably changed and grown up in the week they have been gone. Also its not fair for them to live in two different houses. Like you there was no abuse etc we just didn't like each other. I'm not sure what the solution would have been though.

I dont know OP, my take as a child of divorced parents who stayed together for 11 years due to us kids was devastating to learn. Learning that from my DM that we were the sole reason for them sticking it out in their unhappy marriage tainted my own relationships for decades. What we learned as kids growing up was that it was ok to be volatile, or unpleasant which was so obvious to me and DS growing up. Its so much more than just staying together for the kids, its what is within the marriage now and if its unhealthy on your DC. Because they are learning from the two of you every single day, and will mirror that themselves into their own relationships. So I am not one for staying for the kids. Its brutal to learn the truth to be honest. More so than learning that your parents are going their seperate ways amicably, in the best interest of every one involved.