Despite what society tells us
It’s the uncomfortable truth that much of society doesn’t want to acknowledge.
Staying unhappily married is not good for your kids.
It’s the reason that you will fall into a bottomless abyss of guilt when you finally realize you can’t stay living under the same roof as your spouse any more.
What can trigger more anxiety in us as parents? How much higher could the stakes get than your children’s emotional well-being?
Nothing comes close. Not even your own emotional well-being, which will often be sacrificed in the process.
This is why trying to end a relationship when there are kids involved is one of the hardest and most gut-wrenching experiences you will ever go through.
Blocking it out
I’ve seen many, many people stay quietly miserable in expired and toxic relationships because they don’t want to put their kids through a divorce.
But the agonizing truth is that once a relationship is truly over, there is no rescuing your children from pain, even if you decide to stay for their sake.
It’s called denial. We deny the fact that we are causing damage to our kids when we try to stay in unhappy marriages because we are tormented by the constant messages from society that divorce is the worst thing that can happen to our kids.
I’ve been in this exact space. It’s hard to admit, and it’s hard to write about.
But I write about it because I know there are so many of us who have been there, and they shouldn’t feel alone.
It’s the feeling of being desperately alone that makes the experience of leaving a marriage with kids so hard to recover from.
Facing My Own Truth
There are many reasons why my marriage was not sustainable. I won’t go into all of them in this newsletter, but I will say that in the last two years before my divorce, there was extreme disconnect and unhappiness on both sides.
I take ownership of my part in it. I worked through the pain to finally find forgiveness for my ex-husband and myself for the circumstances leading up to the end of our marriage.
Neither of us ever set out to hurt each other, but it was no longer a healthy, loving atmosphere in our home.
Mealtimes, which were the only time we sat down together, were strained.
What used to be a happy, talkative time with laughter had been reduced to an awkward, tense time that we both just wanted over so we didn’t have to fake our way through it.
We started to pursue separate lives and were rarely home at the same time on weekends.
We barely talked, and when we did, it was always through the kids or about the kids.
I tried to convince myself that staying in the marriage would be better for my children. It was a coping mechanism while I allowed the devastating truth to sink in.
During those years, I was not the person I used to be, and I knew it. People started commenting on it, and it was getting harder to hide.
I was diagnosed by my doctor as having extreme depression, and she recommended that I seek therapy and start on anti-depressants. Neither of them was able to mask the reality that our relationship was over and we were going to have to face the unthinkable.
I had always been present and engaged with my kids, but now I was always somewhere else in my head. I was constantly trying to get mental space where I could be alone and manage the overwhelming thoughts that were eating away at me.
Children are astute and are aware of so much more than we give them credit for. They may not know it on a conscious level, but they feel it inside. They know when their parents are faking smiles but desperately unhappy.
The guilt that I couldn’t be the mother I wanted to be started to take over. The realization dawned that in order to be a good parent, I was going to have to be a co-parent.
One size doesn’t fit all
Once your relationship is truly over, there’s no winning. There’s only the arbitrary, blanket message from society that we should stay together ‘for the kids’.
It doesn’t work.
Imagine being a child who knew full well that your parents were miserable but stayed together for your sake.
A good friend told me a few years ago that she wished her parents had divorced. They fought constantly throughout her childhood and didn’t like each other. Several times, she heard her mother tell her father that she was only staying for the kids.
My friend grew up with the guilt that her parents were miserable because of her.
After my divorce, several people confided in me that they wished their parents had divorced when they were children because of the fighting and unhappiness they witnessed growing up.
For every article or piece of advice you read that says that divorce is not good for kids, there’s another article that says that high-conflict or extremely unhappy marriages are just as detrimental.
We teach our kids through actions, not words.
By staying in a dysfunctional, unhappy marriage, I knew that I was modelling disconnect, lack of intimacy, and lack of emotional resilience to my son and daughter.
I was teaching my kids that life is about grinding and existing for everyone else and that personal fulfilment and mental well-being should be stuffed down and ignored at all costs.
I spent too many years after leaving my marriage crushed by the neverending guilt and feelings of failure. What a waste!
I didn’t need to. Yes, there was a period of adjusting, and the kids did have to go through the pain of our divorce. I’m not denying that or sugar-coating any of it.
We all had to go through an extremely difficult and painful time. But we worked our way through it and came out the other side, and we are still very much a family. We share lots of good times now, and when we get together now, there is laughter and joy again.
After divorce, you have the choice to live well, to live for what you believe in, to keep striving and to show your kids (not tell them) how to live a life that is authentic, honest, and healthy to you.
Over time, with intention and clear communication, these are the messages you can give your children every day:
Our relationship didn’t work, but we both love you.
We are here for you.
We support you 100%.
We are present.
You are the most important thing to us.
We’ll always be a family.
Two homes don’t mean that we don’t love and support each other in other ways.
The bottom line
Every person who gets married wants to stay together for the rest of their lives. That’s what the commitment of marriage symbolizes. However, there are no guarantees that you are going to be able to grow together and sustain a healthy connection that spans a lifetime.
Some marriages end, and it serves no purpose for your family to live in a home where the bills get paid, but there is no love, joy, or connection.
Ten years ago, I made a personal choice to choose separation and presence versus marriage and quiet misery.
Today, I’m one hundred per cent confident that I made the right decision for myself, my kids, and my ex-spouse, and I’ll never waver on that despite what anyone else may think.
Kids need happy, healthy, and present parents. If you can no longer give them that version of yourself in your marriage, give yourself permission to be the best co-parent you can be for them instead.
If you are looking for support through your divorce journey, book a free 1:1 call with me here.
If you know someone who could benefit from reading this, please consider sharing it with them. ❤️
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