How do you know if your marriage is dead beyond repair—and do you stay for kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you want your child to do if s/he we’re in your situation?

At some point the parents, in their 70s, just step aside and say You married them, you decide!

But they are sad for their child, as I would be for my child. I think parents are sad when they sense you are marrying the wrong person, and sad when they sense/know that you are in a loveless, thoughtless marriage for the children. I think they'd want you out. But they won't tell you what to do, you have to decide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

we can't work through anything together. that is the problem.

good for you though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

OP here. I do appreciate your post...but I am not in this situation. If I felt the love was there from the beginning, I would stay. There wasn't. It was just a mistake but now there are kids involved. I wanted to leave within a year of marriage and had doubts literally walking down the aisle. We also married later (early 30s). Also, we do not have this: "We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage." We don't even like each other. It is all pretend.

OP I can't help but feel like you're rewriting history. I believe you that you had doubts even early on in your marriage...and TRUST me, you are nowhere near alone in that. But I think you're stuck in a very negative mindset and you're only letting yourself remember that things have always been awful, when logically that just doesn't make sense. You're telling me you met some guy who you had nothing in common with and couldn't talk to at all, but he continued asking you out and you continued saying yes, all the while feeling nothing but blah and disconnect? I doubt that. And if so...then the problem here is YOU and I seriously suggest you seek a lot of counseling to understand why on earth you would do something like that. More likely, it seems, is that you're stubbornly blocking out the happier things and the good times, because you don't WANT to remember them or to believe you could work to fix it, because you made up your mind long ago and you just want to give up. Which is your prerogative...but like PP said, there is no easy or guilt-free way to do it. If you walk out on a decent marriage, that's on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

OP here. I do appreciate your post...but I am not in this situation. If I felt the love was there from the beginning, I would stay. There wasn't. It was just a mistake but now there are kids involved. I wanted to leave within a year of marriage and had doubts literally walking down the aisle. We also married later (early 30s). Also, we do not have this: "We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage." We don't even like each other. It is all pretend.

OP I can't help but feel like you're rewriting history. I believe you that you had doubts even early on in your marriage...and TRUST me, you are nowhere near alone in that. But I think you're stuck in a very negative mindset and you're only letting yourself remember that things have always been awful, when logically that just doesn't make sense. You're telling me you met some guy who you had nothing in common with and couldn't talk to at all, but he continued asking you out and you continued saying yes, all the while feeling nothing but blah and disconnect? I doubt that. And if so...then the problem here is YOU and I seriously suggest you seek a lot of counseling to understand why on earth you would do something like that. More likely, it seems, is that you're stubbornly blocking out the happier things and the good times, because you don't WANT to remember them or to believe you could work to fix it, because you made up your mind long ago and you just want to give up. Which is your prerogative...but like PP said, there is no easy or guilt-free way to do it. If you walk out on a decent marriage, that's on you.

I wouldn't call the marriage OP described decent. She said she was in the verge of leaving when she found out she was pregnant- she hasn't wanted to be with this man since before they were married. Not every marriage needs to be saved; OP's sounds like one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

OP here. I do appreciate your post...but I am not in this situation. If I felt the love was there from the beginning, I would stay. There wasn't. It was just a mistake but now there are kids involved. I wanted to leave within a year of marriage and had doubts literally walking down the aisle. We also married later (early 30s). Also, we do not have this: "We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage." We don't even like each other. It is all pretend.

OP I can't help but feel like you're rewriting history. I believe you that you had doubts even early on in your marriage...and TRUST me, you are nowhere near alone in that. But I think you're stuck in a very negative mindset and you're only letting yourself remember that things have always been awful, when logically that just doesn't make sense. You're telling me you met some guy who you had nothing in common with and couldn't talk to at all, but he continued asking you out and you continued saying yes, all the while feeling nothing but blah and disconnect? I doubt that. And if so...then the problem here is YOU and I seriously suggest you seek a lot of counseling to understand why on earth you would do something like that. More likely, it seems, is that you're stubbornly blocking out the happier things and the good times, because you don't WANT to remember them or to believe you could work to fix it, because you made up your mind long ago and you just want to give up. Which is your prerogative...but like PP said, there is no easy or guilt-free way to do it. If you walk out on a decent marriage, that's on you.

OP here: I am not rewriting history. I am very self-aware. I knew I did not want to be trying on wedding dresses. I knew we should have broken up at the 4-month mark of dating. I knew why I tried to break up before getting engaged. He convinced me not to break up with him. I new exactly what I was doing...I was trying to get over someone else who was a total jerk to me. I was with my DH only because he seemed nice and that seemed to be enough. I knew I was wrong and did it anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

OP here. I do appreciate your post...but I am not in this situation. If I felt the love was there from the beginning, I would stay. There wasn't. It was just a mistake but now there are kids involved. I wanted to leave within a year of marriage and had doubts literally walking down the aisle. We also married later (early 30s). Also, we do not have this: "We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage." We don't even like each other. It is all pretend.

OP I can't help but feel like you're rewriting history. I believe you that you had doubts even early on in your marriage...and TRUST me, you are nowhere near alone in that. But I think you're stuck in a very negative mindset and you're only letting yourself remember that things have always been awful, when logically that just doesn't make sense. You're telling me you met some guy who you had nothing in common with and couldn't talk to at all, but he continued asking you out and you continued saying yes, all the while feeling nothing but blah and disconnect? I doubt that. And if so...then the problem here is YOU and I seriously suggest you seek a lot of counseling to understand why on earth you would do something like that. More likely, it seems, is that you're stubbornly blocking out the happier things and the good times, because you don't WANT to remember them or to believe you could work to fix it, because you made up your mind long ago and you just want to give up. Which is your prerogative...but like PP said, there is no easy or guilt-free way to do it. If you walk out on a decent marriage, that's on you.

OP here: I am not rewriting history. I am very self-aware. I knew I did not want to be trying on wedding dresses. I knew we should have broken up at the 4-month mark of dating. I knew why I tried to break up before getting engaged. He convinced me not to break up with him. I new exactly what I was doing...I was trying to get over someone else who was a total jerk to me. I was with my DH only because he seemed nice and that seemed to be enough. I knew I was wrong and did it anyway.

Why'd you stay, then? Why'd you have two children? Why are you thinking of staying now? I feel like the story can't be as simple as the story you're telling or you would have left in the first year of marriage.

[Anonymous]

Not OP - Sometimes it just hard to leave. You fall into a pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every marriage is different. Every divorce is different. In my case, our co-parenting is much better than our marriage was.

Look at some of the threads in special parenting concerns on co-parenting to get a peek of what you could be in store for, and compare to what you’re dealing with now.

How old are your children?

One is in preschool; one is in early elementary school

Good time to divorce. No overthinking, no angst. Not teenagers. No highstakes exams or grades looming. No sport, music, etc. that matter. Do it now.

+1

If you're going to divorce, get it over with sooner while the kids are younger. My child was entering preschool when I left, and doesn't remember her father and I ever being in the same home. Hopefully, that means she doesn't remember the fights either.

[Anonymous]

Co-parenting has been easy. They do their thing when in papa's home and we do our thing.
We only argued over things we did in marriage.

[Anonymous]

OP what is your plan if you leave? Are you hoping to find someone more compatible and remarry? Are you the type who says you really just want to live alone and will never remarry again, but maybe you'll date?
If the former....honestly based on what you've said it sounds like you have some serious issues that you need to deal with with a therapist. If what you've said is true, you jumped into an unhappy and codependent relationship and stayed there for years, continuing to get yourself more and more invested in life with him while knowing even since 4 months in that it's not what you wanted. That's...not healthy. What makes you think you'd do any better the next time?
And if the second...you yourself have said he's a great partner/roommate/co-parent. If you're not leaving to hope you meet someone better to build a life with, why not do what many people do and stay in an unfulfilling but ultimately fine marriage? Do you thing, live your life, don't destroy your kids' lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would you want your child to do if s/he we’re in your situation?

At some point the parents, in their 70s, just step aside and say You married them, you decide!

But they are sad for their child, as I would be for my child. I think parents are sad when they sense you are marrying the wrong person, and sad when they sense/know that you are in a loveless, thoughtless marriage for the children. I think they'd want you out. But they won't tell you what to do, you have to decide.

What I mean by the question is,

OP, if your child were stuck in a marriage like yours, considering the consequences to your child AND your grandchildren, what would you think your child should do?
This helped me get some perspective. Think of yourself with the unconditional love that your parent (hopefully) has for you. The unconditional love and best wishes that you have for your child.

I knew that I would not want my daughter living the life that *I* was living. I had to love myself as much as I love her. And I saw that having parents that tormented each other and created a toxic environment for the kids was not helping the kids either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what is your plan if you leave? Are you hoping to find someone more compatible and remarry? Are you the type who says you really just want to live alone and will never remarry again, but maybe you'll date?
If the former....honestly based on what you've said it sounds like you have some serious issues that you need to deal with with a therapist. If what you've said is true, you jumped into an unhappy and codependent relationship and stayed there for years, continuing to get yourself more and more invested in life with him while knowing even since 4 months in that it's not what you wanted. That's...not healthy. What makes you think you'd do any better the next time?
And if the second...you yourself have said he's a great partner/roommate/co-parent. If you're not leaving to hope you meet someone better to build a life with, why not do what many people do and stay in an unfulfilling but ultimately fine marriage? Do you thing, live your life, don't destroy your kids' lives.

Not many people are naive enough to divorce with the expectation or hope that they will re-marry or even meet someone not damaged. At that point many are so let down by their Ex and the institution of marriage, they could care less about LT romantic or dependent relationships.

You're divorcing to get away from a bad spouse, bad situation, bad role model for your children, and bad future. In my case it was a narcissist with ADD, not marriage or father or husband material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what is your plan if you leave? Are you hoping to find someone more compatible and remarry? Are you the type who says you really just want to live alone and will never remarry again, but maybe you'll date?
If the former....honestly based on what you've said it sounds like you have some serious issues that you need to deal with with a therapist. If what you've said is true, you jumped into an unhappy and codependent relationship and stayed there for years, continuing to get yourself more and more invested in life with him while knowing even since 4 months in that it's not what you wanted. That's...not healthy. What makes you think you'd do any better the next time?
And if the second...you yourself have said he's a great partner/roommate/co-parent. If you're not leaving to hope you meet someone better to build a life with, why not do what many people do and stay in an unfulfilling but ultimately fine marriage? Do you thing, live your life, don't destroy your kids' lives.

Sadly that IS the question: Stay in loveless marriage doing everything as if a single parent, OR, Get divorced and do everything as a single parent.

Once you accept one or the other, the arguing stops, the expectations of a spouse/father are rock bottom, and you essentially move on with your life but it is one without a real spousal partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP what is your plan if you leave? Are you hoping to find someone more compatible and remarry? Are you the type who says you really just want to live alone and will never remarry again, but maybe you'll date?
If the former....honestly based on what you've said it sounds like you have some serious issues that you need to deal with with a therapist. If what you've said is true, you jumped into an unhappy and codependent relationship and stayed there for years, continuing to get yourself more and more invested in life with him while knowing even since 4 months in that it's not what you wanted. That's...not healthy. What makes you think you'd do any better the next time?
And if the second...you yourself have said he's a great partner/roommate/co-parent. If you're not leaving to hope you meet someone better to build a life with, why not do what many people do and stay in an unfulfilling but ultimately fine marriage? Do you thing, live your life, don't destroy your kids' lives.

Not many people are naive enough to divorce with the expectation or hope that they will re-marry or even meet someone not damaged. At that point many are so let down by their Ex and the institution of marriage, they could care less about LT romantic or dependent relationships.

You're divorcing to get away from a bad spouse, bad situation, bad role model for your children, and bad future. In my case it was a narcissist with ADD, not marriage or father or husband material.

Preach!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what is your plan if you leave? Are you hoping to find someone more compatible and remarry? Are you the type who says you really just want to live alone and will never remarry again, but maybe you'll date?
If the former....honestly based on what you've said it sounds like you have some serious issues that you need to deal with with a therapist. If what you've said is true, you jumped into an unhappy and codependent relationship and stayed there for years, continuing to get yourself more and more invested in life with him while knowing even since 4 months in that it's not what you wanted. That's...not healthy. What makes you think you'd do any better the next time?
And if the second...you yourself have said he's a great partner/roommate/co-parent. If you're not leaving to hope you meet someone better to build a life with, why not do what many people do and stay in an unfulfilling but ultimately fine marriage? Do you thing, live your life, don't destroy your kids' lives.

Hi Pollyanna,
This is America, 2018.

What on earth makes you think people are getting divorced "in order to do better next time?"

What on earth makes you think people prefer to "stay in an unfulfilling "but ultimately fine" marriage?" Not even clear how you are defining "fine." OP was pretty articulate.