Reply to Do you think you might get divorced once the kids are grown?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All of this makes me wonder about my grandparents. Both sets seemed so in love, they all lived until their late 80's. They all were fairly poor, had lots of kids (more than 5) and worked more than 1 job. It could not have been easy/fun for them. But divorce wasn't an option for any of them (Irish-Catholics). 
Did sticking it out through the bad times eventually lead to good times? Or were they all just the sweet loves stories that you occassionally hear about? I doubt it. 
I really think sticking it out (within reason-not in cases of abuse or where someone is obviously miserable). Having young kids is tough! For everyone! Especially in today's world where the woman is supposed to be a successful CEO who has a clean house and cooks healthy organic meals and has a wonderful, supportive, successful husband
Bullshit! Marriage/having kids is sometimes miserable, ugly, messy work[/quote]

So true that the expectations we put on ourselves and our spouses are simply unattainable!

We're all unique individuals and the mistake we can make on this board is to think that there is some objective way of gauging whether someone's spouse is hopeless or there's something worth salvaging. I've seen people say that someone made a bad choice in a spouse because their spouse is unemployed or under-employed, or that another poster who was appreciating her DH married a man who was "mediocre at best." Do you really think that you can judge whether someone you have never met is "mediocre at best" as a husband and father from the limited information you've read on this board? We need to be propping eachother up, encouraging eachother to make it work if we can, and focus on the positive, but not to stay in a miserable marriage if you've really given your all. Everyone's got the things they're willing to compromise on and the things that are deal-breakers, and they're different from person to person. When we tell people to leave spouses based on fear for the worst (she's only going to get worse, the signs are all there...), rather than hope, we can encourage people to give up too easily, and leave in pursuit of some ideal that simply doesn't exist. We are not only our earning potential, book knowledge or emotional maturity, and our marriages should be based on more. It's the connection between you that matters most for your own happiness, as well as your children. There's alot we can work around if we're with the right person.

But as some pp's have pointed out, staying in a loveless marriage is not fair to you or your children either. If the alternative is being selfish and finding a spouse who is good for you but not kind and loving to your children, then that is really no alternative at all. But if you leave an unhappy marriage and re-marry someone who is a wonderful step-parent and role-model for your children (what my mom did when I was 5) then I think that is preferable to staying in an unhealthy marriage by far. Sure, it hurts sometimes that your birth parents aren't together, but I can say from my personal experience, as well as that of many close friends, that overall children are happier and healthier if their parents are happy and healthy, even if that means introducing step parents and/or siblings into the picture.[/quote]

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