Anonymous wrote:Never. It should be very difficult to divorce.
I’m curious: Are you a child of divorced parents? How about a child of parents who couldn’t have a civil conversation with each other — or sit next to each other in an ICU waiting room? I am.
Perhaps it should be very difficult to get married. Getting divorced should be easy enough that any kids impacted don’t get damaged by the fallout from the difficulties of getting a divorce.
I’d argue for younger — so that the norms of what a family is for the kids are different from early on. But marriages and families and individual needs are usually more complex than a “ best age” answer can convey. I do have a huge caveat though: My parents divorced when I was about 11 — so transferring to another school anyway, and the only kid impacted by custody issues. For years, my Mom would say that she waited to divorce until she felt her kids “were old enough to understand “. As the youngest kid, that meant me. I was furious. Not only did that decision feel like a burden, had she asked me at any point, years before that, I would have told her that from my perspective, a divorce would probably make everyone happier. So: Whatever you do, PLEASE don’t frame your decision to get a divorce around anything at all that has to do with your kids — when you talk with your kids.