The factors that go into a divorce make it impossible to guess if the kids will be ok. My DH divorced his wife when they had a middle schooler, high schooler, and college student. 9 years later and the oldest is still not over that loss of his family. He's sensitive, much more than the other two kids.

Why do you want to divorce?

If you simply have different "emotional needs," then why not work on them? Or why not develop another mechanism for whatever emotional support you crave?

Anonymous wrote:DH and his brother are successful good people despite their parents divorcing at young age. There is still a lot of hurt and animosity though. Holidays always awkward. Their dad remarried and seems happy. Mom just aged and drags others down. Mom is the one who wanted the divorce.

Typical with American first wife haha, man will get younger and more pretty while u wither away. Be grateful if the age difference is close.

DH and his brother are successful good people despite their parents divorcing at young age. There is still a lot of hurt and animosity though. Holidays always awkward. Their dad remarried and seems happy. Mom just aged and drags others down. Mom is the one who wanted the divorce.

Anonymous wrote:I'm so very glad my parents divorced but my dad was an alcoholic. I hated hearing him get drunk and yell at night when I was trying to sleep. I hated his temper too. Thankfully, 50/50 custody wasn't' the thing back then. I think 50/50 custody isn''t good for kids. My brother and I are not scarred for life. I am grateful we lived with my mom and only saw my dad every other weekend. He usually took us to his parents so the actual childcare was done by my grandmother.

Same here, if anything the scarring I have is from things that happened in the marriage not the divorce.

Anonymous wrote:I am a child of divorce, when I was 9. I am completely well-adjusted. The main thing is that it was a pretty "clean" divorce.

Post-divorce my parents NEVER fought. They could be trusted both to be at my sporting events, concerts, birthday parties, etc. without weirdness.

They both had their own sets of friends and so few people felt caught in the middle - and even if they did, things were cordial enough between mom and dad that no one felt like they were betraying mom if they spent time with dad or vice versa.

They only lived two miles apart so "going to mom's" or "going to dad's" wasn't this huge production. We stayed at our same school, could see our friends whether we were at mom'S or dad's, etc.

Both of them had similar child rearing techniques and styles. In other words, no "Disney-dad" or dad who spoiled the kids rotten/allowed kids to do a bunch of stuff mom would never allow, stuff like that.

+1

This was similar to my experience. I'm well adjusted, I think, but I also don't dwell on my issues or blame my parents for things. They have flaws like anyone, but in general are good and generous people who love me. Look, shit happens in life. If you and your XDH can behave maturely and continue to co-parent mostly on the same page, then you're doing the best you can with the hand you were dealt. If you want to stay together for the kids, that seems admirable (assuming your resentments don't bleed through). If you don't, then don't. It's your life too.

My father has been married/divorced three times and produced children from each of these marriages. Despite my father being a piece of work, all of the kids are happily married in loving and committed long-term relationships. None of us ever slept around or got into trouble with school or the law. All but one graduated from college and the one that didn't owns his own business and has been married for 20+ yrs.

Can divorce screw up some people? Definitely. Does it have to? Nope.

My dad left my mom for a family friend when I was 7. My parents marriage wasn't great before then, but I wasn't really aware of that. The divorce took 2+ years, my parents hate each other to this day and have only been in the same room on a handful of occasions where they had to (graduations, wedding). My dad is still married to the friend and I have multiple step and half siblings on that side; my mom never remarried. They both constantly talked shot about each other and do to this day. Basically it was "what not to do in a divorce"... except that they both fought for me and we're both very involved in parenting me. (I actually spent way more one-on-one time with my dad post-divorce because of some of the early divorce conditions.)

I am a happy, well-adjusted mid-30s pretty successful professional, who is happily married (to a DH with a super-tight nuclear family with happily married parents and 3 siblings) and has 2 young kids. I have pretty good relationships with both my parents, my step mother and my siblings. Divorce doesn't have to screw up kids.

You cannot guarantee that your divorce will be on of the smooth ones OP especially if you are blind siding your DH.

It may very well end up being the awful kind due to dh being bitter that you broke up something that was working fine from his viewpoint. I know a family like this and their kids were seriously harmed - still not a normal relationship with the dad years later - because the dad completely blind sided the wife and made no attempt to fix throngs ones he let her Know how bad they were. She is not a bad person but this did things to the relationship with the kids hat I am sure the DH would never have guessed would happen when he decided to go off to chase his own happiness despite the fact that there was no incessant fighting, no abuse or infidelity or any other real grounds for breaking up a stable marriage.

I posted before about my alcoholic father. My dad left when I was 5. My friends' parents split up when they were older. I think I was better off because I don't remember much of what it was like before he left (except the yelling). If you are going to get divorced, I would do it when the kids are younger.

Nope, girls develop daddy issues and turn I to sluts and so do the boys

My DH parents divorced when he was 6. His old sister's were messed up by it, but they have only talked about it briefly to me. My DH did not marry until he was 40, spent his 20s suffering from anxiety that required intensive therapy. He did however get a PhD and has a great job he loves. His mother and father never spoke after the divorce and his father raised him and all his siblings. He loves his mom and respects her but is frank about her not being a good person.

My parents had a horrible marriage and knew every single detail because my mother told me everything starting at age 6. I am also a PhD and have a good career but honestly, my sister and I have made horrible relationship decisions and needed a lot of therapy. I only got it together in my 30s. I don't have much of a relationship with my parents either, which I am really sad about. They are still married...it is bizarre to me how they did it.

I wonder if any couple who had a hard time TTC, eventually had a child and then divorced? It would be extremely sad for that child to come to this world and have his family breakup!

I'm a well-adjusted product of divorced parents. In a wonderful marriage.

But my life improved once my parents split, I didn't enjoy living with my dad full time even if they hadn't fought all the time. If I had had a loving, involved dad, it may have affected me more negatively than it did.

Anonymous wrote:This won't be a popular answer, but as a school administrator I can easily guess if a kids parents are divorced before they tell me. It messes them up more than you know.

I agree.

I come from a family of teachers and coaches and they all say similar things.