Dear Athena,
I have two really young children with my husband. We’ve been married for eight years. The marriage is at an all-time low. We get along OK, but we fight a lot, too. We fight at night when the kids go to bed. It’s boring, and we haven’t had sex in months. We are pretty miserable. The kids are the best — they are what keep us together. I know we should get a divorce, and he knows, too, but we are thinking of staying together until the kids are older and live on their own. Some people think it’s a good idea, and some don’t. I think I could make it work until they are older. I don’t know. What do you think would be best?
Signed,
Kids Before Us
Dear Kids Before Us,
No, no, no, no, no! You should not stay married because of the kids. Absolutely not.
I know you want what’s best for the children, for sure. But what’s best for you is what’s best for them, at least in this matter. How will your kids know what’s best for them in the future? How will they learn to navigate life with a strong sense of self? They need to learn that from their parents.
The best way to teach your kids anything is to lead by example. When they’re little, you are the center of their worlds. If you are confident about the choices you make, they are likely to follow suit. You will teach them that some decisions are hard, and that sometimes a little heartache is the price we pay for true harmony.
Your children will define their future relationships by many of the rules and values you uphold now. If you stifle your needs for the next 15 to 20 years “for their sake,” they will learn that putting aside personal happiness and well-being is what marriage and commitment are all about. Compromise is crucial in a family and a marriage, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of joy and love.
You may be worried that the kids will resent you two for breaking up. Or maybe you’re anxious about shared custody or how they’ll cope with change. All of these are valid concerns. It would be hard not to see your kids every day. It might be confusing for them to have two different homes and routines. But what at first is unfamiliar and confusing ultimately becomes normal. If they have two reliable, confident, cooperative parents, the kids have a far better chance of turning out fine.
And consider this: If you and your husband stayed together, unhappily, until your kids were grown up and they eventually discovered that you did so for them, they would feel bad, guilty and maybe even betrayed because their parents lived a lie. Don’t let that happen.
As the old song goes, breaking up is hard to do. But not being honest and true to yourself is even harder.
Yours,
Athena
This article appears in May 11-17, 2016.
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I’m surprised Athena did mention counseling! Are they sure their marriage has no hope for survival? While I agree that staying together for kids is not necessarily the way to go, why not encourage them to explore whether the marriage can be resurrected?
I’d say setting aside personal happiness and well being is exactly what marriage is about. If I put my happiness and well being at the center of any relationship it means there’s no self sacrifice, and my needs being met becomes the central goal. The other person simply becomes a means by which I make myself happy instead of a person with dignity who deserves to be loved and served regardless of what they can offer me at any particular season of life. To love someone at their worst, when they have nothing to offer, is to truly love. Of course there are exceptions, as in cases of abuse or blatant and consistent breaking of trust. But as a previous commenter said, to say definitively “no, no, no” is to skip over the possibility that working on the relationship with counseling shouldn’t be considered. I often very much appreciate the advice Athena gives in this column, but on this one I want to humbly and respectfully disagree.
Any relationship is about compromise and sacrifice, but if you are stifling all of your needs and happiness for your partner, you are doing it wrong. There will be times where your partner or your children (especially children) are in need and you’ll need to put aside something to take care of that, but if nothing in your relationship makes you happy, why are you doing it? Especially if your partner isn’t happy either? Are they supposed to set aside their personal happiness for you?
And if someone “at their worst” is someone you can’t stand to be around, they aren’t showing you any love. Love is supposed to make people better, not drag everyone down into a co-dependent pit of despair. I say if you aren’t happy, split – work things out, but you might find that you are stronger and better caretakers for your children when you aren’t dealing with your anguish and unhappiness in your relationship. Or change things up – maybe just separate, or see other people. But make a change – you, your partner, and your kids deserve it.
We know couples who faced this same situation and committed to getting help from pastors, family therapists, and other pros; those couples could not be happier today. Mary Cotton hit the nail on the head with her comments. I don’t know why this needs a one sided answer when other letter writers get so many options for seemingly trivial issues. Perhaps a checklist is in order for the writer – did I give at least two or three options and consider the alternatives. Staying together for the sake of children is a bad decision, but falling back in love and rekindling the spark that brought you together in the first place is magical.