"My husband and I don't have sex much anymore. I'm worried that without that spark our child is getting the wrong idea of what marriage is all about."
"We disagree about a lot of things. Sometimes I think our kids would be better off if we both moved on."
"If we got divorced our kids' lives wouldn't change much. My husband is great with the kids. They would still have two loving parents."
I've been researching and writing about children of divorce for a decade and I've heard these sentiments over and over. These parents not divorced yet, but they're thinking about it. They're raising children, struggling to make the mortgage payment and pay the babysitter, hoping to get ahead. Meanwhile, their marriage isn't what it used to be. Those pre-kid days of hanging out with friends seem the stuff of dreams now. Sure, there is so much to be grateful for, especially those beautiful children. But when it comes to the marriage, most days just seem like a blur. Talking is mainly about negotiating schedules and money. Weekends are busy getting caught up from weekdays. Is this what marriage is all about? Do the kids really need this?
In a word, yes. Granted, we all want that spark, and we shouldn't resign ourselves to living without it, even if it means getting help and working hard at falling in love with our spouse all over again. And some marriages are plagued by such serious problems -- such as addiction, chronic infidelity, or violence -- that divorce might well be warranted. But social science research shows that about two-thirds of marriages that end in divorce are low conflict. These marriages may feel troubled to the one or both of the spouses, but they are not struggling with the kinds of serious or frequent conflict many imagine when they picture a marriage on the rocks.
It is these marriages -- what some call "good enough" marriages -- that matter so much. To any still-married parent who is considering divorce who may be reading this, I want to affirm that your "good enough" marriage is doing a world of good for your kids.
Not long ago, with my co-investigator Professor Norval Glenn of the University of Texas at Austin, I conducted a national study of young adults from divorced and intact families. That study, reported in my book Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (Crown, 2005), revealed a great deal about what divorce does to children as well as what marriage does for children.
In a marriage, it's the parents' job first to make sense of their two worlds -- their two sets of values, beliefs, and ways of living. It's a tough job, perhaps one of the hardest parts of marriage. (I've been married for fourteen years now and have two school-age children, and I think -- and I'm sure my husband would agree -- that sometimes it's pretty rough!) We married parents have to rub together the sharp edges of our two different worlds. Rubbing together our sharp edges can produce conflict. Some parents handle that conflict pretty well, some handle it poorly, and some are so abominable that the cops are called in. But however they handle it, it's clear that by being married the conflict between them is their job.
When parents get divorced, something very different happens. They each retreat to their own worlds. They develop new relationships, get new jobs, move new places. Their values and beliefs grow and change. They no longer have to rub the sharp edges of their worlds together. The obvious and visible conflict between divorced parents can diminish, especially as time passes. But here's the rub: the conflict between their worlds has not gone away. Instead, it's left to the child -- who may be four or eight or twelve years old -- to make sense alone of their mother's and father's two different worlds. It becomes the child's job to grow up traveling between these worlds and to make sense of the different values and beliefs and ways of living he or she finds in each place.
The children of divorce tell us that they began to feel like a different person in each parent's world. They felt the need to keep secrets for their parents, even when their parents did not ask them to. They deeply missed a parent when they were not with that parent (and they were always lacking one of them). They felt they had to approach the big questions in life -- Who am I? Where do I belong? Is there a God? What is right and wrong? -- more often alone. Their parents didn't have to make sense of that stuff together anymore, and no one expected them to. Instead, the work of forming one identity out of two families was left to the child. In even a so-called "good" divorce with minimal conflict between the two parents, the children more often felt lost and alone.
By sticking with -- and working on and believing in -- your "good enough" marriage, you are sustaining one world for your child. You are affirming that the rough and sometimes not-pretty job of holding together one family belongs to you and your spouse, not your child. You are taking on the responsibility of sorting out with your child's other parent not only the daily schedule and the bank account, but also the big questions of values and beliefs that give life meaning and texture. You are making one set of family memories -- one story -- for your children that will become their touchstone and guide in the years to come.
Let's face it, our kids don't really care if we feel that spark with our spouse. It matters to us a lot, and it should. But our kids care about something different. They want their mom and dad in the home, taking care of them, and getting along reasonably well. A "good enough" marriage provides what kids need. And if through grace and hard work we can go still further and achieve a great marriage, then all the better - for them and for us.
Elizabeth Marquardt is editor of FamilyScholars.org and author of Between Two Worlds: The
Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (Crown, 2005).
Nowadays, I think it might be easier since so many other kids have divorced parents, but it's not easy. The confusion, the joint custody, the tension, etc. I would never, ever want truly miserable people to stay married. If there's no saving it, just make the cut. I don't believe it's healthier for a kid to see constant tension, bickering, those hushed late-night arguments when parents think their kids are asleep. That said, please be mature and try counseling first, focus on the good parts of your marriage, see if under it all you still love each other. Most people I know whose parents went through a really hard time and then got better and stayed together took away from it that in marriage, there are hard times and you get through them. What a great lesson to learn!
Also on your mother - imagine if your child thought and worried every day that you would leave them. That's got to be rough.
My folks divorced before I could remember, but it still kind of bit. I've never had it rough but it does have it's impact.
A good friend who felt unsettled in her marriage began considering divorce. I (and many of our friends) was so sad because there was no "reason" anyone could see — no infidelity, no abuse, no addictions. Her husband is a good man, a smart man, a loving father and husband (who would've been snatched up by a lucky woman in a New York minute) who is, like all of us, imperfect. And, he was trying to please her.
They definitely had a "good-enough" marriage. After some therapy, together and alone, they are working through it. Sometimes it's fantastic, sometimes, it's the same ol' issues rearing their head.
But they're working on it, and their two teens are doing just fine.
But if you're thinking about getting divorced just because you aren't having enough sex or you have disagreements and you have kids, then you're just being selfish, in that case, its better to stay together, and try and find some way to work out the difference and rekindle the romance.
In European countries slow to warm to the idea of divorce (ex: Divorce was finally made legal in Ireland in the last decaide), social service and legal systems have had to surrender the idealized expectation of marriage for the sake of marriage.
If well-meaning parents can learn to reduce the conflict to which their children are exposed, the children manage pretty well no matter what the circumstances.
Claire N. Barnes, MA, Executive Director, Kids' Turn
kidsturn@earthlink.net
www.kidsturn.org
Yes communication is key, but if one spouse is not willing to work on it does that mean the other spouse has to live unhappy for the rest of their life? Dragging their feet and hoping for their last breath to come? Children also pick up on this and can have a downfall of wondering if it's their fault mommy or daddy are depressed or unhappy. Or can even become this same way in their relationship when they grow up because it's what they witnessed from their married parents.
I'm am wondering if this Author is going through changes in her own marriage and this is what she would feed her husband who may be having a thought or two of divorcing. Sometimes people get married for the sake of thinking they wouldn't find anyone better or they are getting older and want to start a family. No matter what the intention was if other than actual true love, a person shouldn't stay in a marriage if they are unhappy and have tried to change and have talked it out with a spouse numerous times and that spouse is selfish & stubborn and unwilling to help change the marriage for the better. Staying is teaching a child to be weak and settle and not to be strong enough to leave.
But do take the time to feed and fan them once in a while.
And communication is of absolute importance. And often enough, the spark really does come back. People in relationships or wanting to be do need to give it a chance (though in all fairness, sometimes it really is over and sometimes one of the people involved has too many issues, self-struggles regarding what they want ('relationship' versus 'hook-ups', and so on. It's a shame, but unrequited love is another of life's unfortunate realities... but life is what we make of it as well. If people want relationships, then people have to work with one another. And if there is unrequited love, continuing to try to work with a person who keeps saying "no" becomes a sheer waste of time.)
For the record, my parents are still very happily married after twenty-five years and I still went through all of that. I feel that it was good for me--it helped me become MY OWN person, rather than the person my parents wanted me to be...good enough for them, wonderful for me. It was very difficult, but I wouldn't change it.
Plus, the "perfect person" does not exist, nor can such a person exist. One is far more likely to die alone. And that's the ultimate in "sad".
What you can give your children in the face of things-aren't-perfect-around here (when is life perfect?) is the joy of accepting and loving things the way that they are (including their other parent).
Sometimes in the midst of not-so-perfect times with my spouse, it is one or both of my children who have brought me back to that joy (the joy of accepting and loving my spouse for all that he is - even the not so good stuff) when I see their father through their eyes of love. I hope they do the same for him.