"Divorce is better for the kids than their parents not loving each other" actually, I am not sure this is true.

HappyCat79 · 2024-10-21T10:17:37+00:00

In my case it did lead to an end to the drama. My ex was violently abusive towards me, yet somehow he turned into a respectful and cooperative coparent. We coparent wonderfully now and we have each other’s backs.

I would never go back to living with him because he crossed WAY too many lines with me and I have no reason not to believe that he would go back to the way he was before. I gave him 25 years worth of chances.

Our marriage traumatized our kids, the divorce has been much better.

My boyfriend and his ex don’t fight either. She and I have bonded and become close friends. We are a team working in the best interests of their son together, and he has improved so much since I came into the picture.

Jesus-God-Cornbread · 2024-10-21T12:04:07+00:00

It’s a shit sandwich for everyone. Pick which side you bite. People don’t make these decisions lightly. How old are you? Please work through your trauma.

IcyTrapezium · 2024-10-21T06:52:06+00:00

I wish my parents got divorced earlier. They were miserable and fought all the time. It scared me as a kid. They didn’t fight as far as I know once they divorced.

Ok-Dust-4156 · 2024-10-21T06:26:22+00:00

If parents stay togheter "for sake of kids" then you'll have really bad idea what relationships are and you'll have a lot of problems with it for long time. You might even try to actively avoid them. I think divorce is just less harmfull.

Worried-Smile · 2024-10-21T07:01:22+00:00

1) "But it's better than parents constantly arguing". Contrary to popular belief divorce does not mean the parents stop arguing, in some cases it becomes even worse.

I don't think anyone believes having a divorce magically stops all arguing, especially not when the terms of the divorce have to be figured out. But it's a matter of fact that after the divorce the parents see each other a whole lot less, simply by not living in the same house anymore. There's so much less opportunity and reason for arguments at that point.

kingofgama · 2024-10-21T15:18:51+00:00

Not actually as hot of a take.

I had a friend once who was adopted, and his parents fell out of love with each other. However, they made the rare decision on to stay together for him until he left for university and were very proactive and civil about in. I actually think, if you are making the active choice to have a child it's not totally unreasonable to put aside your own happiness to raise them, all within reason.

To go against the grain, I had my mother divorce my father when I was around 8. She then moved in with another man about a year later. He was Bipolar and physically abusive to me, and even sexually abusive to my sister. Despite saying she still cared about us, it was clear after many ultimatums she chose him over us. She spent my inheritance for school on him, and basically in every way made their happiness the priority. Despite all this my father was a bastion of security and loyal as anything to me and my sister.

So from that, yeah I agree I'd rather parents who didn't really get along compared to an abusive stepfather.

Gravel_Roads · 2024-10-21T06:41:34+00:00

No, I’m grateful my parents didn’t stay together, they screamed at each other all the time and dad cheated on mom with a girl that was closer to my age than his own.

Seeing mom leave a shitty relationship was a valuable lesson in not staying in shitty relationships.

envious1998 · 2024-10-21T15:06:58+00:00

As a now divorce lawyer, it really depends on how much headache the parents choose to cause to the child and the other parent. An amicable break up is absolutely the best way to go if possible, but a divorce and years long custody fight can just make things worse for everyone.

Siukslinis_acc · 2024-10-21T15:53:49+00:00

Depends on the relationship.

If parents divorced just because they no longer feel roantic love with each other and all else is good - it might not be good for the kid.

If parents divorced because one of them was abusive, especially towards the child or there were constant quarrels and tension - it might be better for the kid.

Heck, my dad has begged his mom to divorce his dad. But she stayed with him because dad was underage.

John_Oakman · 2024-10-21T10:24:03+00:00

Modern individuals of the socially middle class in the developed countries does not have the cultural mentality to sustain a asexual aromantic platonic coparenting relationship, and thus divorce is the better option by far.

Your theory works for those people who have far less expectations going into a relationship in the first place.

Environmental_Day558 · 2024-10-21T06:32:05+00:00

Just a personal anecdote, my parents were never married, dated and split when I was a kid. I rememeber them arguing and shit when I was really young, and am glad they didn't force a marriage on my behalf. It was best they broke up. I stayed with my dad and went to my mom's on the weekend, I was preferred that. My dad got married when I was 9, mom still single. I'm in my 30s now and they've been getting along for quite a while now.

I do get your point that divorce isn't always the end of all conflict. I got a close friend going thru one right now and it's always some new drama. However that drama would still exist and continue building more and more if they decided to stay married for their children. Just like divorce isn't the end of drama, neither is staying together and the kids will pick up on that shit. Either way the outcome is going to suck for them to some extent, there is no way to avoid that. I still think it's better to separate if only for the sake of the adults in the relationship being able to move on from each other.

MiddleZealousideal89 · 2024-10-21T18:14:49+00:00

There's a difference between "parents just not loving each other but are civil, if cold towards the other person" and "all hell breaks loose because the parents can't spend an evening without yelling at each other". Would a divorce be better in the first case? I don't know. Maybe the kid would feel way worse having to go between two homes, maybe they won't if their parents seem a lot happier now that they're single. In the latter case, however, I'd argue that it would most likely be beneficial to the kid to not have to listen to screaming matches every day. Sure, it might go down to screaming matches once or twice a week but they'd still have some semblance of normalcy most days.

Divorce can absolutely have negative effects on the kids, especially if the parents are handling the whole thing poorly. If they're trying to dick over the other parent, if they're withholding child support, if they're trying to use the kid to get back at the other person, these are all things that will fuck the kid up. In these cases, the divorce is just a continuation of the messed up relationship the parents had while they were married. But, based on anecdotal experience, a civilized, cordial divorce where the parents co-parent really well after was an improvement over the constant sour faces and cold unpleasantness during the marriage. I had friends who had such parents, and everyone was much happier after the divorce - the parents found new partners who made them happy, and the kids didn't exist with this perpetual awkward feeling that you have when you're in the same room with two people that clearly don't really like each other all that much.

relish5k · 2024-10-21T15:07:05+00:00

Apparently everyone on reddit is the exception to the rule.

Because as a rule, divorce is bad for kids and having a low-key shitty but non-abusive relationship is better than breaking up a home. It's better to just you know, act like an adult, go along to get along and stop the fighting then break up the home. There is abundant research that supports this.

Marriage and family life does not exist to maximize the personal fulfillment of mom and dad.

Tricky_Dog1465 · 2024-10-21T07:19:27+00:00

Staying together only show kids that it's ok to stay in a bag marriage, that's not something I'm willing to let my son learn from me.

attendquoi · 2024-10-21T16:18:47+00:00

It's absolutely better. My stepmom really fucked over my half-siblings by staying with my dad. I was so lucky compared to them.

Fun_Breakfast697 · 2024-10-21T18:23:07+00:00

My parents love each other very much and I still have mental health issues.

How much do statistics even matter here? Like obviously the situations are going to be highly variable. Not all unhappy couples have high-conflict co-parenting relationships after they split. Not all unhappy couples who stay together are good at hiding their unhappiness. My friends with the worst commitment issues have parents who fall into the latter camp, FWIW.

If something is slightly worse for the kids but makes both parents vastly happier... isn't that a reasonable tradeoff? I am firmly childfree so don't come at me for being a bad mom or whatever, but am I actually wrong about that?

A lot of the consequences listed in the linked article seem like a normal childhood response to a big change. I probably did a lot of that stuff when my family moved.

themfluencer · 2024-10-21T20:15:56+00:00

I’m glad my parents are divorced. They’re not compatible. They cheat on each other and treat each other horribly. I still don’t have a great model for healthy romantic love from either one of them, but at least I got one emotionally healthy parent out of it in the long run. If they were together I can’t guarantee that’d be the case.

kvakerok_v2 · 2024-10-21T21:28:43+00:00

Contrary to popular belief divorce does not mean the parents stop arguing, in some cases it becomes even worse.

Because stupid people divorce after they have already started hating each other. Normal people divorce before that happens.

No-one talks about how traumatic it can be to have to constantly to another house every other week.

Not as traumatic as witnessing daily fights or DV.

Children of divorce still usually have worse outcomes, people conveniently choose to ignore this.

Correlation does not imply causation. I would argue that those worse outcomes are caused by the same preconditions that precipitate in a divorce: one or both spouses are shitty people.

Having to deal with mom's/dad's new boyfriend/girlfriend. Enough said.

Most divorces are due to people being stupid, so it stands to reason that their stupid behavior would continue past the divorce. Cue an unending string of boyfriends/girlfriends, some abusive, etc.

An "optimal" divorce between two people would happen when they've sat down during their regular check-ins and realized that their goals in life ultimately and drastically do not align, even if they still have feelings for each other. A suboptimal divorce is when the above is still the case, but one of the spouses is lying and gaslighting the other about it, trying to hold onto a non-viable marriage "for the kids", while resentment builds. A worst-case scenario is when both of them are lying and gaslighting each other, "for the kids", while resentment against each other only builds up. 90% of divorces are of the last 2 varieties.

solowng · 2024-10-21T23:30:11+00:00

Eh, my parents' divorce was a solid 8/10 on the "nightmarish divorce" scale (It could've been worse if my sister and I had been murdered, molested, or totally lost a parent in the process, but otherwise it was about as bad as it could get.) but in the aggregate I don't think that parental divorce has that big of an effect on outcomes aside from creating a new class of winners and losers (which is just a continuation of the existing trend of familial shrinkage and atomization). On the whole, my guess is that most if not all of the worse outcomes for children of divorcees has to do with being children of dysfunctional people to begin with. If anything, my hot take would be to caution that divorce doesn't fix the problem if the problem is mostly with the parent who winds up with custody of the children (which includes said parent's ability to pick new spouses). Don't be so certain that you'll do better next time. Dad did, mom didn't, and now she's single and pretty much destitute in her mid-50s, a burden on her children.

For most kids it'll entail some loss of standard of living (duplicate households cost money and one or both parents are going to lose time with their children) and some inconvenience (bouncing between households is annoying/time consuming, and its an annoyance that lasts for life barring exceptionally cooperative co-parents), but I don't feel like that scenario is especially traumatic (or I just can't relate because the other bad things from my parents were so much worse).

Some kids really will get bailed out of living in an unpleasant or abusive home, the custodial parent will do a better job as a single parent and/or remarry into a better situation. That, or their parents were otherwise decent people who just didn't work well together as a couple but adequately as coparents and were able to find better matches next time (That's so far out of my experience that I have no idea what that would even be like, but it very much describes the situation of one of my friends in high school.).

Other kids will have the misfortune of winding up in the care of the less functional parent (or don't really have great options in either case; dad was/is better but also a drunk and I suppose I could've come out of it less screwed up but still whining in an AlAnon meeting). The conflict doesn't stop/gets worse and/or they totally lose the care of the better parent in their lives. Their now single (probably) mother, now with the dating market baggage of being a single mom, winds up either serially dating or remarrying to a man who either isn't any better than their father or is worse.

The above was my situation. Mother was far less functional and wound up with custody (Dad correctly considers this the biggest mistake of his life, but there's no point in beating him up for it now. He served his own 15 year sentence just like we did.), the fighting not only didn't stop but dragged on for 15 years and my sister and I were far more personally involved/the direct target of our mother's attacks, and she remarried to an authoritarian asshole who ruled by the belt, later took out his issues with our mother out on us, didn't dare defend us from her (nor his own daughter, our half-sister), and was far worse with money to boot so we grew up in near-perpetual financial crises in spite of Dad paying support. The house-destroying episodes of domestic violence rolled on until stepfather learned to run away instead of fight. The contrast between mom and dad's house was akin to that between Heaven and Hell and my sister and I were powerless to escape, weekends at Dad's being something between an oasis in the desert and a cruel tease, a look at what life could've been like if only he'd taken custody as she initially offered, ran, and never looked back instead of trying to get back together with her (He didn't feel like he could do a good enough job as a single father and it occurred to him far too late that a screaming banshee that made for an ex-wife from Hell probably wasn't going to be a very good parent for his children. Fortunately for us, her parents were very involved in our lives and actually were decent people. I miss them dearly.).

Again, the fundamental problem wasn't divorce but the fact that our father picked a femme fatale from his platoon in the Marines to be the mother of his children. He broke the "don't stick your dick in crazy" rule (a mistake I vowed not to repeat and won't even if I wind up alone) and we all paid dearly for it. Turns out, she suffers from BPD with a side of ASPD per my shrink. Whoops. On the bright side if he's right (and I think he is) that's a very rare combination that I'm unlikely to ever encounter in the wild. I've met/been sucked in by a few (not many; I'm thinking of four in particular and know a few more who've disclosed being diagnosed but were more functional and didn't trigger my impulse to run and nuke the relationship NOW) who set off the BPD alarm bells (and, fair or not, I don't think I'll ever be willing to risk that unless it was such a light/well treated case that I couldn't tell) and while bad enough that I wouldn't touch them they weren't that bad. Mom was just on another level and I doubt that I'll meet any woman that dangerous again.

Electric_Death_1349 · 2024-10-21T06:33:18+00:00

The obvious solution is not to get married and have kids in the first place, because the majority of people simply aren’t capable of raising emotionally healthy adults; selfish, entitled narcissists don’t make good mothers and alpha bad boys don’t make good fathers (not do the beta bucks dweebs who actually raise their kids) - marriage and divorce are two cheeks of the same arse

beautyloser · 2024-10-21T15:03:17+00:00

Hell no. I wish my parents had divorced way earlier and my late childhood/early adolescence really suffered for it. Being shuffled between homes and the messiness of the divorce sucked, but it was better than watching my parents scream and throw dishes at each other and hit us when they were frustrated. Their divorce also forced us into court mandated therapy, which did wonders for their communication and emotional regulation skills and gave me the space I needed to process the trauma of witnessing their marriage.

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bentlife1986 · 2024-10-21T18:13:20+00:00

women are the ones who think divorce is better. They are selfish and think about their happiness over the husbands or even the kids . This is why 70% of divorces are initiated by women. Men will put up with alot of shit for years and years to not tear up the family.

No-Rough-7390 · 2024-10-21T12:44:47+00:00

Fatherless homes -> incarceration kind of nails this

Title	"Divorce is better for the kids than their parents not loving each other" actually, I am not sure this is true.
Author	Novel-Tip-7570
Upvotes	11
Comments	79
Date	October 21, 2024 6:15 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1g8j403/divorce_is_better_for_the_kids_than_their_parents/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/divorce-is-better-for-the-kids-than-their-parents.1533050 https://theredarchive.com/post/1533050

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