Week 7

After reading the article “Should You Stay Together for the Kids”, I was shocked to see such different opinions coming from professional psychologists that have been in the field for many years. I was completely taken back when I read a quote from Wallerstein, “Children don't need their parents to like each other. They don't even need them to be especially civil. They need them to stay together, for better or worse.” This is a load of crap. I believe the worst thing you can put your kids through is to force them to grow up in a home with an unhealthy relationship between their parents. They grow up with a dysfunctional idea in their head about how their future relationships should be.

 I have two kids and have been divorced. My husband and I were together for 9 years and married for 6. We tried to work on things, we tried to fix things, but people change and after 9 years I realized the man I married was not the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I wanted to be happy. And the biggest thing was I wanted my kids to be happy, it’s not their fault their dad and me couldn’t get along and they didn’t need to see me being treated like crap or make assumptions about either me or their dad based on things they heard us say when we were mad at each other.  My son is now 15 and my daughter is 12, I love my kids and I would sacrifice anything for them but I honestly think they are happy. I know a divorce and/or custody battle is a lot to drag kids through but one day they will realize it was better to grow up with happy parents that weren’t together, than to be in a home where their parents are constantly fighting.

I strongly agree with Anne Watson’s view on the subject. “She opposes tightening divorce laws out of fear that the truly miserable-- battered wives, the spouses of alcoholics--will lose a crucial escape route. But restless couples who merely need their space, in her opinion, had better think twice and think hard.” "If people are divorcing just because of choices they want to make, I think it's pretty tough on the kids," Watson says. "Just because you're going to feel better, will they?" The day I took my wedding vows I never thought in a million years I would be getting a divorce. Marriage is a serious step and I knew that’s what I wanted to do, but sometimes things don’t always go as planned and people grow apart. I’m glad there is the option of divorce because without it I know I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.