Is getting divorced selfish in many cases?

[Faint]

Because if they don't, then they teach their children that it's easier to quit instead of making difficult choices and choosing to get along. That's an immature and selfish decision for a parent to make.

Does that also apply in cases where one partner is severely abusive?

 

[Ðanisty]

Because if they don't, then they teach their children that it's easier to quit instead of making difficult choices and choosing to get along. That's an immature and selfish decision for a parent to make.

You can't make someone else get along with you. You can only choose for yourself...so what if the other parent isn't willing to choose to get along? What if a parent's only choices are to either be a victim of the other parent or get a divorce? I'm not just talking about violence either.

 

[Tigress]

Only in your opinion. In my opinion, you are very wrong. I stand by my statements 100%, and we shall have to agree to disagree.

You stated...

Parents face challenges every day, but the most selfish thing they can do is allow divorce to even become a consideration.

To which I replied...

Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you right now that you are very wrong. In some cases, the most unselfish thing parents can do is get a divorce.

--------------------------

Not to sound trite, but I was addressing your vagueness as to the subject at hand, something my personal experience clearly renders a falsity. That is all.

Blessings,
Crystal

 

[Booko]

Don't you think unhappy parents are equally as damaging to a child?

They can be. But there seems to be a dichotomy here that I think isn't valid. The choice is not:

1. Be unhappily together and screw up your kids

or

2. Divorce and have saner kids.


It think of it more like:

1. Happy? Great.
2. Not? Get help.
3. Help not working? Try something else.
4. Repeat step 3 for a while.
5. Help is absolutely not working...ok divorce.

Having had the...er...bounty of serving on Baha'i Local Spiritual Assemblies and having couples come to us asking for a Year of Waiting, I can tell you that nearly *every* time I sat there wishing they had only come for assistance before things go so bad the well was poisoned and there was so little hope left.

Another friend of mine who has worked on a Marriage and Family Life committee puts it this way:

Sports figure X is a great player, yes?
He has coaches and trainers, yes?

Well,..just who the heck do you think YOU are that you can get through something as difficult as marriage and not need a little coaching sometimes?

I find the example a good one, myself. I know we need coaching now and again. Sometimes you can get that from family and friends. But if your family is even more messed up than your relationship, maybe you'd be better finding a pro trainer???

 

[eudaimonia]

But folks who can commit to living together respectfully when actually desiring to be apart are rare, as this often means putting their own happiness and perceived fulfillment “on hold” until the kids are older or have left the home.

What if it is not perceived fulfillment? What if it is actual fulfillment and personal growth?

Furthermore, what if they are completely miserable in the marriage? It is very easy to say that they should "put happiness on hold" because one may then smugly accuse them of "selfishness" if they don't. But what if that doesn't being to cover what one is asking of them?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[michel]

It think of it more like:

1. Happy? Great.
2. Not? Get help.
3. Help not working? Try something else.
4. Repeat step 3 for a while.
5. Help is absolutely not working...ok divorce.

Having had the...er...bounty of serving on Baha'i Local Spiritual Assemblies and having couples come to us asking for a Year of Waiting, I can tell you that nearly *every* time I sat there wishing they had only come for assistance before things go so bad the well was poisoned and there was so little hope left.

Another friend of mine who has worked on a Marriage and Family Life committee puts it this way:

Sports figure X is a great player, yes?
He has coaches and trainers, yes?

Well,..just who the heck do you think YOU are that you can get through something as difficult as marriage and not need a little coaching sometimes?

I find the example a good one, myself. I know we need coaching now and again. Sometimes you can get that from family and friends. But if your family is even more messed up than your relationship, maybe you'd be better finding a pro trainer???

You make very valid points. It seems to me that rhere is a significant number of people who don't can't be bothered to make the effort (and every marriage requires effor and compromises), but there's no rule book or 'how to'.
There are disagreements between my wife and I that we will never be able to resolve; I tend to see those from a "Well, we're never going to agree; just accept that we think differently".

On the whole, it works. I am glad we didn't separate at one stage (when the kids were younger), although I do worry and wonder what kind of example we have set the kids as to the idea of marrige.

A bit like my older son "I'm never going to have kids"

Me:"Why not ?"
Him:"Because I couldn't take the kind of garbage I threw at you guys".

I hope he changes his mind.

 

[Sunstone]

It seems to me unrealistic to view marriage and divorce in simplistic terms. There aren't many things in life that are more complex than marriage and divorce. Having gone through both marriage and divorce, I think popular culture grossly distorts both marriage and divorce.

Since this is a huge subject, and since marriage and divorce are so intimately related, I will confine my remarks in this post to just three points about marriage. Points that each have something to do with divorce.

In the first place, most folks are unprepared for marriage, IMHO. They have no idea what they are really getting into. They have insufficient skills to deal with marriage. Worse, they have a strong tendency to believe that all they need is motivation to make a marriage work, so they don't get help. It is thus not at all surprising to me that the divorce rate is 50%. Actually, it surprises me it is not much higher, around 75%.

I don't care how motivated someone is, without solid and realistic technique motivation is worth nothing. You can desire more than anyone else to go to the moon, but if your technique for getting there is to flap your arms like wings, you ain't ever going to make it to the moon. In the same way, you can want marriage more than anyone, but if your technique for dealing with marriage sucks, you are not going to ever have a happy marriage, no matter how long you stick with it.

But popular "wisdom" will tell you that all you need is love, or all you need is determination, or all you need is more motivation, and you'll be fine. Popular "wisdom" is made by, and made for, the village idiot. Just as a matter of fact, most people would benefit from seeking marriage counselling as soon as they contemplate getting married, let alone after they get married.

In the second place, professional marriage counsellors estimate that a quarter of all married people have no business being married to each other. Those include cases in which even highly motivated people with good skills for dealing with marriage should not, according to the pros, be married to the person they are married to.

This again contradicts popular "wisdom", which too often says that anyone who works hard enough for it, will be rewarded with a good marriage. But if you're married to the wrong person in the first place, it doesn't matter how hard you work for a good marriage, you won't have one. That's what the pros are telling you.

Last, it is a complete myth that an unhappy marriage has no effect on kids so long as the couple stays together. I am not talking about an unhappy abusive marriage here. It should be obvious to everyone that an abusive marriage is without redeeming qualities worth staying married for. But there is a myth that a normal unhappy marriage has few if any effects on children worth getting divorced over.

The truth, according to the pros, is children learn both what kind of marriage to expect for themselves, and even what kind of marriage to seek for themselves, mostly from their experience of their parents marriage(s). When a kid grows up observing an unhappy marriage, the kid is at risk of later on entering into a copy cat unhappy marriage of his or her own. Unhappy marriages breed unhappy marriages.

But popular "wisdom" will tell you that the kid will grow up with the same chances of entering a happy marriage as anyone else. Again, popular wisdom has nothing to do with what the professional counsellors see in their practice.

Given how unprepared most people are for marriage, let alone for divorce, it seems utterly extraordinary to me that only 50% of marriages end in divorce. I would recommend that people start marriage counselling from the day they decide to get married, rather than wait until their marriage is too messed up to save.

 

[bigvindaloo]

By Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D.
Many bickering couples stay with each other just to keep the family intact. But are you helping or hurting your children? "Today" contributor Dr. Ruth Peters was invited to appear on the show to offer some insight. Here's her advice:

Is divorce ever a good option for the children?
Yes, it can be, but there are many sides to the issue. Some parenting specialists believe that children living in chaotic or unhappy marriages learn bad parenting techniques, and feel that these kids would benefit in the long run by their parents divorcing. However, one leading authority on the family (Judith Wallerstein, author of “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce”) disagrees. She theorizes that keeping the family intact is of such import that, even if unhappy or lonely, parents who are able to remain civil (not exposing the kids to fights, coldness or extreme disagreements) provide a better option than divorce. But folks who can commit to living together respectfully when actually desiring to be apart are rare, as this often means putting their own happiness and perceived fulfillment “on hold” until the kids are older or have left the home.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13924018/?GT1=8307

Is it?

Divorce is a decision to end a contract between two individuals. Unless it is as mutual an agreement as marriage should be, it is always selfish to some extent in that one individual pursues self interest. However, it is not a moral but a legal question. Someone seeking divorce should not be treated as a bad parent. Children are a product of a union on occasion, on others they are not. Either way it is circumstancial. Parenting continues on either side of divorce. Whether divorce leaves children better or worse of is also entirely circumstancial, and is a different question to whether divorce is selfish per se in my view.

That said, it is probably much easier to provide for the emotional and material needs of children in a successful marriage, than it is to do so as a single parent either as a result of divorce or otherwise. In that sense, children of dissolved relationships are more likely to be disadvantaged.

 

[Ðanisty]

A bit like my older son "I'm never going to have kids"

Me:"Why not ?"
Him:"Because I couldn't take the kind of garbage I threw at you guys".

I hope he changes his mind.

Why? If he doesn't feel like he can handle being a parent, why would you hope he decides to do it anyway? It probably doesn't have a thing to do with how you were as a parent. It looks to me like he's saying he can't deal with what a child like him (which is, let's face it, just about any child...at some point they all cause stress) would do to him. He's not saying that you did a poor job dealing with him....he's saying that he believes he would do a bad job dealing with a kid.

Why must we all be the same? Why must we all be good parents and if we aren't, suck it up and try harder? What exactly is wrong with someone not wanting to make a commitment to something that they would not be good at and not enjoy? It's a huge responsibility, but it's a choice. It seems to me that if someone feels they would fail at this huge responsibility, then the only responsible thing to do is make the choice not to commit to it!

Isn't that basically parallel to this thread anyway? If you aren't prepared to commit to marriage, don't do it. If you aren't prepared to commit to parenthood, don't do it. Both of those decisions would solve a lot of problems, but people are pressed from all directions to just do it, whether they're ready or not...whether they will ever be ready or not.

I'm not trying to single you out Michel. I realize all to well that this is a majority mindset and I don't understand it. Everyone wants well-adjusted children raised by parents who care? Well, that's easy...do your best to make sure the people having children care in the first place. No, you can't go around forcing that on people, but if you know people who don't want children, don't press them. Don't use peer-pressure on them to convince them to do something that they don't think is right. I don't know you so I don't know whether you pressure your son or not, but if you do, please just let him be. For people who don't want kids, there's nothing more stressful and irritating than to hear from their friends and family that there's something wrong with that.

 

[Booko]

You make very valid points. It seems to me that rhere is a significant number of people who don't can't be bothered to make the effort (and every marriage requires effor and compromises), but there's no rule book or 'how to'.

It's possible most people are just too embarrassed to seek help because it would mean admitting they can't handle it themselves.

Which if you look at it from another view, is really rather silly. If I cut myself deeply, I'll go have a doc sew is up and not feel embarrassed by that.

I guess we just need to get to a point where we realize that having difficulties in marriage is like having a high fever -- go get professional help.

When the occasion arises, I usually warn men that if they hear their wife say "marriage counselor" they had better pay attention, because the next thing they hear will be "divorce lawyer."

There are disagreements between my wife and I that we will never be able to resolve; I tend to see those from a "Well, we're never going to agree; just accept that we think differently".

I think every couple has those, don't they?

A bit like my older son "I'm never going to have kids"

Me:"Why not ?"
Him:"Because I couldn't take the kind of garbage I threw at you guys".

I hope he changes his mind.

He probably will. I said the same thing once. My poor Mom was convinced that we would *never* have kids and she would have no grandchildren (though she never said anything about it until much later).

I guess it never occured to her that I married a Catholic in a Catholic Church by a Catholic priest. Uh -- the RCC doesn't do that if you express an unwillingness to have children.

 

[Booko]

In the first place, most folks are unprepared for marriage, IMHO. They have no idea what they are really getting into. They have insufficient skills to deal with marriage. Worse, they have a strong tendency to believe that all they need is motivation to make a marriage work, so they don't get help. It is thus not at all surprising to me that the divorce rate is 50%. Actually, it surprises me it is not much higher, around 75%.

I don't care how motivated someone is, without solid and realistic technique motivation is worth nothing. You can desire more than anyone else to go to the moon, but if your technique for getting there is to flap your arms like wings, you ain't ever going to make it to the moon. In the same way, you can want marriage more than anyone, but if your technique for dealing with marriage sucks, you are not going to ever have a happy marriage, no matter how long you stick with it.

But popular "wisdom" will tell you that all you need is love, or all you need is determination, or all you need is more motivation, and you'll be fine. Popular "wisdom" is made by, and made for, the village idiot. Just as a matter of fact, most people would benefit from seeking marriage counselling as soon as they contemplate getting married, let alone after they get married.

:clap

Given how unprepared most people are for marriage, let alone for divorce, it seems utterly extraordinary to me that only 50% of marriages end in divorce. I would recommend that people start marriage counselling from the day they decide to get married, rather than wait until their marriage is too messed up to save.

Here is where I will give the RCC great credit -- they view divorce as an option only under a few certain circumstances -- but they do the work up front with the couple to try and prevent bad marriages from happening in the first place.

The time we spent with Fr. Ken going into areas that would reveal deep differences that might end in a disastrous marriage was time very well spent.

We saw Fr. Ken again last year, 20 years later, and were delighted to tell him what a good job he'd done -- and introduce him to the kids.

 

[Booko]

Why must we all be the same? Why must we all be good parents and if we aren't, suck it up and try harder? What exactly is wrong with someone not wanting to make a commitment to something that they would not be good at and not enjoy? It's a huge responsibility, but it's a choice. It seems to me that if someone feels they would fail at this huge responsibility, then the only responsible thing to do is make the choice not to commit to it!

I've met a few couples over the years who got married knowing full well they were not intending to have children. And no, they were young when they got married.

I hafta say, I admire people who have the wisdom to realize this early on rather than bring children into the world that believe they will not be able to raise well.

Parenting really isn't for everyone.