Divorce is immature and selfish. Don’t do it.
Divorce is always on my mind because I got a divorce four years ago. Not that I wanted to. In fact, when I thought we were going to a couples therapist we were actually going to a divorce mediator. And then, when it was clear that we were going to have to get a divorce, and I had all the money to fund it, my lawyer finally said to me, “If you drag your feet any longer, you’re going to have to get a new lawyer because I’m retiring.”
So we got a divorce. I hated it. (And of course, I blogged about it the whole time.) Subsequently I have become a vocal critic of divorce. I think it’s an incredibly lame and selfish route to take. Here are five reasons why:
1. Divorce is a cliche among people in denial.
I see divorce in every story. For example, as soon as I heard about the school shootings in Chardon, OH, I got stuck on the fact that the kid’s parents had just gotten a divorce and left him with his grandparents. I blame the parents.
Heather Armstrong is a great blogger who I have followed for years. But I’m really stuck on the news that she just announced a separation from her husband.
Armstrong supports her family with her blog, dooce.com, which is about herself, so of course, I watch her really closely. In her post announcing that she had asked her husband to leave, she said the two common, and delusional things we hear from divorced parents all the time:
“I can’t be a good parent if I’m not happy and I’ll never be happy in this marriage.”
and
“The kids are doing so well. Kids are really resilient.”
I’ve heard those things so many times. From parents who are getting a divorce who are full of shit.
The dad who tells everyone he got a divorce because his wife is crazy and then leaves his kids with the mom. Newsflash: if your wife is really crazy, then you are crazy for leaving your kids alone with her. In fact, you are not crazy, you’re willfully negligent. And if your wife is not really crazy then get your butt back to the house and raise your kids like an adult.
The mom who says the kids are fine. What does that mean? Do you know that if you ask kids who are living with a crack addict mom if they are fine, they’ll say yes. They’ll say they want to stay. Because kids are trying to survive.
2. Divorce is nearly always terrible for kids. Your case is not the exception.
Kids do not break down during a divorce because they see their parents breaking down. The kids see that one parent just abandoned them. Of course the kid is not going to have a compete fit and push another parent away in anger. Read The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which is Judith Wallerstein’s 25-year study of children of divorce. It’s the only study that covers such a long period of time, and she concludes that divorce is absolutely terrible for kids over the long-term. And a wide range of studies have concurred.
It’s completely obvious how Wallerstein gets to her conclusion. Think of it this way: Two parents decide they don’t like living together and they want to start over. They can’t meet their needs by simply living together and making the best of it. They want a new chance, in a new household.
Where does this leave the kids? They don’t get a new chance until they grow up. So now they have to shuttle back and forth between two homes so that their parents can get another chance. Meanwhile, the kids don’t get a second chance at their childhood. And the most damaging thing about divorce is that the kids don’t have a home; to say a kid has two homes is the same as saying the kid has no home. Because a home is your basecamp. If you have two basecamps you don’t have a home.
And anyway, if having two homes really worked, then the parents who are so upset about living together can each have a different home during the day, while the kids are at school, and then come back to their other home. But no one would do that, right? Because having two homes sucks.
3. Divorce is for dumb people.
In case you are thinking that divorce is normal among smart, educated parents, you would be wrong. The divorce rate is plummeting among educated women. For example, among Asian women with a college degree the divorce rate is one percent. Divorce is for people who can’t think ahead enough to realize that the cost to the kids is so high that it’s not worth the benefits the parents get.
4. Divorce reflects mental illness.
I have been reading tons of books about borderline personality disorder and parenting, and I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that the decision to divorce is similar to the decision making process that you get with borderline personality disorder.
For example, a parent with BPD is often unable to separate their own wellbeing from their child’s. The person with BPD is afraid of not being loved and makes all their decisions based on that fear.
So, the person decides they are not receiving proper love in their marriage and then decides that the children would be better off if the marriage were over. The marriage being over is not good for the children. But that is not the issue.
Why do we treat people with BPD as mentally ill and people getting a divorce as adults making adult decisions?
5. Divorce is often a career issue. I can help with that.
So many times I have been coaching someone who thought they need a divorce, but really, the marriage has a career issue. So, look, when there are no kids, I don’t think there’s a lot of collateral damage when two people want a divorce. But maybe I can save a few children’s childhoods by telling you some common problems and how to solve them:
The woman is pissed that her husband hasn’t gotten a good paying job in years.
This type of woman feels overly responsible for taking care of the family. And she feels taken advantage of by the guy because she thinks he could get a job if he wanted to. (This is probably where Heather is coming from since her husband, who has been working on her blog for years, announced he is looking for a job.)
The problem, though, is that the woman married a guy who doesn’t want to have a big career. She knew this before they got married, but she chose to ignore it. There was probably something she liked about him, something she needed from him, that he provided. Now she wants something different.
The solution is to stop being angry at the guy for not getting a job. Remember that the kids love him and remind yourself the reasons you loved him when you married him. Those things are still there. If you get a divorce you are not going to be able to miraculously stop working. So bite the bullet and accept where you are and finish raising the kids.
Bonus: If you start loving your husband again you will probably love your job again because you’ll feel good that the job allows you to create a happy family.
The guy who thinks his wife is holding back his career.
Oh, god, I hear this so many times. The guy is not where he wants to be in his career. He has so many ideas, so many dreams, and he is really unhappy where his is.
The answer here is: tough shit. You had kids before you fulfilled all your career dreams. Unless you are independently wealthy, you have to scale back your dreams when you have kids because you can’t take wild financial risks with your family’s wellbeing.
So you have kids and a wife, and you have to get a reality check that you are not going to be Mark Zuckerberg. It’s okay. Just focus on being a good father and a good husband and stay with your wife and kids.
It is incredibly selfish and immature to decide your kids should have to shuttle between two families so you can take another swing at a home run. It’s time for you to be a good dad. That’s your job now. You owe it to your kids.
Bonus: Once you start taking pride in being a good parent and a good husband, you will have better self-esteem and your career will get better as a result of that.
The person who is bored and wants out.
So many people get divorced because they are bored. This blows my mind. Your kids are not bored with your marriage. Your kids need boring at home in order to have the necessary foundation to fly outside the home. If your kids are focused on creating their own stability bouncing between two parents then the kids can’t focus on figuring out who they are while they grow up. They have to spend their time figuring out who their family is. And that’s not fair to your kids.
A job absolutely 100% cannot make you happy. A happy family can make you happy and it’s possible that nothing else really even comes close to making a person happy.
So instead of messing up your family in order to make yourself happy, keep your family together and use your job to address your boredom problem. A fun job can make your life more interesting. Your spouse is not in your life to make you feel interesting. Your spouse is there to love you and raise your kids with you. Don’t ask for anything else.
If you want to feel more interesting then go do something more interesting. And come home for dinner.
The person who says they are a victim of violence.
Two-thirds of divorces take place in low-conflict homes, and in those cases, the kids are much better off if the parent just stick it out.
So let’s look at high-conflict homes: It takes two people to fight. And there’s great research to show that if you picked an asshole the first time, you’ll pick the same type of asshole the second time. (Which is why divorce rates for second marriages are so much higher than first marriages.) So instead of getting rid of your kids’ parent, figure out why you picked a person like this, and then get good at drawing boundaries.
Really, good boundaries can save even the worse marriages. Taking care of your own contribution to the mess can single-handedly stop the mess.
This is especially true of violence. At this point in the history, where women have so much earning power, women are equally as responsible for men for the violence in a household. In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control reports that most domestic violence today is a 50/50 thing. Both parties are responsible. Which means that even if you have one of the worst marriages, you have the power to fix it.
And if you don’t use that power—if you don’t fundamentally change how you are in the marriage in order to stop the craziness, then you will not only recreate it in your next relationship, but you will continue to model it for your kids.
So look, I don’t see any reason left that makes divorce ok when there are kids. Personal responsibility always trumps running away. And yes, here are the links to my own marital violence and my decison to stay and fix it. I’m practicing what I preach. I’m working really hard at keeping my own marriage together. It’s a cold, lonely place to be in life. But it’s better than the alternative.
Because divorce is the ultimate example of just running away. And, while your kids probably will not pull out a gun in the school cafeteria, long-term sadness and a lingering inability to connect to other people is an irrefutable result of divorce. It’s something that you can prevent.
You are so ignorant and delusional. I am the product of three, yes, you read that right, THREE divorces. My biological parents divorced when I was 3. I wasn’t traumatized. Then they divorced from their respective spouses when was was 15/16. I couldn’t have been more excited. It was so much better than all their arguing and screaming. Now my father is on his third marriage, happier than ever, with a really great woman. And my mother, yes, she is now going through her third divorce, but again, it’s better than staying together and fighting all the time, impacting her physical and mental health.
I am now 26, graduated from a top university 5 years ago, am in a long term and healthy and stable relationship, have a number of really close friends, a great job doing something I love, and am well balanced and happy. Don’t you DARE say that staying together for the sake of children is the only way to go. I am proof, THREE TIMES OVER, that you are so very wrong. You are the idiot and stupid person if you think that divorce is only for stupid and mentally ill people.
By the way, the article you linked to as “support” to your statement that only “Dumb” and “Uneducated” people get divorced, if you actually read the entire thing thoroughly, you will actually see that the conclusion it comes to is much different. And I quote:
“Once education was factored in, the NCFMR found, with the exception of Asians, the highest rate of first divorce was among women with some college, regardless of race or ethnicity.
“Contrary to the notion that women with a college degree face the lowest chances of divorce, those without a high school degree actually have similar low odds of divorce,” explained Dr. Susan Brown, NCFMR co-director. “The relationship between education and divorce is not straightforward.'”
Some college can mean anything from an Associates to part way through a PhD. Seems like you managed to cherrypick the ONE statement in that entire article that could een attempt to support your crackpot theory.
Kate
You are one of the few really lucky ones. My parents never hit each other but they did hate each other from day one of their marriage. They stayed together for 14 years and I cannot remember a single day without them screaming at each other.
My father eventually left when I was 13 and my brother was 11. At the time we were relieved because it put a stop to the fighting but I realise now – at 32 – that I have never recovered. That I have absolutely NO idea how to have a healthy relationship because I’ve never seen one in action.
Do I wish they had stayed together? No. Actually, I wish that they’d separated a lot sooner and found happiness and stability and brought that into our lives. My relationship with my father greatly improved after he left but my mother was left devastated and looking after two teens on her own.
Kids aren’t picky – they just want love and stability.
I’m not going to read 218 comments, but I know I’m not the only one who was struck by how clear it is that this post was from Penelope, to Penelope. And I can mostly respect that, but the ‘stay in an abusive relationship because it’s half your fault’ does a real disservice masquerading as advice when it’s really the author trying to work through her own issues.
Articles like this are going to get women killed. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Ladies, please, if you read this article do not use it as an excuse to stay in an abusive relationship. Change is difficult. It is easier to stay with an abuser than to leave but there will come a day when he goes way beyond the line. He could kill you. He could harm your children. Please, get help. Get out.
http://www.rainn.org/
http://www.thehotline.org/
She isn’t saying to stay in bad, abusive, sour, loveless relationships, folks. She’s saying to find a way to fix them. She’s saying that society advocates the easy way out. But society isn’t going to raise your kids now, are they?
Brent, you can’t “fix” an abusive relationship. There is absolutely no reason for an abused spouse to stay with her abuser. It is not healthy for him/her or the children. No child should ever have to watch their parents get beaten or abused. That is far more damaging to a child than a divorce.
The concept of “I can fix this” is what keeps many women in abusive relationships. That way of thinking causes them to be isolated from their loved ones, destroys their self esteem, puts the abused spouse and their children at risk, and often lands them in the hospital or the morgue.
“She isn’t saying to stay in bad, abusive, sour, loveless relationships, folks. She’s saying to find a way to fix them.”
Fixing a bad, abusive, sour, or loveless relationship IS staying in a bad, abusive, sour, or loveless relationship.
But you can’t fix other people. Unless THEY want to change…no amount of hanging on is going to make them.
In the meantime it’s the children that suffer. They see abuse…violence..unhappiness…and the list goes on.
You can’t fix abuse when you’re the victim of it. There is no amount of apology or submission that will make someone NOT beat you. It’s a dangerous idea to think that sticking it out will make it better.
There is nothing “easy” about divorce. It takes more strength to move on and make a better life than it does to stay in a rut, and not change the status quo. Or try to change someone who doesn’t care about you.
You don’t stay with someone that hits you and bullies you.
Trying to stop the cycle of abuse and find a way to “fix” it is difficult at best. Both people have to be willing, able and ready to do so. The abuser has to realize and believe that what he or she is doing is wrong. The abuser then needs to work harder than they ever have before to fix the problem, to fix whatever it is that made the abuser feel that they had the right to hit or emotionally abuse in the first place.
This isn’t a simple fix and is not a decision to be made lightly. Quite frankly, many abusive relationships can not be fixed. And yes, for the sake of the children a spouse should divorce an abusive husband or wife. They then need to work hard to insure that the abusive spouse does not have unsupervised visits with the children.
I was married to an alcoholic for 19 years. My husband told me I was being selfish for divorcing him. I wholeheartedly agreed. Because survival is an act of pure selfishness.
My kids are doing great. Really. All three of us are in college together. It’s awesome.
Honey, speak for yourself, but don’t speak for all us kids of divorced parents. We’re not all damaged goods that are the product of stupid parents who couldn’t plan better. In the end, my parents’ marriage was horrible. It was an absolute relief when they got divorced. I won’t say my brother and I were dancing with unicorns; of course we were upset. But we were upset that it took so damn long for the divorce to happen because people like YOU convinced them it was better to stay together for the kids.
You know what? It’s not better to stay together for the kids. It’s one of the worst things you can do to the kids. Kids are smart and pick up on the unhappiness of their parents and if the kids know their parents are only submitting to misery because of them, then that damages the kids far worse than divorce.
Abandoned? Are you kidding me? We had both parents in our lives. Maybe we got lucky, but never once did we feel like our father abandoned us when he moved out or that we had no home because we stayed with him every two weeks. If anything, having a second home was a more stabilizing influence than the tension and trauma going on while my parents were still married.
You know what’s immature and selfish? Cheating on your spouse. Getting divorced from the cheating spouse is NOT immature and selfish. Divorcing my mother was the best thing that could have happened to my father. Divorcing his cheating ex-wife was the best thing that could have happened to my husband.
It’s also immature and selfish to pass judgement on millions of people just because you were blindsided by your own divorce. It’s also immature and selfish to do that while enmeshed in an abusive relationship. Not to mention the damaging lesson you’re teaching your kids that it’s better to stay in an abusive relationship than seek a divorce. I thought we grew out of that mentality when society started treating women as more than just property.
You aren’t the only one who ended up fine after a divorce. By the time I was 18 I had witnessed three divorces as a result of my parents, and I turned out just fine. I loved that my parents weren’t together because I got double the holidays!
Best thing my mother ever did was leaving my drunk ass drug addict father. She saved us because I can tell you life would have been a hell of a lot worse if she hadn’t. I guess she didn’t try hard enough or something to get him to change, I mean 16 years being married wasn’t hard enough after all.
So here’s a big eye roll to you. Generalized statements about issues you know nothing about are dangerous. And to think you are in or were in or whatever it is, an abusive marriage. Wow. Not smart at all.
Blaming a victim for domestic abuse is absolutely disgusting. When someone you know stays in that situation and is killed because of it, maybe you will see that. Until then, enjoy your bubble.
This post has got to be some sort of bad joke.
Make whatever decisions you want Penelope. But stop trying to make everyone else wrong so you can feel right and secure in your choices.
And another thing, aren’t you not even legally married?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This libertine culture just does not support mothers and fathers trying to put their kids first, even if the marriage isn’t totally ideal. To all the glorifiers of single motherhood and pursuing your own bliss after you’ve procreated — screw off.
Please read Penelope’s other blog entries.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/12/28/the-psychology-of-quitting/
She is a classic case of an abused spouse making excuses for her abuser. She should not be giving relationship or life advice to anyone, ever.
Relationships are challenging things. There is no one blog post that is likely to cover every situation nor would I want there to be one for me. I want to use some critical thinking.
I do think there is something here in this blog post. It has certainly got a lot of people thinking and commenting. I think that is all to the good. I do think many adults could do a little more growing up/maturing/work on themselves. I know I can.
Happiest day of my life was moving out of my parent’s house and removing myself from their crazy. They are divorced and still crazy. My spouse and I spent some months separated. It was HARD for all of us including the kids and we *did* the separation well. It was one of the best learning experiences for ALL of us including the kids. We are still married. We are all living, working, homeschooling together. We are all better off for WORKING it out every single day.
Yes, its true that some people will end a marriage when they haven’t tried all they can to make it work. But that doesn’t mean that every divorce happens because those involved have simply given up. Sometimes it truly is better for everyone if you throw in the towel.
But how do you know if you should walk away from your marriage? The best advice I’ve ever read on the subject said, “you have to earn your way out of a marriage.” In other words, you have to stay in it, stay committed to making it work, until you’ve exhausted every course of action open to you. Once you’ve done that, if the marriage still doesn’t support you in a healthy way, then you can leave.
Yes, divorce hurts kids. So does being constantly exposed to hurtful things that their parents say to each other. A perfect world doesn’t exist so it’s our job to pick the least damaging of the options that we can. Sometimes, that’s the best we can do.
This is the most appalling thing I have read in years. Advocating that abuse victims stay with their abusers (male or female) is unsupportable by itself, but when there are kids involved? You think putting kids in physical danger is better than divorce? I don’t think anyone has EVER advocated that. You need to reassess your entire outlook on life if you really believe any of this.
As a child, from my very earliest memory I watched my father hit my mother on an almost daily basis, frequently he’d beat her into unconsciousness while I was sitting there watching. He’d then pick her off the floor, clean her up and tell her he loved her. As a child I had no concept of how to express love, I would attack children in my kindergarten class, I would headbutt adults, hit my pets… my strongest examples of love were violence and suffering. When I was being badly treated by someone, I thought I was being loved.
My father finally left my mother, but not before beginning to beat me, rape me, and finally kidnapping me and trying to sell me for drug money. I was 7 then, and I remember everything.
It took my mother so long to divorce him because she thought staying with him was the best thing to do for me. She believed that divorce hurts a child more than an abusive marriage. Because of that belief she blamed me for the years of violence and emotional abuse and I blamed her for staying with man who abused her so violently and eventually abusing me.
That marriage that she stayed in ruined not only her life, and my life, but also our relationship with each other. A relationship that never fully recovered.
I suffered with physical and emotional abuse which I will live with for the rest of my life, I didn’t learn to relate to other humans on a more normal level till I was in my late teens. It took years for me to learn that abuse wasn’t an expression of love, as a result I was raped several more times, beaten by boyfriends and abused by people whom I called friends. All because I had absolutely NO understanding on what a good expressions of emotion were like because of the example of what SHOULD have been the most loving of all relationships, a marriage.
Your children are learning how to express emotions from you and your relationships. If what they’re seeing as acceptable behavior is violence and emotionally abusive, then they learn that is the way to express themselves.
If you’re staying in that relationship for them, you’re not doing anything positive for them at all. My heart always breaks when I hear a parent saying that their in an abusive relationship “for their children” – it’s a horrible ugly lie.
I wish my mother had got a divorce when my father pushed her down the stairs and kicked her in the stomach when she was 7 months pregnant.
Maybe I’d actually have had a childhood then.
Penelope, I just read your blog post – http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/12/28/the-psychology-of-quitting/ – and I am so, so so sorry for you. You’re brainwashed with the amount of abuse you have suffered in your life, to the point that you have Stockholm syndrome and I honestly believe you don’t actually understand what you’re doing in defending your abuser. I feel deeply sorry for you and your children, I truly hope that one day you get the help you need so desperately, and that your children survive this abusive upbringing and don’t hate you as they get older and have to try and form normal relationships themselves.
Thank you for sharing your deeply personal story with us Greyskye.
Thank you K, I hared so much detail in hopes that perhaps, maybe, Penelope will be able to think about what she’s doing to herself and her children.
She is in someways right, it is easy to get into a cycle of abusive relationships. However it is also possible to break that cycle… but you DO NOT do it by staying in that abusive relationship.
I’m finally in a long term relationship with someone who loves me deeply, and who treats me right. So please, don’t feel sorry for me :)
You know, here’s a thought on how you say that odds are a person from a violent relationship will just end up with another partner who’s abusive:
Maybe, just maybe, you should STOP DATING AND LOOKING FOR ANOTHER PARTNER if you know you’re drawn to that type of individual.
For all the talk of putting the children first, making who you’re going to hop in bed with next seems a little selfish, doesn’t it?
Now, this is going to go ignored, but it’s obligatory: This post really seems like a sad attempt at justification for the abuse you detail yourself going through in other posts. For Christ’s sake, woman, your husband NEARLY RAN YOU OVER WITH A TRACTOR. You are in no place to tell victims of abuse not to leave. You. Need. Help. You are giving your children a sad future that’s going to end up just like YOUR life NOW.
My parents got divorced when I was 5 years old and that was in 1967 when it wasn’t popular to get divorced and so most other children were in intact families. My parents were in high school and they started dating. My mom got pregnant so they got married to do the right thing. My dad was Elvis handsome and my mom was a pretty good looker herself, so they were two horny young teenagers that weren’t taught enough about using contraceptives back then. All while they were married they argued. I would sit in my bedroom at night listening to them argue and I would cry. When they finally divorced I didn’t think too much about it, except my dad was giving me a lot of stuff. I lived with my mom for a while and then she decided to move to another city to attend college, so I went to live with my dad and my new step-mother.
I loved my new step-mother, in fact I used to tell people, “She’s so sweet cuz she was born in Sugarland, TX.” She would stroke my head and put my hair behind my ear and I felt so loved in ways my own mother couldn’t. I lived with them a little over a year and then went back to live with my mother because she got remarried to an eye doctor who was much older than her, and sophisticated and had money. Come to find out he was also an alcoholic. I don’t know how long we were living with him before he started sexually abusing me. I was about 8 years old when he started it. He would come into my bedroom late at night when I was asleep and “go down on me”. In other words he was licking my vagina. He would rub his hands on my breasts while he did it and we had a lot of cats because he showed cats as a hobby and there was usually about 4 cats sleeping with me. I was asleep when he would first come in, but as I felt him down there I would wake up. Also the cats would start playing with his hands, that is why I included that info. When I would wake up I would lay there wondering what he was doing and it felt kind of good, so I wasn’t sure what was going on and I could hear my mother coughing in the other room, so my 8 year old brain thought she knew what was going on. I beca
Short version:
My mom got pregnant in high school, parents married to do the right thing. They were awful together. They had nothing in common except they were 2 horny teenagers in high school. They divorced when I was 5. Yeah!
Both parents remarry. I loved my step-mom, she was an affectionate woman and would stroke my hair and put it behind my ears. I loved that. My mom is not affectionate. I lived with my dad and step mom and while then went back to my mom’s house when she remarried to an eye doctor. He was much older and “more sophisticated” my mother thought. He was also an alcoholic. He started sexually abusing me when I was 8 years old and that went on for a couple years. My 8 yr. old brain thought my mother knew about it, so I never told her until I was 16 years old. My mother had my half sister with him, then left him when she was 9 months old. We are 9 years apart in age. My dad’s 2nd wife had an affair and left my dad. Both are now 2 marriages down.
My Mom marries her 3rd husband. He has 3 boys that became my step-brothers. I was 12 when she married this husband and one step-brother was 2 years older than me. The other 2 were younger than me. Well, guess what he started coming into my bedroom at night. I didn’t tell my mom cuz I wanted my older step-brothers friends to like me and was afraid. After a couple years of this I decided to go live with my dad to get out of that situation. It was just my dad and I for years then he remarried to a 3rd wife. I was 16 by then. Remember my dad was only 20 when I was born, so by now he’s 36 and his new bride is 26. Only 10 years older than me and had never lived out on her own. She had lived with her parents till she moved in with my dad and I believe was a virgin and all of a sudden she was hit with a 16 year old teenager. Needless to say, we didn’t get along! Went to go live with my mom again since she had divorced husband #3 and was with #4 now. Husband #4 ended up sexually molesting my little sister.
At 18 I got out of my mom’s house. Ready to be out on my own! I did a lot of partying to numb my pain. I didn’t get married till I was 26. And low and behold, come to find out my new husband was a sex addict and was sexually abusing children. I was so pissed off at God! I was so codependent, I thought if I had a child my him, he would see that his little child is beautiful and not want to do that anymore. NOPE! I found out 3 weeks before I was due with our child he told me he had still been “acting out”. This is while he was in TONS of therapy and I was too. I wanted so bad to show my parents how to make a marriage work and that I was not going to get a divorce “No matter what”! When he told me that this time though, I was outta there! I didn’t know that “No matter what” was going to include sexually molesting little girls.
I went to lots of therapy. In fact my mother is a Marriage and Family Counselor and was always telling me, “Get some therapy, dear”. GAG me! So now I had this little girl by this child molester and he went to jail when she was 2 years old, has a 30 year sentence and has been there for 20 years now. I was single for 7 years before I remarried. He looked good on paper. He had a degree, Electrical Engineer, same as my father, we met at church, he called his family weekly, blah, blah, blah. I always made sure he didn’t touch my daughter in an inappropriate way and he didn’t, so he passed and we married. His parents were in an intact marriage, so I thought he knew what “normal” was than I did. We started fighting from the very beginning, but I would always feel like I was the one that had the problem. But really we were arguing because he is narcissistic and if it wasn’t his way or about him, he was breaking me down piece by piece, taking down any self-esteem I had and I let him. I was just about to leave him when I was 36 when he asked me to marry him. I wanted more children, my biological clock was ticking, so I said yes.
We had couple years of a good marriage because we had a daughter together and everything was about her. She was so darling and so much fun. She buffered our relationship and my drinking. We both had great jobs then and we were living the good life. Big house, 2 new cars, swimming pool, etc. We were active in church and were there every time the doors were open. Bible study, choir, you name it. Then we decided to move to a smaller city and for me to stay home with the 2 girls, with the intention of me staying home with the girls because our daughter together had severe separation anxiety and I was tired of tearing her off of me when I took her to day care and because of our “Christian/church” beliefs that that would be the best thing for our children. We moved and it went all downhill. He became more controlling and I became miserable. Our daughter was at my side 24/7. If I showered, she showered with me, if I fed the dogs, she came with me. She would not go anywhere without me. I ended even having to sleep with her for a couple years. My husband snored so loudly and our daughter couldn’t sleep without me. AND he condoned all of this. If I wanted to take a shower without her, he would ask me, “Why can’t she shower with you?” I did not have a moment to myself. The church was constantly telling us to put others before yourself, so I thought that that was what I was doing, being a good Christian. I went back to work after a couple of years, but after staying home he still expected me to do all the things I had done while not working. In other words, HE DIDN’T DO CRAP! I was so miserable and depressed! I had gotten on antidepressants. We went to marriage counseling over the last 3 years of our marriage and nothing changed. I tried getting a job at night so I would have a different schedule than him and he would have to do more and maybe we would get along. NOPE! I got suicidal for at least 6 months before I left thinking I had made a vow to God and I shouldn’t divorce because I was a strong Christian. By this time our daughter was 9 years old. I wanted to have at least one child with an intact marriage. I figured it would just be better to kill myself than divorce. But thank GOD, I finally realized God would rather have me alive for my girls than kill myself by staying in this marriage.
Leaving that marriage was devastating! I had no self-esteem, no money, because he made sure I didn’t, my own narcissistic father wouldn’t let me borrow the money to leave my husband and our daughter was heartbroken. She gained a ton of weight, started having migraines and my older daughter was now a senior in high school. I couldn’t be there for her for her senior year. My husband wouldn’t give me any money to help support the girls while we were going through the divorce, that lasted 18 months. My mother supported me for one year of that. If she hadn’t I would have been on the streets without a car. My older daughter and I were at odds most of the time cuz of my depression and drinking and going out to bars. She graduated and moved to another city to go to a junior college on full scholarship. She graduated 10th in her class.
I remarried for the 3rd time now and I have finally found my soul mate. I used to think that when people said the spouse was their soul mate, they were lying. When people asked me if I thought there was such a thing as a soul mate I would say I don’t know. What is so interesting is that he is the type of man I had always dreamed of, but couldn’t find and I thought I just had to settle for what I found. What happened was our youngest daughters had been friends for 6 years and so we new their parents. Well, then my daughters friends parents went through an awful divorce about a year after mine. The husband would go to his daughter’s athletic events and so would I. We ended talking for a couple months at the events and then he just asked me out. He is 11 years younger than me, so it never occurred to me that he would be interested in me. We went out that weekend and have been together every since. We didn’t tell our daughters about us dating for several months in case things didn’t work out, but we knew 3 months into dating we had a future together. We married one year later and have been married for 2 years now and it’s great. We do have our problems, but we are great together. We bring out the best in each other. I tell our kids, that some people bring out the worst in each other and some bring out the best. My husband now brings out the good in me and I in him. I never knew I could be so loved and he shows it in his actions. My ex said he loved me, but his actions didn’t show it.
So to finish this all up, I did the best I could with what I new at the time, just as my mother did. I don’t condone divorce, but I don’t condone staying in a marriage that just doesn’t work for whatever reason. You have to do the best you can with the knowledge you have at the time. I think P will earn this eventually. At one time I would have told you I was going to stay in my second marriage no matter what because of my Christian beliefs, but after going through the lessons I had to learn, I left. So P is wanting to make it work, but later my say in her blog, “Man, what the hell was I thinking?” She just didn’t have enough information yet.
Penelope, I did like the post and think people should think more of the children when they divorce. That said, I am recently divorced with 3 children. We are trying to Bird’s Nest and have been at it for 14 months. It is hard as hell. The kids stay in the house and he and I rotate out every few days. I keep a bag packed at all times and often feel like I live out of my car. I crash in a friend’s spare room (actually I rotate friends) because I don’t have the money to get a separate apartment. I tell myself it if easier on the kids not to have but one ‘home base’ and that I am better able to handle the inconvenience. Also, my ex and I both do believe that the failure of our marriage was our fault not theirs and so we should be the ones that have to bear the pain of 2 homes. It is hard and I hate it sometimes.
Occasionally I think this is kind of like an open marriage. Except we don’t sleep together. I don’t care who or what he does, I just don’t want it to have to be with me. But because of the nesting, I still feel like his wife sometimes. I do most of the house stuff although we both work f/t.
Marriage is hard, divorce is hard, life is hard. And messy. I’m hoping our sacrifice in being ‘latch key parents’ will help our kids feel secure even though children of divorce.
also, I did link this to my blog’s fb page and put it on my blog about my experience bird nesting. I hope that is ok.
I started out very angry with you Penelope.
Your advice is horrible and it still is. But I couldn’t understand how you could give such awful advice.
But after reading your other bog entries…I can see why.
All I’m left with is a feeling of deep sympathy and sadness for you. I pity your children most of all.
A childhood full of abuse to an adult relationship full of abuse. That’s all you know how to do, is be hurt and then explain it away.
I have no doubt that you fully believe that you deserve it when you get hit. All your life, someone has been hurting you. I imagine it’s the only way you know how to feel anything.
I hope one day you seek help, if not for you…then do it for your children. They deserve to have healthy love modeled for them. Don’t stunt their emotional growth, like yours was.
I’m so sorry for everything life has done to you. And maybe you’ll live to see the day that you are healthy, happy, and in a real relationship as an equal partner.
But please, stop giving relationship advice to others, when you have no idea how a healthy, normal relationship works.
Growing up, I was extremely happy that my parents separated and I wished that they had much earlier. I left home anyway without graduating high school because things still sucked, but they weren’t nearly AS bad without my parents seeing one another, and most of the remaining awfulness was from my mother taking things out on me, which was *of course* selfish, but not the sort of thing that people are prone to refrain from out of desire not to be selfish.
My general impression of my friends is that divorce is almost always better for them than the alternative would have been unless one parent is badly abusive, in which case the other parent really should have protected them more after the fact but still shouldn’t have stayed married.
You literally believe that a person being beaten by their spouse should just tough it out.
Seek professional help.
1. Amen
2. I am a child of multiple divorces.
3. I was raised by a BPD mother.
4. I know people ask to interview you all the time but if you want to interview me I would be willing. I am not famous or have a blog but I am also not an idiot and maybe my perspective can help with your research on BPD and parenting.
“In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control reports that most domestic violence today is a 50/50 thing. Both parties are responsible.”
This absolutely a flat-out misrepresentation of the study and blatant abuse and misuse of the statistic.
The statistic states that (roughly) 50% of abusers are male and (roughly) 50% are female. This study says nothing about the relationship between an abuser and victim. You are flat-out wrong in your use of this statistic. I’m frankly appalled that you applied this study so incorrectly and out-of-context. I don’t take the time to comment on your statistical embellishments but this one is simply egregious!
Yes!
I really wish P would respond to some of the people who have questioned her statistics or professionals who have pointed out flaws in some of this.
I wish there were real discussions going on here.
This post tells us 2 things
1) farmer beat the crap out her again
2) she hasn’t fixed him yet.
Shame on the ex-husband, Melissa and every other family member who does not remove those kids from this household. They are all ignoring reality.
I am divorced; I’m not proud of it. I’m the product of divorced parents, as was my ex.
I don’t think anything you’ve said is wrong. In fact, some things you said are absolutely true, such as the bullshit about “kids being resilient”. I HATE hearing that. It’s nice to hear someone finally express empathy for what the *child* is feeling, instead of making excuses for the immaturity of the parents.
Still, I don’t think the reasons for divorce are always so cut and dry. Sure, many of the situations you mention do occur, and are largely the result of immaturity and selfishness.
However, family dynamics are very complex, and the incidence of things like BPD is becoming a very real problem. If one of the parents is “crazy”, it doesn’t matter if they’re being immature or selfish — they aren’t rational enough to attempt to work through anything.
Our society as a whole has a lot of maturing to do, especially with regard to families and children. Divorce is bad, but pure child abuse and neglect are even bigger and more prevalent issues. Until we get a handle on something as simple as not beating the shit out of our kids because *we* feel bad, it will be hard to expect people to handle adult relationships in a reasonable fashion.
I was physically and emotionally abused by my father. My mother allowed it to happen, both to me and to her. If she’d gotten a divorce when I was little, there might have been a chance that I would have wanted a relationship with either one of them as an adult.
As it is, I struggle with depression and a deep-rooted lack of self-esteem. I refuse to have a relationship with the man who tried to destroy me, and my relationship with the woman who let it go on is tenuous.
I would have been a lot better off if my parents had divorced instead of “staying together for the children” (something Mom admitted to me after they divorced, long after I’d grown up and moved away). So, maybe you should keep your judgmental attitude and your TERRIBLE advice to yourself.
“And there’s great research to show that if you picked an asshole the first time, you’ll pick the same type of asshole the second time.”
For a while, I tended to date the same kind of women as my ex, only realizing this pattern after a lot of therapy and reading. Without such intervention, most people will do this exact thing.
I think there’s a lot to be said for the idea that you pick someone who will allow you to relive your childhood drama.
I think we do this whether or not the relationship was healthy or not, whether or not the drama was gargantuan or miniature. In a good scenario, this is healthy and you work it out and move past it. In a bad scenario, you merely repeat an unhealthy cycle.
I guess that’s the theory, that you repeat these cycles until you finally figure-out what the problems are within yourself and solve them. The mind requires closure, answers.
The tricky part is that one has to be aware of this process in order to take advantage of it. I know that, for myself, I didn’t understand this process until well into my late 30’s (45 now).
Many people never realize it and never break out of the cycle- if they did, we wouldn’t have so much child abuse, substance abuse and other problems- so kudos to you for figuring it out. :)
I was six years old when my parents divorced. I remember that when I was five I told my mom I hated my father and she asked me not to tell him that. I felt this great sense of relief when they finally separated. They fought all of the time.
My son’s father and I never even went on a date. (I got pregnant really young) Interesting to see how some of these studies might apply to a situation like this when a child was never in a single family home…
I would like to comment on statement number 3, the “dumb people don’t get divorced” idea.
I think you perhaps ignored some of the other reasons why people who have college degrees have less divorce. First of all, they likely got married later in life when their goals and plans were firmly set.
Second of all, people with college degrees are more likely to be able to afford services to offset some of the conflicts in a marriage. For example, if a couple fights constantly over housekeeping, a well-off couple can hire a housekeeper and eliminate a problem. Whereas a couple without a college degree is unlikely to have such a solution.
Third, you are making a HUGE assumption that a college degree means that somebody is smart and the absence of a college degree means that somebody is stupid. This is a short sighted and insulting outlook on life.
I’m going to add this to my list of reasons I’m glad I’m never having children. Also, I spent a lot of time wishing my parents would divorce so I wouldn’t have to listen to them fight anymore. But they didn’t, and now I repeat that behavior in my relationship.
How “dumb,” “selfish,” and “immature” are you?
I’ve noticed a pattern in Penelope’s opinions on things — they go like this:
A. I see two options here.
B. Option (1) has at least one major downside.
C. Therefore, everyone should always choose option (2).
This features errors at every stage of reasoning. There are often more than two options; typically, all options have downsides, and relative, not absolute, merit is the realistic criterion; and situations vary.
I started to understand this when I read her posts having anything to do with gender. The typical real research finding on gender difference is something like “women are more X than men, but the variability among women is bigger than the difference between the sexes.” Put another way, if you randomly selected male-female pairs and always bet a dollar that the female would be more X, in the long run you’d come out ahead, but not by much more than pocket change, and you’d have to play a lot of rounds to be sure. (And if the bets involved uneven odds, you might actually LOSE money.)
And yet Penelope always interprets these findings with so much more certainty than is warranted. It’s like she’s addicted to heuristics and part of that addiction is denying that heuristics are merely useful lies. Maybe she’ll make good decisions in her life on balance; I don’t know. But we can only be certain of it in the long run, and in the meantime I predict she’s going to make a fair number of bad bets.
This is a very complex comment. I think I detect wisdom here, but it may take me a while to truly understand it. ;)
The only way someone with the intelligence to understand statistics reasons in this way is to justify pre-existing emotional conditions.
In other words, this is how you deal with guilt and regret when you never learned how to deal with guilt and regret. Implicit in this desire to rationalize decisions is the inability to sanction your own emotional state. If she gave herself permission to feel the way she feels instead of being fixated on changing the way she acts, you’d see deeper and better critical analysis in posts like these.
I’m almost 29. My parents got divorced when I was probably in 9th grade. It sucked. A lot. P is right, two homes is bullshit. I have two younger siblings who took it worse than I did and still I really don’t think ever recovered. My parent still don’t talk or really get along but they don’t mean ill will towards one another any longer. My mom and my dad’s long time girlfriend came to watch me curl the other weekend (rocks and ice and sweeping) and it made me profoundly happy that they get along. Why? Because that’s all I ever wanted – for my parents and their new families to get along. To be one big family.
I’m glad my parents got divorced. My father was an alcoholic and had some variety of mental illness (sociopath? borderline?). I just wish my parents had never gotten married to begin with. It was their marriage that hurt me. I was then abandoned by my father but was told that I was responsible for him abandoning me. Although I don’t see him, I once in a blue moon get a letter from him stating the same.
Only delusional people could blame an 11 year old for their choices after the divorce.
I am married and once we have kids, divorce is off the table. My husband is really wonderful and will be an amazing parent (honestly, better than me because he is very patient and I am not and I need to stay with him if I’m to be a mother). But I want a divorce anytime anything goes wrong because of my upbringing. I will never do it though because I do think divorce damages kids. It damaged me. But, so did my parents’ marriage and, in my case, the divorce was the lesser of two evils. I was terrified of my father so even though his abandonment hurt me and caused me to get abused by men later, it was still easier and quieter and yes, more boring, just living with my mom and not having to worry about being threatened with getting pushed out a window when he was drink.
So, violence or threats of it and alcoholism were definitely worse for me then divorce.
Divorce is bad for kids generally. If you find yourself going through it, the goalisto be in the teeny percentage that doesn’t fit the stats. No stats apply to 100% of kids.
I could tell you that I “abandoned” mykids (or was forced to), but they are extremely remarkably happy and successful young people (according to their other parents, teachers, friends and achievements). So the important question is really just either (1) am I lying? or (2) how did I do it?
And there isn’t space here to go into that :-)
(Obviously according to them they are happy too, but what else do they know? as you point out.)
And apologies for my dodgy space bar!
Many of you seem to misunderstand what P said. She didn’t say that people should stay in their shitty marriages and be unhappy. She said people should quit being delusional about what divorce is and make your marriage better.
Of course there are exceptions. But the majority of divorces are not the great relief that each person was looking for. For most of us divorce sucks. We’d be better off if our parents put away their pride and worked out their differences. Break the pattern of belief that marriage doesn’t have long stretches of boredom, conflict and heartache. People take the commitment to mean “I will be happy now that I am with you” Really, getting married means “I will travel this road with you, whatever happens” and when you add kids to the mix, they trump EVERYTHING. If you don’t like that, do us all a favor and don’t have kids.
Penelope you are sick.
I realised this when I saw your photo of your bruise and your ass – really trying to get attention to your gorgeous and hurt body. It almost made me want to stop reading your blog.
However I also love your blog and you and you have helped me with my life. That’s why I’m being so harsh. I don’t care that other commentators will hate this comment – I just want you to know that someone who cares about you thinks this of you. You probably know it yourself. So get help. I know you hate happiness psychology, but please try to get help. (Yes I’ve read almost all your posts including the one regarding your childhood abuse. It worries me. You worry me – but then everything considered, you are doing great. How’s Melissa and her new boyfriend btw, since we’re talking about divorce and picking husbands?)
Now – I agree with your post. Divorce should not be in a parent’s vocabulary. Have you wondered why Asians (as per your example) tend not to get divorced even though many Asians are shitty husbands? It’s their culture, that teaches family values and sticking together.
But I also think this post is justifying your behavior. But again, I think you and your husband can work through it. I know women with physically abusive husbands who stayed together. My friend’s husband actually got therapy and stopped being abusive. People don’t talk about this stuff, but marriages can work out through difficult things.
Having said that, picking a good husband the first time round is extremely important. So I’m in the “take your time, singles” category though I’m married.
I also agree that you need to take responsibility if you want to get divorced.
But if your husband wants a divorce? I guess there’s not too much you can do other than try.
And of course there are situations where you should get a divorce – where not getting a divorce will make you half a parent and half a person.
Thank you for tackling this difficult topic.
Yet another bullshit argument constructed to comfort yourself that you’re doing the right thing by staying in a marriage that makes you miserable and in which there is domestic violence.
Seriously. What a load of shit. My mother’s father was an alcoholic and my grandmother and he had a terrible marriage. Their children would have been far less damaged had she left him when they were young. She didn’t, and they’ve all been left with the consequences of growing up in a destructive household.
Of course people should try and make their marriages work. They should get counselling and make sure the marriage is not saveable before they call it quits.
But to say divorce is always, always wrong is such crap.
I like the inference that college-educated asian women are smarter than college-educated other people. That’s cultural, not smart or not smart.
Actually, it’s racist.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
I like the photo.
There are a lot more than 5 reasons why this article is biased and irresponsible. As soon as you made the blanket statement about Divorce being immature and selfish, you established that you had an agenda and would only be supplying “evidence” that supported it. I believe that you “coaching” individuals in this arena would be ethically irresponsible.
another great post ms. trunk. (and i really mean that) what makes me wonder (and maybe i shouldn’t) is after you got a divorced, why the hell did you remarry? you were home free? it’s like the person in the horror movie who goes back in the haunted house after they got out. everyone watching says don’t go back in!
Wow! I never looked at divorce that way from the kids perspective. I’ve always heard, “the kids will be happy, if the parents are happy” and “kids are resilient” This quote from your piece sums it up.
“Where does this leave the kids? They don’t get a new chance until they grow up. So now they have to shuttle back and forth between two homes so that their parents can get another chance. Meanwhile, the kids don’t get a second chance at their childhood. ”
I do, however, mourn for the spouse who tries to keep the family together when the other partner is set on leaving and “starting a new life.” What’s a spouse to do in that case?
As always a VERY insightful piece, Penelope.
You’re an idiot. Do you know where I found your blog? I’ll tell you – Get Off My Internets!! Now I see why.
I agree that people should not go into a marriage thinking that divorce will be an easy out but what really pisses me off is your last point about people who are victims of violence.
Yes, it DOES take two people to fight, but it only takes one person to be an abusive asshole and beat his/her partner because they can’t deal with their emotions in any other way.
Some assholes cleverly disguse themselves as nice poeple and then change.
Sometimes drawing boundaries does not stop physical abuse. If “Honey, when you’re mad don’t slam me into the bedpost” is your boundary then you’ve got a big problem because I know your Farmer will cross that invisible line again in the future.
Do you think staying in an abusive relationship to “try and work it out” will teach your kids that violence is NOT ok? No. You’re wrong. They’ll think that it’s normal. And I don’t believe that abusive people can change. You’re wrong again.
While, to you, divorce may be “running away”, to me and my family, it is a brave move (in some, specifically violent, cases)and it would have saved my Aunt’s life because she was murdered by her abusive husband.
I hope you run lady, before it’s too late.
You are a good writer, and know how to stir controversy.
I’m even more fascinated by both
– the ones that get ticked-off with this deliberate flaming, and
those who are so impressed with your “thought-provoking” insight.
Comprehensive reading is a rare skill indeed.
This the is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a long time. There are plenty of children who have had their parents divorce and are perfectly fine. I happen to be one of them and I would never have wanted my mother to stay in a marriage for me or my brother. I would in fact feel guilty if that was the reason why she did not get divorced.
And staying with someone who is violent towards you and saying that said violence is your fault? Are you kidding?
#4 struck home for me as it described my ex to a T