Staying together for the kids after infidelity
31.05.2019
Does Staying Together For the Kids Work?
To answer the question, “Does staying together for the kids work?” we must first analyze a marital conflict from the perspective of a child.
A model of life, communication, attitude towards the world are the main things that a family gives to a child. The family meets the most important psychological needs of a child in safety, in communication, in love. As it is known, in a full family, traditionally, the mother performs the function of the emotional supporter of the family, creates a warm family atmosphere, cares for her relatives, listens to them, understands, while the father largely represents the function of regulatory control, guides others, and regulates their behavior. A complete family is able to deal with the difficulties of everyday life. A child in such a family knows that they are not alone, that their father and mother always stand behind them, they learn to overcome critical situations by the example of decisions made by the whole family. However, this is just a model of behavior, the holy grail of family relationships, life is quite different.
In an effort to save a relationship for the sake of a child, spouses, as a rule, are guided by the interests of that child. That is, they believe that it is better for a child to live in a complete family, even it two spouses don’t see eye to eye. However, by deciding what is best for a child, parents leave their own goals and ambitions behind. In addition, our conscious desire can go against unconscious motives. So, the fear that a child’s life will certainly change for the worse after the parent’s divorce can only be a rationalization of the inner parental complexes, namely, the fear of being left behind and alone. At the same time, parents can also project their own feelings onto their child since the fear of being abandoned sometimes comes from their own childhood.
Of course, there are some situations in which not all hope is lost. For example, the cooling of feelings and alienation between spouses are not yet present in a relationship, and all the disagreements are due to some kind of crisis in relations — some dramatic change in life or infidelity of one of the spouses. In this case, if there is a mutual desire, a relationship can be saved. In this case, the spouses will do their best to keep it between themselves.
Generally speaking, a child will never be good in a family where the parents are in a state of enmity between themselves, even if it is just a cold war. Even if you do decide to stay together for the kids, you may still be at each other’s throats. Children of any age are very sensitive to such mutual hatred. And if teenagers usually react in more proactive ways – by showing aggressiveness towards parents or peers, committing offenses or running away from home, then little ones start to get sick, reacting neurotically.
Insomnia, stuttering, enuresis, childhood fears, obsessive actions, allergies, dermatosis, gastritis in a child form a small list of symptoms of family distress. Sometimes, when a child becomes ill, the kid unconsciously pursues one single goal, they want to attract the attention of parents, distract them from quarrels and reconcile their parents. Small children can quickly "switch" when they change the setting. So, they can be cheerful and active on the street, in kindergarten, when visiting friends and relatives, but this is not a reason to assume that a child is not disturbed by anything. On the contrary, by doing their best to avoid unpleasant experiences, a child turns their energy against their own health.
In addition, the subjective experiences of a child whose parents constantly quarrel among themselves are very difficult. The younger the child is, the less they understand the relationships of people, the more inclined they are to take the blame for everything that happens on themselves. They think, "If mom and dad argue with each other, then they do it because of me, then I'm bad." A kid feels like the center of discord. The consequences of such thoughts are feelings of guilt, sadness, fear, rage, and anger. All these feelings and thoughts lead to a decrease in emotional wellbeing, difficulties in communication, experiencing loneliness and rejection, negative self-perception, low self-esteem. Such children constitute a special problem group that needs the attention of parents, psychologists, and special teaching personnel.
Indifference is equally destructive as well. Spouses may not even argue about anything, they agree to live together for the sake of the children, but each of them is going to live their own separate life. When it comes to the actual relationships – this solution seems to be perfect, but it is indifference that creates a sense of absolute emptiness in a child - when nobody needs anyone, including a child themselves. A family environment in which people are not used to openly expressing their feelings cripples a child’s psyche. Being used to suppressing their emotions, a child, even in adulthood, becomes unable to communicate with other people.
Firstly, they do not understand what the people around them want since they did not have the opportunity to observe manifestations of feelings in their parents, and secondly, they are unable to express their own feelings because for them it is associated with the threat of rejection. In general, the habit of hiding your feelings can turn back in adolescence as a reaction of protest against parents, with all the ensuing consequences – a child may even decide to abandon their home altogether. So, to decide whether or not you should stay together for the children, let’s list all of the pros and cons of such a decision.
Staying Together For the Kids: Pros and Cons
Cons
The marital alliance itself is not that important
Divorce will not go unnoticed for both children and parents. But divorce does not destroy the world of a child. Yes, they are going to wonder why mom and dad have stopped living together and loving each other, or maybe one of the parents has disappeared from their world altogether.
However, for a child, it is more important to know that they have a mom and a dad, that they both love them and take part in their upbringing. This is where you need to realize that the stamp in your passport is just a formality. Living together after divorce for children is not necessary, you may start your own separate lives.
A child will quickly adjust to the new life, they will get used to the fact that their father has his own house, and their mother has her own one. Moreover, in most families, a mother watches after children, and a father spends all of his time at work, earning a living for his family. In such families, children see their dads only on weekends, so due to a divorce, little will change, especially if you agree among themselves about adequate custody of your child. The main thing is to explain to a child that no one is to blame for the divorce and to support them in every possible way.
Unhappy parents = unhappy child
The ability to enjoy life, smile, and be happy is true art. Not everyone can see the good things in anything. The atmosphere of love, mutual respect, joy teaches a child to be happy and create an atmosphere of happiness around them. If parents are constantly depressed, angry, they are unable to smile - a child will think that this is quite a normal model of behavior and will follow it.
But this does not mean at all that it is necessary to divorce at the sight of slightest difficulties and isolated cases of bad mood of your partner, all the more so, everyone has their bad and difficult days. You need to go your separate ways only when each of you tried everything you could to save a relationship, but nothing came out of it.
Children will not appreciate your divorce for their sake
By sacrificing your happiness and freedom as well as keeping your relationship together for children, you automatically shift the responsibility for your failed life onto your offspring. Moreover, sooner or later the thought, “I've sacrificed everything for you,” will prevail over you. How do you think a child will feel after something like that? The oppression of guilt. Their weak mind is simply not able to withstand this, therefore, do not sacrifice your life for the sake of your child. Staying together for the kids should be a selfless act, don’t ask for anything, they had no part in it.
Pros
Conflicts can be hidden
According to various researches, children are better at tolerating scandals that are hidden, the cold wars, if you will. Because in the case of regular quarrels, children see everything there is to see, they feel everything there is to feel, while hidden conflicts are something completely incomprehensible to the naive mind of a child. All of the little signs of mutual dissatisfaction may go completely unnoticed by a child, they are not yet aware of all the signs, gestures, and different aspects of human interactions.
Second Chances
You must be able to realize that not all conflicts signify the end of a relationship, some of them may be quite insignificant and quite easy to handle when you really think about them. Don’t panic or surrender to your own feelings. Virtually any problem in a relationship can be overcome, but, this doesn’t mean that they should be ignored. You have to battle for your happiness, only lots of work and effort will help you defeat that cancer that poisons your relationship, do nothing is to let it grow. Everything is possible, staying together for the kids after infidelity may seem impossible, but it isn’t.
So, should we stay together for the kids? Every case is different, the hardest decision is the one that you have to do yourself.
How to Stay Together For the Kids?
As we’ve just said, not all of the conflict situations should be seen as the end of a relationship. You must understand that you are a completely different person to your partner, you will never be the same and because of that, you may not see eye to eye at all times.
That being said, if we are to summarize the strategy of battling this cancer in a family, then you have to find the cause of a problem, identify the ways of removing it, and then do your best to fix that problem. Staying together for the children may be quite difficult, but there is always a way to do it.
In this day and age, there are countless ways of doing so, there are family psychologists, tons of literature, articles, videos, movies, even music, there is an entire world of content that is focused on “repairmen of relationships.”
So, how to stay together for the kids? Identify your problem, have an honest discussion, and do your best to fix that problem, make compromises.
Signs you should divorce instead of staying together for the kids
Relationships begin to crumble in different ways: some couples constantly quarrel and enter into arguments, and others stop noticing each other at all, as if cohabiting on the same territory without feelings, joint plans and means of communication, someone catches a partner on constant cheating and others can not tolerate the bad habits of their partners. That is not a surprise that even after fifteen years of marriage, you can suddenly realize that you do not want to continue this painful and stressful story. Do not close your eyes to what is happening in the relationship, and then you will not miss the critical signal that you should better live separate lives even if you have children.
Hopeless infidelity
If your partner cheats on you brazenly and systematically. And they don't even manage to hide this from you: they start to spend all the evenings and nights away from home, systematically coming up with new miserable excuses and denying all your evidence. You can, of course, continue to believe that all people are the same and do not divorce until you realize that this person is no longer your life partner at all. But when choosing to get a divorce or stay together, think about yourself on the first place – is it healthy for yourself to tolerate all this pain and being treated as no one by a person you once loved and had children with? It is not worth it, you are a human first of all, and you shouldn’t put up with being treated like that. And staying together for the kids after infidelity won’t give them a good example of behavior in a couple.
Physical abuse in marriage
If you still think that an ancient Russian proverb "a beating man is a loving man" is all-time wisdom, then here are your statistics: every year about 13,000 women die from domestic violence in this same country, Russia, — that is, one woman every 40 minutes. And many of them probably also thought that this would not happen again and that everything could be fixed. Do not turn yourself into a victim of bullying and end the relationship after the first incident, no matter what other people may convince you of
If any of the spouses allow themselves to beat their partner, then you need to immediately put an end to this relationship and run away, as living with them is simply not safe. This is the reason to divorce number one, which in no case can not be ignored. If a man hit once, felt the satisfaction of violence and went unpunished, he would hit again and again because serious cases of physical punishment are more concerned with males. Talking here about love and respect between partners is meaningless. A woman must first of all worry about the safety and health of herself and the children and not be shy to call the police in a critical situation.
No respect
They know that you care about them and dictate you how you should live. When they criticize your work and humiliatingly talk about your career prospects even after years of marriage, this is when to get a divorce. They do not like how you drive the car and where you spend the money. They forbid you to go on vacation without them and have friends of the opposite sex. Your spouse interferes with their opinion in your relationship with friends and colleagues, says a world like "Pathetic", "Worthless", "You cannot cope with anything on your own" in your address. That is not normal, it means your partner doesn’t respect you as an individual, your personal space and feelings. Either you have plugs in your ears and a masochistic nature or such an attitude needs to be stopped by divorce once and for all.
It also sometimes happens that it annoys you to even listen to them so that you switch to your thoughts and try not to notice their presence. Meetings with friends and visits to relatives are your favorite days of the calendar because you can finally get back to being a normal social personality. And you don’t even remember when you last had sex and when they sincerely gave you compliments. And yes, everyone around thinks that marriage with a “shadow” is better than loneliness, but for some reason, they are silent about night tantrums and day-to-day domestic work for the benefit of someone who does not even notice you. If you do not respect each other and the efforts you put into your couple, give your partner a farewell embrace and split up.
Your fights affect children
For harmonious education, children need a full-fledged family, where parents love each other and actively participate in the life of their offspring. If the spouses are constantly arguing, but for the sake of children they try to pretend that everything is good, then it will not deceive anyone. On the contrary, the child will grow up in an unhealthy psychological atmosphere and absorb the model of parents' behavior, which in the future may also destroy their family life. Therefore, the spouses should divorce, retaining friendship for the sake of the children. As when you try to play a role of a happy family but your kids still notice parents fighting, they understand anything perfectly, from your pretending and lying to them, their inability to change or stop anything to finally thinking that moral or physical abuse is a normal part of marital behavioral patterns.
Your needs don't match at all
Another reason for divorcing and the final one among the signs your marriage is unfulfilled expectations. This behavior is more typical of young and immature women. When they got married, they thought that the spouse would constantly carry them in their arms, and the romance would never end. But the reality was completely different. The husband quickly lost the aura of the handsome prince and turned into an ordinary man who likes to eat, produces a lot of mess and dirty clothes, and wants to lie down on the sofa after work. In this case, much depends on the upbringing and worldview of the woman. And if one girl can reorganize, accept what life is different from fantasy, and save the family, the second one will file for divorce and blame her spouse. So, if you expected completely different things and then realized your needs are not being accepted and fulfilled in this marriage, that your partner treats you the way they were brought up, get a divorce because they will not change.
What is more, not everyone is ready to accept all the disadvantages and habits of their second half. Perhaps the spouses are faced with mutual dissatisfaction with each other, which over the years only intensifies and will inevitably lead to separation. Termination of communication between spouses and the lack of common interests. For strong family relationships, it is important to maintain constant communication with a partner, talk, discuss important events and have mutual plans and dreams. Otherwise, over time, the spouses will slowly drift apart from each other, become strangers, and the marriage will lose its meaning.
