I think divorce can harm your children, especially in their teen years. Children typically are resilient if you make the cut clean, but that rarely happens. One parent usually senses the other’s vulnerability viewing this as a weakness... especially if it was a narcissistic relationship. Just try and show your support and love for your children and hopefully this will be enough influence to steer your children in the right direction!

The divorce can harm the kid(s) IF the parents use the opportunity to shit talk one another to the kid and pit the kid against the other parent. Marriage should not be preserved for the sake of the parents imo. Then you are modelling to the kid(s) how to be in an unhappy and unsuccessful relationship. Kids should have happy healthy relationships to look up to so that they will most likely emulate such healthy relationships in their own lives. Otherwise the cycle of abuse or neglect will continue for them in their future relationships. Yes I firmly believe it is best to keep toxic and fighting parents away from one another. That shit does more harm and damage to a kid's developing psyche than a divorce ever would. Signed a child of a divorce that should have happened waaay sooner.

Depends on the relationship between parents. The best thing for me and my son was my divorce. We got along much better when I no longer needed from him and depended on him for anything.

No... Divorce is sometimes the only choice.. Ex spouses get along better after divorce..

Depends on the spouse, I stayed so crazy lady didn't raise the boys

I stayed in an unhappy marriage "for the sake of the kids" and once they were adults, I decided to make my move and leave the marriage. My daughter replied "what took you so long?" And went on to tell me what kind of guy I should look for, haha! --

So much for thinking I was doing the right thing in staying - should have started my happy life much sooner and perhaps set a better example to my kids not to put up with mistreatment. Hopefully better late than never.

When my kids were little, I used to wish I could provide them with a better male role model than my husband. Surprisingly my kids turned out just fine - in fact they are both wonderful adults and I'm proud of them. Can't tell how they would have turned out if I had been a single parent, better or worse, who knows.

All we can do is what we think is best at the time.

Never did meet that better partner for me, but who knows if I might have with an earlier start, when I was younger, like 30 or 40. I was already 50 when I left to start my new life.

Kids pick up on sooooo much more than we realize.

After several years utterly miserable in my marriage, I realized I didn’t want my son to think that was what love looks like. I didn’t want him to emulate me and end up in a cold, loveless, affectionless relationship with someone we could barely talk to with without being snapped at. Eff that.

My son hasn’t been hurt at all by my divorce. He’s thriving.

Divorce would arguably be less harmful than a toxic marriage.