How can you give up your own happiness by doing what you think is right?

In my mind, yes. But only if you can both behave like adults. If you're just going to have stress and tension, no.

My ex and I stayed together for the kids and the kids never knew. They had a good childhood with both parents intact.

I am a product of that kind of thinking ..... DON'T DO IT!!! It just teaches your kids how to have bad relationships.

No I didnt I always thought my kids were safer with me .

I did and when my kids were finally out of college and I felt it was safe to leave the marriage, I told my kids I was planning to divorce their dad. My daughter immediately exclaimed "Why didn't you do this years ago!!!?" In other words indicating to me that we all would have been happier if I had taken some action earlier.

While I thought I was doing the right thing by doing the safe thing and staying in the marriage - I'm not sure exposing kids to a dysfunctional parental relationship and the constant anger and dissatisfaction is a good thing.

I would love to have modeled a good marital relationship, but it just wasn't possible in my situation. I need to be authentic. I often wonder what their life would have been like with happy parents, living separately or with better partners, but I chose not to take that gamble in real life, only dream about it while trapped in unhappiness.

I believe in marriage and think it's good to have 2 caring parents, but just because it's the norm and the ideal in our society, it's not the best scenario for everyone. It's a hard call to make - all we can do is what we hope is best for the family.

I was doing that until recently when I realized how badly it was damaging my kid.. Now that we're out,we've both never been happier.

12 yrs of extreme misery trying to do what I thought was the right thing for my daughter.

Now, after being rid of the parasite, I am extremely happy and my daughter is a lot happier and we are closer than ever.

Wish I had the strength to have done it earlier. Perhaps after the 2nd time I caught her going with other men behind my back would have been a good point.

What makes you think you will be happy divorced?

I think if someone chooses to bring children into this harsh world, they should at least be there for them. If the relationship is intolerable, then that might impact on the children, in which case it's best to split.

My therapist, and my ex's therapist, AND my kid's therapist all had the same advice. Don't stay together for the kid's sake. For us it was great advice. One size does not fit all, however.

I stayed until last year thinking I didn't want my kids to be from a broken home. Until I realised that I was teaching my daughter to love a man who was selfish and disrespected me. And I was teaching my son that that was how you treat a woman. He never thought I'd leave. We share custody of our children. We live 10 mins apart. We Co parent now. He is a much better X . lol

Interesting. I got into a marriage because of a child. No, not mine and not a shotgun wedding. We made a contract between us because of the child. Details available if you want.

To a point, once you have kids then it's about their happiness

I did for quite some time, until I had to accept what everyone was telling me, it is not good for the kids either. Lots of stress and dramas for the first 6-12 months, then things improved. 19 years later I still have an exceptional relationship with both my offspring. Kids must come first for me, but staying with their mother was not the best outcome for any of us.

Yep. Like most of the comments indicate, I was not modeling the behavior I wanted my children to internalize. I was beyond miserable, nothing more than a paycheck. So I left. I've never regretted it for even a nanosecond.

The kids know and they are miserable. Always best to be honest and move on from your spouse. If you're lucky you might be able to maintain a friendship with your ex. Stay close to the kids. See them often and DON'T spend time with your GF/ BF and the kids. Unless you have a well established relationship with another partner. I know people how have a different BF GF every month. Not cool for the kids

I'm conflicted on this issue - you (figuratively speaking if your question isn't about anything you're currently going through). I think when a partner focuses on the "me" - there's already an issue and via my own experience I've learned that even opposites can create something special.

On a side note - arranged marriages are the most successful on earth because they learn to work sh@t out. I've always found that to be an interesting fact.

In 1990 I was head of Maintenance at a local McDonald's chain and my not then wife was a cashier at one of the restaurants that I managed. She was attracted to my now non-existent curly hair as it stuck out of my baseball cap and I was attracted to her smile and how the uniform complemented her body. We got together and it wasn't an intellectual thing - picture the Tim Allen grunt on Tool Time. Well, she got pregnant and it wasn't an accident - it's not like I did something freaky at the opposite end of the pool we were swimming in and the sperm magically made their way to her womb.

At any rate, we decided to do the "right" thing and got married at the end of the year - it was horrible for many years - more so for her than me but it's certainly a time period in our life that could have been avoided. That was 28-years ago and I couldn't imagine life without her and she watches everything I eat to make sure that she doesn't have to live life without me. We have grand babies now and our children are amazing. When we set aside our egos and focused our attention on the kids - everything changed and the happiness or joy that we felt was eluding us came back to us 10-fold. I'm sorry for the bad times but not sorry that I married my wife and if I could go back I'd change a lot of things but only to the point that it didn't prevent me from meeting my life partner in 1990.

My point to this book is "don't give up" you got together for a reason and even if the reasons have changed - it can and in the majority of cases - get better. If you want your children to choose good life partners - show them that you didn't become intimate with their mom because she was hot.

No,it isn’t. Stick around for that reason and everyone is unhappy. leave if you want to leave....just remember your responsibilities to your kids.

Nope, and nope.

I lost my kids in a divorce from a highly dysfunctional marriage, she took the kids to a different country, changed their names and I didn't see them again for 25 years, the cheque still goes out every month, the kids seem happy enough and nobody had to die. It probably would have been me and yes I think the kids suffered but not as much as if I had stayed in that marriage. If you can't make it work and you have tried everything imaginable to make it work then get out for your own sake and for your kids.

I didnt get a chance to as he left me - I am so glad he did because he left me with the children .