Divorce: Saying Good-Bye to the Kids and the Nest

KUDOS! Selfish all the way. Once married it's no longer about "me". It's always about the other person's happiness. If both parties know this and follow it, anything can be worked through.

My husband and I are Christians, and despite our disagreements, we know that we have a duty to each other and vows that we took before God to uphold. How do so many married couples forget about these vows? It's so disappointing how easy it is to get a divorce. It shouldn't be. And if any unmarried couple ever has it in the back of their mind that "Hey, if all fails, there's always divorce", then they should never make the commitment of marriage. It's so sad...

Well being a writer/singer of many heart break and love songs I may think too much and too long about things so please forgive me if I offend anyone. I feel maybe the word institution being invloved with marriage may be the problem. The only other two places I can think that they are used is a "MENTAL INSTITUTION" or a "PRISON INSTITUTION"...............................

Kenny Nash

youtube KENNY NASH "DESIRE"

Wow, well said, my parents have have shared almost 61 years together. I nearly said endured but as you say it takes two sharing equally the ups and the downs of homes, chidren, jobs, chores, finances and everything else that makes the marriage work. I feel that to many people have Soap Opera expectations of marriage, no one ever has to work on an anniversary or birthday and we will live in the big shiny house on the hill that doesn't have a leaky roof or lawn that needs to be mowed or dishes in the sink. Marriage is a dream until Life sinks in! If all you seek is happiness and joy and not the satisfaction that marriage and family can bring skip marriage and as Jeff Foxwothy says date, date, date, date, date, die!

While I whole heartedly agree with the message, when you take the vows "for better or worse", it means forever. Until you are the one who is going thru it, you couldn't possibly relate or truely understand.

I stayed in a marriage and went to counseling (alone) after my spouse was unfaithful the 1st time. He had just gone thru bankruptsy ( his business failed) and felt that he deserved more out of life. I found his emails to other women and so did my son. How devistated my son must have been! All of the questions and guilt, being the one who was caught between his love for his father and the love for his mother!

I worked hard at making myself better and more of the things I thought he was looking for , kept the kids happy and healthy and took care of the house, etc. This only made things worse. He became depressed, it was like an infection, one that I could not help him recover from , no matter what i did or said.

He took a job at night and bascially left our marrige and lives, though we still lived in the same house. This was draining on the kids to the point that my son no longer wanted to come home from collegeand my daughter couldn't wait to leave.

At the beginning of this summer, I found that he was having an affair at work, although he claims she was only a friend. I could no longer live with his infidelity and lies or the fact that he spent no time with this children and couldn't look anyone in the eye, because he was living another life.

When we told our children that we were getting a divorce, I told him that he owed it to them to tell them why. I would no longer carry his burden. I kept my vow, but did not feel and still don't feel that I should stay in a cituation that is clearly over. A marriage takes two people to make it work and in this cituation it wasn't enough.

To my children - I did try for a very long time- for my failures- I am truely sorry.

Thanks Michelle. I am the male version of that woman and found in February that I have 4 afflictions, including depression. I begged & pleaded with my wife of 21 years to stay together, but I nested so well that she has everything she needs and decided I can't give her anything else for her to be happy. My two children saw my depressive, angry side and now sees my calmer side. But memories are hard to forget and I have to accept what is transiting my life. I am very big on loyalty and feel my wife is chucking her future for short term satisfaction. As both sides of her family becomes debilitated at 70 and live between 80 and 95, she will become a burden to our children. I was hoping to bear that trouble, but it's not my call now. Loyalty, not vows is what's missing in our country today.

I found your article so interesting because I too am in the process of a divorce after 25 years of marriage. I had thought about leaving many times over the years but thought it would be best to wait until my two children were older. My one is 20 and the other will be 18. To be honest I think for them it would have been easier for them to adjust had I done it when they were younger. My relationship with both children is a struggle to say the least at this point. They remain living at the "marital" residence while I too got myself an apartment. It is a major life changing experience, except for the relationship issues with my children I would not change it for anything. I work full-time now and am making it on my own. So good luck to you Michelle I wish you all the best!

I can relate to this story from two sides. The first being that I lived through my parents divore at the age of ten, and then living through my own divorce 13 years later. I never saw my father again for over ten years until I completed basic training in the army and went to Bragg, NC. My father passed away last year, and although we never really talked, I did get the chance to tell him that regardless the turnout, there was not hate, no animosity, I simply loved him because he is my father. Even though some hint of resolution could only happen over a phone call, it will have to be enough. As for myself... Well... It took two years for my marriage to disintegrate. My ex-wife bailed on an internet affair with our 11 month old son at the time. It has been 14 years now and the end result is that after 2 different court battles, and 3 different attempts on my part to achieve some kind of make-shift middle-ground has ended with nothing. My family hasn't seen the boy since he was 11 months old and because of my struggles after active duty and being hammered by the court, treating me like a criminal, for a choice I never made, and living over 2500 miles away, I couldn't afford any sort of regular visitation. My last stand to be any sort of father ended 2 years ago with the second court battle. Only this time, it was not my ex I was fighting, it was her mother, because of my ex's continued drug abuse and abusive relationships, her mother succeeded in taking my ex's 2 youngest kids and slipped my son into the temporary custody order after the fact. Wouldn't you know, that low and behold my ex's mother had custody of my son for four years prior to the incident my ex had that allowed CSD to come in and remove her 2 other kids in the first place. This meant that I had been paying child support to my ex for YEARS and she didn't even have physical custody. Not one person let me in on this fact. I had to find out third hand from an old army friend who lives in the same area. So to sum it up, My family helped me retain an attorney in SC, who killed himself before the hearing was set. My ex in-law's attorney accelerated the hearing. I lost my representation and thousands of dollars with no way to afford another retainer. So I walked into a court room alone, 2500 hundred miles away from anything remotely close to support, and promptly got my ass handed to me for the second time. This time I was found unfit as a father due to limited contact.... stripped of the joint custody I shared with my ex, my child support increased four times higher to include $2200 in ortho bills , based on one $18 an hour TEMP job I had right up until a few months before the hearing. So I was actually unemployed when the hearing came up. Up until last week I have been unemployed. I have over five years of college done and a $9 hour call center job is the only outfit that bothered to call. Naturally I take it because I have received nothing but threats from AFS ranging from jail to license suspension, and what little money I had in my bank account was seized. If it wasn't for my family I would be homeless right now. I fought for natural parents rights superceding grandparents rights simply to allow my son to decide for himself whether or not he would want to stay with me. Even his guardian ad litem agreed that my ex's family did anything to cooperate with me or even meet me half way at any time. The whole reason we were in that court room to begin with was because of my ex burning through more than an ounce of meth a week that ended with her current, whatever-you-want-to-call-him, broke her jaw with her other kids around. And wouldn't you know it... After I was laughed at and treated like shit in that courtroom, my ex walked away without having to pay one dime in child support, I was handed all of it. And to add to it all, the guardian ad litem indicated that my son, at the age of twelve, had a clear perception of what was at stake and was mature enough to to make a determination that he wanted nothing to do with me or my family..... The only reply I could muster... was this.... If, in your professional opinion, you feel that a twelve year-old boy actually posseses such a clear understanding of this situation and posseses the maturity to decide for himself what he wants.... Then I want to hear it from his own mouth. I was only met with snorts and scolding glares. I never got a response. 14 years of grief.... all over decisions and actions I am not responsible for, and as a result I get stripped of any real chance to be a father to my own son...
Take solace in the fact that you can carry on a relationship with your children.... watch them grow... teach them the values of what love truly means in the hope that they will embrace it, understand it and live it. I have been stripped of that chance. I made my stand, I fought and was found unecessary except for the money. I had to make a choice to emotionally cut myself off, completely, in order to save my own sanity. There is nothing worse than being held accountable, held in contempt, for someone else's actions while they walk away free from accountablility and responsibility.
Count yourself lucky that you are not living with such misguided hate and animosity and be forced to pay so dearly that you can't even function on your own. I never really had a chance to be the father that I wanted to be, I was told to shut-up in court when I objected to my ex-inlaw's 5th husband stating that he was my son's father.
What sadden's me the most is that my son will grow up learning that vindictive hate, spite and animosity is the right way, to attack, is better than to understand, to accuse rather than reconcile. This was the lesson I have learned.... And I have seen nothing to lead me to believe differently, and I see nothing changing to deter the disintegration of our society and what family really means. Money has made this all possible... after all... it's the only thing left between me and child I will never know. Judge me, accuse me, reprimand me, hate me.... in the end it really doesn't matter... it won't change anything... I'm through defending myself over something that will never change... I wish you the best of luck, and may your struggles bring you to greater understanding that you are able to accept the hand that has been dealt and still find some happiness to sustain you through such a trying time...for you.. and your kids....

Bravo...bravo...bravo...how beautiful you wrote this! How true. I just recently celebrated our 30 years Anniversary. Has it been easy...no but it has been worth it...I look forward another 30 years together! We have been blessed with three beautiful children...two whom have already moved on towards their futures and one little one who is entering the 5th grade.
We unfortunately live in a 'disposable' society....from the innocent soul in the womb that we can dispose of is it is inconvenient to accept...to our commitments with our spouses, family and friendships...we cookie cut our way through life only to live in a life of regrets as we get older.
Life is too short...to sweat the small stuff...and believe me most of it is 'small' stuff....at the end of the day perseverance is true love.
I have three brothers who have walked away from their commitments with their spouses causing great disruption, confusion and pain to their children. Why? because they sought other places what they already had under their noses and you would think they are happy now? No, you take yourself where ever you go...
With that being said...I do believe that if one is in an emotional, physical, or drug abusive relationship one does have to seek help for the emotional well being of the children and self and may need to move on for their safety.
Bravo Michelle on you comments....

I couldn't agree more with your comments. But what do you expect when people today live by the rules of "whatever makes me happy" and " I DESERVE to be happy"? Marriage just like anything in life requires effort, what would make people think that marriages are suppose to be without problems and issues? One of the great contributing factors in my opinion is the notion of "irreconcilable differences". This is such a euphimism for "it's too much effort and I'm too lazy to putforth effort so I want out". Of course you'll always have people who want to rationalize by using the exceptions dealing with abuse, and obviously there are instances where divorce is the absolute necessity for safety reasons. So are we then concluding that half of marriages end in divorce due to abuse? I think not. There are too many marriages that end in divorce because I don't think we truly understand what it means to married and become one with another. Hence, I think it would be helpful for some educational component be included into getting a marriage license, optional of course but highly recommended? Just a thought.

In Reply to Michelle:

People are always so quick to make divorce out as if it's a simple matter of one, or both parties, being "selfish".

If it were that simple, I assure you, half of marriages that began would not end in divorce.

There are a number of factors at work in a marriage, the biggest obstacle being that a coupling is based on two INDIVIDUALS needing to grow together over TIME. None of us are who we were at 25. And if you are, I feel sorry for you. Life is about evolving, and unfortunately at times the people we become cannot coexist together with the common goal of loving one another in a marriage. The author and his wife have raised two beautiful and seemingly well adjusted children. That's an accomplishment in itself and a tribute to the marriage and to them as people, keeping the family unit together even when I suspect the marriage was probably on the rocks long before they left the nest is the most unselfish thing I can think of.

I agree that in the majority a divorces, its a matter of someone deciding the issues are simply not worth investing time in sorting out. And really, a lot of people become worse communicators in the time they are married than when they started, which baffles me.

We have but one life. If you find yourself married to someone who's evolved into a stranger or someone you know all too well now and have decided you no longer WISH to know, than it's trivial to continue. We have one life in which to be happy...the hardest decision anyone will ever make is to decide to cause someone the greatest hurt of abandonment by divorce (for whatever reason) for the hope that they may find someone whom they will be happy with, or in some cases for the solitude they feel is better than the coupling they shared for a decade.

But in that decision is the gift of honesty. The gift of not having someone laying next to you at night who values their vows over the emptiness in their heart. The gift of not having someone walk around half of who they really are to appease you...or the gift of knowing the smile on their face is genuine and not a sentiment in which to keep things "O.K".

Being "O.K" is not what a marriage is...but it's become what so many marriages ARE. And that's a shame.

Divorce is not an easy thing to go through. And it would be nice if everyone tried a little harder as you suggest and life would get better. But even when you try a lot harder and do everything to make marriage work, sometimes it just dies. That's the reality. That said, how one handles the aftermath of divorce is the clue to healing and happiness. My husband and I went through a divorce, worked together to help ease the pain for the kids and all of us are now in a much healthier place. The kids are thriving. It's an ongoing process for everyone involved BUT it's life.

If you don't get married in the first place, then you will never have to worry about getting a divorce! Marriage is overated and on the decline. It seems that in some cases people are penalized financially for being married by the IRS. Then there is the whole sloppy mess when the marriage doean't work and you are faced with the "DIVORCE"! Marriage to some is a piece of paper that represents a license to treat your spouse terribly. Living together means that if you do not respect your partner, then they can walk on you, meaning leave the relationship. Knowing this, one would normally respect their partner more. Who am I to say these things? A retired Psychologist who has counseled many couples about marriage and its problems.

Hi Michelle, Yes. I think unless it is a case of an abusive relationship which can be mental and emotional in addition to physical, the 2 parties should fight to keep their marriage going. Relationships are hard, no matter what type they are. But I was served by my husband who wanted out, I wanted to work on the marriage. In retrospect we should have never married, but since we did I thought we were in it for the long haul. It takes 2 to stay married, only one to get a divorce. I just heard on a talk show yesterday that business at a legal brothel in NV is booming. That men just want to have fun, not be burdened. Unfortunately I know many women like that also. The tragedy is that our children and society will pay for our attitudes today.

I totally agree with you. My husband and I have been married for 29 years. We got married when we were both 22. By the time I was 27 we had two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. Ages two and four. Life was perfect. Then I started feeling weird. Blurred vision, numbness on my scalp. It took about a year for the doctors to diagnose me with Multiple Sclerosis. Fast forward to present time. Our children are now 27, 25 and we had another son who is now 18. Our life together has not been easy, my MS has gotten progressively worse and I am more dependant on my husband and three children. My husband was laid off for two years and it was hard, but our marriage survived that also. We are a team, and like you said "for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, rich or poor till death do us part". Not many people take marriage seriously any more.

Talk about feel good bullpucky. This extremely thoughtful and rational response makes me weep, it is so rational. Trying, trying, trying, even couples therapy doesn't always work. Ask any doc. Can't we walk away from breakups like this with an understanding of how little we control our own lives. We think about our lives a lot, and our relationships ad nauseuim. But this kind of ex post facto set of cliche ridden ruinations. Don't we have better things to do than demonstrating we are feeling people?

I totally agree with Michelle. In about 5 years these two people who walked away from years of family life, thus decimating it, will find themselves in another relationship and come up against the same or similar issues that they faced in the first marriage. At that point they may realize that they could have worked harder the first time and maintained all that family history and the future that they lost together. Children, grandchildren, history together, it is worth fighting for. I have been married 25 years and there are up's and there are down's and you have to work through those times. You come out stronger. Don't give up unless there is some sort of abuse.

Well said!

Very well said Michelle.

You could not have said it better. I went thru a divorce and it was horrible, but now I found a man who respect our commitment of marriage and I truly believe that without God first your life together will not hold up. Bravo to the man who helped his wife till the end.

Michelle, your comments are pure wisdom. They touched my heart because what you said is real and truthful.

My husband and I are complete opposites in every way. I believe in God, he doesn't; I'm conservative, he isn't, etc. Everyone who knows us are amazed that we are together because they can see our differences. We married each other twice, the first time when we were young. We divorced. I married again, he never did. I divorced again. Then in our mid-life, we came back together and have been re-married for 13 years. We are still complete opposites, but he is a good man with a good heart and I Praise the Lord for him. I don't believe he will die as an unbeliever. Where I am weak, he is strong and vice-a-versa. It's like together we are a complete person. I left him originally because I didn't think he loved me. I was wrong. I know that now because I now know that people express their love for others in lots of different ways. My husband took me back, he is a great provider and he would defend me to the death. I am not as frugal as he is and he bears with me. I have tears in my eyes as I write this because I wasted so much time being so wrong. He isn't perfect by any means. He has his problems, but so do we all. The grass is not greener on the other side.

In reading the author's story, I believe that if both of these two people want to try again, they can make it. I realized that when I read how he had trouble when he tried to explain to his children why they were divorcing. Also, their mutual love for their children is another indicator.