My husband says that he is no longer in love, but that he is staying in the marriage only for the sake of our children.

Over the weekend, I received an email from a woman who told me that she and her husband had had a fight recently and he blurted out that he didn’t even love her anymore, but was still married “for the sake of the children.” She had no idea how to respond to this. Of course, she was devastated. But she also wondered if she should stay in a “loveless marriage” or if it would be more detrimental to the children to get divorced than to stay in a home where one parent didn’t love the other.

It was difficult for her to separate her feelings about the divorce and her feelings about her husband. Even though she was mad at him, she still loved him and she wanted the marriage to work. If it were up to her, there would be no divorce from her. So, in the next article, I tell you what I told her about how to view this situation right now, but how to turn it around in the future as well.

Divorce against parents who do not love their spouses from the point of view of their child(ren): First, I want to clarify how children fit into this. Sure, it is detrimental for a child to grow up in a home where there is no love at all. But, this woman’s situation was not one where both parents did not deeply love their children. They both adored their children, so much so that it was their children who kept them there.

That being said, divorce is devastating for children. Honestly, if you had asked me as a child if I’d rather my parents get divorced so I never have to see them fight again, or if I’d rather they stay married but combative, I would have chosen to fight as an intact family any day of the week.

Now, to be fair, my parents’ fights weren’t out of control or physically and verbally abusive. There were a lot of good times, so when they broke up and finally parted ways all together, I used to think about why they couldn’t just focus on the good times as a springboard to work things out. I realize that parents cannot live for their children, but I also feel that saying that children would rather have happy parents than parents in a loveless marriage is often untrue, at least from the child’s point of view. In fact, what I think the child really wants is for you to work it out so they can all be happy again, together, as a family. And often there is a lot of resentment once the divorce puts a lot of financial pressure on the family and there are drastic lifestyle changes that often leave the child feeling guilty and caught in the middle.

I realize that there are people who will tell you that the divorce was better for them and their families, but from personal experience, I am not one of them. Now I have two step-parents who are lovely people and now I have younger sisters. I’m married now and realize exactly how difficult it is to maintain a marriage (actually, I almost got divorced a few years ago), but the kid in me still can’t get over how painful it was for my parents to part ways, and every Christmas when I have to celebrate with two families, it honestly feels bad. I realize this is selfish of me, but it’s really how I feel.

Your kids don’t want you to stay together for their sake, but they want you to find a way to be a happy, close family again: My mom’s friends used to say things like, “Aren’t you glad your parents are happy again and you don’t have to listen to fights anymore?” I guess he was glad there was no more fighting, but what he really wanted was for there to be no more fighting because they had found a way to be happy again: together. He wanted them to be happy together, not separately.

No one is going to argue that it is not good for a child to grow up in a tense and unhappy home. But before you get divorced, ask yourself if it’s possible to change your marriage (and not the status of it) so that your child can grow up in a happy home that includes both parents. Sometimes this is not possible. I grant it. There are some marriages that simply cannot be saved, but I have seen countless seemingly dead marriages reversed because both parties committed to making it happen and finally found the right tools to succeed.

Separate children from your marriage:This is going to sound a little strange when I say it, but often while children are the glue that holds parents together, they are also often the biggest stress in a marriage. Stay with me while I explain. What I mean by that is that often children will turn two people who were deeply in love and focused on each other into two people who start to focus more on their children once they are born. Now you are less lovers and more mom and dad.

I honestly think that “stopping loving each other” or “not loving each other anymore” is more the result or carelessness, not taking the time and changing priorities, rather than changing the feelings or the fact that the chemistry is no more. Often the chemistry is still there, but you have buried it under a sea of ​​obligations. Often, if you put everything else on the back burner for a while and focus only on the marriage and giving your spouse the time, attention, and appreciation that you had when you were dating, you’ll find that the two people you fell in love with are still there somewhere.

And honestly, the best gift you can give your children is two parents who love each other, and them, very much. But sometimes, you have to spend time away from children to give them this. They’d rather you be a little selfish and have regular date nights than grow up in two separate homes.