Should you stay with your wife/husband for the children's sake, even if you're in a loveless marriage, have little in common any longer and can barely stand to look at one another, let alone have a conversation! This is a dilemma faced by many married couples, struggling to stay afloat in their relationship.
The decision to part ways and divorce would be much easier in a childless marriage, with no ties. When children are involved, the dimensions change and things become far more complicated. Your children have to be your first priority and every good parent will always want to do what is best for them. There are so many factors to consider when there is not just the two of you to think about in a relationship split. Separation and divorce without the tie of children is a much simpler process to navigate and enables a much easier escape, severing all ties. Neither party need ever speak to each other again.
The main consideration in a loveless marriage when there are children involved is how is your soured relationship affecting them? Although pretty resilient, children are very expert at not showing their true feelings and emotions. They may appear on the surface to be unaffected and stable in their lives, but deep down the damage may already be slowly creeping in and have started to have a detrimental effect on them. Signs of your child being affected include feelings of insecurity, clingy behaviour, reverting to ‘baby-like' actions, bed wetting, lack of concentration/performance at school and even temper tantrums and social withdrawal, to name but a few. In short, children are very aware of their surroundings and can pick up the bad vibes between you and your partner very easily.
When things go wrong in a relationship and you really feel you have reached the point of no return, it is very difficult to pretend that everything is okay and normal at home, in front of the children. Trying to be nice to each other and maintain a calm environment in their company, only puts more strain and resentment on the failed relationship. When the children are tucked up in bed at night and the voices become raised, the fights start and the shouting and even sometimes domestic violence erupts, ask yourself how this type of behaviour will affect your little ones.
Perhaps you feel that you should stay with your partner, as splitting up the family home would involve much upheaval for your child. The chances are that you would have to move home, perhaps to something smaller. Maybe the move will involve moving schools and leaving friends and support networks behind. You may wonder how you will survive financially on your own, with one wage to manage on. This factor in itself is enough to make most people think twice about a new single life.
It is very important for children to look to their parents as strong role models with a positive outlook on life. If your child sees an angry, moody and negative parent, this will reflect badly on their impression of how a good marriage should be. Of course if things have progressed to the devastation of domestic violence and/or alcoholism, this is then an unacceptable environment for any child to be in.
If you are unhappy and depressed, the impact will be felt strongly by your child and then you really have to take action. Emotional damage to a child can have a life lasting effect, causing them to potentially find difficulty in building their own solid relationships in the future.