I posted earlier today... DH only really married her because of the kids. Then forgave her for all her frequent cheating until he just couldn't take it anymore... All for the kids because he didn't want them affected by her crap... She was also violent... Honestly I would have fled... And I'm sill confused as to why he even had something with her o begin with based on everything I've heard. Which is more than I want sometimes since MIL likes to talk... I think it's shockingly common...

Not my DH, but I have a friend who stays because he doesn't want to have to split custody. He's admitted that it would hurt more to see his kids less than it currently hurts to stay with his wife. He loves his wife, but he knows they aren't a good match for each other. They are totally the couple I can see splitting as soon as the kids go off to college, or splitting when DW finds someone better.

My DH did, however, marry BM because she was pregnant and he specifically didn't want any of his or her family to refer to his son as a b@$tard. They were teens when they got married, and while they were already "engaged" when they got married, DH admits that they probably wouldn't have gotten married had she not gotten pregnant.

mine did as well, not for her but for the kids (they were 1, 5, and 7). he would spend time with the kids after he got home, and when they went to bed he'd disappear to his mancave until dumb@$$ went to bed, then he'd go up and sleep on the couch. this has been confirmed by others.

How did you guess that my DH stayed married even though he was miserable because he wanted his kids to have an intact family?

I told him that I don't think they had an intact family even when he and BM were married.

DH told me that he married BM because she was his first serious girlfriend (he was BM's first serious boyfriend), he was still grieving over his father's unexpected death, and MIL told him that in his mid-20s he was at the age when he really should be married. He's told me that he considered ending things two years in, but ultimately didn't. They didn't have kids until 5 years after they got married and my SSs were born through IVF, so they consciously made the choice to have children, even though their relationship was not great. DH thought that having kids would "fix their relationship."

Still, he fought the divorce tooth and nail. If BM hadn't met her current husband, she never would have filed, though, so they'd still be unhappily married together. DH sometimes tells me that he had to travel for work a lot in the years leading up to the divorce, so he feels responsible. I remind him that he has a cousin who has traveled for his job for months at a time, yet still manages to be happily married, so really, there's more to the story. He traveled for work, so his family would have money, because there were no jobs in his field in the area where they lived and BM refused to move, even though she was self-employed and could work anywhere.

I would love someone to do studies on the impact of living with married, but high conflict parents. I would imagine those situations would have similar impacts to divorce on children. My sister had a college roommate whose parents were still married, but who lived totally separate lives. They lived in the same house, but refused to ever sit in the her same room with one another and refused to go to things together. I think this girl resented both of her parents and probably had a really skewed view of marriage and relationships, yet, according to society, her life should be better, because her parents didn't split.

I think divorce becomes this big evil thing that masks a lot of other big evil things that go on even without a divorce. I think it also becomes a big catch all excuse for when things go wrong. I often wonder if divorce happens because two people are dysfunctional and it's the dysfunction (that existed before the divorce and after the divorce) that causes the problems, not the divorce itself. I can admit that divorce presents other problems - like marginalized NCP (who are marginalized by choice or by the design of the CP), but I suspect if many of those marriages had remained intact, some of the same dynamics still would have played out.

SO was in the marriage "for the kids." And he swears BM was better when she was pregnant, but that all three kids weren't intentional. The first one that got him to marry her isn't even his. BM cheated non-stop when she wasn't pregnant (shoot, probably did then, too). SO claims that he didn't know she cheating as often as she was. Which seems weird because I knew about it and I didn't even live in the same town.

SO would get home from work and BM would take off. He would get the kids fed and in bed and she would come home in the middle of the night. They repeated this routine quite often. Then BM met a guy that she liked a lot so BM filed for divorce. When that guy found out, he said, "I hope you didn't do that for me, this is not serious." He told the whole town. BM tried to reconcile with SO and he said no way. I think he'd had enough and by that time the whole town knew and I think SO was embarrassed. He's freaking lucky he didn't get an STD and BM was literally the only person he had slept with at that time.

They also stayed together so long because of religious reasons. SO was only the second person in his family to get a divorce. Now all of his siblings have been divorced except one.

Same here. Chef KNEW deep down that marrying the drunken spoiled, sorority girl who was coddled, enmeshed with HER PASing BM and plaigiarized her way through school was a mistake.

By the time the first kid came he knew that the Girhippo was not an ideal mom or wife. But he continued to don rose colored glasses and act as though they were one big happy family, white picket fence, yada yada. He also continue to breed with the Gir for a total of 3 spawns.

He feels THAT in the pocketbook every day for the past 1.5 decades.

The last skid was to "save the marriage"(TM)

Chef would often work 3 jobs so that the stay-in-bed mom Girhippo could keep her bachelor's degree on ice that she plagiarized through. It was her idea to be a stay at home mom.

He would come home and the place was a disaster. Nothing was done, No laundry, no meals, no child care; kids would be in shitty diapers. The Girhippo would be on the internet all day looking for ways to become a Food Network star or have her children be child models and believe me, these skids have a face only a mother could love. She refused to go back to work when all three were in school. This was a couple years after the breakup. She just thought that Chef would forward his entire salary to her forever more.

Chef would bust his buns fixing and remodeling the house and she would go off with her friends.

Yep, ex-SO stayed for the kids, too... they were not married and BM was neglectful, abusive, crazy, and a crappy parent to her other kids. Ex claims he didn't want his two to live with her alone.

And now that she's had all SIX of her kids removed from her custody, I can see that he was right to at least stick around for damage control.

She's the most disgusting human being ever (except on fb where she's MOTY).

I think a lot of men do stay in an unhappy relationship for a while. DH married the cow after she got preg (lied about BC and told him she was allergic to condoms- he knows he is an idiot for believing her) and he came back from war. DH thought he was going to die so he would get out of marrying that thing. He is catholic, so the religious guilt and heavy psych medication from the VA helped push him toward marriage. They were unhappily married the entire time. She was in and out of inpatient psych. DH was taking more psych meds everytime he had a VA appointment. He would tell them he was unhappy and another med would be added- skid#2 came along while he was gorked from over medicating. It took 2 years for a decent VA doc to wean him off unnecessary psych meds and as soon as his fog lifted he divorced the thing.

SO got married to BM, after 2 years told her he wants a divorce, she told him he's pregnant and he will never see the child, he stayed married to her for another 4 years, then she got pregnant again but not his... grounds for divorce lol... but although they shared a house they only fought 24/7, insulted each other, see who could spite the other one more... etc.. hostile environment

He wanted to stay married till kid was done with school.... would've saved me allot of problems lol

My one brother remained married to his wife (12 years), for the kids, total eff up.... fighting, screaming, not a good environment and today shows with his kids..they are just as Aergia hostile and no respect for any one

Other brother and his wife decided they fell out of love they will separate and divorce, the kids where only 8months old and one was almost 3..
well 10 years later these 2 are still not legally divorced, they do not see the point, they live in different towns, each has another partner, and they still visit week-ends and have holidays together (all 4 adults and allot of children)... kids are well balanced... No one has a clue who's kids belongs to what parent cause the 8 kids calls every one Mum and Dad when they are together...

Brother and wife has 2, his girl friend has 1, together they have 1, SIL's boyfriend has 3 and together they have 1.. it's truly a Brady bunch lol...
and the new partners knows about the situation and really do not care..