A good divorce from a bad marriage may actually be better for children when the alternative is a malignant and dysfunctional family.

I invite parents everywhere, married and divorcing alike, to be disabused of an outdated belief: that children from married parents are automatically better off than children of divorced parents. This is a terrible untruth causing unnecessary suffering for the unhappily married, guiltily divorcing and their collective offspring. Misguided by this view, the unhappily married remain married “for the children,” and continue to subject the family to deleterious levels of toxicity, confusion, conflicted modeling, and high levels of stress, ultimately serving no one, least of all their children. Avoiding divorce at all cost is often too great a cost for everyone.

The truth is that children have the best chance of developing into well adjusted big people when they are parented by responsible, fulfilled, loving adults; adults attuned to their own needs, and empathically, to the needs of their children.

Of course, parents can model authentic self-care and high standards for relating by investing in their solid marital relationship. But, when that is not an option, adults can still model these values by ending their toxic marriage.

Though the effects of Married v Divorced on children has long been a collective, social dilemma, I suggest that the real litmus test is weighing the effects of a stable, loving, supportive environment vs. a toxic, unhappy environment. A healthy environment should be the non-negotiable goal; the marital relationship should be in service to this. If the marriage can neither contribute nor conform to this fundamental standard, the best interests of the children are best served by protecting them from the marriage rather than continuing to subject them to it.

Married or divorced are shorthand for things that no longer stand in that antiquated debate. Perhaps at one time “married” might have signified secure and safe, and “divorced” stood for financial collapse, social stigma and ostracization. But as our dialogues over the decades have become more honest, marriage’s meaning has expanded to include a wider, more realistic range of workable and problematic relationships.

Unfortunately, many marriages consist of one or both adults being continually subjected to destabilizing behaviors, abusive interactions and isolation. This type of marital environment impairs parenting. It fosters anxious, vulnerable, and conflicted children who are dysregulated by the ongoing crises and chaos of the marriage; the lack of familial emotional reserves typically results in an inconsistent responsiveness to children’s needs, further undermining their well-being.

A good enough marriage makes for a good enough environment wherein children can develop internal mechanisms for recognizing what is healthy and safe, and modeling their own relationships accordingly. Parental modeling of appropriate guidelines helps children internalize how to self care, relate to others, maintain standards and boundaries, and discern safe from dangerous relationships. Raised in this way, children internalize a stable and congruent sense of themselves and the world.

Conversely, children trapped in an impaired, hostile environment in which unhappy parents stayed together at all cost, are inevitably significantly disadvantaged than those children settled in two happy homes.

Children: Damage by Divorce Is Not Mandated — Part 2

Building on the recent blog series called Three Parenting Mistakes Good Parents Make, this article turns to some less known and less discussed parental misconceptions and missteps to be avoided in divorce (and marriage).

WHERE DID YOU GO

This occurs when a parent limits his involvement with the child because of the difficulty in the parental relationship. Instead of being as involved as she would like, in an effort to alleviate the ongoing hostilities, the parent will retreat, almost exiting out of her parenting role, sacrificing regular contact with the child. When parental conflict is intense and unmanageable, this last resort “strategy” of capitulation is understandable, but the child likely experiences it as desertion.

For the benefit of the child, both parents need to continue to foster a relationship between themselves that encourages one another’s presence in the child’s life. This is a time for parents to fight for their child, not with one another.

In fact, possibly the most important thing to advocate on behalf of your child is the presence of both parents in his/her life. Oddly enough, sometimes children from “intact” families do not receive the benefit of the two-parent household — many times they are parented by only one available adult. It turns out that living under one roof often means exactly — and only — that. It is neither a premise nor promise of two engaged, equipped parents.

This is a time for parents to fight for their child, not with one another.

IT TAKES TWO

Another subtle but critical error of divorcing parents is adopting the erroneous belief that they no longer comprise a parental unit. Reliance on a parental unit is one of the great benefits a child can receive. While having the support of two distinct parents is good, having the collective strength of a parental team is better. There is an additional power and reassurance provided when these two most important people — these parents — pull together for a unified purpose. Two cooperating, mature parents, demonstrating teamwork out of their combined wisdom and love for their child — this is the essential stuff of parenting.

So the end of the marital unit does not, in fact — must not! — disassemble the parental unit. Instead, the divorce must be used as an opportunity to examine and consciously shape this parenting constituency into something workable and wonderful.

When parents conflate divorce from a spouse with disengagement from children, they lose a critical opportunity to provide a foundational resource for their children. Even when parents are no longer romantically together, they support their child best by standing together. And often, once the parents have removed themselves from that intense engagement in their conflicted marital relationship, their focus can be on parenting, enabling their child to feel securely attached and loved by both of them.

…living under one roof often means exactly — and only — that.

When parents overcome their conflict in order to co-parent, children experience their parents as capable and trustworthy, and themselves as valued and loved. Prioritizing parenting over spousal discord, “winning,” being right, making a point or otherwise maintaining an adversarial stance, blesses the children in multiple ways. This takes bravery and love. And is a remarkable way parents care for their children, by simultaneously meeting their children’s fundamental needs to be cared for, and by modeling mature behavior to which their offspring can aspire.