# Is it better for parents who hate each other to stay together (for the children)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240 "2009-07-16T17:36:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/1 "2009-07-16T17:36:38Z")
This came up in some discussions of this article in The Atlantic: > **[Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/lets-call-the-whole-thing-off/307488/)** > > The author is ending her marriage. Isn’t it time you did the same? I’ve seen studies that suggest that children raised in single-parent families tend to do worse on a number of measures than those in two-parent families. What I haven’t seen (and haven’t looked all that hard for) is any attempt to compare children in single-parent families with children in the sort of tension-filled families that could result from parents who otherwise would have divorced staying together for the children’s sake. Does anyone know if this has been studied? How on Earth could it be controlled for? (I suppose I could have put this in General Questions, but I suspect it will drift to Great Debates soon enough.) ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/2 "2009-07-16T18:02:07Z")
No. No. A thousand times, no. Admittedly, this is personal anecdote rather than hard scientific evidence, but I feel strongly enough about it to weigh in. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/3 "2009-07-16T18:06:34Z")
If the parents can maintain a civil and jovial friendship with each other, then it may be beneficial to stay together. However, I’m pretty sure that would impossible to maintain longer than a few weeks (days? minutes?). Even if the parents are all hunky-dory in front of the kids, any tension and anger that exists when the kids are not around will effect the atmosphere in the family, and hence the kids. If it’s important, then I could see the parents getting houses next door to each other or something like that, but even that would be dangerous, depending on the amount of crazy in the parents. Also, I think the kids would be cheated out of a chance to learn what a good marriage would be like. At least, with a divorce, the kids learn about the importance of choosing well in the future. \*\*\*And as an aside, that Og my mom kicked my dad out when I was 13! ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/4 "2009-07-16T18:12:33Z")
How could you quantify the level of tension and animosity in a relationship in order to be able to really study it objectively? It’s such a subjective thing, and depends a lot on the individual’s perception of events. Plus there are confounding factors like the question that article raises about how kids are affected when their single parent keeps bringing home a new boyfriend or girlfriend all the time: > [@](#): > > The harm comes, Cherlin argues, from parents continually coupling with new partners, so that the children are forced to bond, or compete for attention, with ever-new actors. These are the youngsters who are likely to suffer, according to a measurable matrix of factors such as truancy, disobedience in school, and teen pregnancy. Instead of preaching marriage, Cherlin says, we should preach domestic stability for children My personal inclination is to agree with that comment that stability is the key. Kids in 2 parent families where mom and dad fight all the time are probably just about as emotionally fucked up as single parent families where mom brings home a “new daddy” every weekend. Kids in families where the parents are no longer in love but focus on co-parenting with civility and respect probably fare as well as kids in single parent households where the parent avoids drama with their ex, doesn’t bring around new people willy nilly, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/5 "2009-07-16T18:20:31Z")
Yeah, I think stability is the key, too. I mean, sure it might be great if no one ever got divorced, but from what I’ve seen, it’s what happens after the divorce that has the most effect on the kids. I’ve seen couples get divorced who managed to figure out how to get along as much as they needed to & married other people who treated the kids like their own, and those kids seemed to be able to deal with it all. But get divorced, continue bitching about each other all the time, put the kids in the middle, get into subsequent marriages with assholes, and those are the kids who have trouble adjusting. And who could blame them? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/6 "2009-07-16T19:01:03Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I’ve seen studies that suggest that children raised in single-parent families tend to do worse on a number of measures than those in two-parent families. I always thought single-parent families were those with one parent doing the raising – do parents with shared custody count as single-parent families, too? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/7 "2009-07-16T19:35:44Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > How could you quantify the level of tension and animosity in a relationship in order to be able to really study it objectively? It’s such a subjective thing, and depends a lot on the individual’s perception of events. Yeah, I’m not sure myself. I guess some kind of long-term longitudinal thing, where people are surveyed on their satisfaction in their marriage, and so on, comparing kids brought up by parents rating their satisfaction “very low” or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/8 "2009-07-16T19:48:56Z")
[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Hgt5xVknkfgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA93&dq=parents+who+stay+together+instead+of+divorcing&ots=Y2HRjrLjr0&sig=FR42Iuoqv9xcMFGJil4GqxC-S7I](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Hgt5xVknkfgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA93&dq=parents+who+stay+together+instead+of+divorcing&ots=Y2HRjrLjr0&sig=FR42Iuoqv9xcMFGJil4GqxC-S7I) I haven’t read through yet. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/9 "2009-07-16T20:18:18Z")
Interesting… thanks! Basic take-home I’m getting from the book (having got about 2/3 of the way into the chapter & then stopped) is that kids are more disrupted in the short run by divorce, but much better off if parents divorce & are reasonable about it than if they stay together & fight, but slightly worse off if they divorce and continue to fight. Which makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/10 "2009-07-16T20:32:21Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > No. No. A thousand times, no. > > Admittedly, this is personal anecdote rather than hard scientific evidence, but I feel strongly enough about it to weigh in. From my own experience, and those of several friends, ditto. My two friends who have the most fucked-up outlook on relationships (no, make that three friends) have parents who stayed together “for the sake of the children,” in all three cases through severe alcohol abuse on the part of one or both parents, and in two of the three cases through repeated infidelity, and in one case also through severe spousal and child abuse. In two of the three cases, the marriages didn’t end until the abusive/alcoholic spouse died (in both cases as a result on the alcohol abuse; fatal car crash for one, liver cancer for the other). My own parents didn’t have alcohol abuse or infidelity among their issues, and they were always more or less on the same page with the child-rearing, but it was still plainly apparent to me, even as a child, that they just didn’t belong married to each other. You should ask my psychologist aunt this question. I don’t know whether she’s studied the issue deeply herself, but for sure she’d be able to point you in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![shallora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@shallora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shallora)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/11 "2009-07-16T20:57:41Z")
\>\>Is it better for parents who hate each other to stay together (for the children)? A thousand times NO! NO! NO! NO! And NO once again! Having parents stay together “for the benefit of the kids” can f\*ck up kids as badly if not worse than happy (yet divorced) parents. 1. Kids are remarkably perceptive. If the parents hate each other yet stay together, how much happiness is there, really, in that household? Doesn’t that rob kids of a happy home life if the parents are “together” yet miserable? 2. Miserable parents are statistically more likely to become alcoholic, or delve into other antisocial and self-destructive behavior (disappearing from the home for days on end, physical abuse in the home, etc.) How is this “better” for the kids? 3. How is staying together in a miserable relationsip a good role model for the children to follow in their own future relationships? If daughter and son see the miserable relationship of their parents as “normal”, what kind of relationships will they be open to having later on? My wife & I recently divorced after 12 years of marriage, and we have two younger children. So I know this topic well. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/12 "2009-07-16T21:04:24Z")
Depends: Do the spouses absolutely hate each other or have they simply stopped loving and still maintain a friendship? Because it may result in anger boiling over and cause a bloody tragedy you read about in the papers. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/13 "2009-07-16T21:35:57Z")
Apparently, it depends. Go figure. > [@](#): > > A recent large-scale, long-term study suggests otherwise. While it found that parents’ marital unhappiness and discord have a broad negative impact on virtually every dimension of their children’s well-being, so does the fact of going through a divorce. In examining the negative impacts on children more closely, the study discovered that it was only the children in very high conflict homes who benefited from the conflict removal that divorce may bring. In lower-conflict marriages that end in divorce—and the study found that perhaps as many as two thirds of the divorces were of this type—the situation of the children was made much worse following a divorce. Based on the findings of this study, therefore, except in the minority of high-conflict marriages it is better for the children if their parents stay together and work out their problems than if they divorce [Cite.](http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/pubtoptenmyths.htm) Being in a stress-filled household is bad for children - [cite](http://www.divorcereform.org/fights.html) - but being in a single-parent family can be worse - > [@](#): > > “A study conducted at the University of Washington divided 117 households into three categories: “maritally distressed”, “maritally supported”, and “unmarried mothers,” and found that children of the families that had marital distress had significantly higher disciplinary problems than children from families that reported a happy marriage, but those children of unmarried mothers had a considerably higher amount of disciplinary problems that those who were from the other two categories.” Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/14 "2009-07-16T22:14:47Z")
Seconding what other posters have said about stability being key for kids in single-parent homes. Bringing home a parade of temporary partners is pretty universally acknowleged to be destabalizing for the kiddos. (Except by the asshats who do it.) But, speaking as the product of a marriage that was not dissolved largely for the sake of the child (me) I can say, without question or hesitation: NO. Staying together solely for the sake of the children is the WORST thing you can do. No child should have to go to sleep each night to the sound of the two people she loves most in this world tearing each other a new one. I did. Every night. There was no cheating or infidelity in my parents’ marriage (that I know of). But in cases where that IS part of the marriage’s problem … then it’s even worse. Women with kids who stay with a cheating and unrepentant\* husband, this part is for you: If you have a daughter, you are teaching her that her own happiness should be her own lowest priority. You are teaching her that if her future man (that’d be your future son-in-law!) cheats on her, that she should stick around and take it. Be sure you factor the potential for your daughter to get STDs this way. If you have a son, you are teaching him that he can sh!t all over the women in his life (that’d be your future daughter-in-law!) and they’ll just take it. You’re teaching him that keeping his word and being faithful are not, in reality, all that important to adults, since it’s not important to you or to Daddy. Actually, on 2nd thought, the genders of the parents are immaterial. The above lessons will still be taught (and learned!) if it’s the mother who’s cheating on the father. - As opposed to marriages where there’s been infidelity but the guilty party is sorry, the couple is seeing a therapist, working on fixing the marriage, etc. That’s different. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/15 "2009-07-16T23:51:08Z")
I agree with the No, not only personally, but also from Watzlawick wrote in his books about therapy about the terrible effect it has on a child when the most important people in the world - his parents, and the family - tell them something different than what he can perceive himself (and as was already said, children are very perceptive). So parents who stay together “for the children” put not only a huge burden on the child - all the arguing continues because of him - they also put the child in a schizophrenic situation, by pretending that all is fine when he feels that it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/16 "2009-07-16T23:57:58Z")
Like others, I think it’s how the parents handle the divorce or the staying together. There’s no one right answer. My own parents stayed together but with a lot of resentment and anger. It left me with some relationship issues that were hard to work out, but I can’t say it would have been better if they had divorced. I think my father’s decision to stay actually added some stability that would have been horribly lacking had he left when he later told me he thought of leaving. My older sister stayed with a husband who she didn’t love and made the kids her focus. She hid anything negative from them and did a fabulous job. Right after the kids moved out she got a divorce. My niece and nephew are fabulous people with happy stable families of their own. My wife and I divorced. My kids noticed the tension and general unhappiness when we were together. After we divorced there was still resentment and though we didn’t openly fight I finally realized it was hurting the kids. We agreed to have a discussion with them and be nice to each other and stop blaming each other for what went wrong. We couldn’t be together, but we would stop being angry with each other. It really helped. I know one of the things that hurt me as a kid was the feeling that I had to choose between my parents. Who was good who was bad? Who was right , who was wrong? It’s a horrible position for a child to be in. If parents can divorce and be decent to each other without the anger and resentment and still provide love and support for their kids then I think that’s okay. If they stay together and treat each other decently while providing love and support for the kids, that works out okay too. Open anger and resentment toward each other or the kids becoming the emotional caretakers of the single parent, and other issues such as alcoholism etc. will leave it’s mark whether the parents are together or apart. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/17 "2009-07-17T07:41:04Z")
To the extent that parents actually HATE each other, I’ll say no. How often do two people genuinely hate each other, though? People get divorced because they fall out of love, not because they hate each other. Marriage is not just about love, though. It’s about building a family bond, depending on each other, creating a stable environment to live in, and (usually) raising children. All of that is more important in my opinion than trying to find the “spark”, which in my experience means people want to feel the butterflies in their stomach that come in a new relationship. People mistake the absence of that feeling as “something must be wrong!” I think children in a family with two parents who would get divorced if not for the kids are better off than children of divorced parents, in most cases. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/18 "2009-07-17T10:33:48Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > To the extent that parents actually HATE each other, I’ll say no. > > How often do two people genuinely hate each other, though? Quite often, as far as I can tell. Especially if they DO decide to stay together despite disliking each other. Constant proximity to someone you don’t like tends to make that dislike escalate into something worse. And if they are “staying together for the sake of the children”, I would expect some of that to spill onto the children in question. I would expect growing resentment towards the children as a source of misery, as a burden forcing them to stay with someone they despise ( despite none of it being the kid’s fault ). So basically, I would expect the result to be a steadily worsening relationship between the parents, and a poisoning of the parent’s relationship with the children. So no, I don’t think staying together for the kids with someone you hate is a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/19 "2009-07-17T14:21:01Z")
**Der Trihs** said it better than I could. **Mosier** , I think it’s safe to say my parents spend most of their time either hating or actively begrudging the others’ existence. It’s certainly an exhausting way to live, but I think at this point, after this many decades together, they simply know no other way to relate to each other. Also, because birds of a feather flock together and all that, most of my mother’s friends had screwed-up marriages, so actually, I know plenty of people who genuinely hate their spouses. It made for … \*interesting \*holiday parties. (I would imagine that it’s easier to stay in a dysfunctional union when nearly everyone you know is in a similarly dysfunctional situation. Much harder to put up with it as your “normal” when others around you have healthy, happy marriages, are modelling functional solutions, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240/20 "2009-07-17T16:19:39Z")
I think the OP is setting up a false dichotomy. Not all parents who stay together “for the kids” hate each other. Some just fall out of love. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-better-for-parents-who-hate-each-other-to-stay-together-for-the-children/503240.md?page=2)