Inigo, some kids are screwed up when their parents divorce - especially when Mom and Dad say vicious, bitter things about each other and use the kids as pawns against one another. However, not all kids are screwed up. Not even the majority of them are.
Divorce does not mean that Daddy goes poof and is never seen again. Divorce does not mean that a child is doomed to a life of mental instability. As many in this thread have already pointed out, the role of Husband and Father are separate. A man can be both, he can be one of the two, or he can completely fuck over both roles and lose his credentials as a human being.
Many kids are far, far better off with divorced parents than with married ones. Would you expect a woman to stay with a man if he was beating her? If she does, she risks permanent injury, death, and teaching her kids that it’s A-OK for Daddy to hit Mommy. Would you expect a woman to stay with a man if he was beating the children? I don’t know about the other women on the board, but I can pretty much guarantee that’s the one situation where I could very well kill a person and not regret it afterward.
If she stays with him, she tells him that his adultery, his passive-aggressive behavior, and his complete inability to live up to his marriage vows are acceptable. From her description, he is not the kind of man who makes one really bad mistake, realizes it, owns up to it, and does everything in his power to make things right.
He is not a good husband. He deserves a divorce. He may or may not be a good father. That will be up to him to prove, and honestly, if he is a good father, no divorce in the world could stop him.
yeah, cause nothing is better for a kid than the instability of having a parent that you don’t know if they are going to be around from one day to the next. Because kids are oblivious to the tension in a marriage. Because sending your daughter the message that as a woman she can be expected to be a doormat for her whole life is the best lesson you can teach her. Because it will be so easy for her to explain to her friends as she gets older that she has a half sibling - younger than her - who is the child of her father who her mother is still married to. Because its completely fair that Helen should make all the compromises and her husband should be able to behave like a spoiled brat - and her daughter will never pick up on this.
Just had to agree that staying in a shitty, degrading marriage is NEVER the answer. My parents did it, my soon-to-be ex-husband’s (and his ex)'s did it, the asshole that I just broke up with, his mother and father did it and now he’s doing it to his own kids in return, and all of the generations one back (in this little scenario) did it too.
Know what’s learned out of all that? Remain together because how things look is more important than what is healthy. In my situation, I was taught that all men had to be controlled to be any good at all. My STBEH found out that all men ran away and he had to take on the responsibility of the entire world. His ex-wife’s mother passed on the ‘hypochondria’ gene and, furthermore, she’s more than happy to share that with their son (in many, many different fashions). The asshole’s father hand down to him that it didn’t matter what happened, as long as you still basically got away with what you wanted and someone would still put up and take care of you. My grandparents raised children that hated them because of all the strife, backbiting and manipulation. The asshole’s wife, she got a huge dose of bitterness to add to her tyranny of making people do what she wants all the time. My STBEH’s grandparents turned hatred into an art form.
But you know what the children in these situations are looking forward to? That it’s ok to use and abuse someone, to run roughshod over their feelings and your vows, to lie/cheat/deceive to placate your own desires and to be vengeful, mean and spiteful all in the name of appearances instead of saving one’s heart and mind.
I prayed every single day for my mother and father to divorce. I would have given up everything in the world to see two people who honestly loved each other, who tried to work for their lives together and to teach me what it was I needed to do someday and look for. Because a really piss poor job was done and I’ve completely fucked up my own life as well. That’s certainly not their fault, but it sure as hell would have been nice to have ANY kind of positive role model. ANY kind of foundation about the right things to do taught. ANY, anything other than lip service and what’s the easiest way out.
Sorry. This subject pisses me off just a bit.
And again, best wishes **Helen**. I have every bit of confidence, that no matter how hard this will be, that you'll do excellently by your child. Godspeed. Plus, here's hoping that realize how important it is that he'll be the Dad he's meant to be. We'll all be thinking of you and your daughter.
Sounds like a new problem coming up after 8 otherwise predictable years.
Picking the lesser of two evils based on what I’ve seen. YMMV
The lesson the kid learns will be the lesson the kid is taught. This depends entirely on how mom explains the situation–assuming it ever comes up again. The message could just as easily be an illustration of forgiving the errors made by all humans. Grudges and retribution don’t make the world a better place.
Think that’s going to come up often? I dunno. Seems a lighter cross to bear than the self blame that children of divorce like to indulge in.
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IMO Helen should make EVERY compromise possible to avoid fucking up her kid with a divorce simply because she opted to bail on Jackass after 8 years of marriage. And 3 years of parenting.
I’m assuming Helen took some kind of vow when she tied the knot? Was there an “unless” clause in there? If so then I’m totally jealous. If you’re so interested in what lessons the kid will learn, pay attention to what she’ll learn about the meaning of a promise. And how easily promises are broken. And how that’s OK. And how if SHE gets tired of HER own marriage that she can just get a divorce when she finds a new guy.
I’m all for keeping together for the sake of the kids, if both sides are committed to making it work. But if it’s half-ass, and one side is doing all the work and there’s still uncertainty as to how long things are going to stay together, how is that a good thing? It just sounds like prolonged torture.
If the straying partner was genuinely contrite and wanted to do his or her best to make it up and do better, for the sake of the kid, then that might be different. That might be something worth considering. But it doesn’t sound like this is the case with Helen and her louse of a husband at all.
HelenTroy, for when you come back: I’m no good at advice. I can swear like a trooper, though. If you want me to send some original swear-words to your [ex?]husband *or * to the bilious bistro bitch, let me know, okay?
Seriously: I wish you all the best. Stay strong, girl.
I wish I had posted this earlier so Helen could read it before she met with Mr. Asshole tonight. A couple of other posters have mentioned this, but it bears repeating, and I hope Helen says it to him tonight-- HE HAD UNPROTECTED SEX WITH A STRANGER!!! That is so incredibly dangerous! If he had sex with Helen after that, then he deliberately and knowingly put her at risk of contracting diseases that range from the embarrassing to the fatal and everything in between. This to me betrays a deep selfishness and downright reckless disregard. How anyone could do this to a person he loves is beyond me. This, above all things, is what I could never, ever forgive and would be reason enough to kick him to the curb AND get Uncle Tony to rough him up (theoretically, of course).
Please, Helen, run, don’t walk, to your gynecologist for a full work-up ASAP! Be tested for everything, including HIV and hepatitis. Send him the bill. You’re probably OK, but you need to know for your peace of mind.
I will be thinking of you tonight and hoping you get the satisfaction and closure you need, so you and your daughter can move on to a better life without him. Let us know what happens.
True, which is why she shouldn’t try and get full custody of the kids with no visitation rights for dad. But an amicable (as much as possible) divorce where dad continues to take an active interest in the upbringing of the kid is better than staying with a dishonest spouse who will continue to cheat, because now he knows he can get away with it. This is going to teach the kid one of two things: “women are doormats,” or “it’s okay to cheat on your spouse.” Plus, at this point, there’s not really much chance for a quiet domestic life. Helen is rightly pissed, and I’d be surprised if she could just “let it go.” Those emotions are going to stay there, and if she’s around Jackass everyday, those emotions are going to fester. Unless Helen’s got more forgiveness in her than Jesus himself, there’s no way this ends up as a healthy enviroment in which to raise kid.
I’m assuming her asshole husband took a vow too. And isn’t it just convenient how he just can’t make up his mind about which woman he should be with, his wife or his one-night-stand? I haven’t a clue - do married men get to make binding vows with one-night-stands too, ones that are just so hard to weigh against their marriage vows?
I would have given him every chance if he’d said, upon finding out about the alleged pregnancy, that he would arrange a paternity test and then child support and visitation rights. But instead he just couldn’t decide between his wife and his mistress. I don’t feel sorry for him.
Inigo, I have to disagree with you. You claim that it is selfish for Helen to consider booting the cheating husband simply because it will deprive their daughter of a daddy. But what if daddy chooses the other woman over his own daughter/marriage?
Perhaps I am reading you wrong, but your message of “having daddy there = most important deciding factor” would imply to me that you think Helen should fight to keep her man, even if he chooses the other woman, simply because she made a marriage vow - and to me, that’s flat out wrong. But then, I’m probably over-extending your belief.
Count me in with the “child of a divorced home, and TONS better off for it” crowd. My father was an emotionally and physically abusive alcoholic. It took my mother years to get up the courage to leave him. We went through financial hell in the following years as my father carried out a personal vengeance against my mother (we even lost our house, and would have been on the street if not for the kindness of family friends).
Because money was scarce, my mother, brother and I became a team. I went to work part time at 14 and my brother full time at 16. I worked my ass off in school to get grants and scholarship to attend college, and as a result was at the top of my class and got a full-ride scholarship. I had to struggle for everything I have, and as a result, I know that I can handle anything life throws my way. I can grab it by the balls and twist the shit out of that fucker. And I have the most loving, caring supportive family there for me every step of the way.
So not only did the divorce take an abusive, controlling, negative figure out of our lives - it made us all stronger in the process. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
(On a side note, my dad is just now - after 10 years - realizing he has 2 grown kids he knows nothing about. And he acutally wonders why we don’t return his calls and are relutant to visit him - in the house he cheated us out of! :eek: )
No, I don’t think that Helen has to tolerate any shit her lout of a husband dishes at her, just because there’s a kid. If he’s determined to cheat, determined to betray his marriage vows, why should she stay? The deal’s off. He broke the deal, in a big way, and he doesn’t seem at all motivated in trying to fix what he broke—not really. Why should she put up with that? Why should her daughter put up with that?
The vows have been broken. In a big way. A lot of pretty fundamental, conservative, family-oriented people that I know (of course I don’t speak for everyone), believe that there is no shame in leaving a marriage where infidelity takes place, and especially where the cheater has no intention of seriously trying to make things right. Hell—I think I remember Dr. Laura (years ago, when she was more gay-friendly) saying something to this effect. Infidelity changes everything. Nobody should have to put up with that. It sends a bad message to the kids—that fidelity is not expected in a marriage.
Yeah. Be a doormat! Stay married for the kid’s sake. That ALWAYS works!
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
My mother stayed married to my stepfather for 10 extra years “for the kid’s sake”. Personally, I’d rather she hadn’t. I knew she didn’t love him. I knew she was miserable. I knew he was a sonofabitch. And I knew there wasn’t shit I could do about it. Everybody lost. Except the sonofabitch.