Children of a Loveless Marriage

11.11.2010

I finished reading writer/director Nora Ephron’s new book, I Remember Nothing, and I highly recommend it. What I liked about it was its easy read, filled with humor, endearing moments and pure honesty. There is one issue, however, with which I disagree. She writes

But I can’t think of anything good about divorce as far as the children are concerned. You can’t kid yourself about that, although many people do. They say things like, It’s better for children not to grow up with their parents in an unhappy marriage. But unless the parents are beating each other up, or abusing the children, kids are better off if their parents are together. Children are much too young to shuttle between houses. They’re too young to handle the idea that the two people they love most in the world don’t love each other anymore, if they ever did. They’re too young to understand that all the wishful thinking in the world won’t bring their parents back together. And the newfangled rigmarole of joint custody doesn’t do anything to ease the cold reality: in order to see one parent, the divorced child must walk out on the other.[1]

Though I agree that no one should stay in an abusive relationship, I’m confused by the advice to stay in a loveless marriage for the sake of the children.

Rob and I have talked about this in respect to friends we both had growing up who wished their parents would divorce because it would, at least, bring peace. And when the parents did eventually divorce, and they always did, the friends’ reactions were somewhere in the vicinity of “Finally.” I haven’t yet met someone who wished their mismatched parents stayed together. The thing that parents forget, I think (and I take complete freedom to say the following without being a parent myself), is how perceptive kids are. You can’t fool them. By staying in a loveless marriage, you’re teaching your child how to behave, what to accept and how to settle. This isn’t fair to anyone involved.

My mom dated a man without ever sitting me down and explaining to me what was happening even though I caught every secret glance, every secret touch and every secret hand hold. Her excuse for never telling me was to protect me (from what, I don’t know) but what I learned was that liking someone was private and to be kept in the dark. And, in an odd way, something bad. I was ten and I didn’t understand exactly what the glances, touches and holding hands meant, but I knew that something unusual was going on despite her valiant efforts to keep the relationship under wraps.

I also knew, at age eight, when things were bad between my mom and my sister’s dad. I’m still unraveling the damage of those six months. Kids are sharper and more perceptive than adults give them credit for. They are also sponges for the knowledge that parents bestow upon them. I believe that staying in an unsupportive, loveless and devoid marriage is the path of least resistance with the potential for the most life-long emotional damage. You are also cheating yourself out of what is beautiful: love.

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[1] Ephron, Nora I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, New York, NY, p. 120.