Unwanted Divorce Question

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Very sorry about your marital difficulties. My prayers are with you. Given the nature of your question and some of the responses so far, I decided to do a little research. I am assuming that if, God forbid, she does decide to leave and/or file for divorce, custody would be one of your biggest concerns. With this in mind I want to share some of what I found. One of the first results on a Google search about who gets custody in a divorce was Divorce Law Info.com. The link to the page I’m going to reference is below. The site lists several factors that the court takes into consideration, including but not limited to:
  • Who is the primary care giver?
  • How physically/psychologically fit is each spouse?
  • Age, health and gender of the children?
  • Who do the children prefer?
Given that all of your children are at least ten years of age I would assume that their preference would count for something (I recommend discussing this with an attorney to get a more definitive answer). For this reason I would not recommend concealing the truth from your children any more than you feel is absolutely necessary. As one of the previous posters astutely pointed out, your wife may lie in order to bias the children against you. I’m not saying that’s a guarantee, but is it worth the risk? You do not need to be vindictive towards your wife and try to make your kids hate her. However, I would make sure that they know that you did everything you could to save the marriage.

No matter what you decide to do, I agree with some of the other posters that you should seek legal advice. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

divorcelawinfo.com/PA/pacustody.htm
 
AnnArbor said:
Just one note of caution: many courts (or more importantly, court psychologists) take a dim view of telling children anything about who is asking for/causing divorce.
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This is interesting. I have a close friend going through a divorce whose wife is actively trying to poison their relationship with him by saying he was the reason for it. He better start documenting.
 
PolarGuy said:
Tell the kids the truth.

I’m surprised no one has considered another reason to do so: considering OPs wife has cheated in the past, and seems to be pulling this desire for divorce out of thin air, what’s to prevent her from telling kids (falsely) “daddy’s making me leave!” Anything other than a categorical denial to the contrary, I.e., “this is between me and her,” rather validates such a position that she might articulate.

So tell the kids the truth.
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I would wait until they are 18.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Yeah. More than likely they will be living with mom and " uncle" Tim until then anyway…😦
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Not necessarily, kids, particularly at those ages, can be quite an inconvenience to Mom and ‘uncle’ Tim and an impediment to things they want to do. Cut into their time together, be judgmental about what’s going on. A real buzzkill. Mom, may find it far more convenient for Dad to take the kids, even on her time. Dad, should not interfere with Mom’s time but take the kids and then insist the divorce decree reflect the actual living situation for the kids at the time.

OP should read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ and contemplate his wife’s motives and nature, his motives and nature. Understand how she’s counting on him to react and how he can leverage that to achieve his goals.
 
You absolutely should not share with your children any details about your marital issues and I’m flat out amazed that anyone would suggest otherwise. I can only assume they are blessed never to have experienced what it’s like to have one’s parents split up. If the OP tells his children that the divorce is their mother’s fault, he runs a tremendous risk of alienating his children from himself more than from their mother. He is talking about their mother. They love their mother. You don’t insult someone’s mother. The best thing he can do is reiterate that he loves them. It’s reasonable for him to say that divorce isn’t what he wanted and that he worked as hard as he could to save the marriage, but it certainly isn’t appropriate to list then reasons for the separation. No one should ever discuss that sort of thing with their kids, no matter how tempted they are to do so.
 
styrgwillidar said:
Not necessarily, kids, particularly at those ages, can be quite an inconvenience to Mom and ‘uncle’ Tim and an impediment to things they want to do. Cut into their time together, be judgmental about what’s going on. A real buzzkill. Mom, may find it far more convenient for Dad to take the kids, even on her time. Dad, should not interfere with Mom’s time but take the kids and then insist the divorce decree reflect the actual living situation for the kids at the time.
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Children that age can be VERY judgy.

I have an early teen and older tween, and I can barely have an extra slice of cake without hearing about it.
 
Off the cuff, I can’t think of any situation that is materially benefitted by adding a lie to the mixture.

You, your wife and children will be remembered in my prayers. May God remind her of the covenant she made with you and with Him on your wedding day. And may that lead her to renew that promise.
 
styrgwillidar said:
Not necessarily, kids, particularly at those ages, can be quite an inconvenience to Mom and ‘uncle’ Tim and an impediment to things they want to do. Cut into their time together, be judgmental about what’s going on. A real buzzkill. Mom, may find it far more convenient for Dad to take the kids, even on her time. Dad, should not interfere with Mom’s time but take the kids and then insist the divorce decree reflect the actual living situation for the kids at the time.

OP should read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ and contemplate his wife’s motives and nature, his motives and nature. Understand how she’s counting on him to react and how he can leverage that to achieve his goals.
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It starts that way sometimes, mom isn’t in a stable situation and is having “fun”. But almost always she will with a year, feel the social pressure to at least have her kids live with her.? And she will win…

I am a stay at home dad. Homescool teacher. I have been for ten years. I’m obviously the caregiver. I wouldn’t feel confident of my odds of full custody if my wife went crazy and left…

( and she would have to be crazy to leave me. Exhibit one for court would be me in a speedo on a unicycle juggling knives while flexing…)
" I rest my case your honor, she’s nuts for leaving THIS!"
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
It starts that way sometimes, mom isn’t in a stable situation and is having “fun”. But almost always she will with a year, feel the social pressure to at least have her kids live with her.? And she will win…

I am a stay at home dad. Homescool teacher. I have been for ten years. I’m obviously the caregiver. I wouldn’t feel confident of my odds of full custody if my wife went crazy and left…

( and she would have to be crazy to leave me. Exhibit one for court would be me in a speedo on a unicycle juggling knives while flexing…)
" I rest my case your honor, she’s nuts for leaving THIS!"
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I have full custody. I didn’t have to fight for it in court. In fact, making an issue of it up front, something to confront her over would have gotten her back up to fight it to prove me wrong and more likely to actually go to court. (We used a mediator vice adversarial lawyers) But it was a horrible thing for my kids to realize they were an inconvenience to their mother and in some way an impediment to her happiness.

I knew her well enough to know that what was driving her was more than her and I. She counted on, knew me well enough to know my love for her and the kids to be strong enough that I would never be a barrier to her kids, take advantage of the situation to limit her time with them.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu

ETA: I actually know quite a few men who don’t have custody, yet their kids live primarily with them. Wives initially had (and still do legally) primary custody. But kids were ‘too much of a handful’ or kept interfering with work/leisure plans and Dad was told he should just be grateful he’s getting more time with them vice any discussion of redoing their divorce agreements. Anyway for them it took years to achieve what I obtained in the 6 months of separation until the divorce was final.
 
Xantippe said:
Yes, because a child is not a bundle of firewood or a slice of cake or some other inanimate material object to be divided 50/50 between co-owners.

See 1 Kings 3:16-28 (the judgment of Solomon).

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+3&version=NRSV
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theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/24/sharing-custody-childrens-mental-health-divorce-separation

time.com/3836627/divorced-parents-joint-custody/
In Sweden, joint-custody parenting has risen dramatically in the past few decades; in the 1980s, only 1% of kids of divorced parents lived in joint-custody arrangements, but that number jumped to 40% in 2010. Shared parenting is less common in the U.S., says Ned Holstein, MD, founder and acting executive director of the National Parents Organization, and he estimates the rate is less than 20%. Still, he says that the research in favor of shared parenting for kids is overwhelming. “You’ll hear opponents say, ‘You’ll turn them into suitcase kids; they don’t want to be dragged back and forth,’” Holstein says. “Clearly, taking the suitcase back and forth once or twice a week so that you spend a lot of time with both parents is way better for the kids than the alternative of basically losing an intimate and closely loving relationship with one parent.”
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Your opinion clashes with a substantial amount of evidence. As for the Solomon analogy… please.
 
SWolf said:
theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/24/sharing-custody-childrens-mental-health-divorce-separation

time.com/3836627/divorced-parents-joint-custody/

Your opinion clashes with a substantial amount of evidence. As for the Solomon analogy… please.
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Parents don’t have to have 50/50 physical custody in order to co-parent properly. Once kids are in school, it can be practically impossible to have them going back and forth from one home to the other. My parents divorced when I was in kindergarten and while they had equal legal custody, they never considered equal physical custody for that reason. Even though we only spent the night at our dad’s home on alternating weekends during the school year, my parents still managed to co-parent. My dad took us to dance lessons and choir rehearsals during the week. He attended conferences and sporting events. He came over and we had family dinners together on occasion. He and my mom were always in communication and on the same page regarding discipline and important family events. He was more involved than many fathers who live with their children. Co-parenting doesn’t really have much to do with whose roof the kids sleep under when it comes down to it.
 
SWolf said:
theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/24/sharing-custody-childrens-mental-health-divorce-separation

time.com/3836627/divorced-parents-joint-custody/

Your opinion clashes with a substantial amount of evidence. As for the Solomon analogy… please.
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From your first article:

“Shared residency doesn’t work so well if there is conflict (if there is violence, then sharing is not an option), if the children are adolescents (less keen on two homes), or if the children don’t like one parent.”

That middle item is especially problematic here. Even within an intact family, it’s really problematic to move school age kids or to change schools.

I’d also add that Sweden is geographically much smaller than the US and hence divorced couples are likely to live much closer to each other than in the US.

I looked at both articles (which seem to be based largely on the same Swedish research) and one thing that jumps out at me is that they don’t talk about the nature of the shared residency. So to the casual reader, it sounds like they are talking about splitting every week between parents, but if you read a little closer it isn’t clear what the nature of the split is. I think that’s rather naughty not to specify what we’re talking about–half the school week, weekends, just school holidays, etc.

The story about Solomon is very apropos–it’s about willingness to make the child suffer in the name of 50/50 justice, and preferring “fairness” to the best interests of the child.
 
Allegra said:
Parents don’t have to have 50/50 physical custody in order to co-parent properly. Once kids are in school, it can be practically impossible to have them going back and forth from one home to the other. My parents divorced when I was in kindergarten and while they had equal legal custody, they never considered equal physical custody for that reason. Even though we only spent the night at our dad’s home on alternating weekends during the school year, my parents still managed to co-parent. My dad took us to dance lessons and choir rehearsals during the week. He attended conferences and sporting events. He came over and we had family dinners together on occasion. He and my mom were always in communication and on the same page regarding discipline and important family events. He was more involved than many fathers who live with their children. Co-parenting doesn’t really have much to do with whose roof the kids sleep under when it comes down to it.
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I’d also add that a 50/50 split is developmentally inappropriate for very small children. An infant or young toddler should not be shuttling back and forth between two different homes and anybody who thinks a 12-month-old ought to spend half of their time with each divorced parent knows nothing about the developmental needs of 12-month-olds.
 
limabeanerson said:
My wife and I are having some problems (she says she is no longer happy). I 100% want to work it out and am 100% committed. She even acknowledges that I’m trying to improve but says she just doesn’t feel happy anymore and thinks our marriage is over.

While I am certainly not giving up hope at all, I do have a practical question.

In the event that she does leave and we have to tell the kids, is it better (for the kids) to ‘pretend’ that it is a mutual decision or do they have the right to know that I am 100% against breaking up our family.

I’m not looking to point fingers or ‘turn the kids against their mother’ here or anything, but it will undoubtedly come up when they want to know why this is happening. It seems like it would be lying if I am not honest about it.

Anyway, first and foremost please pray for my marriage that it will be healed. Beyond that, any advice or thoughts you have are most appreciated.

God Bless

Michael
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I would phrase it as something like, “Your mother and I are getting a divorce. We still love you very much, but we will not be living together any more.”

This way you don’t have to lie to them. You’re not assigning blame, you’re not taking responsibility that you shouldn’t take. You’re just telling them what’s happening.

As they get older, they will recognize that their mother has issues.
 
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