Stay in Marriage for Children or Divorce?

張貼日期：Jun 14, 2017 9:1:14 AM

Abby Yeh

Recently the divorce rate in Taiwan is growing up and it ranks the first in Asia. Actually, divorce may have a great impact on children’s physical and mental development and their adulthood. As I know, many parents in an unhappy marriage choose to maintain the situation for their children because they consider keeping a marriage is good to children’s physical and mental development. However, keeping an unhappy marriage is more terrible than divorcing because it cannot reduce the damage caused by the quarrel, the couple may be trapped in the deadlock situation, and it causes more pressure for the entire family.

Couples who cannot communicate well are prone to quarrel, which makes children sad. I have often heard that some parents quarrel because they do not express their own ideas well, and that affects their children’s moods. Children are unwilling to see their parents quarrel. Sometimes children may feel embarrassed because their parents involve them in their fights. These will lead to negative emotions in children and have a bad effect on their learning, interpersonal relationships, and other aspects.

Another drawback of keeping an unhappy marriage is that it is trapped in the deadlock situation. Perhaps some couples would like to divorce, but for their children, they choose to maintain the marriage grudgingly. Some even pretend to be loving in front of their children. In fact, once they are out of their children’s sight, they quarrel or keep silent. Some couples keep silent because they do not want to talk to each other anymore, including communication, expressing their opinions, or arguing for the family matter.

In the end, everyone in the family feels stressed. Most children are sensitive, so they can sense that something is wrong with their parents and the family, even the subtle details. When children face the situation in which their parents’ relationship is not as good as before, they tend to feel upset or troubled because they do not know how they can help their parents to improve their relationship. Some couples fall apart, and they might vent their anger on their children. I think that will let children feel stressful and depressed.

Although divorce has a great impact on children, it can end an unhappy relationship. According to some studies, divorce can impact on children deeply; however, keeping an unhappy marriage is more detrimental than divorcing, for it causes children to have more negative emotions and behavior. In fact, the completion of a family is important, but it is more important to ensure that the parents’ emotions and pressure do not affect the children and that the parents are still capable of loving their children.