One thing that will certainly keep someone stuck in an unhealthy relationship is having kids together. When you have kids together, the pendulum will always swing to staying in the relationship. Even when you’re deeply unhappy and you have the unwillingness to make the relationship work, you will still convince yourself or you’ll be convinced that when kids are involved, staying is the best.
You will even read the benefits of kids staying in a traditional family unit and the research and statistics will probably support your stay in the relationship. While there are benefits of kids staying in a stable household, an unhealthy relationship is not that stable environment. It may physically look stable (one house and fake smiles at the dinner table) but it is clearly a fake unhealthy environment.
Even if you decide to stick to it and never argue in front of them, your unhappiness will be clearly visible. Children are like sponges, they absorb emotions so easily and you can’t really fake it for 365 ¼ days. Your idea of being the best role model for your kids is thrown out of the window if you choose to stay with unhappiness and deceit instead of being true to yourself and leaving the relationship.
There will always be tension, pretense and hate floating in the air and your kids will learn and even normalize this as part of life. They will model this uncomfortable sadness as how relationships are supposed to be and even think there’s no other option in life. By staying you’re conditioning them to either normalize unhealthy behaviors or normalize staying in unhealthy relationships.
That’s why being miserable and sticking to a relationship is not really helping you or the kids, it’s not making the world a better place either.
Actually, when you look at it closely most of your generalizations even using statistics are more of ego defense mechanisms that try to keep you in a state of ‘comfortable pain.’ It keeps you safe from feeling of guilt, shame, feeling like a failure if you manage to break free from that unhealthy relationship. The mind or your current worldview will always seek self-preservation and generalizations like “traditional family unit”, “we’re social beings” or “for the kids” can be great alibis your mind can use to keep you stuck.
So, if you’re ‘holding’ and ‘sticking’ together for the sake of the kids, then the best solution is to end the relationship for your own sake and even for the kids. It’s a tough choice and it’s not the easiest path but there’s no point of using your ‘kids’ as an ‘excuse’ to stick to your unhealthy relationship.
It may sound harsh but sticking to unhealthy relationship will not bear any good fruits for you and the best place for you is outside the relationship. An unhealthy relationship where there’s no willingness to work on it never gets better, you only get accustomed to it or to the pain. Unless, you’re committing to work on your relationship for both of you, then staying in a miserable environment should never be an option.
One last thing is, if you decide to leave, work on yourself and be happy, your kids may also pick up a few positive lessons like resilience, independence, the power of choice and all this will help shape them to be autonomous beings.
So, your situation will always be different but always look at how you can model your life along the lines of happiness and freedom and maybe your kids will pick that from you. Even if they don’t pick it up from you, you will have lived a life of contentment instead of pain. In the grand scheme of things, your self-care and wellbeing matters in front of anyone else’s (even you kids*) and if you take care of yourself, that effect will trickle down to your kids and even your relationships.
Note from the Author
If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.
References
2. https://www.verywellfamily.com/should-you-stay-together-for-kids-1270800
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/adolescents-explained/202105/don-t-stay-together-the-kids
