It is hard on kids to have their parents split up, but not as hard as listening to their parents fight 24/7/365. My parents divorced when .I was 21. I always prayed they would divorce when .I was a teen because they made my life miserable. I couldn't have friends over for fear my parents would get into a fight. Family functions were a nightmare. Forget the holidays.
They actually get along great now. Go figure.

What .I would think would be hard, would be the parents who split up, but never have that "mommy and daddy love you very much and our break up doesn't have anything to do with you" talk. Kids do think it's their fault if their not told it isn't.

it does effect children, my parents were never married so i didn't have to deal with that but tommy's parents got divorced and it was really hard on him. im glad they did though, his dad was an awful man.

My parents had a sickening divorce. My dad was horrible to my mother. He brainwashed my brother and i into thinking she did not love us. he made me write down in a notebook all the awful things she did to us. I was 12 and stupid. Then my dad had a little break down and kidnapped my brother and I, and then ended up inthe mental hosp for a couple of weeks. it was awful. We ended up in his custody because of my little notebook. Anyway, as an adult, I am still glad they did, because my relationship with my mom is awesome. I am still working on the other one though. I think as long as the parents are adult-like in their divorce, then kids will learn to cope. But the badmouthing is the worst thing you can do to the children, imo.

I agree, as long as the parents have a good break up with no fighting and arguing over who gets what and when, then for the most part, the kids will turn out ok. I for one don't believe in divorce, only because of the way I was raised. I would do anything in my power to try to fix or salvage my marriage if it was in trouble. My husband feels the same way.

My parents split when I was 13 and my brother was 11. THey never once fought in front of us kids, even when they were married. They always took it to another room or outside or waited until we went to bed (so my mom says). My dad came to both of us and asked if we wanted to that we could come live with him, but he let us kids decide. Being young, we both wanted to live with my mom. My mom never kept anything about our lives from my dad, and he was always involved in every decision that had to deal with us kids. Now that an I am adult, I do not feel that I was adversly affected by my parents divorce. I think that when I was younger it affected me, but nothing that lasted into adulthood.

It truely is all in how you as the adult handle the situation. If you make the situation stressfull for the parents as well as the child, obviously there will be problems. But I think if the adults act like civilized adults, then the chance of the child not being negatively affected are much less.

Do not ever put off divorcing "for the sake of the kids, so they'll understand when they're older." It makes for an awful situation at home. I would know, my parents have been divorcing since I was 12. 4 years later, they fight through their lawyers (my dad's lawyer's name is .Kami. I'm willing to bet she got her degree online. She dots her i's with hearts and is platinum blonde) and through their children. I hate being the gobetween and every time i try to say something about it i'm told i'm not the gobetween and yada yada yada. the children really get ignored in many divorces because the parents get too wrapped up in hating each other.
can one of you adopt me, please?

My parents have been married for 31 years. They will never divorce. They are a pretty happy couple now, but they were not always happily married. My dad was abusive for the first half of their marriage. Now, he isn't and is very against verbal and physical abuse and actually played a big part in my beliefs about it.

I think whether or not divorce has a negative effect on children depends entirely upon the parents attitudes about the divorce and their attitudes towards their ex. Parents who are out to do nothing but hurt their ex, even at the expense of their children, are usually the kind whose divorce ends up hurting the children. I know several people whose parents are divorced, but not bitterly, and they claim that the divorce was better for them.

my mom was divorced more than once and life was pretty chaotic when i was growing up. the net effect on me (after some counselling) is that i take my relationship with my partner very seriously and will do everything in my power to make things work. that doesn't mean i would put up with abuse or anything like that, but if things were to take a turn for the worse there would be marriage counselling and a lot of talking and trying to work things out before i would just walk away from it. i think i chose a little better than my mom ever did when it comes to men, so i don't forsee a lot of marital problems in the future. but i have talked to my partner a lot about this and we both agree that we will do everything we can to treat each other with respect always and that if we have difficulties in the future we will work very hard to keep our relationship together. so far we are keeping that promise and i am hopeful about the future. i believe in the vows you take when you get married to stay for better or for worse and all that but i don't blame my mother for divorcing because she was the only one who was trying to make it work.

My mother is currently on her 3rd marriage.

I think it has effected me alot and in many different ways. Some positive and some negative. It has definitely effected the way I view and handle relationships. But, I truely feel that it will effect every child differently. It has alot to do with how the parents handle the divorce.

My father left when I was an infant, so I never really knew him, nor did I ever yearn for a father figure growing up. The only time Mom ever spoke negatively of him was when she'd complain about certain attributes of the house (which he designed and built), but otherwise there was no ranting about 'your good-for-nothing father, blah blah blah, so on and so forth'. It didn't really have an effect on me, I guess.

That doesn't mean I missed out on arguments - Mom and I lived with my grandma for ten years, and those two were always fighting. Grandma made my mom nuts, and I do believe, had Grandma pushed the right buttons at the right time, my mom would have put her six feet under. Yes, Grandma made my mom that nuts.

My mom hasn't been in a loving relationship since my father left - she only dates men now so she can have someone help her pay the bills. She begged her boyfriend to come back to her when he left for another woman, and he did...and she's always making sure I fawn all over him. She forced me to get him a father's day card to prevent him from leaving - everytime a minor hardship comes up, she'll say, "I can't have John leave - who's going to fix my car/the sink/help me pay for everything?". Never anything about how much she loves him - she's just worried about losing that extra income...which is understandable, since I know what she makes is definitely laughable (not her fault, but just saying).

Mom's attitude of "I need a man around to help me afford to live" did leave a lasting impression on me, though - it prompts me to try my damnedest in college so I can have a career that pays enough so I can survive okay on my own. I am extremely choosy about men, and I have never ever wanted to be in a situation where I would need to have a man to pay the bills.

My mother is also on her 3rd marriage, but only the second since my dad.

I think my parents divorse affected me with my relationships as well. This goes back to the parents staying together for the sake of the children. My parents split when I was 13, but when I was 8 they seperated and then decided to get back together. The way that it affected me was that I never saw my parents be affectionate. Not a hug, a kiss, holding hands, nothing. I never thought anything about it, I thought that was normal...So you can imagine how that would affect me as an adult trying to have my own relationship and marriage. Well I didn't get the chance to have it affect me. My mom married her high school sweetheart a year after my parents split and they had a "normal" marriage as far as the affection goes. They held hands, kissed, hugged, and all that. By the time I started dateing and having my own relationships, I was well acustomed to how normal people who are married act around each other.
I don't resent anything that my parents did or didn't do in front of us kids. I really don't ever think about it.

It just goes to show you that you can influence a child with .A.N.Y action that you protray to them. They are like sponges!!!

God, that sounds so awful. I know how that is. I wish my parents could have seen the future when they wer mucking up our lives. I hardly have any relationship with my dad anymore, and my brother is verrry resentful. We both moved 1000 miles away from him so we could try to piece together normal lives.

I'll adopt you!

I also keep my relationship with my husband as a well-guarded treasure because i know how fragile marriage can be. We both work extremely hard to keep things working well. It does take work!

i think what i had a hard time with as a kid more than anything with divorce was new boyfriends. it was always really awkward and uncomfortable and i felt sometimes like my mom was being taken away from us kids and like the boyfriend was somewhat resentful of us even though he would act like he thought we were awesome. and then when she remarried we were told we had to call the new guy dad. that still bothers me to this day because they ended up having a really ugly relationship and he was abusive and they divorced. i was so ashamed of having called this guy dad when all was said and done and i felt like the whole family had been betrayed by him not just my mom. i think if i were to lose rich, god forbid, it would take me a looooong long time to start seeing anyone else. i just know how it affected my siblings and i growing up when my mom would have a new boyfriend and i hated it.

god this makes me really sad reading all of this stuff.

my parents were never married and my dad was hardly ever around.

i met him for the first time when i was in the 3rd grade and i absolutely loved him, and i thought he was really cute hahaha weird. and then he stopped coming around and i was heart broken, i thought he was just it! & then when i was 11 i met him again and he was... "different" my mom thinks he had a mental break down, I cried when i had to go with him. i went one time and we went to the races with my brother and sister who i hadn't seen in years, i was so happy! (on the way my dad told me that my step mom would be there, but he "had my back")

well we got there and my dad certainly didn't have my back. my step mom said some rude things to me and when my mom found out they didn't sit well with her. so i didn't talk to him again for years. then i went to court about a year and a half ago and saw him and he got my number and we've been talking ever since then, but things are too weird. i think it's too late... i don't even feel comfortable around him at alllll anymore. so i stopped returning his calls, and he stopped calling all together. i guess that's how this will end, because im not going to try to contact him again. i'm glad my mom didn't marry him.

my parents never married the only time im aware of them living in the same house with me was for a short time when i was too young to remember. Like my newborn years

Eventually my father left, i don't have that much of a relationship with my mom. Now im having a hard time mentally and i need help...

My parent's divorced when I was about ten years old, what made it difficult is that the situation was never explained to my brother and I until four years later. My dad finally had to show me the legal papers for me to believe him. Don't get me wrong their marriage wasn't great, although they didn't like fighting in front of us, our apartment at the time wasn't exactly sound proof.

I'm 28 now and the pain of them splitting up and the complexities of being stuck in the middle is something I'm not sure my other friends understood. I grew up in a strong religious background and the issue wasn't ever brought up unless it was to say that you shouldn't divorce. People just assumed that as kids we'd adjust accordingly, but even now the scars I carry and the sadness I feel when I see other couples divorce is immense.

I know that there are situations when divorce is the only option. But if you have children please make every effort to be honest with them and don't use them as pawns. Regardless of how old they are they know that something is up and will need to have a stable environment. Please don't insult your ex in front of your child and make them choose sides.