Some research suggests that children would actually prefer their parents to stay together rather than get divorced. One wonders if the children interviewed mean that they would prefer if their parents could live together happily with none of the ongoing fighting. This is a very different situation, rather than just staying together, living in an atmosphere of rows, coldness and stress is awful for children to live in.

While Parents very often decide to remain together for the sake of the children, they can start resenting them for keeping them in a cold  loveless existence. The children may in turn blame themselves quite correctly for being part of the cause of their parents disagreements. Their parents unspoken words “we are staying together because it’s best for you” can hang over the children’s lives like the “elephant in the room”. Parents do not speak it but convey it with their “body language” and behaviour.

Are Parents really staying together for the sake of the children? Or could it be that one or other parent does not really want to Separate or Divorce and is really scared of being on their own? Or have they always been so wrapped up in their children, that they selfishly put their own desires first rather than acting in a way terrible as it feels to begin with, may well be the best decision for the children in the long run.

It may be much better for the children if their parents can remain friends or at least on speaking terms in a way that there are no rows about access or using the children as a “go-between”, which results in the children feeling caught in the middle of a tug-of-war. That they should remain together and live in an atmosphere of hostility.

The parents might be much better off going to a Couple Counsellor, not to try to fix the Relationship, but to get help to find ways to Separate in a friendly and amicable way.

For a child, second to having their parents happily together, is to have parents happily apart. Peace and harmony are what they are after and how this is achieved whether in the same house or separate is not really important.

As individuals each parent can grow and will be able to give their children love and attention. Naturally children want their parents to stay together but “not at any price”.