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Trying to believe in myself, but it's hard

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shixie:
Be strong Caroline, you will make it.  I have a comment from experience.  Staying together for your children is not the best reason.  My mother left my Nfather in my senior year in high school.  She too stayed as long as she did for us, her children.  If she would have left when we were small it would have prevented years of abuse on all of us.  Divorce is very traumatic at any age but I think it is harder the older the kids are.  As a senior it negatively affected my last year in school and my first year in nursing school.  I actually had to leave nursing school in the spring and delay my graduation a year, because of the stress of everything I was going through.  I was forced to live on my own at an early age and terribly mixed up about life in general.  I truley thought that dealing with the divorce of my parents and a dysfunctional family life at 18 was much more difficult and wished my mother would have left him years ago.  Children are resilient and adapt better to divorce than older ones.  Plus it spares them additional years of abuse and dysfunction.   So please don't EVER think that leaving while your boys are small was the wrong decision.  They will adjust to their parents divorce.  It will spare them years of abuse and dysfunction from your marriage.  I am not saying life will be easy for them, but at least you removed yourself from a destructive relationship.  Their relationship with him is a whole other ballgame.  You will be better prepared to help them if you are removed from the destructive relationship.  I hope this helps.
Stacey

Anonymous:
Stacie

Thanks for your perspective.  I am trying to complete a divorce and have three boys at home.  One will be a senior this year, one a freshman and one in 6th grade.  I know moving forward is right and yet I still worry that maybe there is something else I could do.  Any sugestions for the one that is a senior?  In his case, he knows his mother doesn't love him (his words based on experiences) but I still see him trying to win her approval.

Max

Anonymous:
Max,

What you can do:

(1) Be the one good parent they have. They will notice and appreciate it later.

(2) Be a role model.

(3) Get them into therapy if they're devastated by the divorce and are acting out.

(4) For the senior, do not try to stop him from trying to gain his mom's approval. You can't succeed there anyway. Understand his hate and love (ambivalence) toward his mother. Help him find ways to manage the disappointment.

bunny

Max:
Bunny

Thanks for the tips.  Are you Hermione from another board?  This is the same Max from that one.

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