Your marriage has become genuinely loveless — not hostile, not abusive, simply flat and empty. Both partners know this. Your children are 8 and 11. Research suggests children of divorce face measurable challenges; research also suggests children raised in loveless households have their own set of measurable challenges. Both of you would be significantly happier separated. The children are happy now. They suspect nothing.
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Question

Your marriage has become genuinely loveless — not hostile, not abusive, simply flat and empty. Both partners know this. Your children are 8 and 11. Research suggests children of divorce face measurable challenges; research also suggests children raised in loveless households have their own set of measurable challenges. Both of you would be significantly happier separated. The children are happy now. They suspect nothing.

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Accepted Answer

41% chose "Stay together — the stability I provide now is worth the personal cost" and 59% chose "Separate — two honest homes are better than one performative one". The stay-together-for-the-children dilemma is one of the most common real ethical decisions families face. The evidence is genuinely mixed — children fare differently depending on the quality of the marriage that continues and the quality of the separation that follows. What is clear is that both options have costs, and the pretence that there is a risk-free path is itself a form of dishonesty. This dilemma is not abstract for the majority of people who encounter it.

Stay together for the children?

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