Staying Together for the Sake of the Children...what of the Children?

It seems apparent to an observer that the 'family' environment between those who should part is unhealthy.

Children are being warped by the twisted 'Normal' of their environment.

Staying together for the 'sake' of the children should be rotated 180o to Parting for the Sake of the Children.

Abe was married three times. He had children with each of his three wives.

Wife One and Wife Two divorced him for unfaithfulness. Wife Three stayed with him for the Sake of the Children.

At the time of his third marriage his bride was a pregnant eighteen year old. He was thirty eight. He had money, a house, status. She had nothing.

She was usually pregnant during the first five years of marriage. Then she learned of his infidelities. His many infidelities.

If she had only one child, a profession, a place to go, she, as ex-Wife One and ex-Wife Two would leave him. But she had nothing, so she stayed.

She claimed she stayed for the sake of the children, (she now had four). The truth is she stayed with him because she had nowhere to go.

Abe was a tyrant, and despite his first layer of cheer and friendliness, he was a cold man who liked the sound of his own peristalsis.

The children grew up with a deep sense of insecurity. They kept ideas to themselves. For that is what they saw their parents do.

For them, to live this way was not a choice. They didn't choose to be secretive, they didn't choose to seen and not heard, they didn't choose to be mistrustful, for them it was normal.

Malcolm was about five when the relationship between his parents moved to cold silence.

His mother, torn to bits by her husband's infidelities, withdrew into her own world.

Malcolm grew to become a withdraw young man who had no words for feelings, did not show them, and could sit in silence for hours. By the time he was In his twenties his main form of communication was by texting on a cell phone, which virtually never left his hand.

Outsiders tried to draw Malcolm from his shell. He didn't respond, he acted as if he were alone in the world.

Malcolm was turning into his father although he obviously didn't like the man.

At the age of twenty seven Malcolm was involved with a woman. She became pregnant. She needed the words of reassurance he didn't have. She considered abortion the only option.

She never told him she had been pregnant, simply broke off with him.

He learned of the pregnancy and abortion months later. He didn't know how to feel about it, because Malcolm didn't know how to feel. He didn't know how to care.

Anabel was the 'reason' why Abe married her mother.

After a few normal years, the relationship between her parents changed. She, more than the others, could almost word it.

If she would chatter as normal for a girl her age, her father became gruff and insulting. "Too Much Talking!" he would bark because he didn't want to hear sounds from other beings.

She withdrew into silence, pretty much excluded from the company of her peers and wound up concentrating on her school work. As she did well her father would look at her with affection, utter nice words. Getting her father's approval was so craved that she flung herself deeper into her studies to get that prayed for smile.

By the time Anabel was in University she was the odd geeky girl no one was interested in. No one talked to her nor did she talk to anyone save in pursuant of the lesson.

Out in the world she is amazed at how people converse. She still considers those who engage in normal conversation extremely chatty. She asks so many 'stupid' questions that people find her a 'must avoid'.

This is the result of a child being raised in this kind of silence under that kind of tyrannical regime.

Abe had fathered a son, James, with his first wife. She had divorced him shortly after learning of his adultery. James had grown 'normally' with his mother and was accepted by her second husband.

There are no dark corners in his character. James communicates with others, shows emotion.

Everyone talks to James and finds him quite pleasant. This is because his mother did not stay with Abe for the sake of the children, she left him for the sake of her child.

When a marriage is failing do not remain for the 'sake' of the children. Leave for their benefit..

If Abe's third wife had divorced him and taken the kids, no matter how bad things might be economically, they would have had a real mother and near normal life.

They would have mingled with other children, they would have, whether their
mother remarried or not, have been able to developed normally.

They wouldn't be 'zombies', they wouldn't be so enclosed within themselves they can't relate.

Don't make the mistake; Separate for the Sake of The Children.