It's a phrase uttered by many parents who may have contemplated divorce but have decided to stay together. A common reason to choose to work through the problems instead and stay married is "for the children". If only these parents really knew what they are doing to the children if they perpetuate a rocky, loveless marriage.
My parents were big on sit down dinners. However, oftentimes my dad had to work late, in which case my mom would give us dinner first so that we wouldn't have to wait so long to eat. She would sometimes wait for him and they'd eat together so he wouldn't eat alone, or she would eat with us, depending on how late he'd be coming home. One evening he came home particularly late. We had already eaten and I was helping mom with kitchen cleanup while dad was in the dining room eating. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old. While mom and I were in the kitchen cleaning, dad came in, complained about the food being too cold, and next thing I knew food was flying left and right. He threw the plate with food at my mom. There was rice all over the stove, and the plate landed on the floor. There was screaming, yelling, crying and insults flying. I had to get out of there. When the waters calmed I came back and helped clean up, all the while mom uttering a mixture of sobs and insults under her breath.
I must have been around 8 or 9 years old at the time of this one. The reason for the argument is not what I recollect. What I remember is my dad lifting the dining table, then throwing a dining chair at my mother. One of the legs of the chair happened to catch on my mother's big toe, which started bleeding profusely. I can still see my mom's screaming face in my mind, curtains of tears coming down her face, which turned red like a tomato. I remember she yelled at him every insult in the book amidst tears of pain. I must have been maybe 4 or 5 feet away from the scene when the chair flew, and was still standing by as the chaos continued to unfold. Desperate to try to make my mom feel better I suddenly thought of something: Duchess. Duchess could make mom feel better. Duchess was one of our 2 little dogs - a little Pekingese furball, and mom's favorite. I figured that if I got her Duchess, maybe mom would stop crying and start feeling better. I spotted Duchess on the furniture, went and got her, and handed her to mom. Mom took her in her arms, hugged me and thanked me. At that instant dad turned pale and numb. It was as if dad had totally snapped out of the trance. As if whatever demons had taken a hold of him loosened their grip entirely and the dad I knew had returned. Dad said to go get mom some bandages, and the focus turned to mom's toe.
Fighting was constant. Verbal abuse was daily. My room was right next to theirs, and I could hear the fighting through the wall. In the morning, at night.... Sometimes we'd be sitting at dinner and a fight would erupt out of nothing, or there would be no talking at all. It was living in a constant state of tension. You never knew when the next fight would happen. Unbearable. Mom packed us to spend nights at grandma's because of a fight more times than I care to enumerate. Many times I would have to serve as the intermediary when mom and dad weren't speaking to each other - mom would need to tell dad that dinner was ready, or dad needed to ask mom something, and I was used as the "messenger".
If someone asks me to recount my happiest childhood memory, I honestly have a very difficult time with this question. I'm sure I could come up with something, as there were some happy times, but it's not a question I can answer immediately. I really have to stop and think about it. Even when we went to Disney World there was fighting. Even when we went to the beach there was fighting. No matter what. No matter where. Fighting.
I don't know how many times they threatened each other with divorce, but it always seemed easier just to stay together. Neither one ever did anything about it and the threats never progressed from just that: empty threats.
I remember my happiest times were my sleepovers at my friends' homes on the weekends. (Could this be the answer to the happiest childhood memories question?) I got to get away from that and enjoy fun, happy times. Better yet, I was completely relaxed and in no tension at all. I wasn't worried that there was going to be any fighting. Then Sunday afternoon would roll around and in my heart I dreaded having to call to be picked up. I had to return to the hellhole that was the endless fighting. I remember thinking "I wonder if they're talking to each other or not".
But no day was happier than August 13, 1983. I'm forgetful about a lot of things but tend to be pretty good with important dates, and that date was huge: my flight off to college. It was important for many reasons, one of which was that finally, after all those years being raised watching the two people to whom I owed my life display so much hate and disrespect towards one another, I got to leave all of that. I swore I was never coming back. Except to visit, that is. I could not bear living like that again.
One of the reasons I felt that my first serious significant other was "the one" was just that: we never, ever fought. I remember distinctly telling him in the beginning that I wasn't going to be able to handle being yelled at, and I proceeded to explain my upbringing. Years later when I married - to a different man - one of the key reasons I was the one to file for divorce was that my ex-husband and I fought. I couldn't let history repeat itself.
Years later I asked my mom why didn't she just leave. She had already had one divorce; she didn't want a second one. And then she uttered that infamous phrase, the phrase that I have come to resent more than any other phrase I have ever heard in my life: "I did it for you, for my children."
For us?
Thanks. Thanks for the gift of witnessing hate. Thanks for the gift of learning how couples insult one another. Thanks for the gift of the mother of all emotional scars.
Stay married because you truly love and are in love with one another. Respect the institution and what it represents. If you're not in it for the right reasons, if things changed, if people changed, whatever the problem may be, then by all means... don't stay married. Is a loveless marriage really the example you want to give your children about what marriage is all about?
Children are so aware of what's going on. So aware. They can hear through the walls. They can read body language. They know. And they...we... do NOT forget.
I wish couples really knew what they're doing to the children when they say that they're staying together for the children.
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