If you've not read the book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith Wallerstein, I would highly encourage you to do so. Not every marriage can be saved. I get that.
But there are many that can. People stop because it seems easier to get divorced. Those consequences seem more palatable–severe and difficult for sure–but still more palatable.
Change is hard.
Saving a marriage is hard.
Getting a divorce is hard.
But we tell ourselves lies. We tell ourselves that staying together for the kids does as much damage as getting divorced. There is very little reliable to data to suggest this is true.
This doesn't mean you should stay with someone who is abusing you or your children.
This doesn't mean that every marriage could be saved. I know that some people are put into a position by their spouse that they have to seek a divorce.
I'm not blaming you.
But we need to accept the truth marriage is not disposable. Marriage is not something we can just toss away.
Divorce has a negative impact on our children.
That doesn't mean I'm saying it's your fault. And feeling guilt doesn't mean you're being put on a guilt trip.
Until we accurately diagnose a situation, we cannot treat whatever the negative consequences are from that situation. If you have had to get a divorce, seek some time with a therapist. Find someone for your children. Join a support group.
Like an injury to your body, many emotional injuries can be healed. Wholeness can be found. The world is full of hurtful truths. Ignoring them doesn't change them.
Healing comes from accepting them.
The following is a great quote from early in the book.
One of the many myths of our divorce culture is that divorce automatically rescues children from an unhappy marriage. Indeed, many parents cling to this belief as a way of making themselves feel less guilty. No one wants to hurt his or her child, and thinking that divorce is a solution to everyone’s pain genuinely helps. Moreover, it’s true that divorce delivers a child from a violent or cruel marriage (which we will soon see in Chapter 7). However, when one looks at the thousands of children that my colleagues and I have interviewed at our center since 1980, most of whom were from moderately unhappy marriages that ended in divorce, one message is clear: the children do not say they are happier. Rather, they say flatly, “The day my parents divorced is the day my childhood ended.” What do they mean? Typically parent and child relationships change radically after divorce—temporarily or, as in Karen’s family, permanently. Ten years after the breakup only one-half of the mothers and one-quarter of the fathers in our study were able to provide the kind of nurturant care that had distinguished their parenting before the divorce. To go back to what Gary said about his parents being “offstage” while he grew up, after a divorce one or both parents often move onto center stage and refuse to budge. The child becomes the backstage prop manager making sure the show goes on.
Wallerstein, Judith S. (2001-10-01). The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (Kindle Locations 995-1006). Hyperion. Kindle Edition.