Letters to the Editor
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Assuming of course perfect happiness isn't a myth
Which it probably is. Which makes the question moot. Stay in a bland marriage as an alternative to what, exactly? Lonliness? Everyone I know who's divorced claims that it's for something better. But they can't really picture or describe what that is let alone act on it or reach it. Seems to be six one half dozen the other.
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Should Have Thought of All This Before
The time for cogitation about the soulful requirements of the artistic heart was before you had children. It's hard to tell from this touchy-feely narrative what the actual state of your marriage is: Disappointment? Active dislike between the partners? Natural lessening of romantic love in the face of the everyday happenstance of raising children, making a living, and discovering that your partner has annoying habits? Talk to your spouse and go for counseling to find out whether your marriage can be saved before you destroy a stable home for a possible chimera of an everlasting soulmate who will continue to thrill your artistic soul.
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If they're old enough, try asking the kids!
The LW says in more or less oblique fashion she's miserable in her marriage and that she thinks she got married for the wrong reasons.
First, everyone does get married for the wrong reasons..be it love, money, status or whatever. It's what you make of the marriage that makes it work, or not.
Second, are her children old enough to ask if they're in favor of her staying in the marriage or leaving. They're the secondary victims of anything she does, and they should be consulted if possible.
If they're not, well...take your chances.
Either way, it's up to you. You're an adult, you can make good choices or bad, and only with time will you know if divorce is going to be a bad choice-kind of like marriage.
(I'm echoing Cary..sorry!)
Also-get a lawyer, if you're going to do anything, ok? They're useless most of the time, but if you have any property at all, they can save your butt.
Good luck.
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I did, and wish I hadn't
My husband and I stayed married about 10 years longer than we truly wanted, because neither of us wanted to put our kids through a divorce. We didn't want two separate households, even if we could have afforded them. We didn't fight, got along fine -- there were no feelings of any kind. (Yes, including sexual ones.) So we stuck it out.
Our kids didn't notice a thing - they were shocked when we finally decided to split up. But I wonder if they truly came away unharmed by living in a joyless home, as opposed to an angry one. Who knows how much deep resentment we were actually subjecting them to, unaware that we were?
I strongly believe that people should stay together for the sake of their kids, but not the way we did. If you decide your kids need the presence of two parents, don't just go through the motions. Get some counseling. Work on your marriage. Don't just wait it out until the youngest leaves home.
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For what it is worth...
My parents stayed in a loveless marriage in which my mother was quite vocal about how unhappy she was.
Of the 4 kids, in our forties now, only one is married.
Whenever friends of mine have serious chronic doubts about their marriages, I always tell them children thrive when the parents are happy. As a child, you can tell when something is *wrong* in your house.
I am middle-aged and still find it hard to imagine a man might actually ever love me back. That is my model for love. Think about whether you want to pass this particular inheritance on to your children.
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children, happiness, and something else
Lots of people talk about happiness, and blame the lack of a successful marriage on unrealistic expectations of what that is. Ok, maybe that's true for some divorcees. Me? I broke up my family because I was *miserable*. I was angry, full of hate, and pictured the rest of my life as a long slog through hell with someone I loathed... but my kid would have an intact family, and isn't that what all the literature says counts?
I called bullshit on that, and it was the best call I ever made. My life keeps getting better and better, my ex is doing better than I ever saw him during our marriage, and our kid is doing great, too.
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Marriage May Be Temporary, But Kids Are Forever
I can't tell, based on the letter writer's vague description, whether divorce is the right answer or not. But one thing caught my attention: "What of the drama of the artistic soul -- and that of a full-time working artist, compromising for money -- more or less blocked from its real art by the need to provide for the family, not just money, but body, soul and spare time?".
Whether you get a divorce or not, your kids will still require at least some of your money and spare time - and hopefully some of your soul as well. Even if you have plenty of money, you'll still need to provide for your family in other ways, which might continue to limit your "drama of the artistic soul". If you're a good parent, you aren't going to go back to a carefree single life. You may not have a spouse any more, but you'll always have your kids.
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A simple question.
That's a difficult situation, and I can't possibly know what the "right" answer is. But here's a simple question:
Are the kids better off with an intact family, or would they be better off with separate households? That is a simple question, but that doesn't mean that there is a simple answer.
What I'm suggesting is an ethic that is centered around the needs of children. In other words, needs of children trump our own needs. Sometimes people remain married when they shouldn't. Sometimes they divorce when they shouldn't.
That said, if the marriage is destroying you -- if the marriage is simply intolerable -- then your own sanity becomes the prevailing factor.
If that's not the situation, then the needs of the children should prevail. What I'm suggesting in that case is the importance of a concept that is out of fashion in some quarters -- the concept of self-sacrifice. It is a spiritual concept that cannot be justified by an appeal to rationality. It is a spiritual concept that may make you the object of ridicule. People will say "you're crazy, why are you doing this?"
Viktor Frankl wrote "Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward."
If this is something you can do, then do it. If not, then don't. But in sacrificing who you think you are, you may find who you really are. Best wishes.