Why do so many divorced people w/children, become bitter enemies?

It’s a fine line between love and hate.

Some people are assholes who don’t have their priorities in order or the ability to express emotion in a healthy way. Sometimes those people get married, have children, and then divorce.

People who drag their children into their divorce bullshit are the worst.

Well when one parent is working their ass off to take care of the family and another is out banging his receptionist, things get a little heated but there’s no reason to use the children as emotional leverage.

Well..I think it’s pretty simple, if two people were not able to work through their differences and divorce that dynamic is not likely to change.

I have been divorced for 7 years from a 22 yr. marriage with one grown daughter.

My ex still hates me even though I have long forgiven him for his awful behaviors.

Often the healthier person is the one who wakes up to the dysfunction and this just fuels the other partners hate as all their unhealthiness is now being revealed.

For many who have serious control issues and other emotionally unwell traits of the fucked up and immature, well…it makes sense that they would, as they always have, respond with gross selfishness and the desire to win and control, which is the very reason they are divocing to begin with!

My daughter did suffer as the pawn of her fathers abhorent behaviors but now, at 22, she can see things with clarity and our relationship has only deepened.

Her dads loss, a fool and his family are soon parted. lol

My parents were married for 23 years, you just don’t easily move on from something like that. It isn’t easy to move on. It is ridiculously hard. There is a lot of hurt and unresolved pain left for many like my parents when they divorce. It’s easy to judge other people but my parents aren’t bad people, just two people with a complicated relationship. Not all people divorce because one of them was bad, sometimes they were both bad for each other.

You can’t truly hate someone unless you’ve opened your heart had it broken.

Usually the hate comes from having to give up financial assets. When one or both of the parties suffer a decline in standard of living due to divorce, there’s resentment.

Divorce is about betrayal and shattered dreams. It is easie to hate someone you once loved, than someone you never had any emotions for.
I hope you get thru whatever is happening in your life.

@Silhouette It is a fine line, and that is why it is up to us to stay on the right side of that line. I myself went through a divorce and we had 2 children. Neither one of us was “bad”. We were high school sweethearts, married too young. I worked to help put him through Medical School. He is a very intelligent individual and very dedicated. His dedication was so strong that the family life was slipping to the back burner. He was basically married to his scientific endeavors. We divorced with admiration for each other for who we were as individuals. My second husband and I still attend events with him and his family. In fact my present husband use to call my ex in laws, his mother and father in law when speaking of them. Consequently, when our daughter got married in a Catholic Church, she couldn’t choose who should walk her down the isle. So she had both, one on each side. My children grew up knowing they could love whom ever they wanted without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings. I know not all situations are the same by any means, but it doesn’t have to end in such hatred.

@filmfann this is just a question from observation. Nothing is going on in my life, thank goodness. Already been there, and handled it just fine. Thank you for you consideration though.

Yes, well..as a mature woman I have greatly changed my beliefs about marriage.

I have no intention of ever marrying again.

Not from a place of bitterness, I have done my work over the years, but, because I do think that marriage, as an institution, has run it’s course, and historically institutions fail.

I do think younger people that want a family should have the legal protection, but far too many people only sign on for the ’ for better, for richer, for healthier’ part of that contract and have no real ability or true love to withstand the hard times.

A piece of paper makes no difference and splitting up is much easier without the legalities.

I think that the false belief that a relationship is supposed to last ‘forever’ is very harmful.

Relationships are renewable contracts, each and every day.

Nobody would sign a lifelong contract for anything else.

I will only drive a Volkswagon for the rest of my life, live in this city, work at this job.

Marriage has outlived it’s original viability IMO.

Because the one who earns less, usually seems to believe that the one who earns more should become an indentured servant to the one who earns less.

In my case, my ex and I broke up after 21 years of marriage and three kids. We began the process of breaking up with good intentions and really wanting to make this as easy on the children as possible. As we moved through the steps to break up our marriage, he grew more and more hurt which fueled his resentment and colored his behavior – toward me and the children. He is not outright hurtful to the boys, but he does say things about me that hurt them and regularly attempts to use them and their care as pawns to get me to do what he wants me to do. He is currently engaged in an attempt to create anti-mom sentiment throughout my family by spreading vicious rumors with absolutely no truth about the way I take care of my children.

I try very, very hard not to take his behavior personally and just be there to pick up the pieces when he upsets the boys. It is challenging not to sell him down the river because the way he acts is so totally contrary to the lip service he pays wanting to do things right.

@Rangie No it doesn’t and personally I don’t get it. I can’t imagine loving someone and not having at least a little of that love left when the relationship ends. Hate makes people selfish and irrational.

@Silhouette Yes, hate is such a strong emotion, it can literally cause disease in the body of the hater. My 2nd husband had a horrible break up with his first wife. Which left him so full of hate, I didn’t know if I could deal with it. It literally took 5 years to get through to him that the only person he was hurting was himself. She had no idea nor could care less. She took the 2 kids and disappeared with a highway patrolman. She did it, she had to live with it, not him. He hasn’t seen his kids in 35 years. He needed a place to put the love he once had for the his kids, so he place it in my kids, who were the same ages as his. Now he has grandchildren from my side of the family and he couldn’t love them more. Finally, the hatred disease is gone.
I love my ex-husband as much as I did before, it is just in a different way now.

In my opinion I have every right to be bitter; and I bet my ex-husband would say the same, but we’re not. The stakes are too high and our issues exclude our children. It’s so important for them to see and experience parents who put them first and demonstrate a united front.

We co-parent. He’s remarried to the perfect woman for him and I’m relishing in my “sexiness”. The love we have for our girls is bigger than my anger and disappointment, and visa versa.

The day before he remarried, he called me for advice; he still asks my opinion on things not related to the kids. My girls see us laughing with one another. My youngest even remarked “daddy still likes your opinion”.

Now don’t get me wrong, he pisses me off OFTEN, as I do him; but we’re the adults. Divorce was hard enough for them, bickering parents triples the trauma.