Divorce and the kids

[pocaracas]

Children of divorced parents are also more likely to experience conflict in their own marriages, and are more likely to experience divorce themselves. They are also more likely to be involved in short-term cohabiting relationships, which often dissolve before marriage.[19]

My marriage has outlasted my parents'! And it's still going strong!

According to Nicholas Wall, former President of the Family Division of the English High Court, "People think that post-separation parenting is easy - in fact, it is exceedingly difficult, and as a rule of thumb my experience is that the more intelligent the parent, the more intractable the dispute.

Aye, this is true. Being a single parent is not easy. Even when you have both parents around, it's not that easy...

There is nothing worse, for most children, than for their parents to denigrate each other. Parents simply do not realize the damage they do to their children by the battles they wage over them. Separating parents rarely behave reasonably, although they always believe that they are doing so, and that the other party is behaving unreasonably."[20]

My mom did this... she kept saying my dad was stupid or whatnot...
On the other hand, my dad never mentioned anything about my mom. He encouraged us to spend time with her, even when we didn't want to go spend every other weekend with her.
So.. yes, whoever gets custody needs to be level headed and keep the adult stress away from the kids.

Although not the intention of most parents, putting children in the middle of conflict is particularly detrimental. Examples of this are asking children to carry messages between parents, grilling children about the other parent's activities, telling children the other parent does not love them, and putting the other parent down in front of the children.

Luckily, I never suffered this.

Poorly managed conflict between parents increases children's risk of behavior problems,

depression - Can't say I've had any
substance abuse and dependence - Does a computer screen count as substance?
poor social skills - a bit, but aren't all nerds a bit dysfunctional in this subject? Still, got married and have 3 of my own kids! Can't be that bad...
poor academic performance - Hmmm... PhD in Nuclear fusion... yes, I agree, it could have been better.

Fortunately, there are approaches by which divorce professionals can help parents reduce conflict. Options include mediation, collaborative divorce, coparent counseling, and parenting coordination.[21]

medication? Are you serious? F'in idiot psychologists!
Counseling... yes, some people are even more idiotic that psychologists and need someone pointing a better way.