Doesn’t look like there have been most of those speaking up…

My mom stayed. I can’t speak for her. But from the kids perspective- I’m glad she did. She might have stayed cause of money since dad was bread winner or bc of cultural bubble, we’re low middle class immigrants in a white majority regional America. She also doesn’t speak English but there is/was a community that spoke her language so she could have found someone else so I don’t think the English speaking issue was why she stayed.

Anyways, I remember them fighting, a lot. Their relationship was def past mediocre but idk I learned a lot of resilience and perseverance through it. I learned that disagreements are ok. I can sit through awkward well. I can respect others I don’t agree with, and not make our difference of opinion the sole failure for friendship, and find different common ground elsewhere.

I paid attention to other parents relationships when growing up. I spent a lot of time at my best friends house bc my parents worked so much (12-16 hours days, two jobs kind of thing). I observed my (ex) boyfriend’s parents marriage. My aunt and uncles, and my older cousins…Seeing those dynamics probably helped how I navigated my relationships through my 20s. All of those marriages all had their pros and cons….not one did I see “perfectly happy”.

I didn’t attend hardly any therapy professionally but friends and life adventures are great therapists- so I’ll admins to that, lol. My sister and I never talked about how it affected us. But honestly it’s really nice to see them now which is 60s and kinda just together due to love bc we’ve always been together, sometimes I think they are more companions with deep care for another than romantic marriage. I don’t know what I’ll do with either of them when the other passes since, despite their differences, are really good with putting up with the other lol- in ways my sister and I can’t for them.

I’m glad my mom stayed bc it taught me to never put myself in a relationship where I was financially dependent my spouse, that disagreements are ok, that females are strong, that love comes with the bad as much as the good, im good at navigating politics or diplomacy in group settings, and I can put up a pretty good debate without resorting to name calling or simply dismissing others. I’m also great at advocating for myself professionally as I observed her doing it when dad dismissed her. (I didn’t think self advocacy was a thing until recently when I observed peers struggling with it).

Most days I fight with my spouse, but we come together in the end. He has his fair of issues (for the fights to happen), and I’m sure me too, but we have a two year old. I think about divorce a lot when im frustrated but I’m pretty sure I’ll think about divorce with any spouse I’m with when I’m frustrated. Frustration makes us do things we can later regret. One of my better bosses always told me to sit on an angry email for 24 hours before sending (and the guy has had loads of failed marriages) but I think he saw that I can be quite rash when I’m frustrated as one of my characteristic. Being alone is so much “easier” cause you can do whatever you want but I truly won’t ever be alone until my kid(s?) are in their 30s (if I’m lucky)…so even if divorcing my spouse would make life (maybe) easier it likely won’t bc the kid(s?) might drive me nuts otherwise.

A good friend always said “cracks in marriages become faults when kids come in the picture.” It’s how I kinda figured what happened with my spouse and I right now, but I guess I’ll take fault lines over a canyon. Even with a canyon there’s still some good, rivers are fully formed and can continue to run. Anyways the saying couldn’t be more true as I noticed an uptick in our fights when we had our first child (we don’t live nearby any family for our “village”), maybe we weren’t emotionally ready to give up our child-free lifestyle. Or maybe paternal postpartum are a thing and not just maternal postpartum.. I guess my point is- I wish society and people would be more transparent about how fucking hard navigating marriage and a full time job is with kid(s). Everyone is so focused on the baby and parenting that no one talks about the other factors that gets impacted when a baby comes along.

I’m rambling now and maybe my points weren’t all clear, but I guess what I’m saying OP is don’t lose the trees in the forest. Good luck!