Reasons for divorce important when discussing with kids

It’s helpful to distinguish three circumstances out of which a divorce might arise. The boundaries between these distinctions are admittedly overlapping, “soft” and open to interpretation.

* Divorce as moral demand: Divorce is a moral demand when remaining married would be a participation in evil, wickedness, or chronic and unrelenting courses of self-destruction. If you discover your partner is the serial rapist on the 5 o’clock news; if 10 years in you discover your partner concealed a felonious criminal past; if your partner resolves marital conflict with physical intimidation, physical violence or weapons; if your partner degrades and abuses your children; if your partner is having sex with your children — or anybody’s children! — are scenarios in which it could be reasoned immoral to remain married.

Confidentiality and concerns about “not bashing the other parent” do not apply in these cases. Children deserve full disclosure. Perhaps not right away, depending on their age, but eventually. If your ex is in prison, it isn’t OK to tell your kids, “I decided to divorce and your mother/father went away on a long 20-year trip but I can’t tell you where.”

Some folks will struggle with me placing chronic addictions/compulsions in this category. But I do, with all respect to couples who have remained married, overcome and found their way to sobriety and wholeness on the other side. Good for you! But despite the insistence of the “disease model” of addiction — “You’re not a bad person; you have an illness” — there are moral consequences to indefinitely subordinating spouse and children to one’s preferred compulsion.

I’m saying there is a morally legitimate time to say: “Get sober, stay sober or I’m leaving you.”

* Divorce occasioned by betrayal or choices untenable for marriage: Your spouse confesses or is discovered in an affair. Or affairs. Your spouse announces he/she is gay. Your spouse attempts to cheat you out of money. Your spouse flatly refuses to stay on medication for bipolar disorder. Your spouse converts to a nutty religion. Your spouse unilaterally stops participating in sex.

These divorces are occasioned by betrayal and choices untenably changing the marriage contract. In these cases, what and how much to tell children can vary widely. But before you spill your guts with every detail in the name of “honesty,” keep in mind that the above occasions are just that: occasions for divorce, but rarely the reason. These occasions are, in almost every case, symptomatic of much deeper, co-authored marital malaise.

I’m saying, in most cases, it usually wouldn’t be entirely honest to point at these occasions and tell our children this is why I left your father/mother.

There’s normally not much to be gained by telling an 8-year-old, “Honey, I’m divorcing your mother because she had sex with her boss” (unless, of course, it was the 8-year-old who discovered Mom and the boss), or “I’m leaving your father because he was just arrested in an airport men’s room” (unless your child is reading that headline in the newspaper).

In these divorce scenarios, we decide what to tell children by weighing developmental appropriateness with an assessment of what they know, have surmised or must soon discover. We respect adult privacy, but never at the cost of credibility. In a perfect world, the divorcing parents remain in an ongoing dialogue, and decide together whether a child needs additional pieces of the story. In a perfect world, the parent whose behavior is in question tells the child the truth when the truth is rightly due.

* Normal marital malaise: We grew apart. I outgrew you. I fell out of love. I lost respect for you. We just don’t have that much in common. I don’t desire you. Why won’t you ever clean house? Why won’t you go dancing with me? You gained weight. All you ever do is watch TV.

This is the most common divorce scenario, and, in many ways, the most difficult about which to speak to children with clarity, credibility and fairness. Because the above-stated reasons will, in the end, land on your children as so much blah-blah-blah. A dodge of a serious confrontation of self. It will mostly confuse them and might cost you a measure of their respect.

It is with this last divorce scenario that we will finish this discussion next week.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@review journal.com.