Whatever it takes

Recently our family went through a minor crisis and it was brought home to me like a sledgehammer how important it is for children to have both a mother and a father. While dealing with the situation I realized that if our child only had me disciplining them they would be dead. All I could do was feel. Pain, revenge, anger, sadness, betrayal, disappointment and hopelessness. Thinking was not part of the equation, just feeling. My husband, on the other hand, while still probably feeling some of those emotions (albeit in way smaller doses) was also able to employ his brain into thinking some rational thoughts and coming up with way more realistic solutions than death. In making up with this child it was revealed that they were very thankful to have 2 parents and not just one as the balance would have been off without one or the other. Right in the middle of this fiasco I ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in awhile. In catching up with the activities of her family she mentioned to me how hard it was to raise children while divorced even though she and her ex are on great terms. She was the one who initiated the divorce so I thought she was happy with the situation but she looked me right in the eye and said "Do whatever it takes to keep your marriage together". She was telling me that when children are involved it is way easier to be unhappy in a marriage than out of one. I think children kind of do that to a person. I think that children would rather have their mom and dad be unhappy together than to have the child be unhappy that they are apart. In a child's mind, if mom and dad are together then there is always hope that they can become happy again if they just try hard enough. Once they are apart, everyone is unhappy and hope is harder to hold onto. This is coming, of course, from a very happily married Mormon wife and mother with absolutely no training or education on this subject so you can take this whole entry with a grain of salt but for all the young mothers out there who are struggling to make a strong marriage, my unsolicited advice is "Do whatever it takes"!