Should a couple stay together solely for the sake of their kids? The honest answer is that it depends on what's actually missing or broken in that home.
When Staying Isn't Really Staying for the Kids
If what's missing is a healthy dynamic, and the home has become a space of constant conflict with no mutual respect between spouses, then children are growing up in a genuinely dysfunctional environment. In that situation, "staying for the kids" isn't really serving the kids at all. It mostly serves the parents' desire not to carry the label of being divorced, or of their children coming from a divorced home. Ultimately an unhealthy or abusive home is worse than a divorced one, and a divorced family can be reconstituted in a healthy, loving way. Divorced parents are sometimes better able to give their children support, love, guidance, and a sense of stability than if they were to remain married.
Is Your Home Stable?
If an unhappy couple wants to stay together so their children do not grow up in an unstable home, the follow-up question has to be: is this actually a stable home? Are the children watching two people get along, or are they watching people throw things, yell, and scream? Are they watching a mother and father living on two different floors and not speaking to each other? That isn't the stability anyone wants to give their kids. If you are unable to create a stable, loving environment for your children, then you are not doing them any favors by staying together. Your best option is to pursue divorce in as amicable a manner as possible.
When the Marriage Is Functional But Unfulfilling
Not every unhappy marriage involves intense dysfunction. Sometimes there's simply an underlying uncertainty about whether the spouse in front of you is truly the best life partner. In that kind of situation, a couple may choose to stay in a marriage that isn't the most fulfilling one, in exchange for providing a stable framework for their children. That's a legitimate choice for a couple to make, but it has to be made without resentment, without unhealthy expectations, and ideally alongside an expert who can help assess whether that's really the situation at hand.
This comes up often around the topic of shidduchim, where assumptions and judgments are sometimes made based on a person's family background. Some couples stay together specifically so their children won't carry the perceived "baggage" of coming from a divorced home as they enter that process. If the honest assessment is that the marriage is manageable, not something you'd stay in without children, but genuinely okay, with good days and bad days, and the children are part of the motivation to keep working at it, that's a meaningful and legitimate reason. Children can be the greatest motivation there is: they push people to become better, to try harder.
Let the Kids Be a Motivation to Improve, Not Just Endure
If children are part of what's motivating a couple to stay in a functional but unfulfilling marriage, the healthiest response is to let that motivation push toward building an actually better marriage, not just enduring an unchanged one. There is no greater gift parents can give their children than a healthy relationship to witness. Every study, every therapist, points to the same conclusion: the most critical factor in a child's long-term wellbeing is watching their parents maintain a healthy relationship, getting along, working through disagreements, and coming back together.
Divorce Doesn't Have to Be the End of the Story for Children
It's also worth remembering that a divorce doesn't doom a child's future. When Rabbi Hauer zt"l was asked whether a young man from a divorced home had been affected by it, he answered that yes, he had absolutely been affected, and had decided, because of it, to become the most amazing person he could be, someone who would go on to be an outstanding parent himself. Children should absolutely be part of the consideration in a divorce decision, but staying in a dysfunctional marriage is not automatically the choice that helps them. Sometimes staying is right, and sometimes leaving is right. It depends entirely on the specifics of the situation.
When there is real, significant dysfunction and the harm to children is serious, professionals involved in the case will sometimes actively encourage divorce, even with children in the home, understanding that the children themselves stand to benefit from it.
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