Q&A from "Staying Together For The Kids?"

Tuesday

Nov082011

Wise Readers,

What if Stuart and Jeffrey were Stella and Jill—would having two moms who were looking for extra-relational love be even worse for household stability than two dads doing same? Would buying houses near each other allow Stuart and Jeffrey to protect their kids’ stability while looking for love elsewhere? And when is it a good idea to get a divorce for the children’s sake?

Read on!

From GC: Would The Dynamic Be Different If There Were Two Moms In This Situation?

Wow, what a hard topic but I must agree with the well founded theory where adding more men adds more uncertainty and risk. You said globally/universally males are not the type to take care of kids that aren’t their own. Correct me if I misunderstood that. I wonder what the case would be with two homosexual females who were to try the same thing as Jeffery proposed. Would the dynamics be different as to where the kids would be cared for even better with more “MAMA’s”.

I’m not saying that all men won’t be great care givers for others’ children, but I do know men take the approach with their own children of letting them “take the pain to make them stronger” idea. Of course to very certain extents, but with children not of their loins, so to speak, that limit may be much more generous where it would seem uncaring and negligent.

I say no to Jeffery’s proposal for it brings too much risk for the children into the picture. Jeffery may be able to control his immediate environments and own self but others take time to know and who knows what inadequacies, “baggage” or issues, mental and health-related, they bring to the previously safe and controlled family setting.

Duana’s response: Why Adding Men Can Be Risky Business; And Why Adding Women Could Be Riskier Still

Hi, GC, and thank you for writing in. You and I are on the same page regarding why I consider adding more men to be adding risk for these children, although I probably would say that we need to qualify the “globally/universally” part of men not being as willing to take care of kids who aren’t biologically their own. Most abuses and murders committed upon children are committed by non-biologically-related males, but most non-biologically-related males do not visit abuse and murder upon children. So even though every culture studied has found that children have between 40-100x greater odds of abuse or death from a parent’s boyfriend/stepdad than from a biodad, there are still plenty of non-bio men who won’t harm others’ kids.

To wit, Stuart and Jeffrey aren’t biologically related to their kids, but they are good to their kids; in fact, they rescued these children from abusive situations.

The risk I’m worried most about for Stuart and Jeffrey’s children is that the prospective new men in their lives will not have the kids as the top priority. It’s almost a given. There’s a big distinction between behaving horribly and simply failing to love the children, and even the latter has big implications for kids’ lives.

Men do tend to be far less child-oriented than women are, and these new men would very likely be *much* less invested in the kids’ well-being for several reasons:
—These prospective new men aren’t biologically related to the kids;
—Unlike Stuart and Jeffrey, the prospective new men aren’t parentally related to the kids. They don’t have the history of raising them and growing to love them over many years;
—This means the kids are now old enough that they may not bond well to the new dads, either;
—The nature of passionate love is such that these new men will want Stuart/Jeffrey for themselves…they will have far lesser motivation than Stuart and Jeffrey to keep things together for the children’s’ sakes.

I’ve very recently written two articles about step-parenting that go into the risks of both men and women as step-parents, and the challenges male and female step-parents face, and here are the links:

http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/stepmarriages-keeping-love-alive-when-theyre-somebody-elses.html

http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-from-stepmarriages-keeping-love-alive-when-theyre-somebod.html

However, those articles don’t discuss the two-females situation. What happens when lesbians raise kids together?

Well, usually one woman is the biomom of a particular child. It’s rather atypical for a child to be reared by two moms the kid is not genetically related to. Data with various other family constellations lead me to think the child will be more loved, attached to, and protected by Biomom than by any other human in its life—including the Other Mom. However, I’m reaching a bit here because as far as I know, nobody’s specifically examined the Two Moms situation. I just know that in other family constellations, kids are usually most attached to biomom, and in other family constellations, biomoms are the most invested in and protective of their kiddos.

So finally, to your real and really good question:
Is it possible that kids of two adoptive lesbians would be better-off in the Jeffrey/Stuart proposition than Jeffrey and Stuart’s kids would be?

In one sense, probably so; the risk of outrageous abuse and death to children is far, far less when only women are involved in childrearing. Women do tend to be more into kids to begin with, however and wherever one measures parental attachment. That said, there are Evil Stepmothers in the world. They don’t tend to be physically dangerous to kids, but they can do tremendous emotional harm.

In another and much likelier way, though, I think the Two Moms Becomes Four Moms scenario would be *even worse* for kids’ stability than the Four Men situation Jeffrey was considering. That’s because stats show that straight women and lesbians alike tend to view monogamy as absolutely essential in all phases of relationship. So true is this, some scientists cite this monogamy ethic as a reason lesbian relationships last a shorter duration, on average, than long-term gay relationships: Women don’t tolerate cheating very well. If they aren’t going to meet each other’s needs, most women move on.

So if Jan and Stacie (or even James and Susan) had written with this proposal instead of Jeffrey and Stuart, I would have been even more skeptical of its odds of keeping the core family intact for the kids. Women tend to fall in love with people they sleep with; obsession doesn’t share. And except for some butch lesbians who are more open to casual sex, women of every orientation tend to view mate-sharing as unwanted even after the obsession has waned. Even then, emotional mate-sharing is usually not an option for women, regardless of orientation.

Upshot? Any relationship with even *one* woman in it is a relationship where emotional monogamy, and usually sexual monogamy, will be at a premium. How much truer would this be if *four* women were involved? Science hasn’t directly addressed it. But I don’t think it would be a safe bet if the primary focus was stability for children.

Thanks again for a great question, GC.

From Angie: Divorce Isn’t Always Against Kids’ Best Interests

I think the missing piece in the Stuart/Jeffrey example is what, if anything, has been done to try to resurrect the relationship and the attraction. That ‘lovin’ feeling’ isn’t what sustains a rewarding relationship. It takes time, effort, hard work, moving apart and coming back together—it isn’t a one way ticket straight to immortal bliss.

I’m inclined to say that if they aren’t able to make this work, when they clearly work well together as a team, and IF they treat each other and others in general with care and respect, that they would have no better luck with third parties than they do with each other. Just my 2 cents.

In addition, I disagree that ‘staying together for the kids’ is always best, although I see how this could be different with the children’s’ background. There are definitely situations in which nobody wins when people stay together for the alleged sake of the kids. I think sometimes people cling to that reasoning when they are just insecure and afraid to be alone but truly have no interest in doing the relational work needed to have a successful marriage/union. They can get paralyzed by their baggage and can become incapable of making healthy decisions. And if there is emotional or physical abuse going on at any level (with the children or with each other), that is not helping anyone by the couple staying together if all efforts to solve the problems have been exhausted.

Duana’s response: When Divorce Is/Isn’t In The Kids’ Best Interest

Hi, Angie,

Lovely to hear your new voice at LoveScience! I’m enjoying your response. I agree it would’ve been ideal to know what Jeffrey and Stuart had already tried regarding staying together, but I wasn’t privy to that information.

And you’re correct that passionate love, wonderful as it feels, doesn’t last forever; former LoveScience articles have treated that topic. Not only isn’t passionate love a ticket to eternal bliss, but it only lasts a year or two, tops (One study does find 10% of people sustaining it longer, but it was a very small sample and appeared to have some biases.). Passionate love’s apparent purpose is to assist people in creating a bond by motivating them to do the hard work of uniting lives. Once the uniting has taken place, companionate love typically takes over.

Most people lose that lovin’ feeling at least some of the time; some lose it for years. But as the article said, about 85% of people fall back in love in a steadier way within a few years, even if they had contemplated divorce.

A few years is a long time to wait if you’re unhappy. But long-term relationships are, over time, usually a lot happier than lives lived in isolation or with revolving partners.

Will Stuart and Jeffrey rekindle their love—not the always-on-fire passionate kind, but the warm, steady glow that can really last forever? Well, that depends. I don’t know their relationship dynamics, but without consistent kindness and respect, it won’t happen. Yet if even one of them decides to add kind acts and subtract negatives (such as ignoring, slighting, criticizing), renewed love is a good bet.

Also agreed is that people who can’t figure out the respect/kindness thing in one relationship will carry that into subsequent relationships. This could well be part of what’s behind the higher divorce rates in many second, third and later marriages. Finding the right person is just part of the journey; *being* the right person is the other half.

However, it could be that only one member of a pair has an issue of being unkind and disrespectful. If so, the other former partner would probably succeed in finding lasting love, as long as he chose someone kind and respectful the next time around.

Finally, your response makes me think you and I are more aligned on when divorce is justified for the children’s’ sakes than it may at first appear. Our culture in the USA has gone from thinking divorce was always horrible, to a frequent endorsement that whatever makes adults happy is the best for the children. Both views are much too narrow. I’ve also written about that before, but here’s a lengthier take:

Divorce is harmful to most kids most of the time, compared to the outcomes reliably enjoyed by children whose parents stayed together. Even when parents contemplated but didn’t go through with divorce, the kids still usually fared better than their peers whose parents separated. Hey, I’m divorced and I wish it weren’t true. But it is.

That’s because most kids of divorce were being reared in homes that were working from a child’s standpoint—-homes that were superior to being exposed to less money, less time with either parent, higher odds of abuse by non-genetic relatives, and lower odds of college education and their own stable marriages, to name a few of the reliable disadvantages divorce presents to children. These are the divorces that happened when parents had fallen out of love but weren’t abusive or addicted to substances/alcohol. Between 1/2 and 2/3 of current American divorces fit this the-kids-would-be-better-off-with-parents-*together* category.

But there are clear circumstances where kids do better if the parents divorce: homes with very high parental conflict, homes with abuse (any kind), and homes with addictions. In fact, addiction is the one case where children become reliably richer following divorce; the using parent was costing a ton in lost or missed work, cash for drugs/alcohol, hospitalizations, etc. When custody is awarded to the stable, non-drug/alcohol-abusing parent, the kids are usually better off in many ways.

Additionally, the presence of chronic philandering is something most straight and lesbian couples and some gay couples will not abide. There was a time when women were reliably too financially dependent to have an option to leave that scenario; that time is, for most developed nations, over.

That adds up to three A’s where divorce truly is The workable solution:
chronic Addiction, Adultery, or Abuse.

Jeffrey’s situation, as so many others, does not fall into any of those categories. His relationship, while not happy, is stable, and his children are his main priority. And his kids are particularly vulnerable, having been adopted after infancy and following severe abuse and lack of attachment while in the foster care system. My hat’s off to him for deciding that if somebody is going to be unhappy, it’s not going to be the children. And I remain hopeful he will take all this information and use it to craft a life that works for everyone.

Thank you again for outstanding observations, Angie, and I hope you will write again soon.

From Gillian: What If Jeffrey & Stuart Bought Houses Across The Street And Raised The Kids That Way While Finding Love?

What a touching article!

I feel for Jeffrey. What a tough spot! And he should be commended, too. He obviously cares deeply for his kids and their well-being. I have the greatest respect for that!

Are there any houses for sale across the street from Stuart …? :)

Here’s why I ask: Many years ago, a relative of mine faced a similar situation. He and his male partner were raising the partner’s biological son from the partner’s affair with a married woman. (Yep, you read that right.) My relative and his partner lost that loving feeling, too. But both men loved their son.

Solution: My relative bought the house across the street from his former partner. My relative was better-suited emotionally to be the primary parent. Thus, the child resided with him, being raised across the street from his Dad. 2 loving homes, and the child saw both parents regularly.

I can understand Jeffrey’s longing for true love. I’m wondering what you think about the house across the street idea ….? :-)

I love your article, and it does seem that pursuing true love with others while living in the same house will bring down chaos. Having said that, the children do need both parents to stay involved in their lives, especially parents who are as loving as these are.

Duana’s response: Here’s To Creativity

Gillian, this was a terribly difficult to write because I have such high regard for Jeffrey as a parent, and I wanted to tell him his solution would work. So thank you for underscoring his decency as a human being.

And for sharing the story about your relative. Bravo, him! He did find a workable solution for making sure the child was raised by both parents. (Did he find love? I hope so.)

And it’d probably work for Jeffrey and Stuart as well, except for two things:

1. The other partners are still wild cards. Stuart and Jeffrey could agree to live across the street from one another, being in their children’s lives daily, and then find that the love of their lives doesn’t concur. Even if all four men agree, it’s not uncommon for people to marry new partners who need to move away for their careers. Extra people are more sources of competing interests, values, agendas, and needs. And then there are the risks of abuse associated with adding non-biologically-related males (please see above).

2. In Jeffrey’s and Stuart’s case, finances restrict their options. Only one partner works outside the home; the other has been taking care of the kids full-time for years, and is not very marketable because his career area in particular is experiencing high unemployment. They want to maintain this division of labor because it works out for the children to always have at least one parent available. And they don’t have the resources for the breadwinner to support two homes.

That said, I love how creative people can be in resolving extremely difficult situations like this one. I am still hoping Jeffrey and Stuart can find a path that gives those children what they need every day…even if I was, in the end, better at showing why one path doesn’t work, than why others might.

Cheers,

Duana

Do you have a question for Duana? Email her at Duana@LoveScienceMedia.com.

All content copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScienceMedia, 2011

Related LoveScience articles:

Most of the science behind today’s article has appeared in other LoveScience pieces:

When casual sex might trump true love: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/staying-together-for-the-kids-when-casual-sex-might-trump-tr.html

How casual sex usually prevents emotional attachment in men: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/when-men-wait-for-sex-dumb-like-a-fox.html

Why women usually fall for casual partners—even when we don’t want to: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/sex-the-happily-single-girl-1.html

Why breaking up for adults’ happiness is usually bad for kids’ well-being (Bonus! The surprisingly high odds that unhappy couples will be happy again.): http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/her-cheatin-heart-infidelitys-aftermath.html

Why bringing new men around could be dangerous to the children: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/stepmarriages-keeping-love-alive-when-theyre-somebody-elses.html

How to add positives, subtract criticisms, and do the stuff people do to fall in love again (or avoid falling out to start with): http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/dealing-with-your-difficult-man.html